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Agree to disagree.

If the voice comment was in reference to my comment...
Sorry. I forgot to type "/sarcasm" for my first response

Blizzard's gonna make this work....don't worry about it. There will be special stuff for PvP. You'll be able to password games. You'll be able to level restrict and set max players when you make a game. You'll probably even be able to control the difficulty via the /players command...maybe even have that as an option when creating the game.

I really don't see the reason to be all kinds of reactionary when we have NONE of the info excepting a tiny little snippet. It's Blizzard guys...they are who they are because of the fact that they come through.

Absolutely.....and hair color....and height and weight...and eye color.....and accent on their voice.....

I can't wait for these changes. There was nothing more annoying than people coming into games, hostiling everyone, and spamming "Duel Me!" Hardcore was played almost exclusively alone the whole way through because of how lame people were online.

Bring on the changes that make playing with a group fun. Give PvPers their own little arena games where they can run around and kill each other over and over while insulting each other with racial slurs and "your Momma" jokes.

Yes, the statistic is deceptive because of Magic Find....but you'll still be able to MF alone so why complain? Go enjoy your repetitive gaming sessions. I'll be in close knit groups where people are working together.

I really like the looks of this too. It seems to me that the game will still play fast and furious, but that we'll really be cycling though skills and using a bigger variety as we plow through combat encounters.

Just imagine...

A melee wizard with Magic Weapon as a primary attack starting off from range with a fully "passive'd up" barrage of Magic Missiles that slow enemies and reduce their armor, Teleporting in to melee, dropping a Slow Time, and hacking away, possibly unleashing a Mirror Image spell if the going gets tough. Add to that idea the possibility of skill runes splitting your magic missiles, or causing knockback, doing stun on the initial teleport into melee, adding DoT to the Slow Time....I mean who knows. It sounds fun already though!

Very cool idea to get a sort of "summoner" feel into a character without having the character ACTUALLY summon a whole army of pets a la summoner necros. I know the Doc gets some summons, but I think they will keep them to a minimum to keep lag and physics down.

The only better name for Wizard would have been "Arcanist". I think Wizard is fine though, it is a nice homage to the classic characters that we all grew up on as we became interested in fantasy books/movies/games. No one complains that D and D has characters called Wizards....I don't see the big deal.

Here is a link to the detailed Wizard's skill tree as it is right now, just in case you haven't seen it. Wizard Skill Tree

It looks like you are right on. There seem to be about 5 or 6 usable skills thus far in each of the three trees. There is speculation that there is one more tier of skills, a level 20 tier, that has yet to be shown for any character. The end result is probably going to be around 15-20 non-passive skills per class. While this number is down from D2, I'm pretty sure the goal is to make it so that each style build actually uses a bunch of different skills, instead of one or two, as someone else said.

There are tons of passives, which are really gong to be how you pump skills and create your different builds. Also, skill runes are going to add a whole new dimension to customization and build development.

Judging from that info and the screenshots it looks like the usable skills will be listed on the left with a frame around them and the passives will be on the right, as you said.

Two classes left?

1. Ranger - Bows, Survival Skills (traps and some other unique skills along the lines of Fade), Light Melee Weapons/Swords (perhaps dual wield of small weapons?)
I don't see pets coming into play much in this game...with the emphasis on limiting physics actors and talk of only 4 players per game to keep things smooth, I just don't see how pets would work in. Shapeshifting will be really small or totally changed in this....no one really wants to shift into a form where all of the cool gear you have on goes away and you always look the same. Maybe a class with the ability to take on certain attributes of animals, but I don't see total shifters making the cut.

2. Marshall (Heavy Infantry style) - Defense/Shields, Auras/Commands/Tactics/Banners (whatever they call it), Polearms
Takes the "holy" idea out of it all since you will probably have to fight heavenly things in the game. Paladin-esque character who instead focuses on defense of an area via polearm reach and shield skills...probably lots of knockback potential.

I think all of the classes will be able to break into 3 or 4 archetypal builds within themselves for added flexibility. For instance, the Wizard who focuses in Storm tree is a classic Blaster, a Conjuration focused Wizard looks to be a force in Melee...possibly being the best bet for a sword and board style character like a paladin.

I know they have said that the stats were fixed, but I really feel as though that was for the demo only. A bunch of the Wizard talents refer to stats....why would they make skills contingent on stats if the stats will be fixed? Seems strange. It seems sensible to have auto-stats in the demo though so that players can actually equip what drops and get to see it on their characters and whatnot. I don't really see that being the case in the actual game.

As for Co-Op....I think they will have separate games for PvP, which will allow for better combat and more focused PvP rather than "meet me outside town". I think that the four player limit will only be applied to games you play along with other players, not PvP. It would be nice to see 5 players so you can have one of each class though.

I would have to say I see a ranger (only because they won't call it hunter) as the ranged class coming. Dexterity based, ranged character, but maybe also proficient with light style swords or something. With the amount of influence the Wizard seems to have from D and D, it wouldn't surprise me to see a ranger able to dual wield small blades or something.

Trees would be something like:
1. Combat - tricky dexterity combat based maneuvers and maybe dual wield talents
2. Traps or some variety like that?
3. Ranged abilities


It also wouldn't surprise me to see rangers be the characters who get some type of aura style abilities.

It could be for the reason that the wizard is obviously very far along in development.....meaning they probably could have released info about it earlier. If she ithe class is that far along it would have been much cooler to hear about it a month ago, and then announce a brand new class at Blizzcon and allow people to play the demo with Barb, Wizard, and Doc.

But maybe I'm just being greedy : )

Well, now that we know (for the most part) the basic idea of the Wizard talents...I figured I would get speculation started on what the first styles of builds are that people are going to try. {Here's the link to the Wizard talent trees}

It seems to me like the talents are divided up in ways that will support a real variety of playing styles. The first few that come to mind for me are:

1. AoE Blaster Caster - With spells like Meteor Swarm, Blizzard, Charged Bolt, Arcane Orb, and Acid Cloud, this arcanist is primed to blow large groups of enemies into smithereens. Some of the passive skills look to add damage to your base spells. Your basic ranged artillery.

2. Sniper/Trickster - A decent selection of ray style spells such as Electrocute, Ray of Frost, and Disintegrate seem to be where the real damage is at, however they will require more battlefield strategy to maximize their potential by lining up enemies. Teleport looks to be a serious staple of this build, as well as debuffs that slow monsters such as a few of the passive talents in the Wizard skill tree, and trickeration such as Mirror Image. The classic Arcane Trickster builds of D and D fame come to mind.

3. "Gish" or Warrior Mage - Another staple of D and D style gaming is the melee caster. A physically powerful character who relies on magic to enhance their melee combat abilities, this mage buffs up and throws down. It looks like Blizzard has catered to this style of play by including skills such as Arcane Armor, Damage Resistant, Weapon Mastery, Conjured Armor, Conjured Health, Magic Weapon, Magical Impact, Slowing Strikes, and Armor Piercing. On first glance, and knowing only what is listed thus far, this looks like it could be an extremely focused and powerful variation of the typical Wizard. Perhaps focusing on one or two offensive spells to fire off from range and trigger debuffs before closing to melee range, this build could be quite fun and powerful.


While it is too early to speculate, this is the internet, and this is a board devoted to rapid reaction regarding one of our favorite games....

What else do you guys see in terms of builds or ideas for focusing on certain talents and trees?

I'm just gonna come out and say it.....the least silly sounding name for a character of that ilk is.......uh oh....Shaman. But even blizzard knows enough to understand that if they did that, the heavens would fall for so many people. Dear god....the names of classes from WoW and diablo would be the same and we would get an online petition with 40k made up signatures to get rid of the character. So witch doctor wins by default due to the shitstorm that calling a tribal caster character a Shaman would bring about. It's a pity that people get so up in arms about two medieval fantasy games having similarities.