[Mechanic] Fishing

In most RPGs, there comes a point where you are grinding for levels. The drill looks like

1. Go grind some monsters for gold/exp
2. Return to inn to heal
3. Repeat

People continue doing it because they see a tangible increase in their power (as they level up) and an increase in numbers as they watch gold/exp go up.

Instead of the inn, you could introduce a minigame or mechanic (depending on how much you want to flesh it out) for fishing. Require characters to have bought some fishing rod (which could increase in quality the more you spend on it, providing improvement there) as well as bait (which could have variations in effects, such as what you can catch with each bait, how strongly it attaches fish that bite onto it, how quickly it attracts fish, etc).

Instead of the inn, give the players a lake or somewhere to fish. Let them either buy berries while they are in town (stocking up), or find them while they are out (as drops from monsters, or in bushes, or in trees, etc). Those berries, or whatever other bait you use, can directly translate into fish (when you fish), and the player's skill in fishing determines whether they get a small fish (that heals a little), a big fish (that heals a lot), a blue fish (that heals mana), etc. Of course, you can also stumble across treasure chests underground you can hook with sturdy bait/rods, and monsters that you can hook as well.

On the story side, this mechanic could sustain a party if they are away from town for a long time, such as if they are on an adventure (passing lakes with different kinds of fish), or in an open world (trying to stay close to water so they can continuously fish food), or stranded on an island, etc. It also lets players stock up what equates to potions for use in battles, too. 

If you flesh out the skill a lot, you could gain experience as you catch fish, that enables you to use different bait, different rods, catch different things, avoid monsters, be more efficient in your fishing, etc.

[Item] Affix: Vulnerability

Vulnerability increases damage taken by 1%, can stack up to 20 times, and each stack lasts 30 seconds.

Could even introduce a few extra affixes in addition to the (current) first one below:

x% chance to inflict Vulnerability

Vulnerability lasts x% longer on targets you hit

Or if elites get a vulnerability affix as well, throw an affix on some torso armor,

You are immune to Vulnerability

Or throw in some punishing legendary weapon with the special affix,

Vulnerability stacks no longer have a stack limit

or

Vulnerability stacks no longer expire

or

Each stack of Vulnerability increases damage taken by an additional 3%

or something.

[Battle] Leoric, The Mad King

The Mad King 

Boss: Leoric 

Scenario: Leoric Countryard could look really awesome with a dark filter, as well as Leoric Manor. 

Yes, Leoric as Skeleton appeared at Tristam Cathedral. But having his manor as an abandoned and enchanted place, local folks would probably feel fear about what lie into it. So, great reason to create an epic combat here.

I think there are enough bosses here to create memories that are fun for every kind of playstyle. Lots of people have been requesting some kind of rift/area with laughably high monster density, and what better place to do it in than with Leoric's endless undead army?

Like my suggestion with Diablo/Tristram (another comment), I think this battle should also be timed, but not with a hard cap. Just like there, where the time is limited to how long you can survive in a completely burning environment by the end, this battle could be "timed" in the sense of Leoric continuously raising more and more of the dead until you are literally drowned in them.

Start the battle out dark, in the Leoric Courtyard, as you suggested. Have monster density be almost nonexistant (this is a memory of course, and people likely stayed away from the Manor). Maybe throw in some merchant NPCs (that could sell some new dyes or something only available in this/other memories) out on the road with caravans.

When you reach the Manor and step inside, have the Skeleton King appear out of nowhere with his dash-hit thing and strike you, knocking you back 4-5x the normal knockback rate into the courtyard. Immediately, the king summons some skeletons and either walks towards you to fight or stays where he is to start summoning a continuous stream of skeletons (that starts out slow, but only increases over time).

As you run back towards Leoric, you see a few skellies headed your way, which you smash one or two on your way. Their bones fall to the ground, but do not disappear.

You reach Leoric, who is in the middle of a long casting animation that, if successful, raises one of those skeleton-summoning pillars from the campaign (right before his boss battle). Striking him interrupts the pillar from being created, but if it is created it shows up on your map and starts spawning skeletons outward from where it is unless you go destroy it.

Now you have a choice: continue to pummel Leoric as he switches off between battling you, summoning skeletons himself, or trying to summon pillars. You need to strategically dodge his attacks, because they still have 2-3x knockback, and you might not get back to him in time to interrupt him summoning more skeletons/pillars.

As you fight, you might also notice the bones on the ground moving. Eventually, they reorganize themselves and the skeleton you killed previously comes back to life, meaning the longer the battle takes the more and more skeletons you will be against, no matter what.

Basically, I'm describing this battle as a dream for anyone who loves pulling huge mobs and AoE-melting them all, but even then they need to pile on enough single-target damage to drop Leoric before the mob sizes get out of control.

Of course, the Countryard remains dark throughout the battle and is completely open, so there is plenty of room to kite and run around, but you can't always see whether there are skeletons in your path with the darkness.

In terms of replayability, I think one of the biggest proponents (past just being _fun_) is to provide some kind of score that people can try and beat their best of. In addition to being a breeding ground (literally) for massacre bonuses, you could also award score by how many skeletons you killed, how many pillars you stopped, how many hits you dodged, how long you lasted (if you die), or any other metric.

[Battle] Diablo, The Dark Wanderer

The Dark Wanderer 

Boss: Diablo 

Senario: Old Tristam 

Diablo himself walked through the roads of Tristam by his own feet. Despite of he was in a human form, the demonic chaos he unleashed fed the nightmares of both children and old men. It would be awesome fighting Diablo in this scenario (and even better if adding some fire to the town).

Adding fire to the town is a great idea, but it shouldn't be done at first. We should be thrown into Old Tristram as the battle starts, and maybe get a glance of Griswold, Cain, Pipin, etc. For bonus points, throw in a couple of civilians from the houses.

Now, as you start to fight Diablo, he of course has fire attacks. _Make the buildings in the environment destructible_. Watch civilians run for their lives as Diablo lays waste to their city, eventually bringing it to the burned-out environment we see in D3.

The burning buildings should of course deal damage to you, and the fire should spread naturally outward, engulfing other pieces of the environment (bushes, grass, etc) until the map eventually fills up with flame. In terms of the looks of the environment, it'd also be pretty cool if the world started out super dark (as you suggested), but the flames provided more vision as they spread, slowly revealing the fact that the city is being destroyed.

Making this a timed battle gives it some sense of urgency for the player to destroy Diablo before he completely destroys Tristram. If time runs out and you are completely engulfed in flames, you at least get to see the sight of Diablo (who is immune to his own fire) walking around a burning city as you fall to your death and are thrown out of the memory.

You could even provide some tactical strategy to the battle if you gave some kind of extra bonus to the player for each civilian that reached safety. You'd run around and be able to direct Diablo's attacks to lay waste to a smaller portion of the city first (since it's directed at you), and by playing it close with the flames you are limiting where he shoots additional flames, meaning less of the city burns up as fast and more civilians get away. Strategy means replayability, as people continue to play the battle over and over again to best their score (not to mention score more rewards).

[Battle] The Butcher, The Flesh Ripper

The Flesh Ripper 

Boss: The Butcher 

Scenario: Tristram Cathedral with a dark filter looks really nice, and creating a closed arena with this appearance would be perfect. As well, adding some crippled corpses and blood would create a better feel of what the Butcher was.

Speaking of things looking really nice, the Butcher's memory would be a really good place to channel a lot of Diablo 1, with a hellish, closed area that you are trapped in filled with torture devices (complete with bodies, as per D1) and piles of corpses. The player finds themselves in a large room full of these contraptions, with another room in the center of this one, with one door leading in. Along the outer walls are some cell doors, some open and some closed, that are open to the environment through body-blocking bars but still enable you to shoot out of them.

When the player opens the door, we get the nostalgic "FRESH MEAT" battlecry and the butcher slashes the player, dealing a constant 20% of their life or so (just enough to scare them) and they are knocked back with a streak of blood tracing their trail, and they get a Bleeding debuff.

>Bleeding. While bleeding, you lose 1% of your life over every 15 seconds. Stacks up to 10 times.

(numbers to be adjusted for taste)

Each time the butcher attacks you, you have a chance to be afflicted by another stack of Bleeding (and visually lose a lot of blood to the ground, in addition to a small, constant stream that scales up with each stack you get). Basically you're painting the battleground with blood that represents where you have been, where you have been hit, and can _see_ the environment change. Of course, have the contraptions be destructible as well, and have the corpses fling more blood (because we _loved_ blood in D1, right?) when they are "destroyed", too.

However, to even out the playing field when it comes to Bleeding between ranged (who can just keep kiting and hitting) and melee (who are constantly in attack range), the Butcher has an attack animation similar to the slow-attacking-but-hard-hitting guys in Act 4, which provides melee characters the chance to kite/dodge attacks as well.

Right now I've described this memory primarily to appeal to nostalgic D1 players (fighting their Butcher on the D3 engine, basically), but I don't think that's quite enough for proper replayability, per se. It need some more interesting mechanics, but I don't know what they would be.

If the blood on the ground could _do_ something, that'd be pretty cool, but I don't think it makes sense for your blood to deal damage to you. Maybe over time concentrated pools of blood disappear and become health globes, or something?

For deliciousness sake as well, the Butcher should have a very small pick-up radius, but also be able to pick up your health globes (especially if they are created from your blood) to be healed from drinking blood. Perhaps the blood-health-globes should heal you less (because they aren't standard health globes), but you still want to make sure you get them before the butcher gets them.

Eventually the butcher dies, and you are treated to look at a room caked in blood for a moment before returning from the memory to the real world and are scored on how much blood you lost.

[Battle] Azmodan, The Infernal Commander

The Infernal Commander 

Boss: Azmodan 

Scenario: Diamond Gates (outer). 

We know that Azmodan commanded some attacks against the High Heavens. He is supposed to be a great commander, meaning that even Angels may fear him. Of course, many demon militia would be needed.

Aww yeah, strategy battle.

You're on a massive battlefield: diamond gates or fields of slaughter or something. For the duration of the battle you have an effect similar to the CE angel wings, and your weapon has an additional white glow.

You are on the edge of the battlefield (i.e. you can't turn back) and there are huge amounts of angels in a long line along the edge with you. On your minimap, they are represented by white dots, but you also have 3-4 "squads" represented by an angel's face on the map. You can also view the full map and see these icons, in addition to 50x more red dots on the other side of the battlefield and clumped around catapults and other points of interest (each named and labeled by demon faces).

Right-clicking on any of your angel squad faces on the map gives you a menu with some options, the first of which is checked by default:

>Stay with me
>Target catapults
>Target gates
>Target whatever-those-giant-demon-spawners are called
>Target small groups
>Target large groups
>Target Azmodan

At any time you can change your orders of any squad on the map and they will start running off towards new targets (unless they stay with you). You can also see these angel faces in addition to where other player portraits are (with 4 squads you could pretend there are 8 players in the game).

Basically, it's a gigantic battlefield of angels about as strong as you are (maybe they mirror your stats or scale off your health/DPS or something) against hordes more demons, and you need to pick them off in groups to whittle down the numbers before facing Azmodan on the other side of the battlefield. His fireball attack happens less often, but now has an infinite range, so you might see an angel or two explode from an incoming fireball from the other side of the map (which you could easily run away from).

There is a strength bar at the top of the screen comparing your army's strength to Azmodan's (and hovering over your side displays how many angels you have and hovering over his side displays how many total demons Azmodan has), and you start out incredibly weak compared to his army (scaling up in difference as the difficulty goes up). However, as you destroy each catapult/gate/elite (captain)/mob/spawner/etc, his power goes down, which eventually evens out your power (assuming you also kept your angels alive). Whenever you feel good enough about your power vs Azmodan's, you should go engage him. To help you better judge when, you might have objectives that look something like

>1 catapult left
>5 captains left
>3 spawners left

Whenever you engage him, he roars and every demon still alive on the battlefield starts falling back on him, and your angels follow behind. Soon, there are demons and angels fighting all around you and, assuming equal powers, they whittle each other down (but if the power is lopsided, more angels or more demons will fall, leaving the other side in power).

Azmodan still uses his existing abilities, raining bodies down from the sky, causing blood pools on the battlefield, creating demon summoning things, and shooting fireballs.

You can run around and kill off demons to get your angels to start piling on Azmodan, you can command your angels to just ignore the demons and focus fire Azmodan, you can just run in and facetank Azmodan and see how things go, you can clear the whole field beforehand and just have an army of angels destroy the infernal commander, etc. The choice is up to you, but you're probably going to get points (and thus, a scaling reward) depending on how many angels are still alive at the end of the battle.

...Actually, now that I think about it, you could completely replace Azmodan with another player (commanding demons) and implement some kind of strategic PvEvP this way. ;)

[Item] Legendary Effects

Some effects that would be fun on standalone legendaries in Diablo 3:

Wand

• Increase the radius of Frost Nova by 200%.

Dagger

• Increase the size of your Chakrams by 200%.

Bow

• While you are beneath 10% Hatred, your next attack will deal +100% damage and gain an extra 50% Hatred.
• Knocking an enemy back into a wall pins them in place for 1 second.

Quiver

• Your arrows fly 200% faster.
• Your arrows fly 200% slower.
• Your arrows seek a target.
• Enemies killed by your sentries have a chance to become sentries.

Chest

• +70% chance to dodge 
• Successfully dodging an enemy's attack confuses that enemy for 3 seconds.
• Dodged ranged attacks will continue flying and may strike enemies.

Gloves

• Your attacks can break Waller walls

[Item] Set Effects

Some Set Effects that would utilize underused effects by giving them large coefficients:

For example, swap (or add to) Bul-Kathos's set with

(2) Chance to deal 150% Splash Damage on hit.

Or on the new Thorns set, also throw in

(3) Gain 10% of your Thorns damage as armor.

Or have some (new?) sets geared towards specific elements

(4) Whenever you are dealt Fire damage, you explode in a burst of flame for 300% of your Fire resistance to all enemies within 12 yards. 

(4) Whenever you are dealt Cold damage, you gain a covering of ice that increases your armor equal to 300% of your Cold Resistance for 10 seconds. 

(4) Whenever you are dealt Lightning damage, shoot out bolts of electricity for 300% of your Lightning resistance to all enemies within 12 yards. 

(4) Whenever you are dealt Holy damage, you gain immunity to all damage for 1 second. This effect cannot occur twice in succession within 5 seconds. 

(4) Whenever you are dealt Arcane damage, gain Arcane Power equal to 10% of your Arcane resistance. 

etc

Would be awesome to see some commonly-overlooked affixes be used in unique new ways, as well.

(2) Critical hits have a 20% chance to spawn a health globe.

(3) Health globes explode for 500% of your Health Globe Healing to all enemies within 12 yards. Health globes no longer heal you.

or for a time wizard wand/focus (with, of course, cooldown reduction to Slow Time on one of them),

(2) Enemies caught within a Slow Time bubble take 300% of your Life Per Second as Arcane damage every second.

[Item] Vampiric Set

Bleed is an underutilized mechanic that is interesting in that it does not scale off of your damage. However, this means it typically is overlooked in order to maximize damage, because bleeding can't roll as high DPS.

Bleeding also has a couple problems:

1. It is a DoT effect, which means you have to stick around long enough for enemies to die (meaning in situations with X damage over Y seconds, Y needs to be relatively low).
2. It does not roll high damage.
3. If it did roll high damage, it would be overpowered if you could add it on top of your normal damage output.

In an attempt to resolve all of these problems and make a viable "Bleed" build, I've come up with a "Vampire Set" that solves each issue.

In keeping with the recent design goals outlined by Travis Day in the Design a Legendary community event, I have also designed the set around the following tenets:

• Little to no new artwork or development time required
• Build changing
• Changes/relies on a (perhaps underutilized) game mechanic
• Synergizes with builds and other items
• Not a boring non-choice like a straight up damage buff, or a cast on effect (poison nova etc.)
• Has some amount of background flavor
• The affix should be offensively orientated
• The affix should not be too complicated

Here is the set, intended to be able to be played by any class.

There are no weapons in the set, but the bleed damage increase is high enough that you should be able to decide whether you want two 1Hs (stacking fast hits of smaller bleed amounts) or a 2H with high bleed (stacking slower hits of more bleed damage). And I think 6000% hits a sweet spot of enabling you to still have enough damage from bleed + regular DPS if you wanted to go with a 1H bleeder + shield.

And just for a final example, lets throw out some numbers: Skorn has the following affix:

• 95.0–100.0% chance to inflict Bleed for 5825–6628–6825–13256 damage over 5 seconds.

So on the best roll of Skorn, you've got a 100.0% chance to inflict Bleed for 6,628-13,256 damage over 5 seconds, which averages out to about 9,942 extra damage over 5 seconds per hit, or 1,988 extra damage per second from Bleeding. Negligible. 

You can stack more Bleeding each time you hit, so if you assume a base attack rate of Skorn's 1.00 attacks per second, you should be able to have a concurrent 4 stacks of Bleeding up at any time if you just continuously attack. This amounts to, on top of your regular DPS, about 7,952 extra damage per second from Bleeding if you stack Bleed procs. Still negligible.

Now, while this set might forgo some offensive capabilities in straight DPS, it makes up for it in the complete set bonus of +6000% Bleed damage.

Going back to our original best roll of Skorn, the max-roll 6,628-13,256 damage over 5 seconds suddenly becomes 397,680-795,360 damage over 5 seconds, which averages out to 596,520 damage over 5 seconds, or an extra 119,304 damage per second from Bleeding.

Stacking Bleeding in the same way as before (assuming your rate of application allows you to have 4 stacks active at any time), you now have an effective DPS through Bleeding of 477,216. Whether or not the sacrifice in losing 4 pieces of gear's worth of crit chance, crit damage, etc. is worth it is up to you.