Diablo III: Rise of the Necromancer Beta Test Launched

According to the official Blizzard Entertainment’s blog, the closed beta for Diablo III’s Necromancer update is now live. The blog post in question provides instructions on how to access the beta had you been invited and lists the preliminary patch notes for the 2.6.0 patch. Here’s an excerpt:

GENERAL

• New Feature: Challenge Rifts
  • Explore new builds created by fellow players in a weekly static dungeon. You can access these through the main screen, similar to Adventure Mode and Campaign Mode.
    • Note: New Challenge Rifts may be available more frequently during the beta.

CLASSES

• New Class: Necromancer
  • As a master of the dark arts, you wield the powers of life and death necessary to restore the Balance! Necromancers are powerful spell casters who lay waste to their enemies using curses and reanimation—along with an obedient cadre of pets. This new class employs a controlled gameplay style using the raw materials of life: blood and bone.
• Skills
  • Corpse Explosion
    • Base Rune
      • Target an area exploding all corpses within 11 yards dealing 150% 250% weapon damage to enemies within 20 yards
    • Close Quarters
      • Explodes corpses close to you, dealing 200% 325% weapon damage to enemies within 20 yards
  • Corpse Lance
    • Base Rune
      • Target an enemy to summon projectiles from nearby corpses that cause 750% 900% weapon damage to the target
  • Land of the Dead
    • Base Rune
      • All corpse skills can be used at will for 5 10 seconds
  • Army of the Dead
    • Base Rune
      • Raise a massive skeletal army to pummel the targeted location dealing 3,000% 12,000% weapon damage in a 15 yard radius
    • Frozen Army
      • Weapon damage increased to 3,600% 12,000% and they attack all enemies in a line
    • Dead Storm
      • Raise a storm of the dead that surround you damaging enemies for 2,000% 15,500% weapon damage over 5 seconds
    • Unconventional Warfare
      • Damage increased to 50,000% total weapon damage
    • Catatonic Grasp
      • Has been renamed to Blighted Grasp
      • Has been redesigned
        • Skeletal hands raise from the ground damaging enemies within 15 yards for 14,000% total weapon damage as Poison over 5 seconds
• Passives
  • Final Service
    • When this passive successfully prevents death, the Necromancer is immune to incoming damage for 4 seconds
      • Note: The tooltip does not currently reflect this
• Bug Fixes
  • Decay Golem
    • Fixed an issue where Decay golem was not benefiting from the unlimited corpses granted by Land of the Dead

ADVENTURE MODE

• New Zones: The Moors & The Temple of the Firstborn
  • The fog-enshrouded Moors and the darkened Temple of the Firstborn can be explored in Adventure Mode through a new waypoint on the Act 2 map.
• Set Dungeons
  • The user interface has been updated to better explain tier completion requirements.
    • With this, the basic completion tier must be finished within the given time limit.
  • The time limit to complete a Set Dungeon has been increased to 5 minutes
  • Necromancer Set Dungeons have been added to Adventure Mode
• Bounties
  • Four new Waypoints have appeared in Act IV. Each one has bounties to complete. These Realms of Fate are the unintended consequences of the battle between the nephalem and Diablo in the High Heavens.
• Greater Rifts
  • Players who die in solo Greater Rifts can now choose to immediately resurrect. When choosing this option, the time remaining on your death timer will be removed from the remaining Greater Rift time and your cooldowns will be advanced by the same amount.
• PTR Only
  • Fixed an issue which sometimes prevented players from completing the “Clear the Forgotten Well” bounty