Diablo 3 - 2.5 months later.

[Chronos]

Wait, War Cry increases resists by 50%, but One with Everything has the potential to nearly double your resists, since you can get Resist All and an individual resist on every item. How does OwE not compare to WC? And yes, you have both Furious Charge and Leap, but those both have cooldowns-- Monks don't need multiple mobility skills, because we can use Dashing Strike repeatedly.

And Dodge isn't really precisely all-or-nothing unless your HP are way too low for any tank build. I don't care if any single hit lands or not; I can survive some hits landing. I just care that, overall, a certain percentage will miss. In the long run, it works out the same as per-hit mitigation. The averaging works especially well for damage-over-time effects, which, let's face it, are the biggest thing to worry about, anyway.

[Munch]

Server down for anyone else?

[Bone]

One with Everything is pretty buff and if you gear for it, has really high potential to boost your resists well over what is needed (1k+). I think it's harder to find good gear that has both all res and your selected secondary res since that takes an affix slot on your gear. That's why I like warcry better. I could see that going either way.

I've actually been playing quite a bit with a monk team mate and he spec'd for tanking. It worked out really well and he was able to live through pretty much everything. Maybe I will try a monk. I have one at lvl 8 but thus far it's pretty dull whereas I found the barb engaging right off the bat. Nothing compared to the WD in the beginning. Now that is the most boring 20 levels of all.

[Munch]

Nothing compared to the WD in the beginning. Now that is the most boring 20 levels of all.

Huh? There's something totally different and bizarre every single time you level up with a WD! One level you're throwing a giant spider into a group, the next you're turning the enemy into a chicken. Then you're summoning a giant wall of zombies rising out of the ground. No, wait - now there's a giant frog to summon that swallows people up! Hang on - your zombie dogs can now blow up. Every level up is an adventure.

[CandidGamera]

Witch Doctor is my least favorite class so far, I have to say. Barbarian suffers from being melee-based sometimes, but the Witch Doctor is just 'meh'. Plus some of those Fallen hounds look too much like my zombie dogs..

Monk, however, is awesome - and doesn't suffer from being melee based, with that short-range teleport strike they have going on.

[Chronos]

I'm with Munch, Witch Doctors are fun. Plus, they get some really good lines, and the male WD, at least, is Sexy and He Knows It.

Eirena: Are you considered handsome among your people?
WD: Why do you think I wear so little?
Eirena: Oh!

EDIT: I think part of the reason I dislike barbs is that they seem to be a bit more prone to cookie-cutter-itis. I never build a character unless I come up with the build myself, and even if the end result ends up being similar to something widely used, I like it better because I did it myself (and I can use it better because I'm more familiar with it). But barbs seem to have somewhat less room for coming up with novel ideas that work.

[Bone]

I mean let's face it, at least prior to 1.04 and even moreso prior to 1.03, there were only a handful of viable builds. More now than before, but even still a lot of the builds kind of funnel towards a few skills that work.

The problem with the early levels of the WD is that you have so little damn mana you are basically shooting splinter darts a whole hell of a lot. I leveled mine after 1.03 and before 1.04. Yay I can cast a firebat maybe two. Now i'm back to darts. And the darts made the most pathetic phiwp phiwp sound and you could barely see both the dart itself and its impact.

Yes my main is the most cookie cutter build of all, the WW tornado barb. I was playing a revenge tank build for a while since that was the only viable barb build before 1.03 but afterwards I was able to switch and it is both incredibly fun, and way overpowered. It's too bad no other class can move so quickly with as much kill speed.

You can actually see what all the most popular skills/builds is here:

diablo.somepage.com/popular/

[DeptfordX]

Is there any challenge at all to the normal playthrough? A particulaly interesting class to play at that level?

I decided i was going to wait for a price drop but i found myself with some free time upcoming and decided to give it a go.

I loved Diablo2, took multiple chacracters into Hell level over the years.

But i have to say i've just hit level 20 as a wizard and i'm bored rigid.

I've died once in the butcher fight, the rest of the time it's almost effortless, the gameplay just seems dull.

Did anyone else find this, does it suddenly click around level 25-30? Am i playing the wrong class?

Yeah, i know it's significantly more challenging on higher levels but I don't really want to slog through another 10 hours of gameplay just to reach the interesting stuff.

Basically do you think it's just not clicking with me and i should go replay Dragon Age or work on my d&d campaign, or is it worth carrying on to the good stuff?

[Crowbar of Irony +3]

I'm not really sure what to make of so many gameplay patches so soon after launch. It's laudable that the team is listening to the players, but at the same time it gives the impression that they have no idea what they are doing.

To me the game is more frustrating than fun. I am a semi-serious player, putting in about two hours each day into the game. Here are my observations:

Most of the item drops are bad. Out of the 100 or so rares, perhaps 1 can be kept and sold on the AH. Most of the items I have are gotten through the Auction House, or handed down by friends who grind for countless hours.

Once I get to inferno, it is mostly killing Leoric/Butcher in hope of getting an upgrade or enough gold to get to the AH. There is a big jump in prices for certain gear - for example, weapons with DPS between 700 to 800 can be bought for 100k to 200k gold, but once you want to go beyond 800, suddenly you're talking about more than a million.

The difficulty spikes is too random. Normal mobs aren't a problem, then you are wiped by scavengers who are fire-linked, extra fast, frozen and jailer. You don't necessary get anything better from them. The amount of frustration and effort you put in don't yield the rewards you are expecting.

So far after 1.03 and 1.04, the developers have played with reducing monster's damage and HP, and increasing outgoing damage. Now I don't die like every 10 minutes, but the item grind continues to be unfulfilling.

The item randomization is one of the bigger beefs I have. The extreme range of values rolled for each prefix makes some items laughably bad.

To sum up, it's a grinding game with little satisfactory rewards for those who put in one or two hours per day, the rewards doesn't match the effort and it feels like an over-glorified slot machine.

[DeptfordX]

Well, after spending £32 on the thing i thought i'd have one last stab at it.

Played for half an hour.

Nope, still completely bored.

Can't even try and sell the bloody thing as it's locked to your account.

Guess i'm going to have to chalk this one up to experiance.