Blizzard Fansite Q&A: March 30th

In the last feedback, we find that giving items to other players would not remove item’s dyed effects. So can we use Collector’s Edition dyes on our items and then give them to our friends? Is there any restriction on it?
Dyes will be removed when selling them on the AH, but items dropped on the ground will retain their dye color. You can CE dye an item and drop it for your friend, yes. We don’t really feel this is a serious issue as it’s up to that player to dye someone else’s gear. If they choose to do so it’s them deciding to lessen the special-ness of their dye colors. It’s one of those things that in theory sounds like it’ll be a serious issue, but in practice probably won’t really affect the color rarity. Plus it’s almost assured that the CE colors won’t be everyone’s favorites.

Paying gold to upgrade blacksmith seems pointless… Can we make this feature work like the blacksmith profession in WoW? Or would the blacksmith be empowered in later difficulties? For example, have x chance to create best quality items?
The blacksmith is trained with gold as we didn’t want someone who ignored crafting for a difficulty level or two to have to go back and farm low level materials, like you do in WoW. And since crafting is generally intended to support itemization in higher difficulty levels, our focus for crafting is on Nightmare and beyond.

The model of the life potion is a cube, but its icon is a vial. Will we fix it?
No intent to fix it. The 3D models that drop in the world (we call them flippies) are not accurate representations of items as they appear in icons and on your character.

If a friend has joined your game, how do you kick them out?
We have plans for a kick system, but it won’t make it for ship. We think it’s more important to wait and see how people are playing the game with each other before giving them tools that could potentially be exploitable for griefing.

In Diablo II, players are able to leave the game immediately by Alt+F4. It’s very important for players playing hardcore mode to protect their character when they encounter latency. Now what can they do if a hardcore character die in the latency caused by the unstable server?
Playing Hardcore comes with inherent risks. Some of those risks are going to be things that you cannot help, such as your computer crashing, the game freezing, the internet dropping, a chipmunk dressed up as a treasure goblin tapping on your window, etc. Those are risks that you take, and we will absolutely not restore Hardcore characters for any reason whatsoever, including it being lost for a reason that is very clearly not the fault of the player.

This question is about two skills of Witch Doctor. The detail about Haunt mentioned “Haunt an enemy with a spirit, dealing 575% weapon damage as Arcane…”, but for the skill Spirit Barrage, it says “Bombard a target with a spirit blast that deals 190% weapon damage as Physical, which doesn’t make sense for players since they all attack with spirit. What makes the different? Or is it a mistake?
We put more weight on the damage type fitting the visual effect of the skill than most anything else. It’s more important to us that when you use a skill and see the visual that the damage type match the visual, than to have it conform to the lore or skill name.

Do weapon affixes such as life leech or additional elemental damage apply to spells (Wizard’s Spectral Blade) and abilities (Barbarian’s Bash)? If it applies to some but not all, how do we make that determination?
They apply to all abilities.

Are there any concerns that certain affixes and affix combinations may be unbeatable even by the most skilled and well equipped players at higher difficulty levels? For example, the Jailer affix seems like it may present issues in Inferno because players will be locked down and unable to avoid the damage. Are we okay with there being unbeatable (or virtually unbeatable) packs of Champions and Rares?
If something is truly unbeatable, we would be concerned, yes. We don’t believe any are unbeatable.

The monk ability Crippling Wave seems to outshine other monk Primary Attacks, mostly by virtue of its ability to strike every creature in the front arc for 2 strikes then all creatures in 360 degrees on the third strike, but also because it does equivalent or more damage than other monk abilities as well as applies a debuff. That said, it feels very good to use it in its current iteration, so it would be a shame to nerf it.
We knew the game was really close to complete when multiple people are playing the same class and each of them says that X ability is a must-have, and that’s the case here. Crippling Wave is very strong, but it’s certainly not a must-have to be successful, or even competitive.

Is Magic Find using diminishing returns in the same way as in Diablo II, where Magic Find stat affected in a different way the chance for blue, yellow and gold drops (actual bonus of MF was diminished for rarest items)?
No, it’s a literal (and lateral) improvement across the board. We may tweak it but that’s the way it is right now.

What happens in a situation when 3 players party who have stacked 3 stacks of Nephalem Valor is joined by another player? Will the new player start with 0 stacks of Nephalem Valor?
Yes, the person that just joined will start with 0.

Is Nepahalem Valor buff area limited or will all players in game get it independent of their location at the time of the kill?
All players receive it. They could be sitting in town and still get a stack. Keep in mind their presence in the game just made everything more difficult, so good luck to their team is killing a champion/rare without the full group.

Is there snare resistance present in game that allows to reduce snare effect partially, or do is there only complete immunity to snares?
There is CC reduction, which includes snares.

What is the maximum bonus to movement speed? Is there a limit to how fast a character can move?
The maximum is 25%.

With removal of secondary effects from elemental affixes (apart from freeze in cold damage) players are wondering if there still is a difference between damage generated from different elemental affixes other than graphic effect?
There are still elemental resistances, both on monsters and players, so damage type can come into play both in PvE and PvP. There isn’t a ton of resistance around though, so it’s not something that stacks super high, and there’s no elemental immunity. Skills also differ enough that you’ll have some outs if you do run into an enemy with high resistance. (it’s not D2 where you just spam your 1 skill and if you come up against an enemy that’s resistant to that 1 skill you’re screwed)

Will monsters have stun resistance of some kind? A party of 4 barbarians with Ground Stomp appears to be able to apply stuns infinitely by rotating the use of this skill within their party.
Yes this is a possibility, but higher level enemies have higher CC resists so it’ll be difficult to replicate in Nightmare and higher.

What was the reason for replacing the kick animation used in Diablo 2 for attacks and spells when breaking jars, urns, barrels and ashes in Diablo 3?
Because it’s more awesome to be able to blow up dozens of destructible objects than walk around and kick them one by one.

Speaking of ashes and loose stones – do they share the same item drop rate as mobs or is it higher/lower?
Everything in the game has varying chances to drop loot. You could absolutely get a legendary item from smashing an urn, but the chances are insanely small compared to a champion/rare which has a higher chance.

Do players get a benefit from having a higher MF or GF when opening ashes, loose stones and bookcases?
Yes. There are some very specific items, usually related to quests, that can only drop gold. But your Gold Find will still affect those.