We only know a little bit about spells, still not everything. Considering that we just recently got 2 minute CDs announced for a whopping 3 skills I don't know how much you can glean from that. Though I could just be missing the sarcasm in the statment as well. I'm tired enough that I can admit to that.
To me, the problem is the mere presence of these nuke skills. I never liked abilities that could wipe the screen.
This. I never understood the point of such abilities. In regular combat, you wouldn't care to use them too much since you're going to have a similar screen in a few minutes. They seem to be for-boss abilities or something. I personally never liked the normal enemies vs boss dichotomy that Diablo had, though, and I would prefer to see it decreased rather than increased. Using a set of abilities for normal enemies, an a different set for bosses, just feels gimmicky.
As for teleport, I don't even know. I think this was more of an issue with item skills and Baal runs than the teleport itself, though.
Well on a CD these nuke skills could easily turn into savior skills. If you can only use it once every few minutes, you'll have to wait until you're in trouble to use them well.
Although I personally disagree, I totally understand why folks are opposed to nuke skills. The good news is, such skills appear to be a small subset of total skills available. If Blizzard gets it right in the balance department, people can just avoid those big nuke skills in favor of faster, more efficient, non-cooldowned skills. I would expect and demand that those builds will be every bit as viable as nuke-heavy builds. If not, Blizzard fails hard. But if so, everyone gets their needs met.
As per Equinox's post, I agree about boss-only abilities being gimmicky. That would be a sign of crappy balance.
I'm putting my faith in Blizzard on this one. If they blow it, there will be a crushing flock of rage gamers flinging e-poo all up in Blizzard's e-face.
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"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."
-Thomas Jefferson
Something i just considered with the 2 minute CD nuke skills, ( dont know if i would call it a ''problem'') is You could just run through an entire area not fighting anything, until you have every monster in that area following you and then bam, nuke, you just killed 10 screens worth of monsters you got clustered chasing you around. who the heck really needs any other skills really?
Something i just considered with the 2 minute CD nuke skills, ( dont know if i would call it a ''problem'') is You could just run through an entire area not fighting anything, until you have every monster in that area following you and then bam, nuke, you just killed 10 screens worth of monsters you got clustered chasing you around. who the heck really needs any other skills really?
Dunno if we will be able to do so but it's a legit strategy so I can't see the problem.
I know I would not enjoy the game just running around and then nuke then start running and then nuke and so on.
Boring boring boring way to play.
Still that's just me, the others should be able to play the way they like too.
2 minutes is a long time if you're just constantly running from mob to mob blasting and raping and pillaging... but there are things besides hacking and slashing in this hack and slash game. Maybe I'm being stupid, but I'm going to be doing other things. Like picking up weapons and armor. Or scavenging materials from items. Or finding those pesky gems we only need a million of to craft the best tier. You know... silly things that you'd probably do if you actually HAD to use that tier 7 skill with the MASSIVE 2 minute cooldown on a group of hard enemies. Oh wait. I can use my skill again!? That took FOREVER!!!!!
But 2 minute cooldowns?! If you reach a hard part all you'll be doing is sending off your uber mega skill, running to hide for 2 minutes, rince repeat.
I can't see that to work in SP and maybe it will not work in MP too.
Against bosses it would be particularly difficult since usually there is not much space to run around and ,if memory serves, King Leoric has minions so others may have them too.
Maybe your party members could act as your living shields or decoys, still to be effective you'd need the monsters AI to be like in D2 (attacking the nearer opponent) and I seem to remember they improved the AI for a smarter behaviour, like going for the player who did not attack for a set amount of time.
In PvE you may be mobbed or cornered, so you will use your "nuke" skill to make an opening and escape, but I wonder if such skill would be powerful enough to wipe the screen.
If not, and I think it will be so, you better have some other ace up your sleeve or you'll die.
And, I repeat myself here, nuke-run-nuke-run is a legit strategy so can't see the problem here.
I know I'd find it extremely boring so I'll go for something else.
But 2 minute cooldowns?! If you reach a hard part all you'll be doing is sending off your uber mega skill, running to hide for 2 minutes, rince repeat.
Pretty much this. What does this leave us? 2 situations:
Either we _need_ that 2 minute spell to kill something, so we cast it and then we run away.
Either we don't need that 2 minute spell to kill something and we forget about it since why worry about another skill when we can just use the ones we have.
(Either they made it so that every 2 minutes of gameplay time you need it, but not otherwise)
Who said that these 'nuke' skills will wipe the entire screen?
Do I really have to explain how utterly useless a 2 minute cooldown skill is in a game of DIII's pace if it doesn't wipe the screen or have a long active time?
A lot of these sound like buffs, if I think about it. And resetting buffs all the time is very annoying.
Who said that these 'nuke' skills will wipe the entire screen? Let's wait and see at game release if it's really something we should be pissed about.
Then why the long CD. If they aren't going to be that baddassly powerful then there is no point of a CD just cause they are more powerful or better strategically then the other skills.
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but... isn't that why the Tier 7 skills will have longer cooldowns? It seems like it's a choice - less damage more often or more damage less often.
But it shouldn't be so op'ed that you need a 2 min cooldown to compensate.
Why not? If there isn't a cooldown or something to prevent it being spammed, THEN it would be overpowered. The cooldown prevents that.
I'm talking overpowered in terms of damage and stuff. like if you have a skill that makes you invulnerable for a minute thats just too Op'ed and its a bunch of Bs i'd rather have normal skills that aren't op'ed like that but a wide variety to choose from so i can tailor my build to my liking.
isnt them having various skills that do various dmg with various cooldowns making people able to choose different builds? if they all had the same cooldown and around same dmg.. wheres the choices? its all the same then.
but... isn't that why the Tier 7 skills will have longer cooldowns? It seems like it's a choice - less damage more often or more damage less often.
But it shouldn't be so op'ed that you need a 2 min cooldown to compensate.
Why not? If there isn't a cooldown or something to prevent it being spammed, THEN it would be overpowered. The cooldown prevents that.
I'm talking overpowered in terms of damage and stuff. like if you have a skill that makes you invulnerable for a minute thats just too Op'ed and its a bunch of Bs i'd rather have normal skills that aren't op'ed like that but a wide variety to choose from so i can tailor my build to my liking.
isnt them having various skills that do various dmg with various cooldowns making people able to choose different builds? if they all had the same cooldown and around same dmg.. wheres the choices? its all the same then.
It gives you decently varied builds, not the amount you'd get by having every skill do the same damage and have no CD. And I don't think you understand skills really if you are asking me this questiong because remember there are many TYPES of skils, do I want to strike you down with a METEOR or do i want to electrocute the shit out of you WITH ELECTROCUTE or maybe i want to freeze you with BLIZZARD. that is where choice comes in and thats when you get varied build. Nothing matters about the damage at all. If they all have the same damage % or a balanced damage percentage i.e Blizard freezes leaving them vulnerable for more attacks so it'll do a smaller damage than Meteor, but meteor will do DoT so it'll have smaller damage but very minor damage reduction, whereas Electrocute is a powerful one shot electric attack that reduces damage as it jumps from enemy to enemy. Thats balanced, and i can get them all at the same time so i can choose what I want when I want and how I want. This keeps that same, strategic thinking they want yet it allows the most diverse player builds.
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Ent1ty, I do have one question. How many possible choices do you need till you don't feel limited. I've written down the varied amount of options you will have already and I will just say its a good number of options. I fear your creating limitations because you see a build that isn't available.
That is just the factors of life really. I will agree that I wish they left modding as an option in the game so that after playing the normal game you could go through and make your own class skill sets to get the build you imagine and then test out. But I just can't see all the options they make as limited.
Just going back to the amount of builds available to WD should take you about 10 years to beat on normal if you play 2 hours a day.
With this 2 min cooldown i can only see people saving thier uber skill to the bosses and instant killing then using it for extra fats loot.
I'm sure they will change that one day or other and people that defend this system will magically start to agree that 2 min cooldown sucks because blizz say so. Like freaking slaves.
Ent1ty, I do have one question. How many possible choices do you need till you don't feel limited. I've written down the varied amount of options you will have already and I will just say its a good number of options. I fear your creating limitations because you see a build that isn't available.
That is just the factors of life really.
We're discussing gaming, not life.
As I have said before, there should be a build, per every skill, per every number of points in the skill. If you were able to write down the options that means there are too few. And there should not be too many forced linearizations per skill, nor should top tier skills be superior (in terms of most return for points invested). This is basic balancing, nothing complicated.
Possible builds number may still be very high. But the viable builds number shouldn't be reduced to 5 per class, you know.
If you don't have an issue with forced builds that's your opinion but do not hide behind fallacies like "it's the factors of life" when the discussion has nothing to do with that. Keep the discussion where it belongs.
I don't believe there are forced builds that is my point. So far we know one class with 2 min cooldowns. All of which are the 7 tier. One is a summon, one is a "super nuke," the last is a buff and that is how I will look at them until I see them in action anyways. The Summon and the Buff could just be CDs to relate to how long they want you to have those benefits, not so much super nukes as everyone talks but benefits that should only be felt for 30 seconds out of every 2 minutes.
My issue is that I gave two examples, that were just my theorycrafting and then that suddenly became a point that those builds were showing how limited the builds are. What I'm trying to say is that in the WD's case how do you define 2880 builds as limiting. If 10% of those builds are viable for end game that is still 288 builds. If it is that people should be able to pick any number of powers in any order I'm just lost for words because then the only true thing to look forward to is the same powers.
I like the idea of building to a set of options, it gives me something to look forward to. I don't think any ability is going to trump another, they will be equivalent but the lead up creates a sensation of progression. Having powers that are potent isn't limiting, especially if their potency is spread out over X amount of time.
The reason I brought up lifespan is because Ent1ty earlier related the limited build structure as draining on the possible builds he would have to experiment with, which I think is incorrect, it is my opinion though so I will leave it at that.
Now if every skill is available at the beginning I don't think that will disrupt bottle necking builds at all either. Usually in any game a limited number of builds will float to the top, that is more out of social pressures then reality and hard math. Other builds are viable and the few that rise to the top are just the limited scope that players believe to be the "only" builds.
Basically no matter what you do there will be about 5 builds perclass regardless if the hard math proves it isn't necessary. That is just society trying to simplify the reality of the scenario to make it easier to understand. I'm just saying that about 10% of the builds should be viable, and until we play we won't know who is right or wrong.
CDs don't factor into limitation. They just function as a mechanic and nothing else.
I don't believe there are forced builds that is my point. So far we know one class with 2 min cooldowns. All of which are the 7 tier. One is a summon, one is a "super nuke," the last is a buff and that is how I will look at them until I see them in action anyways.
So we have buffs we have to constantly refresh (seriously, how outdated is this?) and a nuke that is either going to be OP or useless.
The Summon and the Buff could just be CDs to relate to how long they want you to have those benefits, not so much super nukes as everyone talks but benefits that should only be felt for 30 seconds out of every 2 minutes.
I believe many here also were talking about teleport.
And, speaking of teleport, from what I understand there are ways to spec/rune it to decrease the cooldown to something small. Which, to me, implies we will be able to decrease the cooldown of most such skills. This is going to cause some issues if the nukes in question are relatively spammable resource wise.
I'm worried about nukes (Earthquake), reasons were given.
I'm worried about buffs, because I freaking hate buffs. If the buff lasts 2 minutes and the cooldown is 2 minutes just make it a passive. Summon at least I can somewhat understand - it's your job to keep it alive for that long. But buffs? Please no, I had enough with resetting Burst of Speed every 5 minutes... unless the game has a debuff system or something, I just don't see the point.
From what I understand, these buffs are very shortlived, and amount to nukes.
And teleport. I'm sure some people will spec into it in PvP, perhaps some in PvE, but without a spec it seems to be in a very strange position.
In any case, considering possibility to decrease cooldowns, and the supposed strength of these tier 7 abilities, why would you not pick a tier 7 ability? Why would you get a bunch of level 1-5 abilities if the end abilities are stronger?
You could try to argue that using cooldown runes on tier 7 abilities will make them equal to tier 1 abilities with damage runes, but we have multiple tiers of abilities without cooldowns, + if we have buffs then those buffs don't need their cooldowns lowered anyway. Which brings us back to tier 7 skills being OP compared to lower tier.
If these abilities complement other abilities (e.g., tier 7 is buffs/supports only), it may be manageable. E.g., higher tier cannot provide any damage.
What I'm trying to say is that in the WD's case how do you define 2880 builds as limiting. If 10% of those builds are viable for end game that is still 288 builds. If it is that people should be able to pick any number of powers in any order I'm just lost for words because then the only true thing to look forward to is the same powers.
You seem to be ignoring the post I just made.
So barb has these skills here: http://www.diablowiki.com/Barbarian
I don't know how many points you can put into each, I'll just consider them as 1-point skills. That's 23 skills. You need 7. I suck at statistics, so I can't give you a precise number, but that number is very large, and I'm happy with it.
The problem is, though, tiered skills may skew how many builds we actually get. For instance, if everyone always takes the skills in tiered order (from most to least), that essentially halves the number of skills. And a big chunk of those skills are either necessary or useless to specific variation in builds. + add imbalances.
Now if every skill is available at the beginning I don't think that will disrupt bottle necking builds at all either. Usually in any game a limited number of builds will float to the top, that is more out of social pressures then reality and hard math. Other builds are viable and the few that rise to the top are just the limited scope that players believe to be the "only" builds.
Skill availability is rather irrelevant, it just delays complete build freedom until w/e level you can get all skills at, I believe the argument was that the tiers categorize skills by power.
The reason a number of builds float to the top is both unbalancing and lack of choices. A large amount of choices generally blurrs build power, and unbalances make some builds useless while others OP. It's Blizzard's job to minimize the amount of OP and UP builds, leaving more builds in the "viable" sector. The problem with DII was that many builds that should have been viable, weren't, mostly due to unbalances. Builds in DII were heavily limited due to synergies. Here, we see something similar to synergies, but a more hidden concept.
Basically no matter what you do there will be about 5 builds perclass regardless if the hard math proves it isn't necessary.
And what do you base this on? I played games with a lot more builds than that. And builds shouldn't lend themselves to math. The most high damage build should get you killed.
I don't believe there are forced builds that is my point. So far we know one class with 2 min cooldowns. All of which are the 7 tier. One is a summon, one is a "super nuke," the last is a buff and that is how I will look at them until I see them in action anyways.
So we have buffs we have to constantly refresh (seriously, how outdated is this?) and a nuke that is either going to be OP or useless.
I play Torchlight and have those sort of buffs. Not to mention that is the direction they're taking buffs, they've changed the Monk's Auras to work like that. I hated having to have a skill which just offered a bonus without my active participation like the old Paladin.
The Summon and the Buff could just be CDs to relate to how long they want you to have those benefits, not so much super nukes as everyone talks but benefits that should only be felt for 30 seconds out of every 2 minutes.
I believe many here also were talking about teleport.
And, speaking of teleport, from what I understand there are ways to spec/rune it to decrease the cooldown to something small. Which, to me, implies we will be able to decrease the cooldown of most such skills. This is going to cause some issues if the nukes in question are relatively spammable resource wise.
The neat thing we're finding out right now is that it may not "reduce" the time between uses but delay the cool down. Which makes me think we truly haven't quite grasped how all the runes are going to be effecting skills.
I'm worried about nukes (Earthquake), reasons were given.
I'm worried about buffs, because I freaking hate buffs. If the buff lasts 2 minutes and the cooldown is 2 minutes just make it a passive. Summon at least I can somewhat understand - it's your job to keep it alive for that long. But buffs? Please no, I had enough with resetting Burst of Speed every 5 minutes... unless the game has a debuff system or something, I just don't see the point.
From what I understand, these buffs are very shortlived, and amount to nukes.
And teleport. I'm sure some people will spec into it in PvP, perhaps some in PvE, but without a spec it seems to be in a very strange position.
In any case, considering possibility to decrease cooldowns, and the supposed strength of these tier 7 abilities, why would you not pick a tier 7 ability? Why would you get a bunch of level 1-5 abilities if the end abilities are stronger?
You could try to argue that using cooldown runes on tier 7 abilities will make them equal to tier 1 abilities with damage runes, but we have multiple tiers of abilities without cooldowns, + if we have buffs then those buffs don't need their cooldowns lowered anyway. Which brings us back to tier 7 skills being OP compared to lower tier.
If these abilities complement other abilities (e.g., tier 7 is buffs/supports only), it may be manageable. E.g., higher tier cannot provide any damage.
So I did a little bit of looking around to see how the over all skill layout for all the classes. Mainly tier 7 skills have functions either as AoE damage, or some other type. WD has summon army, a DoT which summons a pet if it kills its target, and a big AoE. Wizard has the Familiar or Teleport. Monk has a Aura, Multi-strike ability, or AoE. I guess my thought is that Tier 7 are cool abilities but not a straight up damage attack. They seem more additive then just an attack.
What I'm trying to say is that in the WD's case how do you define 2880 builds as limiting. If 10% of those builds are viable for end game that is still 288 builds. If it is that people should be able to pick any number of powers in any order I'm just lost for words because then the only true thing to look forward to is the same powers.
You seem to be ignoring the post I just made.
So barb has these skills here: http://www.diablowiki.com/Barbarian
I don't know how many points you can put into each, I'll just consider them as 1-point skills. That's 23 skills. You need 7. I suck at statistics, so I can't give you a precise number, but that number is very large, and I'm happy with it.
The problem is, though, tiered skills may skew how many builds we actually get. For instance, if everyone always takes the skills in tiered order (from most to least), that essentially halves the number of skills. And a big chunk of those skills are either necessary or useless to specific variation in builds. + add imbalances.
My calculation attributes that you only pick one skill per each tier. So that number is based on taking one per tier in that order. I was thinking about this idea that certain specs can't work without other skills, I believe only one skill has a requirement of another skill. All the ideas I see don't restrict options just make them require a bit of a different playstyle.
I guess I would need an example of poor skill combination but I can't see any in the theorizing I've done. Interesting ones but not unbalanced.
Now if every skill is available at the beginning I don't think that will disrupt bottle necking builds at all either. Usually in any game a limited number of builds will float to the top, that is more out of social pressures then reality and hard math. Other builds are viable and the few that rise to the top are just the limited scope that players believe to be the "only" builds.
Skill availability is rather irrelevant, it just delays complete build freedom until w/e level you can get all skills at, I believe the argument was that the tiers categorize skills by power.
The reason a number of builds float to the top is both unbalancing and lack of choices. A large amount of choices generally blurrs build power, and unbalances make some builds useless while others OP. It's Blizzard's job to minimize the amount of OP and UP builds, leaving more builds in the "viable" sector. The problem with DII was that many builds that should have been viable, weren't, mostly due to unbalances. Builds in DII were heavily limited due to synergies. Here, we see something similar to synergies, but a more hidden concept.
Basically no matter what you do there will be about 5 builds perclass regardless if the hard math proves it isn't necessary.
And what do you base this on? I played games with a lot more builds than that. And builds shouldn't lend themselves to math. The most high damage build should get you killed.
Oh I just base the last sections on what I've seen. No matter where you go people reach consensus on what they consider the best by some mathematical formula. Then they are argued over if there is no clear leader. I never care for this and just make my own build, playing with friends means I don't have to worry about being the BEST build.
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As for teleport, I don't even know. I think this was more of an issue with item skills and Baal runs than the teleport itself, though.
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As per Equinox's post, I agree about boss-only abilities being gimmicky. That would be a sign of crappy balance.
I'm putting my faith in Blizzard on this one. If they blow it, there will be a crushing flock of rage gamers flinging e-poo all up in Blizzard's e-face.
-Thomas Jefferson
Dunno if we will be able to do so but it's a legit strategy so I can't see the problem.
I know I would not enjoy the game just running around and then nuke then start running and then nuke and so on.
Boring boring boring way to play.
Still that's just me, the others should be able to play the way they like too.
I can't see that to work in SP and maybe it will not work in MP too.
Against bosses it would be particularly difficult since usually there is not much space to run around and ,if memory serves, King Leoric has minions so others may have them too.
Maybe your party members could act as your living shields or decoys, still to be effective you'd need the monsters AI to be like in D2 (attacking the nearer opponent) and I seem to remember they improved the AI for a smarter behaviour, like going for the player who did not attack for a set amount of time.
In PvE you may be mobbed or cornered, so you will use your "nuke" skill to make an opening and escape, but I wonder if such skill would be powerful enough to wipe the screen.
If not, and I think it will be so, you better have some other ace up your sleeve or you'll die.
And, I repeat myself here, nuke-run-nuke-run is a legit strategy so can't see the problem here.
I know I'd find it extremely boring so I'll go for something else.
Either we _need_ that 2 minute spell to kill something, so we cast it and then we run away.
Either we don't need that 2 minute spell to kill something and we forget about it since why worry about another skill when we can just use the ones we have.
(Either they made it so that every 2 minutes of gameplay time you need it, but not otherwise)
A lot of these sound like buffs, if I think about it. And resetting buffs all the time is very annoying.
Then why the long CD. If they aren't going to be that baddassly powerful then there is no point of a CD just cause they are more powerful or better strategically then the other skills.
isnt them having various skills that do various dmg with various cooldowns making people able to choose different builds? if they all had the same cooldown and around same dmg.. wheres the choices? its all the same then.
It gives you decently varied builds, not the amount you'd get by having every skill do the same damage and have no CD. And I don't think you understand skills really if you are asking me this questiong because remember there are many TYPES of skils, do I want to strike you down with a METEOR or do i want to electrocute the shit out of you WITH ELECTROCUTE or maybe i want to freeze you with BLIZZARD. that is where choice comes in and thats when you get varied build. Nothing matters about the damage at all. If they all have the same damage % or a balanced damage percentage i.e Blizard freezes leaving them vulnerable for more attacks so it'll do a smaller damage than Meteor, but meteor will do DoT so it'll have smaller damage but very minor damage reduction, whereas Electrocute is a powerful one shot electric attack that reduces damage as it jumps from enemy to enemy. Thats balanced, and i can get them all at the same time so i can choose what I want when I want and how I want. This keeps that same, strategic thinking they want yet it allows the most diverse player builds.
That is just the factors of life really. I will agree that I wish they left modding as an option in the game so that after playing the normal game you could go through and make your own class skill sets to get the build you imagine and then test out. But I just can't see all the options they make as limited.
Just going back to the amount of builds available to WD should take you about 10 years to beat on normal if you play 2 hours a day.
I'm sure they will change that one day or other and people that defend this system will magically start to agree that 2 min cooldown sucks because blizz say so. Like freaking slaves.
As I have said before, there should be a build, per every skill, per every number of points in the skill. If you were able to write down the options that means there are too few. And there should not be too many forced linearizations per skill, nor should top tier skills be superior (in terms of most return for points invested). This is basic balancing, nothing complicated.
Possible builds number may still be very high. But the viable builds number shouldn't be reduced to 5 per class, you know.
If you don't have an issue with forced builds that's your opinion but do not hide behind fallacies like "it's the factors of life" when the discussion has nothing to do with that. Keep the discussion where it belongs.
My issue is that I gave two examples, that were just my theorycrafting and then that suddenly became a point that those builds were showing how limited the builds are. What I'm trying to say is that in the WD's case how do you define 2880 builds as limiting. If 10% of those builds are viable for end game that is still 288 builds. If it is that people should be able to pick any number of powers in any order I'm just lost for words because then the only true thing to look forward to is the same powers.
I like the idea of building to a set of options, it gives me something to look forward to. I don't think any ability is going to trump another, they will be equivalent but the lead up creates a sensation of progression. Having powers that are potent isn't limiting, especially if their potency is spread out over X amount of time.
The reason I brought up lifespan is because Ent1ty earlier related the limited build structure as draining on the possible builds he would have to experiment with, which I think is incorrect, it is my opinion though so I will leave it at that.
Now if every skill is available at the beginning I don't think that will disrupt bottle necking builds at all either. Usually in any game a limited number of builds will float to the top, that is more out of social pressures then reality and hard math. Other builds are viable and the few that rise to the top are just the limited scope that players believe to be the "only" builds.
Basically no matter what you do there will be about 5 builds perclass regardless if the hard math proves it isn't necessary. That is just society trying to simplify the reality of the scenario to make it easier to understand. I'm just saying that about 10% of the builds should be viable, and until we play we won't know who is right or wrong.
CDs don't factor into limitation. They just function as a mechanic and nothing else.
I believe many here also were talking about teleport.
And, speaking of teleport, from what I understand there are ways to spec/rune it to decrease the cooldown to something small. Which, to me, implies we will be able to decrease the cooldown of most such skills. This is going to cause some issues if the nukes in question are relatively spammable resource wise.
I'm worried about nukes (Earthquake), reasons were given.
I'm worried about buffs, because I freaking hate buffs. If the buff lasts 2 minutes and the cooldown is 2 minutes just make it a passive. Summon at least I can somewhat understand - it's your job to keep it alive for that long. But buffs? Please no, I had enough with resetting Burst of Speed every 5 minutes... unless the game has a debuff system or something, I just don't see the point.
From what I understand, these buffs are very shortlived, and amount to nukes.
And teleport. I'm sure some people will spec into it in PvP, perhaps some in PvE, but without a spec it seems to be in a very strange position.
In any case, considering possibility to decrease cooldowns, and the supposed strength of these tier 7 abilities, why would you not pick a tier 7 ability? Why would you get a bunch of level 1-5 abilities if the end abilities are stronger?
You could try to argue that using cooldown runes on tier 7 abilities will make them equal to tier 1 abilities with damage runes, but we have multiple tiers of abilities without cooldowns, + if we have buffs then those buffs don't need their cooldowns lowered anyway. Which brings us back to tier 7 skills being OP compared to lower tier.
If these abilities complement other abilities (e.g., tier 7 is buffs/supports only), it may be manageable. E.g., higher tier cannot provide any damage.
You seem to be ignoring the post I just made.
So barb has these skills here:
http://www.diablowiki.com/Barbarian
I don't know how many points you can put into each, I'll just consider them as 1-point skills. That's 23 skills. You need 7. I suck at statistics, so I can't give you a precise number, but that number is very large, and I'm happy with it.
The problem is, though, tiered skills may skew how many builds we actually get. For instance, if everyone always takes the skills in tiered order (from most to least), that essentially halves the number of skills. And a big chunk of those skills are either necessary or useless to specific variation in builds. + add imbalances.
Skill availability is rather irrelevant, it just delays complete build freedom until w/e level you can get all skills at, I believe the argument was that the tiers categorize skills by power.
The reason a number of builds float to the top is both unbalancing and lack of choices. A large amount of choices generally blurrs build power, and unbalances make some builds useless while others OP. It's Blizzard's job to minimize the amount of OP and UP builds, leaving more builds in the "viable" sector. The problem with DII was that many builds that should have been viable, weren't, mostly due to unbalances. Builds in DII were heavily limited due to synergies. Here, we see something similar to synergies, but a more hidden concept.
And what do you base this on? I played games with a lot more builds than that. And builds shouldn't lend themselves to math. The most high damage build should get you killed.
The neat thing we're finding out right now is that it may not "reduce" the time between uses but delay the cool down. Which makes me think we truly haven't quite grasped how all the runes are going to be effecting skills.
So I did a little bit of looking around to see how the over all skill layout for all the classes. Mainly tier 7 skills have functions either as AoE damage, or some other type. WD has summon army, a DoT which summons a pet if it kills its target, and a big AoE. Wizard has the Familiar or Teleport. Monk has a Aura, Multi-strike ability, or AoE. I guess my thought is that Tier 7 are cool abilities but not a straight up damage attack. They seem more additive then just an attack.
My calculation attributes that you only pick one skill per each tier. So that number is based on taking one per tier in that order. I was thinking about this idea that certain specs can't work without other skills, I believe only one skill has a requirement of another skill. All the ideas I see don't restrict options just make them require a bit of a different playstyle.
I guess I would need an example of poor skill combination but I can't see any in the theorizing I've done. Interesting ones but not unbalanced.
Oh I just base the last sections on what I've seen. No matter where you go people reach consensus on what they consider the best by some mathematical formula. Then they are argued over if there is no clear leader. I never care for this and just make my own build, playing with friends means I don't have to worry about being the BEST build.