Blizzard said they want wizard to be an Icy Cannon.
I really think that my first idea will be implemented. Mana/Energy Shield
Summary of previous posts :
"we want to implement a system that makes her more blasty, but even more vulnerable. We want to make that a choice for the player. "Do I want to make myself more vulnerable in exchange for being more blasty." And that's a cool gameplay pull there."
Quote from "luc1027" »
some thing like energy armor, when he don't cast, energy armor protect wizard but when he casting he's vulerable to be hit and he don't have too much of life.
Quote from "emilemil1" »
Perhaps a default mana shield that is drained the more mana-hungry spells you cast.
Quote from "luc1027" »
you never stop casting because you don't have mana in your mana shield. More mana is low more that increase faster and more mana is high more time is take to be full (exponentially). For big spell, i think of casting time (waiting x seconds before casting again).
Quote from luc1027 »
when you cast many strong spell you are vulnerable. If you wont that you cast small spell. But small spell let you vulnerable but less than stronger spell. If you wont be vulnerable you don't cast.
vulnerable in sense easier to be hurt, to die.
Quote from "luc1027" »
Your defense temporary decreasing only when you cast abusively !! melee wizard will not cast always same as caster so your defense will stay normal.
Check this link at 8 min. we see wizard, he's never cast and each hit he take, you see a "energy shield" appear.
Back to topic, I don't think it would work due to the fast pace blizzard is trying to keep in the Diablo games. If you had to build up energy every time you had finished some monsters, your char would slow down progression...
What are you talking about ?
Quote from "emilemil1" »
Let's say that the Wiz will use Energy Shield. How does the regeneration work? Is it slow but with a big pool like mana or quick with a tiny pool like focus?
Good question, it will be balanced with the test involved. But I think it's better to have a tiny pool with a great regeneration (exponential: less energy=more regeneration, more energy=less regeneration) something like that !
Melee wizard will almost have full energy, so he'll obtain like 1-3 hit absorbed by the shield, after his life will drop.
For a caster wizard, he will absolutly need to never be hit if he want to be safe to cast. Like Blizzard said, icy cannon
Just from the name it sounds like it will ramp up as you do your thing, and do something to buff your damage output as it gets higher, possibly with a downside to gathering too much of it.
Off the top of my head I can think of some quick and dirty buffs it may apply, such as higher critical chance, higher raw % damage, or begins ignoring more and more resistances; debuffs could be damage dealt to the Wizard (DoT or Proc-chance), lower Defense / Resists, or maybe something else.
Just from the name it sounds like it will ramp up as you do your thing, and do something to buff your damage output as it gets higher, possibly with a downside to gathering too much of it.
The name ? Icy canon ? it doesn't sound buff for me ?
debuffs could be damage dealt to the Wizard (DoT or Proc-chance), lower Defense / Resists, or maybe something else.
Get damage when you attack, it's sound a bad idea !!!
Otherwise, lower defense sound good for me when I heard "ICY" canon.
Hey all...long time lurker, first time poster.
I was daydreaming at work earlier today and came up with an idea for the Wizard's energy system that I think could make for some interesting play. It's basically an outgrowth of the oft-suggested charge-up system, but with an extra kick that I think makes that somewhat dull system a bit more exciting. Bear with me, because I can sometimes be a bit long-winded...
So basically all of the Wizard's damaging spells would be grouped into one of three categories: low, medium, and high Instability (although with cooler names...I'm thinking something along the lines of Stable, Unstable, and Havoc, respectively.) For simplicity's sake in this explanation, let's assume that the Wizard's Instability "pool" will range from 0-100.
Stable Spells: No cost, low damage, low Instability generation (~5-10) Unstable Spells: Low cost (~15-30), medium damage, medium Instability generation (~30-60...considering the cost, makes for a net gain of 15-30) Havoc Spells: High cost (~40+), high damage, no Instability generation
Thus far, we have our basic, boring charge-up system. However, where things get different is when a spell is cast with a full Instability pool. In this case, the entire pool is drained, regardless of the base cost of the spell, and in return the spell gets certain bonuses. Now, my idea is that casting a full Instability Havoc spell will (almost) always be ideal. With that in mind, I will lead you through my thought process on how the full Instability bonus would work.
Damage Scales Proportionally to Increased Cost: Confused? Let's say, for example, you cast a Havoc spell with a base cost of 40. When your Instability pool is full, it will automatically cost all 100 Instability. In this case, the increased cost is 60 Instability. Compared to the base cost of 40, the increased cost of 60 is 150%. Therefore, the spell will gain an additional 150% damage for a total of 250% base damage. This was my original idea, but as I got to thinking of it, this system basically increases both the damage and the cost of the spell by x%. Although this would certainly increase the Wizard's burst capabilities, it doesn't really provide more bang for your buck, if you will. So, I started trying to think up other ideas...
Damage Increases by a Fixed Amount: This was my next idea. Unfortunately, unlike the previous bonus, this does not balance across spells of different costs. For example, if the fixed damage bonus is 100% and you cast a Havoc spell that normally costs 40 Instability, you're essentially using 100 Instability to do 80 Instability worth of damage. That's underpowered. On the other hand, if you cast a Havoc spell that normally costs 80 Instability, you're only spending 100 Instability to do 160 Instability worth of damage. OP. Next.
Damage Increases Proportionally with an Inverse Increase in Critical Strike Chance: Here I returned to my first idea but with the added perk of also increasing critical strike chance of the spell, thus providing that extra bang for the buck that was originally lacking. To ensure that it is balanced though, the increased critical strike chance would scale inversely to the increased damage. That is to say, if your damage increases by, say, a factor of 8 (as in a relatively low-cost spell), the critical strike chance would increase by a factor of 2. Conversely, if the damage increased by a factor of 2 (as with a high-cost spell), the critical strike chance would increase by a factor of 8.
Obviously, none of these solutions are perfect, but I think my last suggestion is looking pretty nice, if not probably still in need of balancing.
Casting Stable Spells with Full Instability: In this case, I think a fixed damage increase would be fine...maybe something around 3-5x damage and 2x Instability generation.
Casting Unstable Spells with Full Instability: Again, my idea is roughly 2x damage and half Instability generation. I want the Instability generation penalty here because I don't want it to be better to cast an Unstable spell than a Havoc spell with full Instability.
Obviously these ideas aren't nearly as fleshed out as my Havoc ideas, but...
it a nice idea... I don't know if I got it right though
the main problem I see is that it seems too complicated... and as we don't have skill trees anymore it would be hard to tell to wich category the spell is related...
I'll give it a second read and see if I get it right anyway...
I will admit that it is an awful lot like rage, but I think the big difference is the forced dump when it gets full. If your Instability is full, you won't have the option of casting the spell normally or with your full pool; it's all or nothing. I think this idea fits quite well into the "glass cannon" archetype. It also makes for some more interesting decision making: if you have 80 Instability, do you cast that 70 Instability Havoc spell or do you cast another Un/Stable spell to finish filling up your bulb first? I also envision the Instability pool filling and draining much more quickly than rage/fury would.
As for "Havoc," it's just the first thing I thought up for the example...Volatile would work just as well, although I'm not sure how much confusion there would be with a part of game hardware and actual gameplay mechanics. And as far as complexity is concerned, the full Instability bonuses don't necessarily make the gameplay more complex, just the underlying mechanics. For those players who think the mechanics are on a need-to-know basis, they can just know that their spells do more damage with a full pool. The min/max type gamers can worry about how exactly that works.
EDIT: And, as Ivaron pointed out, I'm sure they could do a variety of things with the spell hotkey images to clearly indicate which category they fit into. I don't know if they're reserving a certain color background for a certain tree (for lack of a better word), but if so they could differentiate with colored borders or something like that easily enough.
"Instability" mean mana/energy ?
So when you have full mana you're forced to cast and it will drain your mana to 0 ?
After you will need to wait after your regeneration ?
Personnally I don't like it, because of the words underlined !
And I think Blizzard will try to make every skills useful SO, I don't expect categories, I want that every spell start weak and more points you put in it more it's become powerful.
It is just too complex. Blizzard wants these systems to be easy to read and function. I think the wiz will simply have some spells that raise instability and others that lower it. The wiz will even have a few that are neutral. If you raise instability too high then either spell can back fire, have no effect, less damage (whatever they decide to make it blanaced). This will allow you to start strong without having to build up anyhing. It will also encourage the player to use multiple spells to keep the instability in check. For anyone who thinks it will FORCE you to use other spells. Think of it this way, when you normally ran out of mana you couldn't do anything. With this system when you raise your instability too high (equivalent to running out of mana) you can at least still cast something.
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That system is cool Scyber. Simple, intuitive and diverse. With the goal of making multiple skills viable except for one super-skill, this won't be that much of a problem.
I'm hurry to know how it will work, because I dislike the system where casting low spell raise your mana (just no sense, low spell cost low mana, that's it)
Separate skill in categories is not a good idea from my point of view.
People will maxed neutral skills (cost nothing) with one high skill. They will regain mana with the default regen.
Or
People will only put 1 point in a low skill to not waste more points to regain mana. BUT now people will cast useless skill (not effective in high level) only to regain mana ? I think it's less important than "diversity".
Wizard have a lot of great useful skills, I think the player will choose the diversity to pwn. Blizzard want each monsters have a different way to kill and differents behavior. The diversity will be create by that. Check the number of useful spells wizard have compared to barb where almost every skills is physical damage. Barb need diversity not wizard !
If you raise instability too high then either spell can back fire, have no effect, less damage (whatever they decide to make it blanaced). This will allow you to start strong without having to build up anyhing. It will also encourage the player to use multiple spells to keep the instability in check. For anyone who thinks it will FORCE you to use other spells. Think of it this way, when you normally ran out of mana you couldn't do anything. With this system when you raise your instability too high (equivalent to running out of mana) you can at least still cast something.
In this system though, there's no benefit to having high Instability. In fact, those suggestions make having high Instability a detriment. So there's no reason that a player would ever build his/her Instability up. Just swap back and forth between generating and draining spells or just use the "neutral" spells. I don't feel like that's a particularly compelling resource system.
I agree that having to cast "lesser" spells is a definite issue for any sort of charge-up based system. Despite its shortcomings though, it forces the player to make more decisions, use more spells, and have his/her head in the game rather than just spamming two skills over and over. I think a unique and intriguing style of gameplay for each class is what Blizz is aiming for when they're spending all this time and energy coming up with specific forms of combat resource for each class.
In this system though, there's no benefit to having high Instability. In fact, those suggestions make having high Instability a detriment. So there's no reason that a player would ever build his/her Instability up. Just swap back and forth between generating and draining spells or just use the "neutral" spells. I don't feel like that's a particularly compelling resource system.
I agree that having to cast "lesser" spells is a definite issue for any sort of charge-up based system. Despite its shortcomings though, it forces the player to make more decisions, use more spells, and have his/her head in the game rather than just spamming two skills over and over. I think a unique and intriguing style of gameplay for each class is what Blizz is aiming for when they're spending all this time and energy coming up with specific forms of combat resource for each class.
By "instability", do you mean mana ? and please explain me why you call that instability ?
I think about a simple and great system in the same way of your idea.
Depending of the number of mana you have (not %, your current point of mana), you do more damage (%). So players will wanted more mana, not like d2. And to regain your mana, you just have a good regen. And for the problem of "diversity" you put an equitable cool down (relative to powerfulness) for each spell who need to.
In this system though, there's no benefit to having high Instability. In fact, those suggestions make having high Instability a detriment. So there's no reason that a player would ever build his/her Instability up. Just swap back and forth between generating and draining spells or just use the "neutral" spells. I don't feel like that's a particularly compelling resource system.
I agree that having to cast "lesser" spells is a definite issue for any sort of charge-up based system. Despite its shortcomings though, it forces the player to make more decisions, use more spells, and have his/her head in the game rather than just spamming two skills over and over. I think a unique and intriguing style of gameplay for each class is what Blizz is aiming for when they're spending all this time and energy coming up with specific forms of combat resource for each class.
The benefit to raising your instability is being able to cast those spells. Instability by definition is a negative attribute and therefore probably means it is a bad thing. However, the trade off is casting higher spells. Giant AoE damaging spells and really high single target spells. You want to cast your most damaging spells but there has to be a limit. That is what my system does. It allows you to cast high spells until you are to unstable. Rather than stopping play, the wiz can cast lower spells to lower their instability. To put it in # terms.
You could only cast your high dmg skills 4-5 times before maxing instability. Then you cast a bunch of bolts to lower it. Or you could cast a few lightning while time reduces your instability. This system causes a great use for many different spells.
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Yeah, I see what you're getting at now. It could work for sure...it would be cool if the weakest spells removed the most Instability and the stronger ones removed less so there'd be decisions on whether to lower it quickly but do very little damage or lower it slowly and still be able to put some hurt on.
I think Blizz wants to have cool and unique resource systems, so with that in mind it can obviously lead to some pretty complex ideas. Which are neat. But they also want to make it user/noob friendly, so that means it has to be simple. I guess we just have to wait and see where they go with it.
Instability by definition is a negative attribute and therefore probably means it is a bad thing.
Good thought !!
So you will start with 0 and you mustn't maxed instability !! The only thing is, what it does if you reach the maximum of instability ? you explode ? unable to cast for a while ?
That is tricky. There is the possibility of backfire. Your character takes dmg from their own spell. However, if they do this that it has to work on a percentage to ensure that it can't kill you. Or it can reduce dmg dealt causing you to only doing half dmg while it is maxed. Or the last possibility is that it completely stops you from being able to cast (like running out of mana).
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I really think that my first idea will be implemented. Mana/Energy Shield
Summary of previous posts :
vulnerable in sense easier to be hurt, to die.
Check this link at 8 min. we see wizard, he's never cast and each hit he take, you see a "energy shield" appear.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx7ce3OdUd4&feature=related
What are you talking about ?
Good question, it will be balanced with the test involved. But I think it's better to have a tiny pool with a great regeneration (exponential: less energy=more regeneration, more energy=less regeneration) something like that !
Melee wizard will almost have full energy, so he'll obtain like 1-3 hit absorbed by the shield, after his life will drop.
For a caster wizard, he will absolutly need to never be hit if he want to be safe to cast. Like Blizzard said, icy cannon
Ah okkk lolll , I was convinced from the start about that !!
Just read what I think: post with many quotes, page 20
Off the top of my head I can think of some quick and dirty buffs it may apply, such as higher critical chance, higher raw % damage, or begins ignoring more and more resistances; debuffs could be damage dealt to the Wizard (DoT or Proc-chance), lower Defense / Resists, or maybe something else.
The name ? Icy canon ? it doesn't sound buff for me ?
Get damage when you attack, it's sound a bad idea !!!
Otherwise, lower defense sound good for me when I heard "ICY" canon.
I was daydreaming at work earlier today and came up with an idea for the Wizard's energy system that I think could make for some interesting play. It's basically an outgrowth of the oft-suggested charge-up system, but with an extra kick that I think makes that somewhat dull system a bit more exciting. Bear with me, because I can sometimes be a bit long-winded...
So basically all of the Wizard's damaging spells would be grouped into one of three categories: low, medium, and high Instability (although with cooler names...I'm thinking something along the lines of Stable, Unstable, and Havoc, respectively.) For simplicity's sake in this explanation, let's assume that the Wizard's Instability "pool" will range from 0-100.
Stable Spells: No cost, low damage, low Instability generation (~5-10)
Unstable Spells: Low cost (~15-30), medium damage, medium Instability generation (~30-60...considering the cost, makes for a net gain of 15-30)
Havoc Spells: High cost (~40+), high damage, no Instability generation
Thus far, we have our basic, boring charge-up system. However, where things get different is when a spell is cast with a full Instability pool. In this case, the entire pool is drained, regardless of the base cost of the spell, and in return the spell gets certain bonuses. Now, my idea is that casting a full Instability Havoc spell will (almost) always be ideal. With that in mind, I will lead you through my thought process on how the full Instability bonus would work.
Damage Scales Proportionally to Increased Cost: Confused? Let's say, for example, you cast a Havoc spell with a base cost of 40. When your Instability pool is full, it will automatically cost all 100 Instability. In this case, the increased cost is 60 Instability. Compared to the base cost of 40, the increased cost of 60 is 150%. Therefore, the spell will gain an additional 150% damage for a total of 250% base damage. This was my original idea, but as I got to thinking of it, this system basically increases both the damage and the cost of the spell by x%. Although this would certainly increase the Wizard's burst capabilities, it doesn't really provide more bang for your buck, if you will. So, I started trying to think up other ideas...
Damage Increases by a Fixed Amount: This was my next idea. Unfortunately, unlike the previous bonus, this does not balance across spells of different costs. For example, if the fixed damage bonus is 100% and you cast a Havoc spell that normally costs 40 Instability, you're essentially using 100 Instability to do 80 Instability worth of damage. That's underpowered. On the other hand, if you cast a Havoc spell that normally costs 80 Instability, you're only spending 100 Instability to do 160 Instability worth of damage. OP. Next.
Damage Increases Proportionally with an Inverse Increase in Critical Strike Chance: Here I returned to my first idea but with the added perk of also increasing critical strike chance of the spell, thus providing that extra bang for the buck that was originally lacking. To ensure that it is balanced though, the increased critical strike chance would scale inversely to the increased damage. That is to say, if your damage increases by, say, a factor of 8 (as in a relatively low-cost spell), the critical strike chance would increase by a factor of 2. Conversely, if the damage increased by a factor of 2 (as with a high-cost spell), the critical strike chance would increase by a factor of 8.
Obviously, none of these solutions are perfect, but I think my last suggestion is looking pretty nice, if not probably still in need of balancing.
Casting Stable Spells with Full Instability: In this case, I think a fixed damage increase would be fine...maybe something around 3-5x damage and 2x Instability generation.
Casting Unstable Spells with Full Instability: Again, my idea is roughly 2x damage and half Instability generation. I want the Instability generation penalty here because I don't want it to be better to cast an Unstable spell than a Havoc spell with full Instability.
Obviously these ideas aren't nearly as fleshed out as my Havoc ideas, but...
What do you all think?
the main problem I see is that it seems too complicated... and as we don't have skill trees anymore it would be hard to tell to wich category the spell is related...
I'll give it a second read and see if I get it right anyway...
As for "Havoc," it's just the first thing I thought up for the example...Volatile would work just as well, although I'm not sure how much confusion there would be with a part of game hardware and actual gameplay mechanics. And as far as complexity is concerned, the full Instability bonuses don't necessarily make the gameplay more complex, just the underlying mechanics. For those players who think the mechanics are on a need-to-know basis, they can just know that their spells do more damage with a full pool. The min/max type gamers can worry about how exactly that works.
EDIT: And, as Ivaron pointed out, I'm sure they could do a variety of things with the spell hotkey images to clearly indicate which category they fit into. I don't know if they're reserving a certain color background for a certain tree (for lack of a better word), but if so they could differentiate with colored borders or something like that easily enough.
I don't think I get it right ! anyway !!
"Instability" mean mana/energy ?
So when you have full mana you're forced to cast and it will drain your mana to 0 ?
After you will need to wait after your regeneration ?
Personnally I don't like it, because of the words underlined !
And I think Blizzard will try to make every skills useful SO, I don't expect categories, I want that every spell start weak and more points you put in it more it's become powerful.
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Separate skill in categories is not a good idea from my point of view.
People will maxed neutral skills (cost nothing) with one high skill. They will regain mana with the default regen.
Or
People will only put 1 point in a low skill to not waste more points to regain mana. BUT now people will cast useless skill (not effective in high level) only to regain mana ? I think it's less important than "diversity".
Wizard have a lot of great useful skills, I think the player will choose the diversity to pwn. Blizzard want each monsters have a different way to kill and differents behavior. The diversity will be create by that. Check the number of useful spells wizard have compared to barb where almost every skills is physical damage. Barb need diversity not wizard !
In this system though, there's no benefit to having high Instability. In fact, those suggestions make having high Instability a detriment. So there's no reason that a player would ever build his/her Instability up. Just swap back and forth between generating and draining spells or just use the "neutral" spells. I don't feel like that's a particularly compelling resource system.
I agree that having to cast "lesser" spells is a definite issue for any sort of charge-up based system. Despite its shortcomings though, it forces the player to make more decisions, use more spells, and have his/her head in the game rather than just spamming two skills over and over. I think a unique and intriguing style of gameplay for each class is what Blizz is aiming for when they're spending all this time and energy coming up with specific forms of combat resource for each class.
By "instability", do you mean mana ? and please explain me why you call that instability ?
I think about a simple and great system in the same way of your idea.
Depending of the number of mana you have (not %, your current point of mana), you do more damage (%). So players will wanted more mana, not like d2. And to regain your mana, you just have a good regen. And for the problem of "diversity" you put an equitable cool down (relative to powerfulness) for each spell who need to.
I'm having trouble finding it, but I'm pretty sure there was a Twitter post not too long ago referring to the Wizard's resource as Instability.
The benefit to raising your instability is being able to cast those spells. Instability by definition is a negative attribute and therefore probably means it is a bad thing. However, the trade off is casting higher spells. Giant AoE damaging spells and really high single target spells. You want to cast your most damaging spells but there has to be a limit. That is what my system does. It allows you to cast high spells until you are to unstable. Rather than stopping play, the wiz can cast lower spells to lower their instability. To put it in # terms.
instability = 100 max
Blizzard = + 20 instability
Hydra = +25 instability
fire bolt = - 5 instability
ice bolt = - 10 instability
blaze = neutral
lightning = neutral
You could only cast your high dmg skills 4-5 times before maxing instability. Then you cast a bunch of bolts to lower it. Or you could cast a few lightning while time reduces your instability. This system causes a great use for many different spells.
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I think Blizz wants to have cool and unique resource systems, so with that in mind it can obviously lead to some pretty complex ideas. Which are neat. But they also want to make it user/noob friendly, so that means it has to be simple. I guess we just have to wait and see where they go with it.
Good thought !!
So you will start with 0 and you mustn't maxed instability !! The only thing is, what it does if you reach the maximum of instability ? you explode ? unable to cast for a while ?
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