Inside look: Season 20's new sets featuring Rhykker

CJ 'Rhykker' Miozzi didn’t think he was going to like Diablo III Seasons when they first came out.

“I thought, well, I have my main character and all this progress. Why would I want to do a fresh start?” he recalls.

“I’ve been playing this game for seven years, and I think a big part of what keeps me playing is changing things up. But in general, it’s hard for me to pick a favorite anything,” he says with a laugh.

We were eager to hear his thoughts on the three new armor sets that arrived in Diablo III Patch 2.6.8 on March 3. To take a look at the mechanical guts of these new sets yourself, be sure to check out our latest patch notes.

Barbarian class set: Horde of the Ninety Savages

This new set relies on a primary Barbarian skill called Frenzy, a single-target attack that accelerates your attack speed each time it lands. With the full Horde of the Ninety Savages set bonus, Frenzy deals even more damage, and each strike is spread to all enemies in a 15-yard radius. If you like swinging your weapon at breakneck speeds, this set may be for you.

“For a long time, people have been asking for a Frenzy build,” says Rhykker. “There was one in the past, but it sort of fell behind.”

Now the Frenzy Barbarian may be poised for a furious return.

“[The set] really captures the fantasy of the Frenzy Barb—the visceral thrill of ridiculous attack speed,” Rhykker says. “It’s taking a skill that people already like to build around and super-boosting it.”

Witch Doctor class set: Mundunugu's Regalia

The Mundunugu’s Regalia set reinvigorates a classic fan-favorite build based around the Witch Doctor skill Spirit Barrage: a mid-range projectile attack that bombards enemies with spectral bolts.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see this become the top new Witch Doctor build—and possibly one of the top builds in the game,” Rhykker says.

Spirit Barrage isn’t the only Witch Doctor skill enhanced by this set. Mundunugu’s Regalia creates a new play experience in concert with Big Bad Voodoo, which normally grants a buff in a limited area. With this set, the Big Bad Voodoo buff will now follow you.

“It’s a cool way to change up the more traditional Spirit Barrage Witch Doctor [build],” Rhykker says. “It alters how one of the skills operates, and that’s something I find really interesting. I like when sets do things that you can’t normally accomplish, so that you can only get that play experience with the set.”

Wizard class set: The Typhon's Veil

The Typhon's Veil class set creates a completely new interaction with the Wizard's Hydra skill, which normally spawns a single elemental Hydra that independently attacks your enemies. With this set, Hydras are modified to grow additional heads and deal even more fearsome damage. The trade-off is that every time you take damage, one of your Hydra heads die off, reducing the damage reduction the set otherwise provides.

“There were some concerns about how [the concept] would operate,” he says, referring to the community’s worries about being able to keep the Hydras alive long enough to see payoff with the build."

In response, we made some adjustments to the set on the Public Test Realm (PTR). One change prevents the Hydra heads from dying off too quickly (they now cannot die more than once every two seconds). Additionally, the amount of additional damage each head deals was further increased in response to player feedback.

Rhykker finds The Typhon’s Veil the most mechanically interesting of the three new sets.

“It modifies the skill by making your Hydra have more heads," he says. "So that’s already a visual change, but there’s also an operative change in the skill. Integrating [those changes] with the heads dying whenever you take damage is a very interesting concept to me.”

After testing the adjustments on the PTR, Rhykker is optimistic about the changes and looking forward to trying the build in the next Season.

Try the class sets today

All three class sets are now available for play in Patch 2.6.8. Try them out now or give them a go when Season 20 begins on March 13! Read the full 2.6.8 patch notes here. See you in Hell.