3 days to release. We should have a final word on this. Does armor reduce all incoming damage (Physical, magical, etc), or just physical?
There is a lot of controversy surrounding this topic, and I don't want to start an opinion-war. For the sake of coming to a consensus, please include CITATIONS to all claims.
Usually I don't say anything negative about popular games - People have a tendency of polarizing and flaming when controversial opinions are raised. I'm going against that instinct in the hope that we can have an adult conversation about this.
I saw a video clip of the new armor sets. In my opinion (Read that twice: IN MY OPINION), most of the "higher end" ones look ridiculous. It's almost like the designer for those armor sets let his 14 year old son draw them out. They're the most over-the-top, excessive, over indulgent designs I've ever seen. I can't describe it better than that. Why does the barbarian look like a robot, a futuristic cyborg samurai, or a Hercules beetle? It's just...it's bad.
This isn't a big deal of course; It's not game breaking or anything. I'm sure we'll all enjoy D3 just fine even if we look like Japanese Power Rangers. I'm just a little concerned that the judgement of some of the people on the blizzard team might not be...reliable. That worries me.
Edit: Here are some of the worst for the barbarian class. They look like something Lord Zedd and Rita would summon to fight Zordon. The last one looks like the Red Ranger's Megazord.
Cold damage snares enemies for a fraction of second (0.2 seconds i think) unless the skill says otherwise. This includes weapon attacks if you have a cold enchanted weapon and skill without element when you're using a cold enchanted weapon (in Wizard's case, Spectral Blades).
The snare effect is so small that it will end before the enemy hit recovery animation. But in cases of enemies that does not suffer a hit recovery animation (grotesques, unburieds) the snare actually makes a difference.
I was looking for a cool picture to represent this build, but during my search I stumbled upon an absurdly out-of-context pic of Bam Margera. And you know what? I'm using it.
Summary:
The point of this build is to maximize survivability and AP efficiency.
You'll be stacking two kinds of slow (Cold and Arcane (buffed) ) on the enemy, and you'll be able to spam those moves because of Prism.
You'll have 40 AP more than normal because of Energy Armor and Astral Presence.
You'll be keeping the demons away with your slows and snares, and when they do get to you, they won't do much damage thanks for energy armor and daimond skin.
Skills: Energy Armor - Remember that in D3, armor protects against ALL incoming damage (Magic and Physical). Barbarians only get +40% armor with their War Cry skill. We get +65% armor AND +20 AP. That's huge.
Diamond Skin - An amazing skill when combined with the "Prism" rune. Allows you huge protection while, in this build's case, cutting your AP expenditure to 25%. It subtracts 15 AP from each spell. Since we'll be using 20 AP spells, this basically lets us spam them all day.
Frost Nova - Frost nova is a given for almost every build
Spectral Blade - Just my personal preference as signatures go. You can change whatever you like here. More AP, different skill, whatever works for you. Combine this with the "Prodigy" passive skill for an easy 4 AP a cast.
Blizzard - 20 AP for an AoE, damage, slow spell. Can't beat that.
Arcane Torrent - Same concept as blizzard. 20 AP (the rune provides even greater efficiency) for an AoE attack that, when combined with the temporal flux passive skill, stacks another layer of slow onto the enemy.
I'm having a peculiar problem with the diablofans website. I'll probably stumble over my words a bit while trying to explain what is going on. Please bare with me.
When I'm typing up a post, I'll sometimes (obviously) need to hit "backspace". Usually hitting this key does what all of us expect backspace to do - delete the character (letter) immediately preceding the current place marker. Let's say I type, "Hello", and then hit backspace. It will come out as, "Hell". Everything is peachy in this case.
HOWEVER, sometimes on this website, when I'm typing up a post and hit backspace, my cursor will move to the beginning of the line before backspacing. For instance, let's say I type this:
"Hello.
How are you?"
A message composed of two lines. I then immediately hit backspace. You'd think it would look like this:
"Hello.
How are you"
That is how it should come out; The question mark should be deleted. However, sometimes this website makes it look like this:
"Hello.How are you?"
It moves the cursor to the beginning of the line, and THEN it backspaces. Sometimes the cursor doesn't move all the way to the beginning of the line, it just moves a few places back. In any case, this is incredibly frustrating, and completely isolated to this website.
Is there any way to fix this?
Edit: I think I have a way to reproduce this problem. Start to make a new post, turn on "Bold", and start typing "ddddd" on a brand new line. Hit backspace, and you will see the problem. It doesn't delete the last "d", it moves the whole line of "ddddd" up to the previous line.
Frost Hydra - 36% weapon damage as cold to all enemies in a cone
Meteor (Comet) - 72% Weapon damage as cold and slows enemies movement by 60% over 3 seconds
Blizzard - 255% weapon damage as cold to all enemies in an area
Blizzard (Grasping Chill) - Mist slows movement speed of enemies by 60% for 3 seconds
All of the above skills deal "Cold" damage. Some skills mention slowing the enemy down, while others do not. Here's my question: Does cold damage automatically slow the enemy? If a "Cold" attack does not mention slowing the enemy, is it assumed to automatically slow them down anyway?
This is very confusing, and I would appreciate clarification. Thank you.
The old attribute of "Defense" used to decrease ALL incoming damage, both magical and physical. "Armor" then took over the job that "Defense" used to have. Here is the info I have that supports this; From the Diablo Wiki:
1. Defense:http://www.diablowiki.net/Defense - "Defense was one of the core attributes for characters in Diablo III. It goverened the amount of damage the character took from all attacks, physical and magical"
I'm fairly certain that armor will not protect or will only partially protect from elemental or spell damage. This is the type of armor ignoring attack that was mentioned earlier (which seemed to be sadly laughed at). This is why you need to get vitality and elemental resistances. If you have high armor and low life then casters are going to kill you, fast.
I've seen nothing that suggests armor will have a diminished effect on magical attacks. Most skill runes seem to make the player choose between a small amount of armor, or a large amount of magical resist. Since magic is a very specific type if damage, it makes sense that the player is offered more resistance to it compared to the more broad "Resist All" effect of armor.
Example: War Cry - Choose between +20% armor or +50% resistance.
Don't kid yourself. There will definitly be armor ignoring or at the very least armor penetrating abilities in the game.
While i cannot give you a source...
Might be too early to speculate, but I thought I'd bring it up anyway.
Strength: +x Armor, +x Barbarian Damage
Vitality: +x Life
Armor decreases all incoming damage, making +armor interchangeable with +life. I'm curious what you guys think about these two stats, and whether or not one will out class the other.
Armor Skills:
Nerves of Steel - Armor is increased by 100% of your vitality
Tough as Nails - 50% more armor
War Cry - 40% more armor (or +20% armor, +10% life, life regen)
Leap - 300% armor for 4 seconds
%Damage as Life Skills:
Rend: Gain 9% damage done as life
Ancient Spear: Gain 60% damage done as life
Ignore Pain: Gain 20% damage done as life
Bloodthirst: Gain 3% damage done as life
%Max Life Skills
Overpower: 10% max life per hit
WW: 1% max life per crit
Frenzy: 8% maximum life per enemy killed
Revenge: 10% max life per enemy hit
Furious Charge: 8% max life per hit
Inspiring Presence: 1% life per second
Juggernaut: 15% max life on status change
It seems as though skills that grant "+x% damage done as life" clearly favor the Strength attribute. More strength means more damage, and more armor means that the life you recover goes further. However, skills that grant "+x% maximum life" obviously favor vitality.
Purpose: To reliably and consistently take on Inferno difficulty.
Gear: Shield + Spear
Stats: Strength = 2x Vitality
Requirements:
No matter how good the build is, the player needs to be able to use their character's skills appropriately. The more complicated the build, the more difficult this becomes. The build's simplicity and ease-of-use during intense moments is therefore of utmost importance.
Elite monsters have abilities that slow, freeze, and trap the player, while teleporting themselves to the player's location. We won't be able to rely on keeping our distance. Damage mitigation through armor, debuffs, and stuns is therefore necessary.
Build Information:
Survivability - War Cry, Nerves of Steel, Tough as Nails, and the use of a Shield all bolster the player's total armor, which decreases all damage taken. Threatening shout cripples the enemy's damage and mobility. Leap and Stomp stun everything in range. Charge and Leap grant the Praetorian increased mobility. Bloodthirst provides the character with life leech.
Damage - The Praetorian only needs a single fury spender: Seismic Slam (Stength from the Earth). "SS" was chosen for very specific reasons: You can use it at range, it is an AoE move, and most importantly, it costs 15 fury. Why is 15 fury important? If you look at each of the Barbarian's fury generating moves, they all grant 15 fury per use. This means that the player will be able to tell exactly how many times they can use Seismic Slam without having to watch their fury pool. Any single fury generator translates to a single application of Seismic Slam. This will allow the player to focus on the battle instead of their resources.
Haven't died a single game. Haven't even ever used a potion and I've even played through naked the entire thing with 2 buddies naked too. We even killed SK without weapons.
I've actually encountered a worse version of that pack. A unique (yellow) horror with 5 adds (same type) all of them with teleport.
No doubt the hardest possible pack in the beta. Killed them fairly easy though.
There is a lot of controversy surrounding this topic, and I don't want to start an opinion-war. For the sake of coming to a consensus, please include CITATIONS to all claims.
I saw a video clip of the new armor sets. In my opinion (Read that twice: IN MY OPINION), most of the "higher end" ones look ridiculous. It's almost like the designer for those armor sets let his 14 year old son draw them out. They're the most over-the-top, excessive, over indulgent designs I've ever seen. I can't describe it better than that. Why does the barbarian look like a robot, a futuristic cyborg samurai, or a Hercules beetle? It's just...it's bad.
This isn't a big deal of course; It's not game breaking or anything. I'm sure we'll all enjoy D3 just fine even if we look like Japanese Power Rangers. I'm just a little concerned that the judgement of some of the people on the blizzard team might not be...reliable. That worries me.
Edit: Here are some of the worst for the barbarian class. They look like something Lord Zedd and Rita would summon to fight Zordon. The last one looks like the Red Ranger's Megazord.
Can you provide citations?
The Atronach:
Build: http://us.battle.net...YlOX!XcU!cYZbbZ
Summary:
The point of this build is to maximize survivability and AP efficiency.
You'll be stacking two kinds of slow (Cold and Arcane (buffed) ) on the enemy, and you'll be able to spam those moves because of Prism.
You'll have 40 AP more than normal because of Energy Armor and Astral Presence.
You'll be keeping the demons away with your slows and snares, and when they do get to you, they won't do much damage thanks for energy armor and daimond skin.
Skills:
Energy Armor - Remember that in D3, armor protects against ALL incoming damage (Magic and Physical). Barbarians only get +40% armor with their War Cry skill. We get +65% armor AND +20 AP. That's huge.
Diamond Skin - An amazing skill when combined with the "Prism" rune. Allows you huge protection while, in this build's case, cutting your AP expenditure to 25%. It subtracts 15 AP from each spell. Since we'll be using 20 AP spells, this basically lets us spam them all day.
Frost Nova - Frost nova is a given for almost every build
Spectral Blade - Just my personal preference as signatures go. You can change whatever you like here. More AP, different skill, whatever works for you. Combine this with the "Prodigy" passive skill for an easy 4 AP a cast.
Blizzard - 20 AP for an AoE, damage, slow spell. Can't beat that.
Arcane Torrent - Same concept as blizzard. 20 AP (the rune provides even greater efficiency) for an AoE attack that, when combined with the temporal flux passive skill, stacks another layer of slow onto the enemy.
When I'm typing up a post, I'll sometimes (obviously) need to hit "backspace". Usually hitting this key does what all of us expect backspace to do - delete the character (letter) immediately preceding the current place marker. Let's say I type, "Hello", and then hit backspace. It will come out as, "Hell". Everything is peachy in this case.
HOWEVER, sometimes on this website, when I'm typing up a post and hit backspace, my cursor will move to the beginning of the line before backspacing. For instance, let's say I type this:
"Hello.
How are you?"
A message composed of two lines. I then immediately hit backspace. You'd think it would look like this:
"Hello.
How are you"
That is how it should come out; The question mark should be deleted. However, sometimes this website makes it look like this:
"Hello.How are you?"
It moves the cursor to the beginning of the line, and THEN it backspaces. Sometimes the cursor doesn't move all the way to the beginning of the line, it just moves a few places back. In any case, this is incredibly frustrating, and completely isolated to this website.
Is there any way to fix this?
Edit: I think I have a way to reproduce this problem. Start to make a new post, turn on "Bold", and start typing "ddddd" on a brand new line. Hit backspace, and you will see the problem. It doesn't delete the last "d", it moves the whole line of "ddddd" up to the previous line.
Meteor (Comet) - 72% Weapon damage as cold and slows enemies movement by 60% over 3 seconds
Blizzard - 255% weapon damage as cold to all enemies in an area
Blizzard (Grasping Chill) - Mist slows movement speed of enemies by 60% for 3 seconds
All of the above skills deal "Cold" damage. Some skills mention slowing the enemy down, while others do not. Here's my question: Does cold damage automatically slow the enemy? If a "Cold" attack does not mention slowing the enemy, is it assumed to automatically slow them down anyway?
This is very confusing, and I would appreciate clarification. Thank you.
The old attribute of "Defense" used to decrease ALL incoming damage, both magical and physical. "Armor" then took over the job that "Defense" used to have. Here is the info I have that supports this; From the Diablo Wiki:
1. Defense: http://www.diablowiki.net/Defense - "Defense was one of the core attributes for characters in Diablo III. It goverened the amount of damage the character took from all attacks, physical and magical"
2. Attribute Changes in 2012: http://www.diablowiki.net/Attributes - "+Armor and +Physical Resist is taking over for Defense"
So yes, AFAIK Armor does mitigate magical damage as well as physical damage.
I've seen nothing that suggests armor will have a diminished effect on magical attacks. Most skill runes seem to make the player choose between a small amount of armor, or a large amount of magical resist. Since magic is a very specific type if damage, it makes sense that the player is offered more resistance to it compared to the more broad "Resist All" effect of armor.
Example: War Cry - Choose between +20% armor or +50% resistance.
uh huh
The "adapt" argument...Ok, noted. Now please refrain from turning this into a flame thread.
Right, that would be OP
Strength: +x Armor, +x Barbarian Damage
Vitality: +x Life
Armor decreases all incoming damage, making +armor interchangeable with +life. I'm curious what you guys think about these two stats, and whether or not one will out class the other.
Armor Skills:
Nerves of Steel - Armor is increased by 100% of your vitality
Tough as Nails - 50% more armor
War Cry - 40% more armor (or +20% armor, +10% life, life regen)
Leap - 300% armor for 4 seconds
%Damage as Life Skills:
Rend: Gain 9% damage done as life
Ancient Spear: Gain 60% damage done as life
Ignore Pain: Gain 20% damage done as life
Bloodthirst: Gain 3% damage done as life
%Max Life Skills
Overpower: 10% max life per hit
WW: 1% max life per crit
Frenzy: 8% maximum life per enemy killed
Revenge: 10% max life per enemy hit
Furious Charge: 8% max life per hit
Inspiring Presence: 1% life per second
Juggernaut: 15% max life on status change
It seems as though skills that grant "+x% damage done as life" clearly favor the Strength attribute. More strength means more damage, and more armor means that the life you recover goes further. However, skills that grant "+x% maximum life" obviously favor vitality.
What do you guys think? Too early to tell?
Build: http://us.battle.net...XgYk!dbV!ZYcaZa
Purpose: To reliably and consistently take on Inferno difficulty.
Gear: Shield + Spear
Stats: Strength = 2x Vitality
Requirements:
- No matter how good the build is, the player needs to be able to use their character's skills appropriately. The more complicated the build, the more difficult this becomes. The build's simplicity and ease-of-use during intense moments is therefore of utmost importance.
- Elite monsters have abilities that slow, freeze, and trap the player, while teleporting themselves to the player's location. We won't be able to rely on keeping our distance. Damage mitigation through armor, debuffs, and stuns is therefore necessary.
Build Information:I expect the stun duration to get knocked down to 1-2 seconds though.
I didn't have blinding light equipped, and how could Deadly Reach have helped? Keeping them at a distance was impossible.
Please stop trolling.