Wizard ain't gonna be usin' mana(!)

http://pc.ign.com/articles/101/1017305p2.html


Quote:




Jay Wilson: Right now the monk and the wizard and the witch doctor all use mana. The witch doctor is actually going with mana, that's official. The monk and the wizard are going to have different systems, and we haven't finished them, I can't talk about them yet. They are definitely both going to be different, but the witch doctor is actually going to be on mana, we like that convention.




Whammer. I can't even begin to think what they are gonna replace that with. Or that the WD got the classic mana system over Wizard.

Now, even though this iteration of our spellcasting favorite is heavily DnD inspired, I can't imagine a Vancian spellcasting system. Too slow paced. Any ideas what surprise Blizzard could possibly be storing for us?|||It looks like Blizzard wants each class to get a different orb. Fury for barb, Mana for Witch Doctor (I think soul-orb could be better, recollecting souls or so), and who knows for the remaining three.|||Idk, but it really screws up the whole globe system. Just what the hell are globes now, anyway? They heal your life, manna, soul (or w/e), and so on. Explain that!

What else...in parties globes are going to disappear REALLY fast because everyone is going to need a refill of something all the time. You can forget about team strategy of conserving them for a champion/boss fight.|||Quote:








What else...in parties globes are going to disappear REALLY fast because everyone is going to need a refill of something all the time. You can forget about team strategy of conserving them for a champion/boss fight.




This shouldn't be a problem since the health gained from the globes are shared with the party.

It does mess with the lore, though. According to the manuals and books, mana is the force that permeates the world. It powers everyone. It seems like the Wizard, more than anyone, would have a mana globe. I'm hoping they explain everything lore-wise. It's disheartening when there're so many inconsistencies in the lore.|||Same with mana right? That and the added mana chance skill >>|||Well, they did set up the Wizard character as an exceptional caster who decided to dig into forbidden magics. Maybe they decided that to properly convey that they would need an alternate method that transcends limitations of normal casters.

The Wizard's mastery of magic progressing so far beyond the expected that she simply doesn't rely on mana on alter reality, but something else? Or that it became second nature to use and manipulate it so she simply doesn't run out of it? A combination of both? Like, when using temporal magic she treats using mana like breathing, and the "muscles" to control it will be represented in this new system?

I wouldn't mind. Anything that makes my Wizard more badass is fine in my book.|||Yeah just read it. Seems like Wizard should have mana and the WD should get something else. I can see why the game is taking forever now though. Going back to switch already designed classes over to new systems. Would anyone really have cared if 4 classes each used mana?|||Does it matter what it is called? It may still be subject to the same rules governing mana in general.|||They aren't going to name it something differnt if it works just like mana. It will probably be as different from mana as fury is.|||When I read about this, I had an idea for the wizard's resource system. Since it seems like they want every character to have a wide variety of active skills, I thought of a system that would reward the wizard for using multiple skills instead of spamming one until they no longer can use it.

My idea was this: there are four glowing runes in place of the mana sphere. You use Disintegrate for a while, and the first rune starts to fade. Once it runs out, it doesn't start to refill (or it does, but at a very slow rate). So you switch to Electrocute. If you hit an enemy with it, the first rune starts to refill with each successful hit as your second rune starts to fade. Then you switch to Arcane Orb, which refills the first two runes as the third starts to deplete.

For defensive skills like Storm Armor or Temporal Armor, they would refill the other runes as you take hits. In other words, as you use an active skill, it refills the meters on your other active skills. But they only replenish the other meters if they take effect. If you use Disintegrate on a wall, it would just deplete one meter until it's gone. This would prevent spamming one skill, and it would promote the use of multiple skills.