Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls expansion announced

Blizzard announced today a new expansion to Diablo 3, known as Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls.

This new installment in the series is being described as a "feature-rich expansion." Reaper of Souls introduces the new Crusader class which brings the total of playable classes to six, an increased level cap to 70, a new act and new reigning enemy Malthael.

According to Blizzard, Malthael is the fallen angel of wisdom, an angel of death, who heads a legion of death angels. In this new narrative, Malthael is working to reap both demons and humans alike, the latter being the spawn of both angels and demons.

Reaper of Souls will also feature new monster types. This includes the range casting Seraphs, the summoner of the dead, the hulking Executioners and the fallen Death Maidens. In the tradition of the Diablo series, the new Westmarch environment will be entirely randomizable, and this is where players will begin their trek.

Fighting these new enemy types is The Crusader class, described as a mid-range melee class whose combat style is centered around shields, flails and mid-range spells.

Blizzard is emphasizing its loot system, calling this new system "loot 2.0." The game will feature fewer loot drops but better loot over all. The expansion will feature a new addition called "Smart Drops" which offers a percentage chance that legendary items dropped are aimed toward your class.

Reaper of Souls will on average offer users 73 white items, 266 blue items, 83 yellow items and six legendary items. In other words, players will on average see legendary items drop more often than before while the number of lesser items is greatly reduced.

The game also introduces a new artisan, the mystic, who is able to both transmogrify items which changes their appearance and enchant them which re-rolls their affixes.

Finally, Blizzard is also working to offer different options to Diablo 3's endgame. This includes 15-to-20 minute loot runs and upgrades to the game's paragon system. The paragon system is now account-wide and will affect all characters on a single account. Additionally, there will no longer be a restriction to paragon points used to tweak the statistics of any of your characters.