Diablo II 1.10 Beta Test begins

[Taem]

- It looks like the hellforge quests can drop from r01 to r25 now.  I don't know what the specific ranges are for each difficulty.

- A monster "Diablo Clone" has drop group of "ROP", which points to in Nightmare and mysterious object "Annihilus" -- dropping 1 out of 5 times.  In Hell, "Annihilus" drops every time.

- Countess now drops out of Runes 4 in normal, Runes 8 in nightmare, Runes 12 in Hell, 3 of 4 times.  Runes 4 is up to r08.  Runes 8 is up to rune r16.  Runes 12 is up to r24.  This isn't new is it?

- Rune drop rate looks approximately halved.

I just did countess with my friends in a IP-peer to peer game and got ZERO runes. Not one. We did it again with the same result. That was the first time any of us had killed her in normal because we made all new characters for both tests.

I also confirm that auras kick in between 0.5 - 2 seconds and lasts only 2 seconds instead of 4 (no more aura swapping). This is easily noticable with Conviction.

EDIT - some dissapointing expections not met with the paladin, IMO. His skill synergies are so sporatic now. Also, he is still a cookie cutter! You can't take any of the other auras without fanatisicm or something already cookie cutter. You have NO CHOICE with the 1.1 patch and a paladin but to become cookie cutter for any usefullness, either for survival or for synergies for other skills - (strickly my opinion).

Also, I read in numerous spots that quests were suppose to of changed, but have not seen any changes in them from act 1-3 yet (yes, we're already that far). So... Well I have seen 1, sort of. You can't take TP's from durance 2 unless you've killed the council in Travincial.

EDIT 2 - I also remember reading that the casting speed of most spells would become usable (instead of a stupid casting delay because of graphic intensive spells), but have yet to see this. Any one notice a spell that previously had a casting delay have the casting delay removed, or even lessened?

EDIT 3 - BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... YES!!!! My friends ITH weapon turned into a regular colosus blade :D SO there go the ITH's for once and for all. He didn't have any bugged items or dupes to test out, but I'm glad to see at least ITh's, and hopefully Quarks dissappearing FOR GOOD!!!! Horray!