With Diablo III Season 20 just around the corner, Blizzard has dropped another chunky patch packed with changes, fixes, and goodies into the game. While there’s plenty for fans to check out, there’s something particularly exciting encased in the 2.6.8 patch – three shiny new class sets for Barbarians, Witch Doctors, and Wizards.
That’s according to the most recent update notes, which you can find in full here. Blizzard says: “With Patch 2.6.8, we’re adding three (!) new class sets with similar goals to those we included in the previous patch. Each set was designed primarily with boosting long-requested skills and playstyles we lifted directly from community feedback.”
The studio adds that Frenzy, Hydra, and Spirit Barrage are “requests that offered a lot of opportunity for gameplay exploration, and we’re looking forward to seeing what players do with these new tools at their disposal.” Additional changes to “associated supplemental Legendaries”, Blizzard reveals, are included “to round out these builds.” Check out details of these three new class sets below (via Blizzard’s patch notes).
Barbarian
New Class Set: Horde of the Ninety Savages
- 2-Piece Bonus: Double the effectiveness of all Shouts. Feared, Frozen, or Stunned Enemies take double damage.
- Developer’s Note: The callout that Stun may be the best fit for this set bonus was definitely heard, but we didn’t want to take away other potential builds enabled by experimenting with Fear or Frozen. We hope this opens up a variety of options for Barbarians to explore!
- 4-Piece Bonus: Each stack of Frenzy reduces damage taken by 6%. Frenzy lasts twice as long.
- 6-Piece Bonus: Frenzy deals 1000% increased damage per stack.
Witch Doctor
New Class Set: Mundunugu’s Regalia
- 2-Piece Bonus: Big Bad Voodoo now follows you and lasts twice as long.
- 4-Piece Bonus: Gain 60% damage reduction for 30 seconds when you enter the Spirit Realm.
- 6-Piece Bonus: Spirit Barrage deals 20000% increased damage plus an additional % equal to 5 times your Mana Regeneration/Second.
- Developer’s Note: We found this set was overperforming at the highest end, but we also wanted to maintain its capabilities at early gearing stages. The addition of a base multiplier and reducing the effectiveness of the Mana Regeneration bonus should accomplish this goal.
Wizard
New Class Set: The Typhon’s Veil
- 2-Piece Bonus: Double the duration of Hydras and increase the number of heads on multi-headed Hydras by two.
- 4-Piece Bonus: Damage taken is reduced by 8% for each Hydra head alive as long as there is one available. Each time you take damage, a Hydra heads dies. Heads cannot die more than once every 2 seconds
- 6-Piece Bonus: Hydras deal 1200% 1300% increased damage for each Hydra head alive.
- Developer’s Note: We’ve continued to tilt more of the power for Hydra in favour of the 6-piece set bonus and away from the supplemental Legendary items.
Diablo III’s now eight whole years old, but it’s still one of the best RPG games around – and with three new class sets to enjoy, it looks like it’ll continue to keep players satisfied until the Diablo 4 release date rolls around – though that’s “not coming out soon – not even Blizzard soon”.