Reaper of Souls

[von Richthofen]

Reaper of Souls has been officially revealed as the first expansion to Diablo 3.

No One Can Stop Death
The lords of hell rage within the Black Soulstone, their souls screaming for vengeance and release. Before the artifact can be sealed away forever, Malthael–Angel of Death–manifests in the mortal realms with a deadly new purpose: to steal the Black Soulstone and bend its infernal power to his will.
So begins the end of all things...

Official website:http://us.battle.net/d3/en/reaper-of-souls/

Opening Cinematic

The official Gameplay Teaser

New Features:

• Loot Runs
• Crusader class
• Nephalem Trials
• New Environments
• New Monsters
• Enhanced Paragon System
• Level cap has been raised to 70
• New Skills and Runes for all classes
• The Mystic Artisan returns
• And more!

Locations: "From the sprawling streets of Westmarch to the ancient walls of the Pandemonium Fortress, battle with a host of deadly new enemies throughout the all-new Act V of the Diablo III storyline."

New class: Crusader
"Impenetrable armor, gleaming weapons, and heavy, heavy damage–wield the power of the Crusader, unbreakable new hero of the mortal realms."

The Crusader's Gamescom Reveal video

As with the others, Crusader will let you choose male or female.

Back story - A fierce melee warrior whose command of the battlefield is matched only by his unwavering conviction. The Crusaders are a special forces group of the Knights of Westmarch, aka Paladins. Hundreds of years ago, the Knights went West to spread the Zakarum faith with fire and sword, ultimately founding Westmarch. Meanwhile, the Crusaders went East on a secret mission. and now at the end of all things, the Crusaders have returned to stop the forces of darkness yet again.

Creation - They wanted a mid-range melee character. They decided to mix the Paladin (that knight in shining armor), with the Spartan war ethos, mixed with a modern armored tank - the result was something so heavily armored it is 'literally an immovable object' and uses its armor as part of its weaponry.

Role - "A war machine made human - a tank in human form" Mid-range, Strength-based melee. Due to his heavy armor, Crusader wants to be in the middle of the enemies, and can use their holy spells to control the battlefield to keep enemies coming towards them or destroy ranged enemies in the distance.

Class Gear - Crusader Shields, Flails, ?

The Crusader's armor percentage is calculated into the damage the Crusader does.

Resource - Wrath

The Crusader's previewed Skills include: Punish, Justice, Scourge, Shield Bash, Blessed Shield, Blessed Hammer, Fist of the Heavens, Sweep Attack, Slash, Shield Glare, Judgment, Heaven's Fury, Laws of Valor, Laws of Justice, Consecration, and Falling Sword.

http://media.mmo-champion.com/images.../d3small06.jpg
http://media.mmo-champion.com/images.../d3small05.jpg
http://media.mmo-champion.com/images.../d3small04.jpg

The skills are supposed to feel really fun to combo together and give you tactical options.

Fist of the Heavens is the mid-range melee ability, so while in the middle of enemies you can strike at a distance as well.

Falling Sword was created to take the Fist of the Heavens concept even further. If a Crusader is a tank, and a tank can fire a shell, what can the Crusader do? The Crusader becomes the artillery strike himself using holy power to teleport to a distant location and crash down with the fires of Heaven.

Shield Glare causes holy energy to come down from the heavens and reflect off your shield, blinding enemies.

Consecration creates a circle on the ground that will heal friends, and a rune will make it deal holy fire damage to enemies.

Laws seem to be Crusader's version of Auras/Mantras. Laws of Valor is a passive ability where you gain extra damage as you deal critical hits, and also has an activation bonus of extra damage for everybody.

The Crusader might have the least amount of Passives of any of the classes. with 10 on the preview image, versus 16 on Barbarian, 14 on Monk, and 15 on the other original classes. (Presumably more will be added since it looks to still be a work in progress as seen on the Fist of Heavens screenshot, where a rune doesn't have a name yet.)

Loot Runs

• 15-20 minute completely random dungeons!
• Random weather!
• Random enemies!
• Random boss!
• Multi-tiered (several levels deep)!

The Mystic Artisan: Originally intended to be released in the core game, she is returning in Reaper of Souls with some new functions! She can 'Transmogrify' items (i.e. putting the armor model of say a level 45 set onto your level 70 item), and her Enchanting will allow you to reroll one of the affixes on rare/legendary items.

Paragon Upgrade: Paragon is now account-wide and functions similar to Borderland 2's Badass Ranks. It is intended to be a customization system and earning Paragon levels will give you points to spend on Core (STR/INT/DEX/VIT), Attack, Defense, or Utility stat increases. All normal characters on an account will share a Paragon level, same for Hardcore (like the Auction House, normal and HC Paragon are separate though), as well as earned Paragon Points.

Bonuses are retroactive. I.E. If you have two p100 heroes right now, the current plan is that you'd have 200 points in RoS.

Nephalem Trials: Will be announced soon, allegedly a Blizzard employee explained it on the forums. "Basically Grimiku explained what Nephalem Trials are.
For the "lore side" they are places "guarded" by Ancestal Nephalems while for the "gameplay side" they are portals that the player can find around whole Sanctuary.
When the player gets in he has to do a trial and the rewards are based on the difficulty of the trial itself and on the "player's efficiency"."



Story: The Black Soulstone has fallen into the High Heavens after being cast down from the Crystal Arch by us, the Nephalem hero. Tyrael decides that the only thing he can do is hide it, and thus he has recruited more humans to join the Horadrim and aid in his mission. The Black Soulstone's chamber is prepared, but as soon as they place it in its bindings Malthael, the former Archangel of Wisdom, returns as the Angel of Death. Most of the new Horadrim are slain, and Tyrael dispatches the sole survivor, Lorath(?), to go get the Nephalem hero.

Tyrael defiantly stands before Malthael, but his Sword of Justice, El'druin, can not harm Malthael. Malthael easily bests Tyrael but does not slay him, instead moving to get the Black Soulstone. Tyrael asks his brother why, but gets no answer from The Silent Angel. Tyrael then says that the Nephalem will stop Malthael, and Malthael finally speaks, "No one can stop death."

Malthael's motives are alleged to be that he wants to end the Eternal Conflict by destroying all demons, a goal which possibly includes the Nephalem/humans as well since they are part demon.

Before the Gamescom announcement, the Reaper of Souls site featured a teaser image: http://i.imgur.com/sxdGW8H.jpg

The text is from the Prophecy of the End Days that was in the Book of Cain. (I don't think the full thing was in the game itself)

And, at the End of Days, Wisdom shall be lost
as Justice falls upon the world of men.
Valor shall turn to Wrath-
and all Hope will be swallowed by Despair.
Death, at last, shall spread its wings over all-
as Fate lies shattered forever.

Each line refers to an angelic aspect, and Malthael is now Death.

[Resentful]

Means Mathael is coming back as likely the main bad guy :P I mean really It's obvious I am a fanatic of diablo still I fucking hate D3 I'm still buying the expansion der

- Mathael went insane due to Tyreal shattering the corrupted World Stone
- Tyreal heavly implied that hes been wondering on an area thinking about life and death
- The prophecy within the end of days ''Death at last shall spread It's wings'' meaning He likely turned into a Reaper / Angel of death / Insane

SO OBVIOUS

[Arbs]

Time to trademark it before blizzard?

It's probably just a boss name, maybe not even last boss name.

Its already Trademarked by Blizzard http://us.battle.net/d3/en/reaper-of-souls/

its at the bottom why would they trademark a boss name ??

[von Richthofen]

Means Mathael is coming back as likely the main bad guy :P

Will be interesting to see what his motives are. We deduced he was coming back due to the Book of Cain prophecy lines, but the why's about him have been pretty much unknown. He abstained from voting on the fate of mankind because 'Whatever the choice in the end, it does not matter for me." When the Worldstone was stolen he was 'unable to fathom that catastrophic event' and abandoned Heaven.

And, if he is the 'Reaper of Souls,' it just so happens that one of the hints towards the expansion involves Leah's soul.

Covetous Shen: Do you think that Leah is lost forever?

Player: Diablo consumed her. She is gone.

Covetous Shen: Do you not think Leah's soul is stronger than that? But, oh, but then sometimes I-I forget that you have not seen everything that I have seen.

[Wildmoon]

Mathael!!!!!

[Coldkil]

Cannot wait. Time for deleting old chars and level other 10 anew :3

[Deleted]

Will be interesting to see what his motives are. We deduced he was coming back due to the Book of Cain prophecy lines, but the why's about him have been pretty much unknown. He abstained from voting on the fate of mankind because 'Whatever the choice in the end, it does not matter for me." When the Worldstone was stolen he was 'unable to fathom that catastrophic event' and abandoned Heaven.

And, if he is the 'Reaper of Souls,' it just so happens that one of the hints towards the expansion involves Leah's soul.

Covetous Shen: Do you think that Leah is lost forever?

Player: Diablo consumed her. She is gone.

Covetous Shen: Do you not think Leah's soul is stronger than that? But, oh, but then sometimes I-I forget that you have not seen everything that I have seen.

So either Coventus Shen was a disguise of Malthael or Adria was. I bet that Adria was either used by Malthael or was a disguise so that he could use the black soulstone to unleash the Prime Evil to weaken the heavens.



Also the whole "Reaper of Souls" makes perfect sense as Malthael is wielding some sort of Reaper scythes.

[Gallahadd]

Sounds good, tbh I'm hoping for at LEAST one new class, preferably 2.

If "reaper of souls" is the offical name... I'm thinking something along the lines of "Harvester" but less... lame, they'd be a druid like shapeshifter class, using mana as a primary resource, to power their abilities and then "souls" as a secondary resource, souls would be granted by killing enemies cap have a low cap, but only be used to power the various transformations they have.

[von Richthofen]

I played around a little bit in GIMP to see if anything cool was hidden in the image. Nothing too exciting that I was able to see, but there is a demonic looking statue thing at the left side that isn't visible at all, to me, in the original.
http://i.imgur.com/zIirCK4.png

Sounds good, tbh I'm hoping for at LEAST one new class, preferably 2.

If "reaper of souls" is the offical name... I'm thinking something along the lines of "Harvester" but less... lame, they'd be a druid like shapeshifter class, using mana as a primary resource, to power their abilities and then "souls" as a secondary resource, souls would be granted by killing enemies cap have a low cap, but only be used to power the various transformations they have.

Something cool to go along with Reaper of Souls?

"There's a lot of people on our team who aren't happy with our class choices,” Jay admitted. "But after we've established 'Diablo III' as its own game with its own type of gameplay and experiences, I wouldn't be opposed to looking at old classes. We are trying to design the Witch Doctor class so that if we did bring back the Necromancer, there's room for him. We're looking out ahead of time at what our expansions are going to be, so we've got to keep room open for some of those other classes down the road."

[Lysah]

Everything in this prophecy already happened...depending on how you interpret the very last line. I wouldn't doubt Malthael being a major character soon but the primary antagonist? Let's not get ahead of ourselves, surely Blizzard's storytelling is better than that...

[Barcasaur]

I can't help be excited for a Diablo 3 xpac, but I got d3 from the year subscription to warcraft (which thankfully I played warcraft the whole time.)

but I feel like if it has the major pvp that everyone wants I should not have to buy it.

[Deleted]

Everything in this prophecy already happened...depending on how you interpret the very last line. I wouldn't doubt Malthael being a major character soon but the primary antagonist? Let's not get ahead of ourselves, surely Blizzard's storytelling is better than that...

Most of the time I would agree with you, but I found the story of Diablo 3 a little bit too predictible. It wouldn't surprise me if the expansion was predictible also.

[Beazy]

Ermahgerd, Im still curious about loot 2.0 and were jumping into Xpac territory?! Da Fuq Blizz?!

[Z3ROR]

If you place this link below in Facebook you see something interesting.

This link:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/reaper-of-souls/

Then you see this:


Currently this doesn't work anymore.

[RH92]

Something cool to go along with Reaper of Souls?

Although I played Necromancer in Diablo II, I somehow don't want him to be appear in Diablo III. It is a new chapter and I would rather have something new.... I accept Barbarians as tribute to previous game and really, how can you call that class differently now?

I am 99% sure there will be new class, but I hope it will be more of a morally gray character. All the Diablo III classes, except Monk (Which is only class that fit it), are so righteous it is boring. That was a great thing about Diablo II, there wasn't that much storytelling regarding your characters so it was up to your fantasy.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

And to be on Topic. While Malthael's return might be a little bit predictable it can bring a lot of cool twists. You never know what he learned, but I hope he won't be crazy. Because every Blizzard's villain have to be crazy I suppose, and in the end he was an Angel of Wisdom. In my opinion it would be good to have an Archangel as main antagonist as Angels aren't supposed to be "good" in Diablo universe.

[Deleted]

Maybe it's going to be something similar to the DK in WoW, but more spellcasterish. Diablo 3 needs another strenght based class

[Netherspark]

Everything in this prophecy already happened...depending on how you interpret the very last line. I wouldn't doubt Malthael being a major character soon but the primary antagonist? Let's not get ahead of ourselves, surely Blizzard's storytelling is better than that...

I don't recall anything happening to Auriel (Hope) or Itherael (Fate). I don't think that part of the prophecy has happened yet.

[Deleted]

If they give it for free i would probably play it once with my op dh (nothing selffound) and destroy content in 3 hrs. But if they remove ah(all) and make ladders for every possible thing you can think off, shorttime hardcore leagues and what not, runesystem, then i delete all my crapa and play for real and pay for the addon.

[Nero Duskwind]

Will be interesting to see what his motives are. We deduced he was coming back due to the Book of Cain prophecy lines, but the why's about him have been pretty much unknown. He abstained from voting on the fate of mankind because 'Whatever the choice in the end, it does not matter for me." When the Worldstone was stolen he was 'unable to fathom that catastrophic event' and abandoned Heaven.

And, if he is the 'Reaper of Souls,' it just so happens that one of the hints towards the expansion involves Leah's soul.

Covetous Shen: Do you think that Leah is lost forever?

Player: Diablo consumed her. She is gone.

Covetous Shen: Do you not think Leah's soul is stronger than that? But, oh, but then sometimes I-I forget that you have not seen everything that I have seen.

My theory on his motives is that he's become completely detached from the world around him following the despair that overcame him when the Worldstone was destroyed. Having observed all that has come to pass between then and now, his now darkened sense of wisdom has led him to decide that the only true way to end the Eternal Conflict is to undo all of creation itself.

- - - Updated - - -

Also the whole "Reaper of Souls" makes perfect sense as Malthael is wielding some sort of Reaper scythes.

I love how even the ribbons of light that form his wings take on a scythe-like appearance.

[Deleted]

The first thing that strikes me is the shadow of extended wings over the doorway.


But I wanted to do some more research, so I tweaked the colours a bit in PS.

These statues, what can we say about those? Don't they have a Voodoo / Witch Doctor / Jungle vibe to them? Could this be a temple in Kurast?