Jay Wilson the douche

[GONNAFISTYA]

Some are good. Indeed some are boring.

[LawL]

If I was really bad at games I would probably quit too.

Death is about the only thing that would stop you from playing video games.

[bitWISE]

When I quit (despite their continued efforts) there were still very specific builds that gave you the best results without question. Some classes had skills that were flat-out required to play Inferno. Honestly, with a skill system I don't know how you would ever totally get away from that and still have a meaningful difference in options.

That being said, it was a cool setup.

[Mogul]

But if he's primarily who I need to thank for Diablo 3's amazing skill/rune system, then I am grateful. I know we've sort of been around the block on this topic before, and I am aware of the myriad D2 vets that despise the system, favoring skill points/trees. But I am a big fan of the current system.

Gimmie a layman's lowdown on this please?

There are no skill points to allocate to stats. The only way stats can be increased is via gear (i.e. the only way to increase strength is to get a piece of gear with more strength on it than the one you're wearing). There are no skill trees/talent trees. There are no increments to deal with.

As you level, you unlock skills that you can use in combat. You can only have 6 skills at a time on your action bar. There is also a hotkey to use potions. To me, here's where the game's elegance really shines: the rune system. Each skill can have one rune attached to it at a time. Each skill has multiple runes to select from. Each rune changes the way a skill works in a specific way, sometimes radically changing how it works. Here are a couple of examples.

Sprint is a barbarian skill. With no rune attached, it increases movement speed by x% for x amount of time (been a while; can't remember specific numbers). There are five different runes that change the way it behaves though. For example, the Run Like the Wind rune causes you to drop tornados in your wake while sprint is activated. Or, you could use the Gangway rune, which causes a knockback to enemies that you charge through. Every skill in the game has a "default" function, as well as these runes to choose from. The gameplay difference between one build and the next can be drastically different, depending on what you're going for.

As for the accusation that each class really only has one build they can use, I beg to differ, though I do think that might have been the case before they corrected the damage output in Inferno (highest difficulty). When people were first getting to Inferno mode, the content was grossly overtuned, and for some classes, there seemed to be only one build that would give them everything they needed to kinda-sorta survive Inferno. I believe I read a blue post saying they didn't really even test Acts 3 and 4 on Inferno because it was assumed to be pretty insurmountable without insane levels of gear. But now, Inferno is much more reasonable, and it's a lot easier to get good gear. I'm thinking about my barbarian and what builds would be viable to him, given his gear. I don't really have to use this build anymore, but I could go ultra survivability with lots of defensive cooldowns and runes. Or I could go the very popular "double whirlwind" build which revolves around dual wielding Life On Hit weapons for farming. My current build, which is far from optimal, but very fun, is a Skorn build which utilizes a 2h axe called Skorn and staying alive via using Rend and healing via a rune on it. Selected skills and runes will also change depending on your group makeup, if you're playing with friends, because you can all serve different roles and provide different buffs. I know barbarians have several different runes for different skills that provide a group buff.

You can switch in and out of skills and runes at will, for free, which is awesome. There is a system to encourage some sense of build permanence, though. Every time you kill a pack of elites or a champion, you get a buff to loot drop rates. It stacks up to five times. If you change a skill or rune while the buff is active, you lose your stacks.

This elegant system (including its simple UI) yields tons of potential for variety in gameplay. Your character simply plays differently depending on these decisions you make. WoW ended up adopting a comparable system for Mists of Pandaria and, for my money, beats the old talent tree system easily.

That's definitely not to say D3 is without problems. First, D2 vets probably would prefer skill trees/skill points, as a majority. Also, as I've complained, there's no real endgame. The endgame exists to farm items, which isn't the worst thing in the world, but the auction house circumvents that almost entirely. Also, the drops and affixes on the drops are balanced around the availability of the auction house. That's hugely problematic. It's apparently way, way harder to come across an amazing item now -- you're really better off just buying it from the AH. But at that point, why are you even playing the game? I can also imagine that a game like TL2 might get more hours out of a player through re-rolls, if nothing else. But for me, I've spent roughly 200 hours in Diablo 3, on one character: my first character, the barbarian. The skill system in D3 isn't the problem, in terms of longevity. It's the endgame. Apparently, it could take a page from D2 in terms of a sustainable endgame, too. The ladder concept interests me (especially if the AH were disabled for it...).

So yeah, there are problems, but if I had to pick one thing about the game that is awesome, I'd go with the skill/rune system. Brilliant, elegant, deeper-than-it-looks. Awesome system.

[Mogul]

Here's Jay "Fuck That Loser" Wilson himself delivering an opinion that I agree with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVTVMqtmxPU