By Keith Sibley and Donavin Sulser
Gaming Writer and Gaming Editor
With Diablo 3 being released May, 15, 2012, we here at FanboyNation have been neck deep in Beta to get our early fix on one of the most anticipated and loved games of all time, but something about this game doesn’t set right. Something in the pit of your stomach that makes any movement uncomfortable, like leftover lunch meat that’s been sitting in your car for two years and you decide to eat it because the meat still looks good. Then it hit us, to our dismay.
Similar to Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 and the many games that have copied them over the years, they all have one thing in common, potions! Hack and slash fast paced action coupled with potion spamming to recover health and mana being a huge part of the previous Diablo incarnations, making the game stand alone. What changed with Diablo 3? Potion spanning for health recovery has been diminished. While some may argue that this adds more strategy to the game and increases the difficulty we disagree. There are many ways to make Diablo 3 challenging without potion cool downs.
The cool down takes away from what put Diablo on the map. Any long time Diablo fan holds a special place in his/her heart of potion chugging, being the primary goal of your left hand as you right clicked the hell out of monsters. Inserting a cool down does increase the level of difficulty, it turns the game into World of Warcraft; giving Blizzard a chance in cloning their cash cow.
Potions, aren’t the object of our disdain. The get-out-of-jail-free-cards are new to Diablo 3 giving every class an escape cool down ability or multiple escape cool downs. The wizard class is granted three escape spells within the first few levels. The Frost Nova is able to freeze enemies within its turning radius, the Diamond Skin absorbs all incoming damage and the Wave of Force knocks back all the foes from around the wizard.
The wizards aren’t the only issue; the monks gets Inner Sanctuary, putting up a protective barrier blocking monsters from entering an area for 6 seconds. The monks also receive Impenetrable Defense ability.
At the first sign of trouble just pop a cool down ability and you’re home free, running from enemies and regroup. What does this mean for Diablo 3? Sadly, a drastic decrease in difficulty of game play removing what little skill requiring patience that were a part of the strategies in the previous editions.
While the potion change can potentially add to the challenge of the game and the escape abilities decrease it, will it balance out? Only time will tell but it still won’t stop these Fanboys from waiting in line for its release.
