I think many of us would like to see the skill tree expanded in D4 to allow more specialization/customization of each skill for our characters.
I think one of the biggest factors to make this more interesting is intertwining some of the skill specialization branching with other other skills. We can see some base examples of this in the game already where for example the druid unique “Great Staff of the Crone” causes the claw skill to be a storm skill and casts storm strike. This is a great foundation for the potential of improving the skill tree further for the type of customization I’m talking about. Again when reading through these skill ideas in the bullet points below you’ll get a more clear idea of the potential this can have for build customization and just an overall more interesting character build we can have.
I used a few skills from Druid to demonstrate what I think is how much more customization we could have for the skill tree. Some of them might overlap with things in the game already.
Below is a rough collage of ideas not perfectly hashed out:
New Ultimate Skill:
“Call of the Wild”: New ultimate skill that calls forth 6 dire wolves, 4 poison creepers, 3 ravens into the fray. Each of them benefit from any specialization into those skill branches.
The idea here being that, this ultimate skill would benefit from additional specialization into the “Companion Skill” branch. Depending on how many additional branches we could have for wolves, creeper, ravens, a player could choose to max out one of those or have a more balanced investment into all three paths etc. So, in theory this ultimate skill’s power is tied directly to your investment into the Companion Skill Branch. When I say that I don’t mean the current vanilla branch we have now but adding several new skills for each of them.
Pulverize Specialization:
-improved pulverize, every skill point invested in this reduces the amount of pulverizes needed to reach the overpower limit. (So instead of 12, it would be 11, 10 etc)
Additional node branch for above, after pulverize is used, every skill point invested in this skill allows a lasting duration of the overpower benefit of pulverize by .2 seconds for any following pulverize attacks.
Increase the damage reduction gained after using pulverize (from 'primal pulverize) by 4% per point. (Again just more ability to invest how we want)
Increase the stun duration of overpowered pulverize by .25 seconds for each point invested
After using pulverize increase your armor while in bear form by 5% for 1 second, each point increases the armor amount by 5% and duration it lasts by .2 seconds and subsequent pulverize attacks without using another skill resets the duration.
Casting pulverize calls down lightning bolt on the location, any specialization in lightning storm/bolt skills benefits from this. (Another example here of linking skill investments, where specialization in lightning storm or bolt would benefit this skill as well to have a pulverize/lightning druid build)
Trample Specialization:
After using trample, your path leaves behind poison creepers that strangle enemies who remain or walk into it ( Another example of linking skills, this poison creeper benefits from poison creeper specialization branch)
After using trample, instead of knocking enemies back, landslides occur in the path crush enemies inward (any specialization in landslide skills benefits this)
After using trample, scorch the ground with fire damage lasting for 10 seconds causing a burning effect on enemies
When casting trample, call forth bear spirits to trample at your side for 30% of the damage (yes like barb charge)
At the end of your trample, you automatically cast a pulverize (benefits from pulverize specialization skills)
a trample skill that reduces the cool down on trample based on enemies hit, ( yes like barb but this would be fun in conjunction with something like poison creeper or scorched ground, where a player constantly can trample and cause poison creeper to strangle enemies - this is what fun is)
Some of these upon initial glance could seem like legendary aspects but the point is each of these would have additional branches that for example, increase the duration of poison creeper lasting after using trample, gaining damage reduction when standing in the trample path with poison creeper. Branches that increase the duration of scorched ground after trample, increase the dot duration of fire, etc.
I hope this is something that can inspire the D4 team to VASTLY expand the skill tree with the main theme of demonstrating further skill specialization as well as linking skills together to create more builds.
It’s not a skill tree, it’s a skill twig.
There is only one, linear path.
With most of the nodes being mediocre , meaningless upgrades to skills you will not use. The lack of vision and meaningful, impactful choices is actually staggering.
I know. This is to be understood in this post but the point of it is to also provide further ideas and inspiration (hopefully) to expand and improve it. There is so much potential to add more branches to each skill for further customization and as pointed out linking skills with other skills in their specialization. So yes it is disheartening to see its current state in that case.
Just to come up with these ideas alone was about 30 minutes for me so a very short amount of time to brainstorm several ideas to expand upon many skills. So I don’t understand how it can be so difficult to have people on the D4 team brainstorm ideas for a vastly expanded skill tree.
I think the team has mentioned they can’t expect to “balance” everything, so then don’t worry about perfect balance just make the game fun and make the player feel like they can invest into their character.
Isn’t that secondary to the main point that the skill tree needs to be expanded? A solution to the amount skill points can be figured out but its not the main point of this post.
That depends if you take into account how realistic it is for Blizzard to implement it.
This one seems to need a total rework if it doesn’t fit the current 50/58 skill points system. So realistically it (the suggestion) is for the next expansion after Vessel of Hatred.
Outside of an expansion I doubt you’ll see any changes coming to the skill trees aside from some number changes and slight alterations to already existing passives. Right now you could literally pin all of the skills on a dart board, throw at random and make a build that can clear NMD100. Now that build might not be able to beat Uber Lilith, but hey sometimes you gotta work for it.
While your idea in and of itself isn’t original by any means (just do a search on these forums for skill changes, class balancing, etc.) at least you’re trying and you still have that gleam of hope in your eyes. I can respect that. I may not agree, but I respect your choice to voice your opinions. Good luck and keep us posted if they make any changes based on your feedback.
Agreed that the skill tree does need a total rework if they have any intention to make it more customizable with more specialization by adding more branches for all the skills. So yes what I’m proposing (and its nothing ground breaking or what others haven’t suggested before I’m sure) would require an expansion.
For sure, its nothing new. Just a short spurt of inspiration to throw on these forums again and see if any of it reaches the D4 team to see if any ideas stick. I think there is a lot of potential for many skills that are not being utilized. Most of my hope is long abandoned for any real improvements that would grip a hold on the player base as many would expect it to - yes I can have hope for the expansion and see what systems are added to it. This is why I may be slightly out of the loop as to what people have posted about this topic in the past but I have no doubt its not been discussed.
There are lots of “options” in the skill tree. The problem is 90% of them aren’t meaningful. They need to make investing more points into a skill actually mean something. Instead of their flat 1/2/3/4/5 they should consider 1/3/6/10/15 or 1/4/9/16/25 type scaling. So many builds are a dozen “just point one point into X” that all the builds blur together.
Then there’s the ridiculous cooldown on ultimate skills turning your 6 button rotation into something like a 5.1 button rotation because you can only use one of the skills every minute (or longer)
This game has no clear idea of what it wants to be. It’s an MMO that doesn’t have grouping. An action game full of long rides on slow horses that get stuck on pebbles to farm mats for a near zero chance of getting a better item.
But, heh, there are cool skins in the cash shop… only $29.99! Buy 4 now!
Yes I think they could do a combination as well. It doesn’t have to be a strict 5/5. Have some skills that can be3/3, 5/5, 6/6, some that are 10, and some that are 15 or 20.
I think if the skill tree is expanded to have extended branches for each skill such as pulverize then we would likely need more skill points to obtain in the game. Either we could obtain more skill points through giving 2-4 points per level like the paragon or gaining skills through other means such as finding items.
Did you follow D4’s development? At one time it was depicted like an actual tree with the graphic and all. Could be more intricate back then but I don’t really remember.
I wouldn’t expect a big revamp of the skill tree to happen without an expansion. At the least I would expect some additions but I’d hope they really just go bonkers with it. I think this vanilla release was a good way to really highlight what can be improved considering vanilla is made from a very abstract point of development.
