How do they play? It's hard to tell from just the numbers presented. Some of the other classes have more obvious mechanical systems but the base for the Wizard doesn't really seem automatically apparent.
Like Diablo 2, Wizard class doesn't have access to some of their best abilities - Hydra, Blizzard, Meteor. There is also cooldown usage which lines perfectly well with other classes' cooldowns - defensive cooldowns, offensive and tactical. Their "Primary" attacks cost no Arcane. They call them "signature" attacks. Once you start acquiring the bigger spells, you start demoralizing your enemies. Keep in mind the big attacks will cost a lot of Arcane and will have a cooldown so you ought to switch to your normal attacks that cost Arcane or signature spells. You do get Frost Nova early on, it's a good ability to use and get away from things before they start hitting you.
I did notice another cool feature from Arcane Orb. There is one RS for it that makes it summon 4 Arcane Orbs to hover around you and it'll explode from any enemy(s) that come in melee range with you. Arcane Orb's normal attack without RS is a large purple round blast that goes in one direction. On impact, it explodes and deals damage to whomever is around it. Arcane Orb has no cooldown but uses A LOT of Arcane energy.
Oh ya, the other thing I like is the Ray of Frost (or Ice?). That's gotta be one of my favorites. You shoot a line of continuous ice to just about anywhere on your screen. It's one one direction solid direction. It drains your Arcane quickly but kills things very fast if you focus it on them. The first RS turns the ability into an ice barrier around your character - they do float in the air when they're channeling it. It doesn't become passive or "activates" the ability - you have to hold the ability down. It's good for solid protection against lesser and mid-level enemies. You can combine that with Slow Time. Basically, cast Slow Time on a group of enemies, go inside of it and use Ray of Frost (or Ice?) to demolish them quickly.
Edit -- I caught more interesting information on how Magic Find will work in D3:
It looks like we might be seeing the article about champion/elite kills effecting boss kills and magic find soon. This would hopefully cover some of the information such as Nephalem Valor resting on skill switching, along with new information on how this ties to bosses. (
Source)
Hmm?!
Edit 2 - Here it is!
We’re working hard on balancing and testing Diablo III, and one of the major components is making sure that the end game experience is fun and exciting. We’d like to share a few of our goals for end game:
We have an enormous number of skill build combinations, and we want a lot of those skill builds to be viable and interesting
While there are millions of skill builds available to players, we don’t want players swapping skills regularly to beat specific encounters as they come up
We don’t want repeatedly running specific three-minute chunks of the game to be the most efficient way to acquire gear for your character
While a three-minute run shouldn’t be the most efficient, we also don’t want you to feel like it’s a two-hour commitment every time you sit down to play
Bosses should still feel worth killing
Nephalem Valor is one of the major new systems in Diablo III and it kicks in at level 60. Keep in mind that this is still in testing and we’re still working out the details. Here’s how it currently works internally: Rare and Champion packs already have great loot on them. By killing a Rare or Champion pack, not only do you get their loot, but you’ll also receive a buff granting you increased magic find and gold find. However, if you change a skill, skill rune, passive, or leave the game, the buff disappears. As an extra reward, if you kill a boss while this buff is active, you’ll receive extra loot drops from that boss.
The exact amount of magic find and gold find provided by the buff is still being reviewed, as is the amount of extra loot you get from a boss while the buff is active. We’re also playing around with whether or not the buff stacks, what the duration should be, and whether or not it should persist through death. We want to make sure the buff is strong enough to make staying in your current game more rewarding than creating a new game. At the same time, if the buff is too strong, it risks making shorter play sessions feel not worthwhile.
We expect this system will encourage players to stick with a skill build of their choice, select an area of the game they enjoy, and sweep it for rare and champion packs on their way to a boss, finishing off a run with a boss that’ll be worth killing. If you wanted a shorter play session you could be done at that point, but if you have more time, the path of least resistance would ideally be to stay in the same game and make your way towards the next boss.I don't like the idea of not being able to change a Skill, SR (not Rune Skill? mmm) or/and a Passive - it's somewhat stupid. There's going to be packs that will be a pain in the ass to kill - or you can just skip them.
