Gameplay focused on spamming one single skill?

Fireball (Main DPS)
2 Fire Storm Totems (AOE/Secondary DPS)
3 Zombies (Meat Shield)
Elemental Weakness (Curse)
2 Auras (Clarity + Discipline)
Ice Wall (As an escape, or to hide behind while totems kill everything)

And sometimes Conversion Trap, just for fun if if I'm getting absolutely swarmed.

2 auras
2 main attacks (1 AoE and 1 Single target)
1 minion skill for holding monster aggro (mainly on bosses)
1 trap for rare monsters and bosses
and a phase run.

All on my 55 Ranger.

Dont even get me started on support gems.

I use several skills on every character so far.

Templar: Lightning Strike, Sweep, Leap Slam, Molten Shell are all used very regularly, all of which are backed by support gems. I also have Vitality,Enduring Cry, and Warlord's Mark that I run situationally. I will also add Glacial Hammer in for single target DPS once I get a good weapon/support gems for it.

Witch: Elemental Weakness, Ice Spear, Freezing Pulse, Ice Nova are all my main skills used equally with Cold Snap being situational. Aura's and Skele summons used situationally.

Marauder: Heavy Strike, Cleave, Shield Charge along with auras debuffs and zombies (for now).

On average I'd say 3 active attack skills/debuffs that are used all the time. Once you factor in auras, summons etc. there's a multitude of skills that need to be used. I can't imagine using one skill over and over. I generally have a single target DPS skill, a frontal AoE DPS and a full 360 degree DPS at least for attack skills. For my Witch it's Spear, Pulse, Nova. For my Templar it's Glacial Hammer, Lightning Strike, Sweep.

I really do't think you have to worry about having one single attack that you spam constantly.

Just adding in here... I'm currently working on a Duelist. my primary skill is Heavy Strike, but I'll throw in Cleave against mobs. When I need to get moving, I Phase Run, and on against a couple bosses I've had to drop a few fire traps.

The best part is that you don't have to continually use these to level them up - they just have to be socketed. So you can plan long-range by leveling up gems even if you don't use them, and switch out of you want to. It's not like other similar games where if you don't build properly, you're screwed in the end; the skills are gems and mostly interchangeable. If you find your needs changing, then simply alter your skills.

As an archer i use 3 skills across the mouse buttons-
• high dps
• crowd control
• support/ diversion

These are further buffed by support skills, i find it useful to slso run
Some instance specific skills when can smooth out some bumps in the road and atleast one buff skill or aura.

All of these serve a designated function and are synergied with passive skills as much as possible to create an efficient and effective killing machine.

In a party situation you may be able to spam one skill but as a solo player you will need a fleshed out arsenal if you wish to progress beyond normal difficulty.

on my ranger i use all my skills, except two, and thats flame arrow, and elemental arrow, well sometimes i use elemental arrow but not really the fire arrow.

i use all the time, basic attack, poison arrow, raining arrow, split arrow, and hatred. add in alot of cold damage, and alot of crit, and things just explode because all my skills get the cold damage effect and crit.

Archer-(elemental)

2 Auras
Burning Arrow
Lightning Arrow
Poison Arrow
Elemental Weakness
Decoy Totem
Phase Run



Marauder (Tank/Ele dmg)

Rejuvenation Totem
Molten Shell
Firestorm
Shield Charge
Ground Slam
Enduring Cry
Immortal Call
Elemental Weakness


Shadow (melee)
Double Strike/Flicker Strike/Dual Strike(DW)
2-3 Auras
Tempest Shield (1h/shield)
Frenzy/Blood Rage (just depends on the character)
Lightning Strike
Temporal Chains/Elemental Weakness
Fire Trap
Bear Trap
Conversion Trap
Decoy Totem
Whirling Blades


Witch - Summoner
Summon Zombie
Summon Skeleton (suicide bombers)
Summon Spectres (multiple projectiles support and always ranged)
Vulnerability (minions do more dmg)
Wrath/Anger Auras (more minion dmg)
Frost Wall
Freezing Pulse
Phase Run
Molten Shell


those are just some of the characters i have/made and the skills they use.

I can tell you there wouldn't be too many people running the Maelstrom of Chaos at level 58-62 by spamming just the one main skill.

That said I do at times feel as though my characters are spamming just the one skill, especially when you pick up some nice 5-link armour or bow.

I know this was an 'issue' discussed about a month or so ago in another thread and some people were talking about having diminishing returns and the like.

I think if there were to be any really nice workaround it could be a system that encourages the use of complementary skills. Such as using a cold/ice based skill on enemies before finishing them off with lightning that is 'conducted' and thus increased in damage by the complementary cold damage.

People never like it when I compare MMO dynamics to those in aRPG's but I think WoW did this very successfully from what I remember of playing my warlock.

or actually add true immunities, like physical, elemental, and individual break down of elements. i think this would force you to use other types of skills.

lets say the enemy has a physical immunity, and you are a ranger. well basica attacks, split arrow, and rainging arrows have just become useless vs this enemy, however, your elemental arrows, or even elemental arrow itself is not.

if hes immune to everything, there could be a curse you could find that would render his immunities obsolete, however, it would only work on enemeies that have the rare immune to all affix.

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Malurek wrote:

or actually add true immunities, like physical, elemental, and individual break down of elements. i think this would force you to use other types of skills.

lets say the enemy has a physical immunity, and you are a ranger. well basica attacks, split arrow, and rainging arrows have just become useless vs this enemy, however, your elemental arrows, or even elemental arrow itself is not.

if hes immune to everything, there could be a curse you could find that would render his immunities obsolete, however, it would only work on enemeies that have the rare immune to all affix.

GGG has stated they are against full blown immunes.