Diablo III Season 20 Preview

Season 20 is the Season of the Forbidden Archives. Many adventurers have come to learn the power that dwells within the ancient nephalem artifact, Kanai’s Cube. However, none understand this power better than the equally celebrated and reviled Horadrim, Zoltun Kulle. Kulle was able to unlock and harness the power of the Cube like none before, leveraging its power to siphon and archive the energies of powerful items. With Season 20, we explore the power Kulle might lend to your fingertips if his experiments went unchecked.

For the duration of Season 20, the slots in Kanai’s Cube that allow you to equip three additional Legendary powers will not be restricted to their usual categories. While normally a player can equip one power each from the Weapon, Armor, and Jewelry categories, Season 20 players can mix and match between all three! This might allow you to run two Weapon powers with one Armor power. Or perhaps you might choose to run three Amulet powers instead. The choice is yours, and we’re as eager as you are to experiment with the new build opportunities this creates!

Beginning with Season 17, we began re-introducing previous Seasonal rewards to make them available to players who may have missed them the first time around. For Season 20, this means awards originally available from Season 8 are returning to the Season Journey.

However, we know it’s nice to have something new to aim for if you’ve participated in previous Seasons. We’re continuing to provide new End of Journey rewards as introduced in Season 17, with two new cosmetic rewards for those who complete the entirety of the Season journey. Feast your eyes upon the Teganze Warrior Portrait Frame and Bat pet!

In addition to the Boots and Pants slots of the exclusive Conqueror Set, you’ll be able to earn a series of portrait frames that smolder with demonic fires of the Burning Hells. The iconic “wings” of Andariel will also be available once more, allowing you to truly embrace your inner Maiden of Anguish.

If you’ve been diligently slaying demons for the past few Seasons and reached Conqueror in the Season Journey each time, you’ve surely accrued a few extra stash tabs. You’ll earn one additional tab each Season by finishing the Conqueror tier, up to a maximum of five:

• Guardian of Sanctuary: Finish a level 70 Nephalem Rift on Torment XIII difficulty within 5 minutes.
• Gem of My Life: Level three Legendary Gems to level 55.
• All I Do is Win: Complete 2 Conquests this Season.
• Warm Thoughts: Kill Izual at level 70 in under 15 seconds on Torment XIII difficulty.
• Money Ain’t a Thang: Slay Greed on Torment XIII difficulty. Treasure Goblins outside of Nephalem Rifts will sometimes open portals to Greed’s domain, The Vault.
• Take U There: Reach Greater Rift Level 60 Solo. Greater Rift keystones can be obtained from any Nephalem Rift guardian.
• Power Amplification: Use Kanai’s Cube to augment an Ancient Legendary item with a level 50+ gem.
• Cubic Reconfiguration: Use Kanai’s Cube to reforge a Legendary item.

Want to prepare your Conquest plan for Season 19? Here are the challenges you’ll face!

For Curses!/Stars Align, pick any Cursed Chest event that requires killing monsters and defeat over 350 or more at level 70 on Torment X or higher. Push your way to Greater Rift level 75 to complete Divinity/Lionhearted. For the fiercest demon slayers, Boss Mode/Worlds Apart is a speed challenge where you’ll need to eliminate the following bosses at level 70 and Torment X in under twenty minutes:

• The Skeleton King
• The Butcher
• Zoltun Kulle
• Ghom
• Cydaea
• Rakanoth
• Diablo
• Adria
• Queen Araneae
• Maghda
• Belial
• Siegebreaker Assault Beast
• Azmodan
• Izual
• Urzael
• Malthael

Finally, Years of War/Dynasty will be a great test for those who enjoy mastering various Class Sets, and if that’s not enough, Masters of the Universe/Masters of Sets will challenge your tactical understanding of Set Dungeons.

Finally, the Class Sets rewarded for completing certain chapters in the Season Journey courtesy of Haedrig’s Gift have rotated once more. We’ve listed the available Sets below. For those new to Seasons, here’s how it works:

Completing Chapters 2, 3, and 4 of the Season Journey will reward you with three of Haedrig’s Gifts. Each Gift contains a few pieces from one of your Class Sets. Players can only unlock one Class Set in this manner per Season across Hardcore and Non-Hardcore, so choose wisely!

The set you receive depends on the class of the character you’re playing when you open each Haedrig’s Gift. To collect a full Class Set, you’ll need to open all three on the same character.

Here are the sets granted by Haedrig’s Gift in Season 20:

• Barbarian – Immortal King’s Call
• Crusader – Seeker of the Light
• Demon Hunter – Natalya’s Vengeance
• Monk – Uliana’s Stratagem
• Necromancer – Trag’Oul’s Avatar
• Witch Doctor – Spirit of Arachyr
• Wizard – Vyr’s Amazing Arcana

• Infernal Machines and Organs are now subject to vacuum pick-up
• Crafting plans from Bounty Caches are now guaranteed to drop unless all plans have been learned

• A new Season Theme has been added for Season 20, the Season of the Forbidden Archives:
  • For the duration of Season 20, all slots in Kanai's Cube will be able to select Legendary powers from Weapon, Armor, or Jewelry
    • This means you could select three Armor powers, three Weapon powers, three Jewelery powers, or any other combination thereof across all categories
    • Items are not self-additive or multiplicative (meaning, you cannot stack multiples of the same item's power)
    • Once the Season has ended and characters roll over to Non-Season, players will have all currently active powers in their Kanai's Cube reset
    • Developer's Note: As we outlined in our Developer Insight blog, we want to continue to get creative (and maybe a little crazy) with the Season Themes and powers we add to the game. We heard from some players that they preferred themes that made your character directly feel more powerful rather than needing to focus on the environment around you. If that describes you, then the Season of Forbidden Archives should be right up your alley, and we're really interested to see how this changes the game for Season 20.
• Two new Seasonal rewards are available for players who fully complete the Season 20 Journey, including a new portrait frame and pet

• Crusader
  • Developer's Note: We're not convinced that this change has fully reigned in Crusader performance to be more in line with other classes. We'll be continuing to keep an eye on overall Crusader performance (as well as performance among the other classes) in 2.6.8 and beyond.
  • Heaven's Fury
    • The animation for the Fires of Heaven rune can no longer be cancelled early.
• Witch Doctor
• Spirit Barrage (Phantasm)
• The periodic attacks from Spirit Barrage (Phantasm) are now twice as slow, but twice as powerful
• Developer's Note: We rolled this change back between PTR and Live as it was creating additional bugs. We may consider re-exploring this option in the future if we find this adjustment is still needed.

• Developer's Note: 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 play styles we lifted directly from community feedback. Frenzy, Spirit Barrage, and Hydra were 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 have been included to round out these builds.
• Mantle of Channeling
  • The bonus granted by this item now occurs 1 second after channeling has begun
• 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.
  • Undisputed Champion
    • Frenzy gains the effect of every rune and deals 300-400% increased damage.
  • Bastion's Revered
    • Frenzy now stacks up to 10 times and hits an additional time per stack. Each additional hit will chain to any enemies within 15 yards and the damage is split between all affected enemies.
• 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.
  • The Barber
    • Instead of dealing direct damage, your Spirit Barrage now accumulates on the target. When you stop casting, it explodes dealing 225-250% 400-500% of the accumulated damage to all enemies within 15 yards.
    • Is now classified as a Ceremonial Knife, with a base 1.4 attack speed
  • Gazing Demise
    • Spirit Barrage gains the Phantasm rune. Each active Phantasm lasts twice as long, increases the damage of Spirit Barrage by 40-50% 100-150%, and also increases the attack rate from Manitou spectres.
  • Ring of Emptiness
    • You deal 250-300% increased damage to enemies affected by both either your Haunt and or Locust Swarm.
• 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 favor of the 6-piece set bonus and away from the supplemental Legendary items.
  • Serpent's Sparker
    • You may have one extra Hydra active at a time and they deal 450-600% 250-300% increased damage.
  • The Magistrate
    • Frost Hydra Your Hydras now periodically cast Frost Nova and deal 450-600% 250-300% increased damage.
  • Etched Sigil
    • The bonus granted by this item now occurs 1 second after channeling has begun.
  • Deathwish
    • The bonus granted by this item now occurs 1 second after channeling has begun.

• Several issues with adding/removing players to group and starting new games as a group have been resolved
• Captain Crimson's Trimmings
  • Fixed an issue where the set bonus did not increase damage reduction when using Devour - Voracious
• Barbarian
  • Fixed a bug where Threatening Shout (Grim Harvest) would not activate when enhanced by the Horde of the Ninety Savages set bonus
• Crusader
  • Corrected the spelling of “Imperius” on the flavor text for several pieces of the Aegis of Valor set
  • Fixed an issue where the bolts cast by Fist of the Heavens - Divine Well failed to zap enemies
• Demon Hunter
  • Fixed an issue where In-geom was not properly dropping for Demon Hunters
• Wizard
  • Fixed a bug where Arcane Torrent would get an extra damage multiplier from Etched Sigil and Deathwish
  • Fixed a bug where Hydra (Frost Hydra) was getting a damage bonus instead of Attack Speed bonus from its owner's Attack Speed; this rune now benefits from Attack Speed in the same manner as other Hydra runes
• PTR Specific
  • Note: The following issues were only live on the PTR, but we're including the fixes here for visibility and to indicate intended functionality on live.
  • Fixed a bug with Bastion's Revered where it would not properly benefit from Convention of Elements
  • Fixed a bug where Big Bad Voodoo would not properly follow its owner through zones when utilizing the new 2-Piece set bonus
  • Fixed a bug where Hydras would have a short delay after being summoned

Q: When does Season 20 start?

A: Season 20 begins Friday, March 13 at 5:00 p.m. PST in North America, 5:00 p.m. CET in Europe, and 5:00 p.m. KST in Asia. For time zone conversions, see this site.

Q: When do Seasons go live for players on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch?

A: Seasons go live for all console players globally Friday, March 13 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time, regardless of which regional version of the game you may have. Please note that Seasonal Leaderboards for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch are still separate by hardware platform.

Q: When will Season 20 end?

A: We are no longer providing anticipated end dates for Seasons. However, we are committed to keeping Seasons roughly three months in length (give or take a few weeks based on development needs) and will continue to provide a minimum of two weeks advance notice for when the Season will be ending.

Q: When are the non-Seasonal Leaderboards being wiped?

A: Non-Seasonal Leaderboards are tied to what we call “Eras,” each of which lasts about 6–12 months. The most recent era began November 12; the Era will be resetting with the release of Patch 2.6.8. For more information on Eras, please see this post.

Q: What will happen to older Seasonal and Era records?

A: Starting with Season 10, we removed old personal bests from Season 1. When Season 19 arrives, we will remove old personal bests from Season 10, and so on. We will be doing the same for personal bests from the previous Era when the next one goes live.

Seasonal Leaderboard records are not being cleared and will remain archived both in game and on our website.