Diablo III: Not Just a Vitality Race!

[Suichimo]

Yeah this won't be valid for long, it will take a week or two for the economy to find its feet.

Its not valid now. You should always salvage any items that are either crappy or that you're not going to use, unless its good in which case you put it up on the auction house. Crafting can get you some great items and you can trade in any excess crafting materials, at 10:1, for the next higher tier in their respective difficulties.

[Othesemo]

In the mean time, I'm having a great deal of fun playing the market. I can buy subtle essence en masse, sell them back almost instantaneously for a higher price, and repeat. It's glorious.

EDIT:

Its not valid now. You should always salvage any items that are either crappy or that you're not going to use, unless its good in which case you put it up on the auction house. Crafting can get you some great items and you can trade in any excess crafting materials, at 10:1, for the next higher tier in their respective difficulties.

The thing is, even the really crappy items usually sell for more than subtle essence.

[Starwulf]

The thing is, even the really crappy items usually sell for more than subtle essence.

QFT. I snagged 100 Subtle essences earlier for 19 gp each. Even the worst of the worst Magical items sell for 31 gp or so. It definitely makes more sense to sell even the crappy items, and buy the essences off the AH.

On another note, in Act 2 now, and my buddy just crafted a Rare belt with +61 to str on it. That's freaking insane. To bad neither of us are running barbs. LOL

[polity4life]

I have to say that the ability to change your abilities on the fly is amazing. I was playing around with my witch doctor, only a level 15, and already there are so many different styles available.

I've become really fond of an up-close build. I use swarm of frogs, soul harvest with the swallow your soul rune, and grasping hands with the eels rune. Throw in horrify or dogs, and suicide zombie and things melt in normal.

"What about four hard hitting champions?"
Melted.
"Yellow-named mobs?"
Melted.
"Oh but polity, there's no way you can stay put and do this with purple-named bosses you jackass!"
Takes a few seconds more but they end up melted without a potion.

Having some ridiculous mana regen and a large pool thanks to a number of +8 intel or better items really drives this kind of play since frogs and running man eat mana.

[Avilan the Grey]

Okay, I played Babazeka (I had no idea what to name her so I ended up googling a Zulu online dictionary. Apparently Babazeka means "Beautiful to look at". Seems good to me), my female Witch Doctor through the first quest. Turned everything up to max, and worked fine.

I LOVE the graphics. The light and colors are VERY Frazetta-like, it feels like you are running in one of his paintings.

I abandoned my initial weapon very soon; since no class specific gear has popped yet I am using a buckler and a magical one-handed axe. And spiders of course.

I will also start a female Demon Hunter soon... Not sure if I should name her Gabriella (Van Helsing) or Faith...

[Spuddles]

IMO, there's nothing worth crafting that takes subtle essence. I'd rather have the spare change for upgrading and unsocketing gems. I've got a ton of mileage out of socketable stuff. New yellows that are an upgrade to your existing equipment easily drop about every hour. I'm at level 35 and put in maybe 20 hours or so.

Maybe using 183 subtle essences to craft some green that gets replaced by a yellow dropping at the end of act 1 nightmare, but good luck finding the recipe.

It's hard to predict where the game will go at level 60/inferno mode. Playing with a full and well mixed party is really different. I ran all normal as demon hunter with my buddy a wizard, and slow/stun/snare effects were the best. Then playing with pugs which included witch doctor and barbarian, DPS on the demon hunter was AWESOME. They tanked, I stood back and put murdered stuff. Well designed 4 man groups are going to be things of beauty.

Oh, and I have to reiterate how much I love the gem system. I socket everything, all the time, and sockets are common. It's actually a really easy way to customize a character. Have a lot of melee in the party? Dexterity boosters everywhere! Have to solo? Time to stack con.

[Aotrs Commander]

IMO, there's nothing worth crafting that takes subtle essence. I'd rather have the spare change for upgrading and unsocketing gems. I've got a ton of mileage out of socketable stuff. New yellows that are an upgrade to your existing equipment easily drop about every hour. I'm at level 35 and put in maybe 20 hours or so.

Maybe using 183 subtle essences to craft some green that gets replaced by a yellow dropping at the end of act 1 nightmare, but good luck finding the recipe.

It's hard to predict where the game will go at level 60/inferno mode. Playing with a full and well mixed party is really different. I ran all normal as demon hunter with my buddy a wizard, and slow/stun/snare effects were the best. Then playing with pugs which included witch doctor and barbarian, DPS on the demon hunter was AWESOME. They tanked, I stood back and put murdered stuff. Well designed 4 man groups are going to be things of beauty.

Oh, and I have to reiterate how much I love the gem system. I socket everything, all the time, and sockets are common. It's actually a really easy way to customize a character. Have a lot of melee in the party? Dexterity boosters everywhere! Have to solo? Time to stack con.

In the early game (level 13) some of the bottom end stuff is much better than the kit I've been picking up, especially as the two things I've crafted gave me big (+11-odd) intelligence bonus, twice what my other kit had.

Whether that stays true, is of course, another matter, but at least at the start, it's a better investment of cash than the poor selection of kit from the merchants.

[Krotchrot]

Has anyone seen any Legendary drops? I know one of my friends while running around Act II found a Belt. Unfortunately for us it was for a Monk. I've also noticed that the randomness of the drops seems to favor Rares with Intelligence and Dexterity. I'm in Nightmare Act II now, and I can see the need for adding those stats as a Barbarian. Sure its not a primary stat, but having the extra Resistance or Dodge is really a life saver.

Just thinking, its crazy that people are already in Inferno Act II!

[Karoht]

Had an awesome night playing Barb + Witchdoctor combo with my fiance.
Got lots of early gear for the rest of my characters, I'm focusing on maxing out the blacksmith while she will be focusing on maxing out the jeweler, rather than us both spend the money twice and only get half as far.

Dear gods do I love Seismic Slam with my Barbarian. Hammer of the Ancients was cool and all but... yeah. Seismic just feels so much better.

Cleave is still everything I remember it being from beta. I am pleased. Frenzy is still all kinds of fun. I'm going to try out Frenzy + Cleave as my two mains, with Leap + Ground Stomp + Seismic.
But Revenge... it's just such a darned good lifesaver...
I love having to make these kinds of choices about my character.

[Corlindale]

I love this game.

I'm in act II NM with a Witch Doctor, so far it's going pretty great. I've played around with a number of builds, but right now I'm having much succes with my "Pest Control" build featuring plague bats and acid cloud. Supported by Spirit Walk and Soul Harvest, because that combo is just too good, plus spirit walk doubles as a "not dying" power.

I only found 1 legendary, back in normal. It wasn't even that great (but at least it was a WD item), though I used it for a little while. Conversedly, my currently equipped weapon is a humble blue item, but still 20 dam better than the previous one I used, and it was purchased from a random vendor after a random event. Nice stuff.

[hamishspence]

I have to say that the ability to change your abilities on the fly is amazing. I was playing around with my witch doctor, only a level 15, and already there are so many different styles available.

I've become really fond of an up-close build. I use swarm of frogs, soul harvest with the swallow your soul rune, and grasping hands with the eels rune.

Good battle cry for the frog specialist "Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the frogs of war!"

[ex cathedra]

Oh, and I have to reiterate how much I love the gem system. I socket everything, all the time, and sockets are common. It's actually a really easy way to customize a character. Have a lot of melee in the party? Dexterity boosters everywhere! Have to solo? Time to stack con.

I was kind of really disappointed. There's nothing to socket. No runes, thus no rune words, and a highly limited selection of gems? There are four types of Gems. Four. Like, it's just boring. There's nothing exciting about socketing +16 dex. There's nothing even interesting about it. The socketing system took a major step down from its D2 equivalent for no particularly obvious reason. No runes, no jewels, no charms... there are a great deal of things that weren't particularly badly designed that have just been scrapped with no adequate replacement.

[J.Gellert]

I was kind of really disappointed. There's nothing to socket. No runes, thus no rune words, and a highly limited selection of gems? There are four types of Gems. Four. Like, it's just boring. There's nothing exciting about socketing +16 dex. There's nothing even interesting about it. The socketing system took a major step down from its D2 equivalent for no particularly obvious reason. No runes, no jewels, no charms... there are a great deal of things that weren't particularly badly designed that have just been scrapped with no adequate replacement.

I bet they're saving an upgrade to sockets for the expansion

[polity4life]

Good battle cry for the frog specialist "Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the frogs of war!"

I'll interpret the witch doctor's, "BLEH!" or "AYEEE!" as such and cackle maniacally as my little poison frogs obliterate my enemies.

Then my fiancee will slap me and I'll play in silence for a couple minutes before doing it all over again. Muwahahaha!

[Thiyr]

I was kind of really disappointed. There's nothing to socket. No runes, thus no rune words, and a highly limited selection of gems? There are four types of Gems. Four. Like, it's just boring. There's nothing exciting about socketing +16 dex. There's nothing even interesting about it. The socketing system took a major step down from its D2 equivalent for no particularly obvious reason. No runes, no jewels, no charms... there are a great deal of things that weren't particularly badly designed that have just been scrapped with no adequate replacement.

I bet they're saving an upgrade to sockets for the expansion

Honestly, this wouldn't surprise me. While I haven't seen any gems in d3 as of yet (blasted having to -work-), d2's gems were...kinda boring at first as well. It was just here's 6 gems. 5 upgrade levels, with such exciting effects as...+10 strength (for a perfect Amethyst). Socketing wasn't really worth a whole heck of a ton until LoD, where they did runes and jewels, but even that had some issues. I rarely saw jewels that I cared about enough to use a socketed item over a half-decent rare drop or a runeword, and runewords were either really easy to get and kinda underwhelming, or were just plain a pain in the arse to get. Downgrading to put it in an expansion gets them a good amount of time to get some kind of (hypothetical and completely baseless idea of a) multi-socket set-bonus balanced out better than it was in d2.

[Karoht]

I was kind of really disappointed. There's nothing to socket. No runes, thus no rune words, and a highly limited selection of gems? There are four types of Gems. Four.

Um, R O Y G B I V + Clear.
Thats 8.
And I thought there were more than 5 levels of quality this go around.


Granted, sloting in some stats is boring.

Runes (or some kind of replacement) and Jewels and the Mystic profession are probably going to be in the expansion, along with new gem types.

Oh, and don't forget that we have the PvP patch coming up in a few months. Which could very well introduce new gem types if they introduce a PvP stat/s and PvP gear. Which I hope they don't, but they most likely will.

[ex cathedra]

Honestly, this wouldn't surprise me. While I haven't seen any gems in d3 as of yet (blasted having to -work-), d2's gems were...kinda boring at first as well. It was just here's 6 gems. 5 upgrade levels, with such exciting effects as...+10 strength (for a perfect Amethyst). Socketing wasn't really worth a whole heck of a ton until LoD, where they did runes and jewels, but even that had some issues. I rarely saw jewels that I cared about enough to use a socketed item over a half-decent rare drop or a runeword, and runewords were either really easy to get and kinda underwhelming, or were just plain a pain in the arse to get. Downgrading to put it in an expansion gets them a good amount of time to get some kind of (hypothetical and completely baseless idea of a) multi-socket set-bonus balanced out better than it was in d2.

The fact that this game is more than pre-LoD D2 than post-LoD D2 is weird because A) LoD was great and B) it's been twelve years.

Time constraints are something of a weak excuse, and I get that the game was released unfinished but there's no reason for it to be that unfinished, don't you think?

Also Runewords were like uniformly great. Not necessarily power-wise, but there were useful runewords at all rarity levels and some of the higher-tiered items were simply exquisite.

Does it not strike anyone else as weird? For me, at least, the things introduced midway into D2's lifecycle (like extensive runewords and other LoD/patch additions) became a core part of the Diablo II experience, and justifications like "It'll come in an expansion" don't really work for me because it implies that they cut core gameplay in order to resell it to you at a later date.

Edit:

Um, R O Y G B I V + Clear.
Thats 8.
And I thought there were more than 5 levels of quality this go around.

Topaz, Ruby, Amethyst, Emerald.

[Avilan the Grey]

I was kind of really disappointed. There's nothing to socket. No runes, thus no rune words, and a highly limited selection of gems? There are four types of Gems. Four. Like, it's just boring. There's nothing exciting about socketing +16 dex. There's nothing even interesting about it. The socketing system took a major step down from its D2 equivalent for no particularly obvious reason. No runes, no jewels, no charms... there are a great deal of things that weren't particularly badly designed that have just been scrapped with no adequate replacement.

I never used rune words in D2 since I never played a character longer than through Normal (due to grinding=boring). So I am sure I won't see a difference.

[Spuddles]

Has anyone seen any Legendary drops? I know one of my friends while running around Act II found a Belt. Unfortunately for us it was for a Monk. I've also noticed that the randomness of the drops seems to favor Rares with Intelligence and Dexterity. I'm in Nightmare Act II now, and I can see the need for adding those stats as a Barbarian. Sure its not a primary stat, but having the extra Resistance or Dodge is really a life saver.

Just thinking, its crazy that people are already in Inferno Act II!

I had a legendary crossbow drop in normal act 1, can't remember it's name. Dawn, a legendary handcrossbow dropped in nightmare act 1 dropped for me last night.

[ex cathedra]

I've had a level 7 unique Monk glove drop in A1 normal, but that's it. And I've been consistently utilizing 40% (then) to 92% (now) magic find, unfortunately, so I'm a bit disappointed.

I never used rune words in D2 since I never played a character longer than through Normal (due to grinding=boring). So I am sure I won't see a difference.

Odd. Do you plan to do the same in D3? I mean, the multiple difficulty levels are core gameplay elements. And you didn't need to grind in D2 to progress in difficulty. You had to grind to speedlevel, but that wasn't the same thing.

I mean, you don't even unlock every skill (or skill rune or whatever) in Normal, and items are really underwhelming. At that point, it's like, what? A 9/10 hour game, at most?

[Aotrs Commander]

Odd. Do you plan to do the same in D3? I mean, the multiple difficulty levels are core gameplay elements. And you didn't need to grind in D2 to progress in difficulty. You had to grind to speedlevel, but that wasn't the same thing.

I mean, you don't even unlock every skill (or skill rune or whatever) in Normal, and items are really underwhelming. At that point, it's like, what? A 9/10 hour game, at most?

I certainly never played D2 through more than normal (and only normal to completion with two characters), and only took a half-hearted stab at nightmare, so it's not like he's the only one to do that. D2/D3 is fun for a while, but after a bit, the constant repetition of areas (with new difficulty levels/characters) gets a little samey. (And heck, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of RPGs I've actually player to completion more than once, even Bioware RPGs at their height...)

And heck, if I only play twenty hours or so on D3 before I get bored or something, for £22 quid I'm totally okay with that, it's cheaper than the cinema or something. (I'd say cheaper than booze, but I don't drink...)

[Spuddles]

The d2 socket system was worthless. Lod with runes and jewels improved it, but gems' value was only in rerolling. I rarely socketed stuff, either because grinding out uniques with high mf was universally better, or because chips/pgems were more valuable for crafting.

Rune words were either worse than a unique of your level, or were so hard to get, you got them from a duper.

Diablo 2, while fun, was a mess of class balance, item balance, and level design. They started to get it right by 1.13, but in some aspects, it became even messier. I am glad they spent so long on d3, as I anticipate a much tighter class and skill system. If they didn't put so much effort into itemization and are going to hold for later patches/expansions, fine by me, if it can avoid the travesty of d2s item system.

[MammonAzrael]

So I've managed to acquire Leoric's crown through my small 5 minute spurts of game time. I'm slowly making my way through the beta material!

Battle tag: MammonAzrael#1504

[Avilan the Grey]

Odd. Do you plan to do the same in D3? I mean, the multiple difficulty levels are core gameplay elements. And you didn't need to grind in D2 to progress in difficulty. You had to grind to speedlevel, but that wasn't the same thing.

I mean, you don't even unlock every skill (or skill rune or whatever) in Normal, and items are really underwhelming. At that point, it's like, what? A 9/10 hour game, at most?

Yes, that is a huge difference. As I speculated earlier in this thread, D3 might be the first Diablo game that is actually not boring after Normal, since you 1) can change skills on the fly, meaning you are not stuck playing the exact same build over and over for a gazillion hours, and 2) It actually gives you some real incentive by not unlocking everything but better gear in Normal.

As for grinding: Repeating the exact same thing you have already done in order to proceed IS grinding.

[ex cathedra]

Yes, that is a huge difference. As I speculated earlier in this thread, D3 might be the first Diablo game that is actually not boring after Normal, since you 1) can change skills on the fly, meaning you are not stuck playing the exact same build over and over for a gazillion hours, and 2) It actually gives you some real incentive by not unlocking everything but better gear in Normal.

As for grinding: Repeating the exact same thing you have already done in order to proceed IS grinding.

Personally, Normal has been and likely will always be the single most boring Diablo difficulty, simply because it isn't actually difficult and you can't actually accomplish anything.

Suggesting that D3 is somehow significantly less grindy than D2 just strikes me as naive. The core gameplay is nearly identical, isn't it? Regardless, what you seem to be describing as "grinding" is more-or-less the point of the higher difficulties. That's how you get new loot, and Diablo is and always been little more than a random loot generator, in my experience. There's nothing wrong with that, and that is in fact why most people (myself included) enjoy Diablo, I'd wager.

To address another point, I don't see how anything is particularly wrong with the concept of using the same skills repeatedly. Firstly, that still describes D3 (as much as it did D2; most builds would use a couple of primary spells and a handful of secondary spells, just as the sequel does), and secondly, I've encountered very few situations thusfar that call for a huge override in any of my builds. That "thousands of viable builds" nonsense relies on a single word: viable. While I'm sure that most skills work, very few of them actually work well, relatively speaking. The fact of the matter is, there are one or two skills that are almost certainly going to be better than any other skill you could possibly use in that slot for any given situation, and since you have a limited number of skill slots you're liking going to be using these one or two skills for the majority of your play time.

The d2 socket system was worthless. Lod with runes and jewels improved it, but gems' value was only in rerolling. I rarely socketed stuff, either because grinding out uniques with high mf was universally better, or because chips/pgems were more valuable for crafting.

I'd rather have a large variety of options of various qualities, even if that inherently means that some options are worse than others, than only four nearly-identical options.

Rune words were either worse than a unique of your level, or were so hard to get, you got them from a duper.

Whaaat. Firstly, you can't just compare it to 'a unique of your level.' If something's the best unique for your build in that slot, yeah, it'll likely be better than most runewords. But a lot of builds relied on fairly specific equipment and runewords provided some of the most niche combinations of abilities in the game and were useful for a large period of the game. They weren't hard to get; very, very few things in D2 were legitimately hard to get. Runes just took time and patience. I farmed and assembled several decent if not semi-valuable runewords (Enigma and HOTO come to mind), and it wasn't that hard. I'm sorry if you didn't have as much time or luck, but there's no reason to make sweeping statements like that.

It feels to me like what you're describing as "tighter" I perceive as "shallower." We simply have a difference of opinion.

[Adumbration]

Started my first ever Hardcore character, a female Wizard called Azula. It does feel quite a bit more exciting, and there's definitely incentive to keep her well equipped and find the optimal spell/rune system.

[Avilan the Grey]

Trying out all the classes (so far only to level 5, and have not done wizard yet). Listed in the order I have played them...

Witch Doctor: Really fun to play. I love the accent, too! I want Toads! I like the spiders, but the frogs! I need them!

Demon hunter: easier to play than the witch doctor, but that might have something to do with the great (for the level) bow my witch doctor found and transfered to her). Stand and hold down shift and shoot Entangling Shots at the edge of the screen; (very) occasionally a monster makes it half the way towards me.

Barbarian: Boring. It was my favorite class in D2, but then that was many a year ago... Also it seems my preferences in character has shifted; back then I could not stand playing magic users, only did occasional rogues, and loved the melee fighters. Now it is almost the other way around; rogues are my favorite character type, closely followed by off-beat mages, then standard mages.

Monk: just started, so far MUCH more fun than the barbarian.

[Thiyr]

Trying out all the classes (so far only to level 5, and have not done wizard yet). Listed in the order I have played them...

Witch Doctor: Really fun to play. I love the accent, too! I want Toads! I like the spiders, but the frogs! I need them!

Demon hunter: easier to play than the witch doctor, but that might have something to do with the great (for the level) bow my witch doctor found and transfered to her). Stand and hold down shift and shoot Entangling Shots at the edge of the screen; (very) occasionally a monster makes it half the way towards me.

Barbarian: Boring. It was my favorite class in D2, but then that was many a year ago... Also it seems my preferences in character has shifted; back then I could not stand playing magic users, only did occasional rogues, and loved the melee fighters. Now it is almost the other way around; rogues are my favorite character type, closely followed by off-beat mages, then standard mages.

Monk: just started, so far MUCH more fun than the barbarian.

Haven't tried WD or Wizard yet, and I'm only at level 10 or so, but I'm curious: What is it about the barbarian that bores you? I mean, obviously tastes are gonna differ widely, but I found the demon hunter kinda...lackluster, and then went to the barb and was like "Oh wow this is fun." Wading into melee and making 10+ skeletons bleed to death is just plain fun to me I suppose. The hunter just kept me kinda...bored, after a bit.

I did just start my monk, and I'm waiting for it to kick in as well. Just got my first rune, which makes me giggle a bit, I admit. Poot teleport punch poot teleport punch -giggle-

[Avilan the Grey]

Haven't tried WD or Wizard yet, and I'm only at level 10 or so, but I'm curious: What is it about the barbarian that bores you? I mean, obviously tastes are gonna differ widely, but I found the demon hunter kinda...lackluster, and then went to the barb and was like "Oh wow this is fun." Wading into melee and making 10+ skeletons bleed to death is just plain fun to me I suppose. The hunter just kept me kinda...bored, after a bit.

I did just start my monk, and I'm waiting for it to kick in as well. Just got my first rune, which makes me giggle a bit, I admit. Poot teleport punch poot teleport punch -giggle-

I think the Barbarian and the Demon Hunter is about the same thing as Fighter and the Rogue, or Barbarian and Amazon: Both rely on a single form of attack (Punch or Shoot) and it is just a matter of preference; do you want to left-click over and over from a distance, or from close up? I am aware that the Barbarian gets more skills and more variation but the starting skill(s) are just... boring.

I DO Love the female barbarian's design though. A believable female warrior. She looks feminine AND has arms that can realistically swing those axes!

[The Succubus]

Although I'm kinda stuck with the WD at the moment (my gaming group is insisting I play one -.-) I'd really like to make a female Barbarian and give her a shield and one hand spear and go all Valkyrie with it. Leaping around the map, yelling battle cries....t'would be awesome sauce. =3