Q u o t e: 1) Only 8 points of movement, and diagonals are always a bit tedious to move in.
Yeah, I wish there were more, but WASD does definitely have its limits. Again, if you hold one (say W) and toggle the other, you can move in a more 'in-between' sorta way.
Q u o t e: 2) You'll have to position yourself for melee attacks, and many may whiff. (unless you automatically run toward them first and attack on click; which begs the question, why have WASD at all?)
People whiff all the time now. Monsters agroing other people, fallen running away, those damn monkeys in act 3, blow-dart flayers, there are whiffs galore, until you get your attack speed way the hell up, and charge. But no matter, it happens frequesntly now.
Q u o t e: 3) Using hotkeys will be far more tedious because your fingers are focused on movement. At best you can free maybe 1 finger while moving for hotkey usage. In situations where you need to gobble a potion and switch skills several times, you'll have to sacrifice movement (either walking continuously in a straight line when you'd rather want to be juking, or having to come to a halt altogether). It's been stated that players will have to focus on a much wider variety of skills than in the past games, this will complicate hotkeying while moving via WASD even more.
Time for a gaming mouse? Or faster fingers? And remember - you can back away much more easily - you don't have to disengage the mouse, and then re-engage.
Q u o t e: 4) The only benefit of WASD movement are situations where you can move and shoot simultaneously. There will be no such situations in D3, no skill can be cast with uninterrupted movement. All skills have casting time, and no skill can be cast while in motion.
Far from the only benefit. And yeah, I was hoping that this would change. You still stay perpetually frozen? Ugh. I was hoping that the columns, buildings, and such could actually be used as cover this time...
