Wizard Skill Tree Coverage

Posted 11th Oct 2008 09:55 AM by Medievaldragon

We have brought you a sneak peek into the Wizard Skill Trees showcased at the Diablo III hands-on gameplay rooms in Blizzcon 2008: Storm, Arcane and Conjuring. We hope it offers you an idea of what early levels have available to face the perils of Sanctuary if you decide to give a try with the Diablo III Wizard class.

STORM SKILL TREE

Charged bolt - Rank 1/1: Launch a volley of 3 electric bolts that deal 1-8 lightning damage each. Mana cost: 8.  Critical hits from lightning damage stun targets for 2 sec.

Thunderstruck - Rank 2/15: Increases the critical hit chance of all lightning spells by 10%.  Critical hits from lightning damage stun targets for 2 sec.

Empowered Magic - Rank 2/15: Increases the effect of willpower on your spell damage by 20%.

Lightning Speed - Rank 0/15: Increases casting speed by 3%

Requires 5 Points ...

Storm Armor - Rank 0/1: Surround yourself in electrical energy.  Electrical bolts are automatically fired at attackers for 1 to 8 damage.  Mana cost: 15

Frost Nova - Rank 0/1: An explosion of ice pelts nearby enemies for 1-3 cold damage.  Has an additional 25% chance of a critical hit.  Mana cost: 25.  Cooldown: 12 sec.  Critical hits from cold damage freeze targets.

Deep Freeze - Rank 0/15: Increases the critical hit chance of all cold spells by 5%.  Critical hits from cold damage freeze targets.

Power Armor - Rank 0/15: Increases the damage dealt by your storm armor charged bolts by 10%.

Static Charge - Rank 0/15: Convert 5% of all damage taken into mana.

Requires 10 Points

Electrocute - Rank 0/1: Lightning arcs from the wizard’s fingertips towards enemies, electrocuting them for 4-5 damage.  Electrocute affects up to 2 targets.  Mana cost: 8.  Critical hits from lightning damage stun targets for 2 sec.  Requires 10 points in Storm tree.

Ray of Frost - Rank 0/1: Project a beam of cold energy that deals 6 cold damage per sec.  Mana cost: 16 mana per sec.  Critical hits from cold damage freeze targets.  Requires 10 points in Storm tree.

Static Residue - Rank 0/15: Enemies damaged by your lightning spells discharge an additional 1 to 3 lightning damage per sec to nearby enemies for 3 seconds.  Requires 10 points in Storm tree.

Lethal Energy - Rank 0/15: Increases the chance to score critical hits with melee and spell attacks by 5%.  Requires 10 points in Storm tree.

Improved Charged Bolt - Rank 0/15: Increase the number of bolts released by your charged bolt spell by 1.  Requires 10 points in Storm tree.

Requires 15 points ...

Tornado - Rank 0/1: Summon a large tornado that damages everything in its path.  Mana cost: 15. Requires 15 points in Storm tree.

Blizzard - Rank 0/1: Call down shards of ice to pelt an area dealing 6-10 cold damage per sec for 3 sec.  Mana cost: 70.  Critical hits from cold damage freezes targets.  Requires 15 points in Storm tree.

Storm Power - Rank 0/15: Increase damage of all lightning and ice spells.  Requires 15 points in Storm tree.

Epic Storms - Rank 0/15: Increases size of Blizzard and number of twisters you can have for your energy twister.


ARCANE SKILL TREE

Magic Missile - Rank 1/1 Fire 1 missile (s) of energy at your enemies causing 7-13 arcane damage to them.  Mana cost: 8. Critical hits from arcane damage silence targets for 4 secs.

Arcane Power - Rank 2/15: Increases all arcane damage dealt by 24% (next point 36%).

Efficient Magics - Rank 2/15: Lowers the mana cost of spells by 6% (next point by 9%).

Penetrating Spells - 0/15: Reduces the resistance of your targets to your spells by 8%.  Targets with negative resistance take additional damage from spells.

Requires 5 Points ...

Disintegrate - Rank 0/1: Emanate a beam of pure energy dealing 10 arcane damage per second.  Damage is modified by 80% each time the beam passes through the target.  Mana cost: 12 per sec.  Critical hits from arcane damage silence targets for 4 secs.

Wave of Force - Rank 0/1: Project a wave of force outwards, repelling enemies and projectiles and dealing 1-8 damage.  Mana cost: 25.

Arcane Armor - Rank 0/15: While your Storm Armor, Stone Armor, Stone Skin or Temporal Armor spells are active, your armor is increased by 20%.

Arcane Weakness - Rank 0/15: Enemies damaged by your arcane spells are affected with arcane weakness, increasing damage taken by 10% for 5 sec.

Arcane Speed - Rank 0/15: Reduces the cooldown of all arcane spells by 5%.

Requires 10 Points ...

Arcane Orb - Rank 0/1: An orb of pure energy explodes on contact dealing 12-16 arcane damage to all enemies in the blast area.  Mana cost: 18.  Critical hits from arcane damage silence targets for 4 sec.

Slow Time - Rank 0/1: Warp space and time lowing nearby monsters and projectiles.  Mana cost: 20.  Enemy attack cooldown increase: 1 sec.

Arcane Distortion - Rank 0/15: Enemies damaged by your arcane spells are slowed by 35% for 3 sec.

Mana Recovery - Rank 0/15: Enemies have a 7% chance to drop a mana globe that return 25% of maximum mana when picked up.

Improved Magic Missile - Rank 0/15: Increases the number of missiles launched by your magic missile spell by 1 and increases their damage by 8%.

Temporal Armor - Rank 0/1: Surrounds the wizard in a protective shell that stops all damage from an attack every 6 sec.  The shell dissipates after absorbing 12 attacks.

Teleport - Rank - 0/1: Teleport to the selected location up to 40 feet away.  Mana cost: 23.

Greater Mana - Rank 0/15: Increases maximum mana by 12%.

Mana Burst - Rank 0/15: Increases the damage of any spellcast from full mana by 25%.

Runic Might - Rank 0/15: Increases the effects of all runes.


CONJURING SKILL TREE

Spectral Blade - Rank 1/1: Summons a spectral blade that strikes each enemy in front of the wizard 3 times causing 1-5 physical damage with each hit. Mana cost: 7.

Spell Speed - Rank 2/15: Increases the speed of your magic missile projectiles by 16% (next point by 24%).

Damage Resistance - 2/15: Increases armor by 10% and all resistances by 8% (next point armor by 15% and all resistances by 12).

Weapon Mastery - 0/15: Increases physical damage done by all weapons by 15.


Requires 5 Points ...

Stone Skin - Rank 0/1: Shield yourself with rock and stone absorbing 30 damage.  Lasts 8 sec.  Mana cost: 12.  Cooldown: 15 Sec.

Mirror Image - Rank 0/1: Create an illusionary duplicate of yourself that lasts for 8 sec.  Mana cost: 18.

Conjured Armor - Rank 0/15: Magical armor surrounds the wizard increasing block chance by 2%.

Conjured Health - Rank 0/15: Increases total health by 8% and the health of your conjured images by 12%.

Duplicate Conjuring - Rank 0/15: Increases the images from your mirror image skill and
Hydras from your Hydra skill by 1.


Requires 10 Points ...

Meteor Storm - Rank 0/1: Meteorites pelt the targeted region dealing 10 to 20 damage per sec. Mana cost: 12 mana per sec.

Acid Cloud - Rank 0/1: Drop a cloud of acid on the targeted area. Deals an initial 1-4 poison damage followed by 4-8 poison damage per sec to enemies who remain in the area. Mana cost: 15.

Conjured Power - Rank 0/15: Increases damage done by spells by 1% for every 10 points of vitality.

Conjuring Duration - Rank 0/15: Increases the duration of your Stone Skin and Acid Cloud spells by 1 sec and duration of your mirror image images by 2 sec.

Improved Spectral Blade - Rank 0/15: Increases the damage of Spectral Blade by 14%.


Requires 15 Points ...

Hydra - Rank 0/1: Creates a multi-headed beast that attacks your enemies with bolts of fire.

Magic Weapon - Rank 0/1: Imbue your weapon with magical energy granting it increased damage.  Mana cost: 15.

Magical Impact - Rank 0/15: Increases damage of all spells by 15% of your weapon damage.

Slowing Strikes - Rank 0/15: Enemies damaged by your melee attacks, Spectral Blade or magic weapon have their movement speed reduced by 30% and their attack speed reduced by 20% for 4 sec.

Armor Piercing - 0/15: Conjured and physical damage decreases the armor of armored enemies.

All the Blizzcon 2008 Coverage.




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Comments

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Storm
Posted 11, Oct 2008 04:39 PM
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Just like everyone else, I’ve seen the gameplay and my first reactions are AWSOME! WOW! OMG SICK! Looks like they took the Sorc and put her on crack, looks like something straight out of Dragonball Z. To me the new Wizard class is very powerfull, I wonder how long the Wizzard class will stay like that before Blizzard waters it down. Just like they done everything else.

If everyone remembers DII back in the day and how powerfull certain classes where to others and how fun it was to actually play DII. Then Blizzard came along took certain things out and made you spend points on other skills you didn’t want just to be able to use the skills you want successfully. They know how to give us something fun and exciting to play before patching it and ruining it.

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Zhulok
Posted 11, Oct 2008 05:38 PM
(0)
 

Storm patches are good.
It isnt fun when one or two classes are overpowered because then you get people constantly playing those classes and the people who chose to play one of the weaker classes gets screwed. All the classes need to be even so its fair, and its really hard to determine how even the classes are before the game is played by the public for a few months and then thats when they figure where any problems are and they fix them in a patch.

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Kaeros
Posted 11, Oct 2008 06:19 PM
(0)
 

The above list is now posted at http://www.diablowiki.net/Wizard_skills for your viewing pleasure. :]

Reply
 
SoulSpectrum
Posted 11, Oct 2008 07:00 PM
(0)
 

Well for all those that have played WoW, you’ll know it’s almost the samething…. this is almost exactly like WoW…. I only tried the trial of WoW and hated how slow you leveled. Other than that, it was a solid game if you had alot of spare time and wanted to pay that extra cash. This new systems gonna be fun. There’s less trial and error. No more crappy characters because of poor skill allocation. Everything (slmost…) is going to be a viable build with common sense. Just like in d2 where people use the main skills like frozen orb/blizzard in the frost tree. or meteor/fireball in the fire. And then there’s chain lightning and lightning in the light tree… it just adds alittle versatility without incorporating those crappy skills. Granted some of those lower skills were fun for certain builds, but they were never touched by 98% of the players.

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Stafir
Posted 11, Oct 2008 09:43 PM
(0)
 

I actually disagree that this is taking things from wow.  A lot of what I see just seems to be a natural extension of what they did to DII near the end.  Which, the WoW talent system, merely is.  A revamped version of the DII skill system.

How many people stuck just one point in teleport?  just one point in each prereq?  Just one point in static field?  Just one point in every single necro curse, etc etc etc.

Then they started to add in the idea of skill synergy.  Where one skill got buffs from other skills.  For the hopes of making the other skills at least have a reason to be taken.  This is actually the logical ending to that.  Instead of putting all the points directly into a skill, you instead spend one to buy the skill, then you put points into seperate upgrade skills, to alter the main skill in whatever way you like, also, passive skills? Not used much?

Ha.  Play a barb, they had an entire tree devoted to passive skills.  A sorcs best friends were the likes of warmth, and the mastery skills.  And remember the skill synergies?  Every.  Single.  One.  passive skills, the entire way.  They were there, just in earlier form.

This isn’t all ideas that WoW just got for itself, these arn’t things new to WoW.  These are things that have been talked about, and going around forever.  These arn’t taken from WoW, these are things that WoW took from Dii.

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hostileeffect
Posted 12, Oct 2008 08:40 PM
(0)
 

Diablo 3 has really turned me off with all the pretty colors, low poly geometry, washed out textures, and very lame sound effects. I think the people at Blizzard tried to make a decent game because the level lay outs, scripted events, and such seem good, but just about everything else is a steaming pile of crap, with rainbows on top.

Inventory management adds something to a game, I don’t know if it is realism, valuing items, managing your load out, or what, but the one slot inventory is rather pathetic. Deus Ex, System Shock 2, and Stalker, had inventory management, all three are superb games.

The skill tree appears to have come straight out of Warcraft and its also pathetic. The butchering of the character classes drags down the game even more.

The model geometry looks like it was made by the exact same people that did a lot of the World of Warcraft geometry. I look at the four pillars and the geometry gives me the idea that there are razor blades in my eyes and its boarderline obscene.

The perversion of Diablo 3, the milking of Starcraft 2, Starcraft 2’s shiny-blowup-buildings, I’ve pretty much lost all interest in Blizzard and its games at this point.

I think Blizzard has alienated their original Diablo and Starcraft fans for the goal of more money. As I have said before, if you want to know why something was done, look to see if someone is getting money out of it.

Reinstalling Diablo 2 was nice for some time but my mules have expired and there are many games coming out, mainly Farcry 2, Fallout 3, and Darkfall. Diablo 1 and 2 and Warcraft addicts should look into Darkfall, open PvP and full looting, player controlled cities, etc.

I’ll probably continue to keep an eye on Diablo 3 and hope that Blizzard fixes whatever is wrong with them.

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HerlockS
Posted 12, Oct 2008 09:49 PM
(0)
 

I loved and hated Diablo at the same time - the blind firing spells around in fear of getting hit by anything melee, resulting in stumbling around looking for the loot that dropped, but was damn hard to see - the pesky shrines, without a guide at hand could be borderline char ruining to touch etc etc - but - for all it flaws, it was *fun* to smash monsters left, right and center - I so loved chainlightning in Diablo smile

Diablo 2 - same deal - because of some players inability to play fair, certain security measures was implemented, making it much more annoying for the rest of us - the ‘link dead, wait 10 mins before being able to make new game’ springs to mind.
Patch 1.10/1.11 added some much needed difficulty to the game, but at the same time took out a lot of the fun - getting blown to smithereens by 8 monsters you can’t even see got old real quick.
Yet, getting more loot kept many of us going - braindead bossrunning ftw! smile

Diablo 3 - Well… Comparing it to WoW is like comparing apples to oranges - both a piece of fruit, but texture and taste are so very different.
Call me blind, dumb and stupid - I fail to see the massive WoW influence everyone is moaning about, perhaps the interface borrows a bit, but all in all, D2’s interface needed a facelift and I quite like the changes made.
The colour discussion as well - maybe the game isn’t as dark as it could be, but I find Blizz’s palette choice to be spot on - and the new physics used in the game looks ace smile

I will not defend Blizz or any other company ever, but one thing I will say : Unlike plenty other games, I find plenty of excitement in Blizz’s releases years after launch - can’t say that about most other companies - and when it comes to Diablo 3, I have no fear in being disappointed smile

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