Runes are going to be different in D3. "Skill Runes are skill-modifying items that are randomly dropped by monsters and used across all classes. They can be attached to each skill like an item, often completely changing the gameplay of each skill." Known Runes: Striking - Turns teleport into a damaging spell. (I assume adds damage or splash damage to damage spells). Multistrike - Spells hit multiple targets. Adding it to the WDs skull of flame attack produces multiple exploding pots. They 1st one explodes and another one bounces from that spot in a straight line. Adding to electrocute adds a chain lightning effect. Teleport with Multistrike creates a clone of yourself with you teleport! Power - Combined with the WD's skull of flame, will leave burning areas on the ground. Damages enemies who walk into them. Lethality - Causes enemies to explode when the die. Check out the video in the Source. It shows the spells with the different runes.
Everything we know so far: http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1024 Some how I missed this but other WD skills: - Firebats (kinda like sorc inferno) - Plague Frogs (sends out frogs the explode) http://www.diablofans.com/forums/showthread.php?p=355542
Via ShackNews by Blake Ellison Oct 15, 2008 2:20pm CST tags: StarCraft 2, Diablo 3, DRM, BlizzCon 08 Diablo III "will definitely be out after StarCraft II," said Blizzard design VP Rob Pardo. Pardo, in an extensive interview with Wired, also shed light on the company's plans for DRM and digital distribution. "Battle.net really is our most effective DRM," he said, adding, "That's really kinda been the thing that's always saved us from a lot of the PC piracy that I think hurts a lot of other single-player-only games." Blizzard plans to similarly rely on its multiplayer match-making service to protect its interests with StarCraft II and Diablo III after their release. "No, there's no particular plans for that," said Pardo in response to a question about the games "phoning home" to check their authenticity with Blizzard servers each time before launching. "If you want to use an analogy--we take an approach that's more similar to Steam than EA, let's say," he explained. As for Steam itself, Pardo stopped short of shooting down the idea of launching Blizzard products on the service, stating that Blizzard for now plans to stick with its own digital distribution service. "I think we're probably currently in the mindset that we're going to digitally distribute just on Battle.net. I don't know if our strategy will change in the future. I think it's something that we're just trying to get really good at doing ourselves for now," he said.
Here's what we know so far about the skills. There are 3 trees total. They were taking from Blizzcon. Barb Skill Tree Yes, there is an Onslaught skill. Gameplay pictures from Blizzcon
The 80% damage reduction buff, negating status afflictions and "death proofing" is making me think barb might actually be valid for hardcore, if not actually sturdier than other classes now. Let's see how this plays out.
Singer barbs already were pretty decent at survivability... most of them needed gear to kill anything, though.
Cast rate was a pretty big req for dmg though, and it doesn't look barb's really shout focused in this one, he looks more like an aggro glue tank like war in GW. I'd like to see something outcheese a sin/MM survivability/req duo though... all you need is a fast AS on the weapon like any dagger you can get off a quill rat, and necro literally needs nothing, then cast a few skeles up, golem, shadow warrior, hit cloak of shadows to wide area curse anything that's not aggro'd from staying that way, then spam amp dmg. I bet amp dmg works on death sentry explosions too. Then just stick res items on em, max vit, try and get a tgods or wprojector for endgame to soak up souls lightning and you're pretty much invincible and can manatank if need be with golem/SW combo.
99% sure it does. If anything is somehow causing my bone spirit/spear necro trouble, it doesn't after that. P.S. That's on corpse explosion, not death sentry, but the mechanic is the same.
Corpse Explosion does 50% Physical damage and 50% Fire damage. So Amp Damage would help 50% of the explosion (lowers physical resist by 100%). I am pretty sure the Trap explosion works the same. Source There are no necros in D3.
You can now download a Fansite Kit. Other than that I haven't really found anything new since my last post. It seems to go in big waves. http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/community/
I was starting to get angry because after Blizzcon there was a lot of information about the Barb and the Wiz. Where is the WD Love. The wiki was finally updated for the WD but it's not that great. Here is why: http://www.diablowiki.net/Plague_Skill_Tree Basically Blizzcon added Fire Bats, Plague of Frogs, and that Spider Trap. I want more information.
Bashiok Q&A: Drac_100: Will monsters respawn after you have saved and logged off a game then return to play? Yummypuppy: As seen on screenshots, the characters start with 12 slots in inventory. Now many (including me) said that the new inventory system would allow us to carry lots more stuff than in D2. Now I’m starting to wonder if I wasn’t wrong about that. 12 slots is a really low amount of space. Obviously, there was just so many large items you could carry in D2, like 6 or 8 slots items (armors, polearms, etc...). You could carry 3-4 of those depending on what you were already carrying (tomes, potions, etc...) But for small stuff, like rings, amulets, elixirs, potions, you could carry 15 of those and still have room for a couple big items. Which wouldn’t be the case in D3. I realize potions won’t be such a big part of the game anymore, but all the small stuff like amulets, runes or other small stuff, that would now cause problem ... So in the end, I thought I wouldn’t have to do all those trips to the city to sell stuff anymore, but it doesn’t look like that right now, does it… I would like to see “%slow an enemy on attack†reintroduced as “% to crippleâ€. Wccannons: I think this would be an awesome way to incorporate the Havok engine into the game… Crippled arm= Graphically: Enemy arm becomes limp and dangles at its side/ on the ground. Effect on gameplay: Causes enemy to have a weaker attack/ spend more time casting spell. Cripple leg= Graphically: enemy begins to limp. Effect on gameplay: Enemy moves slower. Crippled head= Graphically: ???. Effect on gameplay: enemy is temporarily disoriented. Source
More Q&A: Flux: I was able to chat with Diablo III Community Manager Bashiok this afternoon, and he was kind enough to answer a few questions about various Diablo III issues. He confirmed that that active skills only accepting 1 point was just for the Blizzcon build, and that the plan is to allow multiple points to be spent in all active skills in the final game. He also gave me some insight into the skill tree and interface development process, and had a few comments about when we might see some more Witch Doctor skills revealed. Click through the jump to see a cleaned up transcript of our chat. Flux: A question about the skill points in D3. Active skills only took one point at Blizzcon, after the gameplay movie from WWI showed multiple ranks in active skills. Will they allow more points in the final game? Flux: Understood. We try to stress that to the fans. That the interface especially is prone to changes and evolutions. Some fans see a bit of something 2 years in advance and start complaining that it’s not polished. The perils of having people care about your games, I suppose. Flux: On a related question, any idea if we’ll get some disclosure of more Witch doctor skills at some point? the WD fans are bitter that they only got 11 skills and wiz/barb had 50+ at blizzcon. Of course most of the rest will be +11% poison damage passives, but anyway… Flux: The revealed WD skills don’t see to have that much obvious overlap. It’s not like there are 5 with fire damage that would be obvious ones to link with passives. Or multiple zombie skills to go with Zombie Wall. Amphibian mastery! Flux: That would give them more range? The frogs didn’t seem to go far enough to be very homing before they blew up, when I used them at Blizzcon. A plague of toads chasing people around would be the coolest thing ever. Source
Yea I check a few sites everyday (well Monday-Friday) and update this thread and email a group of RL friends whenever I find new information. Sadly after the Blizzcon buzz there has not been anything that great. I am beginning to think Fall '09 for a release date might not be possible. I guess it depends on what that have done that they have not shared.
At this point I have to put in a recommendation for Val to be XoOD3CO, this is an informal request and if he accepts it I'll get around to putting in a formal one.
It's probably too early to really pick leadership for this game. I am not against helping XoO have fun/make its mark on the D3 world. Some actual information: There is also an interview with one of the Character Artist for D2 and D3 Source