Battle Mage

[Zeek]

We know we're probably going to have some sort of magic user but let's try to put a spin on it. What if they focus the magic on melee style fighting instead of standing back and casting spells. What sort of skills would work for a character class like that?

I'm going to start off with some of my ideas looking at the elements we had in D2 but I don't think we need to confine ourselves to just ideas based on that really.

Ice:
Ice nova: pretty much exactly as it was from D2

Shiver armor: pretty much exactly as it was from D2

Icicle armor: forms a layer of ice over the character with icicles sticking out. Has the effect of taking a certain absorbing a certain amount of damage that goes up with skill level and a thorns like attribute from the spikes of ice

Freeze attack: melee attack with added cold damage that freezes monsters for a set amount of time. cold damage and freeze time increase with level.

Ice trap: battle mage smashes their fist into the ground and ice forms up around them trapping the feet of anyone in it's radius holding them in place for a set amount of time based on skill level

Cold imbue: adds cold damage to weapon, increases attack rating and chills enemies. Increased damage and attack rating with level

Cold mastery: same as D2

Fire:
Fire nova: battle mage pounds the ground and fire shoots up around them causing area fire damage to enemies within it's radius

Enchant: same as D2

Fire armor: causes fire damage to enemies who melee attack the battle mage as well as increasing the fire and cold resists.

Flame attack: Attack adds fire damage as well as lights enemy on fire causing damage over time similar to open wounds.

Ring of Fire: sort of a death match spell. Creates a ring of fire around the mage and any enemies inside the radius. The fire ring would cause insane amounts of damage to anyone trying to cross through it (including the battle mage). This would keep other enemies at bay while trapping anyone inside into a fight to the death with no escape. Enemy AI would have to be smart enough to understand this spell and keep them from running right into the flames. Could be used offensively to isolate an enemy and fight to the death or defensively to keep enemies at bay while you take time to heal.

Fire mastery: same as D2

Lightning:
Nova: same as D2

Static field: change it up and make this sort of a buff to the next lightning attack. Just like building up some static electricity and then when you hit them with the next attack it causes a spark of damage.

Lightning armor: maybe make this one different from the others by making it about lightning quick speed or something. Adds to FAR, FRW and a chance to dodge attacks.

Lightning imbue: add lightning damage and some AR to your attacks.

Shock attack: adds lightning damage to attack as well as stuns enemy for some length of time. Damage and length increase with skill level.

Lightning strike: Sort of a zeal type attack with lightning damage. Again playing on the lightning quick theme this attack could be used to attack multiple close opponents or just attack one opponent in rapid succession.

Lightning Mastery: same as D2


Anyone else have any other melee style spells they can think of to add to the class?

As far as all the armors and enchants go, I'd imagine you could only have one element at a time. Though I could see allowing as many as you want to create a sort of spectral hit type of situation. Of course investing in all three trees would mean your spells wouldn't be as powerful as if you specialized.

[konfeta]

To be honest, if we are to have a spellsword type character, I would much rather have it be something outside the elementalist genre. Mostly because I want a pure spellcaster to comeback, and would prefer it to be D2 Sorc styled, and there is no need to overlap styles for 2 different characters.

[raveharu]

Most of the skills are recycled from the old Diablo series.

I think Blizzard can do way better than those.

[sicilian]

I think this would be a nice spin on the Paladin moreso than the Sorc. A warrior who can enchant weapons and armor. They would need something else though, otherwise it would be a pretty dry class.

[Zeek]

Most of the skills are recycled from the old Diablo series.

I think Blizzard can do way better than those.
Of course they can. I made that stuff up in like a half hour. But I'm looking for you guys to come up with some stuff too. They have teams of people at blizzard. Start adding more skills.

I think this would be a nice spin on the Paladin moreso than the Sorc. A warrior who can enchant weapons and armor. They would need something else though, otherwise it would be a pretty dry class.
I could see something like that too. I'm just betting that we're going to see a class "return" but that it will have evolved into something else for D3. They have done plenty of that with SC2 where a unit type returns but now it has changed somewhat.

[zarfen]

Nice character idea (although I've always felt that hybrid classes can't get enough out of either aspects of their mix) but I think there shuldn't be that many "same as in d2" skills ;)

[pantherus]

I love the "Ring of Fire" idea - that sounds awesome :) Now if you can just get it to, when you cast it, start playing that gladiatorial music - dun dun daa daa daa daa da dun dun daaa!!!!

OR - you can inflict the enemies with "Ring of Fire" by giving them a REALLY hot curry the night before! :)

Seriously though, cool idea - Sacred managed the Battlemage well, so can D3.

[Ozz]

Personally, I think/hope that they will go for quite a "traditional" magic user class - probably a revamp of the sorceress from D2. Loads of folk like playing pure caster characters, (I always did in D2, Titan Quest, Sacred), and the WD character seems quite different - a bit more like the necro or druid from D2.........as long as I get a wizard or a mage or something who gets lightning or other flashy spell effects I'll be happy enough!! (I know: I'm a traditionalist!)

[Zeek]

Thought of another interesting skill we could give a battle mage.

I don't know if anyone ever played the old X-men arcade game where you could have 4 players cooperatively bashing some sentinels to death, but if you did and you remember night crawler's super attack he sorta teleported all over the screen in a sort of blue blurry line.

I'm thinking a battle mage could have a lightning skill that uses teleport in the same sort of way.

*insert cool name here*: battle mage selects an enemy anywhere on the screen and concentrates for a couples seconds then teleports to the enemy's location. Surrounded in a ball of arcing lightning the battle mages bounces from one nearby enemy to another. The spell would increase it's lightning damage per level and the number of attacks performed per cast would increase.

This could be a cool spell for taking down archers and other ranged enemies. It would obviously work best against a group of them.

[Apocalypse]

speaking of magic users, how do you guys feel about DoT spells in a game world like diablo?

[Reddimus]

speaking of magic users, how do you guys feel about DoT spells in a game world like diablo?

Don't care much for single target DoTs in Diablo since it's meant to be fast paced, however, AoE DoTs might have a place.

[Apocalypse]

i know the necro had dot's in d2 and i personally would noty mind seeing good aoe dots like you said, they would go well with minions imo. however the problem becomes like you said again, its supposed to be fast pased, who would pick a dot when they can throw 1 fireball and instantly do same damage

[Zeek]

speaking of magic users, how do you guys feel about DoT spells in a game world like diablo?
What's DoT stand for?

[Reddimus]

Damage over time.

[Zeek]

I'd be pretty surprised if they didn't come back. Poison damage and open wounds were good from a strategic standpoint. Sometimes you'd want to retreat from a boss who was tearing you a new one, but you didn't want them healing while you ran away.

Also I always wanted some poison skelly mages when I fought an uber with my fishymancer. As long as they're constantly poisoned they're going to die eventually.

[Hodl Pu]

Battle mages seem like the Iron Wolves (the act 3 mercs). I Actually wouldn't mind being one of them as a character :)

[5zigen]

I'd be pretty surprised if they didn't come back. Poison damage and open wounds were good from a strategic standpoint. Sometimes you'd want to retreat from a boss who was tearing you a new one, but you didn't want them healing while you ran away.

Also I always wanted some poison skelly mages when I fought an uber with my fishymancer. As long as they're constantly poisoned they're going to die eventually.

They should have 3 DOT types, Bleeding, Burning and Poison IMO.

[pantherus]

They should have 3 DOT types, Bleeding, Burning and Poison IMO.

Add "Boredom" to that list - it's the weapon Hammerdins have been using all this time...