Waiting for the beta and all... I've been messing with the new skill calculator and been thinking about what could potentially work for PvP. Yes, I'm aware this is very speculative, as very little is actually known about the PvP Arena system, let alone endgame builds and stats.
Ruthless
Critical hit chance increased by 5%. Critical hit damage increased by 50%.
- Seems viable with high crit stats.
Inspiring Presence
The duration of your shouts is doubled. While benefiting from War Cry or Battle Rage you regenerate 60% of your total Life per minute.
- Shouts as buffs or debuffs seem very strong.
- Free 1% health regen per Second.
Superstition
Reduces all non-physical damage by 20%. Whenever you take damage from a ranged or elemental attack you gain 3 Fury.
- Free Fury for tanking... yes please.
- Question remains how much Fury you gain from spells that damage over time, such as "Disintegrate".
Tough as Nails
Increases armor by 100%. Thorns damage dealt increased by 100%.
- Depends alot on how effective armor is to mitigate damage. I doubt this will be that great.
Relentless
While below 20% Life, all skills cost no Fury and all damage taken is reduced by 50%.
- While being a gamble, a huge reward could come from baiting with this.
Juggernaut
The duration of control impairing effects on you are reduced by 20%. In addition, whenever you become ... you recover 15% of your max Life.
- Quite certainly this is mandatory on every PvP Barbarian. (Combo this with Relentless = holy shit)
Boon of Bul-Kathos
The cooldown on your Earthquake, Call of the Ancients and Wrath of the Berserker skills is reduced by 30 seconds.
- If you uses 2 or more of these and have "Golden Runes", this could potentially allow for very low cooldowns. M
Unforgiving
You no longer degenerate Fury. Instead, you gain 1 Fury every 2 seconds.
- Interesting, hard to tell how much this is needed if you have Superstition.
Brooding
As long as you have not taken damage in the last 5 seconds you gain 2% of your maximum health per second.
- Maybe a kiting and trap focused Hunter can make use of this, but avoiding damage for long time periods is very unlikely.
Cull the Weak
Damage against slowed enemies increased by 20%.
- Should be effective if you apply a lot of slows with your actives.
Fundamentals
Increases the damage of your basic attacks by 100%. Your basic attacks restore 15 Hatred.
- Unsure how much basic attacks there will be. The more there are, the better this is.
Archery
Gain bonuses based on weapon held: Bow: +10% increased damage, Crossbows: +100% critical damage, Xbows: +5% chance to critical hit
- I assume crossbows will be slow. Could be strong with an already high crit chance.
Perfectionist
Reduces the Discipline cost of all skills by 20%.
- More tactical spell usage, can't hurt.
Custom Engineering
The duration of your Caltrops, Marked for Death, Spike Trap and Sentry abilities are increased by 100%.
- Mandatory for any Trapper that uses these abilities.
Ballistics
Damage from rockets increased by 100%.
- Mandatory if you use any abilities that have rockets (rune effect).
My take on this: For a Trapper Ballistics and Custom Engineering, otherwise hard to say.
Transcendence
Every point of Spirit spent heals you for 42.6 Life.
- Sustain Monk loves this.
Seize the Initiative
Your Defense is increased by 25% of your Attack.
- Does not compute. Effectiveness depends on how exactly this works.
Sixth Sense
Your dodge chance is increased by an amount equal to 50% of your chance to critical hit.
- Have a high crit chance. Get this. Not really sure if monks specing for crit is the way to go.
Pacifism
While stunned, feared or charmed, all damage taken is reduced by 75%.
- This is just godlike. So strong.
Near Death Experience
When receiving fatal damage, you are instead restored to 35% of maximum Life and 35% Spirit.
- Second life. So strong.
Guiding Light
Whenever you heal another player with an active skill, you and the other player deal 16% more damage for 10 seconds.
- If you run heals, consider getting this.
One With Everything
Your resistance to all elements is equal to your highest elemental resistance.
- This is just silly. Blizzard... really?
My take on this: The Monk has some seemingly gamebreaking passives in my opinion. Get atleast two of those, and one other.
Vermin
Your Plague of Toads, Corpse Spiders and Firebats abilities do 20% more damage.
- If you use any of these, consider getting this.
Zombie Handler
You can have 4 Zombie Dogs out at once. The health of your Zombie Dogs and Gargantuan is increased by 60%.
- Assuming they are viable in the Arena and you are using them, this is an ok boost.
Rush of Essence
Spirit spells return 200% of their Mana cost over 10 seconds.Spirit spells are:
- Unsure how useful this is, but looks interesting.
Vision Quest
Anytime you have 4 or more skills on cooldown your mana regeneration is increased by 300%.
- Unsure how useful this is, but looks interesting.
Death Trance
Reduce damage by 20% whenever you are below 50% of your maximum Life.
- Damage reduction. Sounds good.
My take on this: Not so many viable choices, imo. Needs experimenting.
Temporal Flux
Whenever you deal Arcane damage, enemies are slowed by 24% for 2 seconds.
- This slow will likely be under a 1 second in PvP, but you get it from every Arcane spell.
- Possibly very strong for kiting.
Glass Cannon
Increases all damage done by 20% but decreases armor and resistances by 10%.
- If you can still max resistances with this activated, why not.
Illusionist
Whenever you suffer more than 15% of your Life in a single hit the cooldown on your Mirror Image and Teleport abilities is automatically reset.
- Amazing passive, assuming you use Teleport.
Blur
Decreases melee damage taken by 20%.
- Helpful vs teams consisting of Barbarian and Monk.
Evocation
Reduces all cooldowns by 20%.
- This should be good if combined with cooldown reducing runes.
My take on this: I don't see many viable Passives for the Wizard to be honest. Maybe I'm missing something.
Two of the botteom three and one other should work well.
- The Wizard seems exceptionally strong: single target and AoE
- The Barbarian takes like forever to kill stuff (also leoric owned him hard)
...good... thats why i will play Barb. first... i like to take my time on playthrough...
... i havent seen much of the classes but from the DH that i saw so far, it looks to me that her "Hatred" meter regen too fast... she very rarely seems to go out of "power"... and she can spam the Fan of Knives too much... i dont like that much...
I saw another Barbarian stream, where he had a good weapon. This time he did alot better. Seems to really need a high damage weapon as most of his abilities scale of weapon damage it seems.
- The Wizard seems exceptionally strong: single target and AoE
- The Barbarian is strong if he has a good weapon otherwise he is weak
- Witch Doctor seems effective too
I made some screenshots from this mornings livestream. Was at like 6 am, and I messed up alot of the images while copying, sorry about that... anyway here they are:
A) Will the measures taken to prevent duping of items and bots (spam and autoit bots) be more mature then they were on Diablo2 battle.net? How do you intend to enforce these measures without invading the privacy of client's computers (memory scans)?
I believe a grand part of customers prefer to play legit. Do you consider using this to your advantage for example by implenting a report function? If a large amount [1000] users report an account for spamming, chances are good it is one. Do you consider potential wiki-like approaches?
The graphics are fine. I don't agree that they are too cartoonish or cartoonish at all.
Anyway, something else: in the gameplay video (at 0:08:06) a monster is smacked and thrown against a wall, from which it bounces of. However, to me it looks like it bounces off from mid air, meaning it bounces off to early, as if the deepness of the wall tile wasn't calculated correctly.
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Anyway, starting with the Passives...
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BARBARIAN (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/barbarian/passive/)
Ruthless
Critical hit chance increased by 5%. Critical hit damage increased by 50%.
- Seems viable with high crit stats.
Inspiring Presence
The duration of your shouts is doubled. While benefiting from War Cry or Battle Rage you regenerate 60% of your total Life per minute.
- Shouts as buffs or debuffs seem very strong.
- Free 1% health regen per Second.
Superstition
Reduces all non-physical damage by 20%. Whenever you take damage from a ranged or elemental attack you gain 3 Fury.
- Free Fury for tanking... yes please.
- Question remains how much Fury you gain from spells that damage over time, such as "Disintegrate".
Tough as Nails
Increases armor by 100%. Thorns damage dealt increased by 100%.
- Depends alot on how effective armor is to mitigate damage. I doubt this will be that great.
Relentless
While below 20% Life, all skills cost no Fury and all damage taken is reduced by 50%.
- While being a gamble, a huge reward could come from baiting with this.
Juggernaut
The duration of control impairing effects on you are reduced by 20%. In addition, whenever you become ... you recover 15% of your max Life.
- Quite certainly this is mandatory on every PvP Barbarian. (Combo this with Relentless = holy shit)
Boon of Bul-Kathos
The cooldown on your Earthquake, Call of the Ancients and Wrath of the Berserker skills is reduced by 30 seconds.
- If you uses 2 or more of these and have "Golden Runes", this could potentially allow for very low cooldowns. M
Unforgiving
You no longer degenerate Fury. Instead, you gain 1 Fury every 2 seconds.
- Interesting, hard to tell how much this is needed if you have Superstition.
My take on this: Juggernaut + any 2 of these.
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DEMON HUNTER (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/demon-hunter/passive/)
Brooding
As long as you have not taken damage in the last 5 seconds you gain 2% of your maximum health per second.
- Maybe a kiting and trap focused Hunter can make use of this, but avoiding damage for long time periods is very unlikely.
Cull the Weak
Damage against slowed enemies increased by 20%.
- Should be effective if you apply a lot of slows with your actives.
Fundamentals
Increases the damage of your basic attacks by 100%. Your basic attacks restore 15 Hatred.
- Unsure how much basic attacks there will be. The more there are, the better this is.
Archery
Gain bonuses based on weapon held: Bow: +10% increased damage, Crossbows: +100% critical damage, Xbows: +5% chance to critical hit
- I assume crossbows will be slow. Could be strong with an already high crit chance.
Perfectionist
Reduces the Discipline cost of all skills by 20%.
- More tactical spell usage, can't hurt.
Custom Engineering
The duration of your Caltrops, Marked for Death, Spike Trap and Sentry abilities are increased by 100%.
- Mandatory for any Trapper that uses these abilities.
Ballistics
Damage from rockets increased by 100%.
- Mandatory if you use any abilities that have rockets (rune effect).
My take on this: For a Trapper Ballistics and Custom Engineering, otherwise hard to say.
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MONKey boie (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/monk/passive/)
Transcendence
Every point of Spirit spent heals you for 42.6 Life.
- Sustain Monk loves this.
Seize the Initiative
Your Defense is increased by 25% of your Attack.
- Does not compute. Effectiveness depends on how exactly this works.
Sixth Sense
Your dodge chance is increased by an amount equal to 50% of your chance to critical hit.
- Have a high crit chance. Get this. Not really sure if monks specing for crit is the way to go.
Pacifism
While stunned, feared or charmed, all damage taken is reduced by 75%.
- This is just godlike. So strong.
Near Death Experience
When receiving fatal damage, you are instead restored to 35% of maximum Life and 35% Spirit.
- Second life. So strong.
Guiding Light
Whenever you heal another player with an active skill, you and the other player deal 16% more damage for 10 seconds.
- If you run heals, consider getting this.
One With Everything
Your resistance to all elements is equal to your highest elemental resistance.
- This is just silly. Blizzard... really?
My take on this: The Monk has some seemingly gamebreaking passives in my opinion. Get atleast two of those, and one other.
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WITCH DOCTOR (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/witch-doctor/passive/)
Vermin
Your Plague of Toads, Corpse Spiders and Firebats abilities do 20% more damage.
- If you use any of these, consider getting this.
Zombie Handler
You can have 4 Zombie Dogs out at once. The health of your Zombie Dogs and Gargantuan is increased by 60%.
- Assuming they are viable in the Arena and you are using them, this is an ok boost.
Rush of Essence
Spirit spells return 200% of their Mana cost over 10 seconds.Spirit spells are:
- Unsure how useful this is, but looks interesting.
Vision Quest
Anytime you have 4 or more skills on cooldown your mana regeneration is increased by 300%.
- Unsure how useful this is, but looks interesting.
Death Trance
Reduce damage by 20% whenever you are below 50% of your maximum Life.
- Damage reduction. Sounds good.
My take on this: Not so many viable choices, imo. Needs experimenting.
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WIZARD (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/wizard/passive/)
Temporal Flux
Whenever you deal Arcane damage, enemies are slowed by 24% for 2 seconds.
- This slow will likely be under a 1 second in PvP, but you get it from every Arcane spell.
- Possibly very strong for kiting.
Glass Cannon
Increases all damage done by 20% but decreases armor and resistances by 10%.
- If you can still max resistances with this activated, why not.
Illusionist
Whenever you suffer more than 15% of your Life in a single hit the cooldown on your Mirror Image and Teleport abilities is automatically reset.
- Amazing passive, assuming you use Teleport.
Blur
Decreases melee damage taken by 20%.
- Helpful vs teams consisting of Barbarian and Monk.
Evocation
Reduces all cooldowns by 20%.
- This should be good if combined with cooldown reducing runes.
My take on this: I don't see many viable Passives for the Wizard to be honest. Maybe I'm missing something.
Two of the botteom three and one other should work well.
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https://picasaweb.google.com/112329726464471340793/Diablo3FFBeta?authuser=0&feat=directlink
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I saw another Barbarian stream, where he had a good weapon. This time he did alot better. Seems to really need a high damage weapon as most of his abilities scale of weapon damage it seems.
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- The Wizard seems exceptionally strong: single target and AoE
- The Barbarian is strong if he has a good weapon otherwise he is weak
- Witch Doctor seems effective too
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http://www.twitch.tv/crypto137/b/294463986
Some 90 min of said gameplay
http://www.twitch.tv/nvsammy/b/294463810
and some more, in pretty good quality
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DIII won't be out before 2011.
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Anyway, something else: in the gameplay video (at 0:08:06) a monster is smacked and thrown against a wall, from which it bounces of. However, to me it looks like it bounces off from mid air, meaning it bounces off to early, as if the deepness of the wall tile wasn't calculated correctly.
Anyone else notice this?