Diablo 3 real-money auction house delayed as Blizzard details hotfix updates

Blizzard has released its full list of hotfixes for Diablo III, after confirming earlier this week that the Monk’s Boon of Protection skill had been changed.

Hotfixes are applied from the server, so users aren’t required to download a patch.

Blizzard is also continuing its investigation into the mysterious case of missing achievements, and with so much work going on straightening out the servers it has further delayed the launch of its real-money Auction House, which now has no concrete launch date.

“Since the game’s launch, we’ve applied a number of hotfixes to address gameplay issues, made tweaks to improve our service stability, and performed occasional server maintenance when necessary to ensure that in the long term, players have the best gameplay experience possible,” wrote community manager Nethaera on the Battle.net forums.

“Moving forward, additional server maintenances will be required – and sometime next week, we plan to release a game update in the form of a patch that will further address client issues and apply additional bug fixes.”

“In light of the post-launch obstacles we’ve encountered, we have made the decision to move the launch of the real-money auction house beyond the previously estimated May time frame. As we mentioned in our original announcement, our goal has always been to ensure everyone has the smoothest experience possible when the real-money auction house launches, and we need a bit more time to iron out the existing general stability and gameplay issues before that feature goes live.”

Meanwhile, the full list of hotfixes:

Spoiler warning: Some of these fixes may spoil bits and bobs that happen in the campaign, though if you can’t guess the end boss of Diablo III by now then there’s probably something wrong with you.

MAY 22

General

• Players will now receive an error message when attempting to remove a gem from an item with no sockets
• Players will now properly have their casting interrupted when attacked while performing resurrect on a fallen group member
• Resolved over 30 game and service crashes affecting players

Classes

Demon Hunter

Active Skills

• Smoke Screen
• Duration reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second (tooltip will still show 2 seconds)
• Skill Rune – Lingering Fog
• Now increases the duration of Smoke Screen to 1.5 (tooltip will still show 3 seconds)

Monk

Active Skills

• Fists of Thunder
• Skill Rune – Quickening
• Fixed an issue that was causing spirit regeneration to incorrectly trigger off critical hits from other sources, such as Sweeping Wind
• Mantra of Healing
• Mantra of Healing will now correctly provide only two times the base healing effect for the first 3 seconds after activation, down from four times the base healing effect (tooltip will still show the old value)
• Skill Rune – Boon of Protection
• A maximum absorption amount has been set to 1000 Life. This skill will be redesigned in an upcoming patch

Wizard

Active Skills

• Arcane Torrent
• Skill Rune – Cascade
• Fixed an issue that was causing Arcane Torrent to fire 3 new missiles per kill instead of only 1 new missile per kill
• Number of new missiles generated from this rune will now cap at 10 missiles
• Energy Armor
• Skill Rune – Force Armor
• Amount of damage absorbed from a single attack will now cap at 100% of a player’s maximum Life

Items

• The rare chest in the Town Cellar in Alcarnus will now only spawn 50% of the time, down from 100%
• Players can no longer dual-wield two-handed weapons

MAY 18

Classes

Monk

Active Skills

• Serenity
• Skill Rune – Tranquility
• Duration of immunity granted to nearby allies from crowd control effects reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second

Encounters

• Players will no longer remain invulnerable to attacks after defeating Diablo.
• Players can no longer become stuck during Diablo’s Shadow Grab ability if a player blinds Diablo while Shadow Grab is being cast.

Items

• Equipping a shield on a follower as a demon hunter will no longer disconnect you from the game.

Quests

Act I

• Players can now always interact with Karyna during the quest and quest step “Trailing the Coven : Talk to Karyna” when they resume from a save.

Act II

• The Enchantress will now always appear during the quest and quest step “Shadows in the Desert : Disrupt the Hidden Conclave.”

Act IV

• Tyrael will now always be present for the in-game cutscene during the quest and quest step “Prime Evil : Climb to the Pinnacle of Heaven in the Silver Spire.”