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