I'd like to discuss fire and electricity (or if you prefer, lightning) in D3. Poison and Cold both have purpose, effects that are useful. But fire and electricity are both sub-par when compared.
In D2, fire was useless. Everything was immune to in on Hell difficulty, and it didn't have the highest damage threshold of the 4 elements anyway. It had no added bonuses like damage over time or slowing effects. It didn't spread. It's only useful attribute was its ability to stay around in an area for a short time with some spells, like Meteor or Firewall.
In D2, I personally hated lightning. It had the widest range of damage possible, and highest maximum, but I always seemed to hit on the low end with any spells. It's only advantage was that there were few monsters immune to it. Basically, I found it useless, especially compared to cold spells which had more certain damage, many had AoE, and could slow/freeze. Now, in D3, electricity has been made even more like cold spells, with the ability to stun as well. Why would we need two elements who act almost the same?
This thread is for ideas to improve fire and lightning in D3. Either skills or the effect of element bonuses to weapons. It can also be to discuss the addition of a new element, the wizard's Arcane magic, and what kinds of effects it should have to really make it a separate, useful element.
Stun isn't the same as slowing effect of cold. I think adding stun to lightning along with erratic damage makes it unique enough.
I personally almost always made my first character of the ladder a fire sorceress. There werent very many powerful immune to fire foes. Fire should be all about splash (fireball, meteor)...make the monsters group up and tear em down.
Arcane could have a chance to inflict a blinding or fear effect maybe.
Fire - highest DPS, 50% chance to burn for 3 seconds (taking even more damage)
Lightning - erratic DPS, 20% chance to stun for 3 seconds. also has 4% chance to paralyze for 10 seconds.
Cold - consistent low DPS, always slows 50% for 3 second. also has 2% chance to freeze for 10 seconds.
These are base numbers designed to show the relative relationships, but could change
Fire has a chance to ignite enemies, and critical hits will cause them to explode in a fiery gibby mess, and the fire will spread to enemies nearby.
Poison, as always, does damage over time. Critical poison hits poisons them permanently.
Ice slows, and freezes with critical.
Electricity stuns, and what makes it different than ice, is that if other monsters "touch" the stunned enemy, they get stunned too. For half the time that the enemy they touched was.
Arcane disorients them for various amounts of time.
None of the critical spell effects work on bosses though.
Well you have to look at the trees differently now, it's not the same class. The panelists emphasized the wizard being less of an elementalist and more of a universal manipulator, hence the inclusion of arcane. Lightning and frost spells are in the same tree--you may choose not to even pick the lightning choices depending on your style of play, but you can't look at it as well I don't like ice or I don't like lightning. It's now more of I'm not into the atmospheric/weather spells, I'm more into the arcane magic or the conjuring magic.
Yea, poison still poisons, ice still freezes, lightning stuns and fire ignites/explodes, but you're not going to have to make a choice like, "I want a fire hydra but disintegrate isn't my style," because well, they're in different trees. You won't have to make spec decisions based off elemental effects as much as you'll get a good assortment in any tree.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Beware! Beyond lies mortal danger for the likes of you"
In D2, fire was useless. Everything was immune to in on Hell difficulty, and it didn't have the highest damage threshold of the 4 elements anyway. It had no added bonuses like damage over time or slowing effects. It didn't spread. It's only useful attribute was its ability to stay around in an area for a short time with some spells, like Meteor or Firewall.
In D2, I personally hated lightning. It had the widest range of damage possible, and highest maximum, but I always seemed to hit on the low end with any spells. It's only advantage was that there were few monsters immune to it. Basically, I found it useless, especially compared to cold spells which had more certain damage, many had AoE, and could slow/freeze. Now, in D3, electricity has been made even more like cold spells, with the ability to stun as well. Why would we need two elements who act almost the same?
This thread is for ideas to improve fire and lightning in D3. Either skills or the effect of element bonuses to weapons. It can also be to discuss the addition of a new element, the wizard's Arcane magic, and what kinds of effects it should have to really make it a separate, useful element.
I personally almost always made my first character of the ladder a fire sorceress. There werent very many powerful immune to fire foes. Fire should be all about splash (fireball, meteor)...make the monsters group up and tear em down.
Arcane could have a chance to inflict a blinding or fear effect maybe.
Thanks.
Fire - highest DPS, 50% chance to burn for 3 seconds (taking even more damage)
Lightning - erratic DPS, 20% chance to stun for 3 seconds. also has 4% chance to paralyze for 10 seconds.
Cold - consistent low DPS, always slows 50% for 3 second. also has 2% chance to freeze for 10 seconds.
These are base numbers designed to show the relative relationships, but could change
Poison, as always, does damage over time. Critical poison hits poisons them permanently.
Ice slows, and freezes with critical.
Electricity stuns, and what makes it different than ice, is that if other monsters "touch" the stunned enemy, they get stunned too. For half the time that the enemy they touched was.
Arcane disorients them for various amounts of time.
None of the critical spell effects work on bosses though.
Yea, poison still poisons, ice still freezes, lightning stuns and fire ignites/explodes, but you're not going to have to make a choice like, "I want a fire hydra but disintegrate isn't my style," because well, they're in different trees. You won't have to make spec decisions based off elemental effects as much as you'll get a good assortment in any tree.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Seems overpowered. Cast until you crit then run back to town, go take a crap irl, go loot boss corpse.