Patch 2.1

Patch 2.1 is the next content patch due for Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls. There is no expected release date other than sometime in 2014, as stated by Game Director, Josh Mosqueira on 25th March 2014.

...our first big content patch coming out in the next couple of months,

Patch 2.1 went live on PTR on 26 June 2014. It is still therefore in development and things may change.

PTR Patch 2.1 Notes

New Feature: Seasons

Seasons are an optional, recurring game mode that offers players the opportunity to periodically start fresh, leveling Normal or Hardcore characters from scratch without gold, resources, or previously earned Paragon experience. Similar to the separation between Normal and Hardcore game modes, Seasonal characters will have their own shared stash and artisan progression as well. Any items, gold, or Paragon experience earned during a Season will be rolled over to a player’s non-Seasonal characters once the Season concludes.

Seasons offer unique rewards and new challenges for players, including new Legendaries, an exclusive Transmogrification set only available to those who compete in each Season, and new achievements called Conquests. Progress within a given Season will be tracked in our new Leaderboard system.

Please note that Seasons are not yet available for testing on the PTR. This feature will be enabled at a later date.

New Feature: Greater Rifts

Formerly referred to as Tiered Rifts, Greater Rifts are a special type of timed Nephalem Rift. There are an infinite number of Greater Rift levels, and each Greater Rift level will be progressively more difficult than the last.

Completing a Greater Rift within its alloted time will allow players to progress to the next level (and if your time is exceptionally good, you may even skip multiple levels at once). Players can continue progressing through Greater Rift levels so along as they complete the Rift before its timer expires. Once a timer expires, players will reach the end of their current Greater Rift journey and their best results will be tracked in our new Leaderboard system.

New Feature: Leaderboards

With the addition of Seasons and Greater Rifts, we want to provide players with a way to measure their progress within each of those environments. To do so, we’ve created Leaderboards.

Leaderboards will track a variety of competitive player data including Greater Rifts clear times, Seasonal achievement point totals, and Seasonal Conquest completion ranking across several different game styles. Designed to be informative and detailed, Leaderboards will also allow you to compare your progress to that of players within your gameplay region, on your friends list, and in your clan roster.

New Feature: The Cesspools

In patch 2.1.0 and moving forward, players will now have a chance to spawn a new level environement while in a Nephalem Rift or Greater Rift: The Cesspools.

Originally designed as the sewers of Westmarch, we weren't quite able to include the Cesspools in the list of playable environments in Reaper of Souls by the time the expansion launched. Still, we loved the look and feel of this festering, dank underworld and have spent some time polishing it up for use in Nephalem Rifts and Greater Rifts. We hope you enjoy this new randomized landscape!

General

• An additional Stash Tab is now available for all players with Reaper of Souls
• Players will now be disconnected from Diablo III upon being inactive for 30 minutes while outside of a game
• Healing Changes

• The amount of Life restored by Health Globes from Rare monsters has been reduced from 30% to 15%
• The amount of Life restored by Health Globes from Champion and Minion monsters has been reduced from 20% to 15%
• The amount of Life Regeneration and Life On Hit granted by items has been increased
• These changes apply to all items from level 1 to 70
• These changes are retroactive and will apply to existing gear

Classes

Made a number of improvements to the AI of several pets:

• Pets that belong to other players will now be less visible
• Fixed a number of issues which could sometimes cause pets to not attack a nearby enemy or stand still and stop attacking the enemy they were currently attacking

Pets affected by these improvements include:

• Call of the Ancients
• Companion
• Fetish Army
• Gargantuan
• Mystic Ally
• Phalanx
• Zombie Dogs

Barbarian

Active Skills

Call of the Ancients

• Ancients should now more reliably hit moving targets
• Korlic's Furious Charge ability now deals damage to enemies he passes through
• Mawdawc's Seismic Slam ability now has a small knock up effect instead of the knock back
• Skill Rune - Duty to the Clan

• Has been redesigned

• Enemies hit are now chilled reducing Movement Speed by 30% for 2 seconds
• Chilled enemies have a 10% increased chance to be critically hit

• Damage type changed from Physical to Cold

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that could sometimes cause the ancients to never use their bonus abilities
• Fixed an issue that allowed the Ancients to snapshot attack speed when summoned

Cleave

• Damage area has been increased from 120 to 180 degrees to more closely match the visual
• Skill Rune - Gathering Storm

• Has been redesigned

• Now Chills all enemies hit and causes them to take 10% increased damage from all sources for 3 seconds

• Damage type changed from Physical to Cold

Earthquake

• Weapon damage increased from 2600% to 4200%
• Skill Rune - Giant's Stride

• Secondary tremor weapon damage increased from 160% to 200%

• Skill Rune - Molten Fury

• Weapon damage increased from 4500% to 5100%

Furious Charge

• Weapon damage increased from 360% to 540%
• Skill Rune - Battering Ram

• Weapon damage increased from 760% to 900%

• Skill Rune - Bull Rush

• The stun has been replaced with a freeze
• Damage type changed from Physical to Cold

• Skill Rune - Dreadnought

• Damage type changed from Physical to Lightning

Ignore Pain

• Now grants immunity to all crowd control effects while active
• Skill Rune - Bravado

• Has been redesigned

• Now increases your run speed by 40% and knocks back enemies as you run

• Skill Rune - Contempt for Weakness

• Has been redesigned

• Now instantly heals you for 35% of your maximum Life

Rend

• Skill Rune - Mutilate

• Has been redesigned

• Now causes enemies Chilled by Rend to take 10% increased damage from all sources

Seismic Slam

• Will now lock on to an enemy you targeted with your mouse if you hold down the button

Rend

• Weapon damage increased from 1000% to 1100% over 5 seconds
• Skill Rune - Lacerate

• Damage type changed from Physical to Lightning

• Skill Rune - Mutilate

• Damage type changed from Physical to Cold

• Skill Rune - Ravage

• Damage type changed from Physical to Fire

Wrath of the Berserker

• Skill Rune - Slaughter

• Damage caused by this rune can now trigger procs

Crusader

Active Skills

Phalanx

• Avatar run speed increased from 100% to 200%
• Skill Rune - Bowmen

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that caused the Bowmen to stop attacking when an enemy was in range, but out of line of sight

Demon Hunter

• Dexterity no longer grants Dodge chance
• Dexterity now grants 1 Armor per point

Active Skills

Cluster Arrow

• Skill Rune - Maelstrom

• Tendril weapon damage increased from 220% to 450%
• Damage type changed from Physical to Cold

• Skill Rune - Shooting Stars

• Rocket weapon damage increased from 400% to 600%

Companion

• Skill Rune - Boar Companion

• Now cleaves enemies in front of him

Entangling Shot

• Skill Rune - Chain Gang

• Damage type changed from Poison to Physical

Impale

• Weapon damage increased from 620% to 750%
• Skill Rune - Chemical Burn

• Weapon damage increased from 220% to 500% over 2 seconds

• Skill Rune - Grievous Wounds

• Additional damage on Critical Hit increased from 130% to 330%

• Skill Rune - Impact

• Stun chance increased from 50% to 100%

• Skill Rune - Overpenetration

• Damage type changed from Poison to Cold

Multishot

• Skill Rune - Arsenal

• Rocket weapon damage increased from 160% to 300%

Preparation

• Skill Rune - Punishment

• The Discipline cost has been removed
• Now has a 20 second cooldown

Rain of Vengeance

• Weapon damage increased from 1250% to 1500% over 5 seconds
• Skill Rune - Anathema

• Weapon damage increased from 5400% to 5800% over 5 seconds

• Skill Rune - Dark Cloud

• Weapon damage increased from 2650% to 3500% over 8 seconds

• Skill Rune - Flying Strike

• Weapon damage increased from 3200% to 3800% over 5 seconds
• Damage type changed from Physical to Cold

• Skill Rune - Shade

• Weapon damage increased from 2400% to 2800% over 5 seconds

• Sill Rune - Stampede

• Weapon damage increased from 4200% to 4600% over 6 seconds

Rapid Fire

• Weapon damage increased from 525% to 685%
• Skill Rune - Bombardment

• Weapon damage increased from 465% to 545%

• Skill Rune - High Velocity

• Pierce chance increased from 40% to 50%
• Damage type changed from Poison to Lightning

• Skill Rune - Web Shot

• Slow duration increased from 1 to 2 seconds

Sentry

• Weapon damage increased from 200% to 280%
• Skill Rune - Chain of Torment

• Weapon damage increased from 240% to 300% per second

• Skill Rune - Impaling Bolt

• Damage type changed from Physical to Lightning

• Skill Rune - Spitfire Turret

• Weapon damage increased from 70% to 120%

Shadow Power

• Skill Rune - Gloom

• Damage reduction increased from 15% to 35%

• Skill Rune - Well of Darkness

• Cooldown reduced from 14 to 10 seconds

Smoke Screen

• Skill Rune - Special Recipe

• Cooldown has been removed
• Now reduces the Discipline cost to 10

Spike Trap

• Weapon damage increased from 250% to 340%
• Skill Rune - Echoing Blast

• Weapon damage increased from 250% to 420% per explosion

• Skill Rune - Lightning Rod

• Weapon damage increased from 280% to 500%

• Skill Rune - Long Fuse

• Weapon damage increased from 300% to 520% per explosion

• Skill Rune - Sticky Trap

• Weapon damage increased from 680% to 800%

Strafe

• Weapon damage increased from 400% to 575%
• Skill Rune - Demolition

• Weapon damage increased from 340% to 400%

• Skill Rune - Emberstrafe

• Weapon damage increased from 80% to 185% over 2 seconds

• Skill Rune - Rocket Storm

• Weapon damage increased from 90% to 110%

• Skill Rune - Stinging Steel

• Extra damage on Critical Hit increased from 130% to 140%

Vault

• Skill Rune - Acrobatics

• Cooldown reduced from 8 to 6 seconds

Vengeance

• Skill Rune - From the Shadows

• Damage type changed from Poison to Cold

Passive Skills

Awareness

Has been redesigned

• Now when you receive fatal damage, you instead vanish for 2 seconds and regenerate 50% of maximum life

• This effect has a 60 second cooldown

Perfectionist

• No longer increases your Life by 10%

Healing

19th June

Healing Globes drop rate.

The number of Health Globes that drop isn’t changing, which should reduce the impact for items or skills that proc off of collecting them.

17th June

The healing power of Health Globes is to be reduced.

The next change will be to Healing. Currently, Healing provided by gear isn’t very valuable because you receive the vast amount of your healing from Health Globes. During internal testing, we discovered that as you reached higher Greater Rift levels, you really wanted more of your healing to come from your gear in order to survive. To facilitate this, we are reducing the amount of healing Health Globes provide, but buffing Life on Hit and Life Regeneration on gear to compensate. This change should make a more consistent experience when you turn up the difficulty (or reach a higher tier in a Greater Rift) in situations where you’re not killing as quickly and actually require the increased Healing.

Pets

4th June 2014

To Call of the Ancients specifically:

We’re planning to make several bug fixes to Call of the Ancients in patch 2.1 that should address some of the concerns we’ve seen players reporting with the skill. So, make sure you keep a hold of that Immortal Kings set!

• The Ancients should no longer sometimes stand idle when they have foes they could be clobbering instead.

• The Ancients should now use their secondary abilities as indicated on the tooltip.

Again, these bug fixes are currently expected to arrive with patch 2.1, but we don’t have an estimate to share for the date of that patch at this time. Thanks for all of the reports!

Other pets to be addressed:

I did some digging and found out that these changes will update multiple pets, and not just Call of the Ancients. I’ll go over what those changes are, and what pets it should affect. I also want to emphasize that we don’t have an estimate to share for when we expect patch 2.1, but we’re definitely working on it and are looking to provide a PTR.

We’re making a number improvements to the AI of several pets:

We’re also fixing a number of issues that sometimes prevented some pets from attacking nearby enemies, or caused them to stand still and stop attacking their current target. Pets affected by these changes should include:

• Call of the Ancients
• Companion
• Fetish Army
• Gargantuan
• Mystic Ally
• Phalanx
• Zombie Dogs

Demon Hunter

18th June

Preparation - Punishment db is being rebalanced. Changes to Preparation - Blizzard CM, 18/06/2014</ref>

Preparation (Punishment) was creating less than ideal gameplay by encouraging the conversion of Discipline to direct DPS. The byproduct of this was Demon Hunters frequently finding themselves without their defensive or utility skills, often resulting in more frequent character death. To address this, we are reworking this rune to no longer cost Discipline, but have a 20 second cooldown.

While this change may initially seem severe, it has several major benefits we hope players will take the opportunity to explore and experiment with:

• All Discipline is now reserved for defensive and utility skills, encouraging Demon Hunters to take greater advantage of these skills.
• Nightstalker will feel less mandatory in conjunction with Punishment, freeing up a Passive slot in many builds.
• If you choose to keep Preparation (Punishment) in your build, the cooldown corresponds with roughly how long it would take to regenerate the appropriate amount of :*Discipline (unless you had a large amount of Resource Cost Reduction).
• Cooldown Reduction is now a more attractive stat, and this may open up new CDR-focused builds.

We know this changes builds and the gameplay pattern for some Demon Hunters. We’re also working hard to adjust other skills as well as introduce Legendary items both in this patch and constantly in the future in order to continue opening up new and exciting ways to play.

This change will soon be available on the PTR, and we hope that you will take the opportunity to try it out and let us know how it feels. We're eager to hear your feedback on this and other changes coming in Patch 2.1.

Monk

18th June

One With Everything is being removed.

With Patch 2.1 around the corner, many classes are receiving some substantial revisions to core functionalities. These changes have equally substantial philosophy behind them, so we want to prepare you in advance for the kinds of adjustments you should expect.

Adjustments to One With Everything has been a long-standing community request, but we wanted to make sure we could address this in a way that solves all of its components without reducing the Monk’s survivability. There are two major issues with One With Everything:

It’s too good, to the point it feels mandatory for all Monks to use. It forces Monks to gear a specific way, which is difficult and frustrating. We are addressing this issue in two ways. First, both Monks and Demon Hunters will no longer receive Dodge from Dexterity. Instead, they will receive Armor, similar to Barbarians and Crusaders. For more information on this change, please refer to our Patch 2.1.0 PTR Preview blog.

Second, One With Everything is being replaced with a new passive called DiabloWikiHarmony. Harmony allows 30% of your single elemental resistances from items to apply to all elements.

With these two changes, we can move away from a place where Monks are forced to rely on their secondary affixes for DiabloWikiToughness. It’s possible you may see your Toughness as a lower number after this change is in effect, depending on how you’ve previously geared. However, the exchange of DiabloWikiDodge to more reliable survivability stats like DiabloWikiArmor and more accessible DiabloWikiAll Resist should provide you roughly the same amount of survivability, and overall you shouldn’t notice a big difference.

These changes will soon be available on the PTR, and we hope that you will take the opportunity to try them out and let us know how they feel. We’re eager to hear your feedback on this and other changes coming in Patch 2.1.

…

Nevalistis: Just some additional clarification, since I see some confusion on the new passive:

Harmony will apply 30% of a single resist to all other resistances aside from the element it normally provides (meaning it doesn’t double-dip on itself). Here’s a math-y example in hopes this provides a clearer picture:

I acquire a piece of gear with 100 Fire Resist. From that gear, I’m gaining 100 Fire Resist and 30 Resistance to all others.

Hope that makes more sense. :)

A player wanted clarification on the maths:

"So let me get this new maths right

Gear

• 1000 AR, 800 Lit Resist

With OWE

• 1000 + 800 = 1800 AR

With Harmony

• 1000 + 800*.3 = 1240 AR
• 1000 AR + 800 LR = 1800 Lightning Resist"

Nevalistis: This is correct.

17th June 2014

A change to Dexterity that will affect the Demon Hunter as well as the Monk was announced in a blog preview.

A major change is coming to Dexterity to benefit Demon Hunters and Monks. Each point of Dexterity will grant 1 point of Armor instead of Dodge chance. Dodge isn’t as reliable as Armor or Resistances and doesn’t protect you from some of the most dangerous monster affixes like Plagued or Thunderstorm. In light of this buff, the existing passives that grant 30% of your Dexterity as Armor (Seize the Initiative and Awareness) will be completely redesigned.

15th May

Blizzard specifically addressed the planned Monk changes, although all classes will be addressed.

Our future goals for the Monk in 2.1.0 focus improving core class attributes, class abilities, and addressing Legendaries that need improvement. You should all be able to see (and test out) these changes soon™ on the 2.1.0 PTR once its live. (Note: Initially, the PTR will not have all the changes we want to do for 2.1.0, but as the PTR progresses, more changes will be added. Also note that we do not have an ETA for the 2.1.0 PTR at this time.)

We also want to let you all know that we will be improving some of the underwhelming Set items. The following Sets will be receiving buffs or redesigns to their full-Set bonuses in 2.1.0 and will be retroactive, so keep those pieces:

• Firebird’s Finery
• Raiment of a Thousand Storms
• Monkey King’s Garb
• Thorns of the Invoker
• The Shadow’s Mantle

Ladders and Seasons

17th June

A large blog post from Blizzard.

Similar to Ladders in Diablo II, Seasons will offer players in Diablo® III a chance to periodically start fresh, leveling their level 1 characters and artisans from scratch. Season participation benefits include exclusive rewards and unique Legendaries as well as the the thrill of climbing all-new Leaderboards by completing achievements, earning Conquests, or running Greater Rifts.

6th June

Ladder-Only legendaries.

Nevalistis: Just to confirm our current plans with Seasons, as we’ve stated in earlier interviews/livestreams (though bear in mind that as with any current plans, this is subject to change):

• Seasons will be optional. Similar to how you flag a character as Hardcore, when you create a character, you have the option to also make them Seasonal.
• There will be Seasonal Legendaries.
• At the end of a Season, Seasonal Legendaries will roll over into the non-Season loot pool.
• New Seasonal Legendaries will be available for Seasonal characters once the new Season begins.

We’re not quite ready to share the finer details on 2.1 or Seasons just yet, but as we get nearer the 2.1 PTR, you can be sure we’ll have more info to share. ;)

"To be very clear here, that means that we’ll be able to find Seasonal Legendaries on regular (softcore/hardcore) characters after that season has expired, correct?"

Correct!

"Not just that we’ll be able to keep the Seasonal Legendaries we found during the season."

That too!

25th March 2014

Ladders, much requested, have been confirmed by Blizzard to be coming in the next content patch. Although Blizzard have toyed with the community with cryptic clues on Twitter or images of the devs stood surrounded by ladders Josh Mosqueira finally confirmed at the Reaper of Souls Launch party that ladders were coming to Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls.

Well that's a really good question, isn't it, Wyatt? When you're making a game you come up with a lot of good ideas, and some ideas like Devil's Hand you say: it's awesome, it probably needs to bake a little bit longer. But one of them that we felt was really important, that we felt we really needed to take the proper time to develop it, was one of the features you guys have asked about a lot. You might have noticed that Wyatt and myself have done a lot of research for something called ladders. I'm very happy to say that as part of our first big content patch coming out in the next couple of months, we are going to be releasing Seasons, which will include a ladder-like aspect to them.

Well, we're still working on them, but the general gist is that you'll be able to level up a character, we will have specific ladders for seasons, and also some goodies that will drop along the way. There's more information of that to come, and we're not making an announcement of when, but for sure Seasons are coming to Reaper of Souls. Yeah, the secret is out.

24 April 2014

John Hight in a later interview elaborated, giving away a few more details.

Seasons are a shard of the existing game where everything is a fresh start. You start with a brand new character without access to any of the gold or items you collected with your primary account for the length of the season. We plan on creating brand new, powerful legendaries that only drop within in the season. After the season ends, all of your progress — your experience, your items, your gold, etc. — will be rolled into the main roster. The goal is the fresh-start feeling — so many changes and tweaks have happened since the launch of Diablo III — it is really energizing and fun to recreate that ‘first-moment-in-a-new-game’ feeling. We’ve also added leaderboards. Players can race on a variety of metrics to try to become the leader in their region or the top of their friends and clan lists. That friendly competition angle lends itself really well to Diablo games.

Leaderboards

19th June

Are there going to be any Paragon point based Leaderboards?

Nope, not currently. There are no Leaderboards planned at this time that would track Paragon levels (or even total experience gained) within a Season. It was a conscious choice on our end to shift Leaderboards for Seasonal characters away from a pure level grind towards more objective-based (or even skill-based) goals like Greater Rifts, Seasonal achievement points, and Conquests.

17th June 2014

Announcement of Leaderboards.

With so many ways to compete, we want to provide players with a quick and easy way to measure their progress. Enter our next big feature for patch 2.1.0: Leaderboards. Leaderboards will track progress for Greater Rifts, Seasonal achievement points, and Seasonal Conquests across a variety of game styles. Designed to be informative and detailed, Leaderboards will allow you to compare your progress to that of your gameplay region, friends, and clan members, and each type of board will track progress a little differently.

They also released details of the different type of Leaderboards.

Greater Rift Leaderboards

Greater Rift leaderboards will be split between both Hardcore and Normal gameplay modes as well as Seasonal and Non-Seasonal characters. To help encourage a variety of play styles and allow you to measure yourself against similar competitors, we’ve also broken up Greater Rift leaderboards into the following categories:

• Solo play for each class (e.g. top players for Barbarian, Demon Hunter, Crusader, etc.)
• 2-Player Groups
• 3-Player Groups
• 4-Player Groups

Season-Only Leaderboards

Some Leaderboards will be Season-only. For example, Conquests are only tracked on Seasonal characters, so these Leaderboards won’t have a non-Season equivalent. The same will be true for Seasonal achievement points. In addition, because Conquests and achievements are account-wide, their associated Leaderboards will not be split between Normal and Hardcore (even though some tasks may require playing a particular mode).

Conquests

19th June 2014

Hardcore and Softcore conquests.

As noted in the preview, some Conquests will require your character to be in Hardcore mode to achieve. In fact, we intend to have the number of Conquests per Season split evenly between both Hardcore and Normal game modes. The goal with Conquests in general is to encourage different styles of play, or at least target those different styles to some degree. That’s under our current philosophy, at least; Conquests are still development and may see some iteration during the PTR. :)

17th June

Announcement of "Season-only achievements".

With the start of each Season, players will have the opportunity to earn Conquests. Conquests are special Season-only achievements (offered in addition to the suite of non-Seasonal achievements already available in the game) that represent a variety of challenging goals. These goals can vary in terms of gameplay and difficulty, and some might be easier to complete than others. With tasks ranging from killing [wiki]Malthael[/wiki] at level 70 on Torment VI to finishing Acts I-V in an hour or less, Conquests are designed to encourage and promote an array of different playstyles. Conquests are considered “first come, first served,” and the first 1000 individuals to complete a Conquest within a given Season will be immortalized on that Season’s regional Leaderboard. Right now, we’re looking to provide between 10-15 unique Conquests each Season, and each Conquest will have its own Leaderboard. Conquests will also provide achievement points and will count toward your Seasonal point total. These points will be provided regardless of whether your character placed in the regional Leaderboard.

Greater Rifts

19th June

How does the timer in Greater Rifts work? Greater Rifts Timer - Blizzard CM, 19/06/2014]</ref>

The timer in a Greater Rift is only to determine if you’ll progress to a more difficult Greater Rift.

Running out of time will prevent you from progressing in difficulty, but it will not remove you from the Rift you’re currently in, and you’ll be able to continue your progression towards the Rift Guardian like normal.

As usual, the normal caveat applies that this is still in development, and possibly subject to change.

17th June 20

Previously known as "Tiered Rifts".

Greater Rifts are a special type of Nephalem Rift that are designed to provide players way to measure their gear progression and efficiency.

To access a Greater Rift, simply complete a regular Nephalem Rift in any difficulty. When you defeat the Rift Guardian, they’ll have a chance to drop a Greater Rift Key. You can then use this new key at the Nephalem Obelisk, similar to other Rift Fragments—this will open a Greater Rift. If you have members in your party, each player will be prompted to use one of their own Greater Rift keys to join the fun!

How Greater Rifts Work

While Greater Rifts are a type of Nephalem Rift, there are some key differences between the two features. In Greater Rifts:

• You’ll race against a clock to fill a progress bar by accruing monster kills.
• Most monsters do not drop loot; rewards have been completely shifted to the Rift Guardian.
• This removes conflicting pressure from attaining a better time versus picking up all your loot.
• Monsters grant differing amounts of progress for your progress bar; the tougher the monster, the more they fill up your progress bar.
• You cannot resurrect at your corpse or in town while in a Greater Rift—only at the last checkpoint.
• Note that, currently, if you die in a Greater Rift on a Hardcore character, that death will be permanent.
• You cannot use player banners or the Teleport option if the target player is in a Greater Rift.
• Higher Greater Rifts levels are progressively more difficult.
• This difficulty is separate from the standard difficulty settings (Master, Torment I-VI, etc.)

If you complete a Greater Rift before time expires you’ll advance to the next difficulty level. Should your time be exceptionally good, you might even skip a few levels! If time instead expires, you’ll have reached the end of your current Greater Rift journey and your best results will be posted to the appropriate Leaderboards.

25 March 2014

Tiered Rifts were first mentioned by Wyatt Cheng in an interview he gave at the Reaper of Souls launch party.

New end game challenges... Josh mentioned that the first content patch is going to have Seasons. I'm happy to announce that there is another major feature coming in the patch 2.1, which is going to be what we're internally calling Tiered Rifts. The idea behind that is an actual challenge scenario, where players do increasingly hard Rifts, to try and see who can get the farthest. The basic mechanics that we have working right now is: you go through the game in Adventure Mode, you do your Bounties, you do a Nephalem Rift. If you clear the Nephalem Rift, there's a chance to get what's called a Greater Rift Token. If you successfully clear the Greater Rift in a certain time limit, then you unlock a Greater Rift Key (Rank 2). If you clear that one, you get Rank 3, etc. Each one is harder than the previous one. Much like Seasons, we're looking at having a leaderboard as well, so you'll be able to compare your progress to the people on your Friends List, your Clan, and the whole region. You'll be able to see who got to the highest Tiered Rift, and what time were they able to obtain on that.

24 April 2014

Later in an interview from Shacknews John Hight reiterated.

Second is Tiered Rifts. Tiered Rifts are variations on the Nephalem Rifts concept from Reaper of Souls. You have a timer to finish a Rift (kill enough monsters to draw out the boss and slay the boss) and the better you do, the more challenging the level that you get to tackle. For example, if you finished a Tiered Rift in just a few minutes, you’d get to jump ahead to a much harder rift. These will also have unique rewards, custom leaderboards, etc. Tiered Rifts are a new end game activity that offers both challenge and competition but are easy enough for everyone at max level (70) to try.

Nephalem Rifts

17th June 2014

From the blog post preview by Blizzard.

Some of the changes in Greater Rifts are also coming to regular Nephalem Rifts—like the way the completion bar will advance based on monster difficulty. In addition, we’re slightly modifying the entry mechanism for all Rifts. All players will need to have a Rift Fragment in order to enter a Nephalem Rift; however, we’ve reduced the cost for entering a Nephalem Rift down to one Rift Fragment per character to compensate.

Legendary Gems

17th June 2014

From the blog post preview by Blizzard.

Greater Rifts are truly a challenge, and conquering such challenges should be met with great reward. To provide a unique and upgradable incentive, we’re introducing Legendary Gems. Legendary Gems are still undergoing significant iteration at this time, so you won’t see them available on the PTR right away. The gist is that these gems are infinitely upgradeable, and provide special Legendary powers when socketed into the appropriate gear slot. They can only be socketed into Rings and Amulets, and can be upgraded by completing additional Greater Rifts. The higher you place in a Greater Rift, the more likely your gem will be successfully upgraded. We’ll have more details in the future as we continue development on these powerful baubles, so stay tuned!

24th April

In an interview John Hight gave the first mention of a new level of gem to try to deepen the socketing mechanic currently in play.

We don’t have any short term plans at the moment, but we all agree that the socketing game is not super deep and we’ve said so before. We are talking seriously about some legendary gem ideas that will offer new tactical options to players. Stay tuned as we do hope that this design gathers steam.

Combat Changes

17th June 2014

Blizzard shared a some examples of types of class-specific changes they are working on in a blog preview.

Dexterity & Survivability

A major change is coming to Dexterity to benefit Demon Hunters and Monks. Each point of Dexterity will grant 1 point of Armor instead of Dodge chance. Dodge isn’t as reliable as Armor or Resistances and doesn’t protect you from some of the most dangerous monster affixes like Plagued or Thunderstorm. In light of this buff, the existing passives that grant 30% of your Dexterity as Armor (Seize the Initiative and Awareness) will be completely redesigned.

Healing

The next change will be to Healing. Currently, Healing provided by gear isn’t very valuable because you receive the vast amount of your healing from Health Globes. During internal testing, we discovered that as you reached higher Greater Rift levels, you really wanted more of your healing to come from your gear in order to survive. To facilitate this, we are reducing the amount of healing Health Globes provide, but buffing DiabloWikiLife on Hit and Life DiabloWikiRegeneration on gear to compensate. This change should make a more consistent experience when you turn up the difficulty (or reach a higher tier in a Greater Rift) in situations where you’re not killing as quickly and actually require the increased Healing.

The Cesspools

24th June 2014

The Cesspools are not a fully fleshed out area with distinct mobs and bosses and will only appear in Nephalem Rifts and Greater Rifts.

The Cesspools are an additional environment that will begin spawning exclusively in Nephalem Rifts (including Greater Rifts). They aren’t a new zone, however, so there aren’t new monsters or bosses associated specifically with them. That would also run somewhat counterintuitive to one of the qualities of Nephalem Rifts in that they are always randomized. It’d be a bit odd to introduce a new environment to Rifts and then have them produce static results. Adding the Cesspools in was an opportunity for us to toss in a sort of “bonus” for Patch 2.1, as well as feature the awesome artwork and animations that didn’t make it into the launch version of Reaper of Souls that our environment team worked on.

17th June

Blizzard announced a new area.

Originally designed as the sewers of Westmarch, we weren’t quite able to include the Cesspools in the list of playable environments in Reaper of Souls by the time the expansion launched.

Still, we loved the look and feel of this festering, dank underworld and we’ve spent some time polishing it up for use in Nephalem Rifts and Greater Rifts. You’ll have a chance to spawn Cesspool levels while in a Rift, and we hope you enjoy this new randomized landscape!

Non-Season Players

17th June 2014

Some of the additions rolling out in Patch 2.1 for season players will also find their way to non-season players eventually.

No Seasons? No Problem! Not in the mood to start from scratch? You’ll still benefit from Seasons (which, by the way, are completely optional). New Seasonal Legendaries will roll over to non-Seasonal loot pool after a Season concludes. In addition, Greater Rift leaderboards will also become available to non-Seasonal characters, so you can compare the progress of your friends and clanmates with that of your most veteran heroes!

Clans

24th June 2014

No changes to clans planned for Patch 2.1.

We’re definitely interested in adding additional clan features in a future patch. Patch 2.1, however, is primarily focused on introducing Seasons and Greater Rifts, along with a few other changes you can read about in our preview blog.