Diablo 3: An Item Shop's Tale

[Highbrow DashAJ, Rarity! What's happening?]

My whole Diablo 2 experience consisted in building a Paladin who could hit 20 enemies with a single right click

I might try this when it comes out, I guess. Hopefully the combat will be more interesting this time around

[RagnarWhat's older? Unicorns, or stars?]

Your sole experience with the game is a hammerdin and you say "hopefully the combat will be better this time around." You sound like my friend and his skelemancer.

Then again I unironically enjoyed my conc barb, so clearly my brain is funny and my subjective opinions are all suspect.

[Crow.Why, of course!I'm clearly insane! .]

And this is why I made so many quirky characters.

[ArtificerGoes well with All Natural Milk Naturally Flavored with Natural Flavors.]

I was pretty shitty at optimizing characters back then, choosing instead to go for "whatever looked/sounded/felt the most cool." And as such I struggled a lot. Hopefully it'll go better this time around.

[Tzar469"A thrilling time is in your immediate future."]

I skipped vanilla D2 entirely and solely played Median XL (a mod)

[RagnarWhat's older? Unicorns, or stars?]

I liked my wind druid; he was a caster, but you had to get fairly close to enemies to get full use out of your skills, since tornado got so unpredictable as to be useless outside of a few yards away and hurricane had fairly short range. He was also pretty great in hell, since he was relatively durable and did two types of damage.

And he worked perfectly fine untwinked.

Median was a cool mod and going right to it wasn't a bad idea.

[Tarezax]

I used to play a lot of the Eastern Sun mod back when the goon server was still active. Free respecs and easy desocketing of items, as well as hugely expanded crafting and a reduced emphasis on boss runs made it really good.

Wasn't entirely balanced though, as barbarians got some ridiculously good skills (A shout that reduces enemy resistances and doesn't get a penalty against immunities, plus screen-clearing lightning spells? BARBS OP).

[Dal]

Another Monday, another week closer to release, and another spotlight video! This week is the Wizard!

Click here to view video.

[Damathacus]

Hell yeah wizard, I will without any doubt be playing wizard as my first character.
In D2 my most played character was/is MeteOrb sorc and it was fun as hell to play. Sadly it seems that they removed the Frozen Orb but it seems from that trailer that she has some other quite similar spell, and that beam thing looks nice too.

God, only few weeks to go but this wait is still killing me.

[Crow.Why, of course!I'm clearly insane! .]

I get the feeling most of us here are going with Wizard.

Make sure you send your BattleTag info to Ragnar34 so we can party together when the game is finally out.

[ArtificerGoes well with All Natural Milk Naturally Flavored with Natural Flavors.]

Awww. I can't play anymore since the Open Beta is over.

[Damathacus]

Awww. I can't play anymore since the Open Beta is over.

I didn't even touch that open beta, I'll rather have fresh experience when game launches than play some beta that is going to do nothing but make the wait even more unbearable.

[Crow.Why, of course!I'm clearly insane! .]

I think it would be okay to throw everyone's BattleTags on the first page, similar to the Steam Info Thread.

[The great MPinke Torte das Pony.---]

I think we can just make a public list of battletags. You can change it anytime you want anyway, I believe.

[RagnarWhat's older? Unicorns, or stars?]

The battletags? You can change them once for free. After that, I don't know.

If no one minds then I have no problem with just putting them up in the first post. Every time I get a PM, my first thought is that it's a mod and I've done something wrong, and the list plan involves me getting PM'd a lot. Basically this idea was destined to give me heart problems.

Hell yeah wizard, I will without any doubt be playing wizard as my first character.
In D2 my most played character was/is MeteOrb sorc and it was fun as hell to play. Sadly it seems that they removed the Frozen Orb but it seems from that trailer that she has some other quite similar spell, and that beam thing looks nice too.

God, only few weeks to go but this wait is still killing me.

It comes out in 14 days and 13 hours. Not so bad.

MeteOrb was fun but I preferred blizzard. I was bummed to find that even with infinity on a merc, cold sorcs aren't really hell viable outside of boss runs.
The female wizard is Azula

[Damathacus]

Why don't you just setup google doc for tags and then give people rights to view it when they PM their tags to you. That way you don't have to send list back to everybody every time someone wants to add their tag to the list.

Edit:
And don't get me started with that whole Blizzard vs Orb stuff. I have a friend and we used to have these huge arguments which one was better.

[RagnarWhat's older? Unicorns, or stars?]

Why don't you just setup google doc for tags and then give people rights to view it when they PM their tags to you. That way you don't have to send list back to everybody every time someone wants to add their tag to the list.

Edit:
And don't get me started with that whole Blizzard vs Orb stuff. I have a friend and we used to have these huge arguments which one was better.

A google doc would be a little easier, but making a list in the OP would be a lot easier. I'll go with the doc idea if anyone doesn't want his or her tag to be publicly viewable, though.

I would rather use blizzard, but orb is better just because you don't need to spend 80 points to make it good, so you don't get brick-walled by hell. There, I resolved your longstanding argument. Make sure to call your friend and tell him.

[The great MPinke Torte das Pony.---]

MeteOrb was fun but I preferred blizzard. I was bummed to find that even with infinity on a merc, cold sorcs aren't really hell viable outside of boss runs.
The female wizard is Azula

I managed to get a Meter-Orb sorceress solo to Arreat Summit once, but as far as I can tell, the Ancients are 100% unsoloable as a sorc in hell, since they will always have all elemental immunities in all combinations. Terrible game design, as is a lot of stuff about D2.

[RagnarWhat's older? Unicorns, or stars?]

I managed to get a Meter-Orb sorceress solo to Arreat Summit once, but as far as I can tell, the Ancients are 100% unsoloable as a sorc in hell, since they will always have all elemental immunities in all combinations. Terrible game design, as is a lot of stuff about D2.

I never got that far. Wow, that is bullshit.

[Crow.Why, of course!I'm clearly insane! .]

I managed to solo them with my supe'd up Melee Sorc and Poison Dagger Necro.

[RagnarWhat's older? Unicorns, or stars?]

Ten minutes after leaving the house I thought, "Oh, but maybe Crow managed it." Then I was sort of annoyed.

[Damathacus]

I managed to get a Meter-Orb sorceress solo to Arreat Summit once, but as far as I can tell, the Ancients are 100% unsoloable as a sorc in hell, since they will always have all elemental immunities in all combinations. Terrible game design, as is a lot of stuff about D2.

Before 1.9 it was almost impossible for MeteOrb sorc to solo the summit, you had to get really lucky with immunities so none of them had fire+frost immunity. After 1.9 it wasn't too hard to solo hell with MeterOrb, long as you started to put points into fire tree in time to deal with those immunities that is. Granted that you still had to be quite high level to beat the Summit because you had to use your secondary spell to kill at least one of them, and hitting them with meteor was pain. After 1.10 when Infinity runeword was added it became much easier because your merc's aura would just break immunities.

[Crow.Why, of course!I'm clearly insane! .]

Before 1.9 it was almost impossible for MeteOrb sorc to solo the summit, you had to get really lucky with immunities so none of them had fire+frost immunity. After 1.9 it wasn't too hard to solo hell with MeterOrb, long as you started to put points into fire tree in time to deal with those immunities that is. Granted that you still had to be quite high level to beat the Summit because you had to use your secondary spell to kill at least one of them, and hitting them with meteor was pain. After 1.10 when Infinity runeword was added it became much easier because your merc's aura would just break immunities.

I remember running into the Elite Mummy in Act II that was Physical and Magic Immune.

Ten minutes after leaving the house I thought, "Oh, but maybe Crow managed it." Then I was sort of annoyed.

Annoyed?

[RagnarWhat's older? Unicorns, or stars?]

Yeah, annoyed, because it sounds like a twinked out melee sorc was the only way to get a sorc to hell Baal without other people helping. Before 1.9, I mean; but after 1.10 there was a whole new problem, which is that post 1.10 hell was bullshit and literally impossible except with a select few builds.

e: But never mind all that, look at this



http://dailydiablo.tumblr.com/post/2192 ... our-dreams
(And read the url)

[The great MPinke Torte das Pony.---]

Before 1.9 it was almost impossible for MeteOrb sorc to solo the summit, you had to get really lucky with immunities so none of them had fire+frost immunity. After 1.9 it wasn't too hard to solo hell with MeterOrb, long as you started to put points into fire tree in time to deal with those immunities that is. Granted that you still had to be quite high level to beat the Summit because you had to use your secondary spell to kill at least one of them, and hitting them with meteor was pain. After 1.10 when Infinity runeword was added it became much easier because your merc's aura would just break immunities.

Good to know. I never played around with rune words, because having to look up stuff outside the game (runewords) is pretty much peak shitty game design. No Thanks. I have no idea how Blizzard ever thought that was a good idea.

[RagnarWhat's older? Unicorns, or stars?]

The box is arriving in stores, we have 12 days left, that guy's thumbnail looks messed up, and Diablo 3 is finally coming for real

[Crow.Why, of course!I'm clearly insane! .]

Looking at it from this angle might be a bit better.


I bought it digitally, I'm all set for release.

[RagnarWhat's older? Unicorns, or stars?]

Looking at it from this angle might be a bit better.

I found it sideways and I didn't want to make any waves. Maybe that's how it's supposed to go?!

I bought it digitally, I'm all set for release.

I want to have the box and disc

[Crow.Why, of course!I'm clearly insane! .]

See, I always lose the boxes.

I should maybe install more shelves.

[RagnarWhat's older? Unicorns, or stars?]

That's easy to fix. Cinder blocks + plywood = shelves. Don't need glue, don't need nails. The shapes of the shelves change depending on how you arrange the blocks. Or that's how I imagine it would work anyway. Piles on the floor also = shelves, if you don't mind never seeing some stuff again, such as all my game boxes and CDs and library books.

[Dal]

Lets get even more hyped shall we?

Click here to view video.

Click here to view video.

[AngoraNot obsessed, a connoisseur]

I preordered.

Can't decide what class to go with. I had fun with the Monk, Witch Doctor, and Wizard in the open beta

[Dal]

Shamelessly stolen from the SA Diablo 3 thread.

[RagnarWhat's older? Unicorns, or stars?]

I can't work out what's really going on there. Two or more characters on top of each other, in lock step, running in the same direction?


On Monday, we'll have one week left. Interestingly, the counter I linked is also counting down to the day two days before I have to help give this 15-minute group presentation on some disease or other. This means the days are just zooming by for me.

Gonna make this post my build repository for now.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/w ... cXf!YYZYbZ
Comet looks awesome, so I thought, "How can I spam it?" This should do it. 180 AP, +24/second. That's three comets right up front without diamond skin, then about one every two seconds after, not taking into account surge of power and prodigy. It's probably not great against bosses.

[RagnarWhat's older? Unicorns, or stars?]

8 days.

It's time to rip off the SA thread again. Here's a video of high level play.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHjGnz3crDY
Comet looks cooler than I thought it would.

And here are the performance benchmarks.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dia ... ,3195.html
The upshot is that you can play this on damn near anything.

[Frosthawkwhat is this. what is this SHIT]

Aw holy shit, it's almost here. This is what will break my 3 year streak of not playing video games.


I've only ever seriously played with the barbarian in the previous Diablo games. But, on the OP's advice, I think I'm going to try a Wizard this time. Ragnar you better be right.

[RagnarWhat's older? Unicorns, or stars?]

Aw holy shit, it's almost here. This is what will break my 3 year streak of not playing video games.


I've only ever seriously played with the barbarian in the previous Diablo games. But, on the OP's advice, I think I'm going to try a Wizard this time. Ragnar you better be right.

I'm always right. But if I weren't in this case, it would be because:

1. The barbarian is either a grizzled old man or one of the few legitimately muscular ladies in all popular media. They're both jacked as hell and it's cool seeing female barb tower over most of the NPCs.
2. The SA thread has a lot of posts about how the barb is the most satisfying class to play. I'll at least agree that it looks like the most visceral. There are similar posts for every other class as well, of course, but I know I saw the most for the barbarian.
3. This is just theorycrafting, but he/she appears to have some of the best passives in the game. "Superstition: Reduce all nonphysical damage taken by 20%, and, when you're hit by a ranged or elemental attack, you have a chance to gain 3 fury." Look at that! That's +20% to all resists, except it doesn't appear to count against the cap, and then sometimes you get a bit of free fury. "Brawler" will never not be on, so it's basically a straight +30% to damage. "Relentless" makes every skill free and halves all damage taken when you're at less than 20% life, and, considering how hard the barb can tank, that's probably a very long way from dead; there will certainly be builds revolving around abusing Relentless by staying permanently at 20%.
4. I played a lot of sorceresses in D2, and one thing that always bothered me is that most of the weapons were none of her business. Axes, swords, maces, all the melee weapons were just sort of irrelevant to me. In D3 it'll be a little different in that weapon damage will at least boost damage for all classes, but there is exactly one class that actually swings the damn things. Even the monk puts his/her weapon away when he/she does most of his/her attacks. If you want to hit someone with an axe instead of holding it while doing other things, you pretty much have to play barb.
5. The other day, Jay Wilson said that the key to Inferno is going to be high single-target DPS. The wizard doesn't come by this very easily. The barbarian has it in spades. Also the wizard is made of glass.
6. [Other stuff I didn't even think of, because this isn't my class of choice for reasons that are completely arational, so the strongest draws here may be pretty opaque to me]
7. Dress like Sauron.

[RagnarWhat's older? Unicorns, or stars?]

Oh shit, I just remembered. Just so we're clear, everyone here knows it's now impossible to go hostile on other players and that all PvP is going to happen in special arenas, right? Crow, you were talking about PKing back in D2. Did you mean voluntary PvP with other PvPers, or going out and murdering people in the woods? Because the latter isn't an option this time around.

[AramekYour MRI results have shown total infection to now be approximately one fifth of the full mass of the tissue."So you're saying..."Your brain is about 20% tumor.]

I'm gonna play a Monk, because I'm a Paladin at heart.

I don't know if a Monk can be a fast, tanky Zeal Pally replacement or not. But that is my destiny.
I look forward to playing with all of you. I wuv you all.

[Frosthawkwhat is this. what is this SHIT]

Oh shit, I just remembered. Just so we're clear, everyone here knows it's now impossible to go hostile on other players and that all PvP is going to happen in special arenas, right? Crow, you were talking about PKing back in D2. Did you mean voluntary PvP with other PvPers, or going out and murdering people in the woods? Because the latter isn't an option this time around.

Oh, that's excellent. That is the single reason why I never played online back in the day. Also, in light of all those counter-reasons, I think I'll still try the wizardry, because I trust you.

I'm gonna play a Monk, because I'm a Paladin at heart.

The one time I tried Paladin in Diablo 2 it worked out excellently until I got to Nightmare level, where all the sudden I was useless. But hopefully Diablo 3's class is a little more balanced because that was a ridiculously fun class to play.