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.
Before actually using it, the tooltip really gives you no indication that you're essentially about to use a ranged version of whirlwind. Definetely a lot of fun. The single best barrel buster in game atm as well.
For actual mob killing I just toss in a bolo in 4-5 directions and then strafe around picking up gold :D!
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While I can appreciate all of the hard work you put into this, I really hope end-game doesn't look like this. Another blizzard game that's fallen prey to "cookie cutter builds" and theory crafting. I hope that they've put enough randomization in the game to avoid that happening, so everyone can actually show what they're made of rather than looking at parses and squeezing out every last point of damage, coming to some weird realization like that a boring as hell melee DH would be the most economical way to go for damage or something stupid like that.
I can say from my time in the beta that I really don't see that happening. For one, even with current skill selection being limited, I rarely encounter someone using an identical build to myself in the beta. As more skills, "runes", and passives open up - I'd say it'll be harder to find someone using the same build than not. Even now, between myself and the OP we don't even use the same skillsets. What I've found to be effective for me (in most classes) seems to be moderately different than what he's using... and I think that's a good thing.
That being said, I'm sure that there will be people that read stuff on websites and just go by that, adapting their playstyle to the build rather than visa-versa but that's unavoidable I think.
Also, it's obvious already that there's going to be a lot of situations with skill swapping going on. What's good for clearing rooms is clearly not good for taking down a single boss. In that respect I'm sure everyone will actual enjoy the setup that Blizz has gone with - even if you're opposed to the thought of it right now (I know I was reluctant before actually testing it). My only fear with this concept though is that people will do exactly what you've mentioned and squeezed out parses for each class to "define" what an optimal single target build is and what an optimal multi target build is... I don't think it will be easy though. Due to the nature of how all these runes work and the inherent randomness of Diablo's gearing scheme, mob spawns, and map layouts you'll probably encounter more "Here's a good build for X situation" type threads than "Here's an exact formula for a desired outcome" type threads, but nothing so exact as what we've seen in WoW.
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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.
Try out the barb again but with a solid 2 hander. I didn't have much fun dual wielding but once I got a good 2 hander it was a slaughter . I think the Barb will jump up to #2 damage dealer then. I'm not sure why Wizard isn't number 1 for you though... unless you're only talking about single target damage.
Damngoodread, Altough Im still gonna rock a Witch Doc. from the start, DH second. Would be so nice if people copied this board and wrote their own opinions. To get a good overview of every pro and con going.
For me I dont have beta acces, this was the best post since all those shitty contests have started with forum floading. thanks
what a coincidence! me too! wd then dh. after playing the dh in patch 13 i like him ten times more. i used to like him the least. bola shot with increased radius and strafe are so bad asssss. like most ppl im sure going to enjoy making a rocket DH. too bad u gotta be 33 to just start using 1 of the rocket runes though
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
Since people are enjoying the different opinions, I'll throw mine in the ring as well.
I too, have the betamax achievement
Order of classes I wanted to play before beta access (and I think the order I did my first play through):
1. Barb
2. Monk
3. Wizard
4. WD
5. DH
Order I like each class in after betamaxed:
1. Barb
2. Wizard
3. WD
4. Monk
5. DH
Barb
I played a barb mostly in D2 but I also played my necro a lot. I think the Barb in D3 is a lot more fun. He's kind of boring in the first few levels but that's to be expected. Once you unlock Leap Attack, things get really fun. It gets even more crazy once you get the rend rune because you go from having strong single target to overpowered AoE damage. Rage gets generated pretty quickly and you're often switching between a generator and a spender very quickly. If you don't, you'll get rage capped (it really does generate pretty fast) and the rage spenders are pretty good. I really enjoy hammer of the ancients. I also enjoy his stun abilities and I was really surprised that it worked on bosses (at least the skeleton king). I was underwhelemed by the dual wield system. I didn't know this until reading it later on the boards but all dual wielding does is increase your attack speed by 15% and averages out your two weapons (so if you put a really weak offhand weapon on, you'll actually do less damage). My damage decreased a lot (especially hammer of the ancients) when I dual wielded so I got the biggest baddest 2 hander I could find and I was a beast!
Wizard
I didn't like the wizard in D2 because the endgame was the most spamming out of all the classes. I don't find it interesting to spam a single aoe spell into every room. I have a lot of hope for the Wizard because Blizzard claims you won't just be spamming a single spell anymore. In the beta, the wizard turns into that with Arcane Orb and that's a bit of a disappointment. However, I can see that it's likely that once mobs start getting more hp you won't be able to do that because it does take a lot of arcane power. You can only do 2-3 orbs before you're out. That said, early on it's completely overpowered and still needs to be balanced a bit I think. It's even worse because once you unlock the rune the range is so big that it mostly kills everything on your screen. You unlock some cool stuff leveling up though and once the Arcane Orb problem is fixed I think this will be a really fun class to play. My guess will be that it'll be the strongest class as well but that's just a guess
WD
The witch doctor is right behind the wizard for me. In fact, this may change before I start my 2nd character in retail. It's very possibly that I'll play a WD before a Wizard. I loved the Necro in D2 and I love the WD in D3. He's pretty similar but at the same time he's different enough. Zombie dogs are a good tank but it stops at that. They do little to no damage so you can't rely on them for that but they just don't die. I'm a little afraid that at later levels they won't be able to perform their tanking job and then will be useless but we will see! I was pretty excited when I unlocked the passive (circle of life) which spawns even more zombie dogs. Sadly, if you have zombie dogs as a skill you're still maxxed out at 4 dogs. However, I did discover a cool thing in which you can have zombie dogs without having the skill if you take this passive. I was running around with 4 zombie dogs without the skill in my build thanks to circle of life... i thought that was really cool. He has a few stinker talents.. I thought Hex was mostly useless and Corpse Spiders were unimpressive (even with the rune). However, Grasp of the Dead is really awesome and Firebats are pretty neat as well. Poison Dart with the first rune is pretty amazing single target damage. Add in the DoT from Haunt and I think the WD is the best single target dps in the game (a dual wield frenzy barb might be close).
Monk
Oh the monk. I thought he sounded so cool. I wanted to play the monk because he's new and different. Sadly, he feels like a barbarian hit by the nerf bat. He generates spirit fairly slow in comparison and you need to rely on slow combo skills to generate it. The combos are very unimpressive and typically don't even do anything worthwhile until the 3rd hit. When every other class kills things in 1 hit, it's a drastic difference when the monk is still wailing away at his mobs. The other classes can clear a whole room while the monk is still wailing away at his group of zombies... it's bad. To make matters worse he's a melee character so he's taking damage the whole time as well. I ignored health globes on every other character (even the barb) but with the monk I was cursing when I got a string of bad luck because my monk was getting low on health... he's that slow at killing early on. I thought his spirit spending skills were not worth it. In fact, I prefered to spam my generator skills because Lashing tail kick is not very good. The AE range is really small and it knocks mobs back. I can see it being useful when things get hard but early on it's really annoying. You can't kill things very quickly when you keep knocking them way back. Don't forget, you're a melee class. It doesn't do much damage compared to the barbarian rage spenders... which makes no sense because you don't generate spirit very fast. The monk does have some skills that help the party so at least that makes up for his lack of damage output. Auras and heals could make him a fun support class. I know this isn't WoW but I can see a smart monk saving people from death with that heal spell. Tempest Rush looks really neat but in effect it's really weak and not worth it.
DH
I was not very interested in the Demon Hunter to begin with so maybe it just isn't a class for me. It's not that I hate ranged, but nothing about him seems interesting, he's just a hunter. The DH has the most useless skills out of all the classes in the beta. Bola shot is completely useless at low levels. The AE range is way too small and the fact that you have to wait an entire second for it to do ANY damage is stupid. The damage it does at low levels at least does not make it worth using ever. Entagling shot is also usless. Why do you need a slow when you have caltrops (which is really good btw)? Evasive Fire is really hard to use in most dungeons. Outside it's awesome, but once you get inside a dungeon you'll often be backflipping into a wall. Maybe it's just not my style but I found it lacking. Strafe is the single most usless skill in the game unless you have a burning hatred for pots and barrels. They should rename the skill to "Destroy all barrels in the room". The amount of damage it does is worthless. Rapid fire is cool though... and I enjoy Impale. The rune to add stun to Impale felt a little OP against single target. I really hope it doesn't work on act bosses because I was able to keep the skeleton king stunned a majority of the fight with it. There's no deminishing returns and I felt that it needed some. Dual wielding with the DH is a lot like it is with the Barb but it's even worse. I can't think of a reason to ever dual wield (beyond the fact that it looks cool).. a quiver is better.
And there you have it, my brutally honest opinions!
Dual wielding with the DH is a lot like it is with the Barb but it's even worse. I can't think of a reason to ever dual wield (beyond the fact that it looks cool).. a quiver is better.
I have not had the same experience. For both the Barb and the DH dual wielding has proved to be vastly more powerful. Are you using weapons with massive STR (for the barb) and DEX (for the dh)? When you can craft 1 handed axes with +25 str or more or rare 1 handed x-bows with over 30 dex, there's no 2-hander or quiver that can keep up.
In the current iteration of the Beta I don't have a character that's under 100dps anymore and I've only had the beta since the 24th. Here's muh Barb:
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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.
Whats the point of stacking DPS in the Beta? My Monk sits at ~57 DPS... but at 96%GF/80%MF. With ~57DPS you still oneshot every "normal" mob, the only Mobs that survive longer are the big Grotesks/Harvester etc... they take 2 Hits <_<
Edit: Dont get me wrong its all cool to chase after the highest DPS... I just dont see the point in the Beta :D... not that stacking MF/GF in the Beta is any better <_<
It's just something to do after you've Betamaxed.
I've made something different out of each of my toons aside from their max dps sets.
I have a thorns set which is fun, i have a 104 mf set, huge radius set, gold set, etc. For all intents and purposes I've just been treating the Beta like a very short complete game that needs.
I've also been capturing videos of bugs and then trying to reproduce them - some successfully - some not so much.
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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).
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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.
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).
I can also confirm there is dex on quivers, but unless you find a rare you probably won't have a high of a dex range as the crafted rare (beta limited of course).
@ Kinetic2041
Exactly, I've had numerous discussions with different individuals on certain abilities; it all comes down to preference which is why so many builds will be used.
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Playing Diablo since 97. I know nothing and having nothing good to say, I be a troll.
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.
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).
My quiver is +12 dex, 3-4 damage, +1.5 crit chance and +12 max discipline. Maybe I got lucky, I think I crafted it.
This was really helpfull to me. fun read to.
Cheers
Before actually using it, the tooltip really gives you no indication that you're essentially about to use a ranged version of whirlwind. Definetely a lot of fun. The single best barrel buster in game atm as well.
For actual mob killing I just toss in a bolo in 4-5 directions and then strafe around picking up gold :D!
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I can say from my time in the beta that I really don't see that happening. For one, even with current skill selection being limited, I rarely encounter someone using an identical build to myself in the beta. As more skills, "runes", and passives open up - I'd say it'll be harder to find someone using the same build than not. Even now, between myself and the OP we don't even use the same skillsets. What I've found to be effective for me (in most classes) seems to be moderately different than what he's using... and I think that's a good thing.
That being said, I'm sure that there will be people that read stuff on websites and just go by that, adapting their playstyle to the build rather than visa-versa but that's unavoidable I think.
Also, it's obvious already that there's going to be a lot of situations with skill swapping going on. What's good for clearing rooms is clearly not good for taking down a single boss. In that respect I'm sure everyone will actual enjoy the setup that Blizz has gone with - even if you're opposed to the thought of it right now (I know I was reluctant before actually testing it). My only fear with this concept though is that people will do exactly what you've mentioned and squeezed out parses for each class to "define" what an optimal single target build is and what an optimal multi target build is... I don't think it will be easy though. Due to the nature of how all these runes work and the inherent randomness of Diablo's gearing scheme, mob spawns, and map layouts you'll probably encounter more "Here's a good build for X situation" type threads than "Here's an exact formula for a desired outcome" type threads, but nothing so exact as what we've seen in WoW.
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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.
what a coincidence! me too! wd then dh. after playing the dh in patch 13 i like him ten times more. i used to like him the least. bola shot with increased radius and strafe are so bad asssss. like most ppl im sure going to enjoy making a rocket DH. too bad u gotta be 33 to just start using 1 of the rocket runes though
Great job!
I too, have the betamax achievement
Order of classes I wanted to play before beta access (and I think the order I did my first play through):
1. Barb
2. Monk
3. Wizard
4. WD
5. DH
Order I like each class in after betamaxed:
1. Barb
2. Wizard
3. WD
4. Monk
5. DH
Barb
I played a barb mostly in D2 but I also played my necro a lot. I think the Barb in D3 is a lot more fun. He's kind of boring in the first few levels but that's to be expected. Once you unlock Leap Attack, things get really fun. It gets even more crazy once you get the rend rune because you go from having strong single target to overpowered AoE damage. Rage gets generated pretty quickly and you're often switching between a generator and a spender very quickly. If you don't, you'll get rage capped (it really does generate pretty fast) and the rage spenders are pretty good. I really enjoy hammer of the ancients. I also enjoy his stun abilities and I was really surprised that it worked on bosses (at least the skeleton king). I was underwhelemed by the dual wield system. I didn't know this until reading it later on the boards but all dual wielding does is increase your attack speed by 15% and averages out your two weapons (so if you put a really weak offhand weapon on, you'll actually do less damage). My damage decreased a lot (especially hammer of the ancients) when I dual wielded so I got the biggest baddest 2 hander I could find and I was a beast!
Wizard
I didn't like the wizard in D2 because the endgame was the most spamming out of all the classes. I don't find it interesting to spam a single aoe spell into every room. I have a lot of hope for the Wizard because Blizzard claims you won't just be spamming a single spell anymore. In the beta, the wizard turns into that with Arcane Orb and that's a bit of a disappointment. However, I can see that it's likely that once mobs start getting more hp you won't be able to do that because it does take a lot of arcane power. You can only do 2-3 orbs before you're out. That said, early on it's completely overpowered and still needs to be balanced a bit I think. It's even worse because once you unlock the rune the range is so big that it mostly kills everything on your screen. You unlock some cool stuff leveling up though and once the Arcane Orb problem is fixed I think this will be a really fun class to play. My guess will be that it'll be the strongest class as well but that's just a guess
WD
The witch doctor is right behind the wizard for me. In fact, this may change before I start my 2nd character in retail. It's very possibly that I'll play a WD before a Wizard. I loved the Necro in D2 and I love the WD in D3. He's pretty similar but at the same time he's different enough. Zombie dogs are a good tank but it stops at that. They do little to no damage so you can't rely on them for that but they just don't die. I'm a little afraid that at later levels they won't be able to perform their tanking job and then will be useless but we will see! I was pretty excited when I unlocked the passive (circle of life) which spawns even more zombie dogs. Sadly, if you have zombie dogs as a skill you're still maxxed out at 4 dogs. However, I did discover a cool thing in which you can have zombie dogs without having the skill if you take this passive. I was running around with 4 zombie dogs without the skill in my build thanks to circle of life... i thought that was really cool. He has a few stinker talents.. I thought Hex was mostly useless and Corpse Spiders were unimpressive (even with the rune). However, Grasp of the Dead is really awesome and Firebats are pretty neat as well. Poison Dart with the first rune is pretty amazing single target damage. Add in the DoT from Haunt and I think the WD is the best single target dps in the game (a dual wield frenzy barb might be close).
Monk
Oh the monk. I thought he sounded so cool. I wanted to play the monk because he's new and different. Sadly, he feels like a barbarian hit by the nerf bat. He generates spirit fairly slow in comparison and you need to rely on slow combo skills to generate it. The combos are very unimpressive and typically don't even do anything worthwhile until the 3rd hit. When every other class kills things in 1 hit, it's a drastic difference when the monk is still wailing away at his mobs. The other classes can clear a whole room while the monk is still wailing away at his group of zombies... it's bad. To make matters worse he's a melee character so he's taking damage the whole time as well. I ignored health globes on every other character (even the barb) but with the monk I was cursing when I got a string of bad luck because my monk was getting low on health... he's that slow at killing early on. I thought his spirit spending skills were not worth it. In fact, I prefered to spam my generator skills because Lashing tail kick is not very good. The AE range is really small and it knocks mobs back. I can see it being useful when things get hard but early on it's really annoying. You can't kill things very quickly when you keep knocking them way back. Don't forget, you're a melee class. It doesn't do much damage compared to the barbarian rage spenders... which makes no sense because you don't generate spirit very fast. The monk does have some skills that help the party so at least that makes up for his lack of damage output. Auras and heals could make him a fun support class. I know this isn't WoW but I can see a smart monk saving people from death with that heal spell. Tempest Rush looks really neat but in effect it's really weak and not worth it.
DH
I was not very interested in the Demon Hunter to begin with so maybe it just isn't a class for me. It's not that I hate ranged, but nothing about him seems interesting, he's just a hunter. The DH has the most useless skills out of all the classes in the beta. Bola shot is completely useless at low levels. The AE range is way too small and the fact that you have to wait an entire second for it to do ANY damage is stupid. The damage it does at low levels at least does not make it worth using ever. Entagling shot is also usless. Why do you need a slow when you have caltrops (which is really good btw)? Evasive Fire is really hard to use in most dungeons. Outside it's awesome, but once you get inside a dungeon you'll often be backflipping into a wall. Maybe it's just not my style but I found it lacking. Strafe is the single most usless skill in the game unless you have a burning hatred for pots and barrels. They should rename the skill to "Destroy all barrels in the room". The amount of damage it does is worthless. Rapid fire is cool though... and I enjoy Impale. The rune to add stun to Impale felt a little OP against single target. I really hope it doesn't work on act bosses because I was able to keep the skeleton king stunned a majority of the fight with it. There's no deminishing returns and I felt that it needed some. Dual wielding with the DH is a lot like it is with the Barb but it's even worse. I can't think of a reason to ever dual wield (beyond the fact that it looks cool).. a quiver is better.
And there you have it, my brutally honest opinions!
You provided a lot of good things to consider.
I'd say you're due for some more positive Karma!
I have not had the same experience. For both the Barb and the DH dual wielding has proved to be vastly more powerful. Are you using weapons with massive STR (for the barb) and DEX (for the dh)? When you can craft 1 handed axes with +25 str or more or rare 1 handed x-bows with over 30 dex, there's no 2-hander or quiver that can keep up.
In the current iteration of the Beta I don't have a character that's under 100dps anymore and I've only had the beta since the 24th. Here's muh Barb:
16GB G Skill Ram ~ 2x Mushkin 120GB SSD's ~ MSI GTX 570 Twin Frozer ~ Asus P8P67 Deluxe
For the DH it's a no brainer. Quivers have dex too so there's no point in using dual wield imo.
It's just something to do after you've Betamaxed.
I've made something different out of each of my toons aside from their max dps sets.
I have a thorns set which is fun, i have a 104 mf set, huge radius set, gold set, etc. For all intents and purposes I've just been treating the Beta like a very short complete game that needs.
I've also been capturing videos of bugs and then trying to reproduce them - some successfully - some not so much.
16GB G Skill Ram ~ 2x Mushkin 120GB SSD's ~ MSI GTX 570 Twin Frozer ~ Asus P8P67 Deluxe
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).
16GB G Skill Ram ~ 2x Mushkin 120GB SSD's ~ MSI GTX 570 Twin Frozer ~ Asus P8P67 Deluxe
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.
I can also confirm there is dex on quivers, but unless you find a rare you probably won't have a high of a dex range as the crafted rare (beta limited of course).
@ Kinetic2041
Exactly, I've had numerous discussions with different individuals on certain abilities; it all comes down to preference which is why so many builds will be used.
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.
My quiver is +12 dex, 3-4 damage, +1.5 crit chance and +12 max discipline. Maybe I got lucky, I think I crafted it.
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