How out of date is our knowledge of skills?

I was just looking at the wizard skills in the wiki, and trying to conceptualize (fantasize) about how I would play a primarily melee (or melee/ranged debuff a la warlock) style build for a wizard. It's pretty apparent that those skills are hella old. Most of them even still refer to mana, which the wizard hasn't had in FOREVER.

So I guess what I'm asking is, is the wiki just not updated (which I doubt considering what a good job people do with it here), or is it more that we have NO idea what the current wizard skills really are, even with the fact that the wiz is playable in the current demos that get run at cons?

Just curious if anyone had any more recent info on the skills the wizard is rocking currently.|||The next Blizzcon will hopefully provide us with an answer to some of the 'older' wizard skills. Knowing Blizzard, everything is possible |||There's been zero info released about wizard skills (or pretty much any character's skills) since last year's Blizzcon. Pages in the wiki have been updated when there's new info to update, like the Instability page, but I don't see the point in changing mentions of mana on the wizard skills when we'd just be guessing about any Instability effects?

The only reason detailed wizard skill information exists, like anywhere outside of Blizzard, is b/c me and some others from IncGamers spent the time in the blizzcon press room to record the skill names and hover details for every skill in the game, and then typed them up and got fan help making those cool visual skill tree images. (Which are also now obsolete, but hey, that was expected.)

I say this not to grub for thanks, but to point out that complete skill lists and detailed skill info is just not something Blizzard makes available, pre-release. Like, ever.|||I wasn't being accusatory, just inquisitive. As I said, you guys do a great job with the wiki. I just didn't know if in any of the builds people have played recently at conventions if anything different had been seen for wizards. I know Bliz won't be releasing too much skill info.

Just looking to see if anything had been noticed that was different. I know they don't even have skill trees per se anymore so I didn't know if people who had played recently had noticed new stuff. Do the wizards in the playable demo still use mana and not the Arcane Power resource at this point? I'm sure I missed some of this though I try to be diligent |||No, there's been zero new wiz info, except about instability / arcane power, since last year's blizzcon. Last August! The same demo build from that show was at gamescom this year.

Sadly, no one outside of blizzard ever even got to try out instability. It went in after blizzcon 2009, was in for a year or so, and is now gone. So I guess we've got to take their word that it didn't work, since we'll be using arcane power in this year's blizzcon demo.

I'm expecting to see some huge skill changes this time, even if most of the big changes come from skill runes, which I can't see anyone having time to really experiment with, at blizzcon. that's a late game sort of feature anyway; comparing all the diff skills, with each type of skill rune, etc. it's too much new info too fast to really absorb, while playing a demo for 20 minutes.|||Quote:








while playing a demo for 20 minutes.




Surely though with your esteemed Media Pass you'll get more than 20 mins per play, and as such will be able to do a little "experimenting" as well as the usual jotting everything down that you do such a good job of? |||Quote:








Surely though with your esteemed Media Pass you'll get more than 20 mins per play, and as such will be able to do a little "experimenting" as well as the usual jotting everything down that you do such a good job of?




Presumably, but one never knows. The D3 machines are almost always busy in the press room, and I expect that'll continue this year as more and more interest grows in D3. Also depends on my schedule; last year I was out a lot filming the panels and doing some interviews and other activities down on the floor.

Since everything seems to be on the streaming virtual ticket this year, us filming panels directly may be redundant, which would be fine with me. Attending them is a hassle; juggling video recorder and tripod and a laptop for notes, and there's nothing to gain by viewing them directly, instead of on video a day later.

Last year I got on one of the 4 machines in the press room early the first day and just hogged it for like 90 minutes, to play the monk through every inch of the demo, and to level him up enough to try the 2 skills that didn't have points in them as a default. I felt a little guilty, but it passed.|||Quote:








I felt a little guilty, but it passed.




oh i am sure it did, and pretty fast too i would bet|||I would think that they've all changed pretty drastically, especially the WD. They didn't seem to have any real cohesive theme for his skills last time we saw him. I am willing to (sadly) bet that a lot of the melee-oriented Wee!zard skills have not made the cut.|||Would that matter? The Wizard has plenty of spells that suit melee combat just as well as ranged. I wouldn't be surprised that it could potentially become the "tankiest" out of all the classes with all those defensive buffs/abilities. If they kept the Enchant like skill, that should be more than enough to give the Wizard a distinct melee style from smashy Barbarian or comboing Monk.