Wizard: Pros & Cons

[PiSeasA]

Just a thread for summarising opinions on wizard so far:

Likes
1) Feels fresh&lively - the name, assassin'esque looks, backstory, none of that staff&robes stereotypical spellcaster look
2) Wide variety of spells - no longer limited to just 3 elements so a lot more spell variety, coupled with runes should make for some jaw-dropping gorgeous moments.
3) "Time" support skills - original(for diablo) and should make gameplay more strategic than jus "orb-orb-meteor-orb-orb"

Dislikes
Basically the above? Pretty sure theres ppl that hate wizard for those exact reasons...

[vadimk]

Likes
1) She looks absolutely great, spells look great, and overall gameplay impression is suddenly better,
2) Skill tree looks very good for now. Many varieties in attacking skills, devensive skills, and passives,
3) Key spells are there - TP, ES, blizz, meteor, tornado. They won't make witch doctor out of a sorc :)
4) There are some nice melee possibilities also.

Unsure
1) Time skills? Didn't quite got into those for now. Their usefulness will be seen later when more info on skill mechanics is available.

Dislikes
How can I ever dislike such a nice re-creation of a sorc?

[phool]

I'd have preferred to see the melee/arcane/time skills stuck on a dedicated char and the elemental nuking skills kept seperate I guess. I'd also like teleport to be faster than it - probably - is and the imbalance dealt with in other ways. And the lack of continuity in terms of how general the name is isn't professional imo in the same way a small TCG franchise randomly switching graphic style half way through wouldn't be, though it's not the kind of thing I actually care about.

Everything else = +ve, overall impression is the wizard looks amazing and really fun to play and looks to have some nice and novel skills in the repertoire.

[Apocalypse]

as of now i want to use a wiz first, the chars look really good and the spells seem to be a lot of fun. this will probably change after i finally get to see my archer class but for now this is the class for me

[Kennoth]

I have to ask about a skill tree because I didnt find any?

Skill tree looks very good for now

[MysteryNotes]

Heres the link to the skill tree. (http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1020)

And yes, the wizard look delicious.

[stillman]

My only dislike is this: shouldn't all those D&D spell names be turned into Diablo spell names? Actually, don't answer that. I'm making a thread right now.

[Kennoth]

Heres the link to the skill tree. (http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1020)

And yes, the wizard look delicious.

Ah thx for that. Are there also for barb and WD?

[Mad Mantis]

Ah thx for that. Are there also for barb and WD?

Keep watching the news on the front page. Both will be up in a few days. The Barb's is the most expansive of the two with about 40 skills. The WD's has about 10 skills.

[Zeek]

I worry a bit about her slow time spell. It seems like it could be very powerful. It either needs to cost a ton of mana or have a pretty long cool down IMO.

Otherwise it seems like the standard with be teleport, slow time, kill kill kill rinse and repeat. Right now I picture her zipping all around and killing without even getting a scratch on her.

[Apocalypse]

by the looks of her skill tree i would imagine the same thing, however i would base that on my d2 experience which means nothing in d3. i am sure it will be fairly balanced at launch

[Pitboss_2000]

Perhaps/hopefully the more powerful monsters, and bosses, will be immune to slow time.

[redrach]

I think certain attacks will be immune to slow time, so it's not that overpowered. All non-projectile spells, for example, such as Lightning or Disintegrate.

[MysteryNotes]

perhaps they should add in a skill to make the wizard cast faster.
If the wizard can slow time for enemies, why not be able to make time go faster for herself ?

[Sylvanite]

I'm pretty sure she has some passives that support speeding up her cast time, as well as speeding up some of her projectiles, specifically Magic Missile gets a projectile speed increase through a passive skill.

I'm excited about the Wizard. I like the nerfing of teleport...I hope it is nerfed a little harder than it even looks at this point. The conjuration tree looks like it has some excellent potential for making melee wizards...without it being a really "oddball" build, but instead a real nice one. That is really exciting for me as it's my favorite type of character to play, and it's never really been done well in Diablo before.

[LaZeR]

Is Slow Time the only time skills she has so far?

[TheReadMenace]

Is Slow Time the only time skills she has so far?

Wow. Read the whole thread. Look at links. Just... pay attention.

I think this looks like a fun class. ...Actually, I like the look of all three so far. I like how the wiz has so many options, not only for attack spells but if they want to go melee or conjure mirrors. A barb will always be hack/slash/pound/whirl, but this new class could play any number of ways. I like options, which means lots of replay.

From a D2 perspective, I'd say that the time-slow spell is no different than a HF merc, except it must be cast and probably will have a cooldown. Not only that, but I'd agree that SOME enemies must be immune to it, unlike HF. So it's already cooler and more difficult to use, which is a +1 to me.

EDIT: In response to below, true dat about projectiles being slowed. I forgotz to mention that; so give a HF merc the ability of slow missiles, and there ya go. :thumbsup: And please forgive my rudeness from my first statements. I missed the word "time" in the "only time skills" question. ...It's 5am and I'm.. an idiot. :doh:

[LaZeR]

Reading the whole thread really is useless. I have looked at the skill links but it seems that for someone the can bend time, Slow Time is the Wiz only time spell.

But I'm sorry. I should have said- I was expecting more Time skills. Slow Time is good, but what about Stop Time, Fast Time or Reverse Time (I really can't think of any other)?

I mean, Temporal Armor can be Stop Time, but it seems it just absorb damage. Wave of Force can be too, but it seems like more of wall, like the Zombie Wall the WD uses. Spell Speed can be Fast Time but it seems more a mastery that effect only you than a spell time.

I'm missing in these spells the more time'ish names (yes, names, they do take a big part) and more of bending time effect like stopping an enemie in its place, make you and your party move and attack much faster, reflecting range attack so they'd fly back to their casters etc.

PS- Slow Time is much stronger than HF since it also slows down range attacks (so far at least).

[Apocalypse]

i hope that slow time and other things like immune to chill/freeze will be the only immunities in the game. i really do not like fire/ice/light/poison/physical immune, i can deal with really high resist but immune sucks imo. even if its 95% resist and cannot be lowered i am ok cause i can still at least do something without being forced into other trees i may not want

[melianor]

The only cons i see at the moment are that some of the skill descriptions we know from the gameplay experience at Blizzcon are not that precise, but they might clear up with actual gameplay. Blizzard kind of has a history with skill descriptions sometimes not beiing all to clear ;)

Also a bit of a con in my personal view is that it seems that this caster class leans a bit more into using melee skills. I guess there will be ways around this to make complete casting builds, still it irks a bit to see a Caster/Assassin type of character.

Pros: I love love everything else about the wizard class. Want to play!


On immunities/resistances
In interviews at Blizzcon it was mentioned, that there are no immunities implemented into the gameplay mechanics at the moment. Not saying there won't, but with the lack of the conventional elements to be resisted there might be a different approach, like only physical and magical resistances or immunities.

EDIT: I must correct myself here about the resistances types. It's already been mentioned by the people who attended Blizzcon and by Bashiok as well, that there are the

following resistances: frost, fire, lightning, poison, arcane.

These were displayed on the character screen.

Whether monsters have something similiar is unknown, but i guess it can be expected to be reflected in the same way as on characters.

[tenere]

hmm is there any hope for a talent engine like wow talent guides have soon? I understand they are subject to change as they progress but someone should be able to whip up a java version soon i hope.

[melianor]

Well from what i gather it was not allowed to take pics of the actual skill trees, so its rather hard to determine which skills might need prerequisites, like Improved Magic Missle will need Magic Missile and so forth. We know about the amount of points required for each tier, but that's about concerning skill relations. Making skill tree calculators available just know might be a bit to early.

[Apocalypse]

I think blizzard should take a page from spore (and any other game that has done something similar), I think they should make up a quick little skill calculator program that lets you plan out how you wanna build any of the characters. Include each of the characters on a basic background showing off some animations and whatever else you wanna throw in. anyway make this skill calculator and charge 5$ per download, will get tons and tons of downloads I am sure.


Then again they can do 1 better and make it for free as a way to advertise the game, a web based skill calc.

[Sein Schatten]

a web based skill calc.

I am sure it will come. Why? Because WoW has one (and several fan made). ;)

[melianor]

I am sure it will come. Why? Because WoW has one (and several fan made). ;)

I agree, though i think its a bit to early for one to make yet, since there might be more tiers coming along. One could already make one, based on the few screenshots that were released from Blizzcon. I think joystiq.com was the site that was able to make screenshots from the current skill tree. Looks superb.