I believe I might have found the "cause" but no real way to fix without having access to a dev build to enable/disabled settings to verify. Issue stems from excessive GPU utilization, I use to run D2 at 1440p 100% render scale with everything High/Highest and still hit 144hz in most areas on a 1080Ti and 3700x, however even at the default spawn by Variks in BL, I get instant 100% GPU usage at lowest pre-set at 1440p 100% render scaling. It seems whatever was changed "graphically" from pre BL to post BL, is causing excessive GPU usage leading to far lower FPS than normal (hence many systems having this issue regardless of Vendor, model or CPU make meaning this has to be a underlying fault with graphical changes. [b]I would prefer if people could verify this by simply noting GPU usage in low FPS areas to somewhat confirm my theory, Ive noticed much higher GPU usage on a lower preset Post BL than I did Pre BL and lighting is the only major graphical change to take place. [/b] This now leads me into my next theory which is Post BL Lightening was changed and I noticed this instantly how different it looked, it seems to be, [b]either the game is rendering to many lights, point lights, dynamic lights and volumetric lighting effects hence the excessive GPU usage[/b], [b]especially in the Volumetric lighting effects or Volumetric particle effects[/b] (that effect light sources passing through) This is very noticeable in Scarlet Keep strike, compare Pre BL Scarlet Keep with Post BL Scarlet Keep and you will see instantly how Volumetric effects have effectively "double/trippled" in effects with even the Lowest preset on Post BL showing no signs of it being "turned off or heavily reduced" I have a very suspicious feeling the lower FPS drops are due to simply the GPU being used to much for arbitrary visual gains (mainly lighting which also effects shadows) these typically are the two biggest hitters to FPS in any game, and right now Lighting quality seems to have no real changed from Highest to lowest preset (meaning its a fixed value of some sort) To put this into perspective, the Variks spawn node in Europa, on my current preset of "lowest" at 1440p with a render scale of 25% I hit a GPU usage of around 75-80% which for a 25% render scalin at 1440p is utterly unacceptable considering the resolution scaling, to also confirm this result, I set the display size to 1280x720p with a render scale of 100% (so still 1280x720p) and still see excessive GPU usage in the 80% mark or higher which again for a resolution of this size means something is heavily taking GPU to much.