Well, it's not fair to use crafting as an example because you craft certain weapons that are higher level. I'm talking about the dual-wield system itself. For barbs at least, it's viable if you want to use frenzy but it comes at the cost of losing your damaging skills that are based on weapon damage. Personally, I don't want to give up hammer of the ancients. For the DH it's a no brainer. Quivers have dex too so there's no point in using dual wield imo.
I see what you're getting at here... that's true. In the Beta dual wielding with crafted weapons is hands down the "way to go" for the barb. There is no remotely comparable 2 hander. In the actual game that may or may not change and there's a lot of factors that determine that. For one, there's no point in using a 2 hander with a slower attack speed if you can finish off the same mob in 1 hit while dual wielding a faster 1 handed weapon thereby allowing you to move to the next baddie and start swinging sooner. Like I said though, there's a lot of factors that will determine what's best for everyone. I haven't seen a quiver with dex in the beta so far, so I'm not sure about that. If you're right though, and there is dex on quivers at comparable levels then I can only say that it will be an improvement to dual wield if both weapons you're using have roughly the same dps since you'll have a net loss by wasting time using the offhand weapon (even if your overall attack speed is faster).
The blue crafted quiver comes with a guaranteed 12-17dex and +3-6 damage. I think those numbers are right, I'd have to log in to verify, but I know 17 is the dex cap because I crafted until I got one. I'm currently crafting rare hand-crossbows to try to get one with more than 17.
You'll be surprised to hear that I completely agree with your opinion of the DH class, I just came to a different conclusion than you did. The skills you listed, bola, entangling, evasive, and strafe, are all skills I don't use because I don't like them. I've noticed other people here do like them and use them a lot, which I think is really awesome. That tells me bliz designed the skills well. I stick with runed hungering arrow (generator), rapid fire (single target/bottleneck killer), chakram (open field/large room killer), and play around with the last spot depending on my mood, testing out skills like vault that I previously dismissed as pointless.
I'm really enjoying the other reviews! Each perspective builds on the one before it. With all of us together I think this thread paints an awesome, well-rounded picture of what the classes actually feel like for people who haven't had the chance to play yet, much more so than my one-sided OP.
Nice post, to the 1h crossbow is better thing. I think you are completely wrong here since you can roll + dxt on the crossbows and each point in dxt = 1% dmg increase. By rolling + 18 dxt on both my crossbows and + holy dmg and + arcane dmg on them I achieved a dps of 105.
Also remember that the DH has a passive that have a massive increase in dps if enemies are far away, which is why DH out dps every other class.
The wizard is however still the highest dps char in the beta due to arcane orb - you literally one hit everything with that skill which equals less dmg waste than the DH.
And on build diversity I see this as a major problem after playing beta, since most players have exactly the same skills - I know it is still low level, but it really seems like all are the same so far - which I fear might happen when leveling. But I have faith in Blizzard.
Quivers have +dex as well. With the game in its current state I can't think of a scenario in which a second hand-crossbow will ever result in higher dps than an equivalent item level quiver because the + damage on the quiver applies to the damage of your main hand weapon, increasing its dps. Two rare hand-crossbows of a superior item level will trump a lower level quiver, obviously.
The easiest solution would be to increase the rate of alternating fire while wielding two weapons. This would allow more bolts to be flying per second increasing your over all damage to match the bow/crossbow+quiver combo.
Ideally quivers would be used with bows/crossbows and hand-crossbows would be dual wielded ("ideally", I'm not talking about the strange builds people like to play with). Each would be equal dps and exist only for play style variety.
Congratulations on the post! Very informative... I can't wait till I can play Diablo 3 as well. Considering your D2 past, would you consider the WD as a type of Necromancer?
Yes WD feels very necro like. I never had a super high level necro but I did have one in the 70s late in the game when it started to get boring running every other class. I remember necro having more attack spells, but that could simply be because necro pets were more permanent. You had more time to cast supplemental curses and things while your army fought. WD doesn't have many permanent pets, but instead actively casts most of his pets that last for a short time before dying when the timer runs out.
But really, who needs more than one pet when you have GARGANTUAN
Only thing that bothered me was you ranked WD as the most boring class
i love WD and now, because of you i start to feel that some of what you said is true.. heh
to be honest i just cant wait for falling zombies rune
Don't be sad! There are some WD fans here that would probably like to throw me and my sissy crossbow on a GotD zombie patch and ask me if I think it hurts. They're behind you and your WD all the way
I was really eager to try the beta mainly because I wanted to get a feel of the characters before making my decision on release so I wouldn't waste the first 2-3 days playing with my mates before deciding to re-roll and being left behind.
This should suffice if I never end up getting one, I've always been a fan of casters classes in D2, WoW, Ragnarok and other MMOs, however the wizard doesn't seem to be all the all powerful glass cannon as I had hoped.
I always felt mage classes should have tons more DPS and damage to compensate for how frail they are, but considering how powerful and mobile the barb and DH are, might as well just choose the beefy and high damage class instead.
The wizard does a ton of damage, it just isn't aggressive damage. What I mean is, I want my character to be screaming and killing at the same time lol. Wizard is more cool and collected, calmly casting spells with a straight face and giggling about it afterwards (there are several voice-acted lines that trigger after kills and hers are always cocky snarky comments, great way to add character flavor).
Wizard spells are pretty, not scary or threatening looking. I think you'd find the damage to be completely on par. There's even a passive called glass cannon that lowers your armor/resistance and increases your damage.
awesome entertaining review
I'm glad to see the DH is cool, I also plan to use Rapid Fire as my main skill.
Did you try Evasive Fire instead of Vault?
The best part of evasive fire is that it has no travel time. You don't see an arrow fly across the screen, the monster is instead instantly hit like you fired a bullet. The worst part is the single target nature of the skill and flipping when you don't intend to. After using it I got the impression it was made only for situational use and not as a primary attack. Hungering arrow was far superior as a killer (single target and crowd).
@ OP: the WD frogs arent self targeting. and obviously the WD pets are self targeting. they would be horrible if they werent. i get that you said its not for you and its your opinion but from what you described thats the exact opposite feel the WD has. he has the widest diversity of skills in the game by far so hes the least boring because of that fact (fact that he has the widest diversity not that everyone thinks hes the least boring). i see a lot of people saying this because frankly they dont know how to use him properly at all, they will pick 2-3 skills they dont know how to use, test him for a bit and then say he sucks because they dont know how to properly execute certain skills.
besides that good post. +1
Oh there's no question, I know you're right lol. I tested him thoroughly to the level cap and I still felt like I was driving someone else's car. I was just happy to get it home without stripping the clutch!
Good read! You actually touched on something I completely forgot about; DH Strafe.
It's a fun skill, definitely a twist I wasn't expecting. I can't imagine that anyone, before seeing the skill in a video or in-game, could have predicted it would look like that. It's not for me personally though. Strafe is a ranged version of whirlwind. You turn black and scary and spin around firing while slowing gliding in the direction of your cursor. If I were to ever use it I'd have to wait until level 18 to get equilibrium (30% increased rate of fire). Every time I tested it on a room of bad guys it always left big gaps of undamaged area, especially when there were a lot of breakable objects present to absorb shots.
Multishot would appear to be much more consistent.
I was taking your WD review seriously until you said Grasp of the Dead was just an average spell. lol?
Looks like you went into the WD with low expectations, and are now grasping at straws to keep it that way.
It takes a few ticks to kill the targets in the area of effect where most skills one-shot things. I was simply looking ahead to when mobs have more life in later difficulties and seeing that it will be more useful for the snare than the damage. This with the cool-down is where my "average damage" comment came from. I could be completely wrong!
In the beta it's fairly useful as a barrel-buster and one more damage type to stack on crowds while throwing spider jars and other things.
Thanks for all the feedback! When I have more time I'll try to be a bigger part of the conversation. Really looking forward to reading Kankle's post.
Gear-wise I think the wizard is doing the best, she has a lot of +int. Barb is lacking +str but somehow still killdozes. Weapon-wise, DH is definitely ahead of the others. That's due to the level 13 rare crafted hand-crossbow. I can pump those out one after another until I get a good one. Before 13 I still felt the damage was very good, but you're right, he's pulling ahead on the DPS scoreboard for some reason.
I was able to level a DH to 12 before the newest patch buffed them and wiped the chars and there is definitely a difference. Before the patch their damage was just ok. If anything I'm happy to see that they're completely capable of being top dps after having heard so many disappointing reviews. Before I played the game myself I was starting to worry, but it appears blizzard has addressed the issue.
I was the lucky recipient of a beta key from the random post contest on this site and I wanted to use that as a way to contribute to the community. Call it Karmic balance. In the interest of full disclosure let me give some basics about myself. Everything I say is coming from this perspective;
30 years old sharing a home with a very patient, non-gamer girlfriend.
Playing Diablo since age 15
Always plays the rogue/theif character
Frequently plays with techno/industrial blasting
I decided to wait until I completed the Betamaxed achievement (all classes to level 13) to share my opinions of them.
Bam, done!
Before actual hands-on gameplay, my character list in order of preference was:
-Demon Hunter
-Monk
-Wizard
-Barbarian
-Witch Doctor
The same list after achieving Betamaxed:
-Demon Hunter
-Barbarian
-Wizard
-Monk
-Witch Doctor
My first and last choice remained unaffected in their placement, but became more solidly cemented there. I love DH and dislike WD even more than before.
Now, don't get me wrong, WD fans! The class is great, it was definitely enjoyable playing one, its just not my personal playstyle. As a DH fan I can't imagine a better partner than a skilled WD to keep everything at range for some crossbow destruction.
Breaking it down per-class;
Each pic below is my personal end result of leveling to 13. Each character is wearing mostly crafted gear, some AH gear is mixed in as I was testing out how that system worked (both gold and betabucks). But the AH is 95% crafted gear and 5% random rare item drops. There are currently no known legendary items so every player is riding the same gear level give or take a few dps.
Demon Hunter
-This is an extremely fast paced character. I'm able to dish out more damage with a DH than any of the others.
-Un-runed Rapid Fire is a beast on single target and perfectly usable on crowds (in beta at least). I plan to use this as a primary skill through 60.
-Chakram is awesome AoE that felt much more controllable in person than it looks on youtube (skill improvement in the patch maybe?). Low cost makes it very spammable, you can cover the entire screen with these things.
-I expected to use vault all the time but it kinda sucks. You can only use it 2-3 times back to back so it's definitely not usable as a travel skill (I know it wasn't intended as one, but we all thought of it anyway). It's only function is in-combat maneuvers. Meh. I'd rather have ferrets.
-One major thing bugs me; If I have a 22dps hand-crossbow equipped and then equip an 18dps hand-crossbow, my dps stat lowers. According to my stat sheet I do more dps with one hand empty. I get it I guess, I mean, if I have to alternate attacks between weapons then the hungering arrow fired from my off-hand will do lower damage than the higher damage one I could have fired if that weapon weren't equipped. Both weapons have to be equal damage (or extremely close) for there to be a dps gain.
Compounding this is the new damage bonus added to quivers. A quiver is now treated like a sorceress focus or a WD mojo. It's an off-hand item with a static +damage bonus followed by random stats. This, at least in the beta, results in a quiver always dealing more damage than dual crossbows. In this scenario it doesn't matter which weapon you choose; bow, hand-crossbow, or crossbow, since each can be used with a quiver. Not my preferred play style.
Barbarian
-If playing a DH is like piloting an F-117 Nighthawk, playing a barbarian is like filling Optimus Prime with rocket fuel and flooring it.
-Even with a 10 second cool down Leap Attack makes this a surprisingly fast paced character. You can jump between levels in a dungeon without bothering to look for stairs, which is usually rewarded with a cannon ball blood splash into a pool of enemies.
-He punches skeletons so hard they blood-splode (Cleave/Rupture).
-Frenzy is effective but lackluster. Bash is much more rewarding. Every time my barb bashes a zombie's face off it's skull (and its faceless skull off my screen), my subwoofer bashes my internal organs. So awesome.
-Hammer of the ancients is the completely unecessary icing on the murder cake. You kill just as fast if you never use it, but it has this ridiculous effect of bouncing enemies off the floor and to the ionosphere, so I can't resist throwing it down at least once in the middle of a crowd.
-I have no idea why the dps stat looks so low on this character, its not representative of his damage at all. He's a monster.
-He even idle's like a man, spitting a meaty glop on the ground and wiping his face with the back of his hand.
Wizard
-A sleek, sexy character. So much so that I couldn't bring myself to roll a male like my other chars. If I wanted to be represented by a man with eyeliner and perfect cheek bones I'd get an Adam Lambert t-shirt.
-Sorceress fans will be happy. I had a 99 sorc in D2 and can tell you that they play very much the same. They're SO similar that I just now realized I saved the picture as "Sorceress"... whoops. Some of the skills are direct copies of sorc skills; magic missile is a reskinned firebolt, shock pulse is charged bolt, frost nova is nova.
-Wizard is a complete light show. The most impressive skill I have access to is Arcane Torrent (click to see skill). In the picture I have runed magic missile, but I much preferred electrocute. I was messing around and forgot to change it back.
-This class is a combination of Lisa Frank and Heavy Metal. It can dish out extreme damage but feels moderately paced. Attacks are either light flickers or big booms. Not the shot of adrenaline rush that DH and Barb carry.
Monk
-Originally I was torn between Monk and DH as I was a huge Assassin fan in D2 (a 99 with around a half dozen others in their 90s with different builds). After playing the monk I was at first disappointed, but since then I've realized that the class is very solid, it just isn't for me. I don't feel the assassin vibe at all. If you were a paladin fan I think you'll find a home here (I didn't like paladins either, but knew they were solid teammates).
-In D2 I swapped out skills like crazy while attacking, in D3 I planned to play the monk the same way. I expected to use Deadly Reach for the first two parts of a combo and exploding palm for the final hit to apply the big boom. Technically, you CAN do this, but it's not very fluid. The three attacks of a single skill chain together well because they're animated together. If you interject a second skill into the mix it feels like you're stopping the attack and starting a new one. I have no idea if it actually takes longer or not, I just know what it feels like. Breakin ma flow maaan.
-Sticking with combo skills instead of mixing them is a much better play experience but leaves me unfulfilled for some reason. The monk looks like a sports car but drives like a pickup.
-I can see the monk being a player favorite. He's the yin to the Barb yang, hitting 5 times for every single barbarian haymaker. At higher levels I'm sure the pace picks up but I don't see it changing from the mechanical, controlled combos that form it's foundation. Between dodge and heals It's also a very safe character to play so should be big in HC.
Witch Doctor
-I was excited to play this class because I wanted to see it in a different light. Other reviews and videos had me thinking it was boring.
-Witch Doctor is boring. Please take that as my opinion, I'm absolutely not stating that as some sort of fact. For some reason it seems to be the most played character in the beta so I completely understand it just isn't made for me. Every game I join has a witch doctor or two in it. Maybe that's just my experience though.
-This class is pure chaos. Very little about it is controlled. Between throwing frogs and spiders around (self targetting skills) and summoning zombie dogs (self targetting skills) there isn't much you can do to choose what you're attacking. Poison darts work, but even runed it's a glorified firebolt. Grasp of the dead is an average damage aoe on a cooldown. Firebomb at level 11 is okay, not great, but okay. I didn't feel comfortable at all until I got firebats at level 12 which really only amounts to a sorceress' old inferno skill. At least it's aimable and does solid damage!
-In harder difficulties the WD will be a co-op superstar. He'll be able to hold enemies at bay while teammates do his bidding, like they're just a few more of his many pets. In this way he's rockin like a boss. Start coming up with your funny pimp names now, guys, because you'll be turning other players out.
One final note; I greatly dislike the way the game displays your battletag instead of your character's unique name. Now, I chose a battletag I like a lot and use in a lot of games (Kinetic) so for me it's not that bad. Though I'd prefer my Barbarian be known as Brimstone (way more beefy and barb like) he shows up in game as Kinetic (both under my portrait and over my head). The only time you see "Brimstone" is when I talk in chat. If you're in a game with more than two people that leaves people wondering who the hell Brimstone is.
Most people seem to have chosen battletags without regard for display in game. You might have a kickass Monk named BruceLeeroy but as far as I can tell your name is ssjsephiroth. All of your characters are ssjsephiroth no matter what you named them at character creation if you decided to joke around with your battletag when you made it. Not cool bliz.
No one point out how old I sound using that as my "stereotypically bad name".
I hope this helps people still learning about the classes! It was the best way I could think of to say thanks for the beta key
They PM you which generates an email with the exact same message that's in the PM. I saw the email on my phone and was in such disbelief I thought I was being scammed. I had to log in here and read the PM to be sure. Yes, that video is 100% accurate.
I got my key from the random post give-away on Friday night and I'm still freaking out lol. I got a DH to level 13 that night right before the patch/wipe. I've beaten the beta with every character since sunday and am working on getting them all to 13 right now. /boanur
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Journeyman Leather Quiver
Protip: click to embiggen.
The blue crafted quiver comes with a guaranteed 12-17dex and +3-6 damage. I think those numbers are right, I'd have to log in to verify, but I know 17 is the dex cap because I crafted until I got one. I'm currently crafting rare hand-crossbows to try to get one with more than 17.
You'll be surprised to hear that I completely agree with your opinion of the DH class, I just came to a different conclusion than you did. The skills you listed, bola, entangling, evasive, and strafe, are all skills I don't use because I don't like them. I've noticed other people here do like them and use them a lot, which I think is really awesome. That tells me bliz designed the skills well. I stick with runed hungering arrow (generator), rapid fire (single target/bottleneck killer), chakram (open field/large room killer), and play around with the last spot depending on my mood, testing out skills like vault that I previously dismissed as pointless.
I'm really enjoying the other reviews! Each perspective builds on the one before it. With all of us together I think this thread paints an awesome, well-rounded picture of what the classes actually feel like for people who haven't had the chance to play yet, much more so than my one-sided OP.
Quivers have +dex as well. With the game in its current state I can't think of a scenario in which a second hand-crossbow will ever result in higher dps than an equivalent item level quiver because the + damage on the quiver applies to the damage of your main hand weapon, increasing its dps. Two rare hand-crossbows of a superior item level will trump a lower level quiver, obviously.
The easiest solution would be to increase the rate of alternating fire while wielding two weapons. This would allow more bolts to be flying per second increasing your over all damage to match the bow/crossbow+quiver combo.
Ideally quivers would be used with bows/crossbows and hand-crossbows would be dual wielded ("ideally", I'm not talking about the strange builds people like to play with). Each would be equal dps and exist only for play style variety.
awwwwwww bummer
Yes WD feels very necro like. I never had a super high level necro but I did have one in the 70s late in the game when it started to get boring running every other class. I remember necro having more attack spells, but that could simply be because necro pets were more permanent. You had more time to cast supplemental curses and things while your army fought. WD doesn't have many permanent pets, but instead actively casts most of his pets that last for a short time before dying when the timer runs out.
But really, who needs more than one pet when you have GARGANTUAN
Don't be sad! There are some WD fans here that would probably like to throw me and my sissy crossbow on a GotD zombie patch and ask me if I think it hurts. They're behind you and your WD all the way
The wizard does a ton of damage, it just isn't aggressive damage. What I mean is, I want my character to be screaming and killing at the same time lol. Wizard is more cool and collected, calmly casting spells with a straight face and giggling about it afterwards (there are several voice-acted lines that trigger after kills and hers are always cocky snarky comments, great way to add character flavor).
Wizard spells are pretty, not scary or threatening looking. I think you'd find the damage to be completely on par. There's even a passive called glass cannon that lowers your armor/resistance and increases your damage.
The best part of evasive fire is that it has no travel time. You don't see an arrow fly across the screen, the monster is instead instantly hit like you fired a bullet. The worst part is the single target nature of the skill and flipping when you don't intend to. After using it I got the impression it was made only for situational use and not as a primary attack. Hungering arrow was far superior as a killer (single target and crowd).
Oh there's no question, I know you're right lol. I tested him thoroughly to the level cap and I still felt like I was driving someone else's car. I was just happy to get it home without stripping the clutch!
Good read! You actually touched on something I completely forgot about; DH Strafe.
It's a fun skill, definitely a twist I wasn't expecting. I can't imagine that anyone, before seeing the skill in a video or in-game, could have predicted it would look like that. It's not for me personally though. Strafe is a ranged version of whirlwind. You turn black and scary and spin around firing while slowing gliding in the direction of your cursor. If I were to ever use it I'd have to wait until level 18 to get equilibrium (30% increased rate of fire). Every time I tested it on a room of bad guys it always left big gaps of undamaged area, especially when there were a lot of breakable objects present to absorb shots.
Multishot would appear to be much more consistent.
It takes a few ticks to kill the targets in the area of effect where most skills one-shot things. I was simply looking ahead to when mobs have more life in later difficulties and seeing that it will be more useful for the snare than the damage. This with the cool-down is where my "average damage" comment came from. I could be completely wrong!
In the beta it's fairly useful as a barrel-buster and one more damage type to stack on crowds while throwing spider jars and other things.
Thanks for all the feedback! When I have more time I'll try to be a bigger part of the conversation. Really looking forward to reading Kankle's post.
I was able to level a DH to 12 before the newest patch buffed them and wiped the chars and there is definitely a difference. Before the patch their damage was just ok. If anything I'm happy to see that they're completely capable of being top dps after having heard so many disappointing reviews. Before I played the game myself I was starting to worry, but it appears blizzard has addressed the issue.
30 years old sharing a home with a very patient, non-gamer girlfriend.
Playing Diablo since age 15
Always plays the rogue/theif character
Frequently plays with techno/industrial blasting
I decided to wait until I completed the Betamaxed achievement (all classes to level 13) to share my opinions of them.
Bam, done!
Before actual hands-on gameplay, my character list in order of preference was:
-Demon Hunter
-Monk
-Wizard
-Barbarian
-Witch Doctor
The same list after achieving Betamaxed:
-Demon Hunter
-Barbarian
-Wizard
-Monk
-Witch Doctor
My first and last choice remained unaffected in their placement, but became more solidly cemented there. I love DH and dislike WD even more than before.
Now, don't get me wrong, WD fans! The class is great, it was definitely enjoyable playing one, its just not my personal playstyle. As a DH fan I can't imagine a better partner than a skilled WD to keep everything at range for some crossbow destruction.
Breaking it down per-class;
Each pic below is my personal end result of leveling to 13. Each character is wearing mostly crafted gear, some AH gear is mixed in as I was testing out how that system worked (both gold and betabucks). But the AH is 95% crafted gear and 5% random rare item drops. There are currently no known legendary items so every player is riding the same gear level give or take a few dps.
Demon Hunter
-This is an extremely fast paced character. I'm able to dish out more damage with a DH than any of the others.
-Un-runed Rapid Fire is a beast on single target and perfectly usable on crowds (in beta at least). I plan to use this as a primary skill through 60.
-Chakram is awesome AoE that felt much more controllable in person than it looks on youtube (skill improvement in the patch maybe?). Low cost makes it very spammable, you can cover the entire screen with these things.
-I expected to use vault all the time but it kinda sucks. You can only use it 2-3 times back to back so it's definitely not usable as a travel skill (I know it wasn't intended as one, but we all thought of it anyway). It's only function is in-combat maneuvers. Meh. I'd rather have ferrets.
-One major thing bugs me; If I have a 22dps hand-crossbow equipped and then equip an 18dps hand-crossbow, my dps stat lowers. According to my stat sheet I do more dps with one hand empty. I get it I guess, I mean, if I have to alternate attacks between weapons then the hungering arrow fired from my off-hand will do lower damage than the higher damage one I could have fired if that weapon weren't equipped. Both weapons have to be equal damage (or extremely close) for there to be a dps gain.
Compounding this is the new damage bonus added to quivers. A quiver is now treated like a sorceress focus or a WD mojo. It's an off-hand item with a static +damage bonus followed by random stats. This, at least in the beta, results in a quiver always dealing more damage than dual crossbows. In this scenario it doesn't matter which weapon you choose; bow, hand-crossbow, or crossbow, since each can be used with a quiver. Not my preferred play style.
Barbarian
-If playing a DH is like piloting an F-117 Nighthawk, playing a barbarian is like filling Optimus Prime with rocket fuel and flooring it.
-Even with a 10 second cool down Leap Attack makes this a surprisingly fast paced character. You can jump between levels in a dungeon without bothering to look for stairs, which is usually rewarded with a cannon ball blood splash into a pool of enemies.
-He punches skeletons so hard they blood-splode (Cleave/Rupture).
-Frenzy is effective but lackluster. Bash is much more rewarding. Every time my barb bashes a zombie's face off it's skull (and its faceless skull off my screen), my subwoofer bashes my internal organs. So awesome.
-Hammer of the ancients is the completely unecessary icing on the murder cake. You kill just as fast if you never use it, but it has this ridiculous effect of bouncing enemies off the floor and to the ionosphere, so I can't resist throwing it down at least once in the middle of a crowd.
-I have no idea why the dps stat looks so low on this character, its not representative of his damage at all. He's a monster.
-He even idle's like a man, spitting a meaty glop on the ground and wiping his face with the back of his hand.
Wizard
-A sleek, sexy character. So much so that I couldn't bring myself to roll a male like my other chars. If I wanted to be represented by a man with eyeliner and perfect cheek bones I'd get an Adam Lambert t-shirt.
-Sorceress fans will be happy. I had a 99 sorc in D2 and can tell you that they play very much the same. They're SO similar that I just now realized I saved the picture as "Sorceress"... whoops. Some of the skills are direct copies of sorc skills; magic missile is a reskinned firebolt, shock pulse is charged bolt, frost nova is nova.
-Wizard is a complete light show. The most impressive skill I have access to is Arcane Torrent (click to see skill). In the picture I have runed magic missile, but I much preferred electrocute. I was messing around and forgot to change it back.
-This class is a combination of Lisa Frank and Heavy Metal. It can dish out extreme damage but feels moderately paced. Attacks are either light flickers or big booms. Not the shot of adrenaline rush that DH and Barb carry.
Monk
-Originally I was torn between Monk and DH as I was a huge Assassin fan in D2 (a 99 with around a half dozen others in their 90s with different builds). After playing the monk I was at first disappointed, but since then I've realized that the class is very solid, it just isn't for me. I don't feel the assassin vibe at all. If you were a paladin fan I think you'll find a home here (I didn't like paladins either, but knew they were solid teammates).
-In D2 I swapped out skills like crazy while attacking, in D3 I planned to play the monk the same way. I expected to use Deadly Reach for the first two parts of a combo and exploding palm for the final hit to apply the big boom. Technically, you CAN do this, but it's not very fluid. The three attacks of a single skill chain together well because they're animated together. If you interject a second skill into the mix it feels like you're stopping the attack and starting a new one. I have no idea if it actually takes longer or not, I just know what it feels like. Breakin ma flow maaan.
-Sticking with combo skills instead of mixing them is a much better play experience but leaves me unfulfilled for some reason. The monk looks like a sports car but drives like a pickup.
-I can see the monk being a player favorite. He's the yin to the Barb yang, hitting 5 times for every single barbarian haymaker. At higher levels I'm sure the pace picks up but I don't see it changing from the mechanical, controlled combos that form it's foundation. Between dodge and heals It's also a very safe character to play so should be big in HC.
Witch Doctor
-I was excited to play this class because I wanted to see it in a different light. Other reviews and videos had me thinking it was boring.
-Witch Doctor is boring. Please take that as my opinion, I'm absolutely not stating that as some sort of fact. For some reason it seems to be the most played character in the beta so I completely understand it just isn't made for me. Every game I join has a witch doctor or two in it. Maybe that's just my experience though.
-This class is pure chaos. Very little about it is controlled. Between throwing frogs and spiders around (self targetting skills) and summoning zombie dogs (self targetting skills) there isn't much you can do to choose what you're attacking. Poison darts work, but even runed it's a glorified firebolt. Grasp of the dead is an average damage aoe on a cooldown. Firebomb at level 11 is okay, not great, but okay. I didn't feel comfortable at all until I got firebats at level 12 which really only amounts to a sorceress' old inferno skill. At least it's aimable and does solid damage!
-In harder difficulties the WD will be a co-op superstar. He'll be able to hold enemies at bay while teammates do his bidding, like they're just a few more of his many pets. In this way he's rockin like a boss. Start coming up with your funny pimp names now, guys, because you'll be turning other players out.
One final note; I greatly dislike the way the game displays your battletag instead of your character's unique name. Now, I chose a battletag I like a lot and use in a lot of games (Kinetic) so for me it's not that bad. Though I'd prefer my Barbarian be known as Brimstone (way more beefy and barb like) he shows up in game as Kinetic (both under my portrait and over my head). The only time you see "Brimstone" is when I talk in chat. If you're in a game with more than two people that leaves people wondering who the hell Brimstone is.
Most people seem to have chosen battletags without regard for display in game. You might have a kickass Monk named BruceLeeroy but as far as I can tell your name is ssjsephiroth. All of your characters are ssjsephiroth no matter what you named them at character creation if you decided to joke around with your battletag when you made it. Not cool bliz.
No one point out how old I sound using that as my "stereotypically bad name".
I hope this helps people still learning about the classes! It was the best way I could think of to say thanks for the beta key
I got my key from the random post give-away on Friday night and I'm still freaking out lol. I got a DH to level 13 that night right before the patch/wipe. I've beaten the beta with every character since sunday and am working on getting them all to 13 right now. /boanur