14 DAY TRIAL // Diablo 3 Patch 2.2.1 is now live worldwide, introducing a number of bug fixes and continuing the work Blizzard Entertainment started back in 2.2.0.
Although the previous patch had all the juicy new stuff, actually altering the way the game is played at the highest skill echelons, this smaller one also brings some much-needed fixes.
The most important class changes are the reduced visual noise for the tornadoes spawned by Whirldwind in conjunction with the Dust Devils skill rune, affecting one of the Barbarian's most popular builds, and a fix to an issue that affected Monks using Dashing Strike with the Raiment of a Thousand Storms set, another top-level build.
In addition to this, several other item- and mob-related fixes have been implemented, and the recently added social button now displays how many of your friends are online, as well as notifications from clans or communities.
The update also introduces a change that's not in the patch notes, moving the Blood Shard counter to the right of the inventory screen. This makes it harder to quickly glance at your shard total, since it's so far removed from the stuff you're normally staring at.
There are still a lot of things that need improving
Developer Blizzard Entertainment has done a pretty good job with the action role-playing game so far, continually improving the experience for its fans, but there are still many things to be taken care of.
The Crusader and Witch Doctor classes don't have enough damage potential to make them a worthwhile choice for people who want to push their Greater Rift performance, and the devs are allegedly planning to remove permanent crowd control from the game.
The community fears that those classes might lose the utility they currently have, as zero-damage buffers specialized in keeping things under control while their buddies dish out the pain.
The community is fervently asking for a lot of changes, including better buff management, as things can get pretty confusing during multiplayer runs where several effects overlap, leading to a less than optimal experience for classes that rely on visual cues to see their set activations, for instance.
Hopefully, Blizzard will be able to address these issues, and we'll see bigger stashes and the removal of the trials system implemented soon.