Does the base game include the latest patches that fix loot drops etc? Does the trial version?
Downloading the trial now
So after doing a bit of research it seems most of the cool new features are available in the base game (and presumably the trial as a result). Are there any "must have" things in the expansion? I recall in Titan Quest you couldn't store and transfer items between characters unless you had the expansion...
I haven't played the original in almost two years now, so I am not getting the trial. But the game can easily pick up my interest again if it comes out for the Xbox One.
I was very critical with Diablo 3, but I am getting over it ever since. I think Blizzard created the game that should be launched first whenthey ported the game to consoles.
So I've bought three copies of both the original game and RoS expansions for me, my brother, and his girlfriend (they are broke students). We've already completed Act 4 and I've started a new Witch Doctor that's already mid 30s. Somebody help me...
I made a new wizard and have been playing it together with a friend's barbarian. When we killed diablo I bought him the expansion so we could continue together (he's a broke housedad with 2 kids and a working wife ). We killed act 5 endboss on expert difficulty yesterday after three wipes (he was rather hard!) We both got multiple legendary drops off of him, so...yay!
Expert difficulty isn't super easy, but it has been manageable so far, we only died once each up until the endboss, and it was random boss packs that did us in both times. I don't think it would have been as easy if we'd both been squishy classes; as barb he can wade through most enemies and ignore a lot of environmental hazards like exploding mines and things like that which I as a wizard with glass cannon passive have to avoid.
So I've bought three copies of both the original game and RoS expansions for me, my brother, and his girlfriend (they are broke students). We've already completed Act 4 and I've started a new Witch Doctor that's already mid 30s. Somebody help me...
For leveling up I'd recommend you switch around skills a lot and see which ones work best for your gear and play style. There's guides for builds and stuff but most of them are designed for max level.
Wizards have like zero self-healing, and therefore feel quite squishy to me. A bunch of skills/runes create absorbtion shields, stuns, avoidance and so on, but I haven't found any ability (or at least one which I enjoy) that has proper healing attached to it.
Wizards have like zero self-healing, and therefore feel quite squishy to me. A bunch of skills/runes create absorption shields, stuns, avoidance and so on, but I haven't found any ability (or at least one which I enjoy) that has proper healing attached to it.
Indeed, I levelled another wizard on the EU servers and whereas it is better than it used to be I still find a bit unsatisfying as a wizard, or more precisely what I would consider a wizard in lots of games.
Blizzard aside I feel like as a class it lacks a bit in the AoE spells department and I don't feel like I have massive burst of DPS.
I'm in Westmarch right now, in Master difficulty, I use the enchantress for CC and I settled on a "lame" ice build. DPS are low but CC is good (lot of frozen monsters) http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#alQfSj!cgT!ZZZcZZ
I do not doubt the effectiveness of the class with proper gear but I find it the least fun class to play (/I've yet to try the crusader). I think it lacks mobility badly with critical mass gone you need to get hit to reset teleportation cooldown. It has no skill that allows the character to move while channelling, the bard, the demon hunter and the monk have such a skills as well as other options to move around the battlefield. The Doctor Which used to be the same but now with this new passive lowering the cooldowns I guess it could Spirit Walk more often, not to mention that he has a lot of meat shields to attract critters attention.
Overall I think that the class is too "unfocused" with a single class Blizzard tried to cover to many aspects: fire, ice, lightning, cold, arcane. You end up with "discrepancies" like the rune "spark" which increase the damage of your next lightning spell, too bad it is already your most damaging spell (meteor competes nicely though it is slow and the AoE is tiny), you also have a lot of look a likes spells/runes. Along with those look alike no matter two years of patching a lot of runes are "useless".
Wizards have like zero self-healing, and therefore feel quite squishy to me. A bunch of skills/runes create absorbtion shields, stuns, avoidance and so on, but I haven't found any ability (or at least one which I enjoy) that has proper healing attached to it.
If you don't take damage you don't need to heal. There's plenty of healing through gear if that's what you want. You can also add life on hit and regen per tick from paragon points once you've reached max level.
Yes, there is paragon healing (which requires massively high paragon level to be substantial), but relying on not getting hit in a game like D3 just isn't going to work (for very long). Once you encounter waller/arcane sentry/desecrator or something like that elites you're gonna get screwed in short order. Ok, you can teleport out of the bad stuff once, and then you have a fair cooldown (way longer than their cooldowns)...
My skill build doesn't take much advantage of synergies right now, I know I could exploit either arcane, lightning or cold skills in particular to cause (perhaps massively) more damage, but I like my current setup. Right now I use meteor shower, chain lightning, disintegration nexus and one of the hydras (I tend to switch them around for variety, but usually either lightning, arcane or fire). Teleport (multi-port rune whatsitscalled) + frost nova/cold snap for survival/control round out the package. I tried familiar and enchanted weapon or whatsitscalled and runing both for even more damage in the past before this latest patch, but since I then couldn't fit any defensive skills I tended to have more difficulty surviving than by doing less damage...
I'm not really having a problem right now with wizard because my friend the barb is taking most of the hits for me and eating health orbs that drop in the thick of battle, plus he has the health regen warcry too. He stomps, vacuuming up all the mobs around him and whirlwinds on them while I hydra them, then drop meteor showers and shoot them up with chain lightning from afar. However solo it is tougher as wizard I feel due to the lack of proper self-heal.
MEANwhile, demon hunter has this new passive ability whatsitscalled that heals you for 4.5% of your total every second just by standing still for 3 seconds. On up to at least hard difficulty you can just stand in bad stuff all the time and fire away at enemies, and your passive healing will keep you at or near max despite the incoming damage, often including enemies wailing away at you. Pretty wicked, I have to say.
Demon hunter also has other healing runes/abilities, including that active skill which consumes discipline and gives massive health regen, especially when runed for even more health. I tried aid station sentries, but that one was actually rather crap, the area of effect (and the actual healing) was too small to be very effective when combined with the cooldown on sentry. Maybe aid station was better when sentries dropped at your feet instead of at the mouse cursor. I found rocket sentries (and rocket rapid fire rune) together with rocket passive skill to be more effective, and just generally more enjoyable TBH.
Rocket sentries are also very effective at taking down elites with damage reflect ability without damaging you, although that boss affix is pretty weaksauce now in the new patch when it reflects a fixed amount instead of being proportional to the damage you cause...
the trial for the pc version, is it time limited? or can i play the part till the Skeleton king any number of ties with different characters? Wanted to show D3 to a friend but can't take my ps3 there.
Not sure if people have noticed, but there's a 50% experience boost this weekend, so if you wanna level (new characters, or paragon levels), better hope it's cold and rainy outside because now is the time!
Yes, there is paragon healing (which requires massively high paragon level to be substantial), but relying on not getting hit in a game like D3 just isn't going to work (for very long). Once you encounter waller/arcane sentry/desecrator or something like that elites you're gonna get screwed in short order. Ok, you can teleport out of the bad stuff once, and then you have a fair cooldown (way longer than their cooldowns)...
My skill build doesn't take much advantage of synergies right now, I know I could exploit either arcane, lightning or cold skills in particular to cause (perhaps massively) more damage, but I like my current setup. Right now I use meteor shower, chain lightning, disintegration nexus and one of the hydras (I tend to switch them around for variety, but usually either lightning, arcane or fire). Teleport (multi-port rune whatsitscalled) + frost nova/cold snap for survival/control round out the package. I tried familiar and enchanted weapon or whatsitscalled and runing both for even more damage in the past before this latest patch, but since I then couldn't fit any defensive skills I tended to have more difficulty surviving than by doing less damage...
I'm not really having a problem right now with wizard because my friend the barb is taking most of the hits for me and eating health orbs that drop in the thick of battle, plus he has the health regen warcry too. He stomps, vacuuming up all the mobs around him and whirlwinds on them while I hydra them, then drop meteor showers and shoot them up with chain lightning from afar. However solo it is tougher as wizard I feel due to the lack of proper self-heal.
MEANwhile, demon hunter has this new passive ability whatsitscalled that heals you for 4.5% of your total every second just by standing still for 3 seconds. On up to at least hard difficulty you can just stand in bad stuff all the time and fire away at enemies, and your passive healing will keep you at or near max despite the incoming damage, often including enemies wailing away at you. Pretty wicked, I have to say.
Demon hunter also has other healing runes/abilities, including that active skill which consumes discipline and gives massive health regen, especially when runed for even more health. I tried aid station sentries, but that one was actually rather crap, the area of effect (and the actual healing) was too small to be very effective when combined with the cooldown on sentry. Maybe aid station was better when sentries dropped at your feet instead of at the mouse cursor. I found rocket sentries (and rocket rapid fire rune) together with rocket passive skill to be more effective, and just generally more enjoyable TBH.
Rocket sentries are also very effective at taking down elites with damage reflect ability without damaging you, although that boss affix is pretty weaksauce now in the new patch when it reflects a fixed amount instead of being proportional to the damage you cause...
All I use on my wiz for defense is diamond shield and the passive that gives you a shield for kills. Domination I think its called. I also use glass cannon. I don't think the lack of a heal is an issue at all. If you take all defensive passives you'll be very tank like, but I don't intend to stand there and get beat on, I'd rather kill faster.
Yes, there is paragon healing (which requires massively high paragon level to be substantial), but relying on not getting hit in a game like D3 just isn't going to work (for very long). Once you encounter waller/arcane sentry/desecrator or something like that elites you're gonna get screwed in short order. Ok, you can teleport out of the bad stuff once, and then you have a fair cooldown (way longer than their cooldowns)...
My skill build doesn't take much advantage of synergies right now, I know I could exploit either arcane, lightning or cold skills in particular to cause (perhaps massively) more damage, but I like my current setup. Right now I use meteor shower, chain lightning, disintegration nexus and one of the hydras (I tend to switch them around for variety, but usually either lightning, arcane or fire). Teleport (multi-port rune whatsitscalled) + frost nova/cold snap for survival/control round out the package. I tried familiar and enchanted weapon or whatsitscalled and runing both for even more damage in the past before this latest patch, but since I then couldn't fit any defensive skills I tended to have more difficulty surviving than by doing less damage...
I'm not really having a problem right now with wizard because my friend the barb is taking most of the hits for me and eating health orbs that drop in the thick of battle, plus he has the health regen warcry too. He stomps, vacuuming up all the mobs around him and whirlwinds on them while I hydra them, then drop meteor showers and shoot them up with chain lightning from afar. However solo it is tougher as wizard I feel due to the lack of proper self-heal.
MEANwhile, demon hunter has this new passive ability whatsitscalled that heals you for 4.5% of your total every second just by standing still for 3 seconds. On up to at least hard difficulty you can just stand in bad stuff all the time and fire away at enemies, and your passive healing will keep you at or near max despite the incoming damage, often including enemies wailing away at you. Pretty wicked, I have to say.
Demon hunter also has other healing runes/abilities, including that active skill which consumes discipline and gives massive health regen, especially when runed for even more health. I tried aid station sentries, but that one was actually rather crap, the area of effect (and the actual healing) was too small to be very effective when combined with the cooldown on sentry. Maybe aid station was better when sentries dropped at your feet instead of at the mouse cursor. I found rocket sentries (and rocket rapid fire rune) together with rocket passive skill to be more effective, and just generally more enjoyable TBH.
Rocket sentries are also very effective at taking down elites with damage reflect ability without damaging you, although that boss affix is pretty weaksauce now in the new patch when it reflects a fixed amount instead of being proportional to the damage you cause...
Grall I agree with you wrt the wizard, it has to be standing still to do damages, he has no meat shield of any type (/summon), next to no mobility skills. When it comes to firing power and mobility the class is completely out done by the Demon Hunter.
Actually the wizard loose also badly at AoE spells which more surprising, it does on many account:
1 hydra vs multiple turrets (up to 3), wrt secondary attack, chakram hurts and you cover the screen of them, multi shot, scatter arrow, some elemental arrow runes also covers lot of area (with nice side effect), bombardement/rapid fire, strafe/demolition etc.
THe DH also has a meat shield, inherited a lesser "archon" mode.
He doesn't have as many option to disable critters but he got good ones, lot of options to slowdown opponents, that is more relevant to the DH than the Wiz has the former can move around while damaging the slowed foes. It also have many options to stuns opponents, most of them are not on cooldown.
Then there are its many healing options.
I'm not an advance player I might miss something, but as a DPS range class the DH is better and more importantly funnier than the wizard and with its "static" gameplay (or kitting with blizzard...). I would dare to say it is a better class.
DH is close to be my favorite class, the only thing I regret is that they did not bring in a primary and attacks involving daggers and allow the DH to dual wield Daggers making the perfect rogue class
I guess the Wizard is "tougher", but is low healing potential, lesser damages, lesser mobility makes that a bit irrelevant. Though the Demon Hunter received some upgrade on that front too (-25% damage from critters hit by "devices", perfectionist, the companion (boar is quite nice with its passive boost and active taunt), the "hardened" from "evasive fire" grant a permanent +25% to armor if you fight at close range.
I think the wizard class needs massive rework. I cut my rant about splitting classes, etc as it is completely irrelevant but Blizzard needs to focused on what they want the Wizard class to be. They need to focus more, it can't be the fire, ice, lightning, magic, "insert aspect", class. Jacks of all trade masters of none usually suck. The "weird" thing is that the wizard is the class that has access to the biggest spell selection of the game (26 skills).
The spot of high damage, range/AoE class is taken already by the Demon Hunter which does more than that actually. Elemental spells are nothing special as all the classes have such type of spells so what could make the wizard "stands" as a class?
How about a stronger focus on arcane /magic as a bag of trick.
teleport could get a counter as the Monk's Dashing Strike skill? I would enjoy if "mirror image" were more permanent (like armor).
The weird thing is that Wizard is the class that accesses the widest selection of skills (26), does that result in more balancing headache (so counter productive)?
Overall when I compare the wizard to other classes it looks like it got a lesser revamp. For example Monk and Demon hunter summon have active capability, the wizard familiar did not get such improvement.
It also look like to me the cost of wizard skills compared to their damaging power is quite high, the Demon hunter can (for example) spam elemental arrow and chakram for a while before running out of "hatred".
I hope it will get reworked because I want to like it, it is the first class I tried but it is also the class I have the least fun with.
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Tried the crusader yesterday, it looks quite powerful. Not nerfed yet?
Other than that I started with the male character model... and did not liked its look, I shifted to the female which looks better.
Actually may be it is only me but overall female characters look better in the games.
The female Barb is the only one I do not like, I used to like her more than the male but with higher end gear, she doesn't look as cool as the male. For the doctor which is a drawn (I lightly prefer the male but actually it depends a lot on the outfit), all the others I prefer the female by a wide margin. The Demon Hunter is an extreme case, the male doesn't not look "right" to me whereas the female looks awesome.
