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Garebare #1793

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Glad to hear they're making artisans worth the training costs.

Anyone want to fully explain how to access this level? Thanks!

Quote from Frozenkex

Quote from pwnsickle

This change encourages people to magic find alone, which is strange because Blizzard has been pushing every game mechanic to encourage co-op.

I feel like they're having trouble getting some of their conceptual game mechanics to work out realistically, and now they're tweaking them against prior motives in order to release the game... bittersweet.

The mostlikely case is that in order to do inferno alone effectively, you will need to equip your best equipment, not the equipment that has MF.
And they have already said that u wont be able to sacrifice all stats for MF.

I like the sound of that a lot more.

This change encourages people to magic find alone, which is strange because Blizzard has been pushing every game mechanic to encourage co-op.

I feel like they're having trouble getting some of their conceptual game mechanics to work out realistically, and now they're tweaking them against prior motives in order to release the game... bittersweet.

As happy as I am that the game will be coming out sooner, this aggravates me. PVP is a hefty chunk of Diablo for me and I feel that I won't consider the game "complete" until they patch it in.

While I'm hopeful that it will be ready for us by the time I've got a level 60, I can't say I'm too confident in Blizzard's ability to release content within a reasonable time span... I guess I'll be stalking some sort of release date even after I've got my hands on the game.

I think that the inventory argument is pretty valid, but I like the idea of having class/spell specific items enhance your skills. Also, striving for the top rank rune for each of their spells gives end-game players something to work toward, especially if they're as rare as we've been told they'll be. Also, runes were revealed over two and a half years ago and have been consistently talked about by the blues, I'm not entirely sure they'd pull them out of the game so close to release and feel okay about it. (But who knows, they've taken out other seemingly important game mechanics.)

In the previous Diablo game, summons were more of a "what the hell, why not?" to non-summoner based builds. Elemental druids would cast ravens and wolves because other than the negligible mana toll, there wasn't any true payment needed. Personally, I've always loved summons and thought they were cool to have as helpers even if my character wasn't build to support them. However, skill slots are highly valuable in D3 and I'm trying to decide whether it seems viable to occupy one with the Zombie Dogs spell if my Witch Doctor build uses DPS in a non-summon oriented way.

If you're wondering, my other active skills in the beta are Fire Bomb (main attack), Grasp of the Dead (as an AoE DoT/impeder), and Zombie Bats (burn enemy health as an AoE when mobs are close.) I just keep Zombie Dogs up at the moment because I don't really have any other skill that I'd use, but when I observe their damage output, it is extremely low compared to other attacks.

In case you guys don't have the Beta or just aren't up to date with the current stats, Zombie Dogs do 15% weapon damage each and three are summoned at a time. While a total of 45% weapon damage seems fairly weak compared to most other attacks (which are usually above 100%), try to keep in mind that the dogs are constantly active until they die and it isn't needed to constantly cast them like one would need to do for other attacks.

So, what I'm debating is... is it worth a skill slot to have as a constant background attack? What do you guys think?

PS: All my experience is based off the beta, but you're all free to debate whether you think the skill is worth it in beta or in the actual game; both are cool to hear.

I felt pretty similarly to you after my first two hours of gameplay. I even did the same thing by starting with the witch doctor (which I've wanted to play since the announcement of the game) and switching after ten minutes.

But then on my third playthrough with the barbarian, (who I never really liked in Diablo II) the game felt really well put together. I think that at first, I was so excited to finally play the game that I just rushed through everything to get to the end because I just wanted to absorb as much gameplay as possible, when I really should have played at a normal pace and enjoyed myself.

So my advice would be to try to play it more and to play it with each character. I've since gone back to the Witch Doctor and he is actually my favorite to play as.

Also kind of confused as to why they spent so much time encouraging the "fast paced combat" aspect of the game and then eradicated the main systems they added to compliment it. But, I can't say I dislike the changes.
As for the stats, I don't mind them being changed to their current standing. However, I don't understand why the creators of the game just recently started to realize that they needed to be changed. For a major system like stats, it should have already been concrete by now. But, at least they're perfecting them and sharing with us what they're doing.
I liked the mystic and enchants and I wish there was a way to make her cooperate with the game instead of removing her entirely. Hopefully she'll be reintroduced in an expansion...

Cool build, it would be pretty sweet to see in the arena! Hex would definitely be a huge advantage in PvP, but I have a feeling it will get adjusted to something like Polymorph (from WoW) for the arena. Casting Polymorph turns someone into a sheep that runs around for x seconds, but they return to normal form if they are attacked. Either that, or the duration of the spell should be lessened; with the current build of a 10 second cooldown and 8 second spell duration, you'd essentially be able to turn someone into a chicken that can't attack and receives more damage for 80% of their time on the field. . .which definitely seems overpowered to me. I really like the idea of CC in PvP though, so I hope an interesting version of this build can still exist for you.

Edit: I also can't see the runestones/passives.

Hahahha this is great; you definitely deserve one!

Quote from Periculum

Here is the quote. Took 3 minutes to find

Official Blizzard Quote:

Every skill has at least one rune that doesn't change the core mechanic of the skill. Usually two. We definitely think the base skills are viable and will be used, but it's going to be a base skill with a cost reduction rune or basic damage increase rune.

Source: http://www.diablofans.com/blizz-tracker/topic/169822/my-concern-with-the-skill-rune-system/

Nice find! And if you want video proof, the crimson rune just adds damage to each of these attacks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jewDFyHfvTE

Quote from ScyberDragon

We have no keys to give away YET.

I'll stay on your good side, then