Diablo 4 Active Skills

General Discussion
41

It’s a passive skill around you, it does nothing

it’s a passive skill around you that does nothing else. Slow Time is an active version of this skill.

It’s a matter of how many traps you can have active at a given time, paired with the amount of damage they do in the end. Since Lightning Sentry kills most anyway, it’s just a stud. If you go without Conviction the fire/physical element is a nice addition to handle lightning immunes.

Tormentor and Bartuc’s can be painful, but CS deals so much damage even if they have very high resists. Good thing is that they are only in Throne room and not in Chaos Sanctuary.

An active skill is a skill you use to either deal direct damage, control the battlefield or impose a direct effect.

Any skills that act while you move is passive in their nature, and as such can be replaced a passive effect. The Wizard is a perfect example of this. Slow Time is an active skill, however in Archon form the Slow Time is a passive effect.

Cloak of shadows blinds the targets, it lasts for quite a while and it’s a strong crowd control skill.
Passive skill: Monsters around you are blinded and take extra damage.

Slow missiles again acts in an area of effect, as a result you only cast it when it would be useful (archers, LE monsters, etc).
Passive skill: Projectiles within 25 yards move slower

Easy as that, you can keep going.

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  • Effect : Moving through the darkness, unseen by her foes, the enshrouded Assassin can steal past opponents or ambush her unsuspecting victims with devastating attacks.
  • Darkness covers the area, forcing all monsters to stop their attacks and casts unless they are in melee range. Also lowers monsters’ defense and increases your defense.
  • Cloak of Shadows causes the sky to become dark. If the sky suddenly becomes dark, possibly an Assassin is nearby using this skill. In addition to the darkness, enemy Defense is reduced. This is a handy skill that almost all Assassins will want to take advantage of.
  • This skill is extremely useful. When cast, many skills of some monsters are blocked: archers cannot fire (except champion and unique ones), Sand maggots cannot lay eggs, Unravelers cannot use their poison breath, Venom lords cannot use their Inferno attack etc. Most monsters stop moving when you cast Cloak of shadows until you get close to them. Once you attack them, they can use their skills again.
  • Monsters usually stop moving when Cloak of Shadows is cast, but they may move to the last location they see you after Cloak of Shadows.* Cloak Of Shadows’ “Blinding” will not work on: Unique, Champion Class, Super Unique Monsters and bosses. Defense adjustment will always work for you and monsters.

What do you mean? Is a curse an active skill? You have to stop and cast it on someone. Same with cloak or slow missiles. It’s not a passive just cause it doesn’t do a projectile of damage when you right click it. You right click it in an active battle while youre fighting. There is a cast animation and you stop while casting it. Is debufffing monsters with an active skill considered a passive skill?

Sure, you can keep going.

As for CS/LF, ya have fun with gloams and other lightning immunes. CS doesn’t do much and has no AOE to lightning immunes. Sure you can do this if you have infinity but not everyone on ladder has one because they’re expensive.

An aura or self buffing skill meanwhile IS passive since they are on all the time until they expend or you switch off them. These ARE set and forget.

43

Curses are troublesome area. Which is probably why D3 moved away from the way D2 did it. Curses are fine when you apply them in controlled areas and works as active skills. However when you cover then entire screen, then it might aswell be passive. Also the mechanics of curses in D2 is pretty much a damage increase on/off depending on attack. So I doubt they will return in D4 in more complicated form than what the D3 Necromancer shows.

It is, its an area effect you create around you sort of like a shield. There’s no reason for it to go on and off, thus it might aswell be passive. If it is an area you leave on the battle field that keeps interacting with the battle, then it’s active as you need to place these things in certain ways or at certain places.

There’s a cast animation on Holy Shield aswell. But again it’s merely a timed buff that could just have been a passive effect. If the duration was 0.5 seconds and you had to hit it at the exact right time to gain the effect, than it is an active skill.

Depends on how the debuff is applied. If you have to set up a trap and lure monsters in to it, then it is an active. If you just affect a monster with a debuff, its a passive that should be built in to an active skill. If it is a debuffs that happens when within a certain range it is also a passive.

Collect perfect gems, they will get you one pretty quickly. It’s not that hard to find 200 or so perfect gems.

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Fire Meteor Fireb Sorceress: Fireball, Meteor, Teleport, static field, enchant, mana shield, telekinesis, Frozen orb skilled because of decent damage and good fighting off immunes (thunderstorm, SWAPABLE DURING COMBAT ANY TIME: Frozen Armor, Shiver Armor, Chilling armor

8 skills, 2 different possible passive skills out of the skilltree (while 3 of these passives can be recast anytime during combat).

OPTIONAL POSSIBLE Extra skills that could be granted through items:
Wisp projector: Summon any of the 3 spirits of the druid
9 skills ( while these are obviously arguable 3, only one of the spirits can be present at time but they can be cast any time)

Call to arms (secondwary Weapon)
10 Battle Order
11 Battle Command
12 Battle Cry

Beast (weapon)
13 Summon Grizzly (charges)
14 Transform into werebear

The list can go on through itemisation, so are those still 6 skills used for a build or do you need more examples???
This can go on for any class in D2.

6 skills is dumbed down, get over it there is totally restricted customization of character building and dont claim otherwise, your arguments are totally bad saying 6 skills is enough.
Yes its enough for casuals like you.

3 Likes
45

I love passive skills when I have to set the passive to a hotkey and then actively switch to that skill and cast it every time when I want the benefit. Passives like casting curses just apply themselves so it’s very convenient. I mean, once my curse is lvl 20 the radius is huge so it’s passive since i just switch to the skill then right click it once; as opposed to the active skill curse with a smaller radius where I have to clicl a few times.

My other passive, frozen orb, that i bound to another hotkey is great too. It just sort of auto happens when I right click. Passives are the best. I just switch to the skill and use it on monsters when I want to, frozen orb is soooo passive. Obviously anyone that disagrees with me can’t comprehend Diablo because they aren’t as smart as me.

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Lol, so now you’re including skills from items that are also just buffs/debuffs?

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Why wouldn’t you count the skills from items. They are as much skills as everything else.

And it would be quite silly to consider anything that you actively choose to cast, depending on the situation, a passive skill.

2 Likes
48

I’m calling out the bottom part.

As you can see from above 6 isn’t enough for some classes from D2 (Necro being my prime example; however, my Druid and Paladin it would be enough) but if you up it to 10 it would probably be enough for 80% of builds, if not higher.

I just love though the insult of “casuals” in the Diablo community, it is great. There are always 1 or 2 games I am far from Casual in (Magic and probably D3 starting Friday now) but the idea that “them there CASUALS! are the ENEMY!” tone is ridiculous man.

Want to know who is to blame for the simplicity in D3? Blizzard’s perception. Again, look at ANY modern console controller:

  • 4 Primary buttons
  • 4 shoulder buttons
  • 4 D-Pad buttons
  • 2 Joystick buttons
  • 1 unused joystick that has 4 directional buttons in theory

The limitation when it comes to skill slots is on Blizzard not on the consoles. In addition the burden of not having more options is on Blizzard’s assumptions not on casuals.

I play Grim Dawn casually and have some characters which use A LOT of active skills (Pestilence Occ/Necro is probably most) and ones with very little (Scythe Necro/Nightblade. Probably no reason to bring up D2 into this from a ‘Casual burden’ standpoint as D2 is fully memorized by me from High School playing, heh

The issue, if you perceive it as one, with the limited skill slots isn’t on consoles or casuals but on the devs for assuming that people want to be handheld that much (Elective mode… really???)

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Yes becauso Summon Grizzly is a buff.
Teleport from Enigma is a debuff.
Corpse Explosion (Black runeword) is a passive with charges.
Whirlwind from Chaos Runeword is what again? AH YEAH A DEBUFF.
Summon Spirit Wolf Charges from Crescent Moon are definetely a passive, i mean these charges auto cast on proc hit wtf broken game.

The list goes on, mostly on Magic items and not relying purely on Runewords.

You keep making 0 sense i wont waste my time again on you giving you examples with big sarcasm of your senseless logic or lack of knowledge about D2.
So whats your biggest argument?
“OH ITS A BUFF/DEBUFF IT DOESNT COUNT COS FIRE AND FORGET IDC ABOUT DURATION OF THESE LUL THEY LAST FOREVER )))”
A skill is still a skill and if you dont have the cast speed to do so you cannot cast them if you are stuned by hit recovery.
These are my last words for you in this topic.

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First of all, yeah, Summon Grizzly does function as a buff.

And in the end, the truth that you keep running away from is that most D2 builds relied on spamming one skill for damage. Adding skills from items doesn’t change that.

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And that is what D4 needs to improve, create true active skills worthwhile to utilize, and combine, and interesting enough to evolve while making meaningful choices.

True. Move all passives to a tree, or, if they are timed buffs, to special passive bar with some 4 more buttons, one that you will use rarely. Active skills should be a priority. Different combos of active skills with unique effects should be an innovation that current arpgs never had.

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53

Rofl. I don’t know how you played D2 but I used 5-10 abilities regularly on almost all classes.

A spell does not have to be spammed in your damage rotation for it to be considered active and worth a slot. Situational spells and utility spells are key to adding flavor to a class. Your arguements make you sound like the wow devs that destroyed the game with their ability pruning. They simplified the classes/speccs by getting rid of those not so spammable abilities while also turning many of them into passives. It was the biggest fail in the history of wow.

For an ARPG, I think 10-12 slots is a good number to settle with. 6 is definitely too little, especially since I’m willing to wager they will add in passives like frost armor into that mix. I personally prefer to have far more abilities but then again there are only so many buttons on a controller.

3 Likes
54

Fire Ball, Meteor, Teleport, Static Fields and Frozen Orb are the only true active skills.
Enchant, Mana Shield, and Shiver Armor are passives.

So still only 5 active skills.

Stop refering to a 20+ years game with hugely outdated mechanics. How er build and play games have changed, and you would benefit yourself actually trying out games from within the last 2 or so years

55

Controllers are capable of handling far more than 6 abilities. Stop blaming stuff you don’t like in D3/4 on consoles.

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56

Doesn’t matter. it’s 8 abilities you genius. You would have to leave out 2 with Blizzards current model, which also will include passive spells on the bar.

And it also means it’s much more than the suggested 2 for most builds. In fact, I can’t think of a build that only used 2 abilities. And that build is on the low end, on necro you can easily have 8+ abilities you frequently use, more if you count items like CTA.

I know, which is why I suggested 10-12. More than that will be problematic on a controller though but not on a PC.

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2 usable and an aura for D2. All 6 for most builds in D3. I’m willing to bet 6 has to do with an easy 4 finger layout across the keyboard pluse left and right click combined with the average amount of skills used in D2.

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And this is a lie. FFXIV handles 16 direct abilities, with a ton more easily accessible.

You’re also distorting the argument. In D2 you weren’t constantly using multiple abilities, you were spamming one or two and the rest didn’t need to be constantly cast.

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There are a couple builds that only use 6 skills in D2, most use more. It doesn’t matter if it’s a passive skill, it’s still a skill. Why would a skill that you aren’t constantly spamming not count? You can pump the skill and make a build around it so I don’t think the argument that D2 “only” has 4-5 active skills per character is good.

First of all, most builds have at least 6 “active” skills. Next, passive skills, such as frozen armor, are unique bonuses to a class and they add depth to the game. Most D2 characters use between 5-12 skills.

2 usable and an aura for D2. All 6 for most builds in D3. I’m willing to bet 6 has to do with an easy 4 finger layout across the keyboard pluse left and right click combined with the average amount of skills used in D2.

6 is not the average in D2, that’s a bit low when considering skills from items, utility skills, and passive skills. I can think of few builds that would only use 6 skills.

Stop refering to a 20+ years game with hugely outdated mechanics. How er build and play games have changed, and you would benefit yourself actually trying out games from within the last 2 or so years

Wow dude, sounds like you are really receptive to change. You really like having 6 skills huh? Well that “outdated” game had more viewers on twitch last night when I looked and it probably has more players too. Sounds like the Diablo franchise might be smart to look at D2 again to make the best Diablo 4 they can.

It would be great to leave D2 in the dust and not think about it so much, but the problem is that D3 isn’t much of a sequel to D2 and D2 is still a top game in the arpg genre. Not saying that D3 is bad (personally I prefer D2), just saying that D3 isn’t very similar to D2.

Anyhow, limiting the amount of skills a player can use to 6 is lame, restrictive and boring. Players should be free to use all of their skills if desired, however some won’t be strong or worth it without more of an investment. What is the issue with that? More than 6 skills is too many for people to use? The game can’t be balanced for more than 6 skills? Why would we remove complexity from the game? Simple complexity makes builds, gear and the game more of a novel, fun atmosphere.

The only thing that makes sense to me is that they chose 6 skills for console and/or to “simplify”. The skill trees and classes can always be balanced for a non restrictive skill binding. If they are going the simplify route again, they will chop off their own arm again.

60

Whether skills have to be constantly cast or not seems meaningless.
If you only cast a skill every 10 second, or every 30 second, or only whenever you meet an enemy that use cold dmg, it still needs a skill slot/keybind.
Those examples of actively using 5-10 skills in Diablo 2 are completely valid.

There are skills in D2 that could have been completely passive. But not that many. Anything that you might not want to have up at all times, cant be considered a passive. And anything that could be considered a passive is just bad design, D4 skills should always have an active component.

Restrictions on how many skills you can use, increases build complexity tbh. Since you cant just pick everything that is useful in some situations and get an easy benefit from it.
6 skills feels too low though.

1 Like
61

It’s 5 abilities. Passives aren’t abilities, they are buffs. And no you wouldn’t have to leave any of them out.

Like seriously do you even understand games? Or is it just to complex for you to grasp the concept of evolution?

I think of several builds with only 2 abilities, though most do utilize 3. Also CTA is passive, the casting of the skills provided is redundant as they just implores passive effects.

You can’t handle 10 skills in a battle anyways. it is simply to complicated for you to chain that many abilities together to play your character. It’s just stupid, what do you expect, that you have one ability to swing your axe left, one to swing it right, and one to swing it down? That’s just silly.

Yes the future is calling, and it has done away with useless mechanics. There are also more people watching Jersey Shore than D2 on Twitch, doesn’t mean that it’s a better show. Can’t compare like that. Also I’m more interested in playing a game, rather than watching someone else playing a game. It’s not my fault you do that.

No but the skilltree is one of the elements of D2 that is hugely outdated, what is keeping D2 alive and killing D3 is the itemization, and the open PvP. Everything else is really outdated, and in for a change in modern times.

So you are saying that having to cast Battle Orders every 3 minutes to maintain a buff is a good design? You are saying that having to reapply battle command ever 90 seconds is a good design? Do you really even do that? Because most don’t as that +1 skill isn’t that important.

You think that having 1 skill on you for when you meet that one enemy that does something specific, is a great design? You are saying that it’s good that you can wait until your buffs come of so you can fight at a disadvantage, because that’s the best way to fight?

I’m not even sure what type of game you are trying to propose at all, but please keep it far away from here! Buff skills hidden as actives are a very poor design that adds no value to the gameplay. Having to reapply buffs to maintain them are not engaging. Chaining abilities to reach greater advantages however are. But just pressing a button so you do 10% extra damage the next 5 seconds every 5 seconds is just stupid by default.