Passive skill

Passive skills are skills that add bonuses, usually modifying other skills, that work all the time. They boost overall stats, or modify other skills, but are not used directly.

For instance, an active skill would be one that shot a Fireball. A passive skill would add say, +50% damage to all Fire Skills. Passive skills differ slightly from buffs, which can be very similar bonuses, but with a fixed duration.

In 2010 Blizzard announced that due to recent game changes, there were no longer any passive skills in the Diablo III skill trees. Passive skills remained in the game, but as was revealed at BlizzCon 2010, they were accessed via the traits system. [1] [2]

In July 2011 Blizzard announced that the traits system had been revamped and turned back into a passive skills system.

See the various class skills pages for more details.

• Barbarian skills
• Demon Hunter skills
• Monk skills
• Witch Doctor skills
• Wizard skills

Description

Passive skills are not used directly for attacks, and tend to provide bonuses to numerous other skills, or add percentages to damage, to hit, defense, resistances, and other useful stats. Some effects also comes from passive skills, such as activating a bonus under special circumstances, such as a critical hit, or being hit.

Passive skills are often as or more important than some active skills, but usually receive less attention since they are not flashy or obvious in their effects. An example is making the possibility

Passive skills seldom possess synergistic properties. Passive skills are not signature skills.

Passive Skills Master List

Below find an alphabetical listing of all known passive skills. There were 64 of these seen in July 2011 when the new skill tree system was revealed, and many of them were shared between classes. The number of passive skills increased during further development, and all passive skills are now unique to each class, with none shared between classes.

Skill	Unlocked	Description

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Blood Spatter

(Level 29)

Whenever an enemy dies within 8 yards, regain 1% of your maximum Life and Mana and the cooldown on all of your abilities is reduced by 1 second. This range is extended by items that increase your gold and pickup radius.

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Death Trance

(Level 28)

Reduce damage by 60% whenever you are below 25% of your maximum Life.

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<skill subcat="Shouts" class="Barbarian">Inspiring Presence</skill>

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<skill class="DemonHunter">Tactical Advantage</skill>

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<skill class="DemonHunter">Thrill of the Hunt</skill>

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Vermin

(Level 10)

Your Plague of Toads, Corpse Spiders, Locust Swarm and Firebats abilities do 20% more damage.

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Development

At BlizzCon 2008, there were far more passive than active skills in the three character trees, bit it changed in May 2009 and was shown with more detail at BlizzCon 2009.

• Read more about skill development.

Over time the number of passive skills were reduced, and as of Blizzcon 2009 there were about 35 skills for the Wizard, Witch Doctor, and Barbarian, with around a dozen of those passive.

The first big change came in 2010, when the skill trees were completely overhauled, more active skills were introduced, and all of the passive skills were removed. Removed from the skill trees, not from the game, they were turned into the traits system.

The second big change came in July 2011, when passive skills were re-introduced into the game and the traits were removed.

Over the course of development, many passives that were introduced to the game have been later removed.

• See the list of removed passives.

References

• BlizzCon 2008
• Skill Tree Overhaul
• No more passive skills?
• Kastigar's Really Big Barb thread -- IncGamers 8th Sep 2011
• HardRock's Monk Passive Skills -- IncGamers 6th Sep 2011
• HardRock's Wizard Passive Skills -- IncGamers 6th Sep 2011
• HardRock's Demon Hunter Passive Skills -- IncGamers 6th Sep 2011
• HardRock's Witch Doctor Passive Skills -- IncGamers 6th Sep 2011

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