Diablo 4

[Boro]

Here's what a skill with more than double the power looks like, from either shopped, gambled, or otherwise easy to get gear:

Valkyrie's throwing spear, shopped from malah
Rare +1 amazon skills amulet, 
Peace armor
Lancer's gloves, shopped from gheed
Rare +1 amazon skills circlet, could be lore too

[Kylearan]

Thanks KoP, that link to Kripp's video was nice, more balanced than most other Diablo influencers. Still a lot we cannot know yet, having no access to level 26+.

I managed to play D4 today until level 16 with a druid. Had more fun than expected . Combat feels fluid and nice. What I didn't realize even though it should have been obvious, there's of course no way to pause the game. That hurts, as there are times in the day where IÄm able to play but get interrupted sometimes.

What's also disappointing is that ranged classes have it easier compared to melee classes *again*, and maybe even more so than in D2 because of how the boss fights work. And of course having access to summons (wolves in this case) makes it considerably easier as well. I had secretly hoped they would somehow address this imbalance, even though I'm not sure how exactly.

Oh, and stair traps, again?!? Got swarmed when I _exited_ a dungeon.

But I think I'll buy the game nonetheless. I found it hard to stop playing, which is a good sign, and even if it will last only for one playthrough with each class, I'll get my money's worth. Maybe it helps that I have played D3 only for ~60 hours or so when it came out, so I'm not worn out on those mechanics that were supposedly carried over.

[KingOfPain]

What's also disappointing is that ranged classes have it easier compared to melee classes *again*, and maybe even more so than in D2 because of how the boss fights work. And of course having access to summons (wolves in this case) makes it considerably easier as well. I had secretly hoped they would somehow address this imbalance, even though I'm not sure how exactly.

General consensus across the tube is the range classes are OP BUT they are enjoying the slaughter. Typical mainstream mentality - Buff the Baba/melee instead of nerfing the range class. The game has been Ridiculously Easy otherwise. Wait til you see the Necro...

But then again, the difficulty might be just right, since we are Beta and only Veteran/Norm Diff, a good training ground. Still, it is easier then all its predecessors.

PS: Melee in Diablo will always do okay (if somewhat slower) when Leech becomes available. As long as they are hitting, they don't die.

My lvl 12 Necro at a World Event. Note that he really don't need to do anything and the skellies are strong and kill fast enough right when they became available. Never mind all the other skills, Corpse Explosion alone is free to cast nonstop with out mana requirement. Granted, that's not a lone-boss killing skill.



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[KingOfPain]

Warning: This build is not fully optimized and doesn't come with a shopping list
Summons, Blood Surge, Corpse Explosion and Bone Storm
As far as Veteran Difficulty goes, All you need is your summons, which are very sturdy and kill at a good clip.
Blood Surge does a good amount of damage (with other benefits), especially with Blood Bath Aspect which gives it another cast at 51% dmg. Only needed to quicken the pace, with boss fights.
Corpse Explosion has decent radius right from the get go. Casts with no Cool Down or Mana cost. Great to clear the screen of living monsters quickly.
Bone Storm - on the caster AND his Golem.




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[KingOfPain]

Diablo 4 Server Slam Event Starts May 12th Everyone Can Play

Everyone Can Play

[Sullla]

I spent this weekend trying the "server slam" for Diablo 4 (which was essentially a free demo trial run for the first part of the game). I came away feeling very impressed, much more than I was expecting. This was a "wait and see" game for me but it's been upgraded to a definite purchase afterwards. Some random thoughts in no particular order:

* The game is definitely closer to Diablo 3 than any of the previous games in the series. With that said, it appears to be much better designed than the train wreck that was D3 on release. Skill points are back again and open up a lot of interesting choices - no idea how balanced they are yet but I had nowhere near enough skill points to level more than a couple of skills at a time. The itemization looks to be a lot better too, preserving the good stuff from D3's expansion (rerolling individual ability modifiers, extracting the unique properties of legendary items) while ditching the idiocy of the real money auction house. Also +skills modifiers are back which should make for some fun stuff.

* The biggest change is that this is an open world game; some will hate it but I really enjoyed the change. Diablo 3 often felt like running down a beautifully-painted corridor with no freedom on where to go or choices to be made. D4 is the exact opposite, much more like an MMO with a main questline but then all kinds of other places to go and side quests to do. I was having a ton of fun just exploring the massive world map and filling in empty locations (and there are various rewards associated with doing via the "renown" system). To make a comparison to another gaming franchise, D3 was Zelda: Skyward Sword while D4 is Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

* I think my favorite change to the combat system is the reworking of potions. Diablo 3 had "a potion" key, use once and then go on cooldown for the next 30 seconds. Diablo 4 starts out with 4 potion charges (the number apparently can be increased over time via reknown) with no cooldown whatsoever on their usage. Using them feels much more like the old full belt fight from classic Diablo - I really enjoyed the strategy of thinking about when and how to use those charges.

* On a related note: most skills seem to have ditched the stupid cooldown timers from Diablo 3. Meteor and Fireball are limited only by how much mana the Sorcie has available to cast them, not various cooldowns. Again, this is a huge improvement over Diablo 3 and makes things much more flexible. (The passive skill system also looks vastly more interesting but I didn't get much of a chance to test that.)

* For what it's worth, the story seemed to be vastly superior to the embarrassing mess of Diablo 3. It was hard to take the previous game seriously with its villains who were evil for the sake of being evil and Azmodan twirling his villain mustache throughout Act Three. This game feels more grounded, a bit closer to the real world if that makes sense. I'm also curious to see where they go with Lilith who is an actual new character as opposed to Diablo hidden yet again in a human form.

Anyway, I'm sure that there are plenty of issues I'm not seeing yet because this was only the very beginning portion of the game. Still, I really enjoyed the open world + Diablo mashup and I suspect this game is going to be a big hit. I was kind of not expecting to enjoy this game because the posts in this thread were pretty negative and that was very much not my experience at all. Your mileage may vary.

[Tyrmith]

Sounds like skill points for the talent tree finish at level 50, 50-100 is paragon points, which sounds super customizable second tree ("paragon boards") that gives different minor bonuses per point, but you can rearrange the tree (litererally moving different plates around till you have a plan you like). So definitely sounds at least like they are trying to take the criticism of D3's skill system to heart, and plus apparently the choices you make are going to be very costly to change once your character gets higher leveled so people have to really put thought how they skill their character.

This article is helpful explaining the paragon board system:
https://www.wowhead.com/diablo-4/news/di...ned-332623

[Tyrmith]

Found a talent tree builder to look at the different talent trees: https://d4builds.gg/skill-trees/

They have a map as well which gives a good idea just how large and open world it is:

https://d4builds.gg/map/



red area is what was available in the open beta

[KingOfPain]

Nice, those would come in handy.

PS: I talked to my accountant, he said he might be able to help figure things out....

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[Dr.Disaster]

I've checked out the D4 cinematics and must say they don't tempt me to play the game. Moreover i seriously miss the namegiver of the game; Diablo makes no appearance and is not even mentioned once during the cinematics.

Therefore i have to ask: is Diablo mentioned at all during the game?

Perhaps the game shouod be renamed "Lilith" ...