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→Active and Passive Skills
Passive skills grant the character some sort of bonus that is always in effect. Passive skills do not need to be cast to activate them; they give a bonus all the time, as soon as points are placed into them. These are skills and spells like [[Arcane_Skill_Tree#Efficient_Magics|Efficient Magics]] or [[Battlemaster_Skill_Tree#Power_of_the_Battlemaster|Power of the Battlemaster]]. (No passive Witch Doctor skills have yet been named.) Passive skills boost the damage of other spells, lower the mana cost of casting them, increase their duration, etc. Passive skills were often called "masteries" in Diablo II, and that term is still applicable to many of them in Diablo III.
The balance of active and passive skills is an issue that must be tackled in character balancing. Jay Wilson spoke on this issue in an October 2009 interview. [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/jay-wilson-exclusive-full-transcript/]
::'''''Diii.net: '''Based on playing those two characters and examining their trees, the Wizard has tons and tons of active attack skills and very few passives, while the Barbarian has an awful lot of defensive passives. Early on he didn’t have very many active skills. So fans were thinking we’d still see a lot of changes, and especially that the Wizard would be getting some more interesting passives.
::'''Jay Wilson: '''*sounding thoughtful* Um… yeah, the team has done more passes and passives on the Barbarian, so his are more developed. The Wizard is a little bit harder to do passives for. If you look at the Barbarian in D2, you see the same thing. A lot more passives and less actives than the wizard in D2. I think that’s more a difference between a melee char and a magic wielder.
::The fact that the Barbarian has a lot of passive defense is because he’s supposed to be tough. While I think that the Wizard probably doesn’t have enough passives, I would agree with that statement, keep in mind that they are two different classes.
==Abilities==