Hey you accidentally put Explosive Blast instead of Nova in your build ;). I like the idea you've got here but this build is going to rape your AP more than I've seen in most builds. In light of that, Astral Presence and Energy Tap (for Energy Armor) seem like must haves. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#ZceSQi!dUX!bYYZYZ
Arcane Nova is going to drain AP like nobodies business. You will be able to cast it maybe 3-4 times before running out of AP. If that doesn't kill everything around you, you could be in trouble. I think that build really needs a heavy hitting single target spell for bosses or it could be trouble.
Indeed. I didn't want to modify his build too much as this is what I'd do if I wanted to PBAoE spam. As soon as Slow Time is up and I set Ice Nova off in a big group something is going to die and I can just keep replenishing my AP. So much CC and damage is being stacked in the bubble you probably couldn't be touched.
Hey you accidentally put Explosive Blast instead of Nova in your build ;). I like the idea you've got here but this build is going to rape your AP more than I've seen in most builds. In light of that, Astral Presence and Energy Tap (for Energy Armor) seem like must haves. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#ZceSQi!dUX!bYYZYZ
Magic Weapon: not sure how some of the rune effects here will play with Spectral Blade. Most of them specifically indicate "melee hits..." and it's unclear whether or not Spectral Blade attacks qualify. Assuming they do, I'd rune Alabaster for life leech; if not, Obsidian for increased damage and knockback.
Spectral Blade: Obviously the primary attack, runed with Golden for AP regen or, if that's not really needed, Obsidian for knockback and slow.
Frost Nova: Crimson rune for increased damage.
Ice Armor or Energy Armor: I assume Ice will have a lesser defense bonus, but with the addition of slowing enemies, it might be better...we'll have to wait and see I suppose. Runed with either Indigo (slowing aura) or Golden (stacking defense bonus when hit). If Energy winds up being better, rune it with Indigo for the AP boost.
Diamond Skin: More damage absorption, probably runed with Alabaster for AoE when it wears off.
Energy Twister, Arcane Orb, Explosive Blast, or Meteor: Not really sure which of these I'd use, but all are (or have rune effects to become) character-centered AoE, so any would probably be good, based on personal preference.
Passives: I think all the passives for this build are kind of a given...not really any wiggle room from my perspective. Arcane Dynamo: Spectral Blade casts make other skills stronger. Blur: Melee Wizard will be getting hit with plenty of melee attacks, reducing that damage by a percentage is a good thing. Galvanizing Ward: Life regen and less upkeep on armor spells.
The only way you'll be going dry on AP is if you spam your ranged backup. You'll be using Spectral Blade most of the time to get the most out of Arcane Dynamo and since you're taking Magic Weapon that only furthers the reason to go Indigo or maybe Obsidian if you need more control.
After watching a good deal of beta streaming... I'm not so sure I'll go with male wizard. He gestures around like a dainty fairy and I want nothing to do with that. Funny thing is that one time I mistook a male wizard for female due to his animations (couldn't see his face either). Oh well.
I am not afraid of revolutions in gaming. I have played more than enough games in my day to realize that things you wouldn’t think possible are actually quite fun. However, after milling over the beta footage and various bits of info, it seems silly not to have some sort of point distribution to further the connection between your character and yourself. Customization is so key in a game like this, and user-end customization is something the game cannot choose for you (like loot, runes, armor, and so forth). This is the only thing in the game you can decide, and in a game like this, it needs to be front and center. The way characters were built in Diablo II, while flawed, were still unique. The reason some builds were more prevalent was easily because of the band-aid fixes applied to the game several years after launch. Enigma, Ubers, high-end runewords. The builds that many complained about could have been solved by actual balance. Unfortunately, the Diablo II team was all but nonexistent, and such a feat was impossible.
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Unfortunately I can only mostly respond with theory when it comes to why certain customization was removed. Perhaps gear is where all the customization was poured into and perhaps not. You just have to remember when you have multiple avenues for a player to give themselves power it has a cascading effect and it can become nearly impossible to balance. It's my opinion that the customization of stat distribution was put elsewhere but in a more controlled form.
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[*]Access to all skills
To me, this is a problem. This entirely defeats the replayability of this game. The Sorceress was my favorite class in Diablo II. I had many, (Fire, Lightning, Blizzard, Frozen Orb, Energy, etc.)and each was fun to play in their own way. Nothing really came close to the fun that running Ancient Tunnels, Mephisto, and various other places with your powerful Blizzard that you invested the research and time to build properly. If you have access to all skills of a class and there are no skill points, then all of the skills are intended to be equal. Unfortunately, this means the differentiation of each character is based solely on items, runes, etc. Virtually all user-end decision is eliminated. The REASON why this is a problem (as many will say: "But instead of having 5 sorcs, you can have one that all serve the same purpose!") is that if I wanted a new sorc, I had to work for it. I was excited about having a second high level character that I would have a connection to. With these Wizards being all-in-ones, you aren't dedicated to looking for build-specific gear and tearing the game up with your unique character. Instead, you're just looking for good...gear. Anything will do, if that makes sense.
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Maybe you are weren't looking hard enough and have not seen the difference between one skill and another, take another look. Then there's the 6 skill limit ya know :D. Also, nothing's stopping you from building another Wizard from scratch and I certainly won't be stopping myself when I do it.
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[*]Skill swapping with no penalty
This one isn't as important, because no doubt it will be addressed in SOME manner. Right now, any character can change to any skill they've unlocked at any time. Why the developers thought this would be smart is beyond me. Macros can easily be made to have characters press a few keys and be outfitted with the perfect skill set to face the demons ahead. It has been shown numerous times in many beta streams that this is the case. The overall problem with this skill system is that it is inherently flawed. You cannot give someone the freedom of having every skill. It negates the want to build more than one character of the same class. It erases "builds" entirely, and what builds DO exist due to certain items and runes (which is an incredibly watered down way to differentiate players) can be mimicked and easily attained thanks to the accessibility of items to the player (RMAH, personal drops, shared stash). It ruins differentiation between characters.
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This won't be a problem later on down the line. Players will settle into something they like or have wanted eventually. If some idiot is still trying to constantly switch out skill & runes in the field, make fun of em then kick em out of the game.
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[*]Lack of connection with your character
This is one of the most important aspects for me. You hardly look at your character screen because you don't really need to from what I've seen from all the D3 footage. Why would you? Stats are chosen for you, skills are unlocked for you. There doesn't seem to be a real DRAW to pull yourself toward your character. These factors are preventing IMMERSION, which is what video games are all about. A small analogy for you...Resident Evil. 1 and 2 specifically were survival horrors. They were scary. They were difficult, and you could get so screwed that you wasted your goddamned ink ribbons and couldn't save (thus heightening the tension and making you mad, both good things). Resident Evil 4 and 5 were great games, but they weren't quite the same. They took the "horror" out of survival horror by making it a shooting action game. Diablo 3 is doing the same thing to the origins of the series by making it less RPG, more action. No doubt it will be fun, but in the RPG world, this is absolutely unacceptable. You NEED to be tied to your character and not feel like you're playing Gauntlet at an arcade machine.
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Hey I've seen co-workers at a past job take their champ in Gauntlet Legends to very high levels and gearing them up. Obviously they were attached in some way :P.
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"Runes will provide the customization and differentiation, as well as the setback to swapping skills."[/color]
I don't buy into this. I've seen from the datamines, various panels, videos, so forth the general idea behind runes. While this will provide customization, it doesn't seem at this point that it would provide enough to have someone say "Yes, I'm a Hydra Wiz" or "Yes, I'm an Archon Wiz". Why is it so difficult to let the player decide what skills he wants to be powerful?
Your logic is off here. You won't be saying "Yes, I'm a Hydra Wiz" not because there isn't as much customization but because one skill that you use does not define your character but rather all of them do. It would be by bad design if in this game you narrowed your characters down to one ability you use. While the idea is sound that you will probably find synergies with certain skill combinations that make for a unique playstyle, those few skills won't be the end all to your character's definition.
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"The skill system just had players respec their character and dump all the points into the skill they just unlocked."[/color]
This is a paraphrased Blizzard quote that we are all very familiar with. This was part of the reasoning that Jay Wilson thought the skill point idea was a bad one, hence the creation of this new (and in my opinion, wrong) system. Respecs are well and good, but they saw when players had the freedom to re-allocate their skill points, they would. Players choosing the most powerful skill is going to happen regardless. When you give them more freedom, they will take whatever skill has the most damaging numbers. So instead of restricting the freedom (respecs) they give total freedom (no skill points). This makes absolutely no sense to me. Sure, everyone gets to try every skill, but here's the problem. Even in a game with all skills available to you, there will still be the most powerful skill or set of skills. What they've done here is stripped what THEY thought was the problem (skill points) instead of wanting to deal with the real demon (constant balance). It makes me think they don't know enough about the series to be able to make these kind of judgment calls. Note: In Diablo II, you have a powerful Charged Boltress or Teeth Necro. You are cool and unique. In Diablo 3, you have a Magic Missile Wizard. You're an outcast and should be ashamed.
While there may be a hands down 'most powerful' skill for every class, it will not be without drawbacks and may have situational use. The way the devs are balancing this game, they want you to have a lineup of 6 full power abilities and if they've done their job correctly you'll need every last one of them. I have a lot of experience in the balancing of character abilities in various action games/rpg's. For instance in Avencast, the easiest way to put a powerful spell in line is to give it some kind of draw-back such as a cooldown, wind-up time, interruptability. This also has the neat side effect of giving that spell more personality. The devs have incorporated some kind of drawback into every skill. While Magic Missiles may be low damage, it also has low AP cost, is spammable and is an 'Academic Spell' which are especially lucrative to possess if you picked the Arcane Dynamo passive.
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"This skill system is awesome! I love not having to make two Wizards, three Barbs, and so forth."[/color]
Some people like this new skill system. I'm okay with that. But, that does not mean having a character with every skill possible is a good thing. The only reason you had to make multiple characters of the same class in Diablo II was due to lack of respecs. I don't mind giving some of the punishment for screwing up my skills, but I don't want to give all of it up. Yes I was frustrated when I put 5 points in Shiver Armor way back in the day where they could have been put somewhere else. Does that matter to most people? No. Does it mean you are stuck and can't beat the game and that you have to make a new character? Absolutely not. I believe that the developers of Diablo 3 saw this as a huge obstacle, and instead of solving the problem by removing restriction and punishment, they tipped the scale in the opposite direction. Now the fun of building your character how you want to is just about gone because of how easy it is to change what he/she is. I'm not saying the system in Diablo II was perfect, so I will try and provide what I think would be an optimal system for Diablo 3 below...
So play how YOU want to. I'll be meta-gaming myself as I always do in these kind of games. In my mind the only thing that's changed is if I feel like going outside the set idea that I have for a character I can.
[*]Reconsider synergies
I realize that synergies were changed to add life to a dying game, but the idea is brilliant. Skills that somehow power your other skills? With how many different iterations of skills there can be thanks to runes, this idea could REALLY take off in Diablo 3.
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Synergy is still in the game but in it's most natural form. This is a good thing. Diablo 2 synergies would just be another way for power to cascade by making certain skills better than others and THAT would kill customization.
Overall, I think you are worried about what you have miscomprehended. We need to play the full game before we can really cry wolf here. Thanks for the time you took to write all that though!
1. What is your LEAST favorite part of the game you have seen so far? (talk about something that isn't a toggle option)
The low health warning. I find those kind of obstructions to vision to be a cheap and artificial way to increase difficulty and should at least be toned down a LOT if not become an optional altogether. I've never died of because of one in other games, they only serve to annoy me.
2. What toggle options will you turn off? Or what do you want to be a toggle option, so you can turn it off?
Damage numbers.
3. What is your FAVORITE part of the game so far?
The skills... oh the anticipation I have to try them all and the crisp, appealing SFX.
4. What is your biggest concern?
Release date. Want the game nowzuh!
I'm fine with it, however, I agree the firing and aiming mechanics/animations could have been done better. It would have been better if the wizard's arms and hips easily swiveled at 150° and if you wanted to turn further the wizard would take a 40° step in that direction. However, I don't think Disintegrate's other functions should change, just the graphic... it should have been the same color as other Arcane spells.
I was under the impression that this would cause the world to gradually merge with hell, and further darken and corrupt things, not regrow
I'd like to know myself, as I forget the consequences for destroying the Worldstone Tyrael mentioned. I thought he destroyed it because the world would have changed as you described.
I'm glad they are doing a few of those wanted touch ups. Honestly my only serious complaint is with the special effects of swinging weapons/skills (and those stupid colors in the dungeon). Non-magic skills should not have crazy overemphasized graphics. The Barbarian's skills all seem to have a bright blue hue. It's pretty and I will deal with it... but why!?
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Indeed. I didn't want to modify his build too much as this is what I'd do if I wanted to PBAoE spam. As soon as Slow Time is up and I set Ice Nova off in a big group something is going to die and I can just keep replenishing my AP. So much CC and damage is being stacked in the bubble you probably couldn't be touched.
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The only way you'll be going dry on AP is if you spam your ranged backup. You'll be using Spectral Blade most of the time to get the most out of Arcane Dynamo and since you're taking Magic Weapon that only furthers the reason to go Indigo or maybe Obsidian if you need more control.
:edit: Eh... dislexia
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Unfortunately I can only mostly respond with theory when it comes to why certain customization was removed. Perhaps gear is where all the customization was poured into and perhaps not. You just have to remember when you have multiple avenues for a player to give themselves power it has a cascading effect and it can become nearly impossible to balance. It's my opinion that the customization of stat distribution was put elsewhere but in a more controlled form.
[list]
Maybe you are weren't looking hard enough and have not seen the difference between one skill and another, take another look. Then there's the 6 skill limit ya know :D. Also, nothing's stopping you from building another Wizard from scratch and I certainly won't be stopping myself when I do it.
This won't be a problem later on down the line. Players will settle into something they like or have wanted eventually. If some idiot is still trying to constantly switch out skill & runes in the field, make fun of em then kick em out of the game.
Hey I've seen co-workers at a past job take their champ in Gauntlet Legends to very high levels and gearing them up. Obviously they were attached in some way :P.
Your logic is off here. You won't be saying "Yes, I'm a Hydra Wiz" not because there isn't as much customization but because one skill that you use does not define your character but rather all of them do. It would be by bad design if in this game you narrowed your characters down to one ability you use. While the idea is sound that you will probably find synergies with certain skill combinations that make for a unique playstyle, those few skills won't be the end all to your character's definition.
While there may be a hands down 'most powerful' skill for every class, it will not be without drawbacks and may have situational use. The way the devs are balancing this game, they want you to have a lineup of 6 full power abilities and if they've done their job correctly you'll need every last one of them. I have a lot of experience in the balancing of character abilities in various action games/rpg's. For instance in Avencast, the easiest way to put a powerful spell in line is to give it some kind of draw-back such as a cooldown, wind-up time, interruptability. This also has the neat side effect of giving that spell more personality. The devs have incorporated some kind of drawback into every skill. While Magic Missiles may be low damage, it also has low AP cost, is spammable and is an 'Academic Spell' which are especially lucrative to possess if you picked the Arcane Dynamo passive.
So play how YOU want to. I'll be meta-gaming myself as I always do in these kind of games. In my mind the only thing that's changed is if I feel like going outside the set idea that I have for a character I can.
Synergy is still in the game but in it's most natural form. This is a good thing. Diablo 2 synergies would just be another way for power to cascade by making certain skills better than others and THAT would kill customization.
Overall, I think you are worried about what you have miscomprehended. We need to play the full game before we can really cry wolf here. Thanks for the time you took to write all that though!
List tags are malformed.
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Smoke Screen
Obsidian Rune - Breathe Deep
Breathe Deep as in the Starcraft cheat that nets you 500 Vespene gas?
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The low health warning. I find those kind of obstructions to vision to be a cheap and artificial way to increase difficulty and should at least be toned down a LOT if not become an optional altogether. I've never died of because of one in other games, they only serve to annoy me.
2. What toggle options will you turn off? Or what do you want to be a toggle option, so you can turn it off?
Damage numbers.
3. What is your FAVORITE part of the game so far?
The skills... oh the anticipation I have to try them all and the crisp, appealing SFX.
4. What is your biggest concern?
Release date. Want the game nowzuh!
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I'd like to know myself, as I forget the consequences for destroying the Worldstone Tyrael mentioned. I thought he destroyed it because the world would have changed as you described.
I'm glad they are doing a few of those wanted touch ups. Honestly my only serious complaint is with the special effects of swinging weapons/skills (and those stupid colors in the dungeon). Non-magic skills should not have crazy overemphasized graphics. The Barbarian's skills all seem to have a bright blue hue. It's pretty and I will deal with it... but why!?