I’m currently level 34 in Nightmare with a Wizard and the three skills I’m finding indispensable are Slow Time, Teleport and Frost Nova.
I rune slow time to give me +20% damage against enemies in the bubble and find that it’s really, really effective for pumping up your DPS if you use it properly. Generally I’ll cast frost nova on a group, pop my slow time bubble and then destroy everything with disintegrate runed to fire out additional beams at nearby enemies (disintegrate is so, so damn good).
I rune teleport to give me 30 percent damage reduction after teleporting and it’s a great get out of jail free card.
Those three skills, combined with the passive that reduces cooldowns, give me a pretty good answer to the newly difficult elite packs. I can’t bring myself to give up the glass cannon passive, so I still die fairly often, but damn if I’m not having a fucking fantastic time while my character collapses.
The beauty of this game is that my build is just one out of so, so many viable, interesting and fun builds, and I still have tons more runes and passives to unlock. The possibilities of this skill system stagger the mind, particularly when in a group. I’ve been playing with my brother and his friend as a barbarian and witch doctor respectively, and we’ve already found some really cool ways to make the classes work well together going through normal. As skillful play becomes more and more important through the difficulties it’s going to become even more fun to figure out all the ways they can interlock.
This game… this game.
Joe_M
5242
Finished Nightmare last night and the bit I’ve seen of Hell looks promising. The second cellar I poked my head into was nearly instant death and made me spec my DH a little more defensively. Alas, the real world calls.
I’d like to add, that server issues aside, the advantages from the bnet system for playing with friends is HUGE.
Last night my friend got on before I could, started playing and when I logged in I saw a large quick join button showing up in the lower right corner.
Once I hit it, I immediately joined his game in town, clicked his banner and before he could say holy shit I was standing next to him.
Two. Clicks.
Whoa…
Yeah, I totally agree. I’m not even particularly prone to wanting to play games coop, but it’s just so easy in Diablo 3 I can’t help it. The banners in particular are awesome at making grouping easier, but they also make it much simpler for someone to hop back to town, sell, and then get back to their party fast.
The other huge mechanic I really love is that everyone has their own drops. That used to be a big barrier for me to play coop because I’d end up spending half the night worrying that I wasn’t getting my share or that I was taking too much loot. Now… problem solved.
On another note, how do you make it so people can’t join your game? Sometimes I just want to veg out and play Diablo III by myself and take my time.
Hilariously melting anything that moves with my barbarian (lvl 30 right now):
2000% weapon damage earthquake, ground slam with vortex (sucks enemies close to me and stuns) and the just for the lol, whirlwind whatever is left alive.
For bosses and elites, leap onto them (+400% armor) , pop earthquake (hello 2000% damage) and frenzy them down (+75% single target attack speed)
If health goes down, just revenge (and get 8% of total hp per enemy hit, up to 100%)
Have 50% damage reduction from armor (before leap buff), plus 20% block shield, plus 15% dodge, plus 20% non physical damage mitigation. Stacking vitality (1 point of vitality = 1 armor) and str (1 str = 1% dmg increase + 1 armor).
I find the lack of built-in voice odd in a game that makes fast, casual grouping so simple.
By default only friends can see your games, and when you are in the main screen somewhere I think there is a “private” setting or something. I’m not in front of my gaming PC to check it out, but I saw it a lot during beta.
Pretty sure it increases rage/spirit generation. That is, when you are punching people with a monk or barbarian you get it faster than normal, it doesn’t automatically fill up for you.
There is an option to be prompted before other FRIENDS can join your games.
By default it is disabled and you’re not told where it is, so a level 20 person on your bnet friends list can come into your level 2 character game and blow everything away unless you say no.
It is interesting that in a MP game in DIablo 3 one person can ‘skip’ ahead and you’ll miss out of all the content… which might annoy you… whereas when you played SWTOR you got annoyed when one person did NOT skip ahead from the lengthy chat sequences… :)
This is probably an overreaction.
How is xp distributed? Can the level 20 power level the level 2?
I think quest XP is given equally, but kill XP goes to the person killing? Or am I wrong?
I’ve noticed people rank up at different times , so that would make sense.
I suspect it’s more a factor of getting bonus XP for keeping a chain going. If you are specc’d for more AOE and have range and are good at/focused on keeping those chains going, you will probably pull ahead of a player who isn’t paying attention to that stuff or isn’t thinking of it.
aeneas
5256
woot just got my first legendary item
Sweet! What was it?
Also, does anyone want a starter edition invite? I have one left. First to PM me gets it, though I imagine at this point anyone who is in this thread already has the full version. :)
UPDATE - I have a PM already!
And we have a winner already! Thanks for playing! :)
I was just hanging around for the post-release Reign of Error* drama. ;)
*Hey, that’s pretty good. I am going to sell that to Tom or maybe RPS for a headline for their Diablo coverage.
THANKS!
Options->Social->Allow quick join (bottom right corner)
