Diablo 3’s 20th season starts Friday, March 13. Like the past several seasons, it comes with a new seasonal theme to change up the gameplay. Season 20 also refreshes the cosmetic rewards, and adds a new class set for the Barbarian, Wizard, and Witch Doctor.

For a full list of season 20 patch notes, keep scrolling.

Super Kanai’s Cube

Season 20’s unique theme is Season of the Forbidden Archives. Longtime Diablo 3 players should already be familiar with Kanai’s Cube, the item that lets Nephalim empower themselves with three Legendary bonuses without having to equip their associated items — one slot each for weapon, armor, and jewelry effects.

In season 20, Blizzard removes the slot restriction from Kanai’s Cube. For the duration of the season, players can try wacky new builds that implement two or even three weapon powers, or mix it up by only using ring powers.

New sets

The Barbarian, Wizard, and Witch Doctor classes all have new set items to collect and play with.

The Barbarian’s new set is Horde of the Ninety Savages. This set focuses on the Frenzy attack, and increases damage when players use Shouts.

The Witch Doctor set is Mundunugu’s Regalia. This set increases the damage of Spirit Barrage and buffs the Big Bad Voodoo to last twice as long.

The Wizard set is The Typhon’s Veil. This set is all about Hydras: They last longer, deal more damage, and cause you to take reduced damage.

Beautiful new rewards

For the past few seasons, Blizzard has recycled older seasonal rewards as well as adding new ones. This season’s old rewards come from season eight. Players can pick up the old boots and pants from the Conqueror set, a flaming portrait frame, and the wings of Andariel.

As far as new rewards, players who finish the entire season journey can earn the Teganze Warrior portrait frame and the Bat pet.

Complete Diablo 3 season 20 patch notes

Here’s the complete list of Diablo 3 patch notes, including balance changes.

General

• 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

Seasons

• 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

Classes

• 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.

Items

• 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.

Bugs

• 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

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