Played a demon hunter to level 8 and killed the Skeleton King last night, was great fun. This is my first taste of a game anything like Diablo or Diablo it's self and can't wait to get my Annual Pass copy!
I managed to log in on my last attempt before I descided to go to bed last night, and the game is better than I expected.
I tried to adjust my expectations down a little, that way I wouldn't be too dissappointed.
The game is just great, Monk FTW
one thing id like to know what you think, is that on co-op play, the mobs have more hp but have no increase to damage... What do you think about this. i didn't see an issue with it initially, but when i actually did co-op, it seemed ridiculous, on bosses, it did make it a little more interesting, seeing as the boss lives longer and can use more abilities, making it harder, but for normal trash, i just found it weird. what do you think?
one thing id like to know what you think, is that on co-op play, the mobs have more hp but have no increase to damage... What do you think about this. i didn't see an issue with it initially, but when i actually did co-op, it seemed ridiculous, on bosses, it did make it a little more interesting, seeing as the boss lives longer and can use more abilities, making it harder, but for normal trash, i just found it weird. what do you think?
I played about 4h on the demon hunter, level 13 and killed skele king about 5 times. Now I'm playing the barbarian and I see now why everyone wants to play the barb. He's massively overpowered compared to the minions in the game. His swings kill everything in one hit, and he takes a lot less damage than the demon hunter too. Not to mention his leap is way better than other classes mobility (that I can see so far). He's just way too good imo, they need to tone him down a bit.
I had my 6 hours playtime, now the maintenance...
But I just have a hard time with dual wielding attack speed calculation. I wore a sword and a knife, I don't see it changes in battle but if I put on the knife first, then the sword, the attack speed listed in character is higher than when I put on a sword first, then knife....
This is confusing....
Deeply satisfied with the beta. I prefer to play the melee classes, but I had a lot of fun with each class. I thought the demon hunter will be boring but it was not. First playthrough with each characters, I find the monk to be easiest to finish with (maybe because of the teleporting skills).
Played WD first to lvl 10, then Barb to lvl 12 (OMG.), the Monk to lvl 10, and this morning got a DH to lvl 10. So far I think the Barb and Monk are the most fun to play, but I believe that's just because of the particular skills they get early on. Either way, I'm super stoked about the game and really happy Blizz did an open beta. I would hang myself if they had some of these issues on release day. Ok maybe not HANG myself. But I would be sad.
All things considered, I see myself playing D3 for a looooooooooooooong time.
I know that zones have strict edges and randomized interiors, and i do know that gold is meant to be shared. But when i logged back on, everything except my level was reset. for example, i had to do the whole beginning quest chain just to be able to see the stash on my barbarian every time i re log on to him. I do hear that the stash is shared, but when i put items into it, they only show for that hero, and same with gold. On one character, im at 20 000 and another, im at 100.
You know HC characters cant use shared stash right, might this be your problem?
It's got me super hyped. I'd decided on the Monk ever since it was revealed and played it first. It was instantly amazing and felt just like I thought it would. I've decided to not even bother trying to get to 13 for EP (one of my favorite abilities) and save it for release.
My thoughts on this Stress Test. All hopes and dreams shot down by one thing logging into the internet to play. I'm getting sick of this current trend with game developers. It doesn't stop pirating, in fact security like this only leads to them being hacked faster. It's as simple as turning your computer into the server, it isn't hard and Blizzard should already know this given the many private World of Warcraft servers out there.
Other than that from the five minutes I've played lag free the Witch Doctor is awesome and can't wait to play him on live. So long as I dont get 5000ms letency like I've been getting. If that is the case I'm just going to have to do as I stated above. But lets hope it doesnt come to that. I've always been a fan of blizzard and would hate to become a pirate.
I'm from europe (so not near any servers) most i've got is 400 ms.
but most of the time around 190/220
Trust me, it's a combination of the blizzard server with flooding. I dont have this problem with any other online game. Plus Europe's internet is about 15x better than American internet. I'm pretty sure it won't be an issue when it goes live because those in EU and Asia will be on their own servers so there will be less in the Americas. That being said, still not happy with online only but I know enough about networking and have the resources to make this a non-issue for me so I guess it could be worse.
Initally I was turned off by the very linear story and maps prior to the Weeping Hollow. At that point, however, the exploration and open game world came into play, and the game really felt like the diablo games that I grew up with. Heck, I still play D2 on the regular. Based on this experience, I'm definitely getting D3.
Classes:
Barb: Pretty much what I expected. The "moon physics" weren't as bad as they looked in the vids, in fact I really enjoyed the physics - overall the class feels pretty fun. I didn't really understand what was healing me as I fought, but for the most part the class feels good. The Rage mechanic is the same as WoW... you feel like you have to rush and skip over item upgrades and skill swaps because you don't want to lose your rage between fights. Cutscenes are murder on the flow of this class because of rage loss.
Monk: This is going to be the class I play first in retail. I wasn't going to before beta, but after the very first hit, I was sold. The class just feels awesome. Strong hits, strong AoE, really awesome sound effects, and an accent I can make fun of - this class is great. Plus there's the endless comedy of the spunk-meter. Spirit is a fun mechanic. It's just like the barbarian's rage, but without the loss over time. In fact, the only part of the Monk experience that irked me was the teleport-punch of the main attack with the first level rune. There's no animation at all for it, so rather than appearing to "teleport" you feel more like you "glitched" to the monster. The camera also jumps, instead of flowing to you, so the overall feel pulls you completely out of the game, disorients you, and looks like you're glitching around the screen. For that reason alone I'm never going to use this attack.
Wizard: Also a fun class. I really like the ray of frost effect, and frost nova - they feel good, feel balanced - just enough snare to let you get distance, but a cooldown that's long enough for you to have to run a bit. Arcane power is a fun mechanic too - a very good resource. It prevents spamming one ability all day, but replenishes fast enough that you don't feel "out" of power.
Demon Hunter: I was very disappointed in this class. no AoE at all, low damage, very poor snares (caltrops centers on you like frost nova but doesn's freeze enemies, it's radius isn't as big as a witch doctor's grasping hands, and it doesn't slow as much as the other snares as well). With such poor AoE and crowd control, you'd think this class would be great 1 on 1, but that's not the case either. Single target damage is terrible. You play this class by running away a LOT. Not fun. It's like a combination of all of the worst parts of the assassin and the bowazon from D2. Rage and Discipline don't really work well either. They play completely unrelated. Why not have one go up as the other goes down, forcing a mix of attacks? instead they both diminish separately, and there's a third class of attacks for rage generation. Lame.
Witch Doctor: I played this class the least, but it seems really fun. I like the pets, and the attacks are pretty decent. Unlike the Demon Hunter with poor single target and poor crowd control, the Witch Doctor does well in both categories. The grasping hands snare is fantastic, and really helps out in groups. Also, the mana pool is a tried and true resource. I'm curious to see how it handles later in the game, but for the beta, it didn't need to be monitored at all.
In order by my preferences:
1 - Monk
2 - Wizard
3 - Witch Doctor
4 - Barbarian (I feel really weird that the barb is 4th. This class is super fun, just not quite as fun as the ones above it).
and a very, very distant 5 - Demon Hunter. This class just sucks.
Quests:
- I *love* the new quest structure. Not only is the main storyline fun, but the "events" that pop up are interesting, have their own backstories, and provide good rewards. Very cool! If the quests for the whole game are as fun as those of the Beta, we're really going to be in for a treat!
Crafting:
- The other major system I got to explore in beta was the crafting system, and I like it so far. The rewards are definitely stronger than most items that drop in the beta, so crafting is well worth it. In addition, the fact that the smith etc. are shared between all of your heroes is very nice - you don't have to grind the same recipes over and over and over. I wish there was a way to use the "fallen tooth" that I keep getting from salvaging my crappy blues, but maybe I just haven't found the recipe yet. In general, I really enjoy crafting, and in this game the crafting has seen a lot of polish.
Graphics and Sounds:
- Top notch. I can't even explain how disgustingly satisfying both of these elements are. The thwack of the barb's axe flaying the skin off of a thorn beast is just great! Once again, Blizzard has raised the bar for presentation.
Ending thoughts: I'm buying this game, no question. Great job Blizzard! Hopefully the Demon Hunter class will get some love, because I will never play it in its current state, and hopefully the Monk's tele-punch gets an animation and more fluid camera movement... Nothing should ever be designed to mimic bugs and lag. Even so, this is a fun, FUN game. Thanks for the open beta weekend, Blizz!
Bashiok - Blizzard Representative - 08/01/2011 -"So how many skill combinations are there now? Well taking into account 6 active skills, all the rune combinations, and 3 passives we currently expect each class to have roughly 2,285,814,795,264 different build combinations."
"Hey, I thought you'd like the witty irony of grub-on-glowie violence!"
Managed to do all the achievement! I am BetaMAXED!
Beta weekend is great and managed to play enough to keep me till release.
The game will be as all the Diablo series ... EPIC!
Demon Hunter: I was very disappointed in this class. no AoE at all, low damage, very poor snares (caltrops centers on you like frost nova but doesn's freeze enemies, it's radius isn't as big as a witch doctor's grasping hands, and it doesn't slow as much as the other snares as well). With such poor AoE and crowd control, you'd think this class would be great 1 on 1, but that's not the case either. Single target damage is terrible. You play this class by running away a LOT. Not fun. It's like a combination of all of the worst parts of the assassin and the bowazon from D2. Rage and Discipline don't really work well either. They play completely unrelated. Why not have one go up as the other goes down, forcing a mix of attacks? instead they both diminish separately, and there's a third class of attacks for rage generation. Lame.
So, you know that there are more abilities in the retail version than in the beta? DH gets a ton of AoE abilities (look at Multishot, Elemental Arrow for starters) and CC (Caltrops, Fan of Knives, Entangling Shot, Stunning Grenades are a few off the top of my head). Did you try Chain Gang on Entangling Shot? It's a spammable hatred generator that snares up to 4 enemies every time. The effectiveness of Caltrops, as opposed to something like Grasping Hands, is that it has no cooldown, and the snare is applied to all enemies that stand in its radius. You can drop 3 caltrops in a line while running away, and enemies have to walk through all 3 to get to you.
Single target damage? Did you try Impale, spammable 250% weapon damage with an early rune that stuns most of the time? Or Rapid Fire, a huge single-target damage channeling attack? The idea of 2 separate resources is not that bad if you get the feel of it. Hatred for attacks, Discipline for defense/utility. Pretty simple. If one went down while the other goes up, you wouldn't be able to do a mix of attacks. You would have to stand there and shoot, then wait for Discipline to drop Caltrops of Vault away.
You're entitled to your opinions, but I'm trying to show you that DH actually is a very fun and effective class, who can do anything, from clearing mobs in no time, dropping massive CC, to huge single target damage etc.
After playing the open beta over the past few nights and watching tons of videos leading up to it, I am a little disappointed. I have been playing Blizz games since they were S&S with games as Rock N Roll Racing and Lost Vikings, and Have been playing blizz games since then. I love all their games especially the Diablo series. I remember playing D1 and 2/EXP and just could not stop playing the game no matter how many times I played through it. But I found playing the open beta I was not as enthusiastic about wanting to play it. I stopped for a long while and honestly had a hard time forcing myself to play the open beta afterwards. Hell I am still playing D2 like crazy but taking a break since ladder is resetting. Also played WoW for many years doing hardcore end game raiding putting up WoL records during wrath and cata. But Im sidetracking.
First off the graphics/art/sound's are superb there is no doubt about that. I feel they transitioned to higher end graphics quite well along with all the details in the spells and and towns. I love they have a shared stash! HUGE PLUS! (no more temp bans for muling hopefully). Very glad that they allowed automatic gold pickup instead of having to click on every single gold drop like in D2. Bigger backpack also is great. Loving the lore and the voice actings.
My main concern that I am quite unhappy with many of the spells/moves are on cooldowns. That was one thing I loved about D2 that a majority of spells were instants and you could spam them. I know there were some spells that did have CD's but they were very short and rare. That is what I loved about D2 it was a very face paced game where you could just go nonstop without having to wait on CD's. It's like in WoW, if you wanted to maximize your DPS/heals/tps, you were constantly tracking your cd's, icd's, cd stacking, friendly buffs, enemy debuffs, friendly debuffs. And it got to a point where it was monotonous and no longer fun.
Just like in WoW, the CD's are probably added to help balance PVE and PVP, which I understand but it sucks at the same time. In my opinion I think they added a few to many aspects from WoW to D3 and I dont like it personally. Maybe Im just so caught up on D2 and I understand over 10 years and they are trying to update the game to todays standards. I just hate CD's/Debuff tracking for a game that is supposed to be a fast paced hack and slash game.
I also feel that the Witch Doctor is quite boring at least on the beta being able to play up to lvl 13. But again after reviewing this skills and runes. It seems like its almost identical to the Warlock in WoW.
Again this is just my opinion based off the open beta as Im sure many might disagree with me.
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I tried to adjust my expectations down a little, that way I wouldn't be too dissappointed.
The game is just great, Monk FTW
But I just have a hard time with dual wielding attack speed calculation. I wore a sword and a knife, I don't see it changes in battle but if I put on the knife first, then the sword, the attack speed listed in character is higher than when I put on a sword first, then knife....
This is confusing....
All things considered, I see myself playing D3 for a looooooooooooooong time.
May 15th can't come fast enough!!
Other than that from the five minutes I've played lag free the Witch Doctor is awesome and can't wait to play him on live. So long as I dont get 5000ms letency like I've been getting. If that is the case I'm just going to have to do as I stated above. But lets hope it doesnt come to that. I've always been a fan of blizzard and would hate to become a pirate.
Trust me, it's a combination of the blizzard server with flooding. I dont have this problem with any other online game. Plus Europe's internet is about 15x better than American internet. I'm pretty sure it won't be an issue when it goes live because those in EU and Asia will be on their own servers so there will be less in the Americas. That being said, still not happy with online only but I know enough about networking and have the resources to make this a non-issue for me so I guess it could be worse.
Initally I was turned off by the very linear story and maps prior to the Weeping Hollow. At that point, however, the exploration and open game world came into play, and the game really felt like the diablo games that I grew up with. Heck, I still play D2 on the regular. Based on this experience, I'm definitely getting D3.
Classes:
Barb: Pretty much what I expected. The "moon physics" weren't as bad as they looked in the vids, in fact I really enjoyed the physics - overall the class feels pretty fun. I didn't really understand what was healing me as I fought, but for the most part the class feels good. The Rage mechanic is the same as WoW... you feel like you have to rush and skip over item upgrades and skill swaps because you don't want to lose your rage between fights. Cutscenes are murder on the flow of this class because of rage loss.
Monk: This is going to be the class I play first in retail. I wasn't going to before beta, but after the very first hit, I was sold. The class just feels awesome. Strong hits, strong AoE, really awesome sound effects, and an accent I can make fun of - this class is great. Plus there's the endless comedy of the spunk-meter. Spirit is a fun mechanic. It's just like the barbarian's rage, but without the loss over time. In fact, the only part of the Monk experience that irked me was the teleport-punch of the main attack with the first level rune. There's no animation at all for it, so rather than appearing to "teleport" you feel more like you "glitched" to the monster. The camera also jumps, instead of flowing to you, so the overall feel pulls you completely out of the game, disorients you, and looks like you're glitching around the screen. For that reason alone I'm never going to use this attack.
Wizard: Also a fun class. I really like the ray of frost effect, and frost nova - they feel good, feel balanced - just enough snare to let you get distance, but a cooldown that's long enough for you to have to run a bit. Arcane power is a fun mechanic too - a very good resource. It prevents spamming one ability all day, but replenishes fast enough that you don't feel "out" of power.
Demon Hunter: I was very disappointed in this class. no AoE at all, low damage, very poor snares (caltrops centers on you like frost nova but doesn's freeze enemies, it's radius isn't as big as a witch doctor's grasping hands, and it doesn't slow as much as the other snares as well). With such poor AoE and crowd control, you'd think this class would be great 1 on 1, but that's not the case either. Single target damage is terrible. You play this class by running away a LOT. Not fun. It's like a combination of all of the worst parts of the assassin and the bowazon from D2. Rage and Discipline don't really work well either. They play completely unrelated. Why not have one go up as the other goes down, forcing a mix of attacks? instead they both diminish separately, and there's a third class of attacks for rage generation. Lame.
Witch Doctor: I played this class the least, but it seems really fun. I like the pets, and the attacks are pretty decent. Unlike the Demon Hunter with poor single target and poor crowd control, the Witch Doctor does well in both categories. The grasping hands snare is fantastic, and really helps out in groups. Also, the mana pool is a tried and true resource. I'm curious to see how it handles later in the game, but for the beta, it didn't need to be monitored at all.
In order by my preferences:
1 - Monk
2 - Wizard
3 - Witch Doctor
4 - Barbarian (I feel really weird that the barb is 4th. This class is super fun, just not quite as fun as the ones above it).
and a very, very distant 5 - Demon Hunter. This class just sucks.
Quests:
- I *love* the new quest structure. Not only is the main storyline fun, but the "events" that pop up are interesting, have their own backstories, and provide good rewards. Very cool! If the quests for the whole game are as fun as those of the Beta, we're really going to be in for a treat!
Crafting:
- The other major system I got to explore in beta was the crafting system, and I like it so far. The rewards are definitely stronger than most items that drop in the beta, so crafting is well worth it. In addition, the fact that the smith etc. are shared between all of your heroes is very nice - you don't have to grind the same recipes over and over and over. I wish there was a way to use the "fallen tooth" that I keep getting from salvaging my crappy blues, but maybe I just haven't found the recipe yet. In general, I really enjoy crafting, and in this game the crafting has seen a lot of polish.
Graphics and Sounds:
- Top notch. I can't even explain how disgustingly satisfying both of these elements are. The thwack of the barb's axe flaying the skin off of a thorn beast is just great! Once again, Blizzard has raised the bar for presentation.
Ending thoughts: I'm buying this game, no question. Great job Blizzard! Hopefully the Demon Hunter class will get some love, because I will never play it in its current state, and hopefully the Monk's tele-punch gets an animation and more fluid camera movement... Nothing should ever be designed to mimic bugs and lag. Even so, this is a fun, FUN game. Thanks for the open beta weekend, Blizz!
Bashiok - Blizzard Representative - 08/01/2011 -"So how many skill combinations are there now? Well taking into account 6 active skills, all the rune combinations, and 3 passives we currently expect each class to have roughly 2,285,814,795,264 different build combinations."
"Hey, I thought you'd like the witty irony of grub-on-glowie violence!"
Beta weekend is great and managed to play enough to keep me till release.
The game will be as all the Diablo series ... EPIC!
So, you know that there are more abilities in the retail version than in the beta? DH gets a ton of AoE abilities (look at Multishot, Elemental Arrow for starters) and CC (Caltrops, Fan of Knives, Entangling Shot, Stunning Grenades are a few off the top of my head). Did you try Chain Gang on Entangling Shot? It's a spammable hatred generator that snares up to 4 enemies every time. The effectiveness of Caltrops, as opposed to something like Grasping Hands, is that it has no cooldown, and the snare is applied to all enemies that stand in its radius. You can drop 3 caltrops in a line while running away, and enemies have to walk through all 3 to get to you.
Single target damage? Did you try Impale, spammable 250% weapon damage with an early rune that stuns most of the time? Or Rapid Fire, a huge single-target damage channeling attack? The idea of 2 separate resources is not that bad if you get the feel of it. Hatred for attacks, Discipline for defense/utility. Pretty simple. If one went down while the other goes up, you wouldn't be able to do a mix of attacks. You would have to stand there and shoot, then wait for Discipline to drop Caltrops of Vault away.
You're entitled to your opinions, but I'm trying to show you that DH actually is a very fun and effective class, who can do anything, from clearing mobs in no time, dropping massive CC, to huge single target damage etc.
First off the graphics/art/sound's are superb there is no doubt about that. I feel they transitioned to higher end graphics quite well along with all the details in the spells and and towns. I love they have a shared stash! HUGE PLUS! (no more temp bans for muling hopefully). Very glad that they allowed automatic gold pickup instead of having to click on every single gold drop like in D2. Bigger backpack also is great. Loving the lore and the voice actings.
My main concern that I am quite unhappy with many of the spells/moves are on cooldowns. That was one thing I loved about D2 that a majority of spells were instants and you could spam them. I know there were some spells that did have CD's but they were very short and rare. That is what I loved about D2 it was a very face paced game where you could just go nonstop without having to wait on CD's. It's like in WoW, if you wanted to maximize your DPS/heals/tps, you were constantly tracking your cd's, icd's, cd stacking, friendly buffs, enemy debuffs, friendly debuffs. And it got to a point where it was monotonous and no longer fun.
Just like in WoW, the CD's are probably added to help balance PVE and PVP, which I understand but it sucks at the same time. In my opinion I think they added a few to many aspects from WoW to D3 and I dont like it personally. Maybe Im just so caught up on D2 and I understand over 10 years and they are trying to update the game to todays standards. I just hate CD's/Debuff tracking for a game that is supposed to be a fast paced hack and slash game.
I also feel that the Witch Doctor is quite boring at least on the beta being able to play up to lvl 13. But again after reviewing this skills and runes. It seems like its almost identical to the Warlock in WoW.
Again this is just my opinion based off the open beta as Im sure many might disagree with me.