And, you get better loot if you’re in a party. If it dropped cool stuff in solo play, it’d have to drop noticeably overpowered stuff in a group. Not that I’d complain, mind you…
“I don’t have enough Arcane power.”
Disintegrate looked and sounded very cool before i tried it, but that quote gets old very quickly. it seems in every Blizzard game Blizzard is the spell to use.
Hmm–disintegrate has been my go-to spell since I got it a few levels ago. My loadout is something like:
-Spectral blade (to take out nearby enemies–I alternate with shock pulse, not sure which is better)
-Disintegrate (for range and crowded enemies it seems spectacular)
-Frost nova (seems like a really good defense, to the point that I’ve hardly used any of the other defensive skills–any recommendations on others I should try?)
-Wave of Force (Hydra is pretty fun but I’m not sure how useful it is; twister seems useless)
-Ice Armor (I’ve played a bit with the other optiosn but keep coming back to this)
-Explosive Blast (the only one I’ve unlocked in this set).
So battles tend to be me disintegrating enemies until they approach, trying to remember to do an explosive blast as they come in, frost nova-ing once they’re in close and spectral-blading them, then wave-of-forcing once they unfreeze. Something like that.
Disintegrate does great damage, I think, and though it eats up mana like crazy, so far it seems worth it.
For me, it’s that some areas are just too darn big. Yes, those first appearin act 2.
And that the voice acting, in-game cutscenes and the mood of the graphics remind me more of Warcraft than grim-dark. The plot is fine but the writing is really cliche.
I’m missing the D2 thing where you could hold down the Option key (on a Mac - I suppose it was Alt on Windows) to show all the item names for stuff on the ground. I’m getting somewhat inconsistent results regarding whether or not the game displays the nametags. It’s almost like it shows them for a minute after the stuff drops, but if I don’t pick it up right away the names disappear and I’m left waving my mouse around hoping to mouse over something.
I remember the opposite problem in Dungeon Siege - everything that dropped was a few levels too high to use, so I ended up packing around a ton of shit that I couldn’t use yet, and couldn’t sell because the next town was miles away.
I’m getting annoyed with those “New Lore” things, when you pick up one of those green-text books and a voiceover starts talking. There really ought to be some subtitles for those, because a lot of the time I’ve got a baseball game on the radio and I can’t hear the lore.
Left Hand of Dorkness, Blizzard fits my playstyle. this is my typical keypress order:
- a defensive spell. currently it’s Magic Weapon though as i feel a little OP.
- Blizzard. this get cast first and allows my AP to fill and give me other options. it’s a great defensive spell.
- Primary spell. free and keeps my AP up for other options. i am using Magic Missile. between Blizzard and the Templar follower i don’t get hit much.
- The Panic Button. Archon.
- this still leaves me with 2 button to play around with, i change them for variety and kicks. currently set to Slow Time and Wave of Force.
i tried Spectral Blade earlier on but i think i’ll try it again when i have the gear for a melee sorc.
Disintegrate is fun but you run out of both juice and options. too dangerous.
Frost Nova is cool. an alternative is Slow Time and Wave of Force. pushing them away beats retreating to keep your distance. with Time Warp, you get 20% added damage!
Hydra seems useful for picking off elusive stragglers and is great simply because it’s added damage at no AP cost.
i don’t use Explosive Blast, though i will try it again when i spec melee.
change it under Gameplay/Item Label Display. you can choose to set it to toggle; hold to show; or have it fade 10 seconds after you push the button. i forget the default button for it, check under Key Bindings.
you know what? writing the previous post, i’ve changed my mind and am switching to a more offensive build instead. swtiching Blizzard for 228% damage Arcane Orb. i wasn’t sure at first, but now i really appreciate and enjoy the current skill system over D2’s.
I find I can cast disintegrate almost endlessly with arcane power and diamond skin prism. Prism is crazy good as an offensive cooldown in general, and my arcane power issues were greatly reduced after I got it. I don’t even use signature spells anymore.
Oh yes, my other gripe: Where are the damned paladins? I likes my paladins! Are barbarians seriously my only straight melee option?
Pushing Alt still works for me, you can change the behavior of the item name tags in Options->Gamplay.
You can find all known lore entries in your journal(J by default), I suppose they did it the way they did so it wouldn’t distract you too much from the gameplay.
It’s a death sentence as the game gets harder, since you can’t cast it and move at the same time. IME, Arcane Orb is the better choice as it does more damage to more mobs faster. Oh, and you can cast it while running for your life 
I just worked out that I could move by holding the mouse down, I’ve been click-click-clicking my way around from level 1 - 25 :smack:
Interesting. It’s got two spells that I haven’t got yet, but will definitely be something I’ll try later. I’m not really sure how to spec melee (would this mean loading up on vitality and str items?), but I think that’s kind of how I’m playing now, especially since i’ve been keeping the enchantress follower for awhile.
I might try rolling a distance sorcerer–oh, wait, no, this isn’t D2, I don’t need to create an entirely new character and play through the first four hours of the game all over again just to see what that’d be like! I might try changing my wizard loadout, wait five seconds, and see what it’s like. Sweet!
Huh, when I get one of the New Monster Lore things, all that happens at first is that I see a little button saying “New Lore” in the corner of the screen. It fades away after a couple of minutes, or if I press it, then a window pops up on the left with the text, narrated either by Cain or by that other scholar whose name I can’t remember. The voiceover can get interrupted by other speech, but the text window stays there until I actively close it. So far as I know, I haven’t changed any settings relating to this, so I had assumed that was the default behavior.
Bear in mind that if you click-and-hold to move, ground clickables like piles of rocks don’t get highlighted when you mouse over them, so you might be missing loot, particularly in cluttered dungeons where some barrels are breakable and some aren’t. I find that I prefer click-clicking in a zigzag pattern so I can mouse over stuff between clicks.
My new main gripe: The EU server has been down for the last 6 hours and still there’s no sign of it coming back up.
Seeing as how I bought the game knowing it would force us to always be online I only have myself to blame. I apologise to Ubisoft for my blatant hypocrisy when I refused to buy their games for the same reasons.
A melee wizard may work…
You can try balancing Strength and Intelligence, and bringing up Vitality as high as you can. Go for skills such as Storm Armor, Spectral Blade, Frost Nova with the Mist option, Explosive Blast and maybe Hydra. The only good passive to go with all this may be Blur though.
What are you talking about? There’s a paladin following you around for most of the first act.
Well, “templar” anyway, though he is indeed a “holy warrior” like a paladin. But I can’t play him.
Though I just realized there’s a D2 paladin joke during some of the random dialog. Leah asks my templar escort if there are any women in his order, and he says something along the lines of, “What an interesting idea! Perhaps I’ll mention it to my superiors!” I suspect this is referring to the fact that paladins were always male in D2 (since the class/gender combos were locked in).
Another gripe just occurred to me: In D2, I could always clearly see what my character was wearing/wielding. Not so in D3. Aside from my wizard’s pointy hat, I really can’t see much change when she dons new gear. Caveat: I’m still in Act I. Perhaps the gear gets more colorful and distinctive later on?