Loot-hoarders and demon-slayers, take note: our Diablo III Game Guide on Battle.net has been hit with a volley of new information. Today’s update includes:

1. a complete roster of all current monster affixes
2. a new game difficulty page. The page includes a chart demonstrating how monster resistances to crowd control scale in higher difficulty levels.
3. information about the difference between dual-wielding and two-handed weapons
4. the hidden workings of Magic Find
5. details on health globe drop rates
6. a list of emotes and commands

Isn’t any fun changing skills when you want to if you lose your stacks of NV. You’ve got to understand that, right?

Being able to experiment with skills and try out different things is not the same as min/maxing builds against enemies by being able to swap skills mid-fight. When we say build variety, we mean there are many options to choose from, not that you should literally be swapping between tons of builds in a single session.

Before release there was a huge outcry that there was no permanence to characters. You essentially had all skills at all times. We agreed, and when we added the NV system we discouraged skill swaps (by removing stacks) to encourage character permanence. The system and solution were almost unanimously applauded as a system hitting multiple issues in an elegant way.

Now, in practice, some people really want to be able to swap around skills whenever they want so they can have a better chance at different encounters and types of fights. That’s understandable, of course. Everyone wants to be optimal at all times all of the time. That’s not the opposite of viable build options, though. So we have a situation where we agree with all those pre-release voices and do like there being some build permanence, finding that build that can deal with a lot of situations is more compelling and difficult than just swapping out to different builds to deal with each situation. On the opposite end there’s a lot of people now that think that min/maxing sounds like a lot of fun, and the little bit of character identity it adds be damned.

I don’t really have much to add at the moment except we understand the situation, we’re aware of what people want to be able to do, and considering all the factors we don’t have a consensus except that the system is working well enough right now that we’re not going to rush to change it.

 So, when are you going to nerf Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage affixes?

We’ve no plans to nerf +Crit Chance or +Crit Damage. While +Crit Chance and +Crit Damage are very strong right now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with something being strong. As mentioned above, players doing too much damage is not enough reason for us to bring out the nerf bat. Neither affix is having a negative impact on build diversity (we’re seeing a pretty good balance overall), and there aren’t any technical issues with them being stacked to higher values. It’s something we’re keeping an eye on of course.

Why aren’t monster affix combinations restricted in some way?

Monster affixes are actually grouped into categories and then restricted based on those categories (to a degree). Our restrictions aren’t as tight as some players have suggested, but in the end we found that adding extra limitations often made Elite pack encounters very predictable and repetitive, which kind of went against our design goal for these types of monsters.

We know that not all players will see eye-to-eye with us on how these categories are organized, and we expect some criticism and disagreement, especially from such a passionate group of gamers. While we’re happy with where affix combos are right now, we’re open to feedback and especially constructive discussion.

Here are the categories:

Strong CC (Limit 1):

• Knockback
• Nightmarish
• Vortex

Defensive (Limit 1):

• Avenger
• Extra Health
• Health Link
• Horde
• Illusionist
• Missile Dampening
• Invulnerable Minions
• Shielding
• Vampiric

Aggressive (No Limit):

• ArcaneEnchanted
• Desecrator
• Electrified
• Fast
• Fire Chains
• Frozen
• Jailer
• Molten
• Mortar
• Plagued
• Reflects Damage
• Teleporter
• Waller

Is Whimsyshire considered an Act I or Act IV zone?

It’s considered an Act III/Act IV zone, depending on difficulty. The monsters in Hell are considered Hell – Act IV monsters, and the monsters in Inferno are considered Inferno – Act III/Act IV monsters. The drop rates buffs from June 28 affect the zone accordingly.

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