JangBahadur#1968: Hello, I am Bhagat Singh Bedi. I am a fine artist by profession. I have a huge body of work that has built up over the past decade or so, mostly about Indian history and religions.

Last year I did a painting of the Witch Doctor using Zombie Bears to fight the deceivers, dune dervishes and Key-warden, in Dahlgur Oasis. If I may, I'd love to share this piece with the community -
http://prince911.deviantart.com/art/Witch-Doctor-Zombie-Bears-2014-440223583

I was originally studying in the biological sciences to become a doctor like many young Indian men. However in my final year before graduation, I said "to the burning hells with this. Ima live my life devoted to my passion for art." I still studied that year, graduated with honours, volunteered and all that but I didn't look back after that. I taught myself art through studying other artists and art books. People say I have talent but really it's all practice, practice, practice, and striving to reach the next level.

I really love the old renaissance-period artists like Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Rubens, and many, many others from different times. Mind-blowing stuff! Whenever I look at their paintings, I become filled with inspiration. I study them and combine their western approach to Christian religious imagery, with the Eastern traditions and religious imagery. With that I get this really nice mix of east meets west that has worked out really well!

JangBahadur#1968: I love singing. I play decent Tabla beats. I love to think philosophically from different points of view. Spiritual growth is important to me. I love meditating, practicing to be in the moment. This is foreshadowing an answer below btw. ;)

I also love playing sports and lifting weights. I love hiking as well as exploring places, which is why OBEs have captured my interest recently. For those unfamiliar, OBEs are Out-of-Body Experiences, where you can apparently leave your body as consciousness alone and explore the material and immaterial dimensions of our world. It's just like Witch Doctor's Spirit Walk. I just started learning about it so let's see how it goes. I'll definitely get back to you guys if I ever Spirit Walk IRL lol.

Finally, I love to learn new things. I am open to everything. Underneath all my hobbies is this desire to learn more, to attain more knowledge.

JangBahadur#1968: My history as a gamer starts with NES, with Mario, Duck Hunt and Super Contra. Continues onto Xbox with Halo 2, Soul Calibur, to the PC with Runescape, Halo 1 and Diablo 2. I also love my Wii, as it became a great way to connect with and spend time with my family. Currently awaiting for Halo 5, the beta was sick!

With Diablo franchise, I have been playing since D2. My friends introduced me to it in high school and I was hooked ever since. I love coming up with design ideas for it. Got tons of "Compilation of Ideas" type of threads in D3 forums.

JangBahadur#1968: Honestly, D3 is up there and has been since release, I enjoyed many of the old systems as much as, if not more than the new systems.

Other games like Diablo 2, Super Contra, Smash Bros, Halo, Soul Calibur 2, Runescape and Smite had me coming back again and again.

JangBahadur#1968: In Season 1, I played a Barb. In Season 2, Crusader. And now in Season 3, I am rocking a Monk. I wana play all classes in depth and learn more about them. I think Seasons is a great idea for that reason. I had been hitting different classes before seasons but I felt like I should work on my main. Seasons gives me an excuse to play others more often.

JangBahadur#1968: I have a small clan with my family and close online friends, called <Legend> Legendary Immortals. Haha not much happening there atm. Everyone is kinda busy nowadays. We don't get as much time to play, as we are all working on our studies, careers and/or families.

JangBahadur#1968: This one time, I was playing for so long and so late into the night that I dozed off on my table. My friend was waiting for me the whole time and was wondering where I had gone. I felt embarrassed when I had to tell him that he waited for me for 20 minutes because I fell asleep.

JangBahadur#1968: I had a lot of awesome moments playing Zombie Bears, it felt awesome when I discovered their mechanics. I also had awesome moments while fighting Uber Bosses back in the day. This was back when Ubers were very challenging (we did them without CM Wiz :). I remember coming up with all these strategies with my friends. One of which was about the best way to revive dying friends. With the Skeleton King around, reviving was very very difficult. You'd constantly get interrupted by him, his minions and Maghda's locusts. Without CM, reviving had became a crucial and fun part of Ubers' gameplay.

I remember feeling awesome when this one time I held back Skeleton King's melee minions with my minions and I Spirit Walked to my buddy's corpse, passing through the archers's arrows, SK's teleport attack, and Maghda's Locusts - all at the same time, and hit revive. It was this super smooth revive, as if I moon-walked over and said "hey no worries I got this!" That type of revive, haha! That moment was the most memorable.

JangBahadur#1968: If I remember correctly, I played all the classes in the Open beta and in the end it came down to Monk and Witch Doctor, because they both enveloped the spiritual warrior theme. I meditate often so that theme appealed to me. In the end, it all came down to which class was the best in terms of art, design and music,.

I remember during beta, I stared at my Monk performing 'Piercing Trident' for what seemed like hours, and I would listen to the sound of it striking through the air. If you listen closely you can hear the vibrations and echoes and whatever the technical terms are for these cool sounds. The VFx guys did an amazing job with making it feel as if the Monk was powerfully stabbing the air, causing it to explode.

However the Witch Doctor absolutely crushed the Monk in the art, design and sound department! Back then he used to have these vocalizations, which I still remember 3 years later, that I could not stop imitating while playing! (I miss them)
He had all these little pets, spiders, zombies, frogs, and what not. And there was more to come, Giant Toad, Gary, Zombie Bears, Zombie Wall etc etc etc. The list of things I was looking forward to was long. so I was super excited to roll WD on the first day. Ever since, he became my main class, that I came to know like the back of my hand. I had all the skills and runes memorized by the time I wrote the famous "Suggestions for WD Skills" series of community-oriented threads.

WD's skills and the runes within the skills seemed very diverse at the time, and still are! I wish that other classes also receive this treatment. These days I have been playing a Monk and I really like how the Monk's Wall of Light was improved to include all these different VFx and mechanics. I hope that one day, other classes too see this type of variety. For example, the Barbarian's HotA and Seismic Slam is literally the same VFx and mechanics through all runes, with one or two that vary. Now if you look at Zombie Charger, Fire Bats, and Wall of Light, there are a lot of different things that are happening within the individual runes of the skills. So much so that the individual runes feel like different skills.

I hope this aspect of the Skill System improves with future patches.

JangBahadur#1968: "The thousand minions of my Zombie army descend upon you! My gargantuan will block out the sun, whilst my bears stomp you in the shade!" Lol

JangBahadur#1968: Zombie Bears!
I love how the flesh tears off as the bears charges forward, the growls, the stomping sounds and the screen shake! The design is so cool, because the bears react to the environment, if you are out in the open, they spread out into three rows. If you are cornered, they tighten up into 1-2 rows. When you put all this together, this leads to some pretty engaging and strategic gameplay, where the environment becomes crucial in how strong your bears become. It basically sets an ideal for all other skills to aspire to.

I love Pile On as well. The concept of zombies climbing up into a tower and crashing down on enemies is wicked!

JangBahadur#1968: Rocking the Jade Doc. The idea of piling up small, weak spells from afar and then going in there for a big explosion is really cool. I feel like I am liquifying the monsters when I harvest their souls! I'll say it again, the VFx in D3 are really well done! Even 3 years later, I find myself staring at the art in the game from time to time.

JangBahadur#1968: Haha, I have yet to find an SMK and Quetz. Once I do I'll rebuild myself to be stronger, faster!

JangBahadur#1968: For the love of music, singing and all those catchy things that get stuck in the head, bring back the Wd's vocalizations, please!

I love myself some "Aiyaaaaaa! Oooooooooo! Oooaaaaarghh! Buurrruuuppp!" That's the one thing I would change. I miss it from the days of beta and original release.

JangBahadur#1968: I answered this in another question so what I can do is talk about Sets and Legendary items themselves.

I talk about this in depth here -
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/16284118389

I would like to see Legendary-based builds, builds whose power comes from Legendaries and not Sets. I find that the game is becoming too reliant and centered on Sets, and I think what we need now is Legendary Items that come together and create top tier builds, with complex moving gear pieces (as opposed to pieces that are "set" in place). I'd love to see Legendary-based builds that compete with Sets, where these builds forgo sets completely.

We need both Legendaries and Sets because they add variety to itemization but there needs to be a balance between them. Prior to the recent patches I was able to give the example of how Jade and SMK are perfect examples of end-game builds, and perfect example of balance between Set builds and Legendary builds.

WD's old pet build was great because you didn't need to use any sets for it to be powerful in the end-game. This Pet build had moving Legendary pieces in severak slots (Helm - Tiki, Jeram, Carnevil, Grin Reaper. Knife - Rhen Ho, Dagger of Darts and Kukri, etc) that added complexity and depth. I would like to see more builds like this in the future.

JangBahadur#1968: "Aiyaaaaaa! Oooooooooo! Oooaaaaarghh! Buurrruuuppp! " ;)

JangBahadur#1968: It's all in the head!

In Seasons, farm Legs in all non-jewelry slots but after that farm helms. You wana get the Voodoo Masks that will change up your build and your playstyle. These are crucial for maximizing DPS or Toughness.

JangBahadur#1968: MCP #1477

JangBahadur#1968: What's the most important question for you in life?

JangBahadur#1968: Lol we have so many threads on that but I'll try to add some new insights. I'll keep everything brief but there's a lot that needs improvement in order to make Spenders Viable.

I would tackle it in three areas.
1. Legendary Design
2. Skill Design
3. Elite Affixes

1. Legendary Design
My threads about Legendary Item Design-
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/16412001207
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/15270569328
I would add Legendary Items (not Sets because we have enough and they are way too overpowered)... I would add Legs that buff Spenders in interesting ways in order to make them viable for end-game.
Example -

Acid Cloud
One of the coolest suggestions I saw was
Acid Cloud explodes Plague of Toads for lots of damage.
It creates an interesting interaction between Acid Cloud and Toads that hop around randomly. You cast Toads, which become these moving targets, and as the player your job is to aim at Toads that go near monsters. I love this suggestion because you are reacting to a new element in the game, and engaging monsters in a different way.

2. Skill Design
I go in-depth in this thread-
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/12505891570

Some of the runes on these spenders need to be reworked. So I would work on the runes and spenders and make sure the base skill is well-designed to the best of my ability.

Some examples-

Acid Cloud
Acid Cloud always felt weak compared to other spenders. If the DoT was allowed to stack I think Acid Cloud would be pretty viable.

Zombie Charger
Undeath and Explosive Beast, both need to be redesigned
Pile On and Lumbering Cold need to be buffed to the level of Zombie Bears.

FireBats
Hungry Bats - Skills needs to channel regular non-rune FireBats flame in addition to Hungry bats. The regular non-rune Firebats channel VFx are too good to pass up, in addition it balances this rune vs others.

Firebats is a Channeled Spell. By design they are the weakest, and simply fixing the runes and creating items is not going to be enough for Channeled Spells.

3. Elite Affixes

Here's a unique perspective on fixing Channeled Spells.

The game is currently set up to penalize standing still as much as possible. Nothing sucks more in the game than to stand still. There are so many puddles, bombs and storms that appear on top of you that constantly force you to move. This happens so often that it is not surprising that there is very little room for Channeled Spells to function well. And it is not surprising that builds involving constant movement generally outperform others. There is nothing that challenges movement, aside from Jailor.

So what we need is lots of elite affixes that challenge player movement. By challenging player movement, we indirectly buff Channeled Spells during which the player has to be stationary. This will provide the much needed balance that Channeled spells need versus movement-based spells like Whirlwind, Dashing Strike, Strafe and Leapquake (when Eq is buffed) and regular spells during which you can still move without losing dps.

Whirlpool - Player is surrounded by a Whirlpool for couple seconds. The eye of pool is safe, player takes no damage but if the player moves, then he is slowed and takes damage. Dashes and Leaps are disabled.

Noose - The elite attaches a noose to you and tightening the noose damages and stuns. If you move away from the elite or push the elite away from you that stretches the rope and tightens the noose. Leaping, Dashing and Teleporting also tighten the noose. The noose cannot be removed, even by Spirit Walk or Smokescreen. You may still move around, just not outside the range of the leash.

Sandstorm - The elite generates an aura around it but instead of slowing projectiles it slows you down, your movespeed is capped to 0.75% (no matter how much move speed you have you will always move at this speed). The Sandstorm spans 60 yards, no one is safe!
The storm may get worse sometimes, reducing visibility and/or dealing paper-cuts.

Rabies - Elite spits out poison blobs. If you get hit you become infected, you take DoT damage and deal 10% less damage for a number of seconds. This disease can spread to nearby teamates if you get too close to them and each infection of Rabies stacks with the other!
This one doesn't penalize movement as much but it does limit it and challenges the player to be mindful of other players on the team.

So the player should be challenged both when they are standing still for too long and when they are always moving around. I think these elite affixes provide some balance between the two.

I would also tweak some affixes that we currently have. We know damage is super high in Grifts so that needs to be looked at, obviously because it aggravates affixes like Jailer. But what I will focus here is that change in design of these affixes. They currently punish the player way too much.

Vortex
In its current state is very punishing, in many situations it can mean instant death.

1. it pulls you through mobs that bodyblock you into the middle of the pack
2. it can pull you into other nasty things into CC like frozen bombs and damaging affixes like molten, fire chains
3. it can't be predicted and thus it can't be avoided, there no way to work your way around it except by standing very far away which isn't always an option
4. the only other way is to use skills like Spirit Walk, those that make you immune to damage and cc, and allow you to go through mobs.
5. Makes skills like spirit walk feel mandatory

How to fix Vortex?

Tethered Vortex - The elite attaches a tether to you. The tether gets brighter and brighter 1,2,3,4 then POP! You take damage and get pulled towards the elite (makes vortex predictable). You can loosen the tether by moving closer to the elite (no pull, no damage) who tethered you or by moving very far away and breaking it (no pull but full damage). This design allows the player to predict and overcome Vortex.

Frozen Bombs tend to aggravate Vortex by hitting super hard and freezing you. The problem is that even if you have been careful all along, Vortex can still pull you into bombs that are just about to blow up. And not only do they hit like a truck but they freeze you for quite a bit. The result is a lot of damage that piles up on the player really quickly. The combination is too punishing and cannot be overcome without Spirit Walk.

New Frozen Bomb - The Bomb deals damage proportional to the time spent inside the radius of the Bomb. It can hit just as hard as it does now but only if you stand inside it for the full duration. Those who are pulled into it just as it is about to explode take very little damage.

Fire Chains
When the elites move too close the fire chains are invisible. When multiple elites move too close to each other, all the chains stack in that small area and boom insta-death, all the damage piles up instantly. You cannot react to something you can't see or can't escape. These chains should be disabled when the elites are too close to each other.

Fire chain should only spawn when elites are at least 15-20 yards away from each other. They should disappear when the elites move close together.