DiabloFans

Well the image was there for a moment, but now it just shows the "torn page" image.

Embarrassing.

EDIT: It works now.

I'd still pick the AH over no-trading-at-all any day!

Urzael.

Youtube search "Diablo III Reaper of Souls Soundtrack - Urzael" if you want to hear it on its own.

Vanilla: Paragon levels were a simple but still decent way to increase the game's longevity by giving incentive to grind after level 60. Ubers were added similar to how they were in Diablo 2, and gave the Hellfire Ring as a reward. The Hellfire is a great item due to its +35% exp increase, but even if you don't have it there's no reason to go for it now with RoS on the way. Apparently Loot 2.0 will have a different version of it anyways.

Sadly there isn't much besides paragon and ubers.

Reaper of Souls: Basically, the game is getting a huge overhaul.

As lifesteal was overpowered, and playing inferno was basically just hovering near death by healing faster than you got hurt, they're removing lifesteal while giving alternatives and making us tankier. Example: A lot more barbarian items have "heal per fury spent" and healing skills for all classes give far more than they used to. Blizzard wants to discourage facerolling our keyboards.

Adventure mode takes the areas of all five acts and combines them into a massive sandbox. Bounties (do this quest or kill this monster) and Rifts (randomly generated dungeon with random color, weather effects, and enemies) are available only in this mode.

There are new skills and passives due to the level 70 level cap. While the Barbarian and Wizard had their "Super Saiyan" skills (Wrath of the Berzerker and Archon) the DH and Monk will have new skills like these, just to name two of many.

All existing skills have been reworked. Some just have minor changes such as doing more damage but many have completely new runes with new effects and looks. You can change the Wizard's arcane orb elemental damage type and each of them behave very differently.

Paragon 2.0 is a new system where paragon levels are account-wide and allow you to spend points in the core, offensive, defensive, and utility pages. Paragon levels are also no longer capped at 100, and instead unlimited.

Probably the greatest change is the new itemization. There are primary and secondary stats to all items now. While vanilla has us stack only defense, lifesteal, and dps, the new legendaries will have overpowered, build-making, and sometimes goofy effects. Call of the Ancients lasting forever, gaining the base effect of all four mantras at once, and summoning a heard of murderous cows are a few examples.

While we have the Blacksmith and the Jeweler, we will get a third artisan called the mystic, whom was originally supposed to come with vanilla Diablo 3 but was canceled. The mystic allows you to reroll some stats on items, such as changing pick-up radius to fire resistance. Another feature of this artisan is transmogging, where you can change the appearance of an item without changing its stats.

The new Act 5, which is said by Blizzard to have the same length as Act 2. It has a darker, more Gothic aesthetic to it and you fight angels instead of demons. The soundtrack seems to be a step up from the boring ambient noises of vanilla.

Then, there's the new Crusader class. Main stat is Strength like the Barbarian and have flails, coming in both one-handed and two-handed forms, and crusader shields as their class specific items. 1. Vanilla Diablo 3 has two dex chars, two int chars, and one strength char. 2. A common criticism on vanilla is that shields are useless. 3. Paladins were a big favorite in D2. And so the strength-based crusader was the perfect fit for a new class. The female Crusader is voiced by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn by the way.

It's up to you if one act, one class, and a large gameplay overhaul is worth $40, but I'm getting it. It looks a lot better than vanilla at least.

Quote from PenumbraRt

jamoose man. i see you post a lot. first of all. get a life. this is just a game. second: how is it diff from the current system? are you serious? or are you dumb? no really... are you dumb? its up to you what items you want. like in d2 lod with the rw. its still diablo. diablo 3 is not a diablo game.and third: i dont like the paladin in d2. why play with someone i dont like right? so it was very hard to kill the ubers. and the torch helped you a lot with +3 to all skills and all resist. ofc there is a chance to drop for the char you are playing but everyting is chance like. anyways... go have a life man.

Ok i read as much as i could and i gotta say that this post is written in a really aweful way dude... It's barely readable.

You say that runewords are really awesome and that they should be added to the game. But why? Your reason is simply because they are cool and everybody wants runewords. Which is clearly not a good reason. RW might be in the game by the next expansion, but right now, they won't add or fix anything that might be lacking / broken in game at the moment. Proper handeling of itemization will solve the issues without the need to introduce RW.

I believe it is more of a personal issue for you or anyone else that might feel that D3 did not meet his / her expectations. Entertainment products can't last forever. You pay 40-60$ worth of playing time and you are supposed to make whatever you want out of it.

I did not understand the part where people in the world should just give us items and the monsters should drop rune stones that you can then use at the different blacksmiths. How is that different from the current system? Essentialy, it's the same, just that the items come from a different source.

Ubers in d2 were hard but you could beat them very easily with a smite pally. The gear to build a UT smite pally was really cheap. With a Guilaem's face, Dracul's gloves, Grief pb, Coh... If you are playing on live then getting these items is really easy and relatively cheap. Torches were boring. 99% of the times they were crap and you couldn't even hold two at a time to compare them.

Yeah whimseyshire is not the most popular place in D3... probably because it looks like crap and was just done as a joke because everybody was whinning that D3 is too colorful. The cow level in d2 was only popular because pre 1.0.9 i think, it as the most efficient place to farm. After they nerfed it, no one really went to do cows just for fun... (probably some people did but not as much).

Saying "heaven" 10 times does not make it more powerful. Act 4 is well designed astheticaly in my opinion. It does seem like it was a bit rushed to the end but act 4 in D2 was also really short and no one seemed to complain.

MP8-10 is not useless... Mp10 is actually quite imbalanced. The drop rate of legendaries is just sick (99% of the legendaries suck anyway but that's not the point). You can't expect anyone to take you seriously when you are addressing a giant corporation like Blizzard and saying things like "fuck the money..." This is just not how things work.

Again, if the things that you do in game are not worth talking about in your opinion, that's totally your own personal perspective and does not mean anything to any of us that might feel any differently.

Not trying to bash you or anything, just trying to make sense of this big red wall of text.

I completely disagree with him.

it doesn't follow that just because my skill choices are temporary, I am exactly like every other character of the same class. I have the *potential* to be like *any* other character of my class, but not all at once, and that would not change if my skill choices were not temporary. The only difference there is that I can exercise that potential without starting an entirely new character.

I think it's false to say that because of that flexibility, Diablo 3 characters are meaningless. Rather, their "meaning" just comes from the class itself rather than the sub-classes we're used to from Diablo 2. It's those labels, like "Whirlwind Barbarian" and "Blizzard Sorceress" that are meaningless, because the defining characteristic - chosen skills - are not static anymore. But it's not a loss, it's a trade - the label "Barbarian" or "Wizard" is more meaningful in Diablo 3 for the same reason. And I think that's a big improvement, because you're getting a whole lot more meaning.

And you're not losing any "flavor." You just have the option of changing it. If I deck out my Wizard with frost skills, he has that frosty flavor and the fact that I don't have to make a new character to use different skills doesn't diminish that flavor (as long as I'm using those skills, obviously).

Ultimately, I just think it's just stupid thematically to have locked-in skill choices. I mean seriously, my hero is supposed to come from obscurity to conquer a great evil and does it all using the same skill? Better in my mind that over the course of his journey, he develops a variety of awesome fighting styles that he is able to choose from as he goes from battle to battle. How is that not a more desirable narrative? Instead, I should prefer a character who has one solution to every problem, and as zero adaptability?

Imagine a barbarian from D2 meeting a barbarian from D3. The D2 barbarian has specialized in whirlwind and axes (i.e. the only real choices he gets to make) and then has the usual 1-point wonders. He can only kill anything by WW'ing it, and if he finds a badass sword he can't comprehend how to use it as effectively as an axe, to the point where it's actually not even worth using for him. The D3 barbarian knows the whirlwind fighting style, but he is not defined by it. He knows many fighting styles, and can combine them however he deems fit. He knows the desert has flying insects that are hard to catch, so he employs a ranged attack or adopts a highly mobile fighting style. He's tracked down a Lesser Evil and readies powerful single-target techniques.He can use almost any weapon as effectively as any other, and can make instant use of whatever he finds.

The D2 barbarian's girlfriend would dump him on the spot for the D3 barbarian, no contest.

The buff to legendary drop rates was major. It helped fix that feeling of "why the fuck am I killing things?" that I previously had. Now I do feel that loot might be around any corner, and that's exactly how everyone should feel in this genre.

I'm still not thrilled with the overemphasis on +15% damage to <skill> mods on rares, though. I don't think it's added to itemization in any meaningful manner. I think all it has done is created properties which are found frequently, but rarely match up with the skills you're using... so it becomes an "enchant it or scrap it" situation.

This "legendary" is going to be transmog fodder...

Sword won the vote for weapon type. Okay, cool. 5 outta 6 classes might actually seek it out.

Then Mephisto won the theme for the sword. Hrmm. Ah... hmm. Ok? I don't know why Mephisto would have a sword or even be connected to a sword in any way. The soulstones aren't big enough to be swords, they'd have to be a dagger... I'm just not getting the connection on this one.

After that, the spell proc won for the affix... WHY? Now, the classes that might use it has been knocked down to about 2 outta 6, Wizard and WD. I mean really? Out of the powers there were to choose from, we go with more lame passive procs.... that hardly anyone has the right elemental damage types for them to proc from? Good job...

And hey while we're lamin' it out, let's name it something REALLY lame... like, how about uh... The Shard. Yeah! The Shard of what... uh... The Shard of Hate!! Yeah, cool man! Really cool.

Only thing I'm looking forward to with this item is what it's going to look like. At least the art team will get something right with this "legendary". >_>