What should the Diablo 3 Season 18 theme be?

UPDATE: The Season 18 PTR is now up and the new Season 18 buff has been revealed.

We’ve talked about this in a Breakfast Topic, but we might as well really get in there and speculate — when Season 18 rolls around, what should the Season’s theme be? Season 14, the Season of Greed, was one of the most popular Seasons and it simply made Treasure Goblins spawn in pairs, meaning you could go nuts trying to kill them and get more loot. It was a simple Season, followed by another fairly simple Season, the Boon of the Horadrim, which made twice as many Horadric Caches drop when bounties were complete. Both of those were much less involved than Season 16’s Season of Grandeur or the current Season of Nightmares. It’s important to remember that giving the Seasonal player a Legendary or Set Bonus power was not always the way a Season worked, and that we could go pretty far afield in terms of what the theme of the Season can/should be.

So let’s start by looking at Season 18, and thinking what, if anything, would be an interesting theme for the Season. What would change things up the most? What would you be most interested in? Here are some options to consider.

The Season of Worship

Shrines and Pylons are some of the most interesting aspects of Diablo 3 — finding and clicking on one can turn a disastrous encounter into a glorious victory, depending on the random enchantment that the Shrine/Pylon bestows on you. The thing about these blessings is that they only last two minutes. Unless you equip the Gloves of Worship, that is. While the Gloves of Worship only work on Shrine blessings and not Pylons, I think for a Season theme you’d want the benefit to extend to Nephalem and Greater Rifts and not just for bounties and story mode. So for the Season of Worship, the Gloves of Worship power could buff Shrines to 10 minutes and Pylon duration could increase by 200%. It would still be a significant bonus for people pushing Greater Rifts, while not being overpowered –if you had Immune to Damage from the Shielding Pylon, you could essentially stomp everything, so having it only go up to 2 minutes would be good, but not ridiculous.

The Primal Season

Primal Ancient Legendaries do not drop very often. However, the first time you clear Greater Rift 70 solo, you unlock them, and are guaranteed a Primal Ancient Legendary will drop from that GR. After that, the extremely low drop rate on Primals means you might get one, but you’ll only start to see them reliably once you’re at GR 90+. But what if the theme of a Season was that every day, your first GR of the day once you’ve cleared GR 70 would guarantee at least one Primal Ancient would drop? It still wouldn’t flood you with Primal Ancients — you’d get one for sure, and it wouldn’t be a guarantee of it being any good — but it would be a nice, reliable way to make sure logging in and clearing a Greater Rift every day.

The Season of Legends

This one goes back to the Season of Greed for its inspiration, and it’s a simple one — double the drop rate on legendary items. Every time a legendary item drops, two of that item drop instead, with all the random chance for each to be Ancient or Primal Ancient right there. So say you kill a Treasure Goblin that would normally drop 4 legendaries — it instead drops 8, two pairs of each item.

Season of the Endless Walk

The Endless Walk set is one I don’t see a lot of players talk about, but it’s one I really love. The 50% damage reduction while you’re moving is brilliant for specs that are high mobility, while the 100% damage boost while standing still is lovely for when you gather up a room full of demons and then just stop running and go wild with AOE damage. Having this set bonus be a part of the theme for Season 18 would make for a fascinating combination of mobility and turreting, and it would mean you wouldn’t have to wear the set to get the benefit. Abilities like Seismic Slam or Disintegrate would get the benefit of that 100% damage bonus making them more compelling options.

Season of the Companions

Imagine if, instead of just having one companion with you when you were soloing, you could have two? Or if you were in a multiplayer group, you could still bring one of your companions along? You could solo Greater Rifts with the Templar for tanking and the Enchantress for debuffing and damaging, or you could bring the Scoundrel along while running with your Demon Hunter friend because you’re just a giant troll.

Season of the Windseeker

This one’s real easy. You’d get the legendary power of Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker:

• Chance on hit to blast your enemy with Lightning, dealing 279–372% damage as Lightning and then jumping to additional nearby enemies. Each enemy hit has their attack speed and movement speed reduced by 30% for 3 seconds. Jumps up to 5 targets

I mean, it’s kind of basic, but it’s a fun and powerful bonus attack that can damage enemies and make them slower both on attack and pursuit, making it a fun power to add to the mix. While it’s not my absolute favorite weapon to use in Kanai’s Cube — that would be The Furnace — having it as a Seasonal theme would mean never having to make that decision.

Okay, that’s probably enough speculating on what Season 18’s theme could or might be. In the end, we won’t know until we get there, but I’d love it if Blizzard went to even stranger heights for the theme — imagine a Season of the Skilledwhere every character got a fifth passive skill? That could be crazy fun.