Quotes from the D3 Dev AMA

[Concillian]

Guess we're not crazy, Swirly! (He & I had a conversation about this not 2 hours before this AMA)

Yeah, when you can just search for items with +resist all and whichever resist you're stacking it kinda ends up a much, much better passive than if you're smithing random items.

Thing is, I don't see how they can possibly tone down this passive aside from two possible ways:

1) Make the tooltip a war and peace sized tooltip explaining it will give xx% of the value between your highest resist and lowest resist to all your resists, but no resist can exceed your highest resist.

2) make 3 other passives so overwhelmingly powerful that you can safely ignore this passive.

'm wondering if they're going to be doing League of Legends/Dota2 type balancing (This is under used, give it a 5% internal boost and see if people use it), or a Diablo 2 style balancing (FOTM TIME!)

I think they'll do it FOTM style.
Exploding palm is a good example, I think. The issue at high difficulties with Exploding Palm is that it:
- is primarily a single target DOT ability, but with some AoE?
The only time it's not a single target ability are when you're killing something before the full damage is applied (easy stuff that can be handled with any other AoE ability). This means it's DESIGNED to not do it's full damage? You either don't do the full DOT damage or you don't get the explosion? WAT? You don't get the full DOT if you get the explosion, and you don't get the explosion if you get the full DOT? This aspect of the skill gives people a headache when they try to figure out how to best use it... Is it a single target DOT or an AoE ability? Does anyone even know? Regardless, there are better AoE abilities that don't require something be dead to release the AoE.

Single target damage abilities in Hell and inferno better have secondary utility to be worthy of taking up a skill slot... and exploding fist has neither of these. The name of the game at that point is AoE, utility and defense, and exploding palm has none of that.
Buffing damage can make it worthwhile vs. other spirit spenders, but then you still have the issue that it has little utility outside the single target 80% slow rune. Crippling wave (tsunami rune) is MUCH easier to apply an AoE slow that is 60% instead of 80%. It costs no spirit (spirit builder) and you don't even need to be in melee range, the slow application has a much larger range.

The other runes have similar issues...
+12% damage to that one target for 3 seconds? Deadly reach rne gives 18% for 30 seconds to EVERYTHING for no spirit cost... Breath of heaven rune gives 15% to everything for 45 seconds for a lower spirit cost...
my favorite is the rune that makes it do the exact same damage, but take double the time to apply that damage. Wat? I mean I get that it gives you longer to make the exploding portion, but really?

They're gonna have to re-design the runes of this skill for it to be worthwhile. The 6 skill limitation coupled with the difficulty of inferno means that you're looking for skills that can serve multiple purposes. You usually can't afford a spirit spender that is pure DPS... and if you can, you're likely killing things fast enough that a DOT with a 30% weapon damage explosion is not even on your radar.

Buffing 5% damage here or there isn't gonna get people to use the skill. You have to make a rune that serves a defensive build well (apply a lasting debuff to multiple enemies when it explodes) or an offensive build well (significantly increase the explosion weapon % or make chaining the AoE easier since an offensive build is not going to be looking at DOTs as viable.)

Alternately they could let the DOT component trigger life on hit, as this would give it significant utility. Ironically, this would actually make the rune that extends the time, but does the same damage actually decent. You essentially spend spirit for a periodic trigger of life on hit that happens to do some damage... this is utility with some damage. That kind of thing will get used. Damage increases, unless extreme, will not.

The kinds of things needed to make this skill something people would use are things that will make the buffing they do FOTM type of buffs.

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Let's look at the others:
Ancient Spear -- A victim of other skills being good at multiple things while it's good at only one. For example Threatening Shout + taunt does a reasonable job of getting something to you that you're chasing, but also serves another purpose for other mob types (decreasing damage taken in a wide area). Also leap and Furious charge serve similar purposes while having AWESOME runes like HUGE self-healing, HUGE armor buff, etc... How do you make ancient spear a choice without making it completely OP compared to leap and such? I'm not sure you can.

Sacrifice -- A victim of summons being poor and requiring multiple other skills to be even usable. This has potential to be okay with just a damage buff, but the main issue is your dogs need to be attacking the target you want when you sacrifice them. No amount of buffing will help your minions with attacking the target you want them to attack.

Energy Twister --
Essentially a purely offensive DOT spell with easily avoidable pathing. I was totally amused when I fought Diablo and in the realm of Terror my self-image stood stationary 30 yards away and shot energy twisters that meandered 10-15 yards in my general direction while I obliterated her from range.

Purely offensive DOT spells will always have a hard time in the Diablo universe. Spells with an uncontrollable direction will also. Where do you even start with this one? Other skills are easier to apply the damage (Hydra, among others) or offer additional utility (Blizzard, applies a slow, can be runed for much larger area effect)

I actually haven't tested this with life on hit to see if it applies like meteor does (the DOT ticks of meteor proc life on hit). If it does, then the "twist in one place" twister does have potential with a spectral blades wizard build like I'd like to do with my softcore wiz. That would potentially give it some use.

Strafe -- I think this is about the only skill that a slight damage buff might get more people using it.

All but strafe have severely limiting mechanics issues that prevent their use as much as any damage issues. To get Energy twister or Ancient spear to be used regularly would take HUGE damage buffs for people to not choose competing skills that do a similar job with additional utility. You're going to have to make D2 style changes that fix the mechanics issues to get them used more.