Big Diablo 3 patch adds new areas, adds special Set Dungeons

I love that Blizzard still releases great fat patches for Diablo 3. With every one, the game gets crazier. And the freshly-detailed patch 2.4 - heading to the public testing server soon - is no exception. It's massive.

There's a whole new zone in 2.4 for Adventure mode only, which means it's not being shoehorned into the story. It's called Greyhallow Island and it's dark and mysterious and foresty, and wants to eat you; "the land itself is said to be hungry for blood", the game's website warned. Other areas have been expanded, again only in Adventure mode. You'll be able to go beyond the rubble in Leoric's Manor, and beyond the gates in the Ruins of Sescheron, into the Eternal Woods.

All - repeat, all - of the game's 24 sets of class armour (the ones with green writing) are being either revamped, revisited or revised. Thorns of the Invoker and the Shadow's Mantle are getting total overhauls. The six-piece Shadow's Mantle bonus is now, "Impale deals an additional 40,000 per cent weapon damage to the first enemy hit." That's enough to break a calculator!

A two-piece Crusader flail and shield set is being added, and two-piece jewellery sets have been completely reworked. One ring set now has this bonkers bonus: "While this is your only Item Set Bonus, every Ancient item you have equipped increases your damage by 800 per cent and reduces your damage taken by four per cent."

Said Blizzard: "These are bound to spur an untold number of never explored builds, especially for those of you who'd like to explore the boundaries beyond six-piece class sets."

Included in the set armour revamp are Set Dungeons, which are static - non-randomised - dungeons you can access only when you have all pieces of a certain armour set. Complete them and you'll get a cosmetic reward for that armour set, but if you master all armour sets belonging to one class, you'll get a fancier reward (I don't know what that is). The ultimate prize will be reserved for those who master all 24 Set Dungeons.

On top of that, 40 new Legendary powers have been added to the game, both to existing items and new ones. There are some MC Hammer-inspired trousers called Hammer Jammers with the caption "Stop! Hammer time." They boost Blessed Hammers damage.

There are also Empowered Rifts accessible via Greater Rifts and by spending a certain amount of gold. They offer an extra Legendary Gem upgrade at the end.

The user interface has been revised to neaten up how buffs appear now that everyone is multi-buffed a lot of the time, and there is more Stash space coming.

There will no longer be Seasonal Legendaries, and Season Rebirth allows existing characters to jump into Seasons albeit stripped of all gear and reduced to level one. But don't panic: all gear removed in this way will be mailed to you in the non-Season so you can reclaim it.

Finally (for the highlights), those temporary buffs you get in the console version of Diablo 3 - buffs to movement speed for smashing things, buffs to experience for killing lots of enemies, and buffs to resource gain for using traps to kill things - are coming to PC. The movement speed buff is great if you can pick a smashing path through a level.

Patch 2.4 is due on the public test server in the coming weeks - presumably all changes, bar the temporary buffs (that are already on console), will be coming to PS4 and Xbox One.