More Short-Term Buffs and Debuffs Please

[Arbedark]

Since the developers of D3 are wanting the game to be more tactical and strategic, I propose that they introduce more short-term buffs, and debuffs, on timers of course.

In Diablo 2 there were very few Short-Term buffs, and only really curses and a couple of the Barbs Warcries for Debuffs. By allowing the buffs to be such long-term and spammable they efectively took away an element of strategy that could add more depth to the game. The same is true for curses, they had such a long duration and were so spammable that they were in effect applied to every monster you ever fought, all the time.

Now I've introduced the idea in a basic concept, I'll present some examples of what I propose:

N.B These are just ideas, to give a flavour of what sort of stuff could be used, not necessarily actual skills to implement.

Buffs

1. Burst of Speed

In Diablo 2 the Burst of Speed skill wasn't really a Burst, more like a Prolonged Skill of Speed Enhancement. To make things more interesting Burst of speed could last 30 seconds and be on a 180 second cooldown. So if you cast BoS at every opportunity it would be up for 30 seconds, then down for 150 seconds, up 1/6 of the time. To balance this, BoS would of course need to be more powerful, a greater IAS boost, greater FRW Boost, maybe a damage boost to reflect increased Velocity. As well as increasing the potency of the skill it would need to be stackable with any other Buffs that were implemented (I.E if Fade was left as a long-term Buff, BoS wouldn't override Fade, but instead work as well as Fade). By doing this there would be many tactical considerations in both PvM and PvP. For PvM, do you cast BoS at every opportunity, or maybe save it for the tougher fights? Do you use it to wipe out the Minions with a Boss or save it until the Minions are dead to kill the Boss quicker? In PvP do you cast it at the start of a duel to try and get a quick kill, or wait and try and surprise your opponent? This sort of strategic thinking would add to the gameplay in my opinion, instead of joining a game and casting all your Buffs at the start and not having to cast a single one for over 10 minutes.


2. Focus (Placeholder name)

Focus would be a buff for the Mage character, granting a percentage bonus to all offensive spells. With a medium length and a medium cooldown (so it would be available roughly half the time), exact percent would need to be calculated so it wouldn't be necessary for the class to function, but would be a nice pick of skills if you could manage to re-cast it regularly.


3. Rapid Block

Rapid Block is a defensive buff for the main shield using character, granting 95% chance to block all physical attacks for 15 seconds, with a long cooldown (180-300 seconds cooldown). Granting near immunity for a very short time this skill would have tactical uses, but wouldn't necessarily be a "must-have" skill.


4. Regeneration Skill

Granting rapid health regeneration for a short period of time to a class, OHK's could still cause problems but would add survivability.


5. Charge up skills

Very similar to Frenzy from D2, as the skill charges up grants bonus', short term so you need to keep attacking with it to keep the bonus'.


6. Empower

Empowers a caster class with formidable melee skills, giving increased damage, IAS, DR etc, for 2-3 minutes, 4 minute cooldown. While empowered unable to cast spells, can only use melee skills etc.



Debuffs

1. Vicious Swing

An attack that gives a target a reduction in damage as they reel from the attack, the debuff lasts 3 seconds or so and gives -50% damage, less effective on Bosses / Depending on the size of the monster.


2. Lethargy

AoE Spell that has the same effect as chilling from D2, but can work on CI's and Bosses, 10 second duration, 12 second cooldown.


3. Voodoo Curse

Acts similar to a curse from D2, but with much shorter duration and a cooldown. Possibly just overlaps so can be kept in a boss perma, or maybe 1-2 seconds where the curse would have run out but the curse hasn't recharged yet, like lethargy example above.



Combined Buffs / Debuffs

1. Blade Shield

Ala Blade Shield from D2, caster surrounded by a shield of blades for a short while, gives defensive bonus' to the caster, and debuffs any monsters in contact with the caster.



Basically I'm hoping that there are lot more strategic skills in D3, rather than simply casting BO etc at the start of the game, then spamming the same offensive skill for the entire game. Adding buffs and debuffs with a short duration means they will need to be cast frequently, breaking up the monotony of casting the exact same offensive skill over and over again, and will add the tactical elements of deciding when to use the buffs or debuffs.

Thoughts and Opinions welcome.

[linsonchan]

spammable curse are fine, this isnt WoW you know.

[Telzen]

Please no. This isn't an MMO, the point of the game is fast and powerfull gameplay. Short duration stuff and waiting on cooldowns would really ruin it.

[5zigen]

Please no. This isn't an MMO, the point of the game is fast and powerfull gameplay. Short duration stuff and waiting on cooldowns would really ruin it.

I disagree. Having long term buffs is far more "MMORPG" than having short term buffs. MMORPG's are all about having your friends buff you so you can go out and level your character for an hour. Or having a 2nd account follow you around buffing you while you kill things on your low level character.

In D2 this wasnt possible until they made 1.10, with the huge huge buff duration and efficacy. IMO it was a bad move for the game.

I'm up in the air on the single self buffs though, I don't know if they need a short duration, but that couldn't really hurt in terms of strategy.

[Telzen]

While MMOs might have longer buffs you keep up, battles really revolve around cooldowns and short term buffs in my experience. Diablo is more about taking down large amounts of monsters quickly instead of taking down a few at a time at a slower pace like most MMOs. What good would something like Vicious Swing be?

[Arbedark]

Please no. This isn't an MMO, the point of the game is fast and powerfull gameplay. Short duration stuff and waiting on cooldowns would really ruin it.

I never said D3 was a MMO, and I don't want D3 to be a MMO. I never said anything about waiting on cooldowns. I'm advocating that you can kill just fine without these short term buffs, not that without them you turn into a pussy cat which couldn't scratch a fallen. They are merely intended to;
1. Increase tactical and strategic decisions in the game, IF YOU WANT, the optimal builds will require good use of these buffs, while without them you can still kill quickish.
2. Having short-term buffs isn't JUST a MMO feature. About the only redeeming feature of Titan Quest was that its buffs were a mix of short and toggle buffs, adding in some variety.

spammable curse are fine, this isnt WoW you know.

1. I've never played WoW.
2. Where in my post did I even say this WAS Wow?
3. Did you even bother reading the post?
4. No, spamming the same skill over and over again ad infinitum isn't acceptable now, it might have been acceptable when D2 was released, but games and technology have advanced that the genre needs to evolve.

While MMOs might have longer buffs you keep up, battles really revolve around cooldowns and short term buffs in my experience. Diablo is more about taking down large amounts of monsters quickly instead of taking down a few at a time at a slower pace like most MMOs. What good would something like Vicious Swing be?

I'm not saying that without these Buffs you wouldn't be able to take down large amounts of monsters quickly. Merely that they will make it quicker, or make you tougher if you're facing hard hitting monsters or whatever.
Diablo 2 was so easy on Hell it didn't deserve the name, and I'm hoping for an actual challenge this time. As I said at the start of the post, these are ideas for skills, the concept. Vicious swing could be useful vs hard hitting Bosses, or it could be a multi hit swing like the new cleave, the duration could be extended to 5 or 10 seconds. Charge in, Vicious Hit them, then Use your normal attack, taking only 50% damage for the rest of the combat. Tactical use.

Not cast a buff, kill some monsters, sit around for buff to recharge. Repeat.

[SlechtWeerBeer]

I've been playing the Median mod, made by Brother Laz. It features such short period buffs, which work quite nicely
There's stuff like 5 seconds of invulnerability to everything (I think, don't know if it goes for Psn damage/Open Wounds), with a 30 second spell timer (cooldown)
However, 300 second cooldowns just don't fit in a Diablo game, I think. It's so long. That's certainly a mob or 6 to kill before you can use that one buff again. Or wait forever.
Short durations, short cooldowns (<50 seconds), if any. Also, I think the battle-orders lookalike in the gameplay trailer had a recharge.

[DBaron]

Short term buffs/debuffs don't really sound like a good idea to me. Reminds more of a D&D game, than diablo.

[vendrox]

I firmly and proudly stand against WoW:erizing

[phool]

5 sec duration, 10 sec cooldown could be fine for a skill if applied properly. This would work really well for a skill that did something like increased your damage done and taken by 33%, not BoS so much though. In Median XL the pala has a BoS and it just detracts from using your primary skills, it's not really worth it except as a vigor equivalent imhe. 30/150 potentially slows down gameplay immensely. e.g. empower, you build your caster to be a meleerer and are left with nothing to do while you can't use the buff you rely on. When the going gets tough you may end up towning for the CD (see GW shadow form solo farming) with an end result of shallow and tedious gameplay. With many battles lasting under 30 seconds these skills would have to be broken to be balanced by the CD. The end result is basically a skill that's still broken btw - this is a mistake Anet made and learnt from.

Temporary debuffs are good as long as it doesn't go over the top (HGL where you might be repeatedly stringing together 3 debuff melee attack skills every few seconds iirc). They're actually evident already, with the barb using a skill that reduces block in the teaser. As long as Blizz don't make the mistake of believing that alternating between a couple attack skills is deeper than just spamming one (Median 08 ~.57 - titan+ancient strike+rock shower til titan/ancient are running out then repeat). A ts-dtail sin is a better example of how a short buff can be used to good effect.

I do hope to see energy management and weak healing skills incorporated into all or most classes.

[Arbedark]

I've been playing the Median mod, made by Brother Laz. It features such short period buffs, which work quite nicely
There's stuff like 5 seconds of invulnerability to everything (I think, don't know if it goes for Psn damage/Open Wounds), with a 30 second spell timer (cooldown)
However, 300 second cooldowns just don't fit in a Diablo game, I think. It's so long. That's certainly a mob or 6 to kill before you can use that one buff again. Or wait forever.
Short durations, short cooldowns (<50 seconds), if any. Also, I think the battle-orders lookalike in the gameplay trailer had a recharge.

I've not played the Median Mod, although It does look very interesting.

I agree that having a 300 second cooldown would be too long, I was only using these as examples in my post, and if these were implemented they'd need to be balanced properly. I just feel that having 5 second buffs would be TOO short, so to have the buff long enough to make an impact they would need a longish cooldown to make sure they weren't overpowered.

Short term buffs/debuffs don't really sound like a good idea to me. Reminds more of a D&D game, than diablo.

Diablo is essentially an ARPG, so taking elements from full RPG's isn't necessarily a bad thing. As it stands, D2 is in essence holding down the left or right mouse button until everything on screen is dead, not very challenging. I just want D3 to actually require a bit of skill for PvM, and more skill for PvP, and this would add that, as well as varying gameplay.

I firmly and proudly stand against WoW:erizing

+1, go you...

5 sec duration, 10 sec cooldown could be fine for a skill if applied properly. This would work really well for a skill that did something like increased your damage done and taken by 33%, not BoS so much though. In Median XL the pala has a BoS and it just detracts from using your primary skills, it's not really worth it except as a vigor equivalent imhe. 30/150 potentially slows down gameplay immensely. e.g. empower, you build your caster to be a meleerer and are left with nothing to do while you can't use the buff you rely on. When the going gets tough you may end up towning for the CD (see GW shadow form solo farming) with an end result of shallow and tedious gameplay. With many battles lasting under 30 seconds these skills would have to be broken to be balanced by the CD. The end result is basically a skill that's still broken btw - this is a mistake Anet made and learnt from.

Temporary debuffs are good as long as it doesn't go over the top (HGL where you might be repeatedly stringing together 3 debuff melee attack skills every few seconds iirc). They're actually evident already, with the barb using a skill that reduces block in the teaser. As long as Blizz don't make the mistake of believing that alternating between a couple attack skills is deeper than just spamming one (Median 08 ~.57 - titan+ancient strike+rock shower til titan/ancient are running out then repeat). A ts-dtail sin is a better example of how a short buff can be used to good effect.

I do hope to see energy management and weak healing skills incorporated into all or most classes.

Please, these are just examples that I came up with, of course they would need tweaking and full balancing, 30/150 may be too long, but what about 30/60? up 1/3 of the time. or even 30/60...

Regarding empower, what if its cooldown was shorter than its duration. I was only suggesting empower as a way to make melee mages, or as an "oh crap, I can't tank this boss, I'll try taking him down in melee" style skill. Depending on how it would work this would depend on the duration and cooldown of course. I wouldn't advocate that any short term buff were REQUIRED for a class to be good, merely make the class better.

Edit: Yes, I'd like energy management to play a larger part, and self-heals for most classes would add a lot more depth to PvP.

[vendrox]

Thank you very much.

[Bash_]

It wont happen. D3 is going to be fast paced, and if you need to wait for cooldowns on powerful abilities that you cant survive without, it is going to be a waiting game.

From a PVP perspective, active abilities with long cooldowns will be a very very bad idea.

Essentially it means that you wouldnt be able to use all your skills against one opponent, because you just used it in a previous duel.

And blizzard do care about pvp, its just not top priority. Still i hope that it gets more attention than d2.

[stillman]

Arbedark, I slightly disagree with your notion of not really having to use these sorts of measures for a good chr. Basically, everyone would be recasting them as soon as their cool down period wore off. Why wouldn't they? No one is going to settle for X damage when they could be doing X+5 damage. So, what it will do, imo, is cause all of us to continuallty have to recast these buffs to gain their advantages and remain competitive.

This is just my preference, but I find it annoying to have to recast something after it wears off, so much so that I won't play a barb because I know his war cry is going to wear off and I have to stop what I'm doing and recast it again. And if I don't use war cries, everyone else's barb is better than mine.

This may sound counter productive, but some of us really like the mindless fun of just holding down the mouse button and eliminating everything on the screen. This is Ok imo if you spend, lets say, several hundred hours having to strategize, build your chr, trade ect to reach this point. Thus, no strategy is lost; we have simply evolved our chrs to our specifications through devoted playing. The easier strategy we've woked towards is a reward for some of us to make the end game grind a bit less stressful. I believe having to keep using the same strategy forever (like recasting buffs) is not going to feel like much strategy after 300 hours of doing it anyway.

I would compromise and say I'm Ok with your ideas provided there are other builds available for those of us who hate recasting for the advantage of buffs. So for example, there should be barb builds who gain a slight edge for never using war cries. The edge from buffing skills would be greater, but like you said, they would not be able to rely on these buffs during some portion of their time. Those of us who don't enjoy the rebuffing strategy should have an option to not use buffing skills and have a lesser advantage on all the time, like a passive skill.

[Arbedark]

It wont happen. D3 is going to be fast paced, and if you need to wait for cooldowns on powerful abilities that you cant survive without, it is going to be a waiting game.

From a PVP perspective, active abilities with long cooldowns will be a very very bad idea.

Essentially it means that you wouldnt be able to use all your skills against one opponent, because you just used it in a previous duel.

And blizzard do care about pvp, its just not top priority. Still i hope that it gets more attention than d2.

You're making assumptions, which I've even denied if you bothered to read the thread properly.

Where did I say you can't survive without these buffs? I specifically mentioned, more than once, that it is entirely possible to have a fairl quick killing speed without these buffs, and complete the game without ever using one of these buffs. But using them will make your character better.

RE the PvP part, it all depends upon how PvP is implemented. If it is implemented as it is in D2, then yes, having long cooldowns would possibly slow things down, but as I stated, these are just examples, cooldowns could be changed to 30 seconds, with a 10 second benefit or something. This couldn't hurt PvP in the slightest and would only help make it more challenging and interesting.

Stillman:

As I said in the OP, I'm hoping that it will be entirely possible to play builds which never use these buffs, but if you choose to use them your character will be better.

As for recasting all the time, that depends entirely upon how long the cooldown is and what the skill does. Why have X+5 damage when you're fighting fallens if X damage will kill them in 1 hit? Save the buff for when you come across a mini boss or whatever...

Mindlessly holding down the right mouse button to decimate everything on screen isn't a game...might as well make a paint image of monsters, then open up a new one where the monsters are dead and claim that you're playing a game...Only using 1 skill over and over again is boring. And yes, adding in short term buffs may mean you're casting 4 skills in a row instead of 1 skill over and over again. But only if the gameplay is stupidly simplistic. Adding in any challenging mobs would mean you have to think when to use buffs, whereas without them all you have to do is kite the monster spamming Fireball or whatever...

[5zigen]

I firmly and proudly stand against WoW:erizing

You realize wow has like, 0 short term buffs? That's a ridiculous thing to say.

If you stand against wowerizing you should oppose the 15 minute duration BO's and 1 hour enchants....

[konfeta]

You realize wow has like, 0 short term buffs?

R-O-T-F-L-O-L

No, seriously, are you serious?

[Telzen]

Mindlessly holding down the right mouse button to decimate everything on screen isn't a game
Oh but it is, its the essence of Diablo.

[Sein Schatten]

R-O-T-F-L-O-L

No, seriously, are you serious?

lol. I could name like a dozen or so.

Oh but it is, its the essence of Diablo.

Well, it depends. Some builds are a lot more demanding then that at the beginning, until you get your main skills. :)

[vendrox]

You realize wow has like, 0 short term buffs? That's a ridiculous thing to say.

If you stand against wowerizing you should oppose the 15 minute duration BO's and 1 hour enchants....

You're officially retarded.

[SlechtWeerBeer]

Stillman:

As I said in the OP, I'm hoping that it will be entirely possible to play builds which never use these buffs, but if you choose to use them your character will be better.

If it makes you better than others, people will use it, no matter what.

[Thyiad]

You're officially retarded.

That was an appalling comment. Doubly so from someone who has been a member for as long as you.

Please re-read the forum rules on your return and never flame anyone here again.

[kaervek]

No.

Having to constantly recast buffs and debuffs every few seconds really kills gameplay in ANY game.

All buffs should be at least a few minutes long unless they're in the style of autocast stuff like the orb things for druids.

[5zigen]

R-O-T-F-L-O-L

No, seriously, are you serious?

Cute. But not as cute as pre-change!

And I don't consider long cooldown, short duration self cast spells "buffs". I suppose you could, but that would make every spell in wow that wasn't a direct damage or healing spell either a buff or a debuff.

In actually reading the OP's post I guess the skills all do seem very wowish with things like 5 minute cooldowns...

Short cooldown short duration buffs introduce much more into the game imo. I was thinking more like guildwars than anything else. 25 second duration, 30 sec cooldown, for example. Or better yet, 30 second duration zero cooldown.

I simply think short duration buffs are much less exploitable than long duration buffs, particularly when talking about castable buffs like BO.

[Sein Schatten]

No.

Having to constantly recast buffs and debuffs every few seconds really kills gameplay in ANY game.

All buffs should be at least a few minutes long unless they're in the style of autocast stuff like the orb things for druids.

No doubt. I hate it to recast Manashield or Thunderstorm so often. I would rather have the option to let the computer recast such things when the timer runs out. Less of a headache for me. I notice that I recast such things after every 4-5 battles just to be safe.

[Arbedark]

Oh but it is, its the essence of Diablo.

Diablo 2 yes, D1 no. And lets be honest, if the people still playing D2 enjoy it because its so easy and they just like watching pretty colors on screen while holding down a button, then they have more serious issues at hand.

But wait a minute, most of the people who have played D2 for a long time and continue to play either play PvP, or underpowered PvM builds, where skill is required. Indicating what exactly? That people WANT some skill to be required in a game...

If it makes you better than others, people will use it, no matter what.

You've missed the point...by a huge degree.

No.

Having to constantly recast buffs and debuffs every few seconds really kills gameplay in ANY game.

All buffs should be at least a few minutes long unless they're in the style of autocast stuff like the orb things for druids.

"every few seconds"? where do I suggest that in my posts? Did you even bother to read the thread?

No doubt. I hate it to recast Manashield or Thunderstorm so often. I would rather have the option to let the computer recast such things when the timer runs out. Less of a headache for me. I notice that I recast such things after every 4-5 battles just to be safe.

Why not let the computer kill all the monsters for you while you're at it? Lets add auto attack and have every skill be a passive, and sit there eating and drinking while we watch the game play itself...

[Sein Schatten]

Why not let the computer kill all the monsters for you while you're at it? Lets add auto attack and have every skill be a passive, and sit there eating and drinking while we watch the game play itself...

No.









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