Video: Blizzcon 2010 Rune Effects

This movie is a tight closeup of the video screen during the Gameplay Panel at BlizzCon 2010, about 40 minutes into the hour-long panel. It is a demonstration of various skill rune effects.

The Movie[edit | edit source]

The Barbarian, the Wizard, and the Witch Doctor show off some skill rune effects against hordes of zombies, aka cannon-fodder.

Video courtesy of BlizzPort's Channel on YouTube.

Skills Demonstrated[edit | edit source]

These skills have been identified in the video:

Barbarian skills:

Wizard skills:

Witch Doctor skills:

Notes:
0:08—The Barbarian casts (probably) Threatening Shout runed for monster debuff; the death of one creates a fear AoE in the others. Thanks to theeliminator for making the suggestion here.

0:25—The Barbarian uses Leap Attack, with a rune effect creating a circle of five small explosions around the Barb.

0:36—The Wizard uses what appears to be Ice Armor, but with a rune that turns the spell into something like the D2 Paladin‘s Holy Freeze Aura.

0:53—Wizard shows off Explosive Blast a few times, each one leaving a lovely crater in the ground.

0:59—Wizard hurls lightning bolts that look a bit like javelins. When each one hits it sizzles the target and sends our several tendrils of lightning that kill other enemies. This is apparently a runed form of Electrocute, and it really shows the utility of skillrunes, as a single-target, beam-type spell is changed to a multi-target projectile.

1:28—Snakes on the face! It’s Bashiok’s favorite^[1] rune effect for Poison Dart. The way the snake’s tail keeps wiggling after it strikes is hilarious.

1:29—Unknown glowing green flamethrower type attack. Most likely a runed version of Firebats.

1:35—The wiggly blueish-white spell is probably Haunt, engulfing victims, then thanks to a rune bonus, propagating multiple additional Haunts off to other nearby targets. Locust Swarm does the same thing a second later.

2:50—The WD casts something that’s red/blue light on individual targets, and ends up shooting a blue spirit up into the sky. Another runed form of Haunt, or possibly Soul Harvest?

2:55—The WD shows an awesome rune upgrade to Zombie Charger (yes, even better than skinless Zombie Bears), with some kind of multi-zombie effect that creates almost as much green poisonous gas as your great uncle did after last year’s Christmas Dinner.

3:30—Another uncertain WD skill; probably another runed version of Soul Harvest? It creates a purple light around monsters and sends a blue ghost flying back to the WD when the target dies. A bunch of Zombie Bear stampedes shown around this time as well.