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Diablo 2 Act 1 vs Diablo 3 Beta Character Customization.
I played through Diablo 2 act one and the Diablo 3 Beta back to back, Diablo 2 first as an Amazon then Diablo 3 after as a Demon Hunter.
Character Customization:
At level 10 as an amazon in Diablo 2 you have access to: 3 spear and javelin skills, 3 passive and magic skills and 4 archery skills for a total of ten. As a level ten demon hunter in diablo II you have access to seven active skills (four in use at any given time) and a choice between two passive skills.
As far as low level Diablo 2 Amazon builds go you can build a spear/javelin Amazon or a bow/crossbow amazon or stick points in utility and be mediocre with either. There is barely any character customization at such a low level and no access to cool utility skills, everything except inner sight is just modifying your basic attacks to do more/different types of damage. Fire arrow, Magic Arrow, Power Strike, Jab, Poison Javelin, Critical Strike, Dodge and Cold Arrow are exactly like they sound. Pick the type of damage you want and stick points in it. Inner sight makes the screen brighter and increases your party’s damage to monsters. It sucks.
Stats are gained every level and can be stuck in Vitality, Strength, Dexterity or Energy. Vitality is viable if you want to get into hell mode, the rest are viable if you want to gimp yourself for the fun of it.
In Diablo 3 a level ten Demon hunter has access to Hungering Arrow which hits a target then bounces off terrain and hits a second nearby enemy, Entangling Shot which causes damage to one enemy and slows up to four nearby enemies, Rapid Fire which immobilizes you and sends out a stream of arrows as long as you hold the button down rapidly draining hatred, Impale which knocks back and stuns a single target but costs a lot of hatred, Caltrops which throws down a trap that slows enemies that walk over it and costs very little discipline, Smokescreen which costs a lot of discipline but puts you in stealth for a few seconds, Vault which allows you to move rapidly across the room but costs a decent amount of discipline and a choice between a passive ability that causes a your target to be snared every ten seconds or a passive ability that increases movement speed after using vault or smokescreen.
In Diablo 3 by level ten my Demon hunter had a couple different ways to build with definite pros and cons to each. The most unsubtle way was simply Hungering Arrow and Rapid Fire for offensive power and the most straight forward defensive abilities Caltrops and Vault, with the Thrill of the Hunt passive to keep enemies off me. This worked well though I could easily see it being very hard to use this full offense style on a harder difficulty and I had some minor trouble getting at mages and archers hiding behind hordes of minions.
I had more fun with an assassin type build utilizing Entangling shot, Impale, Smokescreen and Vault, with the tactical advantage passive ability. These allowed me to stealth then vault past lesser enemies, quickly kill the mages and archers at the back, then dash back to safety and take out enemies carefully with entangeling shot.
There are already a few variations to be found on those two themes and I can easily see a lot of interesting options by the time you have three skills in each slot. Rune choices are very limited at this level, but just looking at the higher ranks now I understand how the skills function I can see some definite pros and cons to all options.
The Verdict:
Surprise! Neither game has much customization at a low level. But if you look at the abilities you unlock at a later level both games obviously let you make a lot of choices as far as customization goes. If you think the Diablo 2 skill trees offer only the illusion of choice your nuts, there are all kinds of choices to make …unless you wanted to be viable in hell mode or something. But seriously it’s easy to make a character that is very different from most characters of that class.
If you think that Diablo 3 offers less customization because everyone has access to the same skills at the same level your nuts. Everyone has acess to the same skill trees and same number of skill points at the same level in diablo 2. The differences come from where you spend your points.
The only major difference is how the skills are unlocked. In Diablo 2 you started out identical and quickly grew appart (unless you were following a build because you wanted to be viable or somthing.) In Diablo 3 You stay identical for longer, but have more customization options at max level. By level 20 you could easily have two demon hunters with no skills or runes in common, tailored to two completely different play styles. Just like in Diablo 2 you could have two completely different Amazons by level fifteen.
Dem hibbies! Dey be wrong!
Comments
I agree with this.
I also think, and anyone can call me nuts if they want
, in D3 you can decide for a given period of time, you can be the offensive powerhouse, or more stealthy, or something in between, without re-spec.
I see a similar thing with the Witch Doctor. The primaries/secondaries are different enough to be looked at as separate "builds" in that you can go as a single target killer (peeshooter) or more of an AoE (Spider Jar thingy).
Correct and I agree. Good post.
The fear of blood tends to create fear for the flesh.
Good write up. Yeah I mean if you read Bashioks stuff over there you can see exactly what they are going for and it makes sense. Instead of D2 with 8-10 maybe optimal/best builds it really did lack customization. All the customization did was give you ample ways to f up your character. In Diablo 3 by the end you have billions of build possibilities and their goal is to make them all viable, and since it is always online they can continue to balance and achieve this goal. This would make for so much more customization and options than any game of its kind IMO.
Yeah I especially scratch my head at the people that lament the loss of stat points. There was one build that used energy I think, everything else was take as little Dex and Str as possible and max Vit. Of course you COULD build a Str/Energy Sorceress and take it into Hell mode, and you COULD beat it if you kept hammering at it long enough or got carried by a hammeradin.
Dem hibbies! Dey be wrong!
The one and only drawback I saw in D3 was that you could not be a DH with a 2 hand like you can in D2. Of course a tank-a-zon in HC got serious problems past NM.
In a way this is good because you can’t totally screw up your character.
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Well I mean most builds you had every piece of gear and every charm planned out from level one, you knew exactly how much str and dex you needed and could take those first to make normal go faster but from then on it was all Vit all the time and hope the gear and materials you needed for that build dropped sooner rather than later.
Dem hibbies! Dey be wrong!