A Few Questions

#0 - March 6, 2011, 12:35 a.m.
Blizzard Post
OK, so...I won't get too melodramatic with this (although some of the decisions, that Blizzard took for Diablo 3, seemed outrageous at the time) as I truly believe that D3 will turn out to be a great game. However, I do have some questions...or better put, some concerns.

1. I hear all characters...and creeps/monsters (oO) have 95% flat chances to hit; OK, fair enough, but...will there be at least traits to influence these percentages? I could see a Demon Hunter or Monk avoiding (more) hits...

2. I hear you can insert / remove a rune whenever you like, in whatever skill you decide to use... Although it may seem obvious...I'm gonna ask this anyway... Shouldn't there be a cooldown, or some sort of rules / interdictions, to stop us from carrying an obscene number of runes and switch them, as we please, in a single skill, whenever we face immunes (OK, OK, highly resistants, as I believe there will be no more immunes)? `Oh, no, I've encountered a group of Fire resistant Fallens, and my Fire Hydra is useless....what to do, what to do? Oh, I know, I'll just switch to Arcane!` Am I the only one seeing a problem here?

3. Will there (and by there, I mean Diablo :D) be room for two handed weapons? I mean, I know the Monk will either use duals or staves, but...my point is...will every type of weapon be useful? I really hope so, as I am tired of the stereotypes from Diablo 2.

More to come...
#11 - March 9, 2011, 11:01 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
1. I hear all characters...and creeps/monsters (oO) have 95% flat chances to hit; OK, fair enough, but...will there be at least traits to influence these percentages? I could see a Demon Hunter or Monk avoiding (more) hits...


There is no stat to modify an enemies chance to hit you, but, there is a Dodge stat. It's only given in small amounts through traits, and potentially some specific items. With Dodge, an enemy could still "hit" you, but you dodge the hit negating the damage entirely. It's a stat we're controlling fairly strictly, and as you said is probably going to be more appropriate for some classes (ie monk), while others may instead have more in the way of damage mitigation. We don't intend for Dodge to overcome the need for damage mitigation through Defense and related damage reduction stats, even for the classes that have more of it available to them.

Q u o t e:
2. I hear you can insert / remove a rune whenever you like, in whatever skill you decide to use... Although it may seem obvious...I'm gonna ask this anyway... Shouldn't there be a cooldown, or some sort of rules / interdictions, to stop us from carrying an obscene number of runes and switch them, as we please, in a single skill, whenever we face immunes (OK, OK, highly resistants, as I believe there will be no more immunes)? `Oh, no, I've encountered a group of Fire resistant Fallens, and my Fire Hydra is useless....what to do, what to do? Oh, I know, I'll just switch to Arcane!` Am I the only one seeing a problem here?


We don't currently have a design in place for what restrictions might be necessary, so I don't have any specifics to share. I've said previously that we will probably limit when and where you can swap runes, and that's probably the likely course, but things could change. It's something that's still just being talked about though and hasn't hit an implementation stage yet. We'll have to see how it works out.

Q u o t e:
3. Will there (and by there, I mean Diablo :D) be room for two handed weapons? I mean, I know the Monk will either use duals or staves, but...my point is...will every type of weapon be useful? I really hope so, as I am tired of the stereotypes from Diablo 2.


We're spending plenty of thought cycles to ensure weapon choices are indeed choices, and not determined by a clear cut strength to go for one over another. Traits and skills obviously play a part in weapon choice as there are traits that offer bonuses while using a specific weapon type, and some skills favor certain types of weapons. As far as the base benefit of simply carrying around these weapons, yeah the bonuses associated between two weapons over one weapon are being kept in mind. Staves and 2-handers can have bigger and more powerful affixes than are allowed to generate on 1-handed weapons, for example. Equal amounts of sockets. That kind of thing.