Just like we did a proper update on the Quests this Monday, we're now putting the magnifying glass on the three classes revealed so far. First off is the latest class, the Wizard.

The Wizard is really the second class closely resembling a Diablo II ditto, after the Barbarian, even if she has a new nickname. The Wizard is a Sorceress, but with a little chaotic and arcane edge to her spells. She does the elemental stuff like a pro, but since she learned a thing or two in the Ancient Repositories she's also wielding arcane and a time-altering magics.

In Jay Wilson's own words, she's a Sorceress with a little pen & paper RPG feel. A lot like my halfling sorcerer in my Monday D&D sessions.

So, regardless if you love Sorceresses, or the classic Disintegrate spell from D&D, make sure you check out the new and updated Wizard!


P.S.
If you want to help out in the wiki, feel free to add more pictures to the Wizard's media gallery, from Diii.net's!

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Bashiok hopped onto a few forum threads today.

A good question about the Wizard:

	Blizzard Quote:
	The one thing i remember about the sorc ..pregear.. in D2, was the shortage of mana you almost always had. Of course, you had mana potions to help with it, but it always seemed like you were just aching for the next mana potion to drop so you could grab it and use it. I can see a very similar trend in D3 with mana orbs. So why not give the sorc a spell that gives back mana. In the sorc vid, you can see she has a melee attack [Spectral Blade], that looks like blueish green claws (or something). This melee attack requires the sorc be close to an enemy, and could easily be given the effect, “generates ‘x’ mana” for each hit. Kind of like a mana leech. I feel like this would allow the sorc to be more versatile. Who knows…maybe that skill already has that effect. If it does great. If not, i think it should be considered. Bashiok: Obviously it’s just too early to say the wizard does or does not have mana issues, that all comes down to balancing and fine tuning, and ideally of course the goal is that each class is very playable and not frustrating. Especially at early levels. Mana orbs are actually the product of a passive skill in the wizard’s arcane tree. Since we can’t guarantee people will get that skill I don’t think it can ever really become the deciding factor in mana regen. It is an early skill in that tree though, easy to pick up, and sure to be helpful.

The issue of mana regeneration was something I stressed in my Wizard write up after Blizzcon. Playing alone in a multiplayer game I was constantly out of mana and found myself forced to retreat while casting spells the instant enough regenerated to fight with. There were no mana globes dropping in the Blizzcon build (Mana Recovery was a level 10 spell, and like all spells of that level, was impossible to use at Blizzcon) and I wanted them, or at least the ability to put my attribute points into a stat that would have added mana. However, as Bashiok says, it’s way too early in the balancing process to say if mana regen is too slow, too fast, or goldilocks.

 

A long question with a curious title (“not” does not mean the same thing as “naught”) about wasted development resources leading to cheating and hacking yields a pithy reply from Bashiok:

	Blizzard Quote:
	Diablo III is not being developed in the late 90’s.

 

A question about cooperative play suggests an odd party-boosting game mechanism that’s not entirely to Bashiok’s liking, though he sympathizes with the concept:

	Blizzard Quote:
	As monsters become more powerful as players join the game, players themselves should be more powerful by working together. +1 Skills to All per person in your group. Since there is a max of 4 people(?) per game, this will give you +3 Skills to All. Bonus only works if you’re near your party. Its an incentive for people to want to play and work as a group. I’m not sure that’s the right way to go about it, but the cooperative game definitely centers on keeping players together. Encouraging them to stay near each other, and helping them get back together should they be separated. There are many ways to do both, not all of them are the right answer.

What level were the characters in the gameplay trailers?

	Blizzard Quote:
	It’s kind of irrelevant what level they were as the trailers were essentially staged performances. Not that they weren’t indicative of actual gameplay, but we weren’t leveling up actual characters, picking up actual dropped gear, etc. The BlizzCon playable demo, where people could wait in line then actually play the game, for that people started at I believe level 5.

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Thanks everyone for submitting interesting threads last week, and we're very sorry if your submission did not make it this week. If it's still a hot discussion in a few days, send it in again! As always, drop your mails to . If you are one of our many new members, do hop over to the forums and introduce yourself!

And now over to these picks of the Diablo 3 Forums:


Maybe Blizzard knows what's best for us?

• A quite explosive topic by visom about the design choices Blizzard makes, in relation to fans.

Wizard skill look like Star Wars

• One of our new members, veteran player finds some chocking similarities between the Wizard and a laser cannon!

Grug's thing a Day

• Slightly weird name for an excellent thread on suggestions for D3 by Grug.

Old Heroes vs. New Heroes

• A little piece of lore is always nice. Another one by the Grug.

Massive fan-art in the making by DefiledVisions

• Beside Delowyn and Holyknight3000, we are seeing an influx of more talented fan artists! DefiledVisions is making a huge fan art for everyone's viewing pleasure.

New Fan Artist: GavinUnit

• GavinUnit is another new fan artist, with some wonderful 3D renderings of Tyrael and the Rogue Camp from Diablo 2.

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Bashiok teased players with one of the Diablo III features that have not been announced yet: How to upgrade base weapons damage to make them more powerful? The answer is not former Diablo II runes. Say whoa? We will probably have to wait until Blizzcon 2009 this August to find out or one of the BlizzCasts? Additionally, we learn something about the Wizard.

	Blizzard Quote:
	Wizard Bashiok: The sort of plate-like gauntlets shown on her are part of the armor set look she was wearing. I think the “focus” you’re talking about is actually an orb, which is a wizard-specific off hand item. You’ve got the idea right though, a lot of the wizard spell animations incorporate the orb into a sort of focusing element while casting. The electrocute and disintegrate videos show it pretty well. Unannounced Weapon Enhancement Bashiok: I think it’s important not to mistake the word used for a system (in this case rune) for what the systems are actually accomplishing. In Diablo II runes were used to augment weapons and essentially add more stats to them, runes in certain combinations would create runewords which were in essence more powerful than the sum of each individual rune. But remove the word rune, and you’re looking at a system that simply upgrades items. Similarly, runes in Diablo III, take away the word rune and we’re looking at a system where skills and abilities can be altered to behave differently, simply increased in effectiveness, or some combination thereof. Essentially what your question comes down to then is, where is the system in Diablo III that allows us to make base weapons more powerful? And that’s a question that will have to be answered at a later time.

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Blizzard has updated the Diablo III media just prior to the Christmas holidays. Fans are greeted with three new concept artworks and five new gameplay screenshots to hold your breath until the next update.

The first concept art tells us a few things. It is Caldeum and it is described as a bandit city. It is unknown if the place will be hostile to players or if it is just a market place where adventurers may spend some coins on merchadise and to be able to hire mercenaries (followers). The art is signed by Trent (2007). The second artwork shows the beautiful interiors of a palace with a large central pool. It is signed by Peter Lee (2006). The third artwork shows the entrance to a dungeon, presumably. It is signed by Victor Lee (March 2007). So we are seeing three different concept artists and artwork dating back to 2006 and 2007.

The five screenshots show off the female Wizard, the Witch Doctor and the Barbarian in action. The Wizard’s spell graphics is with no doubt awesome. She hurls a lightning bolt across half the screen to hit a target on the other side of the room. The Witch Doctor throws an explosive concoction and up to four fiery pets engage ghostly spellcasters that seem to have been triggered by a trap mechanism that introduces them into the room from the below the ground. The last screenshot shows the Wizard casting a very powerful laser-like beam of fire. It looks more like a continuous redish photon stream that desintegrates anything caught in its path. It covers a large area of the screen. The stream doesn’t stop on the target, it goes through it and continues all the way off the screen.

Something I am liking a lot from these five pictures is that the dungeon is dark. The candles do offer some illumination, but for the most part some areas are dark. Your character and incoming mobs are brighter so that you are able to identify the mobs. The spells are represented with bright and intense pitch white and many variations of pleasant colors. This is not only appealing to your visual input. It gives you a new perspective of the Diablo II dungeons in full 3D, allowing you to recognize and identify monsters around you easier than before, and the spells are just gorgeous. The art direction is going smoothly on my book.

 

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Christmas (and other similar traditions from different cultures) is almost upon us, and it's time to go out and spend your last few pennies on presents for your dear family and friends. Meanwhile, it's nice to know that one of the best venues of entertainment is extremely cheap, namely chatting in the Diablo 3 Forum!

Remember that if you find a particularly interesting thread you should e-mail me at with a link url! It doesn't have to be created in the last week, but at least have something interesting added to it in the last seven days. Thanks for the past week's submissions, and please be on the lookout again this week.

Item Affixes & Modifier Brainstorm

• Relatively new, and very enthusiastic, Diii.net member Zero took the initiative to start a brainstorm about new Diablo 3 Affixes. If the term "Affix" is new to you, it's really just the group word for Prefixes and Suffixes.

Barbarian Skill Trees and Points

• Barbarian skills seem very cool so far, but how would you assign your skill points? Welcome our new member Droscoe who also ask about skill assignment in general.

Why do People Think of WD as a Firemage?

• My fellow Swede jakotaco thinks it's silly to call the Witch Doctor a firemage, what do you think?

Wizard's Electrocute = Chain Lightning?

• Is there any reason why Blizzard haven't made Electrocute into a "traditional" Chain Lightning? Raveharu is among the fans of the old spell, and asks why it's so slow.

Mirror Image Awesome?

• A second Wizard thread about Wizard skills has been active recently. Originally posted by Elmacro we explore many interesting PvE and PvP venues for Mirror Image.

Please Don't Use the WoW Critical System!

• This thread by lumpor ask you how you like your Critical hits. So, how would you like crits to work?

Monsters In DIII! Suggest/Make your own!

• Hodl Pu's thread is revived with new vigor. Be part of brainstorming about new potential monsters in Diablo3!

Ask Blizzard!

• Thread started by myself, where I encourage everyone of the Diablo community to gather questions for Blizzard and BlizzCast. Make your voice heard!

Also, Happy Birthday Eisirt!

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Baranor’s Den returns, with an intense focus on the Wizard. The column starts off with a continuation of the short story begun last time, then delves into coverage of the mage or wizard type of character as seen in all sorts of fantasy. How does Blizzard’s Diablo III version of the character stack up?  Click through to see the full column.

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Later than I wanted it to be, but quite long and details, here’s my Wizard gameplay report, based on my Wizard playtime at Blizzcon. This report covers the basic gameplay style (kinda Sorceress-y), has a bit of discussion of items, and goes into great detail on the lower level active spells, most of which I was able to test out. There are links aplenty in this piece, pointing to the various Wizard skill tree pages in our wiki, all of which add many more details, stats, descriptions, and screenshots of the Wizard’s leet skillz. Refer to them as you read, and you’ll gain considerable knowledge of the character you know you are simply itching to get your hands on.

Read on to see the full report…

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Which class will you be playing with the information so far?

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The guys at G4 dropped a mail over to let us know of a new Jay Wilson video interview which they shot at BlizzCom. Whack play…

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