Hellfire Ring 2.0: Big Changes Incoming

Blizzard has shared a bunch of info about changes to the Hellfire Ring v2.0. The basic ring and the 4 new Infernal Machines will still work much the same, but the ring’s proc is changing, the lvl 70 req is going away, and most importantly, the materials will only drop on Torment difficulty and above. Here’s the quote:

First off, I want to stress that the intent behind the Hellfire Ring system is to exist as end-game content. It’s not necessarily meant for everyone – not everyone enjoys that style of play. It offers a cool reward for those who are dedicated to completing the journey, and gives you an easily identifiable goal.

One of the new Demonic Organs.

It’s also not meant to be something you complete in the first week of launch. It should be challenging, and take time to conquer. It should also get more rewarding at higher difficulties, and I’ll cover that a bit below. All said, there was definitely room for improvement and we’ve learned a lot from the first iteration of the Infernal Machine event.

Let’s use bullet points, because they’re pretty and organized:

The new Hellfire Ring will not have a level requirement on it. The current level requirement is actually a bug and not intended.

The new Hellfire Ring is guaranteed to offer both the Legendary proc (which scales with weapon damage) and bonus experience.

Like all crafted items, it will also roll with Smart Loot rules when created, so you can be sure your Barbarian won’t craft something that was more useful for a Demon Hunter. (Just be sure to craft on the character you want to use it on!)

Infernal Machines are now crafted for specific portals, so you can focus your efforts on the encounters that drop the crafting materials you need most.

Remember that the 100% drop rate for Keys and Crafting Materials is purely for testing purposes at this time. As of next patch, the Infernal Machine event will only be accessible in Torment I and above. Higher levels of Torment will increase the drop rates of both the Keys and the Crafting Materials.

We’ve also been paying close attention to the Focused Feedback thread, and have several additional changes coming as a result of your extensive testing. This includes:

Because Torment I is now required to run the event, the fights are now significantly more challenging.

The Hellfire Ring proc will be undergoing a bit of a mechanical and visual rework. It will be a ground-based damage over time ability. I think I’ll leave the new visuals a surprise for now. 😉

In the Diablo fight, all bosses summoned by Diablo must now also be defeated to successfully complete the fight. This should significantly increase the challenge.

We have a couple of bugs being worked on as well, including adjusting the damage on Maghda’s Arcane Sentries and requiring Level 70 Infernal Machines to open the new event.

We posted a walkthrough about the new Infernal Machine last week, so check that if you want more details on the new version of the event.

Infernal Machine Details

Four new Demonic Organs.

There’s now a bug with this that the Blue mentioned above. Old Infernal Machines (either ones you brought over, or made from brought over old keys) will currently open the three old portals, in which you will get the new Organs. You can not use an old Machine to open the new, 4th portal, the Realm of Fright, but the other three are accessible via old machines. This is a bug and will be fixed.

The four keywardens are the same, but each one drops a new key. It takes 4 keys (one of each) to create any of the 4 new Infernal Machines, and you make them specifically. No more “make 3 IMs and hope the Portal you need opens randomly first.” This is a little confusing at first, but it’s easier once you know which one is which, since you don’t have to waste keys making portals to Reals from which you already have the Organ. (Long term the RNG generally equaled out in D3 if you just keep doing all 3 at the same drop odds, but it could be annoying when you had weird luck and were stuck with 0/4/6 organs, and kept not getting the one you were short on.)

Here are the four new options:

Currently all Keys and Organs are dropping at 100% for testing, and they will sometimes drop a second key or organ as well. As far as I can tell from testing, if you get a second key/organ that’s the RNG that would actually function. I did a bunch of runs with friends on Hard difficulty, and we got a second key/organ about 1/10th of the time. I’ve done fewer KeyWarden kills on Torment, but on that difficulty I’ve gotten keys about half the time (something like 6/14 so far).

Blizzard has never revealed the % odds per difficulty level in the new system, but getting a key about 1/10th of the time on Hard and 1/2 of the time on Torment would make perfect sense if the new difficulty levels correspond to the old Monster Power Key/Organ drop rate system, where you got a 10% increased chance on each higher MP level. (Or my drops might just be RNG masquerading as reason.)

In any event, we don’t know how the percentages will change once the Infernal Machine becomes Torment only. There are 6 levels of torment, so while it’s logical to expect drop rates to go T1-T6 > 50/60/70/80/90/100, or they could be 10/20/40/60/80/100, or anything else you can imagine. I hope they leave it at 50% or so for Torment 1, otherwise it’s really going to be tough to get one playing Hardcore.

Even softcore would find it slow; Torment 1 is pretty tough (or at least slow on big bosses; Rift Guardians have 805m hit points on T1) even with very good gear, and as many players have pointed out, the mega hit points of bosses on the higher levels of Torment were apparently designed with Crushing Blow in mind. Now that that affix is gone the hit points of bosses will require outrageous amounts of grinding time, which is more of a bore than a challenge. (I think the bosses even on Torment could use upgrades to attacks and downgrades to hit points; they’re currently wars of gradual attrition rather than strategy/tactics and I’m putting most of my gear towards offense, not survival.)