Diablo 3 Season 26 will introduce some important changes and exciting new challenges to the game, including the Echoing Nightmare, Greater Rift Changes, and more, and that all starts with patch 2.7.3.
Here's everything we know about Diablo 3 update 2.7.3, its patch notes, release date, and what it adds ahead of the massive launch of Season 26.
Echoing Nightmare
Perhaps the most important new addition to Diablo 3 in Season 26 is the Echoing Nightmare.
What is the Echoing Nightmare?
Echoing Nightmare is a new challenge in Diablo 3 that players can take on as end-game level content. In it, Nephalem who fell in the Greater Rift have to stand their ground until they are defeated or overwhelmed. This marks the first Seasonal Theme that introduces a new activity to the game.
Here's how The Echoing Nightmare works in Season 26:
- Players must collect a Petrified Scream from defeated Greater Rift Guardians to gain entry to the Echoing Nightmare.
- Echoing Nightmare can only be accessed with seasonal characters.
- Only one player is required to transmute a Petrified Scream to open an Echoing Nightmare in a multiplayer game.
- Similar to a boss encounter, all players in a multiplayer game must accept a prompt to enter.
- Inside the Echoing Nightmare, the difficulty scales as players progress in the encounter. Players can progress faster by defeating monsters quickly
- Echoing Nightmare offers the following rewards: EXP, Legendary Items, Blood Shards, Gems, and a new Legendary Gem, Whisper of Atonement.
- The Whisper of Atonement is a Legendary Gem used exclusively for augmenting Ancient Legendary items
2.7.3 Patch Notes: Echoing Nightmare
Here are some changes for The Echoing Nightmare in the Diablo 3 update 2.7.3 patch notes based on PTR testing:
- Rare monsters now spawn within an Echoing Nightmare
- Meteors now fall from the sky
- Hellish Machinations now appear, which spawn streams of Exploding Lunatics
- Rift Guardians now spawn
- Increased the frequency at which monsters spawn
- Updated the Shadow Clone explosion to better reflect the area of effect
- The exit timer has been increased to 60 seconds
- Increased the possible rank a Whisper of Atonement can drop to 125 based on the Tier completed
- Monsters in Echoing Nightmares can no longer be Frozen, Stunned, Rooted or Knocked Back
- Fixed a bug that caused Conduit Shrines to deal less damage than intended
- Monsters from the Echoing Nightmares no longer drop gold, items or health globes
- Adjusted the damage done by Exploding Lunatics and Meteors to be more deadly
- Adjust Meteor and Fallen Lunatic Molten damage to be Physical
- Adjusted the difficulty of Tiers 100+
- Replaced the Shield Pylon with a Speed Pylon
- Adjusted the EXP rewarded by Echoing Nightmares to be aligned with Greater Rift turn-in rewards
- Reduced the Echoing Nightmare closing timer to 30 seconds
- Prevented Echoing Nightmares from being opened in games lower than level 70
- Adjusted the drop rate of Petrified Screams from Greater Rift Guardians
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Greater Rift Updates
Developers also wanted to improve the Greater Rift experience with quality of life updates, balance changes, and more based on community feedback.
These are the most important changes in patch 2.7.3:
- Orek's Dream: Greater Rifts have a small chance to roll as Orek's Dream. These dreamlike rifts have a curated list of maps and monster compositions.
- 3 maps have been added and 2 maps have been removed from the Greater Rift pool.
- Added: Fields of Misery, Desolate Sands and Briarthorn Cemetery
- Removed: Sewers of Caldeum, and Hidden Aqueducts
- The probability of Greater Rift maps has been adjusted.
- The probability of monster groups has been adjusted.
- The following monsters have been adjusted to grant more progression and EXP within Greater Rifts.
- Blazing Guardians
- Smoldering Guardians
- Frost Guardian
- Noxious Guardian
- Shock Guardian
- Blood Clan Spearman
- Dark Moon Clan Impaler
- Moon Clan Impaler
- Blood Clan Impaler
- Ice Clan Impaler
- Hell Witch
- Vile Temptress
- Players can speak to Orek to close an active Greater Rift. This option is only available when in a single-player game.
- Increased the progression granted by Fallen Shaman, Fallen Conjurer, Fallen Prophet and Fallen Firemage.
- Updated visual effects upon entering an Orek's Dream.
- Updated the Orek's Dream vignette to be more pronounced.
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New Items & Changes
It's not only new enemies and challenges being added to Diablo 3 in Season 26, as there are some new items to go for too.
These are the new items and changes coming to them in Diablo 3 Season 26 courtesy of Patch 2.7.3:
Barbarian
- Legacy of Raekor (4-piece Bonus):
- Furious Charge gains the effect of every rune and deals 1000% increased damage.
- For every 1% Life you are missing, the damage of your Ancient Spear is increased by 2%.
- Legacy of Raekor (6-piece Bonus):
- Hitting enemies with Furious Charge or Weapon Throw increases the damage of your next Ancient Spear by 5500% and causes it to release multiple spears from its target.
- This effect stacks and each spear throw consumes a maximum of 5 stacks.
- Arreat's Law:
- Weapon Throw and Ancient Spear deal 150-200% increased damage.
- Weapon Throw generates up to 25-50 additional Fury based on the distance of the enemy hit. The generated Fury can go above the maximum cap by 200 Fury.
- Ancient Spear:
- Refunds up to 25-50 Fury based on the distance of the enemy hit and resets your Fury cap to its base maximum.
- The Three Hundredth Spear:
- Increase the damage of Weapon Throw and Ancient Spear by 150-200%. The attack speed of Weapon Throw is increased by 200%.
- Skular's Salvation:
- Increase the damage of Ancient Spear by 150-200%.
- If your Ancient Spear-Boulder Toss hits 5 or fewer enemies, the damage is increased by 100%.
Crusader
- Thorns of the Invoker:
- The attack speed of Punish and Slash are increased by 100% and deal 67,500% of your Thorns damage.
- Norvald's Fervor:
- Gain 200% increased damage while using Steed Charge and for 5 seconds after it ends.
Monk
- All Mystic Allies spawned by Inna's Mantra 6-piece bonus now have their duration refreshed with each attack.
- Mystic Ally - Fire Ally:
- Mini allies now have Passability.
- Mystic Ally - Earth Ally:
- Earth Ally boulders speed has been increased. Boulders always leash to the player regardless of how many monsters are on screen.
- Prevented Earth Ally boulders from being slowed by missile dampening.
- Bindings of the Lesser Gods:
- Enemies hit by your Cyclone Strike take 150%-200% more damage from your Mystic Ally for 5 seconds.
Bug Fixes
Diablo 3 patch 2.7.3 offers the following bug fixes ahead of Season 26:
- Prevented players from changing difficulty while an Echoing Nightmare is active.
- Fixed a bug where Boon of the Hoarder allowed gold to drop in Echoing Nightmares.
- Fixed a bug where Orek's Dream vignette sometimes goes away on Shrouded Moors and Festering Woods when entering anything other than level 1.
- Fixed a bug that caused Orek's Dream opening VFX to display inconsistently.