There are also few disappointments quite as efficient as discovering that the glorious brown text belongs to Manald Heal.
Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 15 is about to make that particular experience slightly less depressing.
Blizzard has announced that Season 15 begins on August 21 in North America, with the European launch following at 2:00 a.m. CEST on August 22. Patch 3.3 begins rolling out on August 18.
And buried inside the new season is something Diablo II has needed for a very long time:
Blizzard is buffing old items that practically nobody gets excited about anymore.
Manald Heal Can Finally Run Away Faster
The Patch 3.3 item changes are not enormous redesigns.
They are small, targeted improvements to a collection of older Uniques that have gradually been left behind by Diablo II's enormous item pool.
Manald Heal receives 10% Faster Run/Walk.
Blinkbat's Form jumps from 10% to 30% Faster Run/Walk and gains +1 Mana After Each Kill.
Bloodletter gets 20% Faster Run/Walk.
Pluckeye gains 25% Increased Attack Speed, while Gravenspine receives 10% Faster Cast Rate.
Bane Ash loses its old Increased Attack Speed and Enhanced Damage bonuses and instead gains 20% Faster Cast Rate, pushing it more clearly toward the sort of character that might actually want to use a magical staff.
The Ward also gets a socket.
None of these changes will make people abandon their endgame Runewords in panic.
That is not really the point.
Diablo II Has Hundreds of Items Nobody Wants
One of Diablo II's greatest strengths is the sheer quantity of strange equipment hiding inside it.
It is also one of its oldest problems.
Decades of accumulated knowledge have taught players which items matter and which ones are mostly interesting because Deckard Cain charges money to identify them.
Many low-level Uniques were designed for a very different Diablo II — before modern Runewords, before players had solved practically every corner of progression and before everyone knew exactly which pieces were worth keeping.
Patch 3.3 appears to recognise that.
The Battlebranch, for example, has its base item level reduced from 34 to 30 and its required level lowered from 25 to 17.
That does not make it stronger in the traditional sense.
It makes it available at a point where somebody might actually use it.
Sometimes item balance is less about adding 200% damage and more about arriving before the player has already found something better.
Angelic Raiment Gets Some Love Too
Blizzard is also touching one of Diablo II's oldest sets.
Angelic Raiment receives several changes, including additional damage on Angelic Sickle, bonus damage against Undead on Angelic Mantle and, most notably, +1 to All Skills for completing the full set.
Again, nobody is going to mistake Angelic Raiment for an endgame setup.
But that is fine.
Diablo II needs interesting equipment during the journey too.
A loot game becomes considerably less interesting when ninety percent of its loot exists primarily to demonstrate that something better could theoretically have dropped.
There Is One Important Catch
The newly changed versions of these items are specifically tied to Reign of the Warlock Ladder.
Blizzard says the modified items will only be available there and will not receive these changes in Diablo II Classic or Lord of Destruction.
Meanwhile, previously Ladder-only items including Mania, Hysteria, Metamorphosis, Ground, Temper, Hearth, Cure and Bulwark will become available in Non-Ladder when the new season arrives.
Season 15 therefore continues the much larger transformation that began when Reign of the Warlock started reshaping Diablo II: Resurrected.
This Is Exactly the Kind of Tinkering Diablo II Needs
There will always be arguments about how much Blizzard should change Diablo II.
That comes with touching a game people have been playing for more than a quarter of a century.
But making forgotten items slightly more useful is about as sensible as modernisation gets.
The soul of Diablo II does not disappear because Blinkbat's Form lets you run faster.
If anything, the loot hunt becomes a little more interesting when an old Unique hits the ground and your first reaction is no longer:
“Ah. That thing.”
Season 15 launches later this month.
And for once, Manald Heal has received an upgrade before Charsi gets a chance to see it.
Source
Blizzard Entertainment – Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 15 Coming Soon
