Difference between revisions of "Storm Skill Tree"

Revision as of 11:20, 17 September 2009

Template:Class navbox

Wizard's Storm skill tree as of BlizzCon 2009.

The Wizard's skills are divided into three skill trees, each of which has about 18 known spells. These were first seen at Blizzcon 2008, and while they are very much subject to change during the game's continued development, viewing them in this state is still informative. The three trees are:

• Storm Skill Tree
• Arcane Skill Tree
• Conjuring Skill Tree

Diablo 3 Skill Trees

Unlike the skill trees in Diablo II, the trees in Diablo III are not focused on just one aspect of a character. All known D3 skill trees have a wide variety of skills, with more passive than active skills, and all allow for a variety of play styles.

All active skills in the BlizzCon build were capped at 1 skill point (or rank, as skill levels are called in D3), while most passives went up to 15 points. This will not be the case in the final game; active skills will allow more than 1 point, and passives may have different maximum ranks, to allow better game balancing. Know that skills will be modified, that some will be removed, that others will be added, and that the numbers are almost certain to change.

Skill runes could only be socketed in active skills, in the Blizzcon build. This may or may not remain true in the final game.

Tier 1 Skills

These skills are available for use as soon as new Wizard is created.

Charged Bolt

Charged Bolts carpet the dungeon floor.

• Active Skill
• Description: Launch a volley of electric bolts. Critical hits from lightning damage stun targets for 2 sec.
• Max Rank: 1
• Rank 1: 3 bolts. Each deals 1-8 damage.
• 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. They did not travel very far, and not at all in a wave ahead of the Wizard.

See more screenshots of Charged Bolt in the Image Gallery.

Thunderstruck

• Passive Skill
• Description: Increases the critical hit chance of all lightning spells by X%. Critical hits from lightning damage stun targets for 2 seconds.
• Max Rank: 15
  • Rank 1: Increases critical hit chance of all lightning spells by 5%.
  • Rank 2: Increases critical hit chance of all lightning spells by 10%.
  • Rank 3: Increases critical hit chance of all lightning spells by 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 not known what else will raise critical hit chance; Clvl? Attributes? Equipment bonuses? They seem very likely to occur on items, as part of the D3 Team's effort to provide a variety of valuable mods on weapons for non-combat characters.

Empowered Magic

• Passive Skill
• Description: Increases the effect of willpower on your spell damage by X%.
• Max Rank: 15
  • Rank 1: Increases the effect of willpower on your spell damage by 10%.
  • Rank 2: Increases the effect of willpower on your spell damage by 20%.
  • Rank 3: Increases the effect of willpower on your spell damage by 30%.

One of the design goals in Diablo III is to make all of the attributes useful to each character class. As this skill makes clear, Willpower will factor in on the Wizard's spell damage.

Lightning Speed

• Passive Skill
• Description: 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, so it seems that most Wizards will put some points into this one, whichever tree they specialize in.

Nothing is yet known about how useful or common spell casting speed boosts will be from items.

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

• Active Skill
• Description: Surround yourself in electrical energy. Electrical bolts are automatically fired at attackers.
• Max Rank: 1
  • Rank 1: Electrical bolts deal 1-8 damage.
• 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. It's quite similar to the thunderstorm skill from Diablo 2.

Frost Nova

Skill icon.

• Active Skill
• Description: An explosion of ice pelts nearby enemies. Projectiles have an additional 25% chance of a critical hit. Critical hits from cold damage freeze targets.
• Max Rank: 1
  • Rank 1: 1-3 damage, 25% chance of critical hit.
• Mana cost: 25
• Cool down: 12 seconds

The long cool down 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.

See more screenshots of Frost Nova in the image gallery.

Chill out!

Deep Freeze

• Passive Skill
• Description: Increases the critical hit chance of all cold spells. Critical hits from cold damage freeze targets.
• Max Rank: 15
• Rank 1: Cold spell critical hit damage increased by 5%.

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

• Passive Skill
• Description: Increases the damage dealt by your Storm Armor charged bolts.
• Max Rank: 15
  • Rank 1: Increases damage by 10%.

Static Charge

• Passive Skill
• Description: Converts a percentage of all damage taken into mana.
• Max Rank: 15
  • Rank 1: Convert 5% of all damage taken into mana.

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 must be at least Clvl 10, and have spent at least 10 skill points in the Storm skill tree before he/she is able to put points into any of the skills at this tier.

Electrocute

Electrocute chaining some skeletons.

• Active Skill
• Description: Lightning arcs from the wizard’s fingertips towards enemies, electrocuting up to two targets. Critical hits from lightning damage stun targets for 2 sec.
• Rank 1: Deals 4-5 damage to up to 2 targets. Lightning critical hits stun for 2 seconds.
• 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 Hydra Rune (named Multistrike before), enabling it to strike additional targets at once. A Viper Rune (named Lethality Rune before) was also shown in conjunction with Electrocute, which caused some enemies to explode in an electric Nova upon death, dealing damage to nearby monsters. This is the same sort of death monsters suffer when they perish from a lightning critical hit.

See more screenshots of Electrocute in the Image Gallery.

Ray of Frost

Ray of Frost

• Active Skill
• Description: Project a beam of cold energy. Critical hits from cold damage freeze targets.
• Max Rank: 1
  • Rank 1: Deals 6 cold damage/second.
• Mana cost: 16 mana per sec.

This spell is a sort of cold inferno, reminiscent of the Druid's Arctic Blast skill from Diablo 2. It deals relatively weak damage, but has the chilling effect of all cold skills, and is therefore useful for slowing down nearby attackers.

See more screenshots of Ray of Frost in the image gallery.

Static Residue

• Passive Skill
• Description: Enemies damaged by your lightning spells discharge additional lightning damage to nearby enemies for 3 seconds.
• Max Rank: 15
  • Rank 1: Targets discharge 1-3 lightning damage per second to nearby enemies. Lasts for 3 seconds.

An add-on passive, this one does nothing by itself, but adds lightning damage that hits everything nearby, when any other lightning skill is used. With deaths from lightning critical hits and various multi-target lightning skills, the strength of that element in attack seems likely to be the ability to hit many things at once.

Lethal Energy

• Passive Skill
• Description: Increases the chance to score critical hits with melee and spell attacks.
• Rank: 0/15
  • Rank 1: Increases critical hit chance 5%.

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

• Passive Skill
• Description: Increase the number of bolts released by your charged bolt spell.
• Max Rank: 15
  • Rank 1: Increases the number of bolts by 1.

This one was not seen at Blizzcon 2008, but it sounds like an interesting upgrade. 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 in the Storm tree before the skills in this tier become available.

Tornado

We're not in Kansas anymore...

• Active Skill
• Description: Summon a large tornado that damages everything in its path.
• Max Rank: 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 over targets and dealing multiple hits, as do the Druid's tornadoes 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

• Active Skill
• Description: Call down shards of ice to pelt an area dealing X damage per second. Critical hits from cold damage freezes targets.
• Max Rank: 1
  • Rank 1: Deals 6-10 cold damage per second. Lasts 3 seconds.
• Mana cost: 70

The spell that had to be in the game, 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

• Passive Skill
• Description: Increase damage of all lightning and ice spells.
• Max Rank: 15

Epic Storms

• Passive Skill
• Description: Increases size of Blizzard and number of twisters you can have for your energy twister.
• Max Rank: 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.

Shattering Ice

• Passive Skill
• Description: Enemies take 2 extra points of damage while frozen.
• Max Rank: 15

Tier V Skills

There was a space for these in the Blizzcon build, but no skill icons were found on that line. There will surely be some in the final game, or else existing skills will be redistributed so some occupy higher level tiers on the skill tree.