How Health works in Diablo III

[Boneasse]

So, did you think Health in D3 would be like in the first two games? Well you're mistaken. You can't just spam healing potions, since they will be on a cool down timer and pretty rare.

Certain classes can heal themselves a bit, but not overly effective and using the skills will have consequences.

So what will you do when you're facing down a horde of 50 skeletons? Well, it's a known concept Blizzard has adopted:

The health globes
You probably know them from such games as God of War and Ninja Gaiden. The small crimson-coloured orbs hanging in the air waiting for you to pick them up. Each enemy in the game has a percentage-given chance to drop them and when you pick one up, your health goes up accordingly.

Rare -and champion monsters will drop medium-sized health orbs when you hit them and their health reaches a certain point. That will help keeping you alive in tougher fights where there are no "adds" that can drop them.

The same goes for boss-fights. Some bosses will drop medium to big-sized health orbs when you damage them or spawn minions that you will have to kill, who will then drop smaller orbs.

You will have to decide how to play it out and whether to kill adds, who to damage, kite or tank'n'spank. The wrong decision can easily kill you.

Discussion value: Is this new method of gaining health any good, should they have stuck to eternal potion-button-mashing, or is this method unimaginative and seen before?

For more info in how health works, click here [http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/world/systems/health.xml]

 

[Giantcain]

Well the eternal potion mashing break at least one key by the end of the game. So I like this its not as if you full heal after every small battle.

 

[SteveeVader]

I personally find it half assed but I thought I saw the health globes in a very early vid at blizzcon and I called it. I personally really despise health orbs as it takes the difficulty out of the game because that safety cushion of a heavy attack that will kill multiple mobs will give you health.

I do not mind health pools such as in Alan Wake, mass effect or halo because health becomes very situational and aiming and being a good trigger finger / caster benefits immensely even Cod I would say has a better system. In god of war and kingdom hearts 1 and 2 I never once have died just because orbs are so frequent and this is was on hard mode. I kind of really dug the health restoration in bayonetta where you had to sacrifice your costs for life and to survive to took a variable amount of blocking.

 

[SomeLameStuff]

I don't really mind health orbs as long as they don't make it piss easy to walk through the mobs.

I'm actually more interested in these boss battles they keep mentioning. There better be a dragon on that lineup.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

Well, they managed to implement the worst aspect of God of War and Ninja Gaiden, and used it to replace on of the defining elements of their game. Interesting, to say the least.

 

[Rylot]

I liked the second game where you could spam the health potions but they weren't instant. It required strategy: Wait too long and you'll die but spam it too often and you'll run out. Okay, I know that they had the purple ones that did insta heal but those took a bit of farming and I only ever used them on bosses. As has been pointed out I'm afraid that now every battle is gonna turn out to be just charge the enemy flailing and enough orbs will drop that you'll be fine. Personally I was hoping for something new and different that we haven't seen before, balls if I know what it'd be though.

 

[Chainsauce]

Sounds rather interesting, nice to see something else than regenerative health.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

Well, they managed to implement the worst aspect of God of War and Ninja Gaiden, and used it to replace on of the best elements of their game. Interesting, to say the least.

Quaffing potions is one of the best elements of diablo?

what the fuck?

Not really, but it's one of the defining elements, best isn't quite it, that's my bad. It's like replacing looting and grinding with quick time events and minigames. It's not... right.

 

[Judgement101]

I love Diablo II so I'm super hyped for Diablo III. I'm SOOO UBER HYPED!

 

[MajorLandmark]

I'm (still) a massive fan of Diablo 2, and I must say the health aspect of D3 was what worried me the most from watching their videos etc. It's nice to have something new, but I've never seen a problem with the old style health it had. I can see how many games benefit for not having fixed health. Having regenerating health fits better with many games because of pace and genre. One thing I've not been able to convince myself is whether Diablo needs to adopt a different chance of pace. Health potions seems to fit the hack and slash rpg/adventure genre just fine. True at times the game could sometimes be an amusing fumble of potion spam, since staying alive was probably more important than anything else you could do at a given moment. This all said, I'm still going to give D3 a damn good go whenever it comes out. It may well prove to be a seemless and intuitive gameplay mechanic.

 

[Blackality]

At least it's not regenerative health.

That would be the peak of epic failure.

 

[Gardenia]

I hate potions with a passion. I read that they were going to include energy potions in Guild Wars 2, and for a full 2 hours, I contemplated not buying the game, and finally decided to give it a chance.
I want Diablo 3 so bad it's giving me an ulcer.

 

[LtWiesel]

I like that there still wont be a real healing class, just doesnt fit in the diablo universe.
No pots seems strange since u have to be carefull not to run over these orbs in a fight when you have around 95% hp and try to save them for later.

But as long as my axe slashes through hordes of undead and reroll every class 5 times because of funny skill trees I´m so going to buy it!