Originally Posted by
Caiada
1) All skills are viable.
2) The point system was, though conceptually sound, completely inappropriate for Diablo, a game mostly about the damage you do. A non-maxed skill was basically a useless skill in D2 sans a few one point wonders, but I can't think of a build off-hand that put a skill at anything between 1 or 20 unless it was because you ran out of points. Changing Diablo to fit to the point system would be counter-intuitive.
3) Each class has 20-ish skills, 6 slots, and 6 variations of skills. The possibilities for a large amount of variety (their major design goal with this new system) is absolutely there, and it seems to be working out.
The point system (much like WoW's talents. Same company not known for innovation copied itself, heh) gave you the illusion of lots of choice with 99 points, but really, there was never any logical reason or benefit at leaving a skill not maxed or at 1 point. More importantly, there was no benefit. If I left Blizzard at 10 to get the prereqs for Meteor, you know what I had? A crappy sorc with two weaker skills. With the new system, I can get Blizzard and Meteor, and it's just as viable as if I did Blizzard and some other skill, or changed some rune. Every choice has a tangible benefit and detriment. Build variation should go substantially up.