Soooo, we all gonna set up a Diablo 3 clan?

[Don]

A random gripe about the story. I really miss the ability in SWTOR to kill everyone you don't like, because I'd really like to kill the 3rd guy on the raise the catapult quest. You're basically tanking 25 different demons and keeping them off him while you try to pull a lever at the same time and all he does is complain that you're too slow. You should just be able to throw him down the castle wall after you're done raising the catapult.

I think the old quest system was better in Diablo 2 just because some of the quest actually yielded significant stuff, whereas every quest in D3 feels like something lifted out of WoW in terms of story/reward.

The health orb are basically your life drain in this game and you got to kill stuff or at least do significant damage to get them to drop, so you really need to go all offense while having just enough defense to not get one shotted. It's pretty hard to take more than 2 consecutive hits from any significant enemy and potions are on long cooldown so usually there's not much to be gained for getting more vitality.

There really should be a lot of potion dropping given how often you'd have to use those and how expensive they are.

The crafting stuff seems totally worthless. You save more money by selling all your items to vendor and then use the gold to buy the salvaged material, though I guess eventually people will be figured out the salavaged stuff is worthless. Basically you should always buy the most powerful weapon you can possibly get, and the rest you can sort of wing it for a while depending on your class skills/luck.

[Shrinweck]

I think your thoughts on health orbs may be a little skewed by the fact that you're playing a wizard which is the only class on the game without survival skills, meaning your defense skills are about disabling and dodging damage entirely. Everyone else has heals and/or invulnerability to fall back on. But my wiz is only something like 18 and I've only seen Tess play his wizard up to 30.

I agree with you about TOR. It definitely did storytelling and choice in an RPG atmosphere correctly. Gabe from Penny-Arcade had a good quote that went something like wishing there was a game that combined TOR's storytelling, TERA's active participation in combat, and Guild Wars 2's organic questing. Sounds like a good dream to me. I'd settle for TOR without 5 minute load times and some kind of Rift-like on-the-fly group quests. Oh, and populated servers.

[Don]

Diamond Skin is your heal for a Wizard.

Heals don't really matter when the stuff that matters can kill you in two hits. You're going to run into cooldown issues or whatever, though the stuff that can kill in two hits usually takes a while to get hit twice, or they'll hit you immediately (any nasty combo of mods on elite/uniques). If you get say Vortex + Arcane, or Vortex + Fire Chains you're going to go down in two hits if you get sucked in at the wrong time. It's very clear there's no thought on some of the abilities interact. Vortex/Jailer/Waller should be exclusive of abilities that do mega damage at melee range (Plague/Arcane/Fire Chain/Molten/etc) but no such restriction exist. Mortar leads to some rather interesting combo too.

[Shrinweck]

Okay so I beat it and didn't have any movement problems with any of the bosses. I even spent a few seconds trying to recreate it with Diablo. I did spend the majority of the fight clicking very far away when I needed to move out of caution and holding down the button instead of clicking wildly just to be safe.

In all, not too difficult of a fight. Diablo managed to get me down to about 50-60% two times but between a health globe and the health shrine (as in, I only had to go out of my way to heal twice) I managed without any scares. If you ask me this is far superior to having to TP and die a million fucking times while getting him down an insignificant amount each time. I didn't have trouble with instant kills because I've been slotting massive amounts of vitality and the character was a barbarian so I was able to just get up in Diablo's grill for 85% of the fight. I really can't see going into the fight with any less than 4500 or so hp on normal, regardless of class.

It is however unfortunate that Blizzard built this game so you basically have to use the AH. By the end I maybe had two or three pieces of gear that I had found on one of my characters equipped. And one of those I didn't even find on my barbarian. This is hardly game of the decade like some people thought it had the potential for, or even game of the year, but game of the next month or three? Heck, yeah.

[Eric]

That's how Diablo is, in 1 & 2, you traded gear to get what you wanted.

Auction House is the same shit, different type of currency.

Diablo's loot system is entirely too random to ever hope you'll get the drops you want without trading/buying with other players.

[Don]

You don't need to trade anything with anybody in Diablo 2 unless you're trying to melee Diablo (because he has 75% block) or you can't take Duriel's damage, and those are more of broken game mechanics than actual difficulty. You can easily get a lightning/fire resist to 75% if you remotely paid attention to what dropped along the way and that is good enough for Diablo as long as you don't stand directly in his lightning hose, and you can even do that if you managed to find some magic damage reduced gear (hard in original Diablo 2, but easy in the expansion).

You can slot for vitality but the mob DPS increase will eventually outpace it. Izual in Nightmare hits for like 12K with one of his teleport moves that doesn't seem to miss at all. Unless you have like 25K HP you're not going to be able to tank so it's just a DPS race. No it's not actually very hard because he does it in a very predictable manner so it'd be like first teleport -> CD, second teleport -> potion, third teleport -> hopefully CD again, fourth teleport -> you die if he hasn't died at this point. I guess the move Diablo got you low was that straight flame wave that expands into a circle, and that move is totally unavoidable if he's at a certain angle from you when he does it and does mega damage. In Nightmare it pretty much kills me through 15K HP if you are standing in the center when it exploded and again this isn't something you can avoid forever or outtank (unless you have a ridiculously amount of HP). No it's not hard to dodge usually but sometimes he will teleport to a spot that you absolutely can't avoid it and then you die. You can circumvent some of this being playing extremely conservatively, i.e. essentially running around the whole time and only attack when it is absolutely safe, but then this really tests your patience and there's nothing fun about that either.

[Zeus]

You addicted bitches! I'm at Level 10 lookin' to join a game, maybe play with friends the way the game was intended and all. And every single person on my list is at level 30+!

[Shrinweck]

Addicted? You'd played for like ten seconds before today! :D We weren't any higher or lower than you after our first day with the game. Well I don't know about Eric, I don't have his battletag


But yes

[Don]

One thing I noticed that's really out of whack is that +elemental damage counts as weapon damage and every skill does X% of weapon damage, so while elemental damage was pretty much useless in Diablo 2, they're pretty much the god stat in Diablo 3, even over regular +damage since you get bigger numbers for +elemental damage. You don't even have any elemental resistance to worry about, i.e. you have something that's +lightning damage but a Blizzard still does 200% weapon damage as cold so it's all good. It's needed since you need an extreme amount of DPS to have a shot at beating the bosses before you run out of cooldowns but it seems like a bad design when the best weapon you want is always prefix (Vit + mainstats) of the elemental suffix. In fact, I searched for the highest DPS weapon in the game listed in AH and it indeed is a magic weapon that fits the above property, and it's quite a bit more potent than the closest rare.

[Don]

I saw this theory that Blizzard made Diablo 3 suck so that it wouldn't draw people away from WoW. As crazy as it seems, this might actually make a lot of sense because WoW and Diablo have a huge overlap in playerbase, but Diablo isn't (yet) a monthly subscription game.

I don't actually mind the lack of customization on stats (you'd just put it all in vit/mainstat anyway, otherwise you totally gimp your character). The skill tree is actually pretty cool, except with the difficulty in mind, most skill combos are completely unviable. In Diablo 2 I had a curse only necro that teamed up with a thrown weapon only barb (so he can only do double throw) and we got to Hell Ancients and we didn't even die very often. Sometimes the fight gets really, really slow but it was still doable. Most suboptimal specs would simply be unusuable by the time Nightmare comes around and certainly by Hell. Also, one of the really weird part about skills is that the location of the skill has nothing to do with their power. In Diablo 2, Frozen Orb is considerably more potent than Ice Bolt so it's at level 30 while Ice Bolt is at level 1. In Diablo 3 your best single target damage spell is probably a spell you get by level 10. You basically don't even have anything really interesting to experiment with until around level 30 but that's when stuff starts getting hard enough that you can't just experiment anymore. In Diablo 2 if you want to go max Ice Bolt you could at least do that level 1-30. In Diablo 3 if you want to go Hydra or some other useless skill, you don't even get that skill until around level 20 so you have a much smaller window to even do anything with it.

[Eric]

You can slot for vitality but the mob DPS increase will eventually outpace it. Izual in Nightmare hits for like 12K with one of his teleport moves that doesn't seem to miss at all.

Wat, fairly sure I have 12K hp, and Izual did not gib me once in nightmare in a party of 4, my self-regen outpaced his DPS. X_X

[Don]

You can slot for vitality but the mob DPS increase will eventually outpace it. Izual in Nightmare hits for like 12K with one of his teleport moves that doesn't seem to miss at all.

Wat, fairly sure I have 12K hp, and Izual did not gib me once in nightmare in a party of 4, my self-regen outpaced his DPS. X_X

What class are you? His big hit only occurs if you're not in his melee range but then you'd have to be able to tank him in the first place for him to not charge you.

The major bosses are usually safer to be in melee range than at range, but then the real threat is the champion/unique and being at melee range on those guys is borderilne suicidal.

[Anarky]

People who have beaten the game.

Spoiler: show

So what do you think the story line will be for the Expansion(s)?

Adria the witch or Imperius the angel being the big baddy?

[Anarky]

I've really enjoyed my time with the game thus far. I rolled a barbarian as my first main character and have started nightmare. The only thing that has been holding me back is playing certain characters with certain friends.

The Auction House has killed the purpose of crafting for me. No point on gambling on the chance of something being good when I can go on the AH and search for rares with the max buyout of what in game crafting would cost me.

[Don]

I'm guessing the expansion is going to have something to do with the former Angel of Wisdom who went missing.

On the lore, I think how it's funny they talk about beings that are immortal and then you just kill them fine, like Zolten Kulle.

[Shrinweck]

playing certain characters with certain friends.

Same here. I started another monk just so I could be free of such constraints on what became my favorite class heh

The AH killed crafting for me when I realized I could make more money and have better items if I sold all my blues and useless rares to NPC vendors and relied solely upon it. I still spend the odd gold on it when I have enough pages to upgrade. I'm under the assumption some day Blizzard will improve the situation. Gems are in a similar situation. Combining and even unsocketing (in certain situations) have become uncertain for me because of the sheer cost. Combining three chipped gems into a flawed costs something like 1200 gold if memory serves. I can buy a perfect fucking gem for less than that last I checked. That's just fucked up.

DLC/expansion ideas:

Spoiler: show

Also, I could see the Wisdom and Adria both possibly being separate DLC expansions with possibly another class bundled in. Imperius being one act would just feel like a waste. I can see a standalone game based on him before I could see wrapping that up in a single act. I could see this being a very interesting game given the conflicted nature of the angels, since a ton of them seem like total assholes.

[Anarky]

DLC/expansion ideas:

Spoiler: show

Also, I could see the Wisdom and Adria both possibly being separate DLC expansions with possibly another class bundled in. Imperius being one act would just feel like a waste. I can see a standalone game based on him before I could see wrapping that up in a single act. I could see this being a very interesting game given the conflicted nature of the angels, since a ton of them seem like total assholes.

[/quote]

Spoiler: show

Did I somehow miss a lot of the Wisdom story in the game? I've gone back and have been doing the achievement to listen to a lot of the NPC dialogue, but I didn't feel like the Wisdom Angel could be that big in the future expansion. I know Shen and the Enchantress allude to it, but dunno. I feel like Blizzard would go for something super obvious

[Don]

The dropped gem only goes up to Square gems or so but yeah it's actually cheaper to buy anything below it from AH then just the cost of combining the gems, not counting the page of jewelcraft you need to find on your own. I'm not sure why I even continue to combine gems below Square.

It takes me 10K gold not even counting the raw materials to make a random level 50 rare. For 10K gold, you can usually buy something near best in slot for that level range if you take some time to search, and again this doesn't even include the cost of the raw materials.

The increasing respawn timer on death is really insulting in this game. Now that I'm in Hell it's obvious there are many combination of abilities that are downright unbeatable and most of the champions are much faster than you, so that means even if you're just trying to run past them it takes increasingly longer to attempt to do so.

Basically once you get into Hell it's better to just run up a Resplendent Chest, grab everything in it before you die, and start over. It's rarely worth it to try to fight anything because you need to the enemy to have a very specific set of mods to be beatable. To a rough classification:

Unbeatable if present at all: Invulnerable Minions
Unbeatable if one from each grouping are present:
Group A (support): Vortex Waller Jailer Illusionist Vampiric Health Link
Group B (DPS): Plagued Desecrated Arcane Fire Chains Molten Frozen Mortar

Safe mods: Extra Health Horde Electrified Fast Teleporter Shielding Reflects Damage Avenger

The chance of getting something beatable is very low. Basically the enemy can't have something that adds damage and something else that's halfway decent. It can have all support abilities or all DPS abilities but it can't have both.

[Don]

The Angel of Wisdom is supposed to be the head of the Angels so the last guy who was Angel of Wisdom going missing is supposed to have a very significant impact. This is mostly through the optional dialgoues + books. There's nothing in the game while you're playing through it that'd suggest this guy was ever imporatnt.

[Don]

It seems like the only guys who can solo Inferno are Wizards. Lower your vit to like 10K HP and use the talent that reduces all hits >35% of your health (which is everything in Inferno) to 35%, and just life drain/life regen your way past it.

[Anarky]

Melee is fucked in Inferno from what I've read. Wizard and Witch Doctor have it 'easiest'

[Don]

Melee is fucked in Inferno from what I've read. Wizard and Witch Doctor have it 'easiest'

Once you start seeing like Arcane it'd be very obvious why melee is screwed.

[Flip]

I have my HC wiz up to 22. I'm stacking vit as much as i can and exclusively getting my gear from the AH. I'm only in Normal Act 2, but am steamrolling my way through at the moment. Not a near death experience yet, but i clearly know this will change, as will probably my play style.. Currently i am about as reckless as a wiz gets. I always toss on ice armor and arcane orbs with the rune that makes 4 orbs rotate around me like a bomb shield. I'll activate diamond skin and simply run in the middle of the group of mobs where the orbs all explode on somethiing, i cast explosive blast, frost nova, and then spam shock pulse with the rune that makes people explode for extra damage when they die. Literally, mobs are flying across the map with that combination of superdy duperdy explosions, it is really quite satisfying. With my 2.5k life, diamond skin, and frost nova... i never really get in any trouble.

[Don]

I have my HC wiz up to 22. I'm stacking vit as much as i can and exclusively getting my gear from the AH. I'm only in Normal Act 2, but am steamrolling my way through at the moment. Not a near death experience yet, but i clearly know this will change, as will probably my play style.. Currently i am about as reckless as a wiz gets. I always toss on ice armor and arcane orbs with the rune that makes 4 orbs rotate around me like a bomb shield. I'll activate diamond skin and simply run in the middle of the group of mobs where the orbs all explode on somethiing, i cast explosive blast, frost nova, and then spam shock pulse with the rune that makes people explode for extra damage when they die. Literally, mobs are flying across the map with that combination of superdy duperdy explosions, it is really quite satisfying. With my 2.5k life, diamond skin, and frost nova... i never really get in any trouble.

It's mostly fine until you run into the later difficulties where enemy damage quickly outscales whatever increase in defense you can get. Now you can still always outrun something like a Fallen Overseer or at least dodge their attack, but try to outrun a spiderling let alone a soul lasher (the guys that have a tongue attack) and it's just not going to happen, and when a spiderilng hits you for 3K in Hell or 30K in Inferno, you don't really have any interesting way to deal with it besides using the Force Armor (all hits >35% reduces to 35%) cheese and even that is iffy. It's got the similar problem to old Diablo 2 where the most deadly enemies are stuff like Skeleton Bowman or Stygian Dolls because when everything hits hard, it's the fast guys that can actually kill you. A Minion of Destruction can do 1 million damage and it's still pretty easy to defeat them because they're slow. Depending on your gear/skills you'll run into a bottleneck at some point. Like I said I have spiderilngs bite for 3K on Hell Act 1 and it's common to run into 20 of those guys, so you just die when that happens. Funny enough, Dark Berserkers can one shot me right now but I only die to them if they got Jailer/Waller because their attack takes so long to do you can always dodge it.

There's certainly a lot of different things you can try but you can only experiment with stuff on normal. Even on Nightmare you start feeling the greatly increased in damage and certainly by Hell you cannot possibly play without Energy Armor.

There are stuff in Diablo 3 where you cannot possibly avoid their attack even if you're running the entire time by the time Hell comes around (I think enemy get snare resistance + overall speed bonus). I've tried to outrun a bunch of spiderilngs and you just can't do it. They're faster than you and they will hit you. So okay you can throw in Teleport but you'll literally only have 2 seconds before they caught up again if you tried to attack them using the distance, and if you just use the time to run away, I guess you can run away forever but they sure won't be dying either.

[Flip]

My biggest worry of starting HC right away was that I wouldnt be able to get through the story, but it looks like (and feels like) i'll be able to plow through normal difficulty without too much of a problem, knock on wood...

I'm definitely over geared right now and over leveled for the part of the game I am in, which i'll keep up as best i can as i progress. My solo games are super easy right now, but even the 4 player multi's arent that difficult. But, like you said, the monsters, and especially the champions, will catch up rapidly. I've done well in the AH and sometimes I'll find an item i can simply buyout for XXX and turn around and sell for XXX times 3. People really have no idea what stuff is worth, but it isnt too hard to find something equivalent and set your price accordingly.

I've heard a lot if HC's dying on Belial, so he scares me. I'll make sure to be way over leveled before i attempt him. Although, people said the same thing about the poison trees, Act 2 wasps, and the Butcher, but i got through all that just fine.

[Don]

The actual bosses aren't too bad. For Belial you just have to be conservative on HC, i.e. only attack when after he does 4 melee attacks so you don't get caught by 2 of his double handed attacks.

The champions are the biggest problem. If they get anything that prevents you from running away (Vortex/Waller/Jailer) plus another mod that dishes out a ton of damage (plenty of those) you're pretty much dead. It's by definition impossible on normal since they only have one mod, but the number of mods go up per difficulty tier. By the time inferno rolls around the enemy will have 4 mods, and chances for an impossible combination is very high. Even on Hell (3 mods) it's easy to get say Mortar/Jailer/Molten and you just flat out die when you get jailed.

[Oracle]

AH taking all my monies!

AH is, by far and away, the best way to get equipment and not drive yourself crazy.

I originally took Don's advice: Just buy the best weapons on the AH and wing the rest. I now have ALL of my equipment from the AH - it's just cheaper (as long as you are determined to have at least semi-decent equipment in each slot).

I did crafting pretty hard up until nightmare. After sitting back and thinking about it, taking into account the 15K per upgrade for smithing (then the gems on top of it), then the actual money and materials it takes to craft something, it's just way too expensive.

I buy weapons for ~5-10K each (dual wielding barbarian). I seem to be upgrading these on the AH every 2-4 levels just because I have the cash for it all the time (hell, one "level/zone" of a dungeon on nightmare is netting me around 15-20K). Search for Str+vit+life drain on AH, and the other bonuses are gravy (<3 attack speed increase). At level 46, I just upgraded my DPS from 1300 to 2100 with my latest weapon purchase.

So, I see that vitality now gives 21 HP per point. How/when does that increase? Just by level now?

[Don]

Maybe Vitality gives more HP as a function of difficulty rating? I only bought a new weapon when it feels like the enemy are taking too long to kill.

I was reading some stats, it says the highest minimum damage in Act 2 Inferno is 132K. Rumor says Force Armor has been nerfed, though I haven't been able to verify it one way or another.

[Shrinweck]

For Belial on my latest character on normal I just went up to the top of one the horseshoe legs (the shape is kind of like a C with the opening facing up) and literally just sat there wailing on him the entire fight. I got basically every "don't get hit by his x..." achievement possible on normal in that encounter. So I'm going to go ahead and recommend that haha

Edit: Unless something really goes wrong and surprises you getting out of normal should be easy without dying. The only class I've died with in normal is the barbarian because it's very easy to use leap to get your (my) dumb ass in trouble. If you take things slow there's really absolutely no excuse to die on normal, especially if you've been paying attention and using the AH to slot yourself with rare gear suited to your level. It's disturbing how few people use the AH to at the very least keep their weapon up to date. This is already a must on normal characters but a hardcore character without an up to date weapon is just asking for it.

[Flip]

The auction house is f'ing up a little bit. Twice, i tried to buy a gem and i got timed out where i lose my money and didnt get the gem. Seems to happen to gear you want to sell sometimes, too. If you get timed out, you lose your item. Lame.

Up to 29 now and almost at the end of Act 3. This game would be pretty hard (even solo) without the AH, i feel.

[Shrinweck]

Yeah the AH has been pretty terrible for the past three days. I imagine they'll be pushing the real money AH even further back than the 29th of May. You shouldn't be losing your items, though. If they disappear they're always up for auction/sold by the time I check or log in again. The tab gems are sold on has basically been impossible to use with any regularity last night and tonight.

[Eric]

• Below you'll find a list of hotfixes which address various gameplay and service issues affecting Diablo III. Hotfixes are updates we make on our end without requiring you to download a new patch. Some of the hotfixes below will go live the moment they are implemented, while others may require your realm to be restarted to go into effect. Please keep in mind that some issues cannot be addressed without a client-side patch update. We will continue to update this thread in the days ahead as additional hotfixes are applied.
  Spoiler Warning: If you have not yet completed Diablo III on Normal, some hotfixes described in this list may include spoilers.
  
  // May 22 //
  General
  
  Players will now receive an error message when attempting to remove a gem from an item with no sockets (rather than disconnecting)
  Players will now properly have their casting interrupted when attacked while performing resurrect on a fallen group member
  Resolved over 30 game and service crashes affecting players
  
  Classes
  
  Demon Hunter
  Active Skills
  Smoke Screen
  Duration reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second (tooltip will still show 2 seconds)
  Skill Rune - Lingering Fog
  Now increases the duration of Smoke Screen to 1.5 seconds (tooltip will still show 3 seconds)
  Monk
  Active Skills
  Fists of Thunder
  Skill Rune - Quickening
  Fixed an issue that was causing spirit regeneration to incorrectly trigger off critical hits from other sources, such as Sweeping Wind
  Mantra of Healing
  Mantra of Healing will now correctly provide only two times the base healing effect for the first 3 seconds after activation, down from four times the base healing effect (tooltip will still show the old value)
  Skill Rune - Boon of Protection
  A maximum absorption amount has been set to 1000 Life. This skill will be redesigned in an upcoming patch.
  
  Wizard
  Active Skills
  Arcane Torrent
  Skill Rune - Cascade
  Fixed an issue that was causing Arcane Torrent to fire 3 new missiles per kill instead of only 1 new missile per kill
  Number of new missiles generated from this rune will now cap at 10 missiles
  Energy Armor
  Skill Rune - Force Armor
  Amount of damage absorbed from a single attack will now cap at 100% of a player’s maximum Life
  
  Items
  
  The rare chest in the Town Cellar in Alcanus will now only spawn 50% of the time, down from 100%
  Players can no longer dual-wield two-handed weapons
  
  
  // May 18 //
  Classes
  
  Monk
  Active Skills
  Serenity
  Skill Rune - Tranquility
  Duration of immunity granted to nearby allies from crowd control effects reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second
  
  Encounters
  
  Players will no longer remain invulnerable to attacks after defeating Diablo.
  Players can no longer become stuck during Diablo’s Shadow Grab ability if a player blinds Diablo while Shadow Grab is being cast.
  
  Items
  
  Equipping a shield on a follower as a demon hunter will no longer disconnect you from the game.
  
  Quests
  
  Act I
  Players can now always interact with Karyna during the quest and quest step "Trailing the Coven : Talk to Karyna" when they resume from a save.
  Act II
  The Enchantress will now always appear during the quest and quest step "Shadows in the Desert : Disrupt the Hidden Conclave."
  Act IV
  Tyrael will now always be present for the in-game cutscene during the quest and quest step "Prime Evil : Climb to the Pinnacle of Heaven in the Silver Spire."

[Oracle]

The auction house is f'ing up a little bit. Twice, i tried to buy a gem and i got timed out where i lose my money and didnt get the gem. Seems to happen to gear you want to sell sometimes, too. If you get timed out, you lose your item. Lame.

Up to 29 now and almost at the end of Act 3. This game would be pretty hard (even solo) without the AH, i feel.

I did all of normal without touching the AH on my Barbarian. Died once, because my dog disconnected the keyboard when he tripped on the cord, when I was fighting elites/champions.

If something screws up on the AH (you don't get the item you paid for, or it takes your money and then you get a message saying item is no longer available), wait a bit and check your completed transactions. In every case where I experienced this, I either had the money refunded to me there, or the item that "was no longer available" was delivered to me.

P.S. - Eric, why aren't you sharing your gamer tag!? Afraid us shriners will bust up your elite 4 man?

[Alec]

Aw, I thought dual wielding 2-handers was awesome. xD

[Don]

Pretty much the only viable builds for Inferno got nerfed.

Force Armor is still pretty darn good. It really should have required you having at least 20K HP at level 60 for it to work or something like that, so that you can't just decrease your HP to 4K and then never die with life regen abilities.

[Don]

After getting killed by an Invulnerable Vortex Molten (no melee, no escape, and can't kill it) named I decided to go back to SWTOR because at least there you don't have to reset the game to avoid an unbeatable combination of ability.

There's two things that game urgently needs to be fixed:

1. Everything is faster than you on Hell+. Stuff runs through Blizzard like it's not even there. Yes some classes have better snares but you shouldn't focus your game on only finding the biggest snares. In Diablo 2 you could run away and drop Meteor/Firewalls/Lighting/whatever. It's not as safe as Frozen Orb but it's workable. The fact that enemies (especially Champions) are faster than you basically prevents all possible strategy.

2. The combination of monster modifiers is clearly not tested. Since I know Blizzard can't possibly figure out what combination to exclude (Invulnerable Minion should not have ever made it into the game. The fact that "Must Die Together" was ever in the game in the first place shows how stupid it is), a good start would be just remove Invulnerable Minion, Jailer, Vortex, and Mortar from the game. This won't stop the named from one shotting characters but at least you might be able to kill them or at least run away from them.

There are other issues, but those two are game breaking.

[Flip]

Now, a lvl 34 Wiz still in HC (4000 HP, but only 400 DPS). I finished Normal and am on Act 1 NM. So far so good, but i have changed my play a few times and I retired the kamikaze wiz. However, that build was awesome for Normal!

I'm bummed the AH is down right now. I have a crap load of gems and some good rares that will fetch great prices. I also found one of the best amulets for someone my level, but it would be even better for a barb: +4-8 Damage, +57 Strength, +55 Vitality, Each Hit Adds +14 Life, 5% Magic Find, and Socketed (right now with a radiant amethyst so another +26 Vitality).

Good stuff, i love this game. I think i'll be able to survive pretty well in NM since now i'm being traditional ranged. I feel like my spells are good and i have a nice combination going. Although, i think i need some sort of escape mixed in and i cant rely on diamond skin alone forever...

My build right now:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/w ... acX!baaZaa

I suppose i do like this non-skill tree system. It lets you change skills on the fly and you arent tied to one path at all. Yes, this is very non-WoW, which like Don said, was intentional. Blizz wants D3 to be about the loot the loot the loot, provide very fast gratification, and make it so you really only need one character of each type.. thus a lot less RPG'ish than WoW.

[Flip]

After getting killed by an Invulnerable Vortex Molten (no melee, no escape, and can't kill it) named I decided to go back to SWTOR because at least there you don't have to reset the game to avoid an unbeatable combination of ability.

There's two things that game urgently needs to be fixed:

1. Everything is faster than you on Hell+. Stuff runs through Blizzard like it's not even there. Yes some classes have better snares but you shouldn't focus your game on only finding the biggest snares. In Diablo 2 you could run away and drop Meteor/Firewalls/Lighting/whatever. It's not as safe as Frozen Orb but it's workable. The fact that enemies (especially Champions) are faster than you basically prevents all possible strategy.

2. The combination of monster modifiers is clearly not tested. Since I know Blizzard can't possibly figure out what combination to exclude (Invulnerable Minion should not have ever made it into the game. The fact that "Must Die Together" was ever in the game in the first place shows how stupid it is), a good start would be just remove Invulnerable Minion, Jailer, Vortex, and Mortar from the game. This won't stop the named from one shotting characters but at least you might be able to kill them or at least run away from them.

There are other issues, but those two are game breaking.

It is kind of a bummer knowing the end game is impossible... However, i am happy at the moment just trying to make a sick character with the ridiculous amounts of loot this game has.

[Don]

Well it's not that those impossible combos don't show up earlier, but until around Inferno you can always try to DPS stuff down faster or tank longer to get around them. The primary enabler of this is the AH, though obviously your class choice/skill matter too. I can probably still DPS stuff down in Hell Act 2 by buying an even better weapon but I know the cycle breaks at Inferno so there's really no motivation to continue playing.

I actually think the skill tree is pretty cool, but they're pretty much useless because a lot of the stuff is way too high up and by then there's no use for such things.

For example let's take Ray of Frost. Realisticaly the only workable Rune with that is the one that reduces the cost. I tried Black Ice (mobs killed by Ray of Frost leaves an AE for 150% weapon damage) and it's just useless in Hell because it takes like 10 seconds to kill anything there so who cares if the one thing you kill does 3% damage to everything else aronud it. It'd actually be pretty cool if you had that early, but I think it's unlocked at level 52 or something.

On the other hand, Force Armor is unlocked at level 54, and that's a skill you really could use long before that point.

The itemization is pretty bad overall I think. Basically something needs +vit and +main stat, and beyond that you don't care too much since 99% of the time you'll get something useless like '+127 health after enemy kill" or '1.2% chance of knocking things back'. Yes useless modifiers has been a hallmark of Diablo 2 as well, but I don't recall Diablo 2 rares have such an abundance of absolutely useless stat. Usually a badly rolled item just has +primary stats you don't need, or lower amount of +resist, but it's still at least a small gain. In D3 you're almost always getting completely useless stats.

I suppose with the AH in mind the itemization is good because you basically can buy best in slot gear for a trivial amount of gold, and AH really does extend the playability of this game as having such awesome gear lets you get away with using suboptimal builds. It even hides some of the nasty stuff like Izual/Raknoth can one shot a nontank by Nightmare if you're actually wearing gear appropriate for that level because you can tank both of those guys if you're wearing BiS gear even though you're not supposed to.

I think Invulnerable Minion which only appears on Hell+ difficulty really kills the game. I have not heard of anyone who had anything positive to say about this trait. If the unique has it, you basically die, and if it has Vortex/Waller/Jailer, you're not even going to be able to run away. There are so masochists who think Mortar or Arcane is balanced, but I can't find anyone who thinks Invulnerable Minion is balanced at all.

[Flip]

I can probably still DPS stuff down in Hell Act 2 by buying an even better weapon but I know the cycle breaks at Inferno so there's really no motivation to continue playing.

This is where Hardcore comes in. The motivation to try and live as long as you possibly can is pretty powerful, and awful fun at times.

[Don]

I can probably still DPS stuff down in Hell Act 2 by buying an even better weapon but I know the cycle breaks at Inferno so there's really no motivation to continue playing.

This is where Hardcore comes in. The motivation to try and live as long as you possibly can is pretty powerful, and awful fun at times.

In Inferno, champion+ enemies have enrage timers, so you won't be surviving them. They'd instant kill you after a certain amount of time has passed.

[Flip]

Thats not the point, i'm not saying 'do HC then you can beat Inferno'... the challenge to live as long as you possibly can is what is addicting.. Knowing the game is finite and impossible to (fully) beat, the challenge, to me, seems to be that everyone should do HC just to see how long you live.

Anyways, i got up to lvl 36, still in Act I NM. The drops here are great, i got my DPS up to just shy of 1200 and my HP is just shy of 7k. HUGE difference compared to when i was lvl 34 and now Act I is getting not too difficult so I will move on soon.

PS, what is the point of a character name? In multi games its your login name that everyone sees... well mine is Flip#1217 but my wiz chick is Gayle. Although my log in is my e-mail... jesus bnet. In fact, I dont think your character name ever shows up to other players ever, in D3.

I've already put 22 hours into this $60 game. If my HC char dies tomorrow and i never play again, its still a bargain. In fact, i did have my first near death experience. I was able to frost nova and run the F away back up to lvl one of a cave where i was on the 2nd level with only 333 HP left. Oh lord was that scary. I got caught by a jailer molten a little too long with my diamond skin on cooldown. Thank goodness i had just bought some +vit gear and i had just switched out hydra for frost nova before joining that game. My new set up is two attach spells, two escape spells (diamond skin and frost nova), one shield (frost shield), and one boost (magic weapon).

[Don]

The name is probably so you don't have to be Something12394 to just get a unique name with all the people playing. Not sure why they don't display it though.

[Shrinweck]

Okay I've decided to play a hardcore demon hunter at least through normal. By the skeleton king on nightmare all of my characters have died at least once except my monks, but starting a third monk just seems gratuitous.

Edit: Shit, I didn't realize the gold and stash accounts were isolated from non-hardcore. This'll be interesting.

[Flip]

The auction house for SC and HC are seperate economies, too. Let me know if you need some power lvl'ing and ill keep my eye out for good DH gear. I would even give you 10k gold or so, which would go pretty far to over gear yourself.

I saw a random lvl 34 barb die yesterday and he was none too happy. I was in a group of three clearing out one of the fields in Act 1 when them 2 decided to go down a cave. I stayed up to finish off some of the packs by myself. Well i guess there must ahev been some real bad guys in the cave because the barb popped out with only a sliver of life left, but unfortunately for him i was fighting some champions, too, right outside the cave. He narrowly escaped from one brutal fight only to warp right into another one... A few seconds later he was toast. Maybe it was my fault for not following them, but i think it was their fault for going down the cave mid battle before the field was cleared.

[Shrinweck]

I think I may be fine other than the fact that I forgot how fucking slow demon hunters start. It's impossible to do anything but deal damage to a single target until the mid 20s. Demon Hunter AoEs just aren't all that viable until then. Luckily the escape skills are. I nearly died at the four pillars before the skeleton king just because of this but other than that I've been able to fight on my own terms. It's a tricky beginning that I was able to get my way through with my normal demon hunter by playing the first few acts with Tessian. Took a break to play some Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion once I hit the Drowned Temple.

Also based on your description, I'm going to say you're in the right. Moving on before things are cleared is a pet peeve of mine and is why I haven't even played in a public game yet. Tessian does this to me once in a while but I think he genuinely doesn't know I'm still fighting. We're also pretty careful not to transition to another area without each other.

The AH being crummy lately finally did me a favor since I got some legendary weapons for my monk for about 30-50% lower than they would have gone for otherwise. I hope commodities are fixed soon, though. I realize a few gems are a stupid reason to not want to play my high level characters but I'd rather mess around with my lowbie hardcore until it's activated again.

[Flip]

High level gear, as youve noticed, is always socketed, so gems are a big deal, IMO. I hope they fix commodities soon, too. I socketed a +12-24 dmg radiant ruby into my weapon the other day and my dmg skyrocketed up like 300 DPS. I've noticed the + damage, while it may seem small, is WAY better than an item that has your primary attribute. For example, i think a +4-8 dmg amulet is far greater than an amulet that has +60 intelligence DPS wise for a wiz. It baffles me that i still run into players in Act 1 NM who dont know what their DPS is (its right there in your inventory screen!) and have no clue about modifiers or that the weapons themselves tell you how your damage/life/armor will change.

[Shrinweck]

Yes, I don't know any figures but the difference is so clear that rubies in weapons are a must. I've been socketing perfect and square gems into my weapons since my first character hit ~23 and I noticed this. But I'm not even talking about that - I'm putting off playing them so I can buy some square emeralds for my armor lol

[Flip]

Here you go Don, this thread sums up your analysis pretty well. I agree with it, and pointed it out during the beta, but ill admit i am still having fun. It might wane soon, too, but who knows. I do understand what this guy means:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5235398686

SGHack writes:

This is a copy/paste from a general discussion thread I made. Unfortunately there is a billion threads per second on general so no replies there. I'd like your thoughts on it if you want to share.

Preface: This is written as constructive feedback based on my experience playing into act 2 nightmare in Hardcore mode. I highly doubt I will finish this game, meaning getting through Hell Mode. Not because my character is weak or not good enough. Just because I am already bored of the game, which is sad because I enjoyed every single Blizzard game ever. The game itself feels like it was made for 12-15 year olds.

What's the problem? Gear is requirement and reward.

What does that mean? In simple terms it means that 'good enough' gear is required to progress but it is also the only reward for progressing. Since they have stripped the player of all responsibility for decision making, gear is your only carrot for continuing this game. If that doesn't get you excited, well, then, I guess you end up like me: bored at Act 2 Nightmare. Read on.

With the automation of previously player-allocated attributes like stat and skill points, the only thing that matters is your gear. Concepts of the reward of hard work (buy it at AH), proper decision making (If I choose X I lose Y), good strategy (fights are linear and require little other than having "good enough" gear, heck you're even punished via Enrage Timers if you use strategy instead of LEEEROYY tactics), etc. are non existent in D3 because those aspects have been removed from the player and have become entirely automated.

You move from area to area, across difficulties, and if you die the only reason is because you don't have good enough gear. Additionally they have removed Jewels and Runewords which allowed further individual customization and interest.

This is a huge difference in philosophy from previous Diablo franchise games.

I feel as though too much importance is placed on gear. This detracts from other aspects of the previous games, such as decision making and strategy. Simply put, there is less critical thinking required of players in Diablo 3. Despite Blizzard's statements of build diversity, there are only a handful of builds that can carry characters into hell mode and beyond.

I feel this oversimplified approach eats away at the replay value and core enjoyment of Diablo 3.

It's like buying a 2000 piece puzzle but there are only 3 different types of puzzle pieces inside. It's just not challenging.

Even though I may not finish the puzzle it's only because I got bored of working with the same 3 pieces the entire time.

My idea:
Give players the option to allocate their own stat points upon leveling up. You want it automated? Fine. But let me have a shot at it myself.

And add a new concept called "Skill Experience." Skill experience is the determination of which runes you are able to unlock with your skills (as opposed to character level). This gives players the opportunity to level up their spells by using them more frequently. This forces decision making and commitment in similar style to D2 but still following D3 mechanics.

Thanks for reading.

[Don]

Well the problem is that when everything one shots you at the later difficulty there really is no point to put in any stat besides more offense. Basically outside of few cheese skills that grants near invulnerability you're not going to tank anything anyway, so why bother having more HPs?

Nightmare isn't hard but it's starting to be possible to get some of the crazy combination, like say Mortar + Jailer, Illusionist + Teleport (mob teleports and then illusion, you're now stuck with no way of escaping without using specific escape skills), and so on only requires 2 abilities.

Allowing you to distribute stats would be meaningless because you'd just put it all into Vit/Mainstat so they might as well assign it automatically. I'm not convinced skill themselves needs to be like Diablo 2. The reason why skills are useless is because since you cannot possibly survive or even outrun anything meaningful this means all you can pick is the most damaging attacks plus the few cheap defensives (Smokescreen, Force Armor, etc).

The sockets aren't realy that big of a deal outside of weapons. When you get stuff that has like 1000 DPS at level 60, adding 10-20 damage just isn't that important. Sure it's still better than gold radius pick + 5 yards but it's something you can live without. Gems having increasingly less importance as you go on, partly because you'll be spending most of your gold repairing your gear so you wouldn't have enough to combine gems. I saw a guy did some math and the highest gem would require 7 million gold just to combine its components (from the highest available drops) into it. For 7 million gold, you can buy pretty much the best weapon in the game even at their crazy inflated prices.

I think the highest dropped gems are flawless square. It's cheaper to buy any dropped gems than making it yourself, though obviously to get anything higher you got to make them.