Diablo 3!

einherjar

The Glorious Dead
El Gaucho Rojo said:
I don't understand why you believe the Amazon is a fighter/archer. What is an archer? It's someone who uses ranged, physical damage, right? Three of the four weapons the Amazon can spec are just that (bows, crossbows, and javelins) with the only melee weapon being the spear. Because she can spec a spear and melee her way through the game, does that make her a fighter hybrid? I don't think so.

I called the class a hybrid because if you don't specialize in a particular skill tree, the class is a mixture of melee and ranged skills. And you could use a javelin in melee...

El Gaucho Rojo said:
My reasons for that are A) what archer in the history of fantasy games can't use at least some melee weapons?

Well, the Amazon had bonuses and skill techs related to the use of those melee weapons, unlike many other "archers." And before the expansion, anything could be equipped by anyone, provided you had the requisite stats. It was just completely useless unless you got some bonus for doing so.

El Gaucho Rojo said:
and B) to me, a hybrid sacrifices great damage in one type of damage dealing area to branch out into another area.

And without specializing in melee -OR- ranged, but taking a mixture of both trees, you wind up with a character just like you described. Also, I think a Spear-azon, with a good rare/unique Lance, using a maxed Impale, dealt more physical damage in a single hit than any other setup... I could be wrong...


In all honesty, perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that Diablo II had classes that could serve mutiple purposes... The best example is probably the Druid. If you wanted to go melee, you loaded up on the shapeshifting tree, to go caster you loaded up on the elemental tree, likewise for summoning... But the Druid didn't deal as much melee damage as a Barbarian or Spear-azon, couldn't outcast a Sorceress, and his summons paled to the Necromancer's.
 
einherjar said:
I called the class a hybrid because if you don't specialize in a particular skill tree, the class is a mixture of melee and ranged skills.

Alright. But what class isn't like that? Even the sorceress can focus on an Enchant build and melee.

And you could use a javelin in melee...

You can melee with a staff and wand too, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Well, the Amazon had bonuses and skill techs related to the use of those melee weapons, unlike many other "archers." And before the expansion, anything could be equipped by anyone, provided you had the requisite stats. It was just completely useless unless you got some bonus for doing so.

I'll admit I'm not a very big gamer. I haven't blown through every fantasy game on earth, but all the generic archer classes I've seen and played allowed you to either go for a ranged spec, melee spec, or 50/50... But they're still generic archers.

And without specializing in melee -OR- ranged, but taking a mixture of both trees, you wind up with a character just like you described. Also, I think a Spear-azon, with a good rare/unique Lance, using a maxed Impale, dealt more physical damage in a single hit than any other setup... I could be wrong...

I'll take your word on that, my friend, because I simply don't know (like I said earlier, I don't like archers). It sounds reasonable to me. That's the beautiful thing about Diablo II. You can make the craziest specs like an Enchant melee sorceress or Poison Dagger necromancer and given the right amount of items, skills, and luck, it could be devastating.

In all honesty, perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that Diablo II had classes that could serve multiple purposes... The best example is probably the Druid. If you wanted to go melee, you loaded up on the shapeshifting tree, to go caster you loaded up on the elemental tree, likewise for summoning... But the Druid didn't deal as much melee damage as a Barbarian or Spear-azon, couldn't outcast a Sorceress, and his summons paled to the Necromancer's.

I agree completely. Maybe that's the magic of the Diablo series. You technically play the exact same game over and over and over, depending on how long you play it, but you could make three or four amazons and have them so different it's like playing three or four different classes so you don't get bored.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
El Gaucho Rojo said:
Maybe that's the magic of the Diablo series. You technically play the exact same game over and over and over, depending on how long you play it, but you could make three or four amazons and have them so different it's like playing three or four different classes so you don't get bored.

Well that's thanks to the feat tree system that Diablo II introduced. It was so successful that Blizzard reused it for WoW and now it's a staple of MMORPGs.

As for deciding what makes a hybrid or not, we'd have to define the word first. The concept derives from D&D's multi-classing, which revolves around mixing the four archetypical classes: Fighter, Priest, Wizard and Rogue. It's still the standard I use for such things today.
 

einherjar

The Glorious Dead
Does anyone else hope they redid the armor system? I loathed the way armor helped you avoid aa attack, but unless it had a "Damage Reduced By" attribute, it did nothing to mitigate the damage when you did get hit.
 
Aazealh said:
Well that's thanks to the feat tree system that Diablo II introduced. It was so successful that Blizzard reused it for WoW and now it's a staple of MMORPGs.

As for deciding what makes a hybrid or not, we'd have to define the word first. The concept derives from D&D's multi-classing, which revolves around mixing the four archetypical classes: Fighter, Priest, Wizard and Rogue. It's still the standard I use for such things today.

I agree completely with you, my friend.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Wow, I never actually noticed that about the armor effect. That's retarded, and yeah, I would prefer the classic "i have heavier armor so I feel hits less" approach.
 

einherjar

The Glorious Dead
Barbarian and Wizard tech trees!

http://diablo3x.com/

Well, most of them anyway...

I'm diggin' what they did with the Barbarian tree for the most part... Especially ditching the fun-killing need to specialize in a particular weapon type...
 
einherjar said:
Barbarian and Wizard tech trees!

http://diablo3x.com/

Well, most of them anyway...

I'm diggin' what they did with the Barbarian tree for the most part... Especially ditching the fun-killing need to specialize in a particular weapon type...

Looks like our old buddy the Skeleton King from Diablo 1 is going to be the first boss of Diablo 3. Sounds great to me.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
El Gaucho Rojo said:
Looks like our old buddy the Skeleton King from Diablo 1 is going to be the first boss of Diablo 3. Sounds great to me.
The SKULL KING?! :SK:

Man, now THAT'd be an overpowered character class.
 
It's been an eternity since we last had a major Diablo III update.

Well, this year's Blizzcon will be held from August 21st - August 22nd. I would be extremely shocked if they didn't reveal one of the playable classes at the event. I would be even more shocked if one of the last two unknown classes wasn't an archer.

In the meantime, here's an article from Kotaku:

http://kotaku.com/5340558/diablo-iii-impressions-hands-on-with-the-barbarian

And here are some poorly shot, yet still exciting Diablo III videos on YouTube in a desert environment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_R6Gaxee2o&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fkotaku.com%2F5340525%2Fthirty-seconds-of-diablo-iii-gameplay%3Fautoplay%3Dtrue&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caVbkb0ztII&feature=channel_page

What kind of classes do you all want to see?
 

SaiyajinNoOuji

I'm still better than you
I want to believe that they will have this huge amount of information for Blizzcon but I personally don't think so. The reason being that Blizzard has taken a good portion of the developers for Star Craft 2 and put them on projects for WoW. Star Craft 2 is supposed to come out a lot earlier then Diablo 3 so I can't imagine them dedicating a lot of people at this time for it.

Sure they may say what they have planned but I don't think there will be anything physical there or at least not a whole lot.

Or then again i could be totally wrong and they do have this huge amount of information there so who knows!

They need to have a holy type fighter along with the sneaky type so how they create those so that they are not the tired rehashes that we see in all RPG'esq games will be a treat.
 
Where did you hear about Starcraft 2 developers being put on WoW projects? That's just unfair; that game's been out for five years.

In case you don't hear much at Blizzcon here's a collection of recent Starcraft 2 articles (including a five page interview with Dustin Browder that has details about the game's overall progress):

http://www.joystiq.com/tag/starcraft-2,@featured

According to the interview, they have all the Terran missions in their current build of the game; although some missions are not as polished as others. Even if there aren't any new units to introduce, which I doubt, there will still be new interviews, hands-on impressions, panel presentations, and Q&A's.

As for Diablo III, there's a good chance that their archer class would have sneaking abilities; killing your enemies at a distance just fits well with that. How else are you going to have someone who shoots arrows be as cool as someone who can slow down time and shoot out a giant laser that makes monsters explode?
 

SaiyajinNoOuji

I'm still better than you
seppuku said:
Where did you hear about Starcraft 2 developers being put on WoW projects? That's just unfair; that game's been out for five years.
It was all over the place.

http://techblips.dailyradar.com/story/news_wow_held_up_starcraft_ii_for_a_year/
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
With BlizzCon 09 coming up this weekend, the biggest thing I'm looking forward to is more Diablo III news. And I believe it's time for them to unveil another character class, personally.

As for what I'd like to see in a new character, I'm with Aaz -- a Dark Knight would fit the Diablo world, and could have some very cool LIFE LEECHING abilities. Think Paladin with a broadsword and a ah... morally flexible approach to dark magic. It'd definitely be the first class I'd play through the game with.
 
I am really digging the witch docter, the ability to make a zombie wall is pretty awesome. And I do like the idea of making your summons a bit more dangerous with your own spells to sweet if you ask me. I also like the new teleport with the mage tho since you can hurt people with it now that seems really good. And that forcefiled like spells seems awesome as well. I am on the fence of thos 2 classes I wish to play first. I think one of the classes is going to a Dark Knight I remember seeing a picture of this badass looking Knight but that may have been concept art.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Walter said:
Well, BlizzCon 2008 is this weekend, and everyone is expecting another Diablo III announcement - hopefully some new class info. Im still pulling for a Dark Knight-type character personally. I'll update the thread if/when anything cool is announced.
Walter said:
With BlizzCon 09 coming up this weekend, the biggest thing I'm looking forward to is more Diablo III news. And I believe it's time for them to unveil another character class, personally.
Déjà vu :ganishka:
 

yesmilord

千年王国
I'm heading to Blizzcon this weekend, so I'll let you guys know how the new version plays.

As for the dark knight - I think the idea is a bit redundant and leans too much towards what was done with the Death Knight in WoW, but it's still definitely a possibility. One really has to examine the lore that follows the destruction of the World Stone and see what happens to the holy knights of Zakarum, which was presumably under the influence of Mephisto since long ago. Perhaps there's something to be done there.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
yesmilord said:
As for the dark knight - I think the idea is a bit redundant and leans too much towards what was done with the Death Knight in WoW, but it's still definitely a possibility.

Fuck WoW. The fact Blizzard waited so long to include a character class that should have been there at launch shouldn't influence their other games. Diablo 2 had a Paladin and a Necromancer. Diablo 3 doesn't have a hybrid fighter class yet and won't have a Necro. A Dark Knight-type class would be a good alternative. At the very least they need another mainly melee fighter. Now, maybe you're right and they'll hold out so that people don't make the comparison, but I think it'd be regrettable. It would however be a good reason for them to wait as long as possible to announce it as a class, in order for the Death Knight novelty in WoW to wear off a little.
 

SaiyajinNoOuji

I'm still better than you
^^^ Why are you mad, dog? :casca:

Well I am sure blizzard will make things right when it comes to the last two classes. People will bitch no matter what they are until they play them. Its like that with everything that anybody ever makes.

If they did do a deathknight/necromancer typish class, how would they set it apart from their other versions of said class from previous games? Would they try to tap into infrequently used abilities related to those classes? With the new Wizard type you have her using time stopping and other types of magic instead of your classic fire, ice, etc. So what could they do?

Raising of the undead, aura's, summoning demonic forces to help you. I dont even know how I would go about giving it a twist to make it fresh. I suppose one idea that comes to mind is maybe the class absorbing pulling the souls from the mob and maybe taking some of its attributes/skills and then being able to either use those to create your own demons or using them and adding them to your own classes to give you boosts.

In any case, we will have to wait and see.
 

yesmilord

千年王国
SaiyajinNoOuji said:
Raising of the undead, aura's, summoning demonic forces to help you. I dont even know how I would go about giving it a twist to make it fresh. I suppose one idea that comes to mind is maybe the class absorbing pulling the souls from the mob and maybe taking some of its attributes/skills and then being able to either use those to create your own demons or using them and adding them to your own classes to give you boosts.

In any case, we will have to wait and see.

Absorbing souls ... not that the ability has the same attributes, but last year at Blizzcon I remember the Witch Doctor having a "Soul Absorption" ability that pretty much acts as an auto-refill to your mana pool whenever there is a mob of enemies. What you have in mind is pretty close to a hybrid between D2's Necromancer and WoW's Warlock and Death Knight as it gets. Like you said, making it fresh will be hard. Seeing as how Blizzard has been playing their cards, I'm not sure we'll see anything too radical...yet.
 
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