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Teleport, perhaps one of the most controversial skills of the Diablo franchise, is slated to return in Diablo III. But how will it differ from prior installations?

In Diablo II, Teleport was one of the well-known abused skills, and not just by its innate character, but by anyone that could make or afford an Enigma. It allowed characters to zip through dungeons and overworlds in a matter of seconds, passing through walls, over trenches, and past enormous mobs of enemies in less time than it takes to click the mouse button.

Hacks aside, its power is unreal:


Now, in Diablo III, the skill is being re-engineered. Ideas such as a nine-second cool down timer, longer than any timer in Diablo II, are being juggled around. But is this really a bad way to go with the skill?

Some other things should be taken in to consideration, such as skill point allotment and the equipping of skill runes, the latter of which has never been a consideration in older games. Or, at least, that is the best of what Bashiok had to offer:


As usual, the typical has been pointed out, such as the fact that a release date has not yet been announced for the game and, as such, we may still have a while to go before anything is final.

Are these concerns limited only to Teleport this time around, though? It would seem that fans are worrying about any mobility skill, including the Barbarian's Leap skill, a return from Diablo II's Barbarian (see here). One would wonder whether or not similar limitations will or should be applied to this skill, as well, or if things such as Faster Cast Rate would affect it.

At this point, most anything shown is still up for a massive amount of renovation and reworking, but maybe getting our thoughts on to the table sooner rather than later would be a good idea.

(See here for Bashiok's full reply.)

Slower is not an option if acts like Act 3 from Diablo 2 exist. That was always my characters stopping point.

If there is a maze-like act in Diablo 3 and I don't have a way for my character to easily maneuver through it, I will quit playing it.

I don't think I'd ever not play the game, I've been waiting for it for a decade and I'd play it even if it was as terrible as Hellgate. The lack of a good transport spell would certainly be disheartening, though. As long as it shines when it's leveled and such, I would be fine with it, though.

I remember thinking-in fact, still think- that the concept of Teleport as a skill in Diablo II was underworked. If it was a more intuitive system- actually, this would take nothing more than a patch to fix- Teleport would be based on FCR per skill level. Mana is almost irrelevant in the end game.

I would propose that teleport's cool down would drastically decrease with previously explored areas while in the same game i.e. 9 seconds to 1 second ( you have to re-explore with each new game you create) Similar to Nightcrawler from the X-men, he can't teleport to areas he has not seen yet, so it would make sense to lower the cooldown after the area has been explored. This way it would make sense and be more balanced if you could only do a semi-rapid teleport in areas of the game that have already been explored. Thoughts?

I think that's an interesting idea I haven't seen yet. It makes logical sense. If the overworld is always the same (and your vision remains saved between games), that would be a really good tool for getting from town to town (in addition to waypoints, of course). And it would keep dungeons, which would be completely random and thus your vision would never be saved between games much more challenging in that aspect.

Ugh, as always Bashiok managed to reveal absolutely nothing, god damn is he ever good at what he does. Gotta say, Blizz sure picked the right man.

Hmm, I rather like that idea.

Only problem I can see arising is in duels, like in D2 you will simply be able to teleport out of range over and over again.
I'd say use the system you recommend, cept add in a +4 or so cooldown timer when enemies are nearby.

I don't see much to add to Bashiok's post. And with runes, you got it. Will they all have cooldown? Most likely, and all well deserved.

A teleport like D2 will never be balanced. The question I ask is, should a new skill that allows you to move around faster be spammable and become your primary means of traveling? What happened to your legs?

But that you can travel fast is the least of my concern. All those abilities come with such big impact on the game, completely changing your position in a Flash. In the case of teleport, its flawless, goes exactly where you want, no matter what. This is big.

But I guess this topic is just about what we think, so, do we agree. In my opinion, these limits are a must. No limits, and you get a broken game.

I think a lot of skills need to function well to supplement the lack of mobility now available to the Wizard, as in, very good defensive spells, otherwise she'll be ripped to pieces in duels.

Thats true, although we have yet to see how Slow Time will work in duels.

Ah, yeah, I hadn't thought of that. I hope that's something they don't just make useless for PvP, like life steal in Diablo II, although I don't want it to be the end-all be-all.

I know what you mean, but im pretty sure that it will work in PvP but the other classes will most likely have some way of resisting it.

I lose LAN play. Everyone else loses broken teleport.

Sounds like a fair trade. :3

yo good job on the uber-teleporting that was jokes aha

I know, isn't it crazy? Mine was about that fast when I had that gear... Back in the day... *sigh*

Well, great work! You have helped me to improve my knowledge about this field. Thank you so much for sharing.

I hope when D3 comes out, I could kill, or at least injure anyone of you with my WD. As it stands, I still say BaBa and Wizzy will be king of PVP. Even with a 9sec cd., teleport is teleport, but I guess it will just be a panic button, unlike Diablo 2, where teleport owns.

BTW, tele with multistrike rune looks really awesome.

Yeah, its kinda exciting just by thinking of it. I assume summoner build won't be much as viable in PvP than the spirit build, which I guess will be the WD's PvP tree. I'd stick to the WD no matter how he will suck on PvP. I have some ideas how to make him work though..:D

Good thing they are changing teleport.

Well this doesn't directly effect me since I'm more interested in the single player but it sounds like a good thing. Nine seconds may be a bit too much though. In a fast paced game like this, a lot can happen in 9 seconds and a wizard may need teleport a bit more often. I'm sure they'll mess with it and tweak it to achieve a good balance though.

Quote from "emilemil1" »

I'd say that it affects single player more than multiplayer because TPs doesn't exist.

I was referring to the rushing part of it as seen in the video. But yeah, it does have a big effect on single player when it comes to escaping a bad situation.