I really hope that the WD can be played as a pure summoner, I am not saying everyone has to play with 10-20 pets out at all times, but that is how I like to play the Necromancer, and I should have that option. I am not talking about spells that involve short lived summons like fire bats or the frogs, functionally these will be no different than inferno or charged bolt from Diablo I. I want a large permanent army, and I want it to be Inferno viable without a single offensive spell, some weakening curse and maybe sacrifice should be enough.
Players who play summoner characters do it because they like playing general of a small army, not because they want all their spells to look like animals. As it stands, so far the WD has two confirmed permanent summons, with the zombie dogs being capped at 3-6 and the gargantuan capped at one. 4-7 pets is not an army, since each of the other classes has their own summon skills, I fail to see how the WD qualifies as a summoning class unless there are other permanent pets I am missing.
That is what I am beginning to think as well, I really hope both of us are wrong. The Necromancer was (to me atleast) the defining character of Diablo II, and to not have a real summoning class would be a huge mistake and a sad loss for the franchise.
Personally never cared for the clutter that such massive amount of summons brings, also with how skills work i wouldnt see how to achieve it unless a level 7 rune splits one summon into 3 bringing the amount of dogs to 9 plus gargantuan
You can have the dogs, the gargantua, the corpse spider and the fetish arm. Add sacrifice and one last spell (Hex? Horrify? Spirirt Walk? Mana regenerating spell like soul harvest ?). Bump all summon friendly passives. If items that give +Attack or +Spell Dmg increase your pet's strength, you have a summon build in the horizon.
You can have the dogs, the gargantua, the corpse spider and the fetish arm. Add sacrifice and one last spell (Hex? Horrify? Spirirt Walk? Mana regenerating spell like soul harvest ?). Bump all summon friendly passives. If items that give +Attack or +Spell Dmg increase your pet's strength, you have a summon build in the horizon.
I have to admit... I used to sit back and laugh at my friend's amazing necromancer who would summon a ton of pets and sit in a corner and watch his pets mutilate everything that moves...
It would be nice to have a similar class who's skill sets/playstyle was centered around their pet(s).
Well they made significant AI changes. The mobs dont necessarily attack the closest target. Some interview i saw lead me to believe some mobs would target ranged casters and shooters over melee attackers. So a completley pet dependant build might not be possible
You can have the dogs, the gargantua, the corpse spider and the fetish arm. Add sacrifice and one last spell (Hex? Horrify? Spirirt Walk? Mana regenerating spell like soul harvest ?). Bump all summon friendly passives. If items that give +Attack or +Spell Dmg increase your pet's strength, you have a summon build in the horizon
The corpse spider is not a real summon, I don't think, it doesn't attack, just releases goo on the ground which I assume damages/slows enemies, its more of a short lived spell like the frogs. The fetish army is probably a powerful spell with a long cooldown, I suspect that in practice its more of an area effect spell like blizzard or meteor than a summon that follows you from place to place. I could be wrong.
I have to admit... I used to sit back and laugh at my friend's amazing necromancer who would summon a ton of pets and sit in a corner and watch his pets mutilate everything that moves...
It would be nice to have a similar class who's skill sets/playstyle was centered around their pet(s).
Yeah, exactly. When the WD was first revealed, I was sure he would be that class, increasingly its looking like I was wrong. Again, I want to stress that I don't think that all WD's should be played like that, I am perfectly fine with a WD having only one summon, or even being played as a simple mage without the summons, I just want to have the option to play summoner.
A pure summoner class being viable like the Necromancer with mass Skeletons on D2 that didn't have to cast a single spell (and only used curses for the sake of speeding things up) would make the game a passive rollercoaster - I'm glad we don't have that. It made playing with 1-2 summoner Necros extremely boring, because instead of actually killing things they're there just watching and getting items.
Even the WD has to cast spells to debuff/disable his enemies and deal the bigger chunks of damage.
Players who play summoner characters do it because they like playing general of a small army, not because they want all their spells to look like animals.
Except in a game like D3, where you don't have any control over where the summons move, which attack they use on which enemy, and anything related to formations, it's like playing in passive mode, just watching the summons slaughter everything.
Again, I'm just glad we won't have that at all.
Maybe if they add a way to actually "play" the game while controlling your army in an expansion we might see a pure summoning class.
That is what I am beginning to think as well, I really hope both of us are wrong. The Necromancer was (to me atleast) the defining character of Diablo II, and to not have a real summoning class would be a huge mistake and a sad loss for the franchise.
I think a sad loss for the franchise would have been another game where you play a class where you stand around while your minions kill everything, then collect loot.
I can understand maybe a golem or something, but as cool as the D2 necro was, i can't help but feel like i was hardly doing anything, at all, other than standing around watching shit die then picking up loot. Kind of boring IMO.
I would love a good summoning class but my hope is that WD is a bit more involved. Because with necro, there wasn't much challenge at all aside from the occasional spamming of a curse every now and then and maybe peppering in some bone spears/spirits.
I think when one stands back from the necromancer of D2 and removes themselves from what they're used to; The necromancer of D2, while fun to play and a step up from the rogue/sorcerer from diablo 1, could have been a hell of a lot better.
You can have the dogs, the gargantua, the corpse spider and the fetish arm. Add sacrifice and one last spell (Hex? Horrify? Spirirt Walk? Mana regenerating spell like soul harvest ?). Bump all summon friendly passives. If items that give +Attack or +Spell Dmg increase your pet's strength, you have a summon build in the horizon
The corpse spider is not a real summon, I don't think, it doesn't attack, just releases goo on the ground which I assume damages/slows enemies, its more of a short lived spell like the frogs. The fetish army is probably a powerful spell with a long cooldown, I suspect that in practice its more of an area effect spell like blizzard or meteor than a summon that follows you from place to place. I could be wrong.
Rune Skills?
Theres a rune that makes the corpse spider a giant persistent spider instead of billions of small suicidal ones. Theres also a rune with similar effect for plague of frogs (gaint monster eater frog).
Those pets lasts only a few seconds (like 8-10 seconds) so you need to recast then. Still i consider then summons, short lived summons, but summons. They are different from the vanilla plague of toad because those summons do not fade once he touchs the enemy, like a spell. You creat then, they wonder around tanking and damagin enemies, and then fades.
Now if you want to cast all your summon in town and just faceroll all the game, go play titan quest and D2. D3 is a new game, a superior one, a game that requires some play skill and attention. A passive type of character is not desired here.
You can still play an summoner. But it's gonna be a summoner that must recast his summons, like other classes have to recast their abilities. Look at GW's necromancer, i thnk his the inspiration for the D3 witch doctor.
I'm fine with the summoning aspect of the WD right now. I mean, I loved the ridiculous army-style necro too, but I found I was recasting summons every 10 seconds then too, so no difference here.
I'm fine with the summoning aspect of the WD right now. I mean, I loved the ridiculous army-style necro too, but I found I was recasting summons every 10 seconds then too, so no difference here.
I never thought I was doing much with a necro, you wandered around and let them kill everything, maybe you would cast some curses. Although, I thought similar things about my Amazon with the level 28 Valk and my Assassin with the level 26 Shadow Master. Those things just ate most mobs for breakfast while I went back to bed. It was effective, but not really all that much fun.
I'm with you OP, although the army necro was more of a novelty for me than a defining play-style. I mean how much fun was just constantly summoning minions to do all the work for you?
With that said, I can't really knock it because I always love characters in games who summon a ton of stationary defensive units like the trap assassin- which also seems to be omitted from the current lineup.
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Players who play summoner characters do it because they like playing general of a small army, not because they want all their spells to look like animals. As it stands, so far the WD has two confirmed permanent summons, with the zombie dogs being capped at 3-6 and the gargantuan capped at one. 4-7 pets is not an army, since each of the other classes has their own summon skills, I fail to see how the WD qualifies as a summoning class unless there are other permanent pets I am missing.
That is what I am beginning to think as well, I really hope both of us are wrong. The Necromancer was (to me atleast) the defining character of Diablo II, and to not have a real summoning class would be a huge mistake and a sad loss for the franchise.
but considering how almost all the gameplay vids show only 3 dogs.. im not getting high hopes.
maybe we will find out in the beta.
I believe he wants an "army"
It would be nice to have a similar class who's skill sets/playstyle was centered around their pet(s).
Die fr00b, die~
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My PvP build would be different from these 13.
Check out the leaked Demon Hunter skill list here from Blizzard China: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://tiny.cc/10p16
Diablo III is $50; MSI GT683DXR-423US Gaming Laptop is $1,599; Playing Diablo III w/ my wife & 2 brothers is PRICELESS
The corpse spider is not a real summon, I don't think, it doesn't attack, just releases goo on the ground which I assume damages/slows enemies, its more of a short lived spell like the frogs. The fetish army is probably a powerful spell with a long cooldown, I suspect that in practice its more of an area effect spell like blizzard or meteor than a summon that follows you from place to place. I could be wrong.
Yeah, exactly. When the WD was first revealed, I was sure he would be that class, increasingly its looking like I was wrong. Again, I want to stress that I don't think that all WD's should be played like that, I am perfectly fine with a WD having only one summon, or even being played as a simple mage without the summons, I just want to have the option to play summoner.
Even the WD has to cast spells to debuff/disable his enemies and deal the bigger chunks of damage.
Except in a game like D3, where you don't have any control over where the summons move, which attack they use on which enemy, and anything related to formations, it's like playing in passive mode, just watching the summons slaughter everything.
Again, I'm just glad we won't have that at all.
Maybe if they add a way to actually "play" the game while controlling your army in an expansion we might see a pure summoning class.
I can understand maybe a golem or something, but as cool as the D2 necro was, i can't help but feel like i was hardly doing anything, at all, other than standing around watching shit die then picking up loot. Kind of boring IMO.
I would love a good summoning class but my hope is that WD is a bit more involved. Because with necro, there wasn't much challenge at all aside from the occasional spamming of a curse every now and then and maybe peppering in some bone spears/spirits.
I think when one stands back from the necromancer of D2 and removes themselves from what they're used to; The necromancer of D2, while fun to play and a step up from the rogue/sorcerer from diablo 1, could have been a hell of a lot better.
Rune Skills?
Theres a rune that makes the corpse spider a giant persistent spider instead of billions of small suicidal ones. Theres also a rune with similar effect for plague of frogs (gaint monster eater frog).
Those pets lasts only a few seconds (like 8-10 seconds) so you need to recast then. Still i consider then summons, short lived summons, but summons. They are different from the vanilla plague of toad because those summons do not fade once he touchs the enemy, like a spell. You creat then, they wonder around tanking and damagin enemies, and then fades.
Now if you want to cast all your summon in town and just faceroll all the game, go play titan quest and D2. D3 is a new game, a superior one, a game that requires some play skill and attention. A passive type of character is not desired here.
You can still play an summoner. But it's gonna be a summoner that must recast his summons, like other classes have to recast their abilities. Look at GW's necromancer, i thnk his the inspiration for the D3 witch doctor.
I never thought I was doing much with a necro, you wandered around and let them kill everything, maybe you would cast some curses. Although, I thought similar things about my Amazon with the level 28 Valk and my Assassin with the level 26 Shadow Master. Those things just ate most mobs for breakfast while I went back to bed. It was effective, but not really all that much fun.
Dogs = Wolves
Gargantuan = Grizzly
Spider = Vine
Then he has a bunch of other skills as well!
I am even more excited now
P.S. Locust swarm = rabies (my favorite D2 skill)
With that said, I can't really knock it because I always love characters in games who summon a ton of stationary defensive units like the trap assassin- which also seems to be omitted from the current lineup.