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If they allow skill swappings like currently in beta, you could basically use all of your skills with a simple macro program. Open spellbook -> click in these coordinates -> click in these coordinates -> close spellbook, and you might not even notice that you had the book up. Even if they implemented "in combat", you could run away for couple seconds, then push macro and jump back in and slay everything, that wouldn't be fun for me atleast.

These programs won't interfere with gamefiles, so Warden won't be able to detect it as bad.

On a side note, give boss fights where you can't leave the area. Either you die or boss dies! Would be great for hardcore : )

Personally, I don't see the point. Restricting skill swapping to in-town only isn't going to deter anyone who thinks it's important enough that they need to switch out, it'll simply artifically inflate the effort required. From what I've seen of Force's videos and beta testers on the forums, the combat is fast paced enough that it isn't very advantageous to switch skills mid-fight anyways. I see this as nothing more than a mild annoyance for those interested in changing up their skills and counterintuitive to the other measures Blizzard has taken to keep players in the action.

in town only is probably not the best solution, I believe they just want to test an extreme option in the beta, maybe get some feedbacks. If they give an 'out in the field' skill switch every levelup, it would be less painful. Hopefully they come up with something different

But to Armyhutchings, this limitation is not intended to deter experimentation (though it does make it more time consuming), it is intended to deter players from skill swapping during combat, using more than 6 selected skills to gain an advantage in farming later in the game.

A limitation to mid-combat skill swapping is likely be instituted mainly because a lot of real money will be involved. People will be farming in inferno, and IF mid-combat skill swapping can be done Easily and Quickly (perhaps a program), people will try to abuse it.

And if certain classes can be more effective with this process, people will be driven to use those classes exclusively. Maybe the monk, either by himself or with a team, uses dash to get out of danger, and switches in and out of Breath of Heavens to heal. That practically gives the character 7 maxed skills if the player decide to do so. This scenario could increase survivability in inferno, other cases may increase damage output. All of this could impact the gameplay, as well as the virtual economy.

Developers don't like imbalances between characters, especially when its due to exploitation of a system mechanism and breaking blizzard's intended 6 skill limit. If this is the case down the road, they may have to rebalance that character, which makes a lot of people unhappy, especially those people who dont farm, or add restrictions.

The current beta content available is way too easy and short for telling what player behaviours will be later down the road. But the game developers need to think a step ahead, its better to introduce a limitation at the start of the game and loosen it, than to let players get used to no limitation and introduce one later on.

So even if another player's playing habit has nothing to do with the rest of the players, blizzard will likely be there to make sure everyone's playing the game as blizzard had intended (6 skills), especially now that they have to maintain the auction house's "fair competition."


Just my 2 cents (im a hobo its all i've got)

I hope they will implement a system that will prevent in combat skill swapping at higher levels, but puts no restriction on experimentation at lower levels.

My suggestion for such a system would be a cooldown on swapping skills. This cooldown will be 0 between levels 1-30 and will start at 1 minute at level 31, going all the way up to a 30 minute cooldown at level 60.

Or an even simpler solution would be to activate the in-town-only limitation in Inferno only. This will let people experiment while leveling, but not while farming.

Given we can use only 6 skills out of 25-30, been free to swap skills is a must, else we would have to make 5-6 barbs just to be able to see all the skills.

As for the limitation I don’t really care. Only town swapping is ok for me.

What I would like to see would be a feature to save skill configuration so I can easily swap all my skills.
Of course people will have specific configuration for trash mobs, boss fights and arena, but why not?

To make this lease on the fly swapping, and protect the game from macro programs that swap skills for you, you can add a casting time to it which get interrupted if you are hit.

Basically, when you are in town you can make different skill configuration and save them.
When you are out of town you can’t change specific skills but you can load a saved configuration and the loading process would have a casting time that gets canceled if you get hit.

I think skill swapping in town will kill the feel of perpetual action that they are going for in PVE. However in PVP I feel if they have the option to change there skills whenever I think people will spend more time switching skills to counteract each other rather than actually playing the game. So it makes more sense for PVP.

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Great article. Though I would prefer the in-town only skill swapping to force players to experience & play out the build they chose in the first place.
This would make the game playing & character building more meaningful, where a player would need to analyze what build they would like their character to have, so that they would have a goal to pursue (making full use of the Skill Calculator this way).

If they find that they lack something or need to change one or a couple of skills, then it would be just right that they go back to town to do this.
On this note, I would also suggest to Blizzard to make skill swapping a major gold dump.
For every time a player would want to swap skills in Normal difficulty, they would have to visit the Mystic & pay like 20,000 gold per skill that would be swapped.
This fee is not Nominal & should double in Nightmare & triple in Hell.

I also am for, for the unattuned skill runes, so people would go and play the game because they're still looking for the particular rune that has the skill effect they desire.
If players could just go to the Mystic to erase a particular attuned rune's effect, then there wont be much reason for players to go about play the game, exploring all the crooks & crannies of a randomized map & look for unattuned runes.


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I noticed that everyone here wants to limit the skill swapping.

IMO, why not allow all the skills like WoW (WoW haters aside) and have an interface that lets the user scroll through sets of 6 skills?

Because of the Rune system, there isn't a need to restrict what skills you can use and what you can't. I believe the whole point of the new skill system is to allow people to use every skill (without limitations from a skill-tree).

Nice. I hope that this change has come in the next update. In fact... I'm crazy for the next update.

Not sure if people mentioned this or not, but does choosing a skill (on an empty slot) count as skill swapping? If so then the in town thing would stuck seeing how you would need to go there each level you get a new skill, assuming you want to use the new skill you got.

They should just add a cooldown to skill swapping, atleast in the outside world/dungeons. However in town there would be no cooldown. This would still let you swap skills when needed, such as changing your mind about a skill you wanted to test and such. The cooldown would apply to each skill slot individually ofcourse.

The route of the problem isnt skill swapping its skill limiting... having only 6 active skill slots is creating all this controversy. Just my two cents.

To be perfectly honestly, I am getting so tired of reading all this drib drab, this dead horse has been beaten enough. Why is there even resistance to the skill swapping possiblities and the eventual creation of macro programs that will allow you to use more than 6 skills at a time. Why are you babies fighting and helping Blizzard with making this release more Console freindly? Why are you offering solutions and opinions that will further limit the possibilities of this release, and help make this game MORE console friendly? Its the direction of Blizzard in wanting this game to be playable on consoles that is limiting its release capabilities on the platform that made them their billions. Im not even bitter that Blizzard is doing this its a direction which was inevitable, what I am bitter is that they are releasing the Console version of this game onto the computer as well.

To be perfectly honestly, I am getting so tired of reading all this drib drab, this dead horse has been beaten enough. Why is there even resistance to the skill swapping possiblities and the eventual creation of macro programs that will allow you to use more than 6 skills at a time. Why are you babies fighting and helping Blizzard with making this release more Console freindly? Why are you offering solutions and opinions that will further limit the possibilities of this release, and help make this game MORE console friendly? Its the direction of Blizzard in wanting this game to be playable on consoles that is limiting its release capabilities on the platform that made them their billions. Im not even bitter that Blizzard is doing this its a direction which was inevitable, what I am bitter with is that they are releasing the Console version of this game onto the computer as well. Thats just how I see it.


Maybe im dead wrong, but its just so blatantly obvious, and to be frank I feel alittle cheated.

Just my two cents.

Please note that the online item database is pulled directly from the game files (yeah, cool huh?), so the existence of unattuned runes only suggests that the build they are playing with has the item in it, not that they are being used or plan to use them. It does not mean: "The presence of unattuned runes on the item page seemed to suggest that the team was going ahead with the implementation of the system".

It's like taking a look at a beta and seeing a feedback button on all the new features and concluding, "Oh, this feedback button must be a part of the application when it's released!"

Going back to town isn't a big deal, but having players using programs that allow them use of all of their skills simultaniously is....so just make people go back to town, it takes 10 secs!

I want to experiment with skills too but I don't want to be forced to use more than 6 active skills because thats what would be best if you could instantly swap them out always.

A time delay after taking damage still wouldn't make me happy because it would allow players to do it in PvP (especially WD who can go invis for 10 sec w/ a rune).

Maybe they could make it so you could do it up to lve 20 or so then make it so you can only do it at a vendor.

I want them to add a progressive (huge gold cost at lve 60) gold cost to switching skills so that it gives toons more of a perminant feel along with taking gold out of the economy.

Also to everyone who says there should be a cast time or delay to use the skill let me ask you something.

Wouldn't that be the same thing as having a casting time to TP back to town swap the skill then come back?

I understand the need for some restriction on the skill swapping abuse, but the most important thing for me is unlimited and unrestricted swapping while leveling. You're getting a new active or passive every level, so I want to be able to try everything on the fly. I even want to try all rune effects, because I can't be sure an effect is crap or awesome just from looking at the official skill calculator.

Cauldron of Jordan and Nephilim Cube ==> eliminate need to go back to town so often to unload lootz.

Skill swapping restricted to in-town only ==> clicks the 'undo' button on the previous statement.

However, I believe this new addition will be much less of a hassle than it used to be in D2 when you would fill up every 5 minutes, especially in early levels when you grab everything to sell for gold. Considering how import gold will be in this game compared to its predecessor, adding the cauldron/cube to get your hands on gold/crafting goods easier belittles the already minimal grief over having to go back to town to quick change skills.

As for a cooldown, screw that noise. I would be pissed off if I went back to town, accidentally traded out my Spirit generator attack for a second Mantra and had to wait 5 minutes to correct it. A cooldown on the recall stone is more understandable... If you get to a waypoint, there is no reason you shouldn't be able to go change skills quick without having to wait on a timer from your last spell switch. A cooldown on the recall stone at least leaves you stranded knee-deep for a little while until you can come back to adjust your skills.

Bottom line is that we are used to going back to town from the previous game for other reasons, and we will be going back to town often enough anyway to stash loot and craft. Would it be cool to just skill swap on the fly? Yes. But, without a in/out of combat toggle mechanic in the game, simple macros will allow people to swap skills and runes seamlessly during any fight they wanted, thus eliminating some character build customization principles... If you can use ANY spell at ANY time and they are all level 60 spells with ANY rune you want, then what we have my friends, are cookie cutter characters constantly cluttering cathedral catacombs.
// as i started typing that i had to keep goin with the c's.


So yeah, in my opinion, send us to town to change spells and put a 1-2 minute cooldown on the stone of recall.

Edit: I just read about another possible solution elsewhere (here). Didn't read what they were saying yet but an option in the poll is to lock skills only in certain areas (boss fights and other group instances, random events, pvp arena, etc.). Also possibly restrict skill swapping to town-only in the later difficulties of the game (Inferno, possible Hell mode also). After everything is unlocked, you will probably start leaning toward a few set skills that you like using the most, and you will probably want to go back to town before switching game plans anyway.

Possibly contradicting some ideas from the pre-edit post, this solution seems very reasonable, practical, logical..