I did a bit of an experiment with my characters on SK with kill times, each of my characters where level 8-9 with my barb being 10.
Barb - 1:30 (bash and hammer spam)
WD - 0:58 (dart, dogs and grasp spam, soul harvest x5)
DH - 1:12 (hungering and rapid spam, vault to avoid taking any damage at all)
Wiz - 1:36 (missile and orb spam, diamond skin to tank every thing)
Monk - 1:21 (deadly reach and lashing tail kick spam)
Each char was sort of equally geared (1 rare, rest magic) with the exception of WD having a few white items. Follower was used on all with pretty much same gear as the other. I know it would of made more sense using level 13 geared characters but I just didn't have them at the time and don't now, but I found wizard to be the weakest and least fun for the most part on my play through.
I did a similar test in patch 15 and came to roughly the same conclusion. The kill time on the wizard was way longer than any others, upwards of 25% longer.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
Even if the Wizard IS falling out of favor currently, it doesn’t really mean anything. People are basing their opinions on the first hour or two of gameplay. Say you blazed through at super human speeds, found crazy wacky exploits, and were lucky enough to get legendary drops out the wazoo. Still the minimum for a full 4 difficulty playthrough is probably something around 30 hours.
So the sample size of the first hour or two is at most 3 to 6% of the total game. (realistically, It is likely less than 1% of the time investment required to beat Inferno).
With that in mind, the class in highest demand will be the class that has the most effective toolkit in Hell->Inferno, and no testing at level 13 is going to give even a hint of what that will look like.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I grew up gaming without internet forums. The entire phenomenon of being upset with a game developer makes no sense to me. No sense. I cannot imagine spending my time and energy being upset about something I choose to do for recreation.
Even if the Wizard IS falling out of favor currently, it doesn’t really mean anything. People are basing their opinions on the first hour or two of gameplay. Say you blazed through at super human speeds, found crazy wacky exploits, and were lucky enough to get legendary drops out the wazoo. Still the minimum for a full 4 difficulty playthrough is probably something around 30 hours.
So the sample size of the first hour or two is at most 3 to 6% of the total game. (realistically, It is likely less than 1% of the time investment required to beat Inferno).
With that in mind, the class in highest demand will be the class that has the most effective toolkit in Hell->Inferno, and no testing at level 13 is going to give even a hint of what that will look like.
Most people are likely going to stick to a single class at 1st rather than leveling up all 5....so it actually means quite a bit.
Your wrong about another thing too. We have the skill info, so its not impossible to predict the strengths and weaknesses of the classes. ATM the wizard aint got much powa....
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Do you want to get scammed? Perhaps a nice keylogger?
"Just google "diablo 3 gold guide" and magical rainbow covered demons will assault your eyes."
Most people are likely going to stick to a single class at 1st rather than leveling up all 5....so it actually means quite a bit.
Your wrong about another thing too. We have the skill info, so its not impossible to predict the strengths and weaknesses of the classes. ATM the wizard aint got much powa....
Well, you're ignoring a lot of factors and also assuming you know what most people are likely to do.
Short list of aforementioned factors:
-We may have the info on what skills will be offered, but the complexion of combat challenges and how Situational DPS will actually develop is a complete unknown.
-Just having the skills does not account for what synergies people will find practical in the later stages of the game.
-Gear
Why you don't know what most people will do:
-You have no data, only a bland assumption.
Also even if one assume's you are correct and that most people will stick with what they start with, whatever is in favor or out of favor among people playing the beta won't have much to do with what the vast aggregate of players choose at launch. I don't think its a tenuous assumption to think that casual players will choose the class that appeals to them aesthetically or conceptually over what some random forum post tells them to pick. Hard core power gamers are unlikely to fall into the trap that level 13 is representative of even level 16+, and will make decisions based on what they think will perform best in inferno.
The only people I foresee being trapped by the "trend" of which class is "in-favor" are the middle class gamers afraid of looking like casual players, but not willing to put in the independant analysis a hard-core gamer would.
Maybe that group is large enough to skew the numbers of which class is played... but EVEN IF IT IS, its still pretty meaningless. Are you picking your class for yourself or for someone else's judgement?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I grew up gaming without internet forums. The entire phenomenon of being upset with a game developer makes no sense to me. No sense. I cannot imagine spending my time and energy being upset about something I choose to do for recreation.
If you flip-flop then people are going to get way ahead of you in content, and you will lose out on your chance to get ahead.
The most important thing in a capitalist economy is starting in the lead. The more resources you have, the more you can easily acquire.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
If you flip-flop then people are going to get way ahead of you in content, and you will lose out on your chance to get ahead.
The most important thing in a capitalist economy is starting in the lead. The more resources you have, the more you can easily acquire.
Well if we're nitpicking, the most important thing in a capital economy is networking, and the second most important thing is understanding the laws/tax code and how to evade their influence. Efficiency and savvy beat hard work and endurance every time in capitalism.
That aside, I don’t actually get that this has any bearing on my position which remains: "Which races are in favor on the forums now has almost nothing to do with the broad player base on release day and beyond."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I grew up gaming without internet forums. The entire phenomenon of being upset with a game developer makes no sense to me. No sense. I cannot imagine spending my time and energy being upset about something I choose to do for recreation.
If you flip-flop then people are going to get way ahead of you in content, and you will lose out on your chance to get ahead.
The most important thing in a capitalist economy is starting in the lead. The more resources you have, the more you can easily acquire.
That view only makes sense if you intend to use the AH extensively and is another matter entirely.
It makes no difference if you're the first person to reach lvl 60 or the 765,111 person to reach lvl 60. Its a game and the fun is in the journey to level 60 and completing Hell and eventually Inferno.
Anyone spending money on the real money AH in the first month is going to get fleeced, until the economy evens out.
Barb - 1:30 (bash and hammer spam) WD - 0:58 (dart, dogs and grasp spam, soul harvest x5) DH - 1:12 (hungering and rapid spam, vault to avoid taking any damage at all) Wiz - 1:36 (missile and orb spam, diamond skin to tank every thing) Monk - 1:21 (deadly reach and lashing tail kick spam)
Additionally, unless you're playing on the EXACT SAME map for all your characters, the timings mean absolutely nothing. Gear is random and better equipped alts will be faster or you could have a very lucky drop that increases your DPS. The dungeons are randomlized, I've had games where I found the exit to the next level almost immediately and ones where I had to back track cos I overlooked a path where the exit was. This increases game time considerably!
I played the Monk and Wizard last night, my timings were Monk 1:34, Wizard 1:26. What does that prove? Absolutely nothing.
This shouldn't be an issue. Dunno how many of you played other blizz games like sc2 or WoW, but 'OP' classes will rotate through patches. There will be nerfs and buffs, cause it's near impossible to balnce huge games. Hardcore players will just roll current-best toons. Casuals simply don't care.
Uh... you couldnt be more wrong, hardcore dont ever roll current best, as they know there is no current best, its all about in the hands of the player, as everything is quite balanced number wise. If you are a hardcore / serious gamer you make what you enjoy work always no matter what. Casuals on the other hand ask people whats the best, then pick it. (then QQ when it sucks etc)
266 is not a decent sample size for a study of this magnitude. I doubt even 3300 is, but at least it's somewhat closer to the truth. Also, none of these polls will reflect the truth because a majority of players doesn't frequent forums, so taking people from only one place can result in some unwanted variables.
I found the Wizard to be kinda fun in beta, but I don't feel he have anything very funny endgame. Meteor was nerfed to pieces, teleport is a joke compared to other displacers... everything fun with the d2 sorc has gone out the window. Still looking to be my 2nd/3rd class though, but only cause I dislike WD and DH and don't want to play two melees in a row.
Teleport can go through obstacles... leap can only go from plane to plane... but not over obstacles.... vault can do neither.
Other than the CD... explain how teleport sucks...
266 is not a decent sample size for a study of this magnitude. I doubt even 3300 is, but at least it's somewhat closer to the truth. Also, none of these polls will reflect the truth because a majority of players doesn't frequent forums, so taking people from only one place can result in some unwanted variables.
I found the Wizard to be kinda fun in beta, but I don't feel he have anything very funny endgame. Meteor was nerfed to pieces, teleport is a joke compared to other displacers... everything fun with the d2 sorc has gone out the window. Still looking to be my 2nd/3rd class though, but only cause I dislike WD and DH and don't want to play two melees in a row.
Teleport can go through obstacles... leap can only go from plane to plane... but not over obstacles.... vault can do neither.
Other than the CD... explain how teleport sucks...
when glyphed you can chain teleport over and over - so the CD wouldnt be a big issue
266 is not a decent sample size for a study of this magnitude. I doubt even 3300 is, but at least it's somewhat closer to the truth. Also, none of these polls will reflect the truth because a majority of players doesn't frequent forums, so taking people from only one place can result in some unwanted variables.
I found the Wizard to be kinda fun in beta, but I don't feel he have anything very funny endgame. Meteor was nerfed to pieces, teleport is a joke compared to other displacers... everything fun with the d2 sorc has gone out the window. Still looking to be my 2nd/3rd class though, but only cause I dislike WD and DH and don't want to play two melees in a row.
Teleport can go through obstacles... leap can only go from plane to plane... but not over obstacles.... vault can do neither.
Other than the CD... explain how teleport sucks...
when glyphed you can chain teleport over and over - so the CD wouldnt be a big issue
Seriously ... i really think all you chain teleport believers are wrong. I am fairly confident you can only teleport as many casts as you can get within 1 second.
266 is not a decent sample size for a study of this magnitude. I doubt even 3300 is, but at least it's somewhat closer to the truth. Also, none of these polls will reflect the truth because a majority of players doesn't frequent forums, so taking people from only one place can result in some unwanted variables.
I found the Wizard to be kinda fun in beta, but I don't feel he have anything very funny endgame. Meteor was nerfed to pieces, teleport is a joke compared to other displacers... everything fun with the d2 sorc has gone out the window. Still looking to be my 2nd/3rd class though, but only cause I dislike WD and DH and don't want to play two melees in a row.
Teleport can go through obstacles... leap can only go from plane to plane... but not over obstacles.... vault can do neither.
Other than the CD... explain how teleport sucks...
when glyphed you can chain teleport over and over - so the CD wouldnt be a big issue
Seriously ... i really think all you chain teleport believers are wrong. I am fairly confident you can only teleport as many casts as you can get within 1 second.
You would need to have an attack speed of 2 APS in order to get a 3rd teleport off, and that isn't very easy given Wizard weapons.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
Its rather old but I guess the mechanic is still the same so you can teleport around until you run out of AP.
I already showed them that video, and they came up with some ridiculous conspiracy theory to ignore it.
Despite almost all the game data being on your computer, they think the spell was severely altered on that server to act exactly the way its worded to work instead of how they misinterpreted it to work. Makes total sense right? LOL!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
Here is svenskadiablo.se (swedish diablo sites) latest poll, about a week old with 650 votes:
Barbarian (185)
DemonHunter (129)
Wizard (115)
Monk (113)
Witch Doctor (92)
Antal röster: 634
lol i like how it shows 8 age 50+ PEDO's beware!
however i think that 39 people playing exclusively with strangers are going to be all 13 of the 14 and younger category, which is mosly people that have falsely identified themselves that way and are actually in the 50-54 category, and the Rest of the 39 are in categories 40-44, 45-49, 55-59, and 60 and older.
and the 1 age 50-54 is someones grandpa who is a pedofile and wants to meet some 14 and youngers
also just so you know, the 49 females that will be playing this game, are not the same 49 between the 35-39 category,
my beef with the wizard (in the beta) is the primary abilities feel weak and uninteresting. When i run out of boring large arcane orbs to spam, i have to spam even more boring small bolts.
I fully expect this feeling to change once we progress through the game a bit more and have more choice of skills. sorceror was my fav in d2 however if i judged her up to blood raven in act 1 I would probably have believed that she was nothing special and sent to the bottom of the pile as i feel inclined to do after the beta.
that being said peoples first impressions have been made. wizard has for me dropped below the DH as my second pick.
I actually went into the beta thinking I would play Monk, but was discouraged by how popular the Monk seemed. So I decided to try the Wizard and I was pleasantly surprised.
Although we didn't get to see much of the Wizard in beta, I found the class to be very powerful. It felt really good to use Shock Pulse runed with explosive bolts and see clusters of skeletons and zombies melt. It also reminded me a lot of the Necromancer's Corpse Explosion in D2, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I eventually replaced that with spectral blades and really liked how the blades do 3 hits in quick succession.
Arcane barrage as other people have said felt really strong as well. I love how I can kill those tomb guardian things that summon skeletons from far away before they've had the chance to summon skeletons. I used it as my main dmg dealer on the Skeleton King as well because I loved how I could hit the SK even if there were skeletons standing in between me and the SK.
Pretty sure Wizard will now be my main class.
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Epicurus
So the sample size of the first hour or two is at most 3 to 6% of the total game. (realistically, It is likely less than 1% of the time investment required to beat Inferno).
With that in mind, the class in highest demand will be the class that has the most effective toolkit in Hell->Inferno, and no testing at level 13 is going to give even a hint of what that will look like.
Most people are likely going to stick to a single class at 1st rather than leveling up all 5....so it actually means quite a bit.
Your wrong about another thing too. We have the skill info, so its not impossible to predict the strengths and weaknesses of the classes. ATM the wizard aint got much powa....
"Just google "diablo 3 gold guide" and magical rainbow covered demons will assault your eyes."
Well, you're ignoring a lot of factors and also assuming you know what most people are likely to do.
Short list of aforementioned factors:
-We may have the info on what skills will be offered, but the complexion of combat challenges and how Situational DPS will actually develop is a complete unknown.
-Just having the skills does not account for what synergies people will find practical in the later stages of the game.
-Gear
Why you don't know what most people will do:
-You have no data, only a bland assumption.
Also even if one assume's you are correct and that most people will stick with what they start with, whatever is in favor or out of favor among people playing the beta won't have much to do with what the vast aggregate of players choose at launch. I don't think its a tenuous assumption to think that casual players will choose the class that appeals to them aesthetically or conceptually over what some random forum post tells them to pick. Hard core power gamers are unlikely to fall into the trap that level 13 is representative of even level 16+, and will make decisions based on what they think will perform best in inferno.
The only people I foresee being trapped by the "trend" of which class is "in-favor" are the middle class gamers afraid of looking like casual players, but not willing to put in the independant analysis a hard-core gamer would.
Maybe that group is large enough to skew the numbers of which class is played... but EVEN IF IT IS, its still pretty meaningless. Are you picking your class for yourself or for someone else's judgement?
The most important thing in a capitalist economy is starting in the lead. The more resources you have, the more you can easily acquire.
Epicurus
Well if we're nitpicking, the most important thing in a capital economy is networking, and the second most important thing is understanding the laws/tax code and how to evade their influence. Efficiency and savvy beat hard work and endurance every time in capitalism.
That aside, I don’t actually get that this has any bearing on my position which remains: "Which races are in favor on the forums now has almost nothing to do with the broad player base on release day and beyond."
It makes no difference if you're the first person to reach lvl 60 or the 765,111 person to reach lvl 60. Its a game and the fun is in the journey to level 60 and completing Hell and eventually Inferno.
Anyone spending money on the real money AH in the first month is going to get fleeced, until the economy evens out.
Additionally, unless you're playing on the EXACT SAME map for all your characters, the timings mean absolutely nothing. Gear is random and better equipped alts will be faster or you could have a very lucky drop that increases your DPS. The dungeons are randomlized, I've had games where I found the exit to the next level almost immediately and ones where I had to back track cos I overlooked a path where the exit was. This increases game time considerably!
I played the Monk and Wizard last night, my timings were Monk 1:34, Wizard 1:26. What does that prove? Absolutely nothing.
Uh... you couldnt be more wrong, hardcore dont ever roll current best, as they know there is no current best, its all about in the hands of the player, as everything is quite balanced number wise. If you are a hardcore / serious gamer you make what you enjoy work always no matter what. Casuals on the other hand ask people whats the best, then pick it. (then QQ when it sucks etc)
Does that mean because I like the colour blue everyone else does?
Teleport can go through obstacles... leap can only go from plane to plane... but not over obstacles.... vault can do neither.
Other than the CD... explain how teleport sucks...
when glyphed you can chain teleport over and over - so the CD wouldnt be a big issue
Seriously ... i really think all you chain teleport believers are wrong. I am fairly confident you can only teleport as many casts as you can get within 1 second.
That is almost certainly only 1 additional cast.
Sec
0:00 Cast Teleport - Start cast animation
0.66 Cast Teleport
1.00 CD begins
You would need to have an attack speed of 2 APS in order to get a 3rd teleport off, and that isn't very easy given Wizard weapons.
Epicurus
I already showed them that video, and they came up with some ridiculous conspiracy theory to ignore it.
Despite almost all the game data being on your computer, they think the spell was severely altered on that server to act exactly the way its worded to work instead of how they misinterpreted it to work. Makes total sense right? LOL!
Epicurus
lol i like how it shows 8 age 50+ PEDO's beware!
however i think that 39 people playing exclusively with strangers are going to be all 13 of the 14 and younger category, which is mosly people that have falsely identified themselves that way and are actually in the 50-54 category, and the Rest of the 39 are in categories 40-44, 45-49, 55-59, and 60 and older.
and the 1 age 50-54 is someones grandpa who is a pedofile and wants to meet some 14 and youngers
also just so you know, the 49 females that will be playing this game, are not the same 49 between the 35-39 category,
I fully expect this feeling to change once we progress through the game a bit more and have more choice of skills. sorceror was my fav in d2 however if i judged her up to blood raven in act 1 I would probably have believed that she was nothing special and sent to the bottom of the pile as i feel inclined to do after the beta.
that being said peoples first impressions have been made. wizard has for me dropped below the DH as my second pick.
My order so far is:
1) Wizard
2) WD
3) DH
...and to hell with monk and barb.
Although we didn't get to see much of the Wizard in beta, I found the class to be very powerful. It felt really good to use Shock Pulse runed with explosive bolts and see clusters of skeletons and zombies melt. It also reminded me a lot of the Necromancer's Corpse Explosion in D2, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I eventually replaced that with spectral blades and really liked how the blades do 3 hits in quick succession.
Arcane barrage as other people have said felt really strong as well. I love how I can kill those tomb guardian things that summon skeletons from far away before they've had the chance to summon skeletons. I used it as my main dmg dealer on the Skeleton King as well because I loved how I could hit the SK even if there were skeletons standing in between me and the SK.
Pretty sure Wizard will now be my main class.