Dire Bats demonstration video

[HardRock]

Yovargas wanted to see this newly available rune effect of Firebats, so I recorded a short video of it in action:



Note how the bats swerve left and right and doesn't follow a straight path, which makes precise aiming impossible. Their damage and range is amazing though.

[z00t]

Good on you, Hardrock!

Yeah, the imprecise aiming is a thing - it means that it's not quite as good at killing things right in front of you as the unruned version, so it's not strictly better :P.

BUT, the range is really good - it's awesome for killing those Tomb Guardians who are normally shielded by skeletons so you can't snipe them with Poison Dart, and are usually too far away to hit with most of your skills.

[HardRock]

I think it's best used as a fire and forget nuke in huge crowds. It's a waste of mana against smaller groups, kinda like Energy Twister for the Wizard. Both skills are ideally used in the same scenarios.

Firebats is one of the skills where I prefer to use the unruned version in the beta. Due to the low HP pools of enemies Grasp of the Dead is better suited for eliminating huge masses of them and it can be targeted as well.

It's huge burst damage may end up being useful in PvP as well eventually, at least at short ranges.

[WD pimpin summons]

Seems kind of awkward to use that thing. Hungry Bats might be a more interesting rune.

[Horcsog]

Agreed, Hungry Bats will be the way to go, they will act like homing missiles, and u can spam them very quick!

[ElementEight]

It might look better once stuff doesn't die in half a hit.

[yovargas]

Very interesting, thanks, HR!

[HardRock]

You're welcome.

Seems kind of awkward to use that thing.

It's not awkward at all, just imprecise. At least it's better than Chakram and Energy Twister, although that's not saying much.

Hungry Bats might be a more interesting rune.

Hungry Bats is a totally different thing. It's best when you have lots of enemies scattered all over your screen, while Dire Bats is better when your enemies are clumped together, preferably in a line formation.

[pcguy]

I was thinking of using Dire Bats for nostalgic purposes. The high damage, the piercing, and the nearly straight path of the projectile are highly reminiscent of Bone Spear from Diablo 2. I had a Bone Necromancer in Diablo 2, and when I tried this skill I instantly recognized that I could now remake that type of character in Diablo 3.

[Soval]

So does it not channel now, or does it just fire in bursts when you hold it down?

Also, there's an old emulator video of all the runes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I9bG...eature=related