Diablo – How does the “Soul Harvest” skill work

As of a recent beta patch, runes are no longer items that are dropped. Instead they are basically skill modifiers that are unlocked as you level up. Each time you level up, you will unlock new skills and/or rune choices that affect your existing skills. You choose a certain number of skills, and a corresponding rune for each, to equip as your skill set. Each skill can have up to 6 different rune versions of it, but you must select which one you want to have equipped at any time. There are no longer different levels of rune abilities, it is simply a matter of having it unlocked or not.

I finally got this rune, and tested it out.

I can confirm that effect is triggered, and that it will trigger off of large groups of normal monsters as well as bosses and elites, although it seemed to take more than 5 monsters before the effect was triggered. Exactly how many more I could not be certain of, because the monsters were already dying by the time I saw it trigger.

It seems to attack quite a bit faster than normal, so I'd say the 35% attack speed is a 35% bonus, rather than 35% of normal attack rate.

His damage appeared to be roughly 3x normal (I was seeing hits with the buff around 300, with crits around 450, and hits without the buff were in the 75-125 range), so again, the "200% Physical damage" appears to be +200% additional damage.

The buff lasts about 15 seconds.

All in all, this is a pretty nice buff.