Diablo 3 Open Beta Weekend with a caveat

[Chris Brady]

Barbarian kicked ass.

Just the sheer feeling of power, within the first HOUR of gameplay.  Monster exploding and flying around, over trees, cliffs, into pools of water, also know as lakes and rivers.  And it's just with your bare arms and weapons.  No spells, no Russian Kung-Fu magics...  Just unadulterated physical POWER.

That's why I play with my Barbies.

The precision killing that the DH does is pretty awesome too.

[Shjade]

I don't remember knocking things over trees...oh, maybe that's a high physics setting-only thing? I have mine set to low.

So far the barbarian seems like the only class that can get the Massive Blow achievement by level 13, too. I've managed 18 kills in one attack with the monk and 16 with the DH, but their AE attacks just don't have a large enough radius for 20, at least not that I've been able to pull off. I'm thinking when the barbarian gets the rune that gives the AE bleed 17 yard range that'll be an easy 20+ kills when surrounded in the royal crypts...

[Solstice]

I got the 20 kills doing the Soul Jar event with a Wizard, using their knockback spell (in the #2 hotkey slot).

Having played all the classes, I'm thinking Monk (must fun to play) or Wizard (I like her voice/personality more, Monk is so blaaaand).

[SinXAzgard21]

Well I'm glad I got to do at least demon hunter... I couldn't log in the rest of the weekend.

[Chris Brady]

Other than connection issues, I had no problems.  And with the connecting, I just had to retry a few (hundred) times.  I got to finish the Beta with every class.  The Barb and DH were the most fun to play, but I don't care much for the DH's personality.  The Witch Doctor is way too nice a guy for a Necromancer and Soul eater.  The Monk...  I said it once and I'll keep saying: He (along with the WD) feels forced in.  And the Wizard is...  Well, it's a wizard.  It has casty spells, does decent damage with them.

One thing I am confused about, though, is why bother with all the weapon types if the classes (Save the Barbarian and even then he has Mighty Weapons for himself) don't really work well with most of them?

[SinXAzgard21]

I'm also beta testing Firefall and MoP so having to click a thousand times to play Diablo 3: The Stress Test made me just play the other two...  I am glad to be getting D3, I liked how it looked.

Chris I agree with the weapon issue... Why let my DH equip a sword if I'm not going to be able to swing that bad boy around.

[Shjade]

If you can equip it you can swing it. You just might not have much reason to.

Still, if you were to focus on non-shot abilities, you could probably make a melee DH work. Damage would come more out of Impale and traps, I suppose, with some acrobatics to navigate around.

As for why so many weapon types, to differentiate stats. Instead of having 50 different kinds of "sword" with varying damage ranges and swing speeds, you get the "sword" category which is always from x-4 to x+8 damage at 1.40 swing speed, the "axe" category that are x-3 to x+10 damage at 1.50 swing speed, and so on (numbers made up, of course).

At least that's the gameplay justification. Really they're just there so the game looks like it has more loot for you to find, since Diablo games are 100% focused on hack-slash-loot farming mechanics and you'd get bored if all you ever saw was "sword" "rusty sword" "not-rusty sword" "sword again" "sword" "another sword" "sword" "sword" "sword" "sword" "sword."

Looks a lot more interesting if that list is "sword" "sabre" "mace" "club" "axe" "broadsword" "cleaver" "dirk" "flail," right? But it means pretty much the same thing in the end.

Illusions!

Related: I was surprised to discover monks can equip most of the weapons. My monk was wielding a rare saber with an offhand axe by the time I stopped playing. Sorta expected they'd be restricted to blunt weapons, as is the trend in most games with a monk class. A welcome surprise, though.

[Chris Brady]

But the issue for me is the Monk.  They sheath their weapons when they attack with their basic ability.  So it makes it kinda pointless to use anything other than the fist weapons.  Even the Daibo isn't used.

The Barbarian is the only reason to have many weapons in the first place, and that's...   I'm not sure having all that for a single class is worth it in my eyes.  If they had a Knight/Paladin Class, something that was one hand and shield, and maybe a bit of two handed.  Or like the Druid which could use multiple weapons, but was better with blunt objects.  Something more than just a single class.