I got the chance to play the beta over the weekend and thought I would share some of my impressions of the game, Diablo 3.
One of the reason I'm a blizzard fan is because of the time they put in the game, in all the departments (sound, gamelplay, music.)
I can tell you right away, the music and sound is amazing. really goes with the environment, which keeps a similar d2 theme.
Gear, items, drops is highly randomized
along with the actual dungeons. When I played through the same quest seven times with my witch doctor, each time it was different. Sometimes I even got events that popped up during my runs, other times it was very strait forward. I got several of the same common drops, but i never received an identical blue drop. I only received maybe 3 yellow drops in total, In all playthroughs, on all characters. The yellow drop items had more stat bonuses as opposed to the blues, 1-3 stat bonuses. I did not get any neck gear or ring slots.
Not much to say about the design of sets, seemed kind of limited in the beta.
The gameplay is at its core D2, which is probably why I am liking it so much. town portals, blacksmiths, etc. overall feel is similar. Skill tress are completely new as well as the addition of runes, which greatly change each skill. only 1 of 6 runes can be equipped now. Characters are balanced by their skill trees now. Essentially, this is done by limiting the amount of macros you can have set at a time to 6! two for the left and right click of the mouse. and 4 on keyboard. Since everyone will be getting the same moves if your playing the same character, this changes your encounters. I can tell you that even at level 13, all the characters I saw were using different abilities. I think in the future in the game we will see a lot of counter pick set ups, for now its hard to say whats op because the final game hasn't come out.
Class impressions:
Barbarian:
-Some of the highest weapon damage in the game.
-Armor is the highest
-duel wield and 360 attacks...
-Lot of "get over here" moves. lots of buffs, meter wont be hard to manage.
-Melee effective, anything else could be fail.
-Slow in comparison to other classes.
-Most strait forward class of the game.
Monk:
-Some of the highest resistance in the game
-Can heal himself for absurd amounts if correct rune slots are chosen
-extremely high damage skill moves. Ie: 7 palm strike does 777% weapon damage!
-Speed is very nice
-basically has a trinket (serenity, invulnerable for 3 seconds)
-Damage is high, range abilities might be lacking, but he can vortex...
-hard to say if this guy will be able to sure kill, but he seems like he can survive anything
Demon Hunter:
-Lots of variety
-traps and high speed (highest?)
-High dps, very gear dependent (seemed to me that way)
-If able to manage hatred and discipline bars, could have the highest dps in game.
-able to space well with dodges, and flips.
-Not much resistance or defense wise (beside getting out of situations)
Witch Doctor:
-Lots of control and status moves
-special damage, with fire, poison, etc, huge amounts over time
-average dps, and speed, and armor. well rounded class
-tons of summons to swarm enemy
-Long range aoes
-seems weak to melee
Wizard:
-Tons of armor and resistance, to a particular set
-Good amount of summons
-long range moves, combo with teleport
-archon transformation?
-high damage, but might not be able to get damage of you besides tele.
Overall seems extremely balanced. Every character should be able to counter each other. Monk seems like it could be ridiculously hard to kill with, serenity, and its healing moves at the same time regenerating spirit. Demon slayer seems like with Preparation it will always be throwing things at you infinitely. I'm staying with witch doctor cause it best suited my play style, and i feel that there might be some very interesting combo options their.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#agjRYT!bWU!aZYZacIdeally this build will work and give me a 60% weapon damage stack, as well as 3 ways to immobilize (confuse or control, the hex, then the gargantuan hits them for stun)them while i throw a spirit (plus the rune) 190% plus additional 90%, 180% from the dark. hitting for a 460 every 4 seconds (add two seconds for the poison) in addition to statuses it could be an additional 60% for 520%. If gargantuan lands a hit its 100% added, along with the 3 second stun. dogs do 9% poison each. that's a lot damage damage all for getting hit with hex or confuse.
This is an example build of the witch doctor build i plan to aim toward. Note though, it can be changed at anytime. which is going to be the amazing part about this game.
For those who are wondering, I am still going to be playing MS, If you plan on getting this game, let me know and we can share ID's when the game comes out. I'll be running both game open at the same time
Thu Dec 27, 2012 1:32 am by 
Subject: Diablo 3 Impressions 
