Diablo III v1.0.7 Patch Preview

Following their promise to add dueling and more in the forthcoming v1.0.7 patch for Diablo III, Blizzard Entertainment has cranked out a full preview of what will be included in the ambitious action RPG update, as well as the mechanics that will be powering the new additions. I suppose new craftable items might be enough to bring some people back:
'¢ To duel another player, you'll need to speak with Nek the Brawler at the inn in New Tristram
'¢ Speaking with Nek will take you and your party to the Scorched Chapel, a new zone designed specifically for player combat
'¢ This zone has custom geometry and features four different areas: the church, the graveyard, the river, and the lake
'¢ Dueling currently supports up to four players in a Free-For-All format, which means you can battle your friends either one-on-one, three-player FFA, or a full four-player FFA

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Item Hunting

One of the most common requests we get from players is that they'd like to find more items (through drops or crafting) that are as awesome as those that they can get from the Auction House. The Auction House has its advantages: you get to pick the exact stats that you want, it can be thrilling to find a bargain, and if you find a cool drop that your character can't use, the Auction House provides a way to earn gold to put toward an item you prefer. But it has some downsides. The biggest downside is that some players find it more rewarding to collect items from slain monsters or crafting.

Patch 1.0.5 and the Infernal Machine event were successful in this regard, particularly with the Hellfire Ring reward. The Hellfire Ring is account-bound, and all the reagents to make it are also account-bound. So, you can't just go to the Auction House and buy a ring that someone else had found or made you have to farm the reagents and ultimately craft the Hellfire Ring yourself. And as you play through the event more, you have additional opportunities to roll new Hellfire Rings with potentially better stats (or stats that are more suited to your play style and needs).

New Crafting Recipes

We feel like the Hellfire Ring was a good first step and would like to introduce more items like it. So, working off this design, in 1.0.7 we're adding a new set of Rare crafting recipes that will create account-bound gloves, pants, wrists, a chest piece, and an amulet.

These new items will have six affixes and feature a primary stat (Str, Dex, Int, Vit) that extends higher than what is currently available in the respective slots. The items will also require an account-bound crafting reagent called Demonic Essence, which drops from Elite monsters in Inferno. Much like the reagents in the Infernal Machine event, the chance of getting a Demonic Essence will increase at higher Monster Power levels. Currently we are planning for a 20% chance to drop at Monster Power 0, and each Monster Power will increase the chance of Demonic Essence dropping by 15% (MP1 will be 23%, MP2 will be 26.45%, etc. up to 80.91% at MP10). These are the numbers we'll be going to PTR with and are subject to change.

The Archon Armor recipe (the chest piece) can be purchased from Squirt the Peddler for 1.5 million gold. The other plans will drop randomly in the world, but also have a 50% chance to drop off the following bosses when you have five stacks of Nephalem Valor:

'¢ Skeleton King
'¢ Spider Queen
'¢ Maghda
'¢ Zoltun Kulle
'¢ Ghom
'¢ Cydaea
'¢ Rakanoth
'¢ Izual