Season 29 Compendium for Diablo 3 (2024)

Last updated on Sep 13, 2023 at 09:00by Deadset

Season 29 Season 29 introduces the new theme Visions of Enmity. Curiousportals known as Diabolical Fissures have sprung up across Sanctuary’swilderness, and entering them triggers both dangerous memories from your past,and even more dangerous emissaries of Hell to slaughter.

This content hub article will guide you through the most important changesin the patch and will discuss the new seasonal theme, the DiabolicalFissures.

Patch 2.7.6 will be applied to Non-Seasonal servers on September 13th, andSeason 29 will start on September 15th 2023 at 5pm PDT (NA servers), 5pmCEST (EU servers), and 5pm KST (Asian servers).

The Conquests for the Seasonal Journey in Season 29 are Avarice, Years ofWar, Masters of the Universe, Sprinter, and The Thrill (or Avaritia, Dynasty,Masters of Sets, Speed Racer, and Super Human respectively in Hardcore). Withtheir varying difficulty taken into consideration, we advise you to completeAvarice, The Thrill, and either Years of War (if you plan on having more than 1character) or Sprinter (if you plan on sticking to a main).

It should be noted that the 'Mastermind' challenge has been removed from theChampion portion of the Seasonal Journey. This means you no longer need tomaster a Set Dungeon, arguably the most annoying step in the journeyingprocess, and you should most likely skip Masters of the Universe Conquest fromnow on.

The Haedrig's Gifts for Season 29 are:

• Barbarian: Might of the Earth
• Crusader: Thorns of the Invoker
• Demon Hunter: The Shadow's Mantle
• Monk: Monkey King's Garb
• Necromancer: Grace of Inarius
• Witch Doctor: Raiment of the Jade Harvester
• Wizard: Firebird's Finery

If you plan on devoting little time to Season 29 and want to knock outthe Seasonal Journey the fastest way possible, we recommend playing a Wizard ora Demon Hunter. The Wizard's Firebird's Finery has a damage-related powerbaked into the set as early as the 2-piece and gets a powerful mobility toolwith the Teleport reset through the 4-piece bonus. The same applies to TheShadow's Mantle set for Demon Hunters, which propels the damage of severalresource spenders with the 2-piece bonus and nets you massive utility with the4-piece.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Necromancers have it worst with theanemic Grace of Inarius set and will have to luck out on early legendary dropsor crafts to compensate and stabilize their performance.

Nevertheless, all seven classes get reasonably competent sets that caneasily carry your early seasonal progression, so unless you're hard-pressed fortime, you can safely start on any character you desire.

Solo Self-Found (abbreviated to 'SSF') is a new mode that is permanentlyadded to the game. This mode is selected at character creation and isirreversible; with SSF on, the character opts out of any group-relatedactivities - most notably group Greater Rifts and group Bounties, which allowplayers with dedicated grinding parties to vastly out-scale solitaryplayers.

Season 29's focus on competitiveness is further reinforced by theseason-specific Paragon cap of 800 levels. Additionally, the Paragonsystem has been rebalanced to allow the allocation of the full 200 points intoany stat in a given category instead of the usual 50-point cap per stat. Thislets you better fine-tune your character in the endgame, while simultaneouslyallowing for more leniency on gear rolls earlier on. The potential to get 40%Cooldown Reduction, 40% Resource Cost Reduction, or 200% Area Damage fromParagon points alone breaks up some of the harsher stat roll breakpoints onitems and even dethrones some dominant legendary powers.

Even more interestingly, the long-standing Movement Speed cap of 25% is nowgone, allowing you to surpass that with a combination of Paragon Points andgear - but on the flip side, getting 25% Movement Speed from Paragons nowrequires all 200 points to be spent on that particular stat! This removes mainstat-stacking that the Paragon system was notorious for and re-focuses the gameon farming for exceptionally well-rolled items.

It should be noted that Patch 2.7.6 also brings a rework to how Area Damageis coded in Diablo 3, removing most, if not all, of the lag associated withArea Damage stacking.

The 'Visions of Enmity' mentioned in the Season's title are manifest inthe Diabolical Fissures - brightly lit purple/teal portals that arerandomly spawned in the open world (meaning, outside of Rifts) while you'redoing Bounties.

Diabolical Fissure portals lead to a quick, descending chain of compact,heavily randomized levels (both in terms of layout and enemy composition) thatare well worth visiting, as they reward with a generous lump of Bountymaterials upon completion.

From a theorycrafting perspective, there are scarcely things of note aboutVisions of Enmity; they are primarily a fun little addition to spruce up openworld gameplay. You can check out our dedicated Visions of Enmity articlebelow:

[BUTTON TO VISIONS OF ENMITY ARTICLE]

For S29, the newly added Enervating and Necrotic elite affixescan only be encountered in the Diabolical Fissures. While they can seemintimidating - with the heavy penalties on Movement Speed and CDR on Enervatingand the percentage-based ticking DoT on Necrotic - the limited challenges ofregular Torment difficulties allow you to considerably outscale the power ofany elite affix, including the newcomers.

There's also a variety of community-led changes in Patch 2.7.6, most notablythe alterations to Orek's Dream that make the encounter of this 1-in-a-100top-tier rift (in terms of layout, monster composition, and the various factorsthat make a GR desirable for Leaderboard pushing) even more dream-like. Thecompetitive focus of Season 29 makes the encounter of Orek's Dream duringpushes even more desirable.

While the more significant "final" big balancing patch is reserved forSeason 30, where the Altar of Rites will be making its revamped comeback,Season 29 also gets a modest number of class balancing changes. The mostnotable changes concern Crusaders and Witch Doctors.

Crusaders get a decent buff to the Blessed Shield "Captain America" buildwith the removal of per-enemy stacks of Akkhan's Leniency (the item nowstacks up to 100 and is purely based on attacks, not the size of the mob pull),and Vigilante Belt gets a legendary bonus dedicated to the Fist of theHeavens build - a toned-down version of the S27 Sanctified power, but enough toreinstate the reign of the FotH spec for Crusader speed farming.

Witch Doctors receive what is practically a new build, considering thenear-forgotten status of the Manajuma's Way set. The meme status Cluckeye bow is now a Witch Doctor exclusive legendary, and it greatlyamplifies Hex Angry Chicken damage along with turning all your pets into,well, Angry Chickens. The Angry Chicken damage multiplier of the Manajuma setis significantly bolstered, and it also receives a damage reduction bonusworthy of an endgame-pushing set. With these factors combined, a Witch Doctorsporting the Arachyr and Manajuma sets is a top contender for the WDleaderboards!