Diablo III Beta Patch 10 will go live tonight after 11:30PDT / 2:30am EST due to extended maintenance. In the meantime, here are some partial patch notes to chew on.

Check the front page for a Blizzplanet live stream around that time. Questions will be welcome via CoveritLive.

UPDATE: Livestream cancelled until after I wake up. Turns out patch 10 was delayed until 2:00am PST (5:00am EST). The maintenance team encountered a bug, and continue to work overnight to launch patch 10. Go catch some ZZzzz.

General

A number of significant changes have been made to key aspects of Diablo III in this patch. To learn more about these changes and why they were made, please be sure to read the "System Changes" blog, written by Jay Wilson.

  • All characters have been wiped. Please note that this wipe will also affect gold, achievements, items, followers, and artisans.
  • The Battle.net Balance for all beta participants has been reset to 50 Beta Bucks
  • Core character attributes have been reworked significantly
    • Attack, Defense, and Precision have been removed
    • Dexterity, Intellect, Strength, and Vitality have been added:
      • Dexterity
        • +Demon Hunter damage
        • +Monk damage
        • +Dodge (for all classes)
      • Intellect
        • +Witch Doctor damage
        • +Wizard damage
        • +Health from globes (for all classes)
      • Strength
        • +Barbarian damage
        • +Armor (for all classes)
      • Vitality
        • +Health (for all classes)
    • Armor will now supplement Defense, as well as provide +Physical resist
    • +Chance to Crit has been added as an item affix
    • Player Life per Vitality has been changed:
      • Players will now start out with 10 Life per Vitality at level 1
  • Nephalem Altars have been removed and players can now swap unlocked skills at any point during gameplay via the Skills list. This will impose a 30-second cooldown on the newly-activated skill, during which time the skill cannot be exchanged for another.
    • Please note that the skills system is still considered a work-in-progress and will be undergoing additional changes in future patches. This iteration of the system is not final.
  • Scrolls of Identification have been removed and players can now identify an item by right-clicking on the item’s icon
  • The Nephalem Cube has been removed and the salvage ability has been added to the Blacksmith artisan
  • The Cauldron of Jordan has been removed
  • Stone of Recall has been renamed to "Town Portal" and can now be accessed directly via the Skill bar UI
  • The fifth quick slot button has been moved next to the Town Portal ability in the Skill bar. This slot will eventually be to dedicated to potions, but can currently be used as a normal slot.
  • Skills will now display simplified tooltips by default
    • To view Advanced tooltips, press and hold the CTRL key when hovering over skill icons
  • The duration of the global chill effect granted by cold damage has be increased from 0.4 seconds to 0.6 seconds
  • Achievements have been re-enabled

Classes

  • Barbarian
    • Active Skills
      • Ground Stomp
        • Damage increased from 70% to 110%
      • Ignore Pain
        • Cooldown reduced from 60 seconds to 30 seconds
        • Duration reduced from 5 seconds to 3 seconds
      • Leap Attack
        • Damage increased from 70% to 100%
      • Revenge
        • Damage increased from 150% to 220%
    • Passive Skills
      • Nerves of Steel
        • Now increases Armor by 25% of your Vitality
  • Monk
    • Active Skills
      • Blinding Flash
        • No longer breaks on damage
        • Duration reduced from 5 seconds to 3 seconds
  • Wizard
    • Active Skills
      • Frost Nova
        • Damage reduced from 65% to 50%
      • Ice Armor
        • No longer increases your Armor
      • Wave of Force
        • Damage increased from 205% to 350%
    • Passive Skills
      • Temporal Flux
        • Slow amount increased from 24% to 30%

Crafting

  • General
    • Leveling artisans in Normal difficulty now only requires gold
  • Salvaging
    • Common (white) items can no longer be salvaged and common crafting materials have been removed in all difficulty levels
    • Salvaging a Magic (blue) item will always give you a Magic material, as well as a chance to receive a Rare (yellow) or Legendary (orange) material
    • Salvaging a Rare item will always give you a Rare material and a Magic material, as well as a chance to receive a Legendary material
    • Salvaging a Legendary item will always give you a Legendary material, Rare material, and Magic material

Items

  • General
    • Attack, Defense, and Precision random affixes have been replaced with Dexterity, Strength, and Intellect
    • The base damage on slower weapons has been increased. This is because we’re also increasing the potency of elemental damage properties, and elemental damage benefits faster weapons more than slower weapons.
    • The drop rate of Magic items between level 1 and level 20 has been lowered. Single affix-Magic items are now introduced more slowly, and double affix-Magic items won’t appear until later in the game.
  • Vendors
    • Wandering Merchants now have a 50% chance to sell a limited stock Rare item of any type
    • Amulets have been moved from the Collector to the Fence

Monsters

  • Electrified monsters no longer spew lightning on death
  • Arcane Enchanted monsters no longer cast an extra arcane beam on death

Bug Fixes

  • Players should no longer be disconnected from Battle.net when moving a stack of 0 items to their Skill action bar
  • Rapidly moving around items in a character’s inventory should no longer cause those items to become unresponsive
  • Items that display full durability, but are still considered slightly damaged should now be able to be posted on the Auction House
  • Monsters that are killed should now always properly play their death animation rather than remain standing