D4 Shared Skills

General Discussion
1

In D1 we had different classes but all shared spells thx to the books that allow us to learn magic. With D2 and D3 the classes also got their own skills, which is great but there isn’t anything that prevent different classes to learn skills that arn’t their own.

Shared Skills

Since they will add tomes for D4 the idea is to create a different type of skills, the shared ones. This skills could introduce variations to our classes: they would become hybrid classes (multi-class).

It would be done by creating a separate branch of skills that can be used by all classes but can only be learn with books (tomes), and can’t spend skill points on them.

Examples

For example, if want to play a Barb with a shield but the Barb doesn’t have shield skills (maybe), they can equip a shield skill from the shared skill tab. If you want to play a Sorceress with a 2h sword, one could use a mele skill from the shared ones.

Skills

They could use unused spells from D1 and class skills they don’t plan to use from the existent classes. And new ones ofc.

D1 spells: ´https://diablo.gamepedia.com/Spells_(Diablo_I)´

2 Likes
2

Don’t think tomes should be in the game, being able to max all skills will remove the uniqueness of a character, the decision making in building and mostly everything that makes this genre interesting imo, also gives more incentive to botting and duping (or should tomes be tradable pay 2 win from third party sites employing labour in lower wage/modern slavery countries or with legions of keys and botting programs).
Might actually be a feature single-handedly preventing me from buying the game, which would be the first diablo game not in my possession.

A shared skill tree wouldn’t be an issue imo, but not one with very unique class defining skills.
Things like masteries in a certain weapon, armour, shield, health regen, mana regen, bonus resistance, defense or similar things sure sounds fine.
But no shaping, raging, elemental attacks etc please, I don’t have issues with a Barbarian or Sorceress shaping into werebeasts (was lots of fun in D2 with Wolfhowl or Beast), but I would like to see those abilities on unique items and having to really build around it and would be endgame material, not 1 click away blurring the lines between classes.

4 Likes
3

I’m on the fence on this one - Duncan had sold me the idea of shared tree, but Regonox raised good points.

I think some form of a shared tree (Not similar skills, but specific shared one!) like passives, or abilities (Weapon profs. was a great idea!) would be awesome!

4

I think skill tomes are fine, but certainly not being able to max all skills.

But like, if each skill has 15 lvls * 6 skills = 90 points just to max your equipped skills. If you only got 40 skill points from lvling, it would be fine if you could get maybe 30 more through skill tomes. Not allowing you to max even your equipped skills. And certainly now allowing you to max all other skills.

Not much of a fan of shared skills - Not against them, just dont consider them particularly important. Though if Blizzard really wanted to build on the Angelic/Demonic/Ancestral system, I guess there could be 1-2 shared skills that you could unlock from each of those powers.

5

This would be a shared skill tree, it wouldn’t touch the main class ones. The books would be skill specific.

And can always make it in a way that is imposible to max them even with droped books. A simple example could be to have x amount of points and you can unlock them (be able to use it) when use the book.

We could discuss about the tomes for the main class skills but i don’t want to deviate from the thread.

The idea would be to have skills none of the classes have. I mention to bring back some unused skills of D1 and D2 bcs it is something players can recognize and use to personalize their class.

The masteries would be a nice thing, it could allow a class to be better with a weapon they wouldn’t use otherwise.

I am ok with elemental attacks as long as they arn’t similar to the ones we alredy have. And as for the shaping thing, they could give different transformations.

About the items, that could be an awesome thing to have. I think they could bring some interesting skills with the Mythic items and then support them with other legendary affixes. I think this could be a more interesting way to implement Mythic items than the current one.

If that was the case maybe the shared tree could give them additional skills that could support the transformation or that elemental magic.

In any case, the idea isn’t to throw away the class skills but to give an extra layer of modifications to builds to make them more unique.

That would be great.

I like the idea of cross-class skills but that isn’t the suggestion, the idea is to bring new skills for the shared tree.

6

Yes, I was referring to that - In addition to existing classes, a shared tree of new skills.

1 Like
7

If tomes can only be used on the shared skill tree, I wouldn’t mind, though I would still say tomes should not be skill specific just generic skill points and still have it capped.

I would still prefer a shared tree to draw from the normal skill points pool though. I think its better when you really have all your resources available and have to decide where to place each. Makes decisions more important.
But as I said, wouldn’t be opposed to tomes only usable on a shared tree.

Having elemental blasts on a Barbarian and Shapeshifting on a Paladin from the start, even if they look different than the other class-skills would start blurring the line.
In endgame with special items that allow this, it will create an unique feeling (atleast thats what it did in D2 in my experience) and even then you should keep it in check, but at the start and with simple point clicking no tnx.

The shared skill tree itself sounds great, but more in a way (not exactly like) the D2 Barbarian Masteries tab.
But including wands and rods and the like, maybe Magic Find and Gold Find.
No stamina, but thats because Stamina itself should not be in the game (atleast not in the way D2 had it), but Faster Movement Speed, Faster Attack Speed, Faster Cast Speed would all be good option I think.

1 Like
8

Another idea could be to add magic scrolls again (like in D1) that allow us to use the shared skills once. And with @ Shadout idea, maybe they could bring back items with charges for the skills.

Well, i like them more to be skill specific, not only bcs it was like that in D1 but also bcs you don’t know what you will find, and must work with that. You have the decision of use it (if the points are limited) or wait until you find something else.

Maybe this skills could be reset and need to use books again to unlock the points or something like that. Maybe can reset the skills individualy if this was the case.

It adds something like the search for legendary affixes but with skills that you can also level up.

But, in any case, i think the generic skill points could work too but i think it takes away from the charm of search for that specific book.

I like that too. The idea of keep them apart was more bcs don’t want to substract from the class specific skills, and from the feeling of a class in general.

Well, it depends on what it is, if it was to turn your weapon on fire and no class has that, i think it is very different than shoot a fireball.

I like this. I think both things could work together.

I didn’t think about the when, but you are right, the shared skill books could start to drop at cap level or something like that. It doesn’t need to be something from the begining.

Tbh i had the idea and post it. Don’t know the best way in which it could be implemented and i like to see other people’s idea about it.

I like the idea of bring back stamina but i agree that should be different.