official Diablo III

[Kirkburn]

Ah denied

So that you can't just make thousands of accounts to increase your chances. :)

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

Perfectly normal for you to see the Diablo III thing on there they are just trying to let people know that it is coming (kinda like free advertising on their own site) also if you have the WoW annual pass it will show as purchased awaiting release.

[Nagisan]

Barbarian is just boss.....in a solo game I can quite literally go afk and the skeleton king will kill himself, I have like 900 health and regen 13 health per second (really not that much, I've seen people talking about having 30 regen with 3k health) and a little bit of damage reflection (thorns effects). Takes quite awhile but it does happen if I go afk long enough. He just powers through everything though, unless I join a multiplayer game pretty much all mobs die in 2-3 hits (everything except the huge unburied guys) and its all AoE attacks which is just crazy.

I definitely have more fun with monk though, similar damage capability, but much better mobility, I can teleport all around the screen (as long as I have line of sight) quite often without losing much spirit (costs 15 spirit and I get that back in a few attacks) and is at least as durable as my barb(probably not quite there as he doesn't have as much regen, but it seems to be quite durable, plus my barb is better geared).

Just started jumping into coop games and I really like the way the gold/item drops were handled. Basically everything that can drop gold/items drops it independently for each player. You can't see the other players drops and they can't see yours. So there's no click-fest fight over loot like Diablo 2 had.

[firey]

I see the Diablo 3 community thing too, been there since I did the WoW Pass to get the free copy of D3 and access to the Pandarian Expansion.

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

That message about Diablo III coming soon is there for everyone even for folks that do not have any blizzard games attached to their account.

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So I finished playing through the beta with all the classes a few days ago. Overall, the game was great. I plan on playing this game with my brother when it comes out (just like we did with D2), and I can see us having a ton of fun.

My thoughts about the "fun-ness" of the classes prior to playing were pretty much spot on.

The barbarian will be my main class come release. So naturally, it was the first one I tried. It was solid and fun, just like I was expecting.

The monk was a lot of fun, but I fear that the Monk-only weapon itemization needs work. Fist weapons have the same speed (or sometimes slower speed) as Axes, yet do half the damage. They do slightly more damage than daggers, but they just don't seem worth it when you can just dual wield axes or spears for much more damage. Attack speed didn't seem to differ using one over the other, so I don't get how fist weapons are supposed to be better for the monk. Other than that, the monk plays really well and I am definitely going to play that some more after release.

The wizard was fun, but felt easy...like too easy, even for this beta. Once you get Arcane Orb and then Disintegrate, you don't even have to try any more. Arcane power regens so quickly that all you have to do is stop casting one of those two spells for 3 seconds, and you're back to full. But stuff dies so quickly, it's rarely needed. And once you get items that add to Arcane regen, you never here the "out of mana" sound bite again.

The Demon Hunter started off slow and cumbersome. However, after you unlock Vault and Rapid Fire it became much, much more fun and fluid. Caltrops are all but useless at this stage of the game because things die so quickly. Bola shot doesn't do much more damage than Hungering Arrow, and the delay on the explosion just makes it feel useless. I basically stayed with Hungering Arrow the whole time because the chance to pierce and strike another target (or the same target twice) was much more effective than Bola Shot. Rapid Fire and Elemental Arrow are really where the class as a whole becomes much more fun.

The Witch Doctor, as I suspected, was not fun at all. I play melee characters in every RPG, so not enjoying a pet/caster class was to be expected. But it was worse than I expected. The spells weren't very exciting, and they didn't do much damage. After playing through the beta with the other 4 classes, going through the with the Witch Doctor was a chore. Most spells you can't control after the initial cast, and most weren't worth casting to begin with. I ended up just using Poison Dart (your starting spell) and Zombie Dogs the entire time, with the occasional Fire Bats cast thrown in there when there were a few enemies close together. Almost everything else was either not worth casting or too hard to use effectively. Needless to say, unless they severely overhaul the Witch Doctor, I will never be playing it come release time.

I noticed a few hiccups in lag and frame rate, but neither lasted for more than a few seconds. The art style and graphics really connect with the Diablo lore, and I enjoyed everything I saw. Some textures had some low resolutions, but I feel like those will be fine come release when we have more video options to enable/disable. The sound was good; both atmospheric and effects.

The game felt really polished. I am definitely going to have a lot of fun with the game once it's finally (hopefully) released.

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

So far I prefer the Mage (I have been playing since before Christmas)

[Nagisan]

The monk was a lot of fun, but I fear that the Monk-only weapon itemization needs work. Fist weapons have the same speed (or sometimes slower speed) as Axes, yet do half the damage. They do slightly more damage than daggers, but they just don't seem worth it when you can just dual wield axes or spears for much more damage. Attack speed didn't seem to differ using one over the other, so I don't get how fist weapons are supposed to be better for the monk. Other than that, the monk plays really well and I am definitely going to play that some more after release.

I think the itemization on monk items basically adds spirit regen (which the monk starts with 0) to their items (both fist weapons and staves), which allows them to use spirit spenders more often. Honestly though, 2 fast weapons are not that great IMHO.....I've found slow staffs to be much more effective, sure you attack slower but your spirit spenders hit like a truck compared to dual wielding. Try out a good slow 2-hander instead of the dual-wield weapons, particularly on bosses.

The wizard was fun, but felt easy...like too easy, even for this beta. Once you get Arcane Orb and then Disintegrate, you don't even have to try any more. Arcane power regens so quickly that all you have to do is stop casting one of those two spells for 3 seconds, and you're back to full. But stuff dies so quickly, it's rarely needed. And once you get items that add to Arcane regen, you never here the "out of mana" sound bite again.

I actually didn't get this feeling, maybe its because my wizard was in gear that she could get on her own at the time, but I was pretty disappointed with disintegrate, it does good damage, but it drains arcane power so quick....for example, in single player, I would use disintegrate on an unburied, get it a bit below half, have to wait for arcane power to regen, then finish it off. The only saving grace was that it goes through enemies so it hit the unburied and everything in front and behind of it. Out of my playthroughs, I have found Wizard and Demon Hunter the hardest classes out of what I've played (everything but witch doctor) without over-gearing them using stuff from my higher levels. I also found arcane orb much better than disintegrate, because it is a true AoE and doesn't require enemies to be lined up to hit more than 1.

The Demon Hunter started off slow and cumbersome. However, after you unlock Vault and Rapid Fire it became much, much more fun and fluid. Caltrops are all but useless at this stage of the game because things die so quickly. Bola shot doesn't do much more damage than Hungering Arrow, and the delay on the explosion just makes it feel useless. I basically stayed with Hungering Arrow the whole time because the chance to pierce and strike another target (or the same target twice) was much more effective than Bola Shot. Rapid Fire and Elemental Arrow are really where the class as a whole becomes much more fun.

Again, without overgearing the character, I felt demon hunter was the weakest class, even after getting vault, rapid fire, elemental arrow, etc. Elemental arrow seemed really weak, I was looking forward to getting it, changed to it as soon as it unlocked, and quickly changed back to caltrops. I'm sure elemental arrow does more damage on bosses than other skills, but caltrops has great utility when things take so long to die at lower levels.....why waste a slot on vault when you can use caltrops to keep everything away from you? Better yet, caltrops keeps them grouped up better because it makes them move slow instead of making you move fast. I found that even crafting the highest level ranged weapon I can for demon hunter, it just doesn't compare in damage to barbarian or monk. On my barbarian I can 3-hit unburied with my AoE skill (in a game by myself), on demon hunter, I have to drain most of my hatred (if not all) just trying to kill a single unburied, even with a weapon my level.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Still no word on the release date?

[Shaun N.]

Still no word on the release date?

:iiam:

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

Still no word on the release date?

Soon ^tm

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...

I guess I should have specified that when I played through the beta with each class, I didn't re-use any equipment or use gold from past play throughs to craft stuff. Each play through was "pure" from an equipment standpoint.

That said, I did have trouble using Disintegrate against unburieds. Those were the "few times" I ran out of Arcane power that I talked about. In those cases, when I did run out of Arcane power, the unbrieds were less than 50% health, and I just used Magic missile to kill them. But you only run into unburieds once or twice after the initial mini-boss encounter. And these were the only times I ran out of AP on my wizard. So, for the most part, the wizard had it pretty easy for me.

I never found a use for Caltrops on the Demon Hunter; especially after getting vault. I used Hungering Arrow, Vault, and Rapid Fire/Elemental Arrow throughout my play through. I was barely touched by anything after getting Rapid Fire. So, I wouldn't consider the Demon Hunter to be weak. Though, in the beginning of the game before unlocking some of those skills, the Demon Hunter was rather squishy.

To that end, the Demon Hunter is a class that I would love to read/watch other people play to see if there are other play styles. All of the other classes are pretty straight forward, but the Demon Hunter has a lot of room for differing strategies (at least in my opinion). Maybe I'll watch someone play who shows that Caltrops aren't a waste of a spell. But until then, I'll stick with my small set of skills. It seems to work for me. :)

[Nagisan]

I guess I should have specified that when I played through the beta with each class, I didn't re-use any equipment or use gold from past play throughs to craft stuff. Each play through was "pure" from an equipment standpoint.

That said, I did have trouble using Disintegrate against unburieds. Those were the "few times" I ran out of Arcane power that I talked about. In those cases, when I did run out of Arcane power, the unbrieds were less than 50% health, and I just used Magic missile to kill them. But you only run into unburieds once or twice after the initial mini-boss encounter. And these were the only times I ran out of AP on my wizard. So, for the most part, the wizard had it pretty easy for me.

I never found a use for Caltrops on the Demon Hunter; especially after getting vault. I used Hungering Arrow, Vault, and Rapid Fire/Elemental Arrow throughout my play through. I was barely touched by anything after getting Rapid Fire. So, I wouldn't consider the Demon Hunter to be weak. Though, in the beginning of the game before unlocking some of those skills, the Demon Hunter was rather squishy.

To that end, the Demon Hunter is a class that I would love to read/watch other people play to see if there are other play styles. All of the other classes are pretty straight forward, but the Demon Hunter has a lot of room for differing strategies (at least in my opinion). Maybe I'll watch someone play who shows that Caltrops aren't a waste of a spell. But until then, I'll stick with my small set of skills. It seems to work for me. :)

You must have gotten lucky, every time I've played (just finished doing the last quest again on my monk) I run into multiple unburied, on this last particular playthrough I killed 10 or so, just in one run through the dungeon. One reason I prefer arcane orb to disintegrate though is the mobility, with disintegrate you have to stand still to use it, you can fire arcane orb on the run without losing much (if any) movement time, which makes it much easier against beefier targets that don't die to disintegrate in 3 seconds.

And I agree with what you say about demon hunter, they do get more powerful later game, and maybe I was using the wrong skills, (entangling shot, caltrops, chakram replaced by rapid fire later on), chakram is like the hammerdins from D2, it's hard to aim but does great damage (at least, early game), but I still had more difficulty playing demon hunter than the other classes. I read a thread on the D3 forums where someone used evasive shot, caltrops and chakram and my god I hate evasive shot.....its nice that it keeps you away from mobs but every time it auto-vaulted away, it seemed like I would lose my target (even with name locking) and would start running back towards them due to holding down the mouse to fire automatically.

On my monk though I got about the best weapon you can get (in terms of 2-handers) without a lucky drop rare.....19 DPS, +5% speed, +12 dex, +0.22 spirit regen per second, I killed normal mobs in 1-2 hits with an AoE skill, unburied take around 4 hits (but being AoE it hits everything around them including other unburied).

Think I might work on optimizing my barbs weapons now, he has similar damage output to my monk and he has better survivability, and I haven't really tried to get him the best weapons he could use (made about 20 daibos until I got this one).

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

I can see the Wizard being the most-played class. And the Witch Doctor being the least-played class. I may stick with the Monk for a long time as my main class. I've been thinking of trying the Barbarian but I'm not a fan of large and slow-moving characters. I'd rather have mobility over armour.

[Nagisan]

I can see the Wizard being the most-played class. And the Witch Doctor being the least-played class. I may stick with the Monk for a long time as my main class. I've been thinking of trying the Barbarian but I'm not a fan of large and slow-moving characters. I'd rather have mobility over armour.

Thats what I like about monk, 10% movement speed passive +8% movement speed boots (though all classes can get the boots), at best (currently) other classes move 8% faster if they have movement speed on their boots, my monk moves 18% faster. Plus his dashing strike in combat is much better than any mobility the barbarian has. The only advantage to the barbarians leap is he can go over obstacles (something the dashing strike doesn't do), but with a cooldown it doesn't really matter.

Even though the monk has mobility, as far as the beta lets us go my monk doesn't hardly feel anything, and anything that does hurt is regenerated after a few seconds without health orbs. My barbarian only takes damage from the skeleton king, but it regenerates fast enough I could go afk and the skeleton king wouldn't kill me. As much as I like the mobility of monk, it will be tough to beat the durability of the barbarian.....its easier to stand and get hit but not feel it, than jump around and not get hit at all. Not to mention my barbarian just seems to do more damage than my monk.....I really like the monks skills but I think so far the way barbarian plays will draw me to that before I make a monk.

[Amarok]

I can see the Wizard being the most-played class. And the Witch Doctor being the least-played class. I may stick with the Monk for a long time as my main class. I've been thinking of trying the Barbarian but I'm not a fan of large and slow-moving characters. I'd rather have mobility over armour.

Barbs are actually quite mobile, so you should like them then. :)

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Thats what I like about monk, 10% movement speed passive +8% movement speed boots (though all classes can get the boots), at best (currently) other classes move 8% faster if they have movement speed on their boots, my monk moves 18% faster. Plus his dashing strike in combat is much better than any mobility the barbarian has. The only advantage to the barbarians leap is he can go over obstacles (something the dashing strike doesn't do), but with a cooldown it doesn't really matter.

Even though the monk has mobility, as far as the beta lets us go my monk doesn't hardly feel anything, and anything that does hurt is regenerated after a few seconds without health orbs. My barbarian only takes damage from the skeleton king, but it regenerates fast enough I could go afk and the skeleton king wouldn't kill me. As much as I like the mobility of monk, it will be tough to beat the durability of the barbarian.....its easier to stand and get hit but not feel it, than jump around and not get hit at all. Not to mention my barbarian just seems to do more damage than my monk.....I really like the monks skills but I think so far the way barbarian plays will draw me to that before I make a monk.

Indeed. I've gone over obstacles with the dashing strike move but only if there's an enemy on the other side. The Monk's active skills are awesome. If you choose more healing-oriented skills, you can last a long time in battle. It'd also be great for your allies. I'm more interested in skills that deal more damage though.

Barbs are actually quite mobile, so you should like them then. :)

True; however, I highly doubt that class would be more mobile than the Monk. I've already decided to play as that class after my Monk. I know I'll have more fun playing a melee class rather than a ranged class.

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I prefer the Barbarian over Monk myself. Though Monk is a close second. The things keeping me from liking the Monk just as much are weapon itemization and lack of weapon animations.

I also think that Barbarian mobility isn't bad at all when compared to the Monk. And once you level a little more (more than you can in the beta), the Barbarian actually gets more movement abilities than the Monk (Leap Attack, Furious Charge, and Sprint). Two of which don't need Fury to use. I think the Monk only has Dashing Strike.

So I think in the long run, mobility between these two classes will be moot.

[Nagisan]

I prefer the Barbarian over Monk myself. Though Monk is a close second. The things keeping me from liking the Monk just as much are weapon itemization and lack of weapon animations.

I also think that Barbarian mobility isn't bad at all when compared to the Monk. And once you level a little more (more than you can in the beta), the Barbarian actually gets more movement abilities than the Monk (Leap Attack, Furious Charge, and Sprint). Two of which don't need Fury to use. I think the Monk only has Dashing Strike.

So I think in the long run, mobility between these two classes will be moot.

The monk will still have better combat mobility, while his movement skill does use his energy resource, it uses a very small amount and has 0 cooldown, unlike 2 of the 3 barbarian movement skills. Plus the monk has a passive you can get that gives +10% movement speed. Speaking of passives though, there is a barbarian passive that makes it so the barbarian does not degenerate fury, and generates 1 fury every 2 seconds. So essentially it works much more like the monks spirit (though the monk has more of it and with items it will regen faster than fury). The barbarian also gets a passive later that converts 3% of all damage to life, meaning the more he hits, the more healing he gets, while the monk gets a mantra that regens health for him and everyone around him.

Overall I think the monk still has better mobility and better health regen, while the barbarian trades mobility for damage and health regen for damage resistance. At the same time though the monk has another passive that makes his resistances all equal his highest resistance (so if he has 80% fire resist and 0% all other resists and gets this passive, he has 80% all resists), while the barbarian has passives that boost his armor.

The monk is more magic based (both in damage output and damage absorption), while the barbarian is more physical based in both, so other than that it comes down to mobility, which the monk wins out in....but I still prefer barbarian just for his damage output (which seems higher than the monk).

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The monk will still have better combat mobility, while his movement skill does use his energy resource, it uses a very small amount and has 0 cooldown, unlike 2 of the 3 barbarian movement skills. Plus the monk has a passive you can get that gives +10% movement speed. Speaking of passives though, there is a barbarian passive that makes it so the barbarian does not degenerate fury, and generates 1 fury every 2 seconds. So essentially it works much more like the monks spirit (though the monk has more of it and with items it will regen faster than fury). The barbarian also gets a passive later that converts 3% of all damage to life, meaning the more he hits, the more healing he gets, while the monk gets a mantra that regens health for him and everyone around him.

Overall I think the monk still has better mobility and better health regen, while the barbarian trades mobility for damage and health regen for damage resistance. At the same time though the monk has another passive that makes his resistances all equal his highest resistance (so if he has 80% fire resist and 0% all other resists and gets this passive, he has 80% all resists), while the barbarian has passives that boost his armor.

The monk is more magic based (both in damage output and damage absorption), while the barbarian is more physical based in both, so other than that it comes down to mobility, which the monk wins out in....but I still prefer barbarian just for his damage output (which seems higher than the monk).

Very true. I guess it will take some play time to see how their mobility measures up; but no matter which way we choose, we'll have fun. :D

[Alladaskill17]

Co-op limitations, voice chat and No High resolution textures.

Source

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Hmm, I already knew that games would be limited to 4 and that voice chat wasn't going to be included. Neither of which bother me because I will never play with randoms. I'll either be playing by myself or with my brother, in which case we'll use skype for voice chat like we always do.

The no high res textures part is a bit of a let down though. I was really hoping they would release the game with better textures. Mind you, not ALL of the textures in the beta are bad, but there are some that stick out. This is just disappointing.

[firey]

I was really hoping they would release the game

I agree. :shiftyninja:

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Hmm, I already knew that games would be limited to 4 and that voice chat wasn't going to be included. Neither of which bother me because I will never play with randoms. I'll either be playing by myself or with my brother, in which case we'll use skype for voice chat like we always do.

The no high res textures part is a bit of a let down though. I was really hoping they would release the game with better textures. Mind you, not ALL of the textures in the beta are bad, but there are some that stick out. This is just disappointing.

Agreed. The graphics are great but some of the textures look noticeably bad at 1680x1050 and 1920x1080. Fortunately, the textures that look bad are vastly outnumbered by the ones that look good. Also, I'd prefer better performance over better image quality at this point. Blizzard has shown that their art direction can make up for their drawbacks in image quality.

[shakey]

Co-op limitations, voice chat and No High resolution textures.

Source

So in other words... same amount of players and settings as 2 :p