Difference between revisions of "Storm Skill Tree"

Revision as of 10:55, 24 October 2008

Storm Tree

Tier I Skills

Charged Bolt

Launch a volley of 3 electric bolts that deal 1-8 lightning damage each. Critical hits from lightning damage stun targets for 2 sec.

Rank: 0/1
Mana cost 8

When tested in the BlizzCon 2008 build, the bolts seemed to come out with a wider spread than they do in Diablo II. They were useful to hit monsters to the sides as well as straight ahead, but were not as good to land multiple hits to a target straight ahead, either very close or a few yards distant.

Thunderstruck

Increases the critical hit chance of all lightning spells by 10%. Critical hits from lightning damage stun targets for 2 sec.

Rank: 0/15

The spells did not display their Critical Hit % chance in the BlizzCon build, but it's assumed that they will in the final game. It's also a good bet that there will be items that boost critical chance from skills, as part of the D3 effort to provide a variety of valuable mods on weapons for non-combat characters.

Empowered Magic

Increases the effect of willpower on your spell damage by 20%.

Rank: 0/15

Lightning Speed

Increases casting speed by 3%

Rank: 0/15

It's not clear if this skill increases the casting speed for all spells cast by the Wizard, or just ones from this tree. From the wording, it sounds like it affects all of the character's spells. Nothing is yet known about spell casting speed boosts from items, but presumably they will be uncommon, or else this skill would be much less valuable.

Tier II Skills

Tier 2 skills do not require any amount of points to be spent in the tree to enable them. (There were rumors that 5 points were required, but that was not the case in the BlizzCon build.

Storm Armor

Surround yourself in electrical energy. Electrical bolts are automatically fired at attackers for 1 to 8 damage.

Rank: 0/1
Mana cost: 15

This skill does not seem to offer any protection; just a sort of passive offensive attack. It's not known how long it persists for, or how much the damage will scale up.

Frost Nova

Chill out!

An explosion of ice pelts nearby enemies for 1-3 cold damage. Has an additional 25% chance of a critical hit. Critical hits from cold damage freeze targets.

Rank: 0/1
Mana cost: 25
Cooldown: 12 seconds

The long cooldown on this skill indicates that the D3 Team means it to be used as a sort of "panic button," rather than a killing attack. The boosted % of critical chance is more about potentially freezing enemies than killing them with a lovely explosion of ice. Storm Power and Lethal Energy will both add to this skill's lethality by adding to its critical strike chance and damage.

Deep Freeze

Increases the critical hit chance of all cold spells by 5%. Critical hits from cold damage freeze targets.

Rank: 0/15

Rather than giving the Wizard a Glacial Spike-like instant freeze spell, the D3 team seems to be granting that possibility with critical hits on a variety of non-freezing cold spells.

Power Armor

Increases the damage dealt by your storm armor charged bolts by 10%.

Rank: 0/15

Static Charge

Convert 5% of all damage taken into mana.

Rank: 0/15

An interesting variation on Mana Shield; this sounds like it's only of use to add mana, without any protective properties.

Tier III Skills

A Wizard is required to spend 10 skill points in this skill tree before putting points into any of the skills at this tier.

Electrocute

Lightning arcs from the wizard’s fingertips towards enemies, electrocuting them for 4-5 damage. Electrocute affects up to 2 targets. Critical hits from lightning damage stun targets for 2 sec.

Rank: 0/1
Mana cost: 8

This spell works like beam weapons in most FPS games, locking onto a target and bending to keep it in the lightning zone even as the enemy moves around. It can chain to a second target, and during the BlizzCon 2008 demonstration, this spell was seen upgraded with a multi-strike rune, enabling it to hit multiple targets at once. A Lethality Rune was also shown in conjunction with Electrocute, which caused some enemies to explode in an AoE electric Nova upon death, as they will also do when they die from a lightning critical hit.

Ray of Frost

Project a beam of cold energy that deals 6 cold damage per sec. Critical hits from cold damage freeze targets.

Rank: 0/1
Mana cost: 16 mana per sec.

This skill is similar to the fire-based Disintegrate spell; however, it does not pass through targets or increase damage over time. This spell seems useful for freezing and keeping enemies at bay, adding to the Wizard's arsenal of offensive spells that double as insurance against melee creatures.

Static Residue

Enemies damaged by your lightning spells discharge an additional 1 to 3 lightning damage per sec to nearby enemies for 3 seconds.

Rank: 0/15

An add on type of skill, this one does nothing by itself, but adds lightning damage that hits everything nearby, when any other lightning skill is used.

Lethal Energy

Increases the chance to score critical hits with melee and spell attacks by 5%.

Rank: 0/15

As with other skills in the Wizard's tree (and those of the other characters), boosting Critical Hits is a very powerful technique in D3.

Improved Charged Bolt

Increase the number of bolts released by your charged bolt spell by 1.

Rank: 0/15

This one was not seen at Blizzcon 2008, but it sounds like an interesting upgrade. It's unclear why anyone would put more than 1 point into regular Charged Bolt though, with this one waiting at a higher level. Also keep in mind that lightning critical hits stun enemies in D3, so imagine how effective this spell could be with a high level of critical adding damage and stunning the monsters as they bathe in the river of Charged Bolts flowing out from the Wizard.

Tier IV Skills

A wizard must invest 15 points elsewhere in this skill tree before enabling any skills from this tier.

Tornado

We're not in Kansas anymore...

Summon a large tornado that damages everything in its path.

Rank: 0/1
Mana cost: 15

Akin to the Druid's Twister skill from Diablo II, these tornadoes are formed from pure energy. In the gameplay trailer released at BlizzCon 2008, multiple tornadoes are cast one after another, each lasting for close to 5 seconds. Their path is semi-random, and they bounce off of enemies, heading in another direction when they hit once, instead of passing through in the same general direction, as the Druid's tornados do in D2.

As in DII with the Druid, the best use of the tornadoes will likely be multiple, concentrated casts in a small area packed with enemies, to ensure the most damage in the shortest period of time. Higher levels of the skill may increase their size or may simply increase raw damage. Epic Storm will increase the number of simultaneous tornadoes you can cast, and Lethal Energy will increase the chance to score critical strikes.

It's not clear what type of damage a tornado deals, so what bonuses the critical hits would deal is not known.

Blizzard

Call down shards of ice to pelt an area dealing 6-10 cold damage per sec for 3 sec. Critical hits from cold damage freezes targets.

Rank: 0/1
Mana cost: 70

The mandatory spell, this one is visually improved in D3. There is now a cloud shown above the enemies, from which large chunks of ice crash down to earth.

Storm Power

Increase damage of all lightning and ice spells.

Rank: 0/15

Epic Storms

Increases size of Blizzard and number of twisters you can have for your energy twister.

Rank: 0/15

An interesting mastery skill, this one boosts two different spells (but not everything in the tree), though by now much remains to be seen.

Arcane Tree

Tier I

Magic Missile

Corpses left from Magic Missile

Fire 1 missile(s) of energy at your enemies causing 7-13 arcane damage to them. Critical hits from arcane damage silence targets for 4 secs.

Rank: 0/1
Mana cost: 8

Note: In early levels, Magic Missile might be the Wizard's bread and butter. In later levels, it might prove invaluable as a cheap and direct means of silencing a monster for 4 seconds -- plenty of time to dispatch of them before they can cast a nasty spell on you, or raise the fallen to fight again. The difficulty will be in hitting the shaman behind the minions, since Magic Missile will strike another monster if it's between the Wizard and the targeted boss.

Magic Missile's effectiveness is increased by a variety of spells, the most noteworthy of which is Improved Magic Missile, which increases both the damage and number of missiles released on a cast. The range and spread of higher levels of Magic Missile is reminiscent of the DII Necromancer's Teeth. When an enemy dies at the hands of an Arcane spell, a purple glow is left on the corpses.

Arcane Power

Increases all arcane damage dealt by 24%.

Rank: 0/15
Next Rank: Increase Arcane damage dealt by 36%

This mastery boosts the arcane spell damages by a much higher % than similar masteries for other types of damage, and it's unclear why. Arcane spells generally do less damage, or their critical hit bonus might be less useful, or the spell just might be overpowered in this early, still-under-testing build.

Efficient Magics

Lowers the mana cost of spells by 6%.

Rank: 0/15
Next Rank: lower mana cost by by 9%

It looks like a Wizard will be able to greatly customize his or her spells in D3, with passive skills that cut mana cost, increase casting speed, and boost individual damage types. It's not yet known how much equipment will overlap with these abilities; a spell to boost casting speed wouldn't be much good in D2, with so many items that could convey the same bonus.

Penetrating Spells

Reduces the resistance of your targets to your spells by 8%. Targets with negative resistance take additional damage from spells.

Rank: 0/15

Another of the highly-useful passive skills possessed by the Wizard. Sort of a full time Lower Resistance aura, that seems to work with all types of magic.

Tier II

There is no "points in the tree" requirement to start using second tier skills.

Disintegrate

Molten Trickery

Emanate a beam of pure energy dealing 10 arcane damage per second. Damage is modified by 80% each time the beam passes through the target. Critical hits from arcane damage silence targets for 4 secs.

Rank: 0/1
Mana cost: 12 per sec.

A laser beam of molten pwnage, Disintegrate would be at its full effect when taking down line formations of enemies. It'll cut through targets without mercy; however, each target will decrease the rest of the beam's damage by 80%, allowing the beam to reach through a total of five creatures before its damage is fully mitigated.

Damage ticks every second of use, and critical strikes (as with any Arcane Spell) will silence the target for 4 seconds. In the screenshot to the left, you can see an example of Disintegrate being used to take down the structural bearings of a wall, crushing the unfortunate skeletons in its path.

In the Blizzcon demo build, this spell wasn't very useful against large enemies, but was devastating against smaller enemies, especially ranged attackers such as skeletal archers. The disintegrate ray hits anything on the screen more or less instantaneously, so nothing is out of reach and there's no delay between clicking the mouse and hitting the enemy with the spell. This one will surely be nerfed somewhat before the final game.

Wave of Force

Project a wave of force outwards, repelling enemies and projectiles and dealing 1-8 damage.

Rank: 0/1
Mana cost: 25

Wave of Force is seen two times in the Wizard Trailer released at Blizzcon 2008. The first is used in a room of skeletons -- it does little damage to the skeletons, but blasts all the destructibles in the room to glorious pieces. In the second example, the Wizard uses it while slowing down time, waiting for a group of skeletons' projectiles to come close, and then reflecting them back toward them.

It's hard to know how many scenarios in a fast-paced game like this where you could really benefit from using Slow Time and then Wave of Force to repel projectiles -- Out of the 8 projectiles in the above screenshot, only one or two actually came back to strike their targets. It will be interesting to see what practical uses there are for this spell as more gameplay videos unfold.

Arcane Armor

While your Storm Armor, Stone Armor, Stone Skin or Temporal Armor spells are active, your armor is increased by 20%.

Rank: 0/15

Another interesting mastery; this one boosts the armor, but only while one (or more) of the other protective spells are active.

Arcane Weakness

Enemies damaged by your arcane spells are affected with arcane weakness, increasing damage taken by 10% for 5 sec.

Rank: 0/15

This would presumably stack with other passives that increase the damage and critical hit % of individual spell types, or all spells in general. Bang.

Arcane Speed

Reduces the cooldown of all arcane spells by 5%.

Rank: 0/15

Arcane spell damage seems to be limited by a cooldown time on most of the spells, hence this spell.

Tier III

The wizard must spend 10 points in the first two tiers of this tree before he may add points to any spells in Tier 3.

Arcane Orb

Description: "An orb of pure energy explodes on contact dealing 12-16 arcane damage to all enemies in the blast area. Critical hits from arcane damage silence targets for 4 sec."
Rank: 1/1
Mana cost: 18.

A glowing orb of energy travels about 10 yards, before bursting in a nova of destruction. The spell looks something like the D2 Sorc's Frozen Orb, but without the spray of ice spears as it flies across the room. The spell only allowed one point in the BlizzCon demo, but the final game will surely allow more than 1 level (rank) to be added to it.

Sequence of Arcane Orb, cast from within the protective bubble created by a Slow Time spell.

Slow Time

Description: Warp space and time, slowing nearby monsters and projectiles. Enemy attack cooldown increase: 1 sec.
Rank: 0/1
Mana cost: 20

Slow time creates a bubble that surrounds the Wizard. Any enemies or enemy projectiles that enter the bubble are greatly slowed. The wizard, her spell projectiles, and her allies are not affected by the slow time bubble, giving them a huge advantage over the greatly slowed enemies. The bubble remains where it was cast, persisting for several seconds, but the Wizard can move as soon as the spell is cast, though if she moves outside the bubble monster may again target her without their shots or attacks being slowed.

It's assumed that some boss monsters (and their projectiles?) will be immune to the slowing effect, but this is not yet known, and is subject to further balancing anyway.

Arcane Distortion

Enemies damaged by your arcane spells are slowed by 35% for 3 sec.

Rank: 0/15

There are a lot of interesting ways to slow or freeze or stun monsters in D3. Types of damage, critical hits, spells, masteries to spells, and more.

Mana Recovery

Enemies have a 7% chance to drop a mana globe that return 25% of maximum mana when picked up.

Rank: 0/15

No mana globes were dropping during the Blizzcon 2008 demo. It's not clear if they were not enabled, if they don't drop early in the game, or if they never drop at all, unless this spell (or others with a similar effect, or perhaps the bonus comes from equipment as well?) is active.

Improved Magic Missile

Increases the number of missiles launched by your magic missile spell by 1 and increases their damage by 8%.

Rank: 0/15

Boosts the number and damage of magic missiles. It's not known how this spell interacts with the basic magic missile spell. That one seems to set the base damage, which this one enhances.

Tier IV

A wizard must invest 15 points into the skill tree before he may put points into any skills in this tier.

Temporal Armor

Surrounds the wizard in a protective shell that stops all damage from an attack every 6 sec. The shell dissipates after absorbing 12 attacks.

Rank: 0/1

An interesting variation on spell shields. Rather than absorbing X amount of damage, or some % of damage, this one akes out 100% of the damage, but only works every 6 seconds.

Teleport

Teleport to the selected location up to 40 feet away.

Rank: 0/1
Mana cost: 23

Teleport has been modified somewhat in D3. Rather than blinking instantly between locations, the Wizard leaps several yards straight up into the air, then falls back down when she arrives at her target point. This makes the movement considerably slower, though it's still very fast.

In one of the BlizzCon 2008 panels, Teleport was demonstrated with a strike rune socketed in it, and the spell added damage to all monsters in the area, each time the Wizard teleported.

Greater Mana

Increases maximum mana by 12%.

Rank: 0/15

Mana Burst

Increases the damage of any spellcast from full mana by 25%.

Rank: 0/15

Another creative spell. This one basically lets the Wizard deal substantial extra damage, but with just one spell, once in a while. A wizard who invested in this spell woulc have to modify her play style considerably; trying to use spells sparingly to remain full of mana, in order to score the huge damage hit possible with points in this skill.

Runic Might

Increases the effects of all runes.

Rank: 0/5

A mysterious, all purpose skill description for this one. It sounds like it exists only in concept at this point, and hasn't been balanced at all, yet.

Conjuring Skill Tree

Tier I Skills (0 points requirement)

Spectral Blade

Summons a spectral blade that strikes each enemy in front of the wizard 3 times causing 1-5 physical damage with each hit.

Rank: 0/1
Mana cost: 7.

Spell Speed

Increases the speed of your magic missile projectiles by 16%.

Rank: 0/15
Next Rank: Increase speed by 24%

Damage Resistance

Increases armor by 10% and all resistances by 8%

Rank: 0/15
Next Rank: Increase armor by 15% and all resistances by 12

Tier II Skills (5 points requirement)

Stone Skin

Shield yourself with rock and stone absorbing 30 damage.

Rank: 0/1
Duration: 8 seconds
Mana cost: 12
Cooldown: 15 seconds

Mirror Image

Create an illusionary duplicate of yourself.

Rank: 0/1
Duration: 8 seconds
Mana Cost: 18

Conjured Armor

Magical armor surrounds the wizard increasing block chance by 2%.

Rank: 0/15

Conjured Health

Increases total health by 8% and the health of your conjured images by 12%.

Rank: 0/15

Weapon Mastery

Increases physical damage done by all weapons by 15.

Rank: 0/15

Tier III Skills (10 points requirement)

Duplicate Conjuring

Increases the images from your mirror image skill and Hydras from your Hydra skill by 1.

Rank: 0/15

Meteor Storm

Meteorites pelt the targeted region dealing 10 to 20 damage per second.

Rank: 0/1
Mana cost: 12 mana per second

Acid Cloud

Drop a cloud of acid on the targeted area. Deals an initial 1-4 poison damage followed by 4-8 poison damage per sec to enemies who remain in the area.

Rank: 0/1
Mana cost: 15

Conjured Power

Increases damage done by spells by 1% for every 10 points of vitality.

Rank: 0/15

Conjuring Duration

Increases the duration of your Stone Skin and Acid Cloud spells by 1 sec and duration of your mirror image images by 2 sec.

Rank: 0/15:

Improved Spectral Blade

Increases the damage of Spectral Blade by 14%.

Rank: 0/15

Tier IV Skills (15 points requirement)

Hydra

Creates a multi-headed beast that attacks your enemies with bolts of fire.

Rank: 0/1

Magic Weapon

Imbue your weapon with magical energy granting it increased damage.

Rank: 0/1
Mana cost: 15

Magical Impact

Increases damage of all spells by 15% of your weapon damage.

Rank: 0/15

Slowing Strikes

Enemies damaged by your melee attacks, Spectral Blade or magic weapon have their movement speed reduced by 30% and their attack speed reduced by 20% for 4 sec.

Rank: 0/15

Armor Piercing

Conjured and physical damage decreases the armor of armored enemies.

Rank: 0/15