Diablo 4 Skills / Talents

I have been re watching some of the gameplay videos and looking at the skills / talent trees for the 3 classes that were shown. One burning question i had in my mind was are we only able to have one skill from each of the different tiers of skills?

For the example i will use the Sorc Skill tree based on Rhykker Demo Playthrough

  • Minor Destruction Skills - Ice Bolt ( Left Click on Mouse )

  • Major Destruction Skills - Fireball ( Right Click on Mouse )

  • Defensive Skill - Blizzard ( Button 1 on Hotbar )

  • Conjuration Skill - Lightning Spear ( Button 2 on Hotbar )

  • Mastery Skill - Meteor ( Button 3 on Hotbar )

  • Ultimate Skill - Conduit ( Button 4 on hotbar )

I know its early in development, and probably didn’t have the choice to look at other skills that were in the game due to limitations of the alpha build.

But for the Sorc what if they want to build one elemental type like lets say Cold.

Left Mouse Click - Frost Bolt ( Mana Generator )
Right Mouse Click - FroZen Orb ( Destruction Tree ) or Ice Blades ( Conjuration Tree ) ( Mana Spender )
Button 1 - Blizzard ( Defensive Tree )
Button 2 - Ice Armor ( Defensive Tree )
Button 3 - Teleport ( defensive Tree )
Button 4 - Deep Freeze ( Ultimate )

Would we be able to take 3 skills from one tree branch? I know in the gameplay footage with some youtubers / streamers. The skills were placed on your hotbar in the order they desecend with the last part of the tree being the ultimate on button 4.

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“didn’t have the choice to look at other skills that were in the game due to limitations of the alpha build.”

I have already posted this a few times.

I have seem this many of times… Based on the information of the screens the button corresponds to that tier only. But why would we be locked into only that choice for a skill for that specific button only?

Finally, someone noticed this too.

I just post the same question earlier today:

Yeah, exactly.

What surprise me the most is that it seems no one cares about this.
In every interviews, Q&As… people asked all kind of questions except this one. Which seems to me is a very basic and fundamental designing methodology. If we are restricted to pick one of the skill for each category, the whole skill system feels more like only 6 skills with some variants respectively.
Idk why this is cool…

Blizzard has said you are not locked in. It was asked in one of the interviews.
Most people probably just assumed it would work that way, because it is exactly like D3.

Which interview was this mentioned in? If you happen to know could you please link it?

Cant remember which. I think it was one of the twitch streamer interviews (rhykker or quin69).
It is also mentioned here (apparently i cant post links)
icy-veins .com /forums/topic/46709-everything-we-know-about-diablo-4-so-far/#forum-anchor-Skills

“Elective Mode” from D3 is on by default, aka you can bind any skill to any hotkey

This is kind of fuzzy to me. Cause, as how their GUI is arranged, I don’t think you can bind two keys to the same category.

Yeah, because based on the ingame screens of the system each category was set to a specifc key binding already so that would mean Elective mode is not turned on, but who knows game is still early.

I checked both rhykker & quin69 interviews, haven’t seen any clues of how the “Elective Mode” is going to work.

Still surprised by why most people neglected this.


1h 52m in, talking about elective mode and switching skills around

That’s the same as the post:

“Elective Mode” from D3 is on by default, aka you can bind any skill to any hotkey

says. Anyway, thanks for the info. I hope it will work, at least, like how D3 is eventually.

They didn’t ask because it was already said that there will be complete customizarion over keybinds.

Do people even internet?

First off changing keybinds does not necessarily mean you can choose more skills from one tree which was never elaborated on. I understand you can change the skill that was on Left mouse to Mouse 5, but does that tree get locked in to only that binding you choose?

Dev did say

" We are building it from the ground up to modify your skills to uh, its part of creating your character "

Which no elaboration of what entails new “Elective Mode” I know how it worked in D3 which worked fine. So whats the new Feature?

dO YoU eVEn InTErnEt?

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The new ‘feature’ is that elective mode is not a hidden away setting, but simply how the game works.
The answer the dev gives seems reasonably clear, that you can switch skills around however you want. Not merely keybinds.

I know an interview with one of the Dev’s on Quin69 demo playthrough mentioned you can change the keybindings so instead of using 1,2,3,4 you could go q,w,e,r or really anything you want what is more comfortable. But they never mention if you can use 2 or 3 skills from the same tree. Based on the screenshots online It doesn’t really seem like you can use more than 1.

Perhaps it was just what they had for the demo and didnt feel the need to showcase any other skills? Since if you look at some screenshots those skills were learned and others were not learned.

A new 24 minute gameplay footage came out of someone playing the barbarian and they mention they don’t have the ability to change the skills since it was probably locked due to the early build.

But one thing i did notice and that is even if you could choose from other skill tree ( once again probably not in the screenshots of the skill tree’s for the class due to early alpha gameplay ) There is no Arrow or indicator to switch to another tree set.

Also another indication to me is the Last skill tree on the Barb is called an Ultimate, infact all the classes last button 4 skill tree is called Ultimate which usually means most powerful ability you have access to but on long cooldown. I see it being possible that perhaps maybe the other skill tree names can be swapped and ultimate is a single choice.

Who knows really… Game still is early.

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I’m pretty sure the question was asked and they said you could use different skills in the same tree, but I know you’re too lazy to look for it so I’ve done you a kindness:

“It’s mostly to make the choices you make a bit more meaningful. When you’re leveling up, especially, you won’t have too many skill points to play around with. You do have to be very careful with what you put in, where you put your skill points. But at the same time, in the end endgame, if you really want to invest in your character, you’ll be able to max out all the skills eventually.”

Do you even internet?

I don’t understand how you infer that you could equip different skills in the same tree at the same time.
To me, it says that you need to be careful with investing skill points cause it’s permanent. And in the end game, you should be able to max out all skills so no worry about screw your character.
However, max out all skills doesn’t mean you can equip any combinations of those skills. For example, you may only be able to equip one type of aura at a time.
Your post actually comes from Rhykker’s interview. And I believe the context of that conversation is about how to make campaign meaningful, and one way of doing so is to make you feel responsible of how your character grow without hurting the flexibility too much. Cause, we all don’t want to ruin our character which we have already put a lot effort in like D2. In which case, Rhykker said he ruin his first NEC in D2 because of that.

We did internet.

Maybe you are right about it may just be a “Demo feature”.

Especially when you can’t even change your build during the Demo.

Which reminds me of the first Demo for D3, the skill menu look way different from the final product.

Perhaps our concern is too stupid to be real. Maybe that’s why nobody asked.