mrjonno wrote:

This concept that you don't buy games but just the right to access a service is not really great.

Its been the norm since the beginning of computer games, you have never owned them merely a right to use them. Until technology has improved the limitations on use were very hard to enforce. Good or bad this sort of thing is going to be the future its a combination of business wanting to improve their revenue and freetards wanting to pirate everything and calling it freedom.

I reckon I will get somewhere between 20 and 200+ hours of entertainment out of this software I paid £28 but i know others paid more but to me its a bargain

I got Diablo III for free, so I can't really complain

What's your spec? http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian

My Wizard:


I use my wizard like a suicide bomber. I run her into the middle of a group of mobs and then freeze them all with Frost Nova, which gives me time to charge up my Explosive Blast without getting hit, then knock them all back with Wave of Force. Then I pick off the stranglers with Magic Missile. I use Ray of Frost mostly for the bosses.

My Demon Hunter:


My demon hunter is all avoidance and machine gunning. I use Vault to keep at a distance while concentrating fire with Rapid Fire and Bola Shot for causing carnage in groups of mobs. I have Smoke Screen speced but I don't use my defensive skills much, I think I'll be waiting for better runes to pop up and try new things.

Fallible wrote:One thing which I'm having real problems with is the inability to pan up or out with the camera so I can get a look at my surroundings. I'm having to take breaks because it makes me feel ill. Also, I think I must be doing something very wrong, because I keep dying over and over again.

If you're playing a demon hunter, I guess the idea is not to be hit. Do you get anything that slows down a bunch of enemies? You can start the battle with that, then follow it up with more AoE damage.

Also, are you using the Templar follower? He's got various taunts to keep the monsters eating him not you.

Failing that, go on to the auction and look for gear with + shit loads of VIT.

Witch Doctors are sick. I've had a quick play of all the classes, and I can't see how any can match the Witch Doctor in survivability. Best HC class for sure!

I'm slowly turning mine into a magic find char as he really only need Intelligence - easy enough to get that with +MF% - up to 80% now (everything that drops is blue at least), but haven't bought anything on the auction for him yet: too busy saving up to buy more bank slots! /packrat

Spearthrower wrote:

Fallible wrote:One thing which I'm having real problems with is the inability to pan up or out with the camera so I can get a look at my surroundings. I'm having to take breaks because it makes me feel ill. Also, I think I must be doing something very wrong, because I keep dying over and over again.

If you're playing a demon hunter, I guess the idea is not to be hit. Do you get anything that slows down a bunch of enemies? You can start the battle with that, then follow it up with more AoE damage.

Yeah, that's what I did, the first defensive skill you get is caltrops, a trap that snares enemies 60% when they walk on it. The first rune you get ups the snare to a rather nifty 80% (meaning it takes them twice as long to cross the area, the difference is huge), and you can have a large area of the floor mined with them, walking enemies back and forth across the same patch with vault as well if need be. I used a lot of caltrops, even now at lvl 35 I'm still using the 80% snare as my chief discipline spender. Hatred spenders are probably best used on AOE, multi shot with the cost reduction rune is crazy good when you get that, but earlier you can use spike traps as they are placed under the mouse pointer so you can easily bomb large areas of mobs, especially when combined with snares.

---

In my own game I decided to try a wholly different playstyle, rather than killing everything I meet and exploring every dungeon I started a wizard and wanted to see how hard the 1 hour first act challenge is... Wow, game is so much more fun played like this, guess that was the key thing I was missing. Only made it past the skeleton king in 53 mins, that's less than 4 acts out of 10 completed... But that was without any gear so it took a good 5mins to DPS him down. With a full set of low level rares it seems quite doable, think I may start working on one.

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Oh, and one more tip, for Fallible, the way the damage works the rings and necks with +2-4 damage on add a HUGE amount of dps, making the game a lot easier. the 2-4 damage is before the attack speed % modifier, the dexterity % modifier and ability % modifiers, so it can easily equate to 30-60 more damage per hit for each ring, neck and weapon with this stat on - before crits.

Spearthrower wrote:Witch Doctors are sick. I've had a quick play of all the classes, and I can't see how any can match the Witch Doctor in survivability. Best HC class for sure!

I'm slowly turning mine into a magic find char as he really only need Intelligence - easy enough to get that with +MF% - up to 80% now (everything that drops is blue at least), but haven't bought anything on the auction for him yet: too busy saving up to buy more bank slots! /packrat

Which Doctors are pretty much a pet class aren't they? Don't they get lots of zombie spawns? Makes sense to forgo vitality for all intelligence now that I think of it since their pets are taking the brunt of the damage. They must have some serious killing power. I'll have to roll one now

CdesignProponentsist wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:Witch Doctors are sick. I've had a quick play of all the classes, and I can't see how any can match the Witch Doctor in survivability. Best HC class for sure!

I'm slowly turning mine into a magic find char as he really only need Intelligence - easy enough to get that with +MF% - up to 80% now (everything that drops is blue at least), but haven't bought anything on the auction for him yet: too busy saving up to buy more bank slots! /packrat

Which Doctors are pretty much a pet class aren't they? Don't they get lots of zombie spawns? Makes sense to forgo vitality for all intelligence now that I think of it since their pets are taking the brunt of the damage. They must have some serious killing power. I'll have to roll one now

3 key skills are:

Poison Dart - it's monstrously powerful
Grasping Hands - not only does it slow enemies to a crawl, but it also does DoT.
Firebats - something to spend your mana on and makes a nice BOOM.

I'm also using the zombie dogs and the gargantuan - but they're just in place of Vitality, as you said. With them and the Templar, nothing gets near me, and even if it did, it wouldn't last longer than hitting me once. Those fiery bats are very nasty!

Oh and I've got haunt for bosses - don't care about the chance to jump to another after death - I just like the 575% weapon damage as arcane!

Thanks for the tips, peeps. All very handy. I do know about mass slowing abilities and AoE and the like, having a level 85 frost mage on WoW, but for some reason I find it hard to transfer over what I know to this game. Because I've played WoW for so long I'm finding the abilities allocation a bit of a chore, the rune thing is also a bit wha?? but this is very much me and not the game. I'll get there in time. Might try another class as well, seems like a monk might be fun.

Fallible wrote:Thanks for the tips, peeps. All very handy. I do know about mass slowing abilities and AoE and the like, having a level 85 frost mage on WoW, but for some reason I find it hard to transfer over what I know to this game. Because I've played WoW for so long I'm finding the abilities allocation a bit of a chore, the rune thing is also a bit wha?? but this is very much me and not the game. I'll get there in time. Might try another class as well, seems like a monk might be fun.

I think that is because WoW is a bit more tank and spank. Whereas the crowd control effects in Diablo are a bit more brief and you are usually dealing with larger numbers. So unlike WoW, you have to utilize movement a lot more. Move your character around, retreat, dance and weave depending on the situation. Set up corners or bottlenecks using the environment. Movement and position in battle is much more important than in WoW.

EDIT:

As an example, on my Demon Hunter, when entering through a doorway, I'll back out again if there are lots of mobs in the room, and let them funnel out one at a time while I spray them through the doorway.

In hallways, I'll back up to areas that I have already cleared while spraying them as they follow.

In a large open space, I'll spray them, then vault to the other side of the group, spray again, then vault back to where i was originally and spray again.

Around a corner, I'll back around and wait for them to stick their heads out one by one.

Oh gawd, this all sounds very complicated. Took me 7 years to master Frostbolt > Frostbolt > Frost Nova > Ice Lance > Blink > Frostbolt > Fire Blast > Cone of Cold.

Fallible wrote:Oh gawd, this all sounds very complicated. Took me 7 years to master Frostbolt > Frostbolt > Frost Nova > Ice Lance > Blink > Frostbolt > Fire Blast > Cone of Cold.

Welcome to tactical RPG

Just don't try to master it all at once. Just pick one aspect at a time and practice until perfected and it becomes second nature, then move onto the next. You'll be kicking ass and taking names.

CdesignProponentsist wrote:Thinking the voice of the Templar sounded familiar I decided to look it up. He turns out to be the ONLY voice actor in the game I know...

The blacksmith sounds like Billy Connolly

I was on my Barbarian again last night. Bosses are dead easy, aside from the occasional lag kills I'm fine...

No it's the FUCKING CHAIN.

Yeah thanks Elites, Champions.... I forget which is which, you have the Yellows which are tough guys, with owwie powers, but I find that the Blues can be dangerous too.

Here's a bllure combo you will hate. Imps, with Chain Electricity, and, Desecrator... Yeah trying hold them back from sweeping around you, touch the cahin take a lot of damage, and then if you sit still Spot of burn Below you.

I have a strange feeling Hell Difficulty will have Champions adn Elties with 3 qualities and even more sadistic and twisted fuck with you powers.

I dread Jailor Desecrator, or Molten Vortex... Those would suck

I expect Hell difficulty will also have auras, some of which in combo with the other skills, will lead to a number of chars being 1 hit spanked!

Wuffy wrote:

Yeah thanks Elites, Champions.... I forget which is which, you have the Yellows which are tough guys, with owwie powers, but I find that the Blues can be dangerous too.

Blues seem to come in groups of 3. Yellows I've never seen more than 2 together and usually only 1.

I've run into A group of Blues with a Yellow... With another group of blues not far away... That was rough.

Wuffy wrote:I've run into A group of Blues with a Yellow... With another group of blues not far away... That was rough.

That is one of the things I like most about this game and which you rarely see in any other. The encounters are so random that the very from super easy to insanity. You can't get bored if you can't expect any consistency.

This thread got too esoteric too quickly

Got my first legendary item today! It's crap though!

Animavore wrote:This thread got too esoteric too quickly

Esoteric to whom? Diablo III players?