**OFFICIAL** Diablo 3 Thread

[slayer202]

Because in play testing people started to use macros to create entire skill build-outs that they quickly switched between depending on what the elites they are facing.

What's the difference if you can set hotkeys for all these skills anyway? Why punish people who are using the default 1 2 3 4 setup. Maybe I'm not quite understanding how it works though

 

[Kabob]

Yeah, I thought elective mode still restricted you to one spell of each type too. Then a friend of mine launched Archon right after Mirror Image and I was like, 'huh?'

Imagine my surprise.

Really, they need to include elective mode in the tutorial. Maybe even lock it for Normal and have it unlock when you get to Nightmare. But they should at least explain what it is and why's it's awesome and crucial on higher levels of difficulty.

I don't see what's so difficult about it, I started using it day 1 of the open beta. You can put any skill anywhere as long as the slot is unlocked with the exception of a few skills on the mouse.

My wizard runs:

1) Teleport
2) Frost Nova
3) Ice Armor (but will swap to Diamond Skin at times)
4) Meteor
L) Electrocute
R) Beam of Facemelting

1 and 3 are both from the same tree.

 

[Kabob]

What's the difference if you can set hotkeys for all these skills anyway? Why punish people who are using the default 1 2 3 4 setup. Maybe I'm not quite understanding how it works though

That's the point, with a short cooldown you can change all your skills on the fly. So they're no longer restricted to the 6 skills they are given, they can change them all on whim.

 

[slayer202]

That's the point, with a short cooldown you can change all your skills on the fly. So they're no longer restricted to the 6 skills they are given, they can change them all on whim.

oh so it's limited to 6? I thought it was almost unlimited. gotcha

 

[Kabob]

Yeah, you can only use six at any one time. To change any to a different skill you have to open the skill menu, find the skill, choose a rune, and accept. And you have to do that for each skill you want to change. Creating a macro to do that for you is kinda like cheating (although anywhere else than PvP I doubt people care).

 

[stag3]

hmm, don't like reading that. That's my build, although I'm only at the end of nightmare.

I'm using cold-blooded and I wanted to go all frost, so originally I used the frost hydra which apparently gets the extra 20%. However, the forums are pretty clear that the slowdown from ice storm makes the poison hydra very powerful because the mobs will stand in the poison.

Right now I'm running
left-click - Ray of Frost - Cold Blood
right-click - Blizzard - Frozen Solid
1 - Frost Nova - Cold Snap
2 - Hydra - Venom Hydra
3 - Familiar - Sparkflint
4 - Mirror Image - Duplicates
Passives: Evocation, Astral Presence

nothing to be worried about until you get to inferno man, i was running the sleet storm build for normal and nightmare, i had to adjust to the venom hydra/blizzard combo for hard mode as i was taking way to much damage standing there tanking.

inferno, normal mobs and bosses, no problem @ all. champions are tough no matter the class/build. i'm 60 with only 18k hp and 21k dps and if i can get a tree to kite around, i can manage in act I

 

[Keeper]

It is official. My FIRST ticked off at Diablo 3.

I thought UNLOCKING nightmare would UNLOCK Nightmare.
To play a demon hunter on Nightmare I have to beat normal with with a demon hunter?

THIS BETTER BE A SHORT GAME LOL. (I hear it is so I guess there is HOPE for me)

That SUCKS. 5 classes... So to totally open up nightmare (meaning I can play ANY class I want) I have to beat it 5 times?

Ummmmmmmmmmmm that aint gonna happen LOL.

 

[JamesV]

Yeah, you can only use six at any one time. To change any to a different skill you have to open the skill menu, find the skill, choose a rune, and accept. And you have to do that for each skill you want to change. Creating a macro to do that for you is kinda like cheating (although anywhere else than PvP I doubt people care).

No you don't have to do that, and not it isn't cheating to change skills.

Set elective mode, then when you want to switch, right click on the bar icon for the spell you want to switch. Once you get used to it, you can do it during battle in 2 seconds, to switch a spell to one more suited to the current battle.

It is not cheating, because there is a 30 second-ish cooldown, and 30 seconds is a loooong time in an elite fight. Plus you lose any elite MF buff when you change a spell. Changing the entire bar is worthless come inferno, because certain spells are a must (assuming you aren't rocking a 1500 dps one hand...).

 

[stag3]

you don't need to beat the game 5x
just get someone to port you to all 4 acts and beat the bosses for you. not a problem

 

[DrunkenSano]

It is official. My FIRST ticked off at Diablo 3.

I thought UNLOCKING nightmare would UNLOCK Nightmare.
To play a demon hunter on Nightmare I have to beat normal with with a demon hunter?

THIS BETTER BE A SHORT GAME LOL. (I hear it is so I guess there is HOPE for me)

That SUCKS. 5 classes... So to totally open up nightmare (meaning I can play ANY class I want) I have to beat it 5 times?

Ummmmmmmmmmmm that aint gonna happen LOL.

This is exactly the same as Diablo 2, so what's the complaint?

 

[Aikouka]

What Blizzard really needs to do is allow us to have different spell load-outs... maybe just two separate ones. I just find it really annoying to have to manually swap abilities between more AoE centric load-outs vs. boss load-outs, which focus more on single target.

This is really no different than Blizzard's dual-spec that they have in WoW.

Yeah, I thought elective mode still restricted you to one spell of each type too. Then a friend of mine launched Archon right after Mirror Image and I was like, 'huh?'

Imagine my surprise.

Really, they need to include elective mode in the tutorial. Maybe even lock it for Normal and have it unlock when you get to Nightmare. But they should at least explain what it is and why's it's awesome and crucial on higher levels of difficulty.

I don't know if there's some sort of tutorial that I skipped, but the game seems to really need a tutorial to begin with. There are a lot of smaller things (like Elective Mode) that are very helpful to people.

Although, I did know that Elective mode was very unrestricted. Heck, I used two Fury generators on my Barbarian for a little bit because my "Fury spender" wasn't really that strong.

 

[Daverino]

They also took out weapon switching. And they more or less admit it is to prevent players from gaming the system. In Diablo II, if you chose to pass on a skill or underpower it, it didn't matter if you could switch to it quickly or not. Builds were set in stone. In Diablo III, everyone at the same level has the same skills accessible. You can change to any other build at any time and be comparably powerful to anyone else with the same gear. While, less important for PvE, it would break PvP utterly if it was possible to instantly switch builds. Imagine a wizard that can throw out all of his alpha skills and then insta-switch to a defensive setup. Or one that can turn on Glass Cannon just for the second his meteor hits and then turn it back off.

Yeah, it would be a mess.

I'm not sure that weapon switch is so game breaking, but the folks at Blizzard are.

 

[nageov3t]

two fury generators on a barbarian sounds like it could be great, with the skill that gives you +25% damage when at full fury

 

[SMOGZINN]

I'm not sure that weapon switch is so game breaking, but the folks at Blizzard are.

Weapon switch was game breaking when a wizard would switch to a big slow 2handed high DPS weapon to cast his meteor, then switch back to a small fast weapon to fire off a bunch of his main attack.

 

[Daverino]

Weapon switch was game breaking when a wizard would switch to a big slow 2handed high DPS weapon to cast his meteor, then switch back to a small fast weapon to fire off a bunch of his main attack.

Well there ya go. Didn't think about that.

Word from my friends that play Inferno with a Wizard is that the only viable damage spells are Arcane Orb, Blizzard and Hydra. Anything that you need to stand still while using is instant horrible death.

 

[Aikouka]

Imagine a wizard that can throw out all of his alpha skills and then insta-switch to a defensive setup. Or one that can turn on Glass Cannon just for the second his meteor hits and then turn it back off.

My thought was that swapping between spell sets should still incur the cooldown period that you get when you swap abilities to begin with.

two fury generators on a barbarian sounds like it could be great, with the skill that gives you +25% damage when at full fury

Well, the problem is that I never used fury. Right now, I swap between Cleave and Fury for bosses, and I use that conal-AoE hammer ability that uses fury.

 

[Udgnim]

It is official. My FIRST ticked off at Diablo 3.

I thought UNLOCKING nightmare would UNLOCK Nightmare.
To play a demon hunter on Nightmare I have to beat normal with with a demon hunter?

THIS BETTER BE A SHORT GAME LOL. (I hear it is so I guess there is HOPE for me)

That SUCKS. 5 classes... So to totally open up nightmare (meaning I can play ANY class I want) I have to beat it 5 times?

Ummmmmmmmmmmm that aint gonna happen LOL.

you aren't going to do much at Lvl 1 in NM

 

[darkewaffle]

All through levelling I used Frenzy and Cleave, my only fury dump was Rend. Using the stomp to pull enemies into you when you've got a revenge ready and then rending/cleaving is pretty efficient I found.

 

[KIAman]

How to use Elective Mode quick tutorial.

Options->Gameplay->Elective Mode

Skill terminology

1. Cast- This means you cast the skill by clicking or pressing the hotkey
2. Active - This means the skill is on your set of 6 skills
3. Available - This means you have the skill unlocked
4. Skill - The specific skill/rune combo
5. Skill type - The grouping of related skills

You can have a total of 6 skills active at any one time.

1. L-Mouse (skill slot 1)
2. R-Mouse (skill slot 2)
3. 1 key (skill slot 3)
4. 2 key (skill slot 4)
5. 3 key (skill slot 5)
6. 4 key (skill slot 6)

Clicking the "S" shortcut brings up your skills panel. Each box of these panels are mapped to the 6 skills.

To change a skill on your L-Mouse (skill slot 1) to something else, click on the first skill box to open up the skill panel, then click on the left or right arrows on the top until you get to the skill type you want.

Select the skill you want then click OK.

Now you have a new skill bound to L-Mouse (skill slot 1) and it is active. Now you can drag your skills around to map them to whatever key you want.

Basic rules

1. You cannot have the same skill more than once, even if you are using a different rune for it.

2. Some skills do not allow to be active when other skills are cast. For example, a wizard can only have 1 armor skill casted at any one time. He can still make all the armor skills active, but as soon as he casts a different armor spell, the old armor spell gets removed.

3. You can stack buff skills as long as the skill description allows it. For example, a wizard can buff magic weapon and familiar to get double damage buff.

 

[tedrodai]

It is official. My FIRST ticked off at Diablo 3.

I thought UNLOCKING nightmare would UNLOCK Nightmare.
To play a demon hunter on Nightmare I have to beat normal with with a demon hunter?

THIS BETTER BE A SHORT GAME LOL. (I hear it is so I guess there is HOPE for me)

That SUCKS. 5 classes... So to totally open up nightmare (meaning I can play ANY class I want) I have to beat it 5 times?

Ummmmmmmmmmmm that aint gonna happen LOL.

Difficulty doesn't just mean .... difficulty. Someone may or may not have extracted exact info from the game, but a rough estimate is Normal = level 1-30 mobs; NM = Lv30-50; Hell=50-60; Inferno = >60

 

[slayer202]

How to use Elective Mode quick tutorial.

Options->Gameplay->Elective Mode

Skill terminology

1. Cast- This means you cast the skill by clicking or pressing the hotkey
2. Active - This means the skill is on your set of 6 skills
3. Available - This means you have the skill unlocked
4. Skill - The specific skill/rune combo
5. Skill type - The grouping of related skills

You can have a total of 6 skills active at any one time.

1. L-Mouse (skill slot 1)
2. R-Mouse (skill slot 2)
3. 1 key (skill slot 3)
4. 2 key (skill slot 4)
5. 3 key (skill slot 5)
6. 4 key (skill slot 6)

Clicking the "S" shortcut brings up your skills panel. Each box of these panels are mapped to the 6 skills.

To change a skill on your L-Mouse (skill slot 1) to something else, click on the first skill box to open up the skill panel, then click on the left or right arrows on the top until you get to the skill type you want.

Select the skill you want then click OK.

Now you have a new skill bound to L-Mouse (skill slot 1) and it is active. Now you can drag your skills around to map them to whatever key you want.

Basic rules

1. You cannot have the same skill more than once, even if you are using a different rune for it.

2. Some skills do not allow to be active when other skills are cast. For example, a wizard can only have 1 armor skill casted at any one time. He can still make all the armor skills active, but as soon as he casts a different armor spell, the old armor spell gets removed.

3. You can stack buff skills as long as the skill description allows it. For example, a wizard can buff magic weapon and familiar to get double damage buff.

Thanks! Awesome quick and well explained guide

 

[Anubis]

It is official. My FIRST ticked off at Diablo 3.

I thought UNLOCKING nightmare would UNLOCK Nightmare.
To play a demon hunter on Nightmare I have to beat normal with with a demon hunter?

.

welcome to diablo 2

 

[Stuka87]

It is official. My FIRST ticked off at Diablo 3.

I thought UNLOCKING nightmare would UNLOCK Nightmare.
To play a demon hunter on Nightmare I have to beat normal with with a demon hunter?

THIS BETTER BE A SHORT GAME LOL. (I hear it is so I guess there is HOPE for me)

That SUCKS. 5 classes... So to totally open up nightmare (meaning I can play ANY class I want) I have to beat it 5 times?

Ummmmmmmmmmmm that aint gonna happen LOL.

You would die from those little monsters in the first few feet in one hit if you started with a new char on nightmare. Hell even a level 12 or so character would have to actually battle it.

 

[thespyder]

You would die from those little monsters in the first few feet in one hit if you started with a new char on nightmare. Hell even a level 12 or so character would have to actually battle it.

The only thing that I can think they were thinking was to start a game in nightmare with some buddies and then join as a 1st level and skate on the loot until he had uber stuff. Then jump ahead on normal and wrack up buku XP by fighting stuff that is WAY over their head.

Because, um.... 1st level against Nightmare creatures?

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

zomg elective mode. Didn't even know about that...