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I find it curious that if you do swap a skill outside town, that skill incurs a cooldown (which feels like 2mins for all skills, haven't tested) as well as resetting NV stacks. But if you swap skills in town, there is no additional cooldown on the skill. When I'm playing around with a new build, I find this mighty frustrating as I typically make lots of changes in a short period of time, and going back to town each time is a chore.

It seems like they have 2 systems in place to discourage skill swapping. I'd rather they removed the cooldown penalty than the NV stack reset because at least the NV stack reset doesn't render me useless for 2mins while my primary skill is on cooldown and I can't fight back.

I think the NV stacks resetting is probably ok. So you lose some bonus magic find, gold find and experience, so what!? It takes 5 mins to get it back up. Its a mild inconvenience at most. Talk about first-world problems...

Considering the amount of people concerned that PvP will be a massacre with all the damage going around, it seems counter-intuitive for them to nerf defensive skills.

I am curious how this change is preparing for PvP...? Its a good change for build diversity for pve no doubt. Maybe Blizzard internal testing is showing that builds with 5 defensive skills > builds with 1 defensive skills in PvP? Maybe this change has nothing to do with PvP?

Watching with interest...

I am a big fan of these blog posts. Honesty and an insight into design decisions. It seems like a nerf to fun by dropping the proc co-efficient on twister in the current environment, but when the powerful legendary proc's are taken into account, it seems completely justified to me.

Blog.posts++

I don't support "no penalty" for changing runes at level 60. And also it feels wrong to me that we can die and the NV stack isn't affected (unless you wipe for 30 minutes and it times out).

Just throwing an idea out there, maybe instead of increasing the cost of repairs (or in addition to), they just make it drop 1x NV stack when you die? And changing a rune also just drops one stack instead of resetting it and requiring 5 more packs to stack it again? Rewards those with skill/gear who can kill packs without dying, penalizes the graveyard zergers and provides more flexibility to change runes on the fly (but still with some small penalty).

For example, I kill 4 packs and have 4xNV stacks. I decide to change my build so I change several skills/runes in 1 go, and my stacks are decremented by 1 to 3 stacks. I then die once on the next pack I face once, and my stack is decremented again to 2. Kill that pack and then another 2, get up to 5 stacks. If I die 3 times to the same champion pack, my stack is decremented 3 times.

I suspect this will be really unpopular but I'm hoping to be surprised. There needs to be some risk to dying and some penalty for rune swapping. I think this type of penalty would make me more cautious about dying, but also make me less worried about changing runes if I feel like an adjustment is required.

I can't really see this build being viable at all. You can't even fight back until relentlessness kicks in @ 20% health. You have to balance health somewhere between 20% and 0% (you can't just stop healing at 20%). There are mobs that are specifically designed to counter kiting/ranged play to make that balance even more difficult.

If you slightly modified the build (gave up some rage spenders for some versitility), Relentlessness as a gimmic spell could be really fun. It won't be viable as a gimmic at content matching your level though. As a lvl52, you could probably run around at 20% health in normal and maybe start of nightmare I'd estimate.

I expect you to try it and report back though. This is why flexible build system is win!

After reading this patch note, it actually doesn't look like we're at all close to release.
- Achievements disabled (presumably due to ongoing problems)
- Auction house ongoing problems.
- New features getting first testing (battletag)
- Database schema changes still (Shown in reason for character wipe).

Database schema is one of the first things locked in because changes to this flow on to many other sections of code. when designing, the database schema is one of the more complicated changes to make.

All in all, this patch does not fill me with confidence for an early 2012 release. Those with predictions in January need to revise, and early Feb might be out too.

DISCLAIMER: I am not in beta.

Quote from overneathe

Even so. USD to UAD is like 1.05. Why do you pay 50% more?

We'd like to know that too...

I'm also trying to design a skill-set designed to get in close and personal. I was planning a barb rocking a shield, and the build I wanna try right now is:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#aegUSi!ceT!bZaZcb

Some features:

• synergy between Alabaster Warcry and Inspiring Presence - +50% health and 60% of total health regen per minute
• synergy between Golden Earthquake and "The Boon of Bull-Kathos" - reduces Earthquake to 20sec cooldown and 40 rage cost
• Ground Stomp and Obsidian Seismic Slam for control (2x 3sec stuns)
• Golden Bash for rage generation and revenge

Its not very mobile without sprint or leap attack, and it might be short on rage generation (could swap for Golden Ground Stomp). The 3rd passive is optional. Cleave might be better than bash and a little more health regen (Bloodthirst perhaps) wouldn't go astray. Pretty vulnerable to ranged and magic attacks.

Its a bit of a work in progress right now. We probably won't know what works till a while after release. I just hope we don't have to use cookie-cutter builds to succeed. I hope there are as many, if not more viable builds that D2.

Q: What are the second-tier choices for the Templar follower? I saw a lvl13 follower in a stream with the second set of spell choices but I didn't see what they were. Follower spells are not published on the battlenet site yet.

The first tier ones appear to be a heal or a taunt.

Quote from Alcovitch

First of all, the problem is everyone is looking at this from the D3 beta stand point where you can stand in a pack of mobs and change all your skills without a care in the world. Please do this in Nightmare and Inferno and see how successful you are. I'll bet you can change 1 skill before you die a horrible death.

Out of all the beta streams I've seen, I don't see people constantly changing skills while in combat.

The people who will follow the cookie cutter builds will be that small % of min/maxers who are the people most likely to be ridiculous about this and swap skills every fight, it will not affect everyone. Most people will settle into the 6 skills they enjoy using and works for them and rune them and stick to them.

Also, in your example above, you just prove why the current system is better. Two monks with the same Mantra's. Hell with running to town to swap them at a cost or whatever asinine idea you guys come up with to make this a hassle for players. They can just coordinate and swap to 2 different mantra's on the spot and keep on questing.

The real risk as I see it is swapping in and out long cooldown spells while they are on cooldown. If there is no restriction, there is a benefit to gain by swapping those spells out while they are on cooldown (possibly with another long cooldown spell). Imagine a barb rotating through the 3x 120 second cooldown skills in their 6th slot. They swap them between groups of mobs when its safe.

I expect when you socket a rune to a skill, it binds to that skill until you socket another one. I expect that you can swap a skill out and the rune is swapped out with it, and if you swap that skill back in the rune is swapped back in with it. It seems tedious to do it any other way. I don't think socketing a rune is going to lock that skill into your skill slot. I don't imagine that you will have to remove the rune before you can swap out the skill.

I think some people on this site are going to have to come to terms with the fact that the game has changed. Selecting one build for the life of a character is no longer the intended way to play the game. The new way to play is to swap your skills around as you go and just have fun. I'm personally looking forward to seeing how to make non-standard skill selections work (particularly battlemage with shield). Nothing is stopping you personally from picking 6 skills for the life of the character, but the game does not make that the only way to play. And I think its for the better. Chances are you'll need different gear stats for different selections of builds (ie. crit build vs a defensive build) so chances are you will not be dramatically changing your skills as you reach endgame. But you can if you want to.

I think there are 2 areas where players will exploit the ability to swap their skills at any time:
- Instant-cast spells where the player wants access to more than their allotted 6 spells
- Long-cooldown spells which are powerful, but spend a large amount of time on cooldown.

The second problem (long-cooldown spells) is really the biggest problem in my opinion. You could swap in a spell like "Call of the Ancients" which is active for 15 seconds (default), but then its on cooldown for 105 seconds (default). There is a real benefit in swapping that skill out once it goes on cooldown so you can use another active skill for that 105 seconds, then swap it back in again.

I think it would be enough to allow spells to be swapped in combat, but trigger the cooldown on that spell immediately so it can't be used until the cooldown finishes. For example, if you swapped your spells to include "Call of the Ancients", you would have to wait 120 seconds until that spell could be used. This would prevent rapid swapping of long-cooldown spells.

This solution doesn't really help for spells with no cooldown, so a minimum could be set (something between 10 and 30 seconds) before a newly swapped in spell can be used. So if the spell has no cooldown or a cooldown shorter than 10 seconds, the player must wait 10 seconds before using the spell expires before it can be used. If the cooldown of the spell is longer than 10 seconds, they must wait the cooldown of the spell.

Any of this make sense?