Wolcen literally gives you a way to turn parts of the web around (the 3 wheels), so you can reach skills in all kinds of directions.
That said, yeah, Last Epoch seems like an even better way to go.
100% agreed. Dont hide important numbers.
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I like the stat points. Cool that there is some choice going on there individually for the stats and I also like the effects you all put on the skills that unlock at certain stat thresholds. Feels very D2 like to boost a stat to a target amount for a nice bonus and adds some fun certainly. Hopefully it can make +stat gear useful in D4 in other ways rather than just damage. In D2 +stat gear is often very useful as place holder gear until you get torches (and or an anni) or to wear high requirement gear.
Itemization - weapon speed modifiers are a great start. I like what you all said about blue, rare, and legendaries and uniques 
. Very glad uniques will be back and have their own art and more fixed affixes, how cool and really feels more like D1 or D2, it should give players a bunch of options to consider when gearing up which is fantastic (and those options will be more than simply bigger numbers with legendaries and uniques).
Overall some good ideas you all came up with that should satisfy a lot of fans. This was a pleasurable update to see! Good work D4 team!
I am concerned about how elemental damage will be done on weapons and hope you all have good ideas on that as well. I like how in Diablo 2 or in Grim Dawn players are incentivized to go after damage types because they already have modifiers (enhanced damage in D2 is only physical, +% to dmg type in GD, - enemy resist in D2, etc) that boost damage to that type or for element specific bonuses such as prevent monster heal, chilling, etc.
I hope something fun like this is planned for elemental damage and that every single type of damage isnât exactly equal in every situation. For instance, an axe that does 1k physical damage per second vs a wand that does 300 physical and 700 cold damage per second should not be equally effective on a barbarian probably. It crushes the fantasy and makes items feel like they are all just bigger numbers. Please, I donât want to wear a hurty wand on my barbarian unless Iâm making a very niche barb or unless the wand itself is very niche in that it is a melee weapon.
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This is a larger step in the right direction than I was anticipating. Keen to see more iterations on specific affixes and the range of affixes for magic/rare/etc.
If youâre looking to build strong pvp you will need items that arenât class specific to some degree. Diablo 2 had a great set of those items providing raw defense, crushing blow, cannot-be-frozen type affixes.
Glad to see Magic items can have few affixes, but higher potential rolls especially if max sockets is part of that, where rares max out at 2 but usually roll 1 if any.
The âmechanicsâ + âof the whaleâ affix gear in diablo 2 was relevant for pvp and often better than other rare gear or even unique gear for some builds. Adding a flat 100 health and 3 sockets combined with runes/gems made for really cool builds in pvp where most pvm uniques added less advantage.
Also pvp at lower lvls (lld and mld) in diablo 2 was fantastic with barely any uniques being Best in Slot. The diversity of the rares and magic items or rune words in lld and mld was fantastic and complimented the skill/stat system so well. With quest rewards you could be lvl 30 with 40+ skill points assigned to max out, or spread out among key duel skills.
As for uniques, I think these sound great, with set affixes. This means there will be perfect rolls and non perfect rolls building a spectrum which (god willing) is a good dynamic in an open trade world. I want people to once again be able to get econ phdâs from your games.
Keep iterating and keep updating!
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I like that there will be a cost to respeccing. If balanced right Iâm imagining it being like it was in Vanilla WoW with talent respecs: Something you could play around with, but not really something you wanted to do 5 times a day unless you were super rich.
Assignable stats making a return, I love to see it. Tying in some unique skill bonuses is nice, as I would have otherwise been worried about things like âbarbs just go all in on str, itâs your best statâ.
Weapon types seem nicely varied, and the stuff with rarities seems like it should help to keep things below legendary relevant late into the end game as theyâre have more powerful affixes. All around good stuff.
Also seeing uniques with pre-defined stats is just great.
All in all this is pretty much hitting the right direction on all fronts in my opinion.
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Looking better already
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âWithout spoiling the surprise, Ietâs just say it involves a new version of the campfire scene we showed you last BlizzCon.â
New class, bring it baby.
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Please blizzard we are not idiots,
-Stop this attack and defence crap. Add meaningful damage types (phys,elemental) that can scale to end game, let defence be armour and other defence types that can scale to end game.
-List the attacks per second instead of âslow attack speedâ (example 1.2aps)
-List the bottom end and top end damage ranges (example 355-590 physical dmg)
-Why does jewellery have attack? What does attack even mean? Get rid of it.
-Seeing attack on a wand makes me cringe, put something more unique like spell power or just look at what Diablo 2 did for spells where they mostly scale with skill points or %increase (example +2 to sorceress skills, cold skills deal 15% increased damage)
-Please explain what the random prefixes and suffixes do (being healthy? Thorns? 2.5 cooldown, + 5 dodge, is this additive?Multiplicative? Is there a hard cap?
Can you make a list and explain what these do?
-Thank you for getting rid of mythic items
-Thank you for giving us more meaningful choices and your respec approach seems great! No more d3 change your skills on the fly bs.
-Looking forward to more updates!
13 Likes
Took a look at the item and skill pictures.
But first of all, Blizzard?! Now that you have removed Angelic, Demonic, Ancestral (which makes me a bit sad), at least remember to add all the 3 main effects as affixes; as in buff duration, debuff duration and proc chance.
Those were good affixes!
Moving on to the pictures.
âControl Duration Bonusâ: Well, it smells a bit of the ADA powers. So a positive. 9-12% seems like a lot from a single item however, but that is nitpicking.
âMovement speed on Elite killâ: Fine, but mention how long it lasts. Make tooltips accurate!
âCold resistanceâ: Not new, but I will just appreciate that it is a specific resistance, and not silly âAll resistanceâ!
âMaximum Mana (Sorceress only)â: Not new either, but come on Blizzard. Get rid of class-exclusive resource affixes. They are going to be annoying for item RNG. Bake them into class-agnostic affixes that works for all classes.
Such as âMaximum Resourceâ, which then shows up as Maximum Mana, when equipped by a Sorc, and Rage when equipped by a Barb. With different values of course, based on how the particular class resource works.
âMana Cost reduction (Sorceress only)â: Same deal here! Dont make it class-based. The legendary amulet here would be really useless for anyone else than a sorc. Which should not be the case.
âReduced Potion Cooldownâ: Nice to see that as an affix. Not because I want low potion cooldowns⌠I really do not. But it is an obvious thing to allow players to customize, and a quality affix.
âAll statsâ: Ugh. Dont have âAllâ affixes.
âDodge chanceâ: I wonder how dodge works this time around.
âAttack speedâ: Not new, but good to see attack speed is still an affix, even after adding base attack on weapons. Someone was concerned about that earlier in the thread.
âDamage Reductionâ: Generic damage reduction against everything? Not a fan. You need to be quite careful with that.
Legendary affixes:
âWhen you stand inside your own damaging ground effects, you increase the damage they dealâ: Good. Usable my different classes. Melee sorc item!
âYour chill effects will trigger Freeze 25% faster but you deal 30% less Frost dmgâ: Sounds nice as well. Having both a pro and con to it. I like that.
âYour poisons no longer deal damage over time. Instead 127% of the total damage is dealt to the target when your poisons expireâ: Assuming all classes might have access to poison dmg i some way, that could be good. It if is a class item, then MEH.
Skills:
So, I had to comment on that âArsenal Selectionâ thing on the barb skill. I really hope that means a Barb can decide which weapon each of your skills use. Rather than it being predetermined. Because that would be great, and very much in line with what I have argued for in terms of how to make that system more interesting.
This is likely not helping with your concern, but remember there is no default attack in D4. Everything is skill-attacks, which come with their own dmg types. As such, the lack of dmg types on weapons, doesnât mean dmg types wont matter (even if I agree that Grim Dawns system is better). Different dmg types might still be able to matter in D4, even if they are not affected by weapons.
What matters here imo, is that monsters need to have resistances! And yeah, different dmg types should be able to have special effects, like frost has chill. It doesnât need to always be a proc or cc. Like, poisons special effect can simply be that it is a dot (with items shown in the blog which changes the effect).
Defense might just be armor by another name.
But yeah, attack stat is somewhat problematic. Depends on how it works though. Having both kinetic and magic dmg on weapons would be nice imo.
Damn. I missed that. This goes directly against Blizzard saying they had removed attack from everything else than weapons?!
That is bad.
Agreed.
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So far, I like everything that has been done.
My main concern is about two things at the moment:
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Items impossible to get, like the 6-linked from PoE or the Zod rune from Diablo 2; good items should be difficult, not impossible.
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Progression as it is in Diablo 3 is great, with story mode that takes the player from 1 to 70 in one run, and adventure mode, that gives them more freedom to chose how to level up. I would hate to see a system outdated, like in Diablo 2 or PoE, in which the player is forced to play the same level in several difficulty levels to reach the end game.
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PoE actually got rid of that a long time ago.
Also no risk that it is coming back in D4 tbh. So far D4 will mix campaign and adventure mode into one, it seems like.
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LOVED this update! This came much earlier than I expected so itâs a nice holiday treat for me! Next stop; BlizzConline! I cannot wait to see the new addition to the campfire! Thank you for that new class tease 
.
But wow, great update! So exciting to see the return of stat point allocation!!! I definitely feel like it goes a long way in making Diablo IV feel more Diablo-like and true to its roots. Really like the concept of core stats playing into your skill selection as well. Unlocking bonus effects based on stat thresholds is so cool!
Quick side note; I really enjoy the latest polish pass on the UI. Looks fantastic! Great job to the team members working on UI. Especially the backgrounds, dividers and frames for items. Loved noticing that new polish.
THANK YOU for leaning so heavily into weapon fantasy and making them feel different. Thatâs a fantastic subtle addition to the game. I really like that it is more than just âOne-hand fast, two-hand slowâ and the weapon types themselves have characteristics for more nuance and variations in-between. So. Cool.
Very much enjoy the new direction for item qualities. This part was so nice to read, thank you. The idea of Mythics didnât feel great and Iâm excited to see the return of Uniques (both in official title and color). Love the way youâre handling Legendaries with the random affixes. Sometimes you just need to fill a different item slot but want that special affix, so thatâs a wonderful change. Overall this new iteration feels like it strikes a great balance of new and old. It feels more Diablo-like without being too similar or even too different. Also, thank you for making sockets count as an affix rather than a special bonus separate from them. I donât like it when some games do that and a great item can be rendered useless because it didnât roll with sockets. So that is fantastic to hear, thank you for mentioning that. Itâs great to have those trade-offs between base item affixes and socketed ones.
I am curious if gems will be more enticing and balanced this time around. I donât like how in Diablo III itâs basically mandatory to socket your weapon with an emerald and what you socket into gear has little variation. I hope they add another layer of complexity and meaningful choice.
Anyway, I am very much looking forward to see whatâs going to be revealed at BlizzConline! Thank you to everyone on the Diablo team for all your hard work! Hope youâre all well. Much love. 
Happy Holidays!
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When they say itâll be a âsignificant investmentâ, I really donât believe them. And Iâm not trying to be mean, when I say that.
âŚitâs just⌠well⌠Theyâve said that about gold costs in D3 as well - and everyone knows, that getting gold in D3 isnât an issue at all.
Weâll have to see⌠But I suspect, that it wonât actually be anywhere near a âsignificant investmentâ. Using those words, just makes it âsound betterâ (read: PR speak) and pleases the people that play games at a difficulty thatâs much higher than the vast majority of players do (each to their own - as long as they are enjoying themselvesâŚ).
6 affix uniques are a joke.
Also yellow squares looks dumb, can there be an option for them to have a neutral color please.
It looks like they are really trying to placate the D2 fanboys.
- Scrolls are also back?
Tbf, for some folks it was a challenge getting gold in Diablo 3 vanilla. So if the cost is gold, I can see it also being challenging to get enough gold to respec, that is of course assuming that gold would have other uses as well.
Oh yeah, absolutely - if going by Vanilla D3 standards, then sure.
But they said the same, when they introduced Greater Rifts to D3. It would cost us a hefty investment to keep getting extra upgrades - and we all know thatâs kind of a joke - even when they introduced it.
Not a huge fan of the intended respec design. If weâre going with respecs, Iâd rather you just did a limited number of respecs per character. So, say, you get 3 or 4 respecs when you create a new character and one youâre out, youâre locked in.
Gives a bit of leeway to experiment while playing your character but also you eventually reach that stage where you are locked in. I could see how this system would be unpopular with casuals though, so of course itâs out.
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It would harm both early/mid-game optimizations and end-game. Your character evolves along its experience path, unlocking new skills and talent points. You do not play the same build and you need to adapt, because you get new items or new skills runes. Sometimes you change 10, 20, 30 times.
In addition, having seasons and different characters is enough to make players restart the game and see it on a different point of view. Max leveling a character of each different class in each season is a challenge that probably 90% of Diablo 3 players did not accomplish.
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Love the direction this is going! Previous updates I was always a little bit meh about it but man if this one didnât hit it out of the park. Philosophically this is the way I want D4 to go. As long as Blizz will nail the execution of these design philosophies D4 should be the first Blizzard game in the last decade I might actually care about.
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Wondered about that too :S One thing there was no reason to ever bring back.
At least inventory tetris is still gone 
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