Diablo III- Skills Article I: What Is This For

Well, it’s time for a new series of articles- and this particular series is all about Diablo III- specifically, about the skills that you can get in Diablo III.  Skills are one of the two elements that will make your character differ from others of their class, and they’re the one you’re more in control of.  Between the choice of skills themselves and the runes that you can choose to attach to the skills, the set of possibilities is near endless.

Now, the thing you’ll need to understand before getting into any of the rest of this is that just because a skill is more useful to you does not make it a flat-out better skill.  Every player plays differently, and every character class functions differently.  Every set of gear improves different things, and every situation calls for different investments.  Given all of that, do not expect me to ever claim that one skill is simply the best- because that is not how games like this works.  The entire reason why you are provided different choices in a game to build your resource- whether that resource is a character, an army, a machine, a world, or anything else- is to suit the way you function while you are playing a game.

All too often people fail to take that into account, especially en masse, resulting in a huge portion of the high-end or long-term players in a given game playing the game the same way as each other.  However, because of their different personal playstyles, reaction times, instincts, and preferences, they will find this same ‘cookie-cutter’ build to be better or worse for them than for other people who also use it.

With that in mind, I’m going to be writing this series of articles from as neutral a standpoint as I can manage, attempting to ensure that every skill and every rune is given its fair shake, its chance to be both lauded and derided.  While it is true that some skills are preferable to others, that is usually a situational thing- so keep that in mind.

When I talk about the skills and their runes, I’m also going to talk about different ways of using those skills.  When I talk about character classes, I’m going to talk about different ways to play those character classes.  This is inevitable because this is a game- there is not only one way to win, and it’s not even true that winning is going to be everyone’s favorite part of the game.  Many gamers (myself included, in fact) get as much if not more enjoyment from experimenting within a game and trying new things as from rising victorious over the end of it.

So pay attention to what I say- and then try the things out yourself, and see if you agree.  By all means, leave reviews and comments on what I say as well- feedback is always helpful to a writer, no matter what they’re writing.  Just make sure it’s useful feedback.  As nice as it is to hear that you like an article, it’s more useful to know what you liked specifically and why- and just saying that you hated it is useless.  Say why so that the writer can fix it, change it, expand it, or do whatever is needed to make the writing better.

Well, time to dive on in.