Who else considers another class due to the "slow" WD de

[weedjj]

Ya, there is no way that you will be able use teleport, vault, etc as a method to travel around in Hell and Inferno. You will die. They will be used for escaping bad situations just like spirit walk. I can't wait to LoL at every wizard who gets teleport and rune it to bypass the cd and get themselves killed. This game just isnt going to play fast at higher difficulties

[pcguy]

Weedjj,

If you have good gear and you move down one difficulty, movement will have a more noticeable effect because kill speed will be higher and survivability will be increased due to the decreased difficulty. Well-geared characters will be able to be more discriminating in where they go, what they kill, and how they kill it.

Bashiok has said that Hell difficulty will have items which will be valuable even to characters in Inferno difficulty, so the scenario of a well geared character farming within Hell instead of Inferno is believable.

Movement Speed will play a large part in how quickly a well-geared character can clear a lower difficulty area. This is important to note, because I can see one of those teleporting wizards you mention hanging out in the earlier acts of Hell and just flying around, AoE'ing enemies into oblivion, indiscriminately trying to gets as many drops in as little time as possible.

[weedjj]

Perhaps, but the drop rate on those items is going to be incredibly low. I can't see a realistic scenario where people would have good gear but spent the majority of their time a level below where their gear lvl is. To get that gear, they either spent A LOT of time in Hell to get there, or they spent time in Inferno and in that case, whats the point of dropping back to Hell?

When you hear stories of test groups wiping 5 times just trying to get into Tristram in NM, I just keep holding out hope that the game is going to be as hard as they have said. In this case, 1. even Hell wouldn't be a cakewalk to just tele/vault or run through and 2. The amount of time to gear up to the point where it is relatively easy without going into Inferno would be a really long time with the lower drop rates in hell.

I just don't see it as being that much of an issue. There may be a few rare scenarios that those skills help out, but overall, I dont think its going to be a big deal. Teleport was one of the worst things to happen in D2 as it led to Sorcs being the only viable MF'rs and force them to bring in high lvl runewords like enigma which forces everybody to have that. Not good design by anybodies point of view.

It does all depend on the game being as hard as advertised tho. If it is, it will all work out.

[pcguy]

To get that gear, they either spent A LOT of time in Hell to get there, or they spent time in Inferno and in that case, whats the point of dropping back to Hell?

I agree. Though, I have to add that the point of dropping back to Hell (and lower difficulties) is mainly going to be used for two reasons.

1) Rushing other characters:

If you played the Beta, rushing was most easily accomplished by the Demon Hunter, who had the best movement skills. Moving through areas quickly is the best way to skip through enemies and get your friends and party members through the story mode as quickly as possible.

2) Feeling less challenged:

Consider the following logical statement (please keep in mind it is overly simplified):
If Inferno is twice as difficult as Hell...
Every hour spent in Inferno should be the equivalent of spending two hours in Hell.
Every valuable item in Inferno should have the equivalent worth of two valuable items in Hell.

Let's say you like Inferno, but it's getting a bit too stressful for you and you want to go back to Hell and just blast stuff. The area clears which occur after this decision should take less skill, be accomplished more quickly, more easily, and with less effort. They should be equivalently less rewarding.

There will be instances where the drops kept are not for character, but for other characters or for crafting materials. If you farm the drops in the easier areas of Hell, you will be able to trade up to some better gear, or farm enough materials to craft some nice Inferno-viable gear.
- Additionally, you can use some of that gear to outfit your lower-level characters or help out your friends.

Now, back to our point and the point of the thread:
Movement helps powerful characters move through areas more quickly. The usefulness and purpose of Movement is determined by the difficulty of the content. The difficulty of the content determines the drops. High-quality drops can be found in both Inferno and Hell. They are easier to find in Inferno. They are more difficult to find in Hell. Inferno is more difficult, will take longer to clear. Hell is less difficult, will take less time to clear. The scenarios are balanced.

SUMMARY (TL;DR)
A character outfitted for fast clears will get more loot than a character outfitted for lucrative clears, who will be getting better loot. If through methods such as trading and crafting, quantity=quality, this amounts simply to a play-style difference.

[WD pimpin summons]

We don't even know how long killing monsters takes in Inferno.

If every battle takes a few minutes to complete, then fast movement between mobs will be the least of your concerns.

[tvndental]

This is the main reason I am not making a WD first. I am probably going to go wizard or demon hunter as my first character because of their mobility.

You guys forget that Demon Hunter has two sets of resources and Wizard still has signature skills.

So the demon hunter can waste all their discipline to vault and still be able to defend themselves fine with hatred skills. Demon hunter also has the skill preparation where you can get back all your discipline instantly if you need it.

For wizard you still have signature skills to use even if you are out of arcane. Wizards also will likely have prism and an armor skill up to keep them safe while they teleport.

Don't forget that you can have a Merc when you play solo too.

[Soval]

Movement skills in D3 were never intended to be used as a way of getting to places faster -- they are supposed to aid you in killing monsters or to help stop monsters from killing you. You won't get around faster with one class or another unless you can kill things faster with it.

[HardRock]

Don't forget that you can have a Merc when you play solo too.

Followers and player pets aren't really reliable damage shields. Enemies ignore them more often than not. Basically as soon as you deal damage to a target it will forget that your follower even exists. It may not be just damage that causes this, distance from the player or other factors may also play a role.

Movement skills in D3 were never intended to be used as a way of getting to places faster

Almost all movement skills have runes that favor builds where you use them for getting to places faster and not necessarily for escaping damage. How safely we'll be able to do this in Inferno? I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised to see players eventually ignoring most monster packs when they get to a certain gear level.

Actually, I already have a theoretical Wizard build planned that's almost completely impervious to damage with highly specialized gear and can somewhat reliably reset the cooldown on Teleport.

[weedjj]

To be perfectly honest, if Inferno ends up not being insanely hard even with great gear and tele'n around skipping packs becomes viable, I hope Blizz buffs inferno or at least nerfs the tele rune. If 1 class is that much faster than all the others like in D2, I will probably just quit. I assume they have learned from what happened in D2 and this wont be a problem.

[Kitteh]

I don't understand why people rush through the game, I never understood it in D2. Play the damned game.