It has been said many times before, but it looks like it will have to be said many times again:
The only person you are "in competition" with in Diablo 3 is yourself. Other players will not stand around staring at your gear. They won't beg you to team up based on what you are using. There is no ranking system. There is no "winning" in the game.
The Diablo series is about having fun killing hordes of enemies and getting loot. How you go about that makes no difference, and it will make absolutely no difference to other players if you looted something off of a difficult boss or bought a nice piece of gear from the gold AH or the RMAH. There is no way to tell, and quite frankly no one should even care in the first place.
Diablo 3 is full of things you can do for self-satisfaction. You can go after acheivements. You can go after specific banner additions. You can craft interesting gear. You can try out different builds and abilities. You can challenge yourself with hardcore mode.
So, in short - this isn't WoW or any other game where you are "in competition" with other players. There are no raids to clear, there are no roles to fill, there are no rankings to attain. You play Diablo games to have fun, end of story.
While the collectors edition does come with some nice stuff, I'll be passing on it. The regular version will be all I need to enjoy D3.
The USB + base is neat, but I already have D2 attached to my B.Net account and it only takes about five minutes to download and install it on any PC I want from there. Artbooks are great, soundtracks are nice but I think I would have prefered them to be digital as opposed to hard-copies. My biggest concern is the potential price difference - I forsee a pricetag of $100 or possibly even more.
I'm not a collector of games, I play games. I'll live without my angel wings and extra dyes just fine.
Having to upgrade your weapon as you progress is infinitely better than the D2 system (where casters didn't care what they had equipped weapon wise as long as it had mods like +resists, +fastcast, +mana, etc).
It didn't make any sense in D2. The "best weapons" for casters were often just low stat required stuff that rolled high mods, or runewords that did the same thing.
Now, you actually have to put some thought into what you are using. Are there going to be times where a more "melee" oriented weapon will be an upgrade? Sure. I don't see the problem with that.
Speaking of Barbarians from the original, I hear that Larzuk is dead. Can anyone confirm this?
To be fair, a lot of Barbarians are going to be dead in D3. Many were already dead during D2 (the siege and battles across Arreat), but lets just say that when an entire mountain becomes a crater...it does not go well for everyone on it.
1) Force gets an e-mail with some keys he can give away.
2) Force gets excited and quickly throws together a video for the contest with the first idea he comes up with.
3) Force doesn't realize the sheer number of comments that will easily destroy a YouTube video in a matter of an hour.
4) Force has to take the video down (or more likely he was asked to stop).
5) Force has to come up with another way to do it, thinks about it more carefully, uses Twitter.
Makes sense to me. Twitter allows you to have easy access to a list of followers (no matter how big the list is) without crashing or overloading anything.
In retrospect, I'm sure he was thinking he did this in the first place, even though YouTube is his natural habitat he should have realized the limitations.
Not really sure why people are getting all butthurt over this. If you don't like Twitter don't use it. Random selection is better than picking and choosing anyway.
As they say, "You can't win if you don't play".
This does give my YouTube account some extra use beyond hosting my God hand speedrun videos, so that is a nice bonus.
While having flexibility is one thing, being able to swap without restrictions at all renders a lot of skills useless to ever have on your bar when you can just swap to them when needed.
A good example would be Threatening Shout for Barbarian - whenever you face a unique monster or boss you could easily swap to it, apply the debuff, swap back to another skill and get the full benefit of the ability without ever needing to actually have it be "a part of your build". There has to be consequences at some point and there has to be a reason to justify having an ability like Threatening Shout on your bar at all times. Being able to swap out anytime does not accomplish that.
Given how easy it is to return to town, I don't see an issue with that restriction. Perhaps they can come up with a smoother way to deal with it, but for the time being it accomplishes the goal of having to make choices in abilities but still being able to swap them if you want to.
So, lots of builds have surfaced in regards to doing lots of damage while dual-weilding or using a big two-hander. Also, several builds have popped up in regards to being a "tank" for a group, using many taunting and vaccuum abilities to keep enemies off of your friends. What I haven't seen a lot of so far are builds focusing on a one handed weapon & shield intended for solo or group play with a pure focus on staying alive and making the most out of a one-handed weapon's damage at the same time.
Cleave (Broad Sweep)
This is the bread and butter damage and fury fuel of the build. Since it will be the workhorse against groups or single targets, crimson rune is chosen to keep damage high. Works good for just about everything.
Ground Stomp (Foot of the Mountain)
With this build you will constantly be in the thick of things, so having some stun control is very useful. Golden is chosen for the extra fury gain as you can expend a lot of fury very quickly with this build if you have to. Even against targets that cannot be stunned, it is a quick 40 fury every 12 seconds.
Weapon Throw (Mighty Throw)
Since the build is using a single one-handed weapon, it is important to make your damage abilities count. Crimson rune gives the high 462% damage with this ability. Being able to hit hard up close and far away is a great boon to this build. This will be your main fury dump against stronger foes and single targets.
Rend (Ravage)
In my opinion, a lot of people are overlooking Rend as a useful fury attack. It is a solid AOE attack that can be used to deal steady damage to many targets. It is also great against a single target because you can keep using other damaging attacks as it ticks. Indigo rune is chosen for more damage, but also more range (9 yards is not as far as it sounds in-game).
War Cry (Impunity)
More armor. More fury. A no brainer for this build. Obsidian rune is chosen for the massive resistance bonus. While Alabaster is also strong (more life + some regen), this build takes the Inspiring Presence passive for life regen already, and +80 to all resists is HUGE. Not only will it open up different gear choices for you in the harder difficulties, but extremely high resists will likely keep you alive longer than just having more life when it counts. This isn't D2 anymore where more life was > anything else.
Revenge (Provocation)
Finally, even with a lot of armor, blocking, and resists...nothing will stop you from getting hit. This build aims at taking as little damage as possible, but you will still get hit. Revenge is your extra survivabilty. It won't be used as a key AOE tool in this build as Rend + Cleave will easily outdamage it - it will be used for the life gain when needed. Golden could be used as well if the 10% activation proves to be enough. Testing will prove with one is ultimately more effective for healing.
Inspiring Presence
War Cry will be used often enough due to the rage generation with this build so this is strictly taken for the life regen which is more potent than it looks on paper. For longer battles, not having to focus on recasting War Cry will also prove useful.
Tough As Nails
A no brainer - more armor is less physical damage taken. Considering you can specifically gear for high armor items and shields, 100% can be a lot. Thorns effect is also useful, but effectiveness has yet to be proven.
Superstition
This is simple - 20% less damage from all magical damage is huge considering it is just a flat modifier. This is a low mobility build, so ranged attackers will hit you reasonably often and give you extra fury to hit them with more Weapon Throws.
Thoughts? It strays from the more traditional "tank" builds so far, but I think it looks like a useful and survivable "sword & board" build. I think Weapon Throw, Cleave, and Rend make the most of a one-handed weapon to still provide solid damage to both groups and single targets. The build does not focus on critical hits so you can use gear that isn't drenched in +precision (which is a big hole I see a lot of builds falling into - not exactly a "bad" thing, but it is something to consider).
People are really quick to assume that "Mods were useful in WoW, so they will be useful in Diablo". The thing is, the games play very differently. You don't tank or heal in Diablo. You don't compete in Diablo. You don't "win" at Diablo.
The entire genre is based around having fun exploring random areas, fighting enemies and aquiring loot. You won't need a DPS meter for that. You won't need a ton of customization for your UI.
While D2 did have some ok mods for it, ultimately most of them failed to capture the Diablo feel. Also, since D3 requires the constant online connection, it will easily detect players with differing files. While I'm sure most mods would be harmless, if there is any hope of having a bot/hack/dupe free D3 then the line has to be made at "any" modding.
The majority of Act 1 in Diablo 2 was also very easy and gradually got players used to how the game's mechanics worked - people just seem to forget that since they have been playing the game for years.
Similar to how you didn't get access to the Horadric Cube until Act 2, you won't get access to runes in this game until Act 2. That having been said, D3 does give a lot more options to the player even in the first 1/3 we have so far (Nephalem Cube, Cauldron of Jordan, Stone of Recall, crafting, etc).
I wouldn't worry about it. You can probably make a good arguement that D2 does not even get hard until getting close to Hell mode, so the first part of Act 1 on Normal isn't a very good indicator of how things are going to go.
While the new % damage system might seem akward, consider the implications on actual gameplay in comparison to Diablo 2.
In D2, casters by and large didn't care what they were equipped with weapon wise, beyond whatever had the highest +mana, +resistances, and +fast cast on it. The actual weapon never came into play, just the bonuses it had. This made the "best" caster weapons few and far between, especially for Hell difficulty and onward. A caster in D2 saw little improvement in their killing power when "upgrading" to a new weapon. They largely just helped with their survivabilty, safety, and lasting power.
With the Diablo 3 system, caster classes have just as much incentive to constantly upgrade their weapon and gear just as much as classes that rely on hitting things physically. Gameplay wise, this makes total sense, and makes progression for all classes the same. It also means that you have much more flexibility in what you use for gear. If you have a drought of caster style drops, you can still equip a nice weapon of another type for a while and see a damage upgrade until you find something else you want to use. Also remember that all classes in D3 have many options available. It is possible to have melee Wizards and Witch Doctors and they would want to use a powerful weapon. It is likely you will see variations of "caster" Barbarians with the right gear, too.
The % system is better overall - people just aren't used to the idea, which is understandable. Once you take a good look at how it works from a gameplay standpoint...it makes all the sense in the world.
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The only person you are "in competition" with in Diablo 3 is yourself. Other players will not stand around staring at your gear. They won't beg you to team up based on what you are using. There is no ranking system. There is no "winning" in the game.
The Diablo series is about having fun killing hordes of enemies and getting loot. How you go about that makes no difference, and it will make absolutely no difference to other players if you looted something off of a difficult boss or bought a nice piece of gear from the gold AH or the RMAH. There is no way to tell, and quite frankly no one should even care in the first place.
Diablo 3 is full of things you can do for self-satisfaction. You can go after acheivements. You can go after specific banner additions. You can craft interesting gear. You can try out different builds and abilities. You can challenge yourself with hardcore mode.
So, in short - this isn't WoW or any other game where you are "in competition" with other players. There are no raids to clear, there are no roles to fill, there are no rankings to attain. You play Diablo games to have fun, end of story.
The USB + base is neat, but I already have D2 attached to my B.Net account and it only takes about five minutes to download and install it on any PC I want from there. Artbooks are great, soundtracks are nice but I think I would have prefered them to be digital as opposed to hard-copies. My biggest concern is the potential price difference - I forsee a pricetag of $100 or possibly even more.
I'm not a collector of games, I play games. I'll live without my angel wings and extra dyes just fine.
First thing that popped into my head.
It didn't make any sense in D2. The "best weapons" for casters were often just low stat required stuff that rolled high mods, or runewords that did the same thing.
Now, you actually have to put some thought into what you are using. Are there going to be times where a more "melee" oriented weapon will be an upgrade? Sure. I don't see the problem with that.
To be fair, a lot of Barbarians are going to be dead in D3. Many were already dead during D2 (the siege and battles across Arreat), but lets just say that when an entire mountain becomes a crater...it does not go well for everyone on it.
1) Force gets an e-mail with some keys he can give away.
2) Force gets excited and quickly throws together a video for the contest with the first idea he comes up with.
3) Force doesn't realize the sheer number of comments that will easily destroy a YouTube video in a matter of an hour.
4) Force has to take the video down (or more likely he was asked to stop).
5) Force has to come up with another way to do it, thinks about it more carefully, uses Twitter.
Makes sense to me. Twitter allows you to have easy access to a list of followers (no matter how big the list is) without crashing or overloading anything.
In retrospect, I'm sure he was thinking he did this in the first place, even though YouTube is his natural habitat he should have realized the limitations.
Not really sure why people are getting all butthurt over this. If you don't like Twitter don't use it. Random selection is better than picking and choosing anyway.
This does give my YouTube account some extra use beyond hosting my God hand speedrun videos, so that is a nice bonus.
A good example would be Threatening Shout for Barbarian - whenever you face a unique monster or boss you could easily swap to it, apply the debuff, swap back to another skill and get the full benefit of the ability without ever needing to actually have it be "a part of your build". There has to be consequences at some point and there has to be a reason to justify having an ability like Threatening Shout on your bar at all times. Being able to swap out anytime does not accomplish that.
Given how easy it is to return to town, I don't see an issue with that restriction. Perhaps they can come up with a smoother way to deal with it, but for the time being it accomplishes the goal of having to make choices in abilities but still being able to swap them if you want to.
So, I present the following build:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#ceWVgU!ceW!ZbZYcY
Cleave (Broad Sweep)
This is the bread and butter damage and fury fuel of the build. Since it will be the workhorse against groups or single targets, crimson rune is chosen to keep damage high. Works good for just about everything.
Ground Stomp (Foot of the Mountain)
With this build you will constantly be in the thick of things, so having some stun control is very useful. Golden is chosen for the extra fury gain as you can expend a lot of fury very quickly with this build if you have to. Even against targets that cannot be stunned, it is a quick 40 fury every 12 seconds.
Weapon Throw (Mighty Throw)
Since the build is using a single one-handed weapon, it is important to make your damage abilities count. Crimson rune gives the high 462% damage with this ability. Being able to hit hard up close and far away is a great boon to this build. This will be your main fury dump against stronger foes and single targets.
Rend (Ravage)
In my opinion, a lot of people are overlooking Rend as a useful fury attack. It is a solid AOE attack that can be used to deal steady damage to many targets. It is also great against a single target because you can keep using other damaging attacks as it ticks. Indigo rune is chosen for more damage, but also more range (9 yards is not as far as it sounds in-game).
War Cry (Impunity)
More armor. More fury. A no brainer for this build. Obsidian rune is chosen for the massive resistance bonus. While Alabaster is also strong (more life + some regen), this build takes the Inspiring Presence passive for life regen already, and +80 to all resists is HUGE. Not only will it open up different gear choices for you in the harder difficulties, but extremely high resists will likely keep you alive longer than just having more life when it counts. This isn't D2 anymore where more life was > anything else.
Revenge (Provocation)
Finally, even with a lot of armor, blocking, and resists...nothing will stop you from getting hit. This build aims at taking as little damage as possible, but you will still get hit. Revenge is your extra survivabilty. It won't be used as a key AOE tool in this build as Rend + Cleave will easily outdamage it - it will be used for the life gain when needed. Golden could be used as well if the 10% activation proves to be enough. Testing will prove with one is ultimately more effective for healing.
Inspiring Presence
War Cry will be used often enough due to the rage generation with this build so this is strictly taken for the life regen which is more potent than it looks on paper. For longer battles, not having to focus on recasting War Cry will also prove useful.
Tough As Nails
A no brainer - more armor is less physical damage taken. Considering you can specifically gear for high armor items and shields, 100% can be a lot. Thorns effect is also useful, but effectiveness has yet to be proven.
Superstition
This is simple - 20% less damage from all magical damage is huge considering it is just a flat modifier. This is a low mobility build, so ranged attackers will hit you reasonably often and give you extra fury to hit them with more Weapon Throws.
Thoughts? It strays from the more traditional "tank" builds so far, but I think it looks like a useful and survivable "sword & board" build. I think Weapon Throw, Cleave, and Rend make the most of a one-handed weapon to still provide solid damage to both groups and single targets. The build does not focus on critical hits so you can use gear that isn't drenched in +precision (which is a big hole I see a lot of builds falling into - not exactly a "bad" thing, but it is something to consider).
The entire genre is based around having fun exploring random areas, fighting enemies and aquiring loot. You won't need a DPS meter for that. You won't need a ton of customization for your UI.
While D2 did have some ok mods for it, ultimately most of them failed to capture the Diablo feel. Also, since D3 requires the constant online connection, it will easily detect players with differing files. While I'm sure most mods would be harmless, if there is any hope of having a bot/hack/dupe free D3 then the line has to be made at "any" modding.
Similar to how you didn't get access to the Horadric Cube until Act 2, you won't get access to runes in this game until Act 2. That having been said, D3 does give a lot more options to the player even in the first 1/3 we have so far (Nephalem Cube, Cauldron of Jordan, Stone of Recall, crafting, etc).
I wouldn't worry about it. You can probably make a good arguement that D2 does not even get hard until getting close to Hell mode, so the first part of Act 1 on Normal isn't a very good indicator of how things are going to go.
In D2, casters by and large didn't care what they were equipped with weapon wise, beyond whatever had the highest +mana, +resistances, and +fast cast on it. The actual weapon never came into play, just the bonuses it had. This made the "best" caster weapons few and far between, especially for Hell difficulty and onward. A caster in D2 saw little improvement in their killing power when "upgrading" to a new weapon. They largely just helped with their survivabilty, safety, and lasting power.
With the Diablo 3 system, caster classes have just as much incentive to constantly upgrade their weapon and gear just as much as classes that rely on hitting things physically. Gameplay wise, this makes total sense, and makes progression for all classes the same. It also means that you have much more flexibility in what you use for gear. If you have a drought of caster style drops, you can still equip a nice weapon of another type for a while and see a damage upgrade until you find something else you want to use. Also remember that all classes in D3 have many options available. It is possible to have melee Wizards and Witch Doctors and they would want to use a powerful weapon. It is likely you will see variations of "caster" Barbarians with the right gear, too.
The % system is better overall - people just aren't used to the idea, which is understandable. Once you take a good look at how it works from a gameplay standpoint...it makes all the sense in the world.