So if you are into games, you probably know about Diablo III and the 12 year wait fans of the game have experienced. It finally hit the streets on May 15th (about a month ago) and everyone has been going wild on it since.
I’ve not really been into a game properly since DOTA classic on RoC back in the day (which I was quite possibly a little too into).
And now Diablo 3 – which despite the haters negativity – is a really good game. I finished it on Normal after about a week
I love the gameplay – both solo and co-op. The auction house is great, I’m not so sure about the RMAH (Real Money Auction House) as that may well break the whole online economy as people buy up everything of value causing massive inflation. Also the botting gold farmers are going at it hard, there are multiple sites online already selling D3 gold fora bout $8USD per 1 Million.
The RMAH will allow for the sale of entire characters too – so I think account hacking will be rife. Other than that – I love the game, the storyling, the gameplay and the thought needed about build and item combinations.
It’s a loot-fest yes, hack and slash..it’s Diablo – what did you expect exactly? My only real gripe is that the classes are really unbalanced – they are all fine at Normal and Nightmare – some are a little weak by Hell and completely useless by Inferno (OHAI Witch Doctor).
Demon Hunter is over-powered – too easy to build a glass cannon and just kite – if you are playing co-op any melee heros get butt-raped real fast. I hope more character balances come too because WD is probably the most interesting class.
Monk was the first roll though because it looks like me, he’s level 55 now and my WD is level 31.
The cinematics are absolutely STUNNING.
I found completing normal a little easy – especially with a melee character, definitely more challenging with a ranged char (without hand-me-downs from higher level toons). It was a bit pedestrian, things get a little more interesting on Nightmare – but still fairly easy for a well equipped character and shit gets real in Hell.
I killed Diablo first try tho – it was easier than I expected, some of the other bosses (and sub-bosses) were harder. The graphics are absolutely superb, it helps that I play everything on the highest settings – woohoo.
This was my Monk when I completed the game – Level 33 with 25 hours of play-time:
My attributes after finishing normal:
My DPS was pretty low, but I was a good tank with about 4000 hitpoints.
And my achievements when I was done (22% overall achievements done – high points being 42% Campaign, 31% General & 29% Crafting):
I really love the achievements, and the fact the sub-quests are randomized so every time you play a map you discover different things. There’s still sub-quests that level 60 players haven’t seen yet (and don’t even mention Whimseyshire).
There’s still so much more to play and explore, I’ve finished it on Nightmare and I’m on Hell now – trying to get my monk to Level 60 and capable of kicking arse in Inferno.
That will be hard though and I’m guessing will require a lot of farming and some mad high DPS + high resistance items. I just started an alt character during the past weekend too as playing Monk on Hell was a little too intense sometimes.
My Monk has about 4000DPS now and about 50,000 hitpoints – which isn’t too shabby. I’m really lacking on resistance gear tho and need to start getting some RES ALL type items.
I’ve gotten a Witch Doctor and started power levelling him and tooling him up with some sweet gear, the server was down for a LONG time last night – so I spent a lot of time reading on the forums. Turns out WD (as I mentioned above) is the worst char at high levels right now LOL. Oh well – I hope to make him uber powerful and a useful co-op partner and hope they buff his dogs/other summons soon.
I’ll probably write another post later with a bunch of tips for the game I’ve learnt along the way.
Great review! I’m using monk too and I’m really suffering at inferno. In Act 1 I actually had to sacrifice my primary stats to use resistance items. Things were okay until I reached act 2 inferno and got butt-raped by normal creeps. Contemplating spending a couple of USD for some slightly decent items haha.
Things really starts to get more challenging on inferno … still farming act 1 for more gold and better items. Act 2 is a bitch … many occassions where i had to kite as far as back into town on my wizard. The new patch is gonna be painful on dying fests though.
you need to go to a party dressed up as D3 monk, seriously!
currently working on Demon Hunter, after completing Monk and realising that no one in Malaysia plays on Asia server. Comparing between melee Monk vs ranged DH I seriously had more fun working with DH. gave me more options with his abilities and the possibility of hitting godlike DPS is real under DH. right now cant really play because of the stupid lag in game play.
i believe my least fav character has to fall to Witch Doctor. I lost interest when I realised they didn’t go for the Jamaican accent for his character. Praise be to the light mon!
Must be tough to fight melee especially in Inferno man, I am getting farmed by the elite mobs. Currently running a lvl 60 Wizard with 23k dps and 35k hit points and I still get one-hit killed by various mobs…
Why is everyone I know using the MONK as their first character? WHY?
khaiyong: Yup been building my resistance build since hell act 4 – it’s pretty good now – 700 resist all (One with everything passive rocks!). When I’m with my friend (Barb with War Cry) it’s over 1100 all!
acidict: Hahah yah, still on Act 1..haven’t killed Inferno Butcher yet.
Mark Leo: It’s very hard, especially with elites which have 3 types of damage (Arcane traps + Fire + Poison) and to hit them…you have to stand in it.
davidlian: Melee agility/dexterity characters are always the easiest to play in the beginning (all-rounder) – they just get MUCH harder later because they aren’t particularly good at any single thing. In hindsight I might have gone Demon Hunter as that’s the easiest character to get insane stats right now – but then again that’s kinda boring.
No such thing as being too much into DotA mister Shaolin.
ElKovu: You still around eh, I think I might possibly agree with you 😀