Reaper of Souls was just released last week and I have to
say it’s the Diablo experience that should have been what we received when
Diablo 3 first launched. I’ve literally been playing Reaper of Souls non stop
for the last week. It significantly improves upon all the small updates that
Blizzard has been sprinkling since the launch of the original game. Blizzard
should be proud of the expansion they have released and I hope they continue
current their current game design philosophy.
One of the biggest changes in Diablo’s latest update was the
new and improved loot system. All stats have a much smaller ranged which means
randomness isn’t as large of a factor. Blizzard also developed a smart loot
system which places a priority on the primary stat of the item depending on the
hero you are currently playing. Players no longer need to hope for that perfect
drop since the release of the Mystic. The new NPC allows players to reroll one
item’s properties to another property or even a higher number of that same
property for a cost of disenchanted materials and gold. You can only reroll one
property per item and every reroll will cost more gold. It’s a wonderful system
that helps players acquire perfect gear to slaughter the denizens of Diablo 3.
Adventure mode is a breath fresh air in Diablo 3. The
original game had players just repeat the same quests over and over again doing
the same exact areas since anything else would result in less gear or
experience. Adventure mode fixes this with two new options, bounties and rifts.
Bounties provide
objectives in each act for the player to complete and reward the player with
experience, gold, blood shards and rift keys. Most of them revolve around the
idea of going to an area and wiping out most of the mobs plus a specific
champion pack. Some bounties require you to kill specific bosses or cleanse a
cursed chest/shrine. Cursed chests and shrines are new additions to Diablo 3.
They usually require the player to kill a certain amount of mobs in a small
time limit in order to receive a bonus chest of loot. Clearing five bounties in
an act will net the player additional experience, gold and a Horadric Cache.
These caches are filled with rare items, a chance at some specific set of
legendaries, more rift keys, blood shards and various gems.
The second option in Adventure mode requires 5 rift keys.
When the player acquires 5 rift keys they can open a rift which contains a
randomized dungeon. The rifts usually contain multiple levels and each level is
the same map layout that you find in the original campaign. However the
monsters sets are completely randomized and you may face act 4 monsters while
in an act 2 area. Champion and elite packs of enemies are scattered throughout
the rifts along with new shrines. The new shrines are incredibly powerful
providing players with short buffs such as 400% damage increase, immunity
shields, no resource cost, and super fast movement speed. The main objective of
the rifts is to kill enough monsters to spawn the rift guardian. Rift guardians
are reskinned bosses from the campaign and always drop a significant amount of
loot which includes chances at forgotten souls (the legendary disenchant
material which is very useful for all sorts of crafting and rerolling), 40+
blood shards, and various other pieces of loot and gems.
Blood shards serve as a form of currency that the player can
use to buy randomized pieces of gear from a vendor. So far this is the only use
for blood shards but I believe Blizzard has more ideas for ways to use blood
shards that they are saving for future patches. The gear that you can buy is
usually a rare but once in a blue moon you will receive a legendary. After
spending more than 1500 blood shards, I was able to receive a perfect rolled
set of legendary gloves. I was in a state of disbelief when I saw the stats
that were rolled on the gloves and immediately called my friend to let him
know. It was probably one of my happiest moments in Diablo 3 to receive such a
huge upgrade especially since I hadn’t received anything worthwhile for quite
some time.
One of the biggest changes that I am happy about is the
revamped skills for my class. I believe all the classes have had changes in
regards to skills but I’m only familiar with Barbarian changes since that’s my
class of choice in Diablo 3. When I first played Diablo 3 at launch, there were
only a handful of builds that people were following which eventually turned
into one builds that almost every barbarian was using. The inclusion of element
specific runes for each skill now allows the user to a variety of builds that
are all fairly equivalent. I still play my bread and butter build where I use a
basic attack with my Hammer of the Ancients but I was able to effectively try
different builds that still work efficiently. I had a lot of fun playing a
ranged Barbarian which was a very unique build in the early days of Diablo 3
but may make a come back since it deals so much more damage in Reaper of Souls.
Overall I expect a lot of build
diversity among the classes and expect a lot of gear drops to influence
which skills players take.
My only concern with this expansion is the rate at which
I’ll receive upgrades since the only items that improve my gear are
legendaries. I receive one legendary about every 90 minutes to every two hours
and most of the time its some useless legendary that is only worth the
forgotten soul that I get from disenchanting it. Most people will hit this wall
where the only upgrades are available from legendaries since rare items are
available in abundance. I hit this gear limitation in about the first day that
I played since rare items are constantly dropping and are the only use of blood
shards. Other players who are playing at a more casual approach may not reach
this for a few days to a week. Blizzard has been watching the drop rates of
legendaries and has adjusted them fairly recent to drop more frequently.
I’m also wondering how it will be possible to efficiently
farm the higher tiers of Torment (the hardest difficulty). Most of the gear
that I’ve seen does not seem to have high enough stats to tackle the later
Torment difficulties. As far as I know each level of Torment only increases how
many items you find and not the possible stat ranges of each item. My concern
here is how gear progression will work when it comes to mobs having
ridiculously high health and damage output when our gear may not scale as high.
I would highly recommend Reaper of Souls to anyone who wants
to feed an addiction to acquiring loot and crushing monsters. Blizzard has
redeemed themselves from the failure of Diablo 3’s initial launch and has
earned a great deal of respect. I look forward to each and every patch that
Blizzard plans on releasing for Diablo in the upcoming months.
