Stone Skin

Stone Skin is a Tier 3 skill from the Wizard's Conjuring skill tree, shielding the Wizard from a set amount of damage.

Background

Diablo III Skill [e]

Stone Skin Active, 5 ranks
Used by:	Wizard
Skill Description:
Shield yourself with rock and stone absorbing X damage.
Skill Details:
Type:	Defensive Buff
Quantity:	30 damage absorption.
Effect:	Self
School:	All
Physical cost:	12
Cast time:	Instant
Duration:	8 sec
Cooldown:	19 sec
Synergies:	None
Requires:	N/A
Prereq of:	Magic Weapon

A spell used by Wizards to absorb damage through a rock-like or crystaline skin shielding.

Skill Design

The powerful Wizard had little need of protective skills in the BlizzCon 2009 demo. It's interesting to note the stats on this one; substantial absorbing defence, along the lines of the D2 Necromancer's Bone Armor, but with quite a limited duration. A clever Wizard would have this and Mirror Image hot keyed and ready to chain cast when any great danger showed itself, but this has to be used wisely, with such a brief duration and long cooldown.

The other low level Wizard defensive skill, Ice Armor, does nothing to raise defence; it just slows and damages melee attackers, so the protective skills do not at all overlap in function, though they could compliment each other in use.

This skill was profiled in the Character Panel, where the developers talked about its new and improved, crystalline graphic, which you can see to the left.

Skill Rank Table

Rank 1: 75 damage absorbed.

Only Rank 1 is currently known.

Synergies

There are no direct synergies, but Damage Resistance and Weapon Mastery work very well with this spell.

Skill Rune Effects

None known.

The new version of the spell, which will have a different name.

Development

Spell was first shown at BlizzCon 2008 when the Wizard was unveiled. It was originally just one of many shielding skills for the Wizard. Good combination in early builds included Damage Resistance and Weapon Mastery to create a sort of melee Wizard.

On August 21, 2009, during the Diablo 3 Heroes and Monsters panel at BlizzCon, the development team stated that they changed the Wizard's stone armor visually, since it was hard to notice on the class due to the thin and sleek profile of the Wizard and that it didn't support the goal of making the Wizard a "Lightshow".

It's assumed it works the same way, but they have also decided to change the name of the spell, which they haven't thought of yet. Visually, it has become a purple/light blue crystallized armor and is now easily detectable.

Trivia

Stone Skin is one of the new Diablo spells, together with Magic Missile and Disintegrate who seems to be directly inspired by the Dungeons & Dragons pen and paper roleplaying game.

Media

You can find pictures in the Diablo 3 screenshot and picture gallery:

Only picture available as of BlizzCon 2009

References