Resource
A Resource Pool is part of a character's ability to use Skills. It's generally gathered in various ways and expended upon using as skill, where skills have different "costs", and use a different amount of resource from the pool. Mana is the prime example of a resource pool.
Contents
Diablo Games
In Diablo I and Diablo II all classes used Mana as their one main resource, but in Diablo III not all classes share the same resource. In all the Diablo Games so far, the resource pool is located in the UI, on the bottom right hand side, usually in an orb or sphere.
Resource Pools
Fury
Fury is a new resource pool in the Diablo games that only the Barbarian uses. It is similar to the World of Warcraft Warrior class's "Rage" resource.
- Restored by:
- Fighting
- Taking damage (presumed)
- Removed by:
- Fury Related Skills:
- Bad Temper: Increases/Decreases the rate of Fury Gain/Loss, respectively.
- Enrage: Increases Fury gained and Damage taken for a short time.
- The Barbarians Savage skill increased Fury gained after scoring a Critical hit, but was removed.
Arcane Power
Arcane Power is the new resource for the Wizard class, allowing the wizard to cast her spells without running out of the resource any time soon. It is a flat amount of resource, that cannot be increased by items or stats (but maybe by skills) and regenerates really fast. It is akin to World of Warcraft's Rogue resource, which is Energy.
- Restored by:
- Regenerating
- Removed by:
- Using an Ability.
- Arcane Power Related Skills:
- N/A
Mana
Mana is the most known resource pool, having been in many RPGs and is usually represented by a blue colour. The Witch Doctor is the only class to use mana as his ability resource in Diablo III.
- Restored by:
- Picking up Health Globes (with a specific skill)
- Regeneration
- Killing enemies with specific skills
- Removed by:
- Some creatures leeching mana.
- Using an Ability.
- Mana Related Skill(s):
- Witch Doctor's Soul Harvest: Killing Enemies with this AoE Spell will restore the Witch Doctor's Mana.
- The Wizard's Mana Recovery increased the chance of a Mana Globes dropping, but was removed.
Spirit
Spirit is a recently revealed resource that the Monk uses. It is restored by using combo skills, like Way of the Hundred Fists which do not really cost anything, and can be used for his signature skills, such as Impenetrable Defense and Seven Sided Strike.
- Restored by:
- Using Combo Skills
- Removed by:
- Using a Signature Ability.
- Spirit Related Skills:
- N/A
Future Resource Pools
During an interview by IGN with Jay Wilson, he said the following:
- IGN: The barbarian obviously uses fury and the wizard uses mana, so what exactly do the witch doctor and the monk use to power their skills?
- Jay Wilson: Right now the monk and the wizard and the witch doctor all use mana. The witch doctor is actually going with mana, that's official. The monk and the wizard are going to have different systems, and we haven't finished them, I can't talk about them yet. They are definitely both going to be different, but the witch doctor is actually going to be on mana, we like that convention.
This means that the Wizard wont be using mana, Nor the Monk, this creates a lot of room for speculation, which can be discussed here.
Development
Barbarian
In the first publically shown build of Diablo III, shown at WWI 2008, the Barbarian used mana instead of Fury. The D3 Team never actually intended the Barbarian to use mana and the first build only used it as a placeholder. The second version at BlizzCon 2008 used a fury globe, much like the World of WarCraft rage, but this was changed shortly after the event to the system we see today. The BlizzCon 2009 build used the Fury Orb system, where fury builds up to "orbs" (where the mana container is for casters) and some skills require 1-3 orbs to use.
Monk
The Monk will not use mana but a martial-arts related resource pool.[1] No details have been released, but a system similar to the World of WarCraft Rogue character seems likely.
Witch Doctor
Jay Wilson has confirmed[2] that the Witch Doctor will use traditional Mana.
Wizard
From the first time she was shown, the Wizard has used mana as resource pool. In the BlizzCon 2009 demo, she regained mana by investing skill points in Mana Recovery, making Mana Globes drop from monsters. She was the only one who could see and benefit from them. This changed in the BlizzCon 2009 demo, where she instead has a skill to get mana as well as life from Health Globes.
22nd of September 2009, Bashiok announced the Wizard will not be using traditional Mana, but a resource more specialised for the class. [3]. This was later confirmed on 6th of January 2010[4], when the name of the resource was released: Instability.
Instability caused her to become unstable when she would use a lot of spells really fast, and that would make her take increased damage from all sources but have more chance for a critical strike with her spells. This idea has been scrapped by the Developers, due to not changing the play-style as it should have. It has since been replaced with Arcane Power [5]
Unannounced Class
Since the class is not announced yet, we can only guess if it will use mana or some unique resource pool. Considering Blizzard has talked a lot about unique resource pools, it's likely he or she will get it's own system, or perhaps 4 different systems is enough. We'll have to wait and see.
