Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls review: human shield

A major portion of Reaper of Souls' additions to Diablo 3 came in late February for free in the form of "Loot 2.0," a significant retooling of the game's underlying mechanics and systems. That patch was so-named for changes in Diablo 3's "drop-rate" — the rate at which items spawn in the world, and what kinds of items players will find. While Blizzard has previously tweaked Diablo 3's item drops in response to player input, Loot 2.0 dramatically increases the amount of magic, rare and the most-coveted legendary and set items found in chests and through conquering monsters in-game.

Players will also more often find items specifically tailored to the character class they're using when they find that gear — demon hunters will find weapons and accessories that often has bonuses to their unique skills, as will barbarians, witch doctors and the rest.

This change alone adds a more consistent reward loop, and players who have invested dozens of hours in search of powerful weapons and armor pre-Reaper of Souls won't be able to hide behind their existing tools. Mirroring Blizzard's moves in World of Warcraft and its many expansions over the last ten years, all pre-patch gear is now obsolete. Within an hour of play, my level sixty demon hunter was dealing — without exaggeration — a thousand percent more damage per second than I had been previously.

This drastic renovation of Diablo 3's item economy pairs with a complete revising of every character class's skill tree. Several skills have been replaced entirely. Others have been moved from secondary, limited use to so-called primary skills that serve as main attacks that can be used endlessly. The rune modifiers you unlock to tweak your skills have also seen considerable changes and rebalancing.

The new Adventure mode is the purest distillation of this idea. In adventure mode, the story and narrative objectives are gone, replaced by bounties spread across the world of Sanctuary. Unlocked once you complete act five, adventure mode takes the unofficial end-game idea of boss rushes, mission runs, and loot grinds that players have applied to Diablo 3 since release and codifies it.

In particular, adventure mode is a great mode for co-op players — it's easy to pick the kind of missions you want to run without waiting to get to specific parts in the main campaign. And the Nephalem Rifts you earn the right to open by completing bounties are the ultimate combat crucibles for larger groups. In this way, Reaper of Souls seems even more tailored to cooperative play than it was before, which is aided by the redone difficulty system. Normal, Nightmare, Hell and Inferno have been replaced by Normal, Hard, Expert, Master and six tiers of Torment difficulty — each of which scale to the character levels in a game.

All of this adds up to a game that feels newly, relentlessly playable, even after I clocked 100 hours plus in the game before between platforms. Where I had previously had my fill of the game for a while, Reaper of Souls has successfully pulled me in, making me interested in playing every class for the first time since the pre-release beta.

My only concern after spending an additional 30 hours with Reaper of Souls is fatigue. It's easier to lose hours and hours of time in Reaper of Souls' loop, but I found I needed longer breaks between sessions than I did in Diablo 3 back in 2012. There's so much going on at all times now, so many explosions and flashing lights, so many magic items, so many crafting decisions, so many different objectives that I sometimes felt a little overwhelmed. The experience can sometimes feel too rich, like eating dessert for dinner — and that makes me wonder how Blizzard's desire to give players everything they've always said they wanted will pan out a hundred hours of playtime from now.