The skill runes drastically change the way a skill works; for example my witch doctor’s basic poison dart attack could be ruined in a number of different ways: a speedy triple shot; a slow dart that would snare enemies and a shot that would build mana. These are just a few of the dozen or so skill runes, for each ability. The passive skills may be equipped three at a time and do just as their namesake implies, affect your character passively furthering the depth of what the community is dubbing “Skill Builds”.

While Diablo 2 allowed you to hot key any ability the left and right mouse buttons and change them at any time, Diablo 3’s skills cannot be swapped through hotkeys and are now bound by the four number keys as well as the left and right mouse buttons. While this may seem restrictive to Diablo 2 fans it does add lot of strategy and pre battle planning to the game. There were only a few scenarios in Diablo 2 that I can remember using more than six skills at a time.

Photo courtesy of Blizzard

Diablo vets will want to enable elective mode in the menu allowing you to bind skills to whichever of the six buttons you desire. Diablo 3 revamps the health and mana systems from previous games. Health now regenerates with the collection of health globes and like money can be picked up by simply walking over them. The globes drop from fallen enemies and keep the focus on combat rather than the potion spamming of Diablo 2. The game still features potions but they are relegated to emergency situations as they feature long cool downs. This change to the way health is accrued does not dampen the difficulty it just means you won’t be portaling to town every five minutes to buy pots.

The mana system has been changed to reflect each character class, the only character that still uses “mana” is the witch doctor, the other classes use similar energy bars more suited to the way they play. The barbarian builds fury with his basic skills and unleashes it with the use of heavier nuke skills. The wizard uses arcane power, which is very similar to mana though it regenerates much faster. The witch hunter uses two bars, one for defensive, and the other for offensive abilities. Similarly to the less gritty health and mana systems players no longer have to buy scrolls, which in the past were used for town portals and identifying items (both of which just require you wait a few seconds in Diablo 3).