In each town theres a Book Of Nephalem. Each page of the book has what ever skill you have hotkeyed in order.
On that page the skill Rune image will be in the middle a satan style pentagon, Each point of the pentagon has a hole which can socketed with a rune. So basically 5 socket holes per skill. Removing the skill from your preset will destroy all the runes. Replacing certain runes will cost alot.
Runes can role with certain mods but in most cases increase resource costs with it. Like normal things.
Increase damage. IAS, Life on Hit, Life Leech, Resource on hit, Decrease Resource cost, increase duration, decrease cooldown, Increase radius, Add % elemental damage. I
And then get into more unique mods which can tie to certain skills only. Like extra summons.
Here is what I would love to see done with ALL diablo 3 skills.
In diablo 2 the goal was not to get more main stat, but to get more +skill gear, because getting +skill gear not only increased the damage that your skills did, but also had the effect of increasing radius of AoE skills, increasing duration of skills, lowering cooldowns, and other neat effects. Getting enough +skill on your gear would make certain obscure yet ludacris builds very viable. There were certain builds that would only work once you had +40 or more to your skills, and they were super fun.
Primary stat in Diablo 3 does none of this, there is zero change to how your skills operate. Even the % damage they do remains the same. I would love to see primary stat have some secondary effect on each skill. This would not effect rune modifications (I'm sure it would require massive rebalancing of them all) but would only effect the primary goals of the skill. Examples below....
Barbarian
Seismic Slam: Reduce rage cost by 1 per X main stat. Ignore Pain: Reduce cooldown by 1 second per X main stat while this skill is active. Threatening Shout: Increase radius by 1% per x main stat. Inspiring Presence: Increase the effectiveness of your shouts by 1% per X main stat. Relentless: This skill will become active at 1% higher health per X main stat. Boon of Bul-Kathos: Increase the cool down reduction of this skill by 1 second per X main stat.
Wizard
Arcane Orb: Reduce arcane power cost by 1 per X main stat. Hydra: Cast 1 additional hydra for each X main stat. Meteor: Increase impact damage by X% and burn damage by X/3 % per Y main stat. Blizzard: Stack 1 additional Blizzard per each X main stat. Blur: Increase movement speed by 1% per each X main stat. Power Hungry: Increase damage by 1% for Y seconds per each X main stat.
These are just a handful of ways that skills could be augmented by main stat. This would make main stat the definitive go to choice for all classes, just as +skill gear was the definitive go to choice in diablo 2. This would also allow for MUCH more choices in build diversity, as certain builds would only be viable with very high end gear, much like diablo 2 (elemental druid w/HOTA/Enigma anyone?).
Currently high end gear does not really make totally garbage builds viable, it just makes good builds even better. It's much more fun if there is some super high end gear to shoot for, in order to be able to play a super high end build. It distinguishes you, and gives you something to grind for. Right now there is little reason to grind. "I'm already pretty good, and getting better gear is not going to cause me to totally respec into a 100% different crazy build, just keep this build and do more damage yaaaaaaaaaawn..."
I'll talk about Barbarian, because it's the class i play most of the time.
When it comes to Wrath of the Berserker, my suggestion is: reduce cooldown to 60 seconds instead of 120 (this should be done with Earthquake and Call of the Ancients too), and increase duration to 20 seconds. Then redesign Thrive con Chaos to reduce the cooldown 1 second per 25 fury generated, not increase the duration. This way WotB - ToC will be useful, but it wouldn't be overpowered, and the other runes would be more appealing. Arreat's Wail is and will always be useless... Redesign into "while active, Wrath of the Berserker erupts blood, dealing 100% weapon damage per second to nearby enemies" or something like that, to make it useful and fun to use.
Bash - Pulverize is really cool for AoE skill, but the shockwave should deal at least 100% weapon damage.
Cleave - Rupture should be triggered on critical hits, not on kills. That way it would be useful in the endgame.
Frenzy - Triumph should be triggered con critical hits, same reason as Rupture. Vanguard could also increase attack speed by 2% per stack.
Seismic Slam should deal around 300% weapon damage, and have a rune to pull enemies towards you.
Rend - Bloodbath is useless, redesign it to something like "enemies killed with Rend cause a blood eruption dealing 700% weapon damage to nearby enemies".
Whirlwind is pretty much useless with any rune other than Hurricane, so the solution should be making Whirlwind move at normal speed, and make Hurricane boost movement speed by around 10%. This way the other runes would become much more useful.
Leap should have a rune to remove the cooldown but make it cost fury instead.
Ground Stomp should always deal damage, and increase the area to 18 yd (the area is too little without Wrenching Smash).
Reduce Ignore Pain cooldown to 20 seconds, and make Bravado pull enemies instead of knockback.
Increase Ancient Spear damage, and make it always pull multiple enemies without needing Harpoon rune.
Revenge - Grudge should pull enemies, not knockback...
Overpower - Storm of Steel is so cool! But it would be better if it dealt more damage...
It would be interesting to have a rune in Threatening Shout that made enemies bleed, so it would become both a defensive and offensive skill.
Battle Rage - Ferocity is useless... Redesign it to increase critical chance up to 5-6%.
Same with Sword to Ploughshares... Redesign it to give some lifesteal or something useful... Or at least increase the chance to drop a health globe to 10-20% chance.
Nerf Into the Fray to 10 fury instead of 15... 15 fury is just too much...
Bloodshed is nice for AoE, but it needs some buff... At least 30% instead of 20%.
War Cry - Charge! Should also reduce the cooldown to 10 seconds. Make it a really good fury generator, because you're trading off 20% armor or 20% all resistances...
As i said before, Earthquake should have a 60 seconds cooldown, and it would go down to 45 seconds with The Mountain's Call and to 30 seconds with Boon of Bul-Kathos.
As well with Call of the Ancients, reduce the cooldown to 60 seconds and make it last 20, and 30 with Duty to the Clan.
That's pretty much everything. Sorry for the long post...
Barbarian
Bash - doesn't need modification as such. Rune Punish stacks should be visible in buffs (same as Frenzy)
Call of the Antients - This is be coolest Barb skill, but has now zero use now.
I would appreciate possibility to lower the 120 sec. cooldown for it (1 crit = 1 second; min cd = 60 seconds).
Passive skill which enables having COA active all the time, with lowered dmg output.
Cleave - Rupture. Right now it is not used at all, on higher difficulty (or higher MP). The explosion would have to be with higher dmg output. Rune Scattering Blast is generally useless as it is a defensive attribute for an offensive skill.
Seismic slam - is underpowered compared to HOA. Rune CR should be on same level as HOA - Smash. It would be good to have rune that removes the knock back and adds another attribute to theskill.
Leap - Iron Impact increase to 6 seconds. Otherwise it's unusable. There is too big of a gap between the useful effect and the cooldown.
Antient Spear - create rune or passive skill to lower the CD. (Same as COA)
Earth quake - create rune or passive skill to lower the CD. (Same as COA)
Fist of Thunder - The third attack no longer does knockback but has a high chance to stagger.
FoT: Lightning Flash - Increases your chance to Dodge by 16% for 2 seconds with each activation. (Not on hit)
FoT: Static Charge - Your primary target is charged with static electricity for 3 seconds and release 3 charged bolts that do 73% weapon damage as Lightning each time it is struck.
FoT: Fistful of Force - A critical hit on the third strike does additional damage equal to X% of your Strength and knocks back enemies a short distance. The damage is also changed Fire. (Quickening is removed)
FoT: Bounding Light - Every third punch releases a chain lightning that can jump up to 18 yards to reach the primary target. Each lightning strike inflicts 90% weapon damage as Lightning.
Lashing Tail Kick - Knock back distance is halved.
LTK: Spinning Flame Kick - Because base knockback distance is halved, the flaming pillar has a chance to hit twice depending on the angle and room
LTK: Scorpion Sting - Instead of being knocked back, enemies have a 50% chance to be stunned for a number of seconds equal to X% of your Strength.
LTK: Hand of Ytar - Has increased AoE and can shoot over walls and pit falls.
Deadly Reach - First and second strikes range is 20 yards. Attack width increased
Deadly Reach: Keen Eye - Duration up to 15 seconds
Deadly Reach: Deadly Precision - Deadly Reach has increased critical hit chance equal to X% of your Intelligence. (Replaces Strike from Beyond.)
Deadly Reach: Foresight - Duration reduced to 15.
Blinding Flash: Blinding Echo - Now works like Wizard's Teleport:Reversal
Activating Blinding Flash again within 6 seconds, creates a flash of light that that will blind enemies within 20 yards for 0.5 seconds.
TR: Storm Surge - Stopping the channeling after 2 seconds, releases a shockwave that does 155% weapon damage as Physical to nearby enemies and reflects all incoming attacks. (Replaces Bluster)
BoH: Circle of Scorn - Breath of Heaven also sears enemies for an amount equal to your Life. (more Life, more damage)
BoH: Circle of Life - Increases the healing power of Breath of Heaven to 9303-11163 Life.
BoH: Infused with Light - Duration up to 15 seconds.
BoH: Penitent Flame - Enemies exposed to Breath of Heaven attack other enemies for 3 seconds.
Dashing Strike - Maximum dash distance retained.
DS: Way of the Falling Star - After dashing, your movement speed is increased 25% for 3 seconds. (no need to hit)
DS: Flying Side Kick - Perform a flying kick that has a chance to Stun your target for 1.5 seconds. The chance to Stun is an amount equal to X% of your Intelligence.
DS: Sonic Boom - An explosion occurs at the start of your dash that slows all nearby enemies by 60% for 2 seconds and deals 85% weapon damage as Physical. (replaces Soaring Skull)
Crippling Wave: Healing Wave - The third attack has a 12% chance to release healing light that heals you and allies within 12 yards for 10% of your maximum Life. (replaces Rising Tide)
WoL: Wall of Light - Graphic is a wall rather than a bell therefore increasing the AoE lengthwise
WoL: Pillar of the Gods - Raise a pillar that does 595% weapon damage as Holy, then shatter it sending a volley of debris that do 610% weapon damage as Holy to up to 8 targets. (modified Pillar of the Ancients that works like DR: Scattered Blows)
EP: Strong Spirit - If the target explodes after bleeding, generate 50 Spirit.
EP: Creeping Demise - Also reduces your target's movement speed by 80% for the duration of the bleed.
EP: Bloody Mess - If the target explodes after bleeding, it has a chance to drop a Life orb equal to X% of your Intelligence.
EP: Essence Burn - Instead of bleeding, the target will burn for 894% weapon damage as Fire over 9 seconds. If the target dies while burning, it explodes causing all nearby enemies to burn for 220% weapon damage as Fire over 3 seconds. This effect can happen multiple times.
Passives:
Fleet Footed - Increases movement speed by 10%. In addition, while at 30% of your maximum Life or less, your dodge chance increases by 15%.
Exalted Soul - Increases maximum Spirit by 100. Generate an additional 10 Spirit each time you critically hit with a Spirit Generator. (Replaces all +Spirit on Crit Spirit Generators)
Chant of Resonance - The duration of bonus effects when activating a Mantra is increased to 4 seconds.
While one of your Mantras is active you gain 2 Spirit each second.
Sixth Sense - Your Dodge chance is increased by an amount equal to 30% of your Critical Hit Chance. In addition, when you dodge an attack your Critical Hit Damage increases by 50% for 1.5 seconds.
Pacifism - While you are under a Stun, Fear, Immobilize or Charm effect, all damage taken is reduced by 75%. In addition, each time you come under a Stun, Fear, Immobilize or Charm effect, your damage increases by 20% for 30 seconds.
Guiding Light - When you use a direct heal skill, each player you heal deals an additional 8% damage for each player healed. This bonus lasts 15 seconds.
Combination Strike - Each different Spirit Generator ability you use increases your Dexterity by 10% for 3 seconds.
Near Death Experience - When receiving fatal damage, you are instead restored to 35% of maximum Life, 35% Spirit and the cooldowns of all your skills are reset.
This effect cannot occur twice in succession every 90 seconds.
Lethal Decoy - When your Mystic Ally dies, it pulls up to 8 enemies within 24 yards towards itself before exploding in a nova that does 313% weapon damage as Holy.
I really would like to see the skills with really lengthy cool-downs be reduced drastically.
This game is far too fast paced to have something with a two minute CD. It's the reason Thrive on Chaos rune is about the only WotB rune being used. The problem is that Wrath is far too powerful versus other skills without that cool-down. The other side of the problem coin is that with such a huge cool-down you are wasting a skill slot 105 seconds out of 120 without the endless up-time Thrive on Chaos provides.
Give WOTB a passive for the skill that gives a chance to keep the length on it longer per x amount of kills. And each rune gives different bonuses like defense thorns, radius around you that pulls in enemies and stuns, all sorts of good ideas for better skill runes for this game. This 5% dodge chance is lame. a 5% chance to crit runes are lame. Make runes do cool visual things and offer cool play styles and let gear add stats or another means of blacksmithing to play with adding stats but runes shuld offer custome styles of play and not.. Choose this rune for X crit chance bonus. That's so lame and cheap imo
To start off the WD skill portion, I would love to see ALL primary skills to be free. It should not cost any resources to be able to attack with our basic skill.
----- Poison Dart - base damage of the 40% over 2 seconds, should be buffed to 150% over 2 seconds, across all rune variants.
Splinters - imho, this rune is fine as is, 3 darts, each does 60%
Numbing Dart - I would like to see the slow time to the target increase to 5 seconds. This would help against multiple targets.
Spined Dart - IF the cost of casting basic skills on not removed, mana gained from hits should be buffed to 40 mana. If the cost to cast basic skill is removed, the buff should be 30.
Flaming Dart - buff this skill to 210%. Its current base value of 180% instant damage is too low when compared to Splinters. They both deal the same overall damage, and the splinters have a higher chance at procs since there are 3 of them per cast.
Snake to the Face - buff it to 80% chance to stun. Once you hit inferno, the 80% nerf to all procs would bring this to 16% chance to stun. WDs already have mana problems, and having to give up a skill slot to gain mana is not worth it for low proc chances (which is 6% in its current state).
----- Corpse Spider
Leaping Spiders - buff to 150%, skill works great imo. You are able to hit multiple targets, solid hits on fast targets too.
Spider Queen - buff this to 75% weapon damage per second over 15 seconds. I read, and understood the concept you blues said about skill wording. The way I wrote it in the previous sentence, and the way it was written originally, was too "confusing" for people. At this skills current state, 630% damage over 15 seconds is really 42% damager per second over 15 seconds, which is PATHEIC, and even worse is the spider's damage radius.
The Spider Queen also derps around not chasing enemies, and for only being able to have 1 Spider Queen out at a time, does not justify being used at all. If you removed the 1 spider limit completly, and alow us to spam as many as we could, and the spider still has its derpy a.i. on top of the bad damage radius, I would see this as acceptable. IF you are to keep the 1 spider limit, you have to improve the a.i. substantially, increasing the spider's move speed, on top of increasing its damage radious on the base skill, or via Pick up Radius (PuR) on gear.
Widowmakers - works great, keep as is.
Medusa Spiders - buff the slow chance to 35%, skill works great imho.
Blazing Spiders - buff to 225%. I know the damage seem ridiculous compared the rest of the spider runes, but there is good reasoning behind it. Besides Leaping Spiders, all spider runes have small spiderlings chasing MOVING enemies, which means they will de-spawn before dealing the damage stated per cast.
Leaping spiders work great b/c its guaranteed that they all output the damage stated if an enemy is within 25 yard. All other rune varients have great affixes to make up for the lack of hits. In its current state, Blazing Spiders only deal 156% damage, but since they have to CHASE their target, they end up dealing WAY less damage than Leaping Spiders, making the current state of this rune obsolete compared to the rest.
----- Plague of Toads - again, remove all mana cost for basic skills. Currently, I don't see why its worth using this skill when it costs so damn high to cast on top of the frogs jumping in random directions, not making any cast guaranteed hits.
I would love to see all 3 toads per cast have the capacity to be able to hit the same target. As it stands now, only 1 of the 3 toads per cast can hit a single target. I know this sound Over Powered (OP) for some runes, but this has the ablitiy to open up different build since you will be able to hit the same target 3 times with a single cast. And to even be able to hit the same target with all 3 toads in 1 cast, means you will be up close and personal, guaranteed to be hit by mobs, which is a good trade off for this potential buff.
Explosive Toads - works great, see general skill improvements above ^
Toad of Hugeness - buff to 125% damage per second over 5 seconds. Make the toad be able to eat ALL enemies, including ALL elites (excluding main act bosses). 625% should make up for the fact that you cannot attack enemies while they are inside the frog. If this was to change, and we are able to attack enemies while they are inside the frog, 250% damage over 5 seconds would be acceptable.
Rain of Toads - works great
Addling Toads - buffto 25% chance to confuse so inferno proc nerf makes it 5%. Also, see general skill improvements above ^
Toad Affinity - Spawn 7 frogs PER cast, limit number of frogs a single cast can hit a single
target to 3.
----- Firebomb - buff all runes base damage to 115%. Give the base radius of all rune variants an increase via PuR on gear. Don't worry about PuR making this skill OP. If we are sacrificing an affect slot in our gear for PuR over other great stats (more vit/All Res/+Armor/main stat/etc) it is well worth it for better build diversity!!! Increase the base explosion 1 yard for every 2
points your gear has for PuR.
Flash Fire - buff to 115% damage, and damage reduced by 8% per bounce.
Roll the Bones - buff to 115%, would work great if PuR buff for base explision was implemented. If not, which would make all runes suck again, Make the skill bound in a "T" shape. Let the skull bounce as is already, twice in front, and 1 bomb on the left, and one on the right, from the origin cast location, horizontal to the character and cast location (example below)
(C)=where you clicked to cast
(WD)=you
(B)= where additional bombs spawn from your cast
Fire Pit - buff to 115% base explosion, and 30% damage for the pool of fire left behind, per second, over 5 seconds. Casting additionl bombs will not stack pool damage. If you do allow pool damage to stack, make it 5% per second, over 5 seconds.
Pyrogeist - change the visual of the skill to a large totem pole, and make it look bad axx. Skill damage is fine, as long as the radius of "closest enemy" is increase by your PuR
Ghost Bomb - buff to 115% base, and PuR bonus should apply to both base blast, and the larger 30% base explosion too.
----- Grasp of the Dead
Unbreakable Grasp - works great
Groping Eels - buff to 440%
Death is Life - buff pecent chance for globes or dog to 20%
Desperate Grasp - works great, would love to see 1-2 second cooldown on an item or two, that does not already take away from a possible affix on gear.
Rain of Corpses - NOT ENOUGH CORPSES lol. Currently there are only 3 that fall per cast, this is pathetic =( Increase the cooldown to 12 seconds, increase the radius of the slow pool twice what it is now, and LOTS MORE CORPSES. each corpse should deal 15% damage for every enemy hit. The explosion radius for the corpses should be what it is now as well (4 right)
----- Firebats
Dire Bats - buff to 50 yards, buff damage to 250%
Vampire Bats - buff to 3% life steal
Plague Bats - works great
Hungry Bats - works great, not my thing though when tested. Not sure how to improve besides buff to 375%
Cloud of Bats - damage radious need a buff, its too small atm, and enemies can still strike from their melee range, and avoid your swirl of bats, lolwut? Increase its base, or do it via PuR
gear.
----- Haunt - all runes work great imo for their purpse. I don't know about other people, but I personally don't use it b/c its current damage of 95% per second over 6 seconds is too low. Buffing it would help, but im not sure how to balance damage for this specific one.
General rundown of some odd bugs first
Locust Swarm + Haunt DOES NOT crit the way they are describing it by tick. Either the spell you cast will crit or it won't, like regular attacks, but EVEN WORSE b/c crits from the DoT can cancel back to regular ticks, as described below.
Examples: (numbers are all based at my current DPS 97.6k @ 1.53 attacks per second)
Haunt
I cast Haunt > it crits > dmg dealt is significant 700k+ dmg (average tick damage 50k)
I cast Haunt > NO crit > dmg dealt is 200k or less. (average tick damage 15k)
Casting haunt multiple times on a single target does not stack (this is normal).
If you do spam multiple Haunt on a single target, and a follow-up cast crits, there will only be ONE tick that crits for 50k dmg, while the following ticks will NOT continue crit. It does not matter the sequence of when the crit happened, 1st cast or 5th cast, as long as there is a non crit on a target, Haunt will continue to do regular weapon damage (15k per tick)
The ONLY time Haunt will crit for full 700K damage, is if it is the initial cast ONLY for its entire duration. Any follow up cast, at any point while it is active on an enemy, will reset it back to 15k dmg per tick. When Haunt does crit for 50k dmg ticks, the numbers will be white.
Consuming Spirit - works great
Resntful Spirit - buff it to 500% over 2 seconds
Lingering Spirit - buff radius for new enemy to 12 yards as base, or small incriments via gear PuR
Grasping Spirit - works great
Draining Spirit - buff to 22 mana
----- Locust Swarm -
I cast Locust Swarm > it crits > dmg dealt is significant 500k+ dmg (average tick 30k)
I cast Locust Swarm > NO crit > dmg dealt is 100k or less (average tick 8k)
Locust Swarm crit details, look at Haunt's details. Same exact problem.
Pestilence - works great
Devouring Swarm - works great
Cloud of Insects - buff duration to 14 seconds. Pestilence makes this rune obsolete b/c it spreads exponentially quicker which in tern, deals more damage. Cloud of insectcs has to travel to 1 enemy at a time, and if they are out of line, cloud of insects will fail to jump to certain mobs in the bunch.
Diseased Swarm - remove the cloud of poison left behind upon enemy death completely, and instead make effected enemies have a 10% to be stunned.
Searing Locus - buff to 500%
----- Zombie Dogs - general, buff damage per hit for each dog to 25%, remove some of the animation on exploding dogs to help with the reduced frame rate please (or whatever makes it slow down)
Rabid Dogs - buff damage they deal to 25%, and 10% damage as poison per second, over 3 seconds.
Final Gift - works great
Life Link - buff to 15% damage absorbed
Burning Dogs - buff dog damage to 25%, and aura damage to 5%
Leaching Beast - works great
----- Horrify - all runes work great as is imho
----- Spirit Walk
Jaunt - works great
Honored Guest - works great
Umbral Shock - buff to 400%
Severance - buff to 600%
Healing Journey - i unno if its /tinfoil hat, but the current 14% life you gain doesnt seem to work. Maybe buff to 20% health
----- Hex
Hedge Magic - buff to 2,500 heal, and increase the number of time he heals by 50%
Jinx - works great
Angry Chicken - buff to 400%, increase yards to 16 on base skill or via PuR on gear. Take off collision detection, make the visual of the chicken to 3x the size it is now (small chicken you turn into is looks bad), and make the chicken you turn red, or at least look like a pissed off chicken for crying out loud (flashing red and white, or something).
Painful Transformation - buff to 25% bleed
Unstable Form - buff radius of base skill to 12 yards or via PuR on gear
----- Soul Harvest - all runes work great except for...
Languish - buff slow duration to 5 seconds
----- Sacrifice all runes work great except for...
Black Blood - remove slow completely, and replace with increase you and your allies move speed by 12%
----- Mass Confusion
Unstable Real - coupled with Last Breath weapon, works great, but Last Breath itself is meh.
Devolution - Change to enemies in the area when killed have a 50% chance to spawn a zombie dog, not only to the ones confused. Also, make a ring noticeable like Corpse Bomb rune for Acid Cloud to show the area.
Mass Hysteria - buff to 10 enemies stunned
Mass Hallucination - buff to 50%
----- Zombie Charger - let's face it, unless you make all other runes for this one as powerful as bears, people will probably still avoid all other runes.
Leperous Zombie - double the distance the zombie charges, poison gas left behind should last 12+ seconds, let people will entire areas in gas like Ghom. Buff damage to match bears.
Undeath - instead of having a zombie reanimate on enemy death, make it 50% chance to spawn another on hit, and let them have the ability to continuously have 50% to chain w/o diminishing chances per successful reanimation.
Wave of Zombies - change this to 10+ zombies that run out in all directions (like the zombie wall rune), then buff the damage to 300%
Explosive Blast - either more explosive beasts that arc out like this \|/ or let the radius of
the blast increas by gear PuR
Zombie Bears - turn them into Woolly Mammoths and strap Nukes on their backs. They don't need to hit anything, just make them blow up at the of their animation, resulting in the instant death of everything around you in a 200 yard radius.
----- Spirit Barrage
The spirit is Willing - works great
Well of Souls - works really great
Phantasm - for its mana cost, its nice that it stacks, but the area covered is too small. If you
don't wana make it the radius larger do to being similar to everything else, make it last longer, 8 seconds sounds nice.
Phlebotomize - for its cost, and only being able to hit 1 target, Vampire Bats makes this
obsolete. It would be nice to have the targeted enemy let everyone gain 3% life though.
Manitou - the damage looks amazing on the description, but its only 83.35% per second. Keep it at 20 seconds, but double the cast rate of the spirit bolts. As the skill stands now, it looks slow, and not awesome. Since the bolts will be casted twice as fast, reduce the damage per bolt by 50%, which should still maintain the 1667% damage over 20 seconds.
----- Acid Cloud
Acid Rain - works great
Lob Blob Bomb - increase the duration to 6 seconds and remove the cap limit of blobs. Only being able to have 3 out at once is no fun.
Slow Burn - works great
Kiss of Death - add: "if an enemy dies on the initial hit, it will spit another acid pool at a
nearby enemy."
Corpse Bomb - works great and looks really cool.
----- Zombie Wall - in general, would like to see some more items with -seconds to zombie wall
Barricade - works great
Unrelenting Grip - works great
Creepers - buff their move speed by like 150%, make it spawn 6-8 creepers, 25% damage each is nice.
Pile On - works great
Dead Rush - screw this skill completely, move the style to zombie bears, waves of zombie rune. RENAME this run Deaths Grip make it so that you make a ring of zombies around your target location. The ring should be big enough to cover the outer edges of Inner Sanctuary from the
monk.
----- Gargantuan
Humongoid - works great
Restless Giant - works great
Wrathful Protector - was this skill a joke? even when you buffed many other skill this one is among the worst skills a WD has. 15 seconds is ok, 1 attack should be a huge swing about 12 yards covering 180 radius 150% weapon damage. 2nd attack should be a slam on the ground 10 yards that knock backs and stuns for 2 seconds 200% weapon damage. Before despawn, his body explodes for 300% damage to enemies in 12 yard, and his shatted boned shiled you 30% dmg reduction for 5 seconds after his death
Big Stinker - works great
Bruiser - works great
----- Big Bad Voodoo
Jungle Drums - keep the buff, but let it be centered around you like the Archon time warp bubble following your every move.
Rain Dance - make if regenerate all alies resources (why it was not like this in the first place is beyond me) (im most intimate with WD class, so all other classes and help me out on a # for your resource regen that is acceptable, but not OP)
Slam Dance - works great, leave as is
Ghost Trance - buff to 6%
Boogie Man - remove everything about it, make it new. Let it follow you like Archon time warp again, but you and your allies enter the spirit realm, like spirit walk, for 10 seconds.
----- Fetish Army - DONT let fettishes we have from our passive despawn when this skill is activated ffs =(
For me the mechanics and skills I love the most are those that have the illusion of independence. When you just fire off something that goes beyond control and it starts doing things in its own independent of you. For that reason I always loved the cascading skills such as Zombie Charger: Undeath. Unfortunately, try as I might, there is no getting over the fact that Zombie Bears are by a mile better than any other Charger rune. They deal more damage, they move faster, and they cover a much larger area. Even if Undeath triggers and you get a new Charger to run around, it still does way less damage than Bears and requires more effort to even get something out of it in the first place (i.e. killing the monster before one of you minions does it for you). Overall the Zombie Charger runes need to be rebalanced so that Bears still do the same amount of damage, but since it's spread over a wide area and moves much faster, the other runes do more damage. Say if Bears do 230%, base Charger would do 230%, all the other runes would do around 270-90% with the fiery explody one (can't remember the name) doing way more damage simply because it doesn't pierce through or do any kind of AoE.
As for Monk, I know that Thorns affix has been brought up repeatedly as a mechanic that is severely underwhelming, but overall I think that maybe Mantra of Retribution should have a rune that increases (maybe even doubles) the damage your Thorns items do in addition to giving you the base retaliation damage that the Mantra does on its own. A thorns Monk with healing/protecting skills could be a very potent combination.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head!
...They die within no time, the damage output is not great and they are wasted skill spots while farming. I feel that they need to buff passive health for both dogs and garg.
You must have sub par gear then. You only need about 750 All Res, 3,700 armor, and from the passive Blood Ritual buff your Life Regen should be around 1,500. My pets tank every monster, even MP 10 ubers w/o going below 95% of their full health. (if they stand on top of of 2 desecrater pools, on top of lightning/poison pools, and being hit, they start loosing health, by then i just back up slightly or grab a globe)
For them do be any kind of decent on MP 7-10, they need more damage buff.
I would love to see the fetishes attack for 150% damage each, on top of lasting longer, but I doubt they will do anything about it.
A easy fix would be to make all unused single target skills into aoe, aoe is extremely important in diablo 3, single target spenders are crap, like Haunt from the WD, unless they are extremely powerful (like the barb Hammer of the Ancients: Smash) but still. Electrocute hitting up to 2 target, how about 8 targets ? Ray of frost, how about beam of frost (go through everyone and is much bigger). Make arcane torrent runed with death blossom by default or make it like a d2 blizzard that is channeled. Grenades from the DH ? more grenades, more damage, bigger explosion, faster cast rate. etc.
Cost: 25 Arcane Power
Cooldown: 12 seconds
Discharge a wave of pure energy that repels projectiles and knocks back nearby enemies. This also slows the movement of enemies by 60% and deals 200% weapon damage as Physical.
How would I improve it so that I would actually use it..
Some number tweaking and add a rune that would pull enemies towards you - not knock back
Cost: 50 Arcane Power
Cooldown: 20 seconds
Discharge a wave of pure energy that pulls enemies towards you. This also slows the movement of enemies by 60% and deals 1000% weapon damage as Physical.
Would become great for huge AOE damage on trash mobs. - combine with cold blooded, frost nova (bone chill), and sleet storm - it could be awesome.
1) Skill activation queueing needs to be revised for Spirit spenders (0 cooldown ones).
The primary reason I tend to avoid skills like Lashing Tail Kick is because their activations are unreliable.
To reproduce, hold left-click and attack some elite with a Spirit generator and try activating a spirit spender - it might or might not activate.
If you are a fellow forumite and want to know more about skill queueing, see "GDC 2013: Through the Grinder" video.
From my experience, Monk is the only char having this problem.
Technically, it's not a bug but a minor design flaw - that's why it belongs here.
2) Blinding Flash, Breath of Heaven, Serenity, Inner Sanctuary.
All of the above have similar functionality in terms of what player uses them for, and first three have somewhat similar visual effects.
And that's a good chunk of Monk skills.
After spending much time playing with them, I feel like their effects should be more varied and/or more pronounced (visually or otherwise).
Some wild improvement ideas:
2a) Rework and merge Breath of Heaven and Blinding Flash.
No, really - why not?
And yeah, I know that not all rune effects will survive the merge. For the better, imho.
2b) Serenity - Instant Karma. "50% of all attacks are reflected back"
Honestly, I'm still not sure how good is 50%. I'd rather had it apply a debuff on attackers to get a better feeling of control.
3) Mystic Ally.
3a) While it might have fine stats on paper, imho it's usefulness could be communicated better.
Ex. more visual feedback on kills (explody deaths), burning attacks, etc.
3b) Allies would be more popular/interesting if they provided more slight buffs to attacks of a player.
Ex. On Hit bonuses - some burning DoT for Fire, Slow debuff for Water, chance for a direct smaller Spirit gain for Air, chance for Stun for Earth, not sure about Eternal.
With On Hit bonuses it would lead to experimentation with debuff application methods (ex. Crippling Wave).
4) Dodge.
Exact Dodge bonus benefits from skills could be communicated better. I was among the frustrated, when I learned how little skills gave me on their own.
In practice, temporary Dodge bonuses feel too insignificant to be bothered.
5) Deadly Reach.
5a) I'd remove Scattered Blows for another rune that would make Monk powerfully move forward about 5-10 yards with each 3rd strike.
5b) Also it would look cool if Deaths caused by this skill would send monster corpses flying backwards.
6) Tempest Rush.
Rune that pulls enemies in as you move could be fun. Especially when combined with AoE skills.
Line them up, take them down.
Should combo well with Deadly Reach.
7) Dashing Strike.
This skill should not fail if you misclick the enemy.
Either you hit it or not.
Not some irritating short jump forward.
Or
You could be able to Dash to empty space, but with some cooldown if you miss the enemy.
8) Exploding Palm.
It should not try to execute against a monster that just died (I guess, effect of queueing)
That loss of Spirit for nothing is irritating.
8a) I'd like a rune to apply it from a medium distance. Even with a lesser effect.
8b) Strong Spirit rarely worth it. Too rarely. I'd try increasing the radius, even if it would feel exploity in some areas. Didn't try it with latest update yet.
9) Mantra of Evasion - Divine Protection.
90 seconds is way too long to bother. Should be less than Near Death Experience imho (currently at 60 sec cooldown). I'd try it more if it was 25-35 secs.
10) Mantra of Evasion - Perseverance.
Too situational to be useful. It's not like you could switch skills on the fly.
Currently doesn't seem to worth a skill slot.
11) Sweeping Wind.
I'd merge Master of Wind with Inner Storm.
Both their description give the idea of a neverending wind vortex.
From my experience, however, Inner Storm is useful only if you try to go with perma-TR. Feel worthless otherwise as it takes more than 25 seconds just to pay for itself.
With Master of Wind it's bonus would seem more natural imho.
12) Fists of Thunder - Bounding Light
Needs more visual feedback.
And I'd rather have it release forking chains on third strike, or shorter chains on each.
13) Lack of interesting/game changing Passives.
What it says.
Some wild ideas:
13a) Monks have a lot of skills applying Slow. Some +5% to crit against slowed enemies would look interesting.
13b) If monster dies from a Primary skill (Spirit generator), have a good chance to jump to another mob and hit it. Can cause chain reaction.
13c) Slow monster (move and attack speed) for 1 sec on each succesful Dodge (melee attacks only).
13d) Each time you get healed via ability you receive a bonus to Dodge for 3 secs. Tradeoff here is that it uses a skill slot.
13e) Add 6% of your weapon damage as holy damage to your attacks. Again, tradeoff here is that it uses a skill slot.
13f) Each time cooldown of any (?) of your abilities ends, recieve a bonus (dam, crit, or tiny blind, etc.) to your next attack. Visual effect would be important.
13g) Activating a Spirit spender (0 cooldown ones) skill gives a temporary sizeable bonus to Spirit regen. Idea is to promote spending Spirit on low cost skills, while making hard to reach enough Spirit to use a higher cost skill.
...
I guess, that's all for now.
It's late around here.
It's cool to know it's drawn some attention. I think it's a great way to express some cool ideas and try to better explain why certain skills simply aren't being used.
Another rune idea for the Barbarian
I just started working on a seismic slam barb and I think it would be really cool to have a rune that crates a circular shock wave around the player rather than a straight line or cone. Like a spamable ground stomp I guess.
To elaborate:
I think my fav current rune for it would be Rumble as it creates a better means to help control and finish off remaining mobs. Crackling Rift and Strength from Earth are pretty good secondary options. Stagger does't really have as much oomph as I would like. Adding stun is cool but at a low mp it's not that useful (mobs die too fast) and could have been tacked onto one of the more creative runes even if it removed the knockback since I don't find that to be a useful part of the skill anyways. And Shattered Ground's extra knockback is only a hindrance to fast kills.
One that comes to mind quickly is the Demon Hunter's Cluster Arrow.
As it stands, it does very little damage when compared to it's hatred cost, and while the grenades that pop out after the hit do 100% damage each, their radius is just too small. Being a Demon Hunter and whatnot, I'm supposed to rely on CC to help me combat enemies. As it stands however, I don't want my enemies slowed, stunned, frozen or rooted, because then if I hit them with a Cluster Arrow, all the grenades pop out too far and miss them.
I personally would lower the cost to 30 or 35 Hatred. I would then increase the grenades radius to let them hit any target standing directly where you shot your cluster arrow. This should keep the ability in line with being a small aoe / large damage, while also being viable single target wise.
Sub-par gear? I think first off you should do some research on the player before making a comment on them, like i have done with you. You cannot make comments on others gear if you can't gear correctly yourself. Second of all, who runs blood ritual these days?
I was too lazy at 1st to check gear, but now that you mentioned it, I checked it out. Your gear look great, as for why your pets die, I have no idea. Even fetishes survive extremely well with Fierce Loyalty and my s*** gear.
I still think pet survive-ability is ok where its at right now, but their damage is waaaay too low. What damage buff would you say is good for you to run them on MP 10?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
In each town theres a Book Of Nephalem. Each page of the book has what ever skill you have hotkeyed in order.
On that page the skill Rune image will be in the middle a satan style pentagon, Each point of the pentagon has a hole which can socketed with a rune. So basically 5 socket holes per skill. Removing the skill from your preset will destroy all the runes. Replacing certain runes will cost alot.
Runes can role with certain mods but in most cases increase resource costs with it. Like normal things.
Increase damage. IAS, Life on Hit, Life Leech, Resource on hit, Decrease Resource cost, increase duration, decrease cooldown, Increase radius, Add % elemental damage. I
And then get into more unique mods which can tie to certain skills only. Like extra summons.
In diablo 2 the goal was not to get more main stat, but to get more +skill gear, because getting +skill gear not only increased the damage that your skills did, but also had the effect of increasing radius of AoE skills, increasing duration of skills, lowering cooldowns, and other neat effects. Getting enough +skill on your gear would make certain obscure yet ludacris builds very viable. There were certain builds that would only work once you had +40 or more to your skills, and they were super fun.
Primary stat in Diablo 3 does none of this, there is zero change to how your skills operate. Even the % damage they do remains the same. I would love to see primary stat have some secondary effect on each skill. This would not effect rune modifications (I'm sure it would require massive rebalancing of them all) but would only effect the primary goals of the skill. Examples below....
Barbarian
Seismic Slam: Reduce rage cost by 1 per X main stat.
Ignore Pain: Reduce cooldown by 1 second per X main stat while this skill is active.
Threatening Shout: Increase radius by 1% per x main stat.
Inspiring Presence: Increase the effectiveness of your shouts by 1% per X main stat.
Relentless: This skill will become active at 1% higher health per X main stat.
Boon of Bul-Kathos: Increase the cool down reduction of this skill by 1 second per X main stat.
Wizard
Arcane Orb: Reduce arcane power cost by 1 per X main stat.
Hydra: Cast 1 additional hydra for each X main stat.
Meteor: Increase impact damage by X% and burn damage by X/3 % per Y main stat.
Blizzard: Stack 1 additional Blizzard per each X main stat.
Blur: Increase movement speed by 1% per each X main stat.
Power Hungry: Increase damage by 1% for Y seconds per each X main stat.
These are just a handful of ways that skills could be augmented by main stat. This would make main stat the definitive go to choice for all classes, just as +skill gear was the definitive go to choice in diablo 2. This would also allow for MUCH more choices in build diversity, as certain builds would only be viable with very high end gear, much like diablo 2 (elemental druid w/HOTA/Enigma anyone?).
Currently high end gear does not really make totally garbage builds viable, it just makes good builds even better. It's much more fun if there is some super high end gear to shoot for, in order to be able to play a super high end build. It distinguishes you, and gives you something to grind for. Right now there is little reason to grind. "I'm already pretty good, and getting better gear is not going to cause me to totally respec into a 100% different crazy build, just keep this build and do more damage yaaaaaaaaaawn..."
Also miss orb and mana shield.
When it comes to Wrath of the Berserker, my suggestion is: reduce cooldown to 60 seconds instead of 120 (this should be done with Earthquake and Call of the Ancients too), and increase duration to 20 seconds. Then redesign Thrive con Chaos to reduce the cooldown 1 second per 25 fury generated, not increase the duration. This way WotB - ToC will be useful, but it wouldn't be overpowered, and the other runes would be more appealing. Arreat's Wail is and will always be useless... Redesign into "while active, Wrath of the Berserker erupts blood, dealing 100% weapon damage per second to nearby enemies" or something like that, to make it useful and fun to use.
Bash - Pulverize is really cool for AoE skill, but the shockwave should deal at least 100% weapon damage.
Cleave - Rupture should be triggered on critical hits, not on kills. That way it would be useful in the endgame.
Frenzy - Triumph should be triggered con critical hits, same reason as Rupture. Vanguard could also increase attack speed by 2% per stack.
Seismic Slam should deal around 300% weapon damage, and have a rune to pull enemies towards you.
Rend - Bloodbath is useless, redesign it to something like "enemies killed with Rend cause a blood eruption dealing 700% weapon damage to nearby enemies".
Whirlwind is pretty much useless with any rune other than Hurricane, so the solution should be making Whirlwind move at normal speed, and make Hurricane boost movement speed by around 10%. This way the other runes would become much more useful.
Leap should have a rune to remove the cooldown but make it cost fury instead.
Ground Stomp should always deal damage, and increase the area to 18 yd (the area is too little without Wrenching Smash).
Reduce Ignore Pain cooldown to 20 seconds, and make Bravado pull enemies instead of knockback.
Increase Ancient Spear damage, and make it always pull multiple enemies without needing Harpoon rune.
Revenge - Grudge should pull enemies, not knockback...
Overpower - Storm of Steel is so cool! But it would be better if it dealt more damage...
It would be interesting to have a rune in Threatening Shout that made enemies bleed, so it would become both a defensive and offensive skill.
Battle Rage - Ferocity is useless... Redesign it to increase critical chance up to 5-6%.
Same with Sword to Ploughshares... Redesign it to give some lifesteal or something useful... Or at least increase the chance to drop a health globe to 10-20% chance.
Nerf Into the Fray to 10 fury instead of 15... 15 fury is just too much...
Bloodshed is nice for AoE, but it needs some buff... At least 30% instead of 20%.
War Cry - Charge! Should also reduce the cooldown to 10 seconds. Make it a really good fury generator, because you're trading off 20% armor or 20% all resistances...
As i said before, Earthquake should have a 60 seconds cooldown, and it would go down to 45 seconds with The Mountain's Call and to 30 seconds with Boon of Bul-Kathos.
As well with Call of the Ancients, reduce the cooldown to 60 seconds and make it last 20, and 30 with Duty to the Clan.
That's pretty much everything. Sorry for the long post...
Barbarian
Bash - doesn't need modification as such. Rune Punish stacks should be visible in buffs (same as Frenzy)
Call of the Antients - This is be coolest Barb skill, but has now zero use now.
Cleave - Rupture. Right now it is not used at all, on higher difficulty (or higher MP). The explosion would have to be with higher dmg output. Rune Scattering Blast is generally useless as it is a defensive attribute for an offensive skill.
Seismic slam - is underpowered compared to HOA. Rune CR should be on same level as HOA - Smash. It would be good to have rune that removes the knock back and adds another attribute to theskill.
Leap - Iron Impact increase to 6 seconds. Otherwise it's unusable. There is too big of a gap between the useful effect and the cooldown.
Antient Spear - create rune or passive skill to lower the CD. (Same as COA)
Earth quake - create rune or passive skill to lower the CD. (Same as COA)
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
FoT: Lightning Flash - Increases your chance to Dodge by 16% for 2 seconds with each activation. (Not on hit)
FoT: Static Charge - Your primary target is charged with static electricity for 3 seconds and release 3 charged bolts that do 73% weapon damage as Lightning each time it is struck.
FoT: Fistful of Force - A critical hit on the third strike does additional damage equal to X% of your Strength and knocks back enemies a short distance. The damage is also changed Fire. (Quickening is removed)
FoT: Bounding Light - Every third punch releases a chain lightning that can jump up to 18 yards to reach the primary target. Each lightning strike inflicts 90% weapon damage as Lightning.
Lashing Tail Kick - Knock back distance is halved.
LTK: Spinning Flame Kick - Because base knockback distance is halved, the flaming pillar has a chance to hit twice depending on the angle and room
LTK: Scorpion Sting - Instead of being knocked back, enemies have a 50% chance to be stunned for a number of seconds equal to X% of your Strength.
LTK: Hand of Ytar - Has increased AoE and can shoot over walls and pit falls.
Deadly Reach - First and second strikes range is 20 yards. Attack width increased
Deadly Reach: Keen Eye - Duration up to 15 seconds
Deadly Reach: Deadly Precision - Deadly Reach has increased critical hit chance equal to X% of your Intelligence. (Replaces Strike from Beyond.)
Deadly Reach: Foresight - Duration reduced to 15.
Blinding Flash: Blinding Echo - Now works like Wizard's Teleport:Reversal
Activating Blinding Flash again within 6 seconds, creates a flash of light that that will blind enemies within 20 yards for 0.5 seconds.
TR: Storm Surge - Stopping the channeling after 2 seconds, releases a shockwave that does 155% weapon damage as Physical to nearby enemies and reflects all incoming attacks. (Replaces Bluster)
BoH: Circle of Scorn - Breath of Heaven also sears enemies for an amount equal to your Life. (more Life, more damage)
BoH: Circle of Life - Increases the healing power of Breath of Heaven to 9303-11163 Life.
BoH: Infused with Light - Duration up to 15 seconds.
BoH: Penitent Flame - Enemies exposed to Breath of Heaven attack other enemies for 3 seconds.
Dashing Strike - Maximum dash distance retained.
DS: Way of the Falling Star - After dashing, your movement speed is increased 25% for 3 seconds. (no need to hit)
DS: Flying Side Kick - Perform a flying kick that has a chance to Stun your target for 1.5 seconds. The chance to Stun is an amount equal to X% of your Intelligence.
DS: Sonic Boom - An explosion occurs at the start of your dash that slows all nearby enemies by 60% for 2 seconds and deals 85% weapon damage as Physical. (replaces Soaring Skull)
Crippling Wave: Healing Wave - The third attack has a 12% chance to release healing light that heals you and allies within 12 yards for 10% of your maximum Life. (replaces Rising Tide)
WoL: Wall of Light - Graphic is a wall rather than a bell therefore increasing the AoE lengthwise
WoL: Pillar of the Gods - Raise a pillar that does 595% weapon damage as Holy, then shatter it sending a volley of debris that do 610% weapon damage as Holy to up to 8 targets. (modified Pillar of the Ancients that works like DR: Scattered Blows)
EP: Strong Spirit - If the target explodes after bleeding, generate 50 Spirit.
EP: Creeping Demise - Also reduces your target's movement speed by 80% for the duration of the bleed.
EP: Bloody Mess - If the target explodes after bleeding, it has a chance to drop a Life orb equal to X% of your Intelligence.
EP: Essence Burn - Instead of bleeding, the target will burn for 894% weapon damage as Fire over 9 seconds. If the target dies while burning, it explodes causing all nearby enemies to burn for 220% weapon damage as Fire over 3 seconds. This effect can happen multiple times.
Passives:
Fleet Footed - Increases movement speed by 10%. In addition, while at 30% of your maximum Life or less, your dodge chance increases by 15%.
Exalted Soul - Increases maximum Spirit by 100. Generate an additional 10 Spirit each time you critically hit with a Spirit Generator. (Replaces all +Spirit on Crit Spirit Generators)
Chant of Resonance - The duration of bonus effects when activating a Mantra is increased to 4 seconds.
While one of your Mantras is active you gain 2 Spirit each second.
Sixth Sense - Your Dodge chance is increased by an amount equal to 30% of your Critical Hit Chance. In addition, when you dodge an attack your Critical Hit Damage increases by 50% for 1.5 seconds.
Pacifism - While you are under a Stun, Fear, Immobilize or Charm effect, all damage taken is reduced by 75%. In addition, each time you come under a Stun, Fear, Immobilize or Charm effect, your damage increases by 20% for 30 seconds.
Guiding Light - When you use a direct heal skill, each player you heal deals an additional 8% damage for each player healed. This bonus lasts 15 seconds.
Combination Strike - Each different Spirit Generator ability you use increases your Dexterity by 10% for 3 seconds.
Near Death Experience - When receiving fatal damage, you are instead restored to 35% of maximum Life, 35% Spirit and the cooldowns of all your skills are reset.
This effect cannot occur twice in succession every 90 seconds.
Lethal Decoy - When your Mystic Ally dies, it pulls up to 8 enemies within 24 yards towards itself before exploding in a nova that does 313% weapon damage as Holy.
Give WOTB a passive for the skill that gives a chance to keep the length on it longer per x amount of kills. And each rune gives different bonuses like defense thorns, radius around you that pulls in enemies and stuns, all sorts of good ideas for better skill runes for this game. This 5% dodge chance is lame. a 5% chance to crit runes are lame. Make runes do cool visual things and offer cool play styles and let gear add stats or another means of blacksmithing to play with adding stats but runes shuld offer custome styles of play and not.. Choose this rune for X crit chance bonus. That's so lame and cheap imo
(I missed the link to this sire, but I originally posted it here http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/9485658623#1 )
To start off the WD skill portion, I would love to see ALL primary skills to be free. It should not cost any resources to be able to attack with our basic skill.
-----
Poison Dart - base damage of the 40% over 2 seconds, should be buffed to 150% over 2 seconds, across all rune variants.
Splinters - imho, this rune is fine as is, 3 darts, each does 60%
Numbing Dart - I would like to see the slow time to the target increase to 5 seconds. This would help against multiple targets.
Spined Dart - IF the cost of casting basic skills on not removed, mana gained from hits should be buffed to 40 mana. If the cost to cast basic skill is removed, the buff should be 30.
Flaming Dart - buff this skill to 210%. Its current base value of 180% instant damage is too low when compared to Splinters. They both deal the same overall damage, and the splinters have a higher chance at procs since there are 3 of them per cast.
Snake to the Face - buff it to 80% chance to stun. Once you hit inferno, the 80% nerf to all procs would bring this to 16% chance to stun. WDs already have mana problems, and having to give up a skill slot to gain mana is not worth it for low proc chances (which is 6% in its current state).
-----
Corpse Spider
Leaping Spiders - buff to 150%, skill works great imo. You are able to hit multiple targets, solid hits on fast targets too.
Spider Queen - buff this to 75% weapon damage per second over 15 seconds. I read, and understood the concept you blues said about skill wording. The way I wrote it in the previous sentence, and the way it was written originally, was too "confusing" for people. At this skills current state, 630% damage over 15 seconds is really 42% damager per second over 15 seconds, which is PATHEIC, and even worse is the spider's damage radius.
The Spider Queen also derps around not chasing enemies, and for only being able to have 1 Spider Queen out at a time, does not justify being used at all. If you removed the 1 spider limit completly, and alow us to spam as many as we could, and the spider still has its derpy a.i. on top of the bad damage radius, I would see this as acceptable. IF you are to keep the 1 spider limit, you have to improve the a.i. substantially, increasing the spider's move speed, on top of increasing its damage radious on the base skill, or via Pick up Radius (PuR) on gear.
Widowmakers - works great, keep as is.
Medusa Spiders - buff the slow chance to 35%, skill works great imho.
Blazing Spiders - buff to 225%. I know the damage seem ridiculous compared the rest of the spider runes, but there is good reasoning behind it. Besides Leaping Spiders, all spider runes have small spiderlings chasing MOVING enemies, which means they will de-spawn before dealing the damage stated per cast.
Leaping spiders work great b/c its guaranteed that they all output the damage stated if an enemy is within 25 yard. All other rune varients have great affixes to make up for the lack of hits. In its current state, Blazing Spiders only deal 156% damage, but since they have to CHASE their target, they end up dealing WAY less damage than Leaping Spiders, making the current state of this rune obsolete compared to the rest.
-----
Plague of Toads - again, remove all mana cost for basic skills. Currently, I don't see why its worth using this skill when it costs so damn high to cast on top of the frogs jumping in random directions, not making any cast guaranteed hits.
I would love to see all 3 toads per cast have the capacity to be able to hit the same target. As it stands now, only 1 of the 3 toads per cast can hit a single target. I know this sound Over Powered (OP) for some runes, but this has the ablitiy to open up different build since you will be able to hit the same target 3 times with a single cast. And to even be able to hit the same target with all 3 toads in 1 cast, means you will be up close and personal, guaranteed to be hit by mobs, which is a good trade off for this potential buff.
Explosive Toads - works great, see general skill improvements above ^
Toad of Hugeness - buff to 125% damage per second over 5 seconds. Make the toad be able to eat ALL enemies, including ALL elites (excluding main act bosses). 625% should make up for the fact that you cannot attack enemies while they are inside the frog. If this was to change, and we are able to attack enemies while they are inside the frog, 250% damage over 5 seconds would be acceptable.
Rain of Toads - works great
Addling Toads - buffto 25% chance to confuse so inferno proc nerf makes it 5%. Also, see general skill improvements above ^
Toad Affinity - Spawn 7 frogs PER cast, limit number of frogs a single cast can hit a single
target to 3.
-----
Firebomb - buff all runes base damage to 115%. Give the base radius of all rune variants an increase via PuR on gear. Don't worry about PuR making this skill OP. If we are sacrificing an affect slot in our gear for PuR over other great stats (more vit/All Res/+Armor/main stat/etc) it is well worth it for better build diversity!!! Increase the base explosion 1 yard for every 2
points your gear has for PuR.
Flash Fire - buff to 115% damage, and damage reduced by 8% per bounce.
Roll the Bones - buff to 115%, would work great if PuR buff for base explision was implemented. If not, which would make all runes suck again, Make the skill bound in a "T" shape. Let the skull bounce as is already, twice in front, and 1 bomb on the left, and one on the right, from the origin cast location, horizontal to the character and cast location (example below)
(C)=where you clicked to cast
(WD)=you
(B)= where additional bombs spawn from your cast
-------------------(B)
--------------------|
You(WD)-------(C)---(B)---(B)
--------------------|
-------------------(B)
Fire Pit - buff to 115% base explosion, and 30% damage for the pool of fire left behind, per second, over 5 seconds. Casting additionl bombs will not stack pool damage. If you do allow pool damage to stack, make it 5% per second, over 5 seconds.
Pyrogeist - change the visual of the skill to a large totem pole, and make it look bad axx. Skill damage is fine, as long as the radius of "closest enemy" is increase by your PuR
Ghost Bomb - buff to 115% base, and PuR bonus should apply to both base blast, and the larger 30% base explosion too.
-----
Grasp of the Dead
Unbreakable Grasp - works great
Groping Eels - buff to 440%
Death is Life - buff pecent chance for globes or dog to 20%
Desperate Grasp - works great, would love to see 1-2 second cooldown on an item or two, that does not already take away from a possible affix on gear.
Rain of Corpses - NOT ENOUGH CORPSES lol. Currently there are only 3 that fall per cast, this is pathetic =( Increase the cooldown to 12 seconds, increase the radius of the slow pool twice what it is now, and LOTS MORE CORPSES. each corpse should deal 15% damage for every enemy hit. The explosion radius for the corpses should be what it is now as well (4 right)
-----
Firebats
Dire Bats - buff to 50 yards, buff damage to 250%
Vampire Bats - buff to 3% life steal
Plague Bats - works great
Hungry Bats - works great, not my thing though when tested. Not sure how to improve besides buff to 375%
Cloud of Bats - damage radious need a buff, its too small atm, and enemies can still strike from their melee range, and avoid your swirl of bats, lolwut? Increase its base, or do it via PuR
gear.
-----
Haunt - all runes work great imo for their purpse. I don't know about other people, but I personally don't use it b/c its current damage of 95% per second over 6 seconds is too low. Buffing it would help, but im not sure how to balance damage for this specific one.
General rundown of some odd bugs first
Locust Swarm + Haunt DOES NOT crit the way they are describing it by tick. Either the spell you cast will crit or it won't, like regular attacks, but EVEN WORSE b/c crits from the DoT can cancel back to regular ticks, as described below.
Examples: (numbers are all based at my current DPS 97.6k @ 1.53 attacks per second)
Haunt
I cast Haunt > it crits > dmg dealt is significant 700k+ dmg (average tick damage 50k)
I cast Haunt > NO crit > dmg dealt is 200k or less. (average tick damage 15k)
Casting haunt multiple times on a single target does not stack (this is normal).
If you do spam multiple Haunt on a single target, and a follow-up cast crits, there will only be ONE tick that crits for 50k dmg, while the following ticks will NOT continue crit. It does not matter the sequence of when the crit happened, 1st cast or 5th cast, as long as there is a non crit on a target, Haunt will continue to do regular weapon damage (15k per tick)
The ONLY time Haunt will crit for full 700K damage, is if it is the initial cast ONLY for its entire duration. Any follow up cast, at any point while it is active on an enemy, will reset it back to 15k dmg per tick. When Haunt does crit for 50k dmg ticks, the numbers will be white.
Consuming Spirit - works great
Resntful Spirit - buff it to 500% over 2 seconds
Lingering Spirit - buff radius for new enemy to 12 yards as base, or small incriments via gear PuR
Grasping Spirit - works great
Draining Spirit - buff to 22 mana
-----
Locust Swarm -
I cast Locust Swarm > it crits > dmg dealt is significant 500k+ dmg (average tick 30k)
I cast Locust Swarm > NO crit > dmg dealt is 100k or less (average tick 8k)
Locust Swarm crit details, look at Haunt's details. Same exact problem.
Pestilence - works great
Devouring Swarm - works great
Cloud of Insects - buff duration to 14 seconds. Pestilence makes this rune obsolete b/c it spreads exponentially quicker which in tern, deals more damage. Cloud of insectcs has to travel to 1 enemy at a time, and if they are out of line, cloud of insects will fail to jump to certain mobs in the bunch.
Diseased Swarm - remove the cloud of poison left behind upon enemy death completely, and instead make effected enemies have a 10% to be stunned.
Searing Locus - buff to 500%
-----
Zombie Dogs - general, buff damage per hit for each dog to 25%, remove some of the animation on exploding dogs to help with the reduced frame rate please (or whatever makes it slow down)
Rabid Dogs - buff damage they deal to 25%, and 10% damage as poison per second, over 3 seconds.
Final Gift - works great
Life Link - buff to 15% damage absorbed
Burning Dogs - buff dog damage to 25%, and aura damage to 5%
Leaching Beast - works great
-----
Horrify - all runes work great as is imho
-----
Spirit Walk
Jaunt - works great
Honored Guest - works great
Umbral Shock - buff to 400%
Severance - buff to 600%
Healing Journey - i unno if its /tinfoil hat, but the current 14% life you gain doesnt seem to work. Maybe buff to 20% health
-----
Hex
Hedge Magic - buff to 2,500 heal, and increase the number of time he heals by 50%
Jinx - works great
Angry Chicken - buff to 400%, increase yards to 16 on base skill or via PuR on gear. Take off collision detection, make the visual of the chicken to 3x the size it is now (small chicken you turn into is looks bad), and make the chicken you turn red, or at least look like a pissed off chicken for crying out loud (flashing red and white, or something).
Painful Transformation - buff to 25% bleed
Unstable Form - buff radius of base skill to 12 yards or via PuR on gear
-----
Soul Harvest - all runes work great except for...
Languish - buff slow duration to 5 seconds
-----
Sacrifice all runes work great except for...
Black Blood - remove slow completely, and replace with increase you and your allies move speed by 12%
-----
Mass Confusion
Unstable Real - coupled with Last Breath weapon, works great, but Last Breath itself is meh.
Devolution - Change to enemies in the area when killed have a 50% chance to spawn a zombie dog, not only to the ones confused. Also, make a ring noticeable like Corpse Bomb rune for Acid Cloud to show the area.
Mass Hysteria - buff to 10 enemies stunned
Mass Hallucination - buff to 50%
-----
Zombie Charger - let's face it, unless you make all other runes for this one as powerful as bears, people will probably still avoid all other runes.
Leperous Zombie - double the distance the zombie charges, poison gas left behind should last 12+ seconds, let people will entire areas in gas like Ghom. Buff damage to match bears.
Undeath - instead of having a zombie reanimate on enemy death, make it 50% chance to spawn another on hit, and let them have the ability to continuously have 50% to chain w/o diminishing chances per successful reanimation.
Wave of Zombies - change this to 10+ zombies that run out in all directions (like the zombie wall rune), then buff the damage to 300%
Explosive Blast - either more explosive beasts that arc out like this \|/ or let the radius of
the blast increas by gear PuR
Zombie Bears - turn them into Woolly Mammoths and strap Nukes on their backs. They don't need to hit anything, just make them blow up at the of their animation, resulting in the instant death of everything around you in a 200 yard radius.
-----
Spirit Barrage
The spirit is Willing - works great
Well of Souls - works really great
Phantasm - for its mana cost, its nice that it stacks, but the area covered is too small. If you
don't wana make it the radius larger do to being similar to everything else, make it last longer, 8 seconds sounds nice.
Phlebotomize - for its cost, and only being able to hit 1 target, Vampire Bats makes this
obsolete. It would be nice to have the targeted enemy let everyone gain 3% life though.
Manitou - the damage looks amazing on the description, but its only 83.35% per second. Keep it at 20 seconds, but double the cast rate of the spirit bolts. As the skill stands now, it looks slow, and not awesome. Since the bolts will be casted twice as fast, reduce the damage per bolt by 50%, which should still maintain the 1667% damage over 20 seconds.
-----
Acid Cloud
Acid Rain - works great
Lob Blob Bomb - increase the duration to 6 seconds and remove the cap limit of blobs. Only being able to have 3 out at once is no fun.
Slow Burn - works great
Kiss of Death - add: "if an enemy dies on the initial hit, it will spit another acid pool at a
nearby enemy."
Corpse Bomb - works great and looks really cool.
-----
Zombie Wall - in general, would like to see some more items with -seconds to zombie wall
Barricade - works great
Unrelenting Grip - works great
Creepers - buff their move speed by like 150%, make it spawn 6-8 creepers, 25% damage each is nice.
Pile On - works great
Dead Rush - screw this skill completely, move the style to zombie bears, waves of zombie rune. RENAME this run Deaths Grip make it so that you make a ring of zombies around your target location. The ring should be big enough to cover the outer edges of Inner Sanctuary from the
monk.
-----
Gargantuan
Humongoid - works great
Restless Giant - works great
Wrathful Protector - was this skill a joke? even when you buffed many other skill this one is among the worst skills a WD has. 15 seconds is ok, 1 attack should be a huge swing about 12 yards covering 180 radius 150% weapon damage. 2nd attack should be a slam on the ground 10 yards that knock backs and stuns for 2 seconds 200% weapon damage. Before despawn, his body explodes for 300% damage to enemies in 12 yard, and his shatted boned shiled you 30% dmg reduction for 5 seconds after his death
Big Stinker - works great
Bruiser - works great
-----
Big Bad Voodoo
Jungle Drums - keep the buff, but let it be centered around you like the Archon time warp bubble following your every move.
Rain Dance - make if regenerate all alies resources (why it was not like this in the first place is beyond me) (im most intimate with WD class, so all other classes and help me out on a # for your resource regen that is acceptable, but not OP)
Slam Dance - works great, leave as is
Ghost Trance - buff to 6%
Boogie Man - remove everything about it, make it new. Let it follow you like Archon time warp again, but you and your allies enter the spirit realm, like spirit walk, for 10 seconds.
-----
Fetish Army - DONT let fettishes we have from our passive despawn when this skill is activated ffs =(
Fetish Ambush - works great
Devoted following - works great
Legion of Daggers - works great
Tiki Tochers - buff to 40% weapon damage
Head Hunters - buff to 40% weapn damage
How does this skill work great? Its mostly useless even if it did 1000% weapon damage. 20 second it lasts with a 2 min cooldown?
It needs to last much longer or last like zombie dogs. At least a minute if the cool down is 2 mins...
As for Monk, I know that Thorns affix has been brought up repeatedly as a mechanic that is severely underwhelming, but overall I think that maybe Mantra of Retribution should have a rune that increases (maybe even doubles) the damage your Thorns items do in addition to giving you the base retaliation damage that the Mantra does on its own. A thorns Monk with healing/protecting skills could be a very potent combination.
You must have sub par gear then. You only need about 750 All Res, 3,700 armor, and from the passive Blood Ritual buff your Life Regen should be around 1,500. My pets tank every monster, even MP 10 ubers w/o going below 95% of their full health. (if they stand on top of of 2 desecrater pools, on top of lightning/poison pools, and being hit, they start loosing health, by then i just back up slightly or grab a globe)
For them do be any kind of decent on MP 7-10, they need more damage buff.
I would love to see the fetishes attack for 150% damage each, on top of lasting longer, but I doubt they will do anything about it.
Cost: 25 Arcane Power
Cooldown: 12 seconds
Discharge a wave of pure energy that repels projectiles and knocks back nearby enemies. This also slows the movement of enemies by 60% and deals 200% weapon damage as Physical.
How would I improve it so that I would actually use it..
Some number tweaking and add a rune that would pull enemies towards you - not knock back
Cost: 50 Arcane Power
Cooldown: 20 seconds
Discharge a wave of pure energy that pulls enemies towards you. This also slows the movement of enemies by 60% and deals 1000% weapon damage as Physical.
Would become great for huge AOE damage on trash mobs. - combine with cold blooded, frost nova (bone chill), and sleet storm - it could be awesome.
I like this one! Would almost give us the 'missile dampening' moster affix...
In no particular order:
1) Skill activation queueing needs to be revised for Spirit spenders (0 cooldown ones).
The primary reason I tend to avoid skills like Lashing Tail Kick is because their activations are unreliable.
To reproduce, hold left-click and attack some elite with a Spirit generator and try activating a spirit spender - it might or might not activate.
If you are a fellow forumite and want to know more about skill queueing, see "GDC 2013: Through the Grinder" video.
From my experience, Monk is the only char having this problem.
Technically, it's not a bug but a minor design flaw - that's why it belongs here.
2) Blinding Flash, Breath of Heaven, Serenity, Inner Sanctuary.
All of the above have similar functionality in terms of what player uses them for, and first three have somewhat similar visual effects.
And that's a good chunk of Monk skills.
After spending much time playing with them, I feel like their effects should be more varied and/or more pronounced (visually or otherwise).
Some wild improvement ideas:
2a) Rework and merge Breath of Heaven and Blinding Flash.
No, really - why not?
And yeah, I know that not all rune effects will survive the merge. For the better, imho.
2b) Serenity - Instant Karma. "50% of all attacks are reflected back"
Honestly, I'm still not sure how good is 50%. I'd rather had it apply a debuff on attackers to get a better feeling of control.
3) Mystic Ally.
3a) While it might have fine stats on paper, imho it's usefulness could be communicated better.
Ex. more visual feedback on kills (explody deaths), burning attacks, etc.
3b) Allies would be more popular/interesting if they provided more slight buffs to attacks of a player.
Ex. On Hit bonuses - some burning DoT for Fire, Slow debuff for Water, chance for a direct smaller Spirit gain for Air, chance for Stun for Earth, not sure about Eternal.
With On Hit bonuses it would lead to experimentation with debuff application methods (ex. Crippling Wave).
4) Dodge.
Exact Dodge bonus benefits from skills could be communicated better. I was among the frustrated, when I learned how little skills gave me on their own.
In practice, temporary Dodge bonuses feel too insignificant to be bothered.
5) Deadly Reach.
5a) I'd remove Scattered Blows for another rune that would make Monk powerfully move forward about 5-10 yards with each 3rd strike.
5b) Also it would look cool if Deaths caused by this skill would send monster corpses flying backwards.
6) Tempest Rush.
Rune that pulls enemies in as you move could be fun. Especially when combined with AoE skills.
Line them up, take them down.
Should combo well with Deadly Reach.
7) Dashing Strike.
This skill should not fail if you misclick the enemy.
Either you hit it or not.
Not some
irritatingshort jump forward.Or
You could be able to Dash to empty space, but with some cooldown if you miss the enemy.
8) Exploding Palm.
It should not try to execute against a monster that just died (I guess, effect of queueing)
That loss of Spirit for nothing is irritating.
8a) I'd like a rune to apply it from a medium distance. Even with a lesser effect.
8b) Strong Spirit rarely worth it. Too rarely. I'd try increasing the radius, even if it would feel exploity in some areas. Didn't try it with latest update yet.
9) Mantra of Evasion - Divine Protection.
90 seconds is way too long to bother. Should be less than Near Death Experience imho (currently at 60 sec cooldown). I'd try it more if it was 25-35 secs.
10) Mantra of Evasion - Perseverance.
Too situational to be useful. It's not like you could switch skills on the fly.
Currently doesn't seem to worth a skill slot.
11) Sweeping Wind.
I'd merge Master of Wind with Inner Storm.
Both their description give the idea of a neverending wind vortex.
From my experience, however, Inner Storm is useful only if you try to go with perma-TR. Feel worthless otherwise as it takes more than 25 seconds just to pay for itself.
With Master of Wind it's bonus would seem more natural imho.
12) Fists of Thunder - Bounding Light
Needs more visual feedback.
And I'd rather have it release forking chains on third strike, or shorter chains on each.
13) Lack of interesting/game changing Passives.
What it says.
Some wild ideas:
13a) Monks have a lot of skills applying Slow. Some +5% to crit against slowed enemies would look interesting.
13b) If monster dies from a Primary skill (Spirit generator), have a good chance to jump to another mob and hit it. Can cause chain reaction.
13c) Slow monster (move and attack speed) for 1 sec on each succesful Dodge (melee attacks only).
13d) Each time you get healed via ability you receive a bonus to Dodge for 3 secs. Tradeoff here is that it uses a skill slot.
13e) Add 6% of your weapon damage as holy damage to your attacks. Again, tradeoff here is that it uses a skill slot.
13f) Each time cooldown of any (?) of your abilities ends, recieve a bonus (dam, crit, or tiny blind, etc.) to your next attack. Visual effect would be important.
13g) Activating a Spirit spender (0 cooldown ones) skill gives a temporary sizeable bonus to Spirit regen. Idea is to promote spending Spirit on low cost skills, while making hard to reach enough Spirit to use a higher cost skill.
...
I guess, that's all for now.
It's late around here.
It's cool to know it's drawn some attention. I think it's a great way to express some cool ideas and try to better explain why certain skills simply aren't being used.
Another rune idea for the Barbarian
I just started working on a seismic slam barb and I think it would be really cool to have a rune that crates a circular shock wave around the player rather than a straight line or cone. Like a spamable ground stomp I guess.
To elaborate:
I think my fav current rune for it would be Rumble as it creates a better means to help control and finish off remaining mobs.
Crackling Rift and Strength from Earth are pretty good secondary options.
Stagger does't really have as much oomph as I would like. Adding stun is cool but at a low mp it's not that useful (mobs die too fast) and could have been tacked onto one of the more creative runes even if it removed the knockback since I don't find that to be a useful part of the skill anyways. And Shattered Ground's extra knockback is only a hindrance to fast kills.
As it stands, it does very little damage when compared to it's hatred cost, and while the grenades that pop out after the hit do 100% damage each, their radius is just too small. Being a Demon Hunter and whatnot, I'm supposed to rely on CC to help me combat enemies. As it stands however, I don't want my enemies slowed, stunned, frozen or rooted, because then if I hit them with a Cluster Arrow, all the grenades pop out too far and miss them.
I personally would lower the cost to 30 or 35 Hatred. I would then increase the grenades radius to let them hit any target standing directly where you shot your cluster arrow. This should keep the ability in line with being a small aoe / large damage, while also being viable single target wise.
I was too lazy at 1st to check gear, but now that you mentioned it, I checked it out. Your gear look great, as for why your pets die, I have no idea. Even fetishes survive extremely well with Fierce Loyalty and my s*** gear.
I still think pet survive-ability is ok where its at right now, but their damage is waaaay too low. What damage buff would you say is good for you to run them on MP 10?