The Naked Truth

A phrase based off of a fable in which Truth and Falsehood go swimming. Falsehood gets out of the water first and puts on Truth's cloths. Truth, not wanting to put on Falsehood's clothes, stayed naked. A fable that fits quite well when talking about the Diablo 3 beta, and how not wearing anything might just give us a hint of what later difficulties might feel like. For now the truth is, the Diablo 3 beta is not hard, even when you play a "clean run." ( A clean run is the first run through the game without any help via gear or other players.) Early on the game can be challenging, if and only if, you encounter a particular group of rare/ champion pack. But those times are fleeting. In search for a real challenge a lot of players have handicapped themselves. One such handicap is called a "naked run." Although a naked run in real life can be an exhilarating (for some), it may land you in trouble. A naked run in the Diablo 3 beta has the same excitement with less legal ramification to worry about. So what does a naked run play like? Well, It plays like a completely different game.

A luxury you don't own.

First lets talk about damage output. With gear you just melt enemies you encounter. This is exacerbated if you hand gear down from one character to another. It also worsened with the Artisans. (Your artisan's level carries over from character to character. So unless you forgo using the crafting your going to be ahead of the curve.) Midway through a normal beta run it takes about 1-2 hits to take out trash mobs. But, In a naked run, you no longer feel like you are stomping on ants. Without gear it takes at lest four hits. Some times you feel like you're hitting a bear with a baseball bat. Big monsters that would go down in three to four hits take nearly twenty. It can be a harrowing experience.

Needed two ways.

As you are progressing in a naked run you will find yourself using health potions, as health globes don't drop after every kill. In some cases they don't drop at all. All the purple sub bosses outside of The Skeleton King don't drop health globes. Their fights are more games of hit and run. I find it odd that they don't drop any health. Even rare / champion packs drop health globes at key intervals. When you have gear health disappears as fast as ice cubes melt in a empty cup. You may only loss a small portion of your health from the biggest hits. Now pour hot coffee in that same cup, and that's what its like with no gear. (A Barb at ninth lvl has about 180 health no gear, with gear you can have more then 400 with out trying very hard.) You can loss about a fourth of your life from a big hit. Making health pots and their timer something to take into consideration before jumping into a deadly pack of monsters.

Rivers do run dry.

Another thing to take into account is your resources. As we talked about on the podcast last week. Resource management isn't an issue when you're playing the beta normally. Their are times where you can run out of resource but that's because you spammed a skill. Without the powerful weapons you have to use your stronger skills to deal more damage. Each class plays differently as the dev team said they would. The Barb wants to go from combat to combat as fast as possible to keep enough rage. If they don't move quickly they won't be able to use their rage spenders, whether it be for damage dealing or reduction. The Wizard on the other hand will not have that urgency. They will take their time to allow their Arcane Power to regenerate.

Not just for show.

That leads us to skills. In a normal run it really doesn't matter what skills you take. Some skills are completely ignored because they don't do damage. Not so in a naked run. You need those defensive skills to mitigate the damage or escape from a tight spot. The skills had meaning, finally. Skills like Threatening Shout, and Vault became life savers. (On a side note, Threatening Shout needs to be nerfed. 50% is just too much, don't know how they would balance it late game with the way it is) Combat evolved past pew pew. Its immersive and keeps you on your toes. This can lead to some tense moments when your fighting specific groups.

Beware of Monster.

Early on the worst thing to come across is a rare/ champion pack of scavengers. They have been the death of a few of my naked heroes, especially if they have the frozen enhancement. Its a terrible felling to see them run at you. You know your not getting away. The best thing you can do is stay alive for as long as you can. Another group that can lead to problems are the packs of Unburied. They have tons of health and hit hard. If you get cornered or surrounded by other monsters you might just find yourself dieing. The last time I fought a pack I was playing a Monk and had Crippling wave, Mantra of Evasion, and Cyclone Strike. A good group of skills for taking out large packs but not so good at taking out big hit point monsters. I spent 4 minutes fighting them using 2 chandeliers a Grotesques bomb and spamming MoE every three seconds, as well as, a health pot every minute.

A True Challenge.

The most challenging part of the game (for me) was one room that had a trapped chest. (As seen in the original demo vid back in 2008.) I knew what I was getting into but wanted to see if I could beat it, hell, I was looking for a challenge and I wasn't about to shy away just cause I knew it was going to be hard. Like a turtle's head the chest retreated and up came the four pillars (called gate keepers) that spawned skeletons, archers and shieldbearers. I tried to take down a gate keeper as fast as I could but the archers turned my Barb into a pin cushion. For the next few minutes I tried to get back into the room but I couldn't kill them fast enough to make headway. I also had to keep retreating due to the archers. I even went back to town and tried different skills to see if that would help. It did a little but not enough to turn back the tide of bones that I collided with each time I pushed into the door way. I changed my attack (and skills) and I no longer cared about dieing, I knew the only way I was going to beat this trap was to just focus on the gate keepers. I jumped in with Leap Attack and started to wail away on the pillar with Hammer of the Ancients. Using Ground Stomp to stun the mass of skeletons that were near the pillar. I destroyed it at the cost of my life, but I came back and did it again till the second one was gone. I felt good that I was making headway. Unfortunately I went from happiness to sadness for when I jumped on to the third gate keeper I agroed a rare teleporting bat. Him and his buddies blinked into the room and slowed my progression. After all said and done, it took me near ten minutes to beat it. It was by far the best feeling I have had while playing the beta. I had found something truly hard and I beat it.

A taste of things to come.

Playing the game with no gear (and no companion) in the beta could be a close comparison to the higher difficulties. For those that all think its too easy, I suggest you give it a try. For me, I might just play through normal naked and slowly add gear as I need it. This will keep the game entertaining through the "accessible" part.

The Eliminator

The Barbarian

A brawler and a mauler. What is there to say about the Barb that hasn't been said... A lot when it comes to PvP. When it came to the top 3 PvP characters at blizzcon 2011 the Barb was in it. That list for the top 3 was extremely tight between the Wizard, Witch Doctor, and the Barbarian. I truly enjoyed playing the Barb.

When you were in Wrath of the Berserker form other players feared you. When you used Ignore Pain most didn't want to have anything to do with you. When ever you Leap Attacked or used Ancient Spear, their sphincter clenched. And, when ever you used Hammer of the Ancients they died. That leaves Frenzy.

Frenzy with Crimson Runestone "Maniac"

We have seen Frenzy quite a bit from the Beta, but that was against mobs of easy to squash monsters in large groups. When I used it in PvP I could never get more then a few stacks. This was due to the manner of PvP, you don't just stand in one spot and have targets run at you waiting to be beat over the head by your weapon. A slow weapon doesn't seem to work very well with Frenzy. Each hit from Frenzy dealt around 400 for a normal hit and around 800 for a crit.

Lets face it Frenzy is only there to build Fury. The bad thing is it didn't do it very well. If they just wanted to have a Fury builder Bash with Golden runestone would have been better. If they picked Frenzy for damage then they should have given him two weapons so that he could build it up fast. With a one handed weapon Bash would have worked as well.

Hammer of the Ancients with Crimson Runestone "Smash"

This was the Barbarian attack most died to. The Barbarian could hit targets for 1k (with out a crit). With a crit the barb could land the biggest hit in the Blizzcon build. Six thousand points of damage would turn any healthy player screen a bright red hue. Any character with just 1/3rd of their health missing would find themselves waiting 2 seconds to respawn after a big crit.

I found myself spamming HotA till I was out of Fury. Since Fury was easy to come by in PvP with the amount of damage being thrown around (helped along by the passives) I never went to long before I could use HotA again. Hammer of the Ancients synergized very nicely with Wrath of the Berserker. WotB gives a damage increase to the barb's Critical Hits, and HotA gives a increased chance to get a critical hit. My tactic was usually to Leap Attack, then Hammer them. If Leap attack was on cooldown then, I would use Ancient Spear then Hammer them.

Ancient Spear with Indigo Runestone "Grappling Hooks"

As OP this runestone and skill combo sounds it had its flaws. Some Classes could easily get out of its way. (namely the DH and Monk) Most of the time you would only pull in one character. That was because, most players didn't stand close to each other. The arena had knee high walls that gave your character line of site but when you went to use Ancient Spear to pull them to you on the other side the wall would protect the enemy.

Where Ancient Spear was useful was when enemies were low on health and where trying to escape. I would pull them back with the Spear then HotA them till they died. As with most crowed control skills any kind of damage is just an added bonus. It wasn't much damage but any little bit can be a killing blow. I never tried useing the Spear on a melee ranged target, but from the vids I have seen it looks like a melee range character will be hit with all the spears. What I couldn't tell from the vids was if the enemy in melee took damage as if hit by all of the spears.

Ten seconds seemed like a good cooldown time. It never took to long for it to come back and, when playing against a barb you didn't feel like they always were using it. If there was no cooldown on this skill it would have had to be a Fury spender. Out of all the movement/CC skills the Barb has, this one would be the only one (I feel) that could be a Fury spender. It wouldn't change the overall feeling of the barb, something that making Leap Attack with no cooldown would do.

Leap Attack with Alabaster Runestone "Death from Above"

Lets just get one thing clear, Leap attack isn't this awesome damage dealing skill. If that's what your looking for in a movement skill you have come to the wrong place. There is no rune that turns it into a true damage dealing skill. As soon as you come to grips with that you will appreciate what Leap Attack can do for you. Go look at Furious Charge if you want damage in a movement skill.

Where Ancient Spear was great for bring weak targets back to be finished off, Leap Attack was awesome for initiating combat. The Alabaster rune would give you a chance to stun the enemies for a few seconds. As they were stunned I would use HotA as many times as I could before they either died or I ran out of Fury. If by chance more then one target was standing right on top of each other you could get two kills in this manner.

Leap Attack isn't a very quick skill, and sometimes you would find yourself using it only to have your target move out of range before you got there. I found it more useful to wait till my target was in combat with one of my team mates before using it. Most people would get tunnel vision and not see you coming. This would give you all the time you needed to Leap Attack right on top of them and with your team mate, make quick work of them. Another place it was useful was around those knee high walls. Some range classes would feel safe behind them, but when the Barb jumped to them they were far from safe.

Wrath of the Berserker with Golden Runestone "Thrive on Chaos"

Someone is a big fan of the Japanese Anime series Dragon Ball Z, cause they made the Wrath of the Berserker form look a lot like a Super Saiyan. (their 3rd form to be specific) When you used Wrath of the Berserker you would grow lose all your armor graphics and have long spiky hair. Like with the Archon form of the Wizard, most would run when they saw a Barb in WotB form. As we all know, the transformation was more then just cosmetic.

While in WotB your attack speed and movement speed noticeably increased. Also, your Dodge change increased but it wasn't as noticeable as the speed bonuses. The last bonus was a +10% "Critical Hit", now I believe that bonus was to your Critical hit damage not your chance to get crits. I say this cause, when you did get a crit in WotB form you seemed to do more damage. As talked about on the Podcast, and as I talked about up top, when you got a crit with Hammer of the Ancients in WotB form you could get massive crits. These alone made the skill useful.

Thrive on Chaos was very noticeable during the game, I was able to say in WotB form for a min or so each time. All you had to do was use your Leap Attack and Ancient Spear as soon as they were off cooldown, and throw in a Frenzy attack here and there to keep the form up. The only time it would go way was when there were no one left to kill or everyone had run far away.

Ignore Pain with Golden Runestone "Bravado"

I didn't understand why they picked "Bravdo" for this build. In truth, I didn't even notice the knock back from the rune. (they might want to make it a little more powerful) I would have gone with any other rune besides Golden. "Iron Hide" or "Mob Rule" would have been much better. I am sure most would agree. Just cause the rune didn't have much impact doesn't mean the skill itself didn't.

This was the most powerful survival skill in PvP. (The Monk's Serenity was a close second) For 5 sec you took 65% less damage. You could stand still for those 5 seconds and let a DH unload with everything she had and you would have only lost maybe 1k hit points. Ignore Pain was even more powerful when you were below 20% health. When you where the passive skill Relentless would kick in. With both going you would take so little damage, smart players would just try to attack another target till Ignore Pain was gone.

Passive Skills

Superstition : Another damage reducing skill, that not only helped keep you alive but also help generate Fury, This was the reason most DH hated Barbs, cause not only did their attacks do less damage but after a second or two of being hit by Rapid Fire the Barbs Fury was full.

Relentless : Not just more survivability. This passive gave the barb unlimited Fury when low on health. One could spam Hammer of Ancients till they were either dead or their enemies where crushed.

Bloodthirst : When you got a big crit you would really see this come into play. It wasn't OP but it was a nice bonus to your health.

Sum it up

I truly enjoyed playing as the Barbarian. He felt powerful, his skills worked well together. I was only disappointed in Frenzy and the rune on Ignore Pain's rune. It would also be nice if Leap Attack did a little more damage. For me the Barb was a close second as far as the class I had the most fun with.

The Wizard

In the Blizzcon build the Wizard really lived up to her theme. She was the glass cannon. She dished out the most damage but could also die the fastest. The wizard was my favorite class, mostly because it was the class that gave you the most skills to play with, thanks in part to Archon. Each skill had its use, I never questioned any of their skill picks, at least I didn't after I read what all the skills with there rune effects did.

There was a theme to the build and even though Arcane Torrent had its problems it was the key skill to melt another player down. Teleport comes in third (behind Smoke Screen) as far as escape skills go. Diamond Skin saved my bacon more the a few times, as did, Frost Nova. And, Magic Missile could do some nice damage after a target was disrupted. Even the Passives felt like good picks, with maybe the exception of prodigy.

Diamond Skin with Obsidian Runestone "Crystal Shell"

At first I didn't think 5 seconds was going to be long enough to make this skill useful, I also thought that the amount it absorbed was a ridiculously high number, boy was I wrong. When a Barb could deal out 6k with a crit the Diamond Skin would only last about 2 seconds. A lot of times 2 seconds is all you need to blasted down someone or get the hell out of there with Teleport. The 5 second duration made you have to think when to and when not to use it. Times when I saw a barb already in WotB form and he was leaping at me I wouldn't hesitate to use it.

25sec cooldown felt like a reasonable amount of time. If they had the passive "Evocation" (reduces all cooldowns by 20%) it would have been nice, but not a game changer. On the aesthetics side, the spell looks cool and at times it could be used as a deterrent. Some players would turn around and attack another target if they saw a Wizard with Diamond Skin on. It was a great skill and gave the Wizard the survivability she needed.

Frost Nova with Crimson Runestone "Bone Chill"

Frost Nova was most effective on Barbs and other Wizards, because they didn't have a way to break the freeze. Most players didn't know about the skills that broke the freeze effect so it never felt like it was a waste to use. Not only was Frost Nova a good crowed control skill but with Bone Chill it more then doubled your damage out put on the frozen targets for the duration of the Freeze/chill effect. So it gave the skill both an offensive and defensive aspect.

With the skills duel function I found myself using it as soon as the cooldown was up, in a ton of different application. I would use Frost Nova on a single target then use Arcane Torrent then just melt them with a few Magic Missiles. Other times If I saw someone running to a health globe I could Teleport, Frost Nova, and steal the health globe before they got out of the Freeze effect. Frost Nova synergized very well with other skills. The damage Frost Nova did when activated ranged from 75 to the high 200s with a crit. That damage was just the icing on the cake really. I can see this being a very common skill when the full game comes out.

Teleport with Alabaster Runestone "Wormhole"

We all know what Teleport does, but a few months ago there was a large debate on what the runestone Wormhole did. Some thought it changed the skill so that as long as kept casting it within a time frame you would never have to worry about the skill going to cooldown. Others felt that it just gave you a small window of time to cast it as many times as you wanted before the cooldown started. Well the latter were right. After casting the spell you have 2 seconds to cast Teleport as many times as you want/can. From my experiences, that was about 4 times. Four times was more then enough to get you to the other side of the arena and then some.

Hands down, Teleport is still king of the movement skills. It was never more evident during the match when you wanted to get away from a group of opponents. You could Teleport in an L shape and be guaranteed that you were safe. Teleport wasn't just for running away. It was also great to catch up to people so you could finish them off.

One thing I did a few times was to Teleport to a fleeing player and freeze them with Frost nova Teleport again (to get some distance in case things went south) and finish them with a few Magic Missiles. Teleport could also help line you up to get more then one player when you went into Archon form. So, although it wasn't as powerful as some hoped, (with the Alabaster runestone) It still made the skill awesome. (besides if it was the other way it would have been OP)

Magic Missile with Crimson Runestone "Charged Blast"

We have seen it a million times in the beta, but we have never seen it with the Crimson Runestone. To tell you the truth I don't think you would even know it had a rune in it. The spell effects look almost exactly the same. Crimson seems a little bigger and a little brighter, but that's it. The rune doesn't change the color to red or anything that would make it really stand out from the unruned skill. The only way you would know is when you get hit and see your health disappear a lot faster then normal. Something that this build is really good at.

Now, although Magic Missile does good damage when it became the face melter was when you paired it up with Arcane Torrent. Arcane Torrent had the rune that put a debuff on a hit enemy that caused that player to suffer a 100%+ more damage from any Arcane source. On top of Arcane Torrent there was the damage bonus from Frost Nova. So, If you attacked someone that had been hit with both Frost Nova and Arcane Torrent your Magic Missile would land for over 450% more damage then a normal unruned Magic Missile.

A normal hit was around 500, a normal crit was about 1300. Big crits with everything going you could see 4-5k crits. It didn't take long for something to die at that rate. Smart players would just run, and most did but unfortunately for them the Wizard had Teleport. This build also had the passive skill "Prodigy" so every Magic Missile you cast gave you back 5 arcane power. This skill was prof that a level one skill could be useful even to a 60th lvl character.

Arcane Torrent with Crimson Runestone "Disruption"

The skill description doesn't really tell you how effective this skill is. It just tells you how much damage it does, and it reads nice, but its not all rainbows and unicorns. The Torrent throws Arcane bolts up in the air and then they fly towards the targeted enemy. In short, its not fast, but if your target isn't running you will hit them.

When you hit an enemy they where Disrupted. Being disrupted put debuff that lasted (with a 7th lvl rune) about 10 secs. When the debuff is active the target take more then 100% more damage from any Arcane source. As I talked about with Magic Missile, this defuff was a big proponent to its success. Where it helped MM it also helped Arcane Torrent's own damage.

Damage wise, it did about 350-750+ (the high number are crits) per hit and if the enemy doesn't move much you will get about 3 hits a sec. The skill can be intoxicating to use, and most of the time in a bad way. A lot of players would find themselves over using the skill trying to bring down opponents. When it would have been faster to just hit them a few times with it then to switch to MM. Arcane Torrent is a great looking skill and with the runestone it is a good damage buff, but it wasn't a very efficient skill. (The team might want to let this spell attack locations without line of site or give it a small amount of splash when it hits the ground to even out how slow it is.)

Archon with Crimson Runestone "Improved Archon"

I saved the best (also the longest) for last. When you use the Archon skill your character explodes with energy and begins to float above the ground. Its a very cool looking skill. When you activate the skill you lose the effects of Diamond Skin, (you may lose other buffs as well but I never noticed if they were gone) to my surprise during one game. I tried to use Diamond Skin when I was about half health. I thought it would be a good time to go Archon, so I could take some extra damage as I wretched some fools. Well, the only fool that was wretched was me.

When you do go Archon your armor and resistances are increased it didn't seem to help that much. There were two common reactions to a Wizard going Archon. Most groups that played as a team would gang up on the Wizard and smash her down fast. The other group that weren't working as a team would run. When they didn't nuke the Wizard or run, that's when they started dropping like flies.

The most popular skill was the Beam, it worked just like Disintegrate only it had a shorter range. I don't know if the skill does crits, because I can't remember ever seeing any when I used it. The beam did do a low of 900 to a high 1300 a second. That was without things being hit by Arcane Torrent or being Frozen by Frost Nova. If they had either debuff on them they died fast.

There were two other skills to use but to be honest they really didn't do nearly as much as the Beam. One skill looked like Wave of Force but it didn't seem to have any knock back nor did it have any slowing effects on enemies. It did do about around 900 damage. The Last skill was a melee ranged skill it seemed, I only used it once and don't remember what it did. (it obviously wasn't that good if I didn't remember it) Most of the times players didn't want to get anywhere near the Archon so those close range skills hardly ever got used.

It only took one encounter with an Archon to know you don't want to mess with a healthy one solo. One that was at about half health would go down rather fast from a WoTB Barb and a few Hammers. A Archon Wizard really felt like a game changer but they weren't unbeatable.

Passive Skills

Blur: This one was helpful against Monks and Barbs

Prodigy: I never was low on Arcane Power so I am not sure if this passive was ever needed, With all the cooldown skills I think I would have taken Evocation instead.

Temporal Flux: With everything (save for Frost Nova) doing Arcane damage this was a good passive to have. The slow wasn't great but it was better then some of the other classes movement impairing.

Sum it up

The Wizard was a lot of fun to play as. The build made sense, and worked better then most of the other classes. She did damage but wasn't totally out of control. She could be killed rather quickly if her skills were on cooldown. But, if she had Frost Nova or Teleport useable she could escape. There will be a lot of Wizards running around when the game comes out so beware.

Blizzcon 2011 Diablo 3 PvP breakdown

I am writing this to give every one that didn't go an idea of what the Diablo 3 PvP was like at this years Blizzcon. I will give an in depth look at the classes and some of the strat behind playing as them.

Let me just quickly start of by saying the Diablo 3 PvP was (for me) the best thing on the show floor, and by the end of day two a lot of attendees felt the same way. Most games consisted of four players versus four players. But, early in the day you could see 2v2 and 3v3 going on. Players were given a 5 min practice time and a 10 min match. If you wanted to know how to play the game well, you would spend most of your practice time reading the skills and the runestones attached to them. They laid out a blue print of how to play the class. That time spent looking at the skills was a tremendous help for me. After that I would most likely only have a few mins to try out the skills before the match started. When the match did start It was as if Gary Scott Thompson designed it. The action was pretty much non stop. Outside of the 2 seconds of re-spawn time the only other time I wasn't in the thick of things was when I was looking for a health globe.

Part 1

The Demon Hunter

The class that most thought was the weakest was the Demon Hunter. Although she did the least amount of damage she was extremely good a escaping danger. I didn't die a whole lot as the DH because I always tried to keep enough Discipline to Vault, Smoke screen, or evasive fire out of combat. This is where the DH shined. If you paid attention you would always be able to get out of trouble. Where the DH was weak was her damage output. I think that was mainly because the build itself could have been better. Some classes could get anywhere from 4-6k crits the DH was lucky to get a 1k hit. (this only happened when someone was hit with Frost nova) Lets go over the skills the DH has as well as the runestones that I remember.

Evasive Fire with Alabaster runestone "Tumble"

As the only Hatred Generator it was a skill I used a lot. This skill did about 200-400 on a normal hit and 500-750 for a crit (around 1k when someone was hit by frost nova). The damage wasn't terrible because there was no cooldown for the skill and hits were just about instant (unlike other characters projectile attacks) So you could pop off 7 hits in 2 seconds. If you average it out the skill could do about 1,575 a sec. I would use this skill to frustrate Monks and Barbs, because every time they got close the backflip portion of the skill would kick in. One or two backflips was all you needed to get way from a Barb because both of their distance closers had a 10 sec cooldowns. The Monk on the other hand was a test of how long they wanted to spend their time chancing me or until I had enough and used Smoke Screen to escape. A descent skill, though a little on the weak side as far as damage goes. If they had it do just a little more damage it would be an awesome skill. Would I wanted a different Hatred gen skill? Maybe Hungering Arrow would have been better, because you could have shoot it from behind cover and they would have still hit targets with the skills homing properties, also most of the runes for Hungering Arrow do more damage.

Rapid Fire with Obsidian Runestone "Fire Support"

This was the only Hatred spender of the build, and although the skill looked cool it really lacked the punch it needed to be an effective skill. Hits with this skill averaged anywhere from a measly 50 to 125 on normal hits and 100-200 crit. (like I said earlier a little more if a target was hit with Frost Nova) Although you would hit a target about 10 times a sec (I would say) 1/3 of the hits were blocked or dodged. So only doing 7 hits a sec at an average 700 damage a second was just not cutting it. The homing missiles that Fire Support gave you had very little added bonus. In fact the skill would have been much better off with the Alabaster or Indigo rune, for this build. The only time this skill came into it's own was when you used Shadow Power with it. Would I have picked another skill instead, maybe but if I did most of the skills would have had to be changed as well. This skill needs more Dps.

Caltrops with Indigo runestone "Hooked Spines"

I don't know what it was with this skill but it just didn't seem to slow targets down as much as it says it was. I guess it has to be the tiny 12 yard radius. The skill only slowed targets down for one to two strides. Comparing it to the WD "Grasp of the Dead" it was a joke. Although Grasp of the Dead's debuff was a lot less it's radius was twice as big and it did damage over time. This skill would have been more useful if it was runed with any other rune besides Golden. They need to either make the trap radius bigger or when an enemy crosses the trap gives them a debuff that stays for a few seconds.

Vault with Indigo runestone "Acrobatics"

This skill was great for getting way from danger. Two uses of this skill put you on the other side of the map, so as long as you didn't put yourself in a corner or run into one of the high walls you got away to try and find a health globe. When using this skill you could cross over enemy traps and not be slowed at all. If a Barb tried to use his Ancient Spear to pull you in you could just Vault and it wouldn't hit you. Vault could also be used to chase down enemies that were low on health, which I did do a few times. The skill was a little redundant with "Tumble" (Evasive Fire) but it still came in handy. If I was making this build I probably would have taken Vault and left out Evasive Fire.

Shadow Power with Alabaster runestone "Blood Moon"

This skill increased the damage output, and was also the only source of healing for the DH. Without this skill Rapid Fire would really not be worth it. The life gen from it wasn't as good as it could have been had she had bigger dps skills. I will say this, the skill looked fantastic and even though it's dps help was marginal it just was a fun skill to have going. Most other players would run as well thinking it was going to do as much as the Wizards Archon form. That was not the case. For this build "Blood Moon" was the only way to go. If you use this skill with Smoke Screen and shoot up a few targets with Evasive Fire you could heal yourself, deal damage and no one would know where it was coming from.

Smoke Screen (not a 100% sure but I believe it was) with Indigo Runestone "Lingering Fog"

One of these best escape skills in PvP. Not only did this skill break you out of any crowed control but you could as well attack someone for the duration of the skill and not become visible. The mistake most players made was when they used it they would also use Rapid Fire which gave away their position. If they used Evasive Fire you could fire with out anyone really knowing where you were shooting form. With no cooldown you could use the skill back to back for a massive amount of time to be invisible. This was the DH best skill of this build. If this build had Impale, Evasive Fire and this skill, the reactions to the class would have been much different.

Passive Skills

Unfortunately I don't remember the Passives so I can't talk about what impact they might have had on the build. That's what I get for playing the class first and only one time.

So to sum up, the DH PvP build at Blizzcon was high on survivability and movement and low on damage. I have to question most of this build though. Why so many discipline skills? Why not have one less and have one more Dps skill? Even if the runes were changed you would have had a better build. In the end the class just didn't do what you would want in a PvP build, that being damage of course. I see potential in the class and that's good. I can't wait to get my hands on the class and make some bad a** assassin that shoots from the shadows and everyone wonders where death is coming from.

My PvP build would look like this. Assassin

So I just got back from Memphis (was there for Memphis in may a BBQ competition) and didn't get to buy Blizzcon tickets not like i would have had a good shot at getting a ticket in the first place.  Anyways, the tickets went up for sale at 10am pst and were sold out within 30mins.  I just looked on ebay and their they are more then 50 auctions for the tickets. 

Blizzard really needs to change the way they sell the tickets.  Two max per credit card and you can only buy 2 tickets per hour.  I know this might mess with some families that go but it will hurt the scalpers more.  Right now its 5 tickets per transaction. First come first server.  So I can imagine scalpers having to computers running on different internet connections and have two acounts logged in with 2 CC ready. 

I know asked if it was so bad if i buy two tickets and sold one to pay for the trip but I wouldn't have really done that.

Well i guess thats enough of complaining.   I will try my best to get tickets the next time.  How many of you got tickets today? How many of you even care  lol

Would it really be so bad if I bought 2 tickets to Blizzcon 09 and sold one to pay for the trip? 

 There have been a lot of games but few of them have original music that I can still remember today. 

These tunes are so powerful in my memory that sometimes I even break out and hum them out load. 

I have decided to make a link to some Youtube ones that I can find.  If you want you can do the same.

Medal of Honor main theme
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ELFxB-tGhE

Diablo Tristram Village theme
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2evIg-aYw8
other version I like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0rvuaDPJgo

Mario
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEKDF_WbMlg

Final Fantasy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQwAxMiKHPo

Dragon Quest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__BiCY6tyZc

Legend of Zelda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOa4tXG4EQo
other version i like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MTWIjzjBSY

hope you injoy.

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I laught my ass off as i watched this.  Laught even more when I read the comments from the delusional fans.  I really feel bad for the ppl that think that this game is the best thing to ever happen to rpg's.  This game was the death of JRPG for me.  I have only played one JRPG after 7.

just incase i messed up the vid.  http://g4tv.com/xplay/videos/37041/Your_Childhood_Sucks_Final_Fantasy_VII.html