I'm wondering if you guys can answer some questions or add your own questions about the changes that have been made to the skills, i've taken a clip of an article:
"One of the big changes in recent weeks has been that many skills – especially “caster” skills like Magic Missile and Swarm of Locusts– have had their inner workings gutted. Instead of scaling with level, these skills now deal a percentage of your weapon damage – just like Bash, Multishot, or any number of other skills that actually, you know, use a weapon." full article here
What I'm wondering is can casters use two handed items if so what are your thoughts?
They can, but their class-specific weapons and off-hand items grant bonuses to their overall damage. A wand and an orb with +20% wizard damage each is better than a two handed ax.
They can, but their class-specific weapons and off-hand items grant bonuses to their overall damage. A wand and an orb with +20% wizard damage each is better than a two handed ax.
But if you use an axe that has huge damage with the changes that have been made your going to have to really look at what's better.
Its hard to say right now. I'm definitively concerned. I don't mind that big axes have a purpose to make some skills better than a wand and an orb would (mostly melee oriented skills), but if they're always better we have a problem.
But if you use an axe that has huge damage with the changes that have been made your going to have to really look at what's better.
Having to look at what's better and make decisions sounds like the perfect place for the game to be, to me.
While leveling up, if you happen to find a rare 2 hander that's more damage than your wand+orb combo (or whatever), awesome, use it. Why is that a problem?
When it comes to really high end gear, I think it'll work out fine. Look at legendary level 60 2-handed swords, and they seem to have a DPS around 320ish... look at unique level 60 wands, and they're about 165ish DPS, many with over +100% damage to wizard spells on top of that. Hell, look at Ruinstroke- 156 DPS with up to 251% extra damage to wizard spells. And *then* add an orb with more +wizard damage...
But if you use an axe that has huge damage with the changes that have been made your going to have to really look at what's better.
Having to look at what's better and make decisions sounds like the perfect place for the game to be, to me.
While leveling up, if you happen to find a rare 2 hander that's more damage than your wand+orb combo (or whatever), awesome, use it. Why is that a problem?
When it comes to really high end gear, I think it'll work out fine. Look at legendary level 60 2-handed swords, and they seem to have a DPS around 320ish... look at unique level 60 wands, and they're about 165ish DPS, many with over +100% damage to wizard spells on top of that. Hell, look at Ruinstroke- 156 DPS with up to 251% extra damage to wizard spells. And *then* add an orb with more +wizard damage...
Don't get me wrong I'm not bashing what blizzard is putting out there, I'm saying you can't just look at wands or "caster" items if they keep this for the release
But if you use an axe that has huge damage with the changes that have been made your going to have to really look at what's better.
Having to look at what's better and make decisions sounds like the perfect place for the game to be, to me.
While leveling up, if you happen to find a rare 2 hander that's more damage than your wand+orb combo (or whatever), awesome, use it. Why is that a problem?
When it comes to really high end gear, I think it'll work out fine. Look at legendary level 60 2-handed swords, and they seem to have a DPS around 320ish... look at unique level 60 wands, and they're about 165ish DPS, many with over +100% damage to wizard spells on top of that. Hell, look at Ruinstroke- 156 DPS with up to 251% extra damage to wizard spells. And *then* add an orb with more +wizard damage...
Don't get me wrong I'm not bashing what blizzard is putting out there, I'm saying you can't just look at wands or "caster" items if they keep this for the release
What i think ppl are trying to get across to you sbkr87, is that- Yes, you CAN use some big 'ol ax as a wizard, but the way blizzard is making weapons, your wizard spells would just receive a bonus from the damage of the ax. Now if you use caster spells like wands and orbs, you can actually do MORE damage especially at high levels (see example below). So nothing is ruined at all and a wizard can draw his power from a multitude of items but would do best to stick with wizard weapons.
Heres a very watered down example: you have 3 items- a 2-h ax that does 200 damage, and a wand that does 150 damage, and an orb of UghJUgs. the wand and orb grant +35% damage to wizard spells each. Heres what happens for a spell that is based on 200% of weapon damage.
2-h ax = 200 *200% = 400 damage
just a wand = 150*200% = 300*1.35= 405 damage the 1.35 is the bonus damage
wand plus orb = 150*200% = 300*1.7 = 510 damage
as you can see even with a base damage well below an ax, a wizard can do much more damage due to bonuses with their class weapons.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Blizzard used to care about releasing Diablo III, then they all took an arrow in the knee...
The reasoning for this change is because Wizards and Witch Doctors were ignoring the DPS stat on an item and looking solely at the modifiers. This made a lot of lower level items (melee weapons and wands both) much more powerful than higher level items just because they had some good mods.
It may still be the case that some good lower level items are better than higher ones, but now you'll at least have to consider both.
Ultimately, casters will still use caster weapons and melee characters will still use melee weapons. It just means that now everyone has to care about overall item quality and not just one part or the other.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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"One of the big changes in recent weeks has been that many skills – especially “caster” skills like Magic Missile and Swarm of Locusts– have had their inner workings gutted. Instead of scaling with level, these skills now deal a percentage of your weapon damage – just like Bash, Multishot, or any number of other skills that actually, you know, use a weapon."
full article here
What I'm wondering is can casters use two handed items if so what are your thoughts?
But if you use an axe that has huge damage with the changes that have been made your going to have to really look at what's better.
But its hard to say when all we have is the beta.
While leveling up, if you happen to find a rare 2 hander that's more damage than your wand+orb combo (or whatever), awesome, use it. Why is that a problem?
When it comes to really high end gear, I think it'll work out fine. Look at legendary level 60 2-handed swords, and they seem to have a DPS around 320ish... look at unique level 60 wands, and they're about 165ish DPS, many with over +100% damage to wizard spells on top of that. Hell, look at Ruinstroke- 156 DPS with up to 251% extra damage to wizard spells. And *then* add an orb with more +wizard damage...
Don't get me wrong I'm not bashing what blizzard is putting out there, I'm saying you can't just look at wands or "caster" items if they keep this for the release
What i think ppl are trying to get across to you sbkr87, is that- Yes, you CAN use some big 'ol ax as a wizard, but the way blizzard is making weapons, your wizard spells would just receive a bonus from the damage of the ax. Now if you use caster spells like wands and orbs, you can actually do MORE damage especially at high levels (see example below). So nothing is ruined at all and a wizard can draw his power from a multitude of items but would do best to stick with wizard weapons.
Heres a very watered down example: you have 3 items- a 2-h ax that does 200 damage, and a wand that does 150 damage, and an orb of UghJUgs. the wand and orb grant +35% damage to wizard spells each. Heres what happens for a spell that is based on 200% of weapon damage.
2-h ax = 200 *200% = 400 damage
just a wand = 150*200% = 300*1.35= 405 damage the 1.35 is the bonus damage
wand plus orb = 150*200% = 300*1.7 = 510 damage
as you can see even with a base damage well below an ax, a wizard can do much more damage due to bonuses with their class weapons.
It may still be the case that some good lower level items are better than higher ones, but now you'll at least have to consider both.
Ultimately, casters will still use caster weapons and melee characters will still use melee weapons. It just means that now everyone has to care about overall item quality and not just one part or the other.