Season 2 Testing Now on the PTR

A fun testing buff on the Public Test Realm kicks off a new Season

PTR Testing Community Buff - Season 2
The testing of Diablo III Patch 2.1.2 on the Public Test Realm now includes Season 2, which started Thursday evening on the PTR. To help the process along, a major community buff is active on the PTR for all characters! More changes will be coming to test in the next PTR build, including another overhaul to the Marauder armor set for Demon Hunters. Here are all the details!


Community Buff on the Public Test Realm
Season 2 was activated for testing on the Public Test Realm, at 5:30 PM Pacific Time on Thursday evening. To help the testing process, a community buff is currently active on the PTR. If you are interested in trying out the changes in patch 2.1.2, now is a great time to log on and check it out!
UPDATE: Buffs ending 12/1 @ 5PM PST, see below for more information.

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As Season 2 begins on PTR, we realize it may be challenging to level up and gear effectively with a short testing window. In order to facilitate Seasonal testing, particularly for our new Conquests and Seasonal Legendaries, we're activating several Community buffs to help you along the way.

The following buffs will be active on the PTR for all characters (both Seasonal and Non-Seasonal) once Season 2 begins:
  • 300% Bonus Experience Earned
  • 2000% Bonus Chance to Find Legendaries
  • Double Goblins
  • Double Blood Shards

These buffs will be available for a limited time and will not last the full duration of the PTR, so if you plan on testing Season 2 Conquests, now's the best time to jump in and take advantage of them!

As always, your feedback is appreciated and we thank you for participating in our latest testing phase.


More Marauder Set Changes
The Demon Hunter Marauder armor set is incredibly popular right now. The playstyle the set encourages is considered too passive by the developers, and they are looking to change it up in patch 2.1.2. The build on the PTR right now changed those set bonuses, but an upcoming PTR patch will change them again. One big benefit of these changes will be for new level 70 Demon Hunters. If the summon of every Companion is now a bonus for only 2 pieces, that is a boost in power for Demon Hunters early on at level 70.
First off, thank you all for jumping in and testing your hearts out so quickly! The responses have been great, and we appreciate the amount of on-topic feedback that's been provided thus far. Thank you, it helps us go a long way during this critical part of development!

Posted by: Lumin

I'm pretty sure you mean 500%


Whoops. Totally did. This has been fixed in the original post. Thanks!

Posted by: Dirtymeat

I've just noticed on PTR that Andarials Visage retroactively no longer has a Poison Nova proc. Is this intentional?


This is a known issue. Several items are missing their Legendary affixes. You can see the full list here.

Finally, we've already got some additional changes pending for the Embodiment of the Marauder. It’s great to see that players are enjoying the more active gameplay of this redesign, and we want to further shift the source of damage from your Sentries to your Demon Hunter. To accomplish this, the set bonus order is being shifted around and retuned. Bear in mind that tuning on the exact number values will likely continue through the PTR and are not yet final.

Here's our latest anticipated changes, which will be coming to the next PTR patch:

  • 2 Piece Bonus
    • Companion calls all companions to your side.
  • 4 Piece Bonus
    • Sentries cast your Hatred spender when you do.
  • 6 Piece Bonus
    • Your generators, Elemental Arrow, Chakram, Impale, Multishot, and Cluster Arrow deal 100% increased damage for every active Sentry.


This should bring the set's damage potential closer to what it currently provides on live, if not a bit better. Once again, thank you for your ongoing diligence in PTR testing!
Posted by: Hebalon

Does this mean that only our shots are buffed by 100% for every sentry, or also the shots of these sentries?


Good question! This set bonus applies only to your shots, not the shots fired by Sentries.

Posted by: aasubei

It probably means, generators AND that following list of skills.


This is also correct.


Greater Rift Death Timer
A change in patch 2.1.2 involves an increasing death timer for deaths in Greater Rifts, that allows players to respawn at their death point. That is still being worked on, and may change further in upcoming PTR patches.
Posted by: BobtheSlayer

why not penalize my time? Add on a couple of seconds to the time elapsed meter.


We're toying around with a few different solutions, and this is the most likely option. Wyatt shared some of the thought process on Reddit recently, but here's the summary in case you missed it:

We're not happy with the current situation where your resurrection location is flooded with monsters and you're unable to recover. However, we also want to avoid creating a situation that makes you have to calculate on the spot which is more advantageous, resurrecting at your corpse or reviving at your last checkpoint. It's contradictory to the goal of making the death penalty consistent.

In short, we're aware of the issue, and while we haven't decided on a final solution yet, an option to revive at checkpoint for a small penalty is likely.

Read on for more details about the process for the end of Season 1 and the start of Season 2, after patch 2.1.2 goes live!


Seasonal Content in 2.1.2
Tyvalir explained further just what parts of the 2.1.2 patch will be available to all characters, and which will be restricted to Seasonal heroes. As mentioned here, Season 2 won't start immediately when patch 2.1.2 goes live.
Posted by: Blayze

Please give us some clarity here - existing legendaries that are getting changes (Wormwood, etc)... will they be available to non seasonal players or not? Do non seasonal players have to wait until the end of season 2? Your posts on this have NOT been clear.

Posted by: Tolgeros

But will the new Wormwood and Gungdo be exclusive to seasons?

Now that I reread it, I can see how my answer was confusing. Let me clarify a bit:

  • In patch 2.1.2, we'll be adding new versions of several existing Legendary items that do not currently have a unique power to the game.
  • Some of these new Legendary items are Seasonal, available only to heroes who participate in Season 2 (until the Season ends), and some are not.
  • As soon as the patch hits, two things will happen:
    • The old, no-power versions of these Legendary items will stop dropping (in both Seasonal and non-Seasonal games)
    • The new versions of these Legendary items that are non-Seasonal will start dropping (in both Seasonal and non-Seasonal games)
  • The new versions of these Legendary items that are now Seasonal will not drop until Season 2 begins.

To find out more about which of these new items are Seasonal or non-Seasonal, be sure to visit our patch notes here.

Hope that makes more sense!

Posted by: D2ModPlayer

So apparently the new areas AND the new sets will all be in a future patch and this new patch will be:
rift balance
/treasure goblins
/ancient items
/3 new season only legendary items (old legs redone)
/all other announced season 2 content
/new rift maps
/and two new legendary gems that are for season only to start.

That's looks correct.

Please keep in mind that the new Seasonal Legendary items (including the three new Legendary gems) will only appear in Season 2, and we are looking to start Season 2 sometime after patch 2.1.2 goes live. As a result, players won't begin to see these items drop right away.

Posted by: Zen

What about the Raiment of a Thousand Storms set for Monks? The redesign isn't in the PTR, but that's the set I was most excited about testing out.

The change to the Raiment of a Thousand Storms Set will be coming in a later patch, along with the introduction of the new Set items shown at BlizzCon.


Season Switching Process
Here are the details for how the testing occurred on the PTR, for the end of Season 1 and the beginning of Season 2. The same sort of process will occur on the live servers once patch 2.1.2 goes live. It will all take more time there, though; the time between Seasons will be longer than just a few hours!
Greetings,

In preparation for ending Season 1 on the PTR, we'd like to encourage players with Seasonal characters to copy over their heroes to the PTR and participate in the rollover process as we launch PTR Season 2. For more information on how to copy over your character to the PTR, please click here.

Below is an estimated timeline for how (and when) the PTR Season end and rollover process will work.

  • Thursday, 11/20 @ 1:00 p.m. PST: All PTR participants in the Seasonal games will receive an in-game message noting that PTR Season 1 will be coming to a close at approximately 1:30 p.m. PST
  • Thursday, 11/20 @ 1:30 p.m. PST: PTR Season 1 will end, all active Seasonal games will close, and the Season roll-over will begin. For more information about Season roll-overs, click here.
  • Thursday, 11/20 @ 4:30 p.m. PST: The pre-season for PTR Season 2 will begin. For more information about pre-seasons, click here.
  • Thursday, 11/20 @ 5:30 p.m. PST: PTR Season 2 will begin and all PTR participants will receive an in-game notification. At this time, Seasonal heroes and Seasonal games can be created. In addition, the Seasonalshared stash, Paragon experience, currency, artisans, achievements, leaderboards, and Personal Best records will all be reset.

Please note that all times listed above are subject to change. If there are any modifications to this schedule, we’ll be sure to update this post as soon as possible. Thanks so much for continuing to help us test Patch 2.1.2 and the next Season!
PTR Season 1 Roll-Over:

After PTR Season 1 has ended, the Season roll-over will begin. During the roll-over, your Seasonal heroes, inventory, shared stash, and Paragon experience will be transferred to your non-Seasonal profile.

Normal heroes, inventory, shared stash, and Paragon experience will transfer to your Normal non-Seasonal profile. Similarly, Hardcore heroes, inventory, shared stash, and Paragon experience will transfer to your Hardcore non-Seasonal profile.

  • Heroes: At the end of a Season, your Seasonal heroes will become non-Seasonal heroes. They will appear in your normal roster. Any items, equipped or in the hero’s inventory, will roll-over with the hero itself.
  • Shared Stash: Items in your Seasonal heroes’ shared stash will be mailed to your Normal/Hardcore non-Seasonal profile. These items can be retrieved by entering a game on any non-Seasonal hero and clicking on the mail icon located in the lower left of your screen.
  • Currency: Gold and Blood Shards will be automatically transferred from your Seasonal profile to your non-Seasonal profile. Blood Shards that exceed the cap will temporarily allow you to exceed the cap. You will be unable to pick up additional Blood Shards until you are once more below the cap.
  • Paragon Experience: Paragon experience earned during a Season will transfer over directly without any additional involvement required from players. All Paragon experience will transfer, with experience gained by Normal Seasonal heroes going to the account’s Normal non-Seasonal profile, and experience gained by Hardcore Seasonal characters going to the account’s Hardcore non-Seasonal profile. (Note: Non-Paragon experience will not transfer.)
  • Artisans and Crafting Plans: If your Seasonal Artisans are a higher level than your non-Seasonal Artisans, their level will transfer at the end of the season to your non-Seasonal profile. Any recipes you have on your Seasonal Artisans that are not available to your non-Seasonal Artisans will be transferred as well.

If you experience any issues with the roll-over, please let us know in this thread, and provide as many details as possible. The more information we have, the better we'll be able to identify and address the core problem.
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