Diablo 3 patch 2.3 guide

Diablo 3‘s patch 2.3 is launching this week. No time for patch notes? I get it. You just want to know what’s good and get back to mowing down demons! Read on for patch 2.3 essentials.

Kanai’s Cube

The Horadric Cube was a core part of the Diablo 2 experience, and Blizzard decided to introduce its big, bad cousin in Diablo 3. Kanai’s Cube functions as a fourth artisan for your camp, and you’ll want to take advantage of it immediately. To find the cube, start an Adventure Mode game on your preferred difficulty, and go to Bastion’s Keep Stronghold in Act III. Your old buddy, Zoltun Kulle, will be waiting for you in the lower right area of the camp. Talk to him for a quest, and then teleport to The Ruins of Sescheron (upper right section of the map).

 

You need to fight your way through the ruins until you find the doorway to a zone called Elder Sanctum.

Your goal is to ransack the sanctum for Kanai’s Cube.

If you find The Immortal Throne, you’re in the right general area. Another few minutes of searching should lead you into a small room containing Kanai’s Cube. Click it, and it’s yours. You don’t even flinch as the smoldering brand is pressed into your flesh. You are so tough! Return to Kulle in the camp and click on Kanai’s Cube to check out the new recipes.

Kanai’s Cube lets you destroy a legendary item to add its power to your arsenal. The collection system works just like transmogrification: once you have the power, you can always access it. The cube can also:

• Randomize the rolls on legendary/set items.
• Upgrade a rare (yellow) item to a legendary.
• Convert a set item to a different piece from that set.
• Remove the level requirement from an item.
• Convert gems to another color.
• Convert your plentiful crafting materials to bolster your scarcest.

Fortunately, almost all of the cube’s recipes are listed in game. However, most recipes require old and new crafting materials. The best way to acquire new materials in quantity is to head back to the teleporter and find the act with the Bounty Bonus (there can be only one).

Complete all five bounties in that act and Tyrael will give you Horadric and Bonus Caches, both of which contain new crafting materials.

The Bounty Bonus will then move to another act. Keep chasing this bonus as it moves from act to act until all bounties are complete. Why all the bounties? The new materials are specific to each act’s caches, and you’re going to need one of each to use the cube’s primary feature: harvesting powers from legendary items.

Check out our full overview of Kanai’s Cube.

Archive of Tal Rasha: Extract legendary power

Let’s get something out of the way. If you use the Extract Legendary Power recipe, you will destroy the associated legendary item. Poof. It’s gone, but its power will be added to your collection. It won’t work on set bonuses, it won’t give you a power from an item your class can’t normally equip, and it won’t work on Corrupted Ashbringer. (Sorry.)

Let’s say you have The Furnace. First of all, you’re lucky. But if you don’t want to equip it, it’s an excellent item from which to extract power. Toss this into the cube along with the required crafting materials, click transmute, and its maximum possible legendary affix roll (increases damage against elites by 50%) will be added to the list of selectable powers from the cube’s menu. Click on the weapon slot in the cube’s interface, then scroll through the list of all possible weapon powers until you find The Furnace, and select it.

Once chosen, that power is always active in addition to any other items, skills, and passives you have selected or equipped. There is no downside, no tradeoff, and nothing you had before is replaced. You can enjoy the power of that legendary item without having it equipped, and you can swap legendary affixes in town at any time. Also, don’t worry about putting exactly the right amount of crafting materials into the cube; it uses only as much as the recipe requires. The “Details” button on your character screen will show which cube powers you are currently using, just in case you forget.

You can select one power from each category:

• Weapons: Includes all main hand and off-hand items, including shields, mojos, quivers, etc.
• Armor: Hands, legs, feet, chest, belt, wrists, shoulders, and head.
• Jewelry: Rings and amulets.

This is like going Super Saiyan. By combining unique legendary affixes, you can turn your run-of-the-mill Demon Hunter into a chicken-shooting, poison-farting, slam-dancing DJ. Looking for a slightly more serious recommendation?

Consider:

• Weapon: The Furnace. Yeah, it’s rare for a reason — 50% more damage to elites is amazing.
• Armor: Leoric’s Crown. This doubles the effect of the gem socketed into your helm. Can’t find the king’s bling? Craft some Reaper’s Wraps. The recipe drops from Malthael, but you already knew that.
• Jewelry: Convention of Elements. Its effect triples the damage of your favorite element for four seconds, 25% of the time. No luck finding one of those? Use the Ring of Royal Grandeur to activate set bonuses. You can reliably farm this from Act I bounty boxes.

Sure, the cube has other useful recipes — if you saved up a lot of crafting materials. Focus on leveling and acquiring loot if you’re just starting out in Season 4. You can optimize your items once you’re swimming in Forgotten Souls and Death’s Breaths.

Secret recipes

If you’re playing a new character in Season 4, the legendary powers granted by the cube will be your primary goal. However, two secret recipes can be extremely useful as you work to gain a seasonal foothold. You can transmute a Puzzle Ring to open a goblin portal, setting yourself up with more gold than Scrooge McDuck at the top of a full vault. You also can transmute a Bovine Bardiche to open Not The Cow Level for some beefy experience gains.

Good riddance, Realm of Trials

Nephalem Rifts no longer require Rift Keystone Fragments, and the repetitive Realm of Trials has been removed from the game. Your old Rift Keystone Fragments can be sold at a vendor for a bit of gold, and the old Greater Rift Keystones are now generic. Entering a Greater Rift is now as simple as selecting the desired tier from a drop down menu at the Nephalem Obelisk, up to one tier higher than your previous best. Oh, and you can leave the generic Greater Rift Keystones in your stash and still start a Greater Rift — one less item to tote around. Remember, legendary/set item drop rates are at their highest in Greater Rifts; if you want loot, spend time in there.

Torment me more

Level 70 characters now have more Torment difficulty options. You can drag your character through Torment VII through Torment X, with commensurate increases in bonus experience and gold find values. These are equivalent to Greater Rift Tiers:

• Torment VII – Greater Rift Tier 30
• Torment VIII – Greater Rift Tier 35
• Torment IX – Greater Rift Tier 40
• Torment X – Greater Rift Tier 45

Infernal Amulets!

Keywardens now drop whole Infernal Machines instead of keys. Your current stash of keys will be converted appropriately. This makes farming a Hellfire Amulet (which now rolls with a guaranteed socket, eliminating a common failure point) much easier.

What’s up with crafting?

Haedrig is so over your old and busted Forgotten Souls. Now any time you want him to craft a pair of Reaper’s Wraps (or any other legendary/set item), he’s going to demand the materials you receive from Horadric Caches and Bonus Caches. What an opportunist! If you happened to have any low-level (1–60) crafting materials saved up prior to patch 2.3, they’ve been converted into higher-level (61–70) versions as part of a consolidation pass that Blizzard implemented to reduce inventory cruft. We have a full guide to crafting in patch 2.3.

August and everything after

Patch 2.3 launches on Tuesday, August 25, 2015, and Season 4 starts the following Friday, August 28, 2015. Happy slaying!