DiabloFans

Taken from Shack News

Storm Talents

• Level 1
• Charged Bolt
• Rank 0/1
• Launch a volley of 3 electric bolts that deal 1-8 lightning damage each. Critical hits from lightning damage stun targets for 2 seconds.
• Mana Cost: 8
• Thunderstruck
• Rank 0/15
• Increases the critical hit chance of all lightning spells by 10%. Critical hits from lightning damage stun targets for 2 seconds.
• Talent Modifiers
• Empowered Magic
• Rank 0/15
• Increases the effect of Willpower on your spell damage by 30%.
• Lightning Speed
• Rank 0/15
• Increases the casting speed by 3%.
Level 2 (5 Storm Skill Points Required)
• Storm Armor
• Rank 0/1
• Mana Cost: 15
• Surround yourself in electrical energy. Electric bolts are automatically fired at all attackers for 1 to 8 damage.
• Frost Nova
• Rank 0/1
• Mana Cost: 25
• Cooldown: 12 seconds
• An explosion of ice pelts nearby enemies for 1-3 cold damage. Has an additional 25% chance of a critical hit. Critical hits from cold damage freeze targets.
• Talent Modifiers
• Deep Freeze
• Rank 0/15
• Increases the critical hit chance of all cold spells by 5%. Critical hits from cold damage freeze targets.
• Power Armor
• Rank 0/15
• Increases the damage dealt by your Storm Armor charged bolts by 10%.
• Static Charge
• Rank 0/15
• Converts 5% of all damage taken into mana.
Level 3 (10 Storm Skill Points Required)
• Electrocute
• Rank 0/1
• Mana Cost: 8
• Lightning arcs from the Wizard's fingertips towards enemies, electrocuting them for 4-5 damage. Electrocute affects up to 2 targets. Critical hits from lightning damages stun targets for 2 seconds.
• Ray of Frost
• Rank 0/1
• Mana Cost: 16 per second.
• Project a beam of cold energy that deals 6 cold damage per second. Critical hits from cold damage freeze targets.
• Talent Modifiers
• Lethal Energy
• Rank 0/15
• Increases the chance to score critical hits with melee and psell attacks by 5%.
• Improved Charged Bolt
• Rank 0/15
• Increases the number of bolts released by your Charged Bolt spell by 1.
• Static Charge
• Rank 0/15
• Converts 5% of all damage taken into mana.
Level 4 (15 Storm Skill Points Required)
• Blizzard
• Rank 0/1
• Mana Cost: 70
• Call down shards of ice to pelt an area dealing 6-10 cold damage per second for 3 seconds. Critical hits from cold damage freeze targets.
• Talent Modifiers
• Storm Power
• Rank 0/15
• Increases damage of all lightning and ice spells. --Not Yet Implemented--
• Epic Storms
• Rank 0/15
• Increases the size of Blizzard and number of twisters you can have for your energy twister. --Not Yet Implemented--
• Shattering Ice
• Rank 0/15
• Frozen targets take 2 additional damage from all attacks while frozen. --Not Yet Implemented--

After reading the skill customization I am far more than satisfied with how they are handling attribute points now, this really just changes focus and to me sounds like a lot of fun. So my first post/assumption about them using some other system if they are making stats automatic was right. Can't wait for this game even more now : D

Suddenly after hearing all about this, I don't really care that they're taking out attribute point spending, this far more than makes up for it, imo.

Quote from "vladdracul" »

Dimebag where did you see or read that you could customize skills? Show me the link that shows me or tells me from a blizzard employee that I can manipulate fire bolt into something else to further customize my character and make it unique from the person next to me.

Know its funny they said everyone would hate them for announcing their new class the Wizard which I feel is great, and I don't see anyone complaining about that but im sure this stat thing is gonna overrule anything else blizzard does.

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/55258

He was actually right... just heard about this, sounds extremely awesome.

*shrug* Well I for one was very pleased and satisfied with how the Wizard is shaping up, my favorite class so far I think. Unless the next to blow me away then the Wiz is going to be my first character. The skill set looks like it'll be very entertaining and offer a strong replay value and a lot of diversity.

Well after seeing the Wizard and the new Witchdoctor stuff the skills are looking incredible... but I hope this news isn't as black and white as it sounds.

Possibly just not put in yet? Or perhaps there's a speccing system replacing that? Seems strange to completely do away with them...

No pots, no life leech, no locked chests, no randomized outdoor maps. Hmm, well it doesn't necessarily sound bad but it's definitely a departure from D2. Recent flood of info has left me a little interested in how this will all play out but I still have high hopes.

None of these were game elements I particularly loved to begin with but I do admit part of me will miss roaming the swamplands completely lost while downing potions like a junkie in desperate need of a fix.

I don't know if anyone has really thought about this... but the people that have a real problem with Diablo 3. Why don't you just turn down the brightness on your monitor and make it a little more black and white? Seriously :-/ the results will be pretty close to those Photoshops with a little adjustment.

Quote from "ShmeeLeeMaster" »

This is what I see as the problem.

"The problem is that Sol is using his power (as staff member) to force his predigest (on a site that is officially linked by blizzard) to convey what he believes with out supply the other side of the argument."

I agree, staff members should not be discouraged to post there opinions. That is not my objective. I just want to shed some light on Sols posts, that seem to be biased. Now if Sol started to post threads about the "counter side" on the front page I would have to eat my words. Maybe Sol will start to post like that. (If he does maybe I had an affect on him or not:))

Either way I believe what Sol has done may have negative effects on an ongoing debate.

By that logic Blizzard would be abusing their power by making news updates on their site with interviews talking about why they are taking the direction they are, but not make news updates about why their art direction sucks. Being officially linked by blizzard has no bearing on the matter. In fact that's all the more reason WHY he should be posting this.

I personally agree with this article 100% and a majority of people do which is quite evident just by looking through this topic, I'm sorry you don't, but there are plenty of other sites out there that share your opinion.

Quote from "H[H »

Retribution;277327']What makes you think you're so specially entitled to enjoying the game anymore then us? Maybe we should petition to ban adults from playing. It's about as possible and legal as banning children from playing the game. Since they cannot restrict a group of people based on Sex/Race/Age. The system where they ask for age or credit card is flawed because it is indirectly related to age., anyway of direct restriction would probably cause some problems.

Don't you hate it when an adult comes in, and just because they see some flaw in your gaming style they go "ZOMG LOOK FUCKING KID GET OFF MY GAME/INTERNET, FUCKING NOOB FUCKER GET OFF!"? It get's annoying. Although i find it easy to simply switch games to Private, adults seemingly cannot do this and as a result; incessantly make threads asking Blizzard to ban children from Battle.net.

Don't go throwing your ESRB rating of "M" at us, you know that has no real value. It's just information that parents and children and adults alike can take into consideration.

So, yay or neigh.







If you think I'm 100% serious in this thread, it's just a spoof on the floodings of threads on banning children from D3 i have been seeing.

I just threw in a moderately thought out argument that is more likely then not, full of holes that will probably get me flamed.

Skipping all the pages I just wanted to respond by saying. The rating system is not "just information". Sales of M or AO games to minors is against the law most places and can get employees in a fair amount of trouble. So yes, it does have value, it's there to stop children from playing mature games without parental consent. The term parental consent comes into play though and more often then not parents don't really care.

Don't get me wrong, I think it would be stupid to ban minors from Battle.net. It would hurt sales and hurt the community. What I do think would be useful however is a server for those that are 18+ or 16+. I cannot tell you how often D2 traffic around the time school got out or on Sat/Sun destroyed my game. Or how often I would have to deal with someone running around with a name like LOLPK entering when I just wanted to get a quick full party together and making things difficult.

While there are some very mature skilled kids out there with vastly better characters than many adults I've played with, during peak hours they are sadly the minority. Hopefully there are some systems in place that'll fix some of the problems of the old days.

On a side note it's funny when you think about the fact that when many of the young players turn 18 their opinion will completely change and they'll be yelling about kids.

Seriously, I really think we need to see more before making this judgement. After watching the gameplay movie I felt too that the art direction has forsaken the series a bit in favor of a Warcraft feel. But honestly we've seen one style of dungeon and one small overland area. They said they are really trying to use this for mood and to set a contrast, they've redone the art direction 3 times now they've said in an interview and they really think they have something here. I'm giving Blizzard a chance that they know what they're doing.

While regardless I do wish that the models and textures were sharper and more well rounded (I know they are aiming for compatibility but that's a bit rediculous) I'm giving they're art/lighting direction a chance. If it starts to appear that all these outdoor areas are happy and cheery with no hint of diablo in there then I may change my mind.

Thinking back though.... when looking at the Diablo exteriors we've seen a bland field of rolling plains in Act 1 with a musical score that accompanied it perfectly which I think a lot of the mood derived from, a brightly lit desert (except at night time) that didn't really have any creepy atmosphere whatsoever except for occasionally at night in Act 2, a deep thick jungle in Act 3 which I think has most of these qualities you guys feel D3 exteriors are missing, Act 4 was... well... hell and you have not even the vaguest of comparisons yet, and Act 5 which had exteriors that were mostly action and had not much of any mood.

I honestly think a lot of this mood you are drawing from is greatly in part from the music. Try picturing Diablo 2 at higher resolutions with no music, in my mind I'm picturing crap. Also I don't really like those pictures of "what it should look like". No I most definitely do not want Warcraft style graphics. But at the same time I don't want Diablo 2 with higher resolution and physics. That would look like crap. I want to see where they go with this. If they've retried and put as much consideration into as they say they have then I'm going to wait and see if these areas really do contrast other parts of the game.

I think what Blizzard needs to do is be very careful about what they show us next.

Oh man, dream come true... date with Cain here I come. I better stock up on Doritos and Mountain Dew so I'm ready to grind D3 like crazy. I'm getting that date first. ; )

Well I believe most of the comments are related to the appearance, not to do with game mechanics. That's not really a taste of WoW even, those are just advancements and innovations in gaming over the years. I'm pretty sure most people would be happy to have a simple friends list and not having to /whisper constantly and using old commands.

I don't know how I feel about the WoWish appearance of the game. I haven't really seen enough of it to make my own conclusion, I would like to see later areas of the game before then. But improvements to the user interface like being able to simply right click a name in your friends list and join their game would be nice, WoW didn't invent a lot of these things though... they are definitely welcome.

Well it was only a video to demonstrate gameplay, it was all in a controlled environment. The dungeon was premade for that particular show so they could have us see different different game elements. I have no doubt most areas will be very randomized.

At the same time though... I don't think all areas should be a mish-mash of mazey rooms and corridors. It stands to reason that some dungeons would be pretty linear. I love D2 dungeons but it would be nice to see a fairly straightforward dungeon crawl once in a while where it would make a lot more sense.