Not Nearly Enough Skill Slots

Shadout-2849 · March 25, 2023, 11:06pm

Sure isn’t an important choice whether to take an ultimate or not, if it is a free slot.

That isn’t how it works in D2 though. Try swapping out necro summons, or a skill on cooldown (definitely not saying that should change would be quite awful).

Penguin-1534 · March 26, 2023, 4:22pm

I actually agree that there are not enough slots. If the game is going to give us items that give us +1 to all X type of skills, then there should be a possibility to use them even if you don’t specialise into them. Otherwise let’s just remove this property altogether!

Axe-12152 · March 27, 2023, 6:23am

Quoting this excellent post because it deserves repeating!

carrotfeets:

6 Skill Slots

Slot 1 - Generator: You mindlessly spam this just to be able to use other skills.

Slot 2 - Spender: This is your primary damage skill you use whenever possible.

Slot 3 - Movement: You use this to engage, disengage and fly all over the map.

Slot 4 - Ultimate: Probably a long CD that you save hoping for the right moment and you don’t want to blow it not knowing when you will hit an encounter requiring or benefitting greatly from its use. This means it goes underutilized and is largely underwhelming for many classes.

Slot 5 & 6 - Utility/Support: These will probably be defensive, passive support, buffs, or debuffs. Unfortunately, many of these skills have a short cooldown requiring you to refresh constantly, and in many cases, this is done just to be able to actually play your class!

Summary:

The shallow and rigid design results in shallow gameplay. There isn’t a lot of choice and situational abilities meaning you are left essentially repeating the exact same combo patterns for every encounter. Blizzard is notorious for homogenizing things, not streamlining them. While the aim is good, the end result is diluted and lackluster game design.

Solution:

1 - Ultimates should not take up a Skill Slot
2 - Movement skills should not take up a Skill Slot
3 - There needs to be a rework on how some Buffs/Debuffs are handled class to class. This could mean changing some skills to Passive and not taking up skill slots (always active, procced, toggled) or, better yet, making those buffs/debuffs a Secondary function of an Active Primary skill. (Real fun to slot 2 Curses or War Cries for example right?)

This allows the player more variety in how they play and makes gameplay feel more dynamic. You might approach encounters differently and makes it less likely you will mindlessly repeat the same sequence of key presses for every single pull.

I agree with limiting the amount of skills, but the current structure makes those 6 skills seem pretty predetermined. My build, your build, and the possibilities start to get narrowed down quickly once you realize the box you have been painted in.

Almost the entire progression of the game does nothing but modify those 6 skills to have alternative effects, added effects and better effectiveness - all of which is passive. Your gameplay remains largely the same once you fill those slots no matter how much you progress. This will cause the game to stagnate really quickly.

And to some others…

What is this argument? Do you guys not know of D2? We could bind all of our skills in D2 and use them whenever we wanted.

johnathan-1812 · July 12, 2023, 2:50am

Diablo 2 had 8 to start with, using key bindings from F1 TO F8 But, you would have as many as 16 skills. id max myself at 10, all my summons as a druid, my town portal, and cyclone armor, and my two big moves at level 30 on the elemental.

This was one of the bigger reasons why I just couldn’t get into Diablo 3, its like a nice game, but I want to be able to have the option to use my weapon as an attack, not have it bind to a skill, at least its more useful in diablo 4. but I play a summoner druid, if I want to use my sprit, either I lose, a summon, or i lose my ultimate, because I need to use spirit to use my one move but i can’t if i don’t have my main attack