Diablo 2: Resurrected Season 3 start date confirmed with new runewords
What you need to know
- Diablo 2: Resurrected Season 2 will end on February 16, 2023 and Season 3 will begin with a restart to the ladder.
- The start date was confirmed earlier today in a blog post by Diablo 2: Resurrected Community Manager PezRadar.
- The third ladder will feature new runewords that have been tested by the community in PTR 2.6.
Hot on the heels of new Diablo 3 Season 28 news, today we’ve also had official confirmation of the new season start and ladder reset for Diablo 2: Resurrected. It’s a great start to the year for Diablo fans!
In a blog post on the Blizzard forums today, Diablo 2: Resurrected Community Manager PezRadar confirmed that the current season and subsequent start of Season 3 will commence on February 16, 2023. The new season will feature eight new runewords for the ladder reset but PezRadar has stated “Some pretty significant changes will be coming based off community feedback from the PTR to these new runewords. We expect to have final patch notes up sometime next week.”
What is the Diablo 2 ladder?
The Diablo 2: Resurrected ‘ladder’ is simply a reset of the leaderboards for ranked play. You start the ladder with a fresh character and empty inventory and try to climb the leaderboards, not unlike Diablo 3 Season resets. Each new ladder comes with new runewords and tweaks to class skills which attract players new and old to the game. Runes and runewords are specific to Diablo 2 only and the mechanic was not carried over to Diablo 3 much to the disappointment of a lot of fans of the game series.
Eight new runewords
Runewords are powerful combinations of runes that drop in Diablo 2: Resurrected, that can be socketed into your items to grant abilities. In Player Test Realm (PTR) 2.6 players have been hard at work testing out eight new runes that we will list below, though we expect patch notes later this week to make some changes which we will update this page with. All details below are taken from PTR 2.6 log dated January 23, 2023.
| Runeword | Runes required | Base Item | Effects |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bulwark | Shael + lo + Sol | Helm | +20% Faster Hit Recovery +4-6% Life stolen per hit +75-100% Enhanced Defense +10 to Vitality Increase Maximum Life 5% Replenish Life +30 Damage Reduced by 7 Physical Damage Received Reduced by 10-15% |
| Cure | Shael + lo + Tal | Helm | +20% Faster Hit Recovery +75-100% Enhanced Defense +10 to Vitality Increase Maximum Life 5% Poison Resist +40-60% Poison Length Reduced by 75% |
| Ground | Shael + lo + Ort | Helm | +20% Faster Hit Recovery +75-100% Enhanced Defense +10 to Vitality Increase Maximum Life 5% Lightning Resist +40-60% Lightning Absorb +10-15% |
| Hearth | Shael + lo + Thul | Helm | +20% Faster Hit Recovery +75-100% Enhanced Defense +10 to Vitality Increase Maximum Life 5% Cold Resist +40-60% Cold Absorb +10-15% |
| Temper | Shael + lo + Ral | Helm | +20% Faster Hit Recovery +75-100% Enhanced Defense +10 to Vitality Increase Maximum Life 5% Fire Resist +40-60% Fire Absorb +10-15% |
| Hustle | Shael + Ko + Eld | Any Weapon or Armor | Armor: +50% Faster Run/Walk +20% Increased Attack Speed +20% Faster Hit Recovery +10 to Dexterity 50% Slower Stamina Drain Weapon: 5% Chance to cast level nine Burst of Speed on striking +30% Increased Attack Speed +130-150% Enhanced Damage +75% Damage to Undead +50 to Attack Rating against Undead +10 to Dexterity |
| Mosaic | Mal + Gul + Thul | Claw | +25% chance for finishing moves to not consume charges +2 to Martial Arts (Assassin only) +20% Increased Attack Speed +200-250% Enhanced Damage +20% Bonus to Attack Rating Adds 3-14 Cold Damage Prevent Monster Heal |
| Metamorphosis | lo + Cham + Fal | Helm | Werewolf strikes grant Mark for 180 seconds Mark of the Wolf: +20% Bonus to Attack Rating Increase Maximum Life 40% Werebear strikes grant Mark for 180 seconds Mark of the Bear: +25% Attack Speed +25% Chance of Crushing Blow Physical Damage Received Reduced by 20% +5 to Shape Shifting Skills (Druid only) +50-80% Enhanced Defense +10 to Strength +10 to Vitality All Resistances +10 Cannot be Frozen |
The runewords above will be available in Ladder and offline single-player mode. The majority of them concentrate on resistances following the addition of Sundering Charms in Patch 2.5. Hustle is a cheaper, earlier mobility runeword to build than the popular late-game Enigma, with the caveat that it does not include Teleport. Mosaic provides a buff specifically for martial arts Assassins, and Metamorphosis is a new runeword for shapeshifting Druid builds.
There will be changes to the above runewords following the testing phase, and other changes made to Diablo 2: Resurrected for the commencement of Season 3 on February 16, we expect further patch notes to arrive later this week.
If you are new to Diablo 2: Resurrected we have a number of guides to get you started in your journey across the world of Sanctuary. Check out our complete guide to current runes and runewords and everything you need to know about the Horadric cube and its potential. You can play Diablo 2: Resurrected and enjoy cross-save and cross-progression on Xbox and Windows PC.
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