Season 28 begins on February 24th
Season 28 Release Date
Season 28 “Rites of Sanctuary,” will begin on February 24th at 5PM (PDT/CEST/KST) shortly after the next Diablo 3 update. This update is expected to be released on February 21st.
Read more on the official news post here.
Season Theme
For Season 28, Rites of Sanctuary, we’re travelling deep into the mysterious ruins of the Festering Woods. Amid a hunting expedition, citizens hailing from New Tristram stumbled across an ominous Altar carved from an archaic material bearing cryptic markings. Shaken to their core by the eldritch aroma of the monolith, they’ve enlisted the assistance of brave Nephalem willing to investigate this sinister discovery that was once left to time—the Altar of Rites.
Season 28 brings a brand new progression feature called the Altar of Rites that grants tremendous powers to your entire account in exchange for sacrifices. It requires you to farm Bounties, kill the Ubers, craft the Staff of Herding, and more. Completing all 26 of these tasks, along with sacrificing 6 Primal Ancients grants you unbelievable Damage, Defense, Quality of Life, Increased Drops, 3 Potion Super Powers, and the juicy Wings of Terror. We will have full Guides on Unlocking the Altar and the Altar Mechanics coming soon to learn everything about this fantastic Season!
Suggested Path for most Builds:
Node 2: Choose Anointed to gain a full set of 70 yellows from level 18-70!
Node 6: Rush to gain double Bounties to help unlock other Nodes in the Altar.
Nodes 7-14: These are the last Nodes you can gain until the Challenge Rift resets. Take at least 1 Node at the bottom of each path to unlock all 3 Potion Super Powers. Pick up the Mirror Node at the top for a colossal 41% extra XP all season. Remember to unlock Father once you clear GR70 solo and have your first Primal!
Nodes 15-26: Pick up the final Quality of Life, Damage, and Defense Nodes (in that order) to finish the Altar.
Potion Super Powers: Take Father first, then Mother, and finally Mortal.
Disclaimer: The Mortal and Mother Potions require you to salvage 2 and 3 Primals respectively. Unlock them as soon as you have those materials as they don't cost a point!
Use the Scroll Bar to see Altar Progression
Some builds benefit more than others from these Altar of Rite powers. We will update our dedicated Guides for each Build in Diablo 3 and our Tier Lists accordingly.
New Cube Receipt: Primordial Ashes & Curiosity of Lorath Nahr
A part of the Season 27 theme in here to stay! Salvaging a Primal item now gives you 55 Primordial Ashes. This resource is used only in one Kanai's Cube recipe - Curiosity of Lorath Nahr. It allows you to spend 100 Primordial Ashes to upgrade one non-crafted Legendary or Set item to a Primal! The stats on the Primal item obtained this way are rolled normally and are in no way connected to the stats on the item used in the recipe.
Primals obtained this way are different from normal Primals. They have the same red border but also a reddish-pink tint in your inventory and are a subject to several restrictions:
- You can only equip one such Primal at a time.
- Your followers cannot equip these Primals at all.
- These items don't have any guarantees when it comes to sockets.
We will prepare a dedicated post explaining this further!
Post-PTR Patch Notes
The new patch notes for patch 2.7.5 include several changes compared to the last iteration we've seen on the PTR.
Season Theme
- Tenacity node damage bonus increased from 10% to 20%.
- Malice node damage bonus increased from 15% to 30%.
- Reach node now has a maximum range of 60 yards. (This was already the case on the PTR but wasn't mentioned in the tooltip)
- Father node no longer gives random full duration Pylon buffs. Instead it has a chance to grant a 16-second long Dimensional Power buff (same name as the buff you get from Power Pylon).
- Cost to unlock Seal #19 is changed from Never Ending Questions to 4 Tome of Set Dungeon Pages from your class.
Demon Hunter
- Natalya's Vengeance (2-piece bonus)
Reduce the cooldown of Rain of Vengeance by 4 seconds when you hit with a Hatred-generating attack or Hatred-spending attack.Hitting an enemy summons a Spike Trap if it is on your action bar. Each Spike Trap detonation restores 1 Discipline.- Spike Trap deals 100% increased damage to enemies affected by Caltrops. Spike Trap now instantly refreshes charges on use, no longer cost resources, and each detonation restores 2 Discipline.
- Natalya’s Vengeance (4-piece bonus)
Rain of Vengeance deals 100% increased damage.Laying a Spike Trap grants 60% damage reduction. The duration of this bonus is always equal to the number of already laid traps in seconds.- Spike Trap explosions will blast affected enemies towards the nearest set Caltrops. Laying a Spike Trap grants 75% damage reduction. The duration of this bonus is always equal to the number of already laid traps in seconds.
- Natalya’s Vengeance (6-piece bonus)
After casting Rain of Vengeance, deal 14,000% increased damage and take 60% reduced damage for 10 seconds.- Spike Trap deals 10,000% increased damage, and each consecutive blast from the detonation chain reaction will deal
10%25% more damage than the previous blast.
- Gears of Dreadlands (6-piece bonus)
- Your primary skills deal
15,000%27,500% increased damage.
- Your primary skills deal
Witch Doctor
- Spirit Barrage Manitou
- Summon a specter that hovers over you, unleashing spirit bolts at nearby enemies for
6,000%14,000% weapon damage as Cold over 20 seconds.
- Summon a specter that hovers over you, unleashing spirit bolts at nearby enemies for
Maxroll Updates
Our team is working hard to update Maxroll and all our content (Guides, Tier Lists, META) for Season 28 during the course of the next days! We expected to be done right in time before Season 28 starts and will keep you posted here. D3Planner will be updated completely once Patch 2.7.5 hits the live servers a few days later. Meanwhile, we wish you the best of luck in the final days of Season 27. Stay tuned!
The Maxroll D3 Team