Diablo III – Skill and Rune Changes Revealed!

Back in August of 2011, Blizzard announced that there were significant changes in store for the Runestone System.

Blizzard has just released Diablo 3 Beta Patch 13, which includes the changes to the Skill and Rune Systems, among a vast array of class tweaks, and a UI overhaul.

Runestones have now officially become Diablo 3′s Rune Skill System. Originally, it was planned that when items were placed in specific skill slots, it allowed the skill to bind creating a devastating affect. If you don’t know what this means. Imagine this…you’re playing with a Barbarian. You unleash a Whirlwind Attack, and bind a rune skill that deals lava damage. What you see is volcanic rock and lava spew from your whirlwind attack, creating a destructive mess of bodies. Many fans complained, and Blizzard listened.

“Our high-level goal with this system has always been to give players a great degree of power to customize their characters. We believe we accomplished that early on by abolishing skill trees and moving toward an open-ended system where skills, rune variants, and passives are chosen at-will by the player in a flexible customization system.“

Diablo III now organizes your character skills into categories, such Primary Attack, Secondary Attack, and Defensive. When you’re configuring the game options, and you’re selecting skills to put on your action bar, you’re limited by category. The intent was to ensure the game controls and interfaces are easy to use. That way, players can spend their time mastering the game rather than struggling with a clumsy interface. In the old UI, there was a detached relationship between the bottom-bar UI and the skill system.

“We have six skill slots, and six spots to put skills, but the two interfaces didn’t really interact, and stocking abilities in your interface felt awkward.“

The skill selection is now linked directly to the bottom-bar UI, which makes assigning skills a much simpler and clearer process.

Now, if you’re the type of person who likes “difficult to master” things, or you like the old way over the new UI, don’t go crying to Blizzard just yet. They’ve already got you covered. In the Gameplay options, there is an “Elective Mode” for the skill system. What this will allow you to do is place any skill in any skill slot, as freely as you could before. This Elective Mode is available immediately, without a need to unlock it or meet any requirements.

“We hope the new, more guided interface will give you an in-game heads up as to the intent of each skill — and maybe even be the way you play through the game in Normal — but if you eventually have a build that simply can’t be accomplished the way we’ve laid things out, you’re free to pop on Elective Mode and take the skills you want.“

If you were one of the lucky 100,000 players who were given access to the Diablo 3 Beta version, you’ll be able to test these changes out right away.

What’s also really cool about Blizzard implementing this new skill rune system is that through leveling up, you will be rewarded your first rune at level 6, and then at each level up to level 60, be rewarded with a new skill, skill rune, or passive skill. You might even acquire multiple skill unlocks at certain levels.

All in all, I think Blizzard has resolved a big design problem that could have delayed the Diablo 3 release date even further. If you want to read Jay Wilson’s (who is Diablo 3′s Game Director) blog post, you can read it here.