The Finals Added as a Supported Platform

The Finals has been added as a supported platform. Example screenshots can be found on the Support Games wiki

The Finals matches will be 3 Clusters of Fire plus any applicable party size multipliers.

The Finals is a free-to-play hero shooter available on PC (Steam) Xbox and PS5 themed around being contestants in a futuristic deathmatch gameshow. Be sure to check out Ikarri’s Finals comps for Heavy, Medium and Light characters.

Diablo 3 Cluster Adjustments

I’m not going to spin things here, this is a cluster nerf. Let’s go ahead and rip the proverbial band-aid off. Changes are highlighted.

So first off, the multipliers have been simplified some. Secondly, you'll notice Nephalem rifts and Greater Rifts up to 75 are not affected by this change. The 76-100 tier and 100+ tier have had a reduction. The hardest hit is the 100+ tier which has been replaced with a 100 to 119 tier and reduced from an effective output of 3 clusters per rift on normal to 2.

That’s the what, how about the why. Recently I noticed an uptick in Greater Rift 101 submissions with times at or around 2 minutes. 3 clusters for 2 minutes seemed off so I did some research. The last time Diablo 3 values were adjusted was in 2021, so it was worth doing a review. I hadn’t played the game myself in some time so I created a seasonal character and with the help of Warp, Ikarri and Sarin I got leveled and geared up pretty quickly. Armed with some understanding of the current season’s meta builds I started looking at the submission data. I reviewed over 100 greater rift submissions and with various party permutations our top D3 players were clearing GR 101s in an average of 2 minutes. I reached out to some of our high level players for their perspective and I’m glad I did because they gave me a lot to think about. After considering a few different courses of action with the Fist staff this is what we came up with to submit for GM approval. Some say it’s too harsh, some say it doesn’t go far enough.

I’m being as transparent as possible with my process so hopefully my intent is at least understood even if people don’t agree with the outcome. Nerfing a popular platform is one of those tough things a Fist has to do from time to time. A 33% nerf to cluster outputs sucks, I get it. I’ve been there. It’s not a punishment, no one was doing anything wrong, I love members getting lots of clusters. In my past life I’ve felt sort of targeted for gaming too much, at least how I saw it at the time, so I understand the feeling. Ultimately as Fist I have an obligation to maintain some semblance of balance, as best I can. An imbalance like 1.5 clusters a minute if left unchecked would create a situation where anyone who seriously wanted to compete in a cluster race would almost be forced to play Diablo 3. Competition runners can set cluster caps but in reality, most don’t and I need to do a better job of educating people that’s a thing you can do. Now you may be saying to yourself, “a cluster a minute is still a lot” and it is but given the realities of casual queue where it’s very possible to get that with a variety of games it’s not far outside the norm. This is a start and we’ll see where it goes. I expect my successors will be grappling with D3 balance long after this tiger has retired.

In any case, I hope I’ve at least explained myself well enough so people understand even if they don’t agree.

Closing

So hop in the Finals, just don’t get too salty! Oh and check out the Diablo 3 Solo Challenge Rift competition.

Rajhin Cindertail aka Turel

Fist of the Brotherhood