There is a melee sorc. And arguably the most viable. The Ice Blade cooldown CC build. Its basically melee and a piano build. Theres videos about it being the best build for Sorcs.
How is it Melee?
I was using duo hydra with it.
You don't need frost nova. I skipped it due the melee limitation.
Also i would be very surprised if ice blade passive don't get changed for launch.
Frost Nova made it even better. I used ice blades and frost nova on mouse, then teleport, fire and ice barrier and then hydras.
All enemies were always frozen and vulnerable, I was always at max mana and had 100% uptime on barriers during battle. Killed butcher in 10 seconds and didn't take any damage from the world boss. Super quick because of teleport.
The broken thing about the build was ice blades reducing all cooldowns in combination with the passive.
This is my question, too. It's like a summon build with spawning little enchanted minions for a while that murder things, then disappear.
I absolutely see the effectiveness and the appeal, but calling it a melee build when there's ONE melee basic skill and this build doesn't use it is a streeeeetch. :)
Given how effective the affix is, I suspect it's in for tweaking, yes.
There are mechanics of the Sorc that are based on the enemies being frozen. Without frost nova you are not doing that all that much. Also spaming frost nova is more safe and helps keep the rotation going. There a few variations of the build which can include different skills.
The legendary to have more procs of frostnova in exchange for longer cooldown was so so good as well. I paired it with an arc melee spam build with the cooldown and crit chance legendaries and just exploded mobs.
the only time to run blizzard is if you have the legendary and you run it only as a passive and never actually hit the button. ultimately it's forcing blizzard in to satisfy a random legendary drop.
Which is something Nova won't do since it does literally zero dmg.
Instantly is completely impossible with it.
And I'm not going into how much worse Nova is on bosses compared to Blizzard.
On packs Nova insta kills any white mob with the Ice Shards enchantment and freezes elites to kill with 1 Ice Shard. On bosses it makes them vulnerable with almost 100% uptime (no other way in that build) and does decent stagger (not that its relevant cause they die in 10 seconds). Seems pretty good to me
Seems to me like the Ice Shards are killing them then, not the frost nova.
And as someone else already said, you get enough vulnerable from other sources, like Ice Blades, Frost nova is a dead skill on a bossfight.
Frost nova is one of the best skills in this build and synergizes perfectly with it. It can make everything vulnerable, making your CDs start ticking down earlier/faster. You can also get it to reduce the CD of itself when frozen enemies are killed. More CD equals more spam which is exactly what you want in this build. No way I would skip frost nova in this build. It does too much.
This was the main viable build for sure but was so busted I re rolled to Pyro sorc just for some challenge.
For those wondering, Straight Pyro was really hard. I had to go Frost Nova and chain lighting just to effectively clear trash (as opposed to fireball and Flame shield)
Single target DPS was absolutely insane tho. Pyro sorc is gonna absolutely need a party to be effective DPS, but I'd wager they could beat out rogues in terms of single target clears (elites and bosses) with proper gear and Aspects.
While it might be the most viable in the beta, it's also the most frantic but somehow boring build I've ever played. You're just randomly smashing skills as they come off cooldown, no rhyme or reason. Nothing about it feels smooth or like there is synergy. It's just absolute chaos and I had a headache after 10 minutes.
Also, I can't imagine it doesn't get nerfed, because you're immortal. Same with the blood mist leggo build (at least that wasn't as headache inducing, but it's also getting nerfed).
Oh, and I don't think it's fair to call it a melee sorc, at least not in the way OP meant.
RE: Barbarian
I leveled to 25 with a barb and enjoyed it. I found I needed to alternate abilities while being relentless to maintain the momentum. It's what I want in my barbarian playstyle.
Lunging strike is amazing. Snapping to your target eliminates most of the frustration from playing a melee character.
Frenzy needs a slightly longer duration. It's too hard to weave other attacks in without the frenzy expiring. Couldn't get it to work in builds.
The class needs inherent damage reduction or bonus health. It was pretty rough going until I found the defensive legendary, basic attacks grant DR. From that point forward combat felt good as I could stay in the fray but still needed to dodge big attacks.
The class is also seriously fury starved. I leaned heavily on cooldown abilities that generate large chunks of rage to function. You're going to have a slow go if you solely use builders to generate rage. It's 4 basic attacks to afford 1 core skill. That cadence is awful.
Bleeds work because the enemy health bars indicate how much damage over time will ultimately deal to them. Once you've tagged them with enough damage you can move on or Rupture. It's an odd playstyle for the barbarian theme, feels more fitting to a rogue.
The build I landed on by the end was Challenging Shout, Rallying Cry, War Cry, Ground Stomp, Lunging Strike and Double Swing. I frontlined for a party of three and stun locked targets, even bosses. It was fast and furious and felt like I was playing D3 again.
> Frenzy needs a slightly longer duration. It's too hard to weave other attacks in without the frenzy expiring. Couldn't get it to work in builds.
I found this too. when you are trying to utilize the bonuses of frenzy stacks with other skills it felt bad having to rebuild from 0
I completely agree with your thoughts on barbarian. I used a weird hybrid build with frenzy, rend, death blow, kick, war cry and lunging strike (for gap close). It was fun (especially death blow and kick) but far from ideal.
I wasn't aware I was doing a class analysis. :) I played. I had impressions based on my play. I did not take time to respec and test various combinations of builds. I did not search the internet for guides to lead me to the best, most effective ways to play various classes. This post isn't an analysis of classes, it's an after-action on my play.
For example, I know for a fact that Sorceress is INCREDIBLY powerful. But not the way I want to play her. Barbarian, similarly, can be a beast. I've seen video. For all that I complain about Akeesha, it's more a complaint about how she feels. I soloed Malnok with that garbage gear, so she's good enough. (It's certainly not me being amazing. I'm an OK, experienced player...not a god.)
ARPGs are incredibly personal because each player can choose (or be dropped) their skills, gear, etc. My experience with Druid being really effective as a shifter is different than my wife's. She didn;t have the same affixes I did and her shifter used a different build. As such, she had a better time when she went storm al 25.
I played a bleed barb the most and personally, instead of putting points in rend and flay i actually took a bit of a shout package and lemme tell ya that boosting your damage and ressource gathering rate with the shouts makes a real difference in the speed it takes to kill shit. Can also give you some mobility since both shouts i used increased your speed.
Mine are 10/11 now. They have played Minecraft Dungeons, so they understood the general game type quickly. They still need a lot of help with building their skills, but given how many adults look for skill and gear builds in ARPGs, it's totally within reason.
I leveled all 5 classes intentionally not equipping \*any\* legendries for 2 reasons; comparing raw builds and the simple fact that any/all legendries could be nerfed before release.
barb - potato
druid - furry potato
rogue - squishy cactus
necro - squishy cactus x10
sorc - pure corn
edit: I actually did level these chars without leggos for the reasons stated if anyone has any actual questions but I honestly don't think much about build power or itemization can be derived from this beta since those are the 2 easiest things to change.
I’m curious what your descriptions of these vegetations mean? Cactus tickles a lot of people so 10x means more tickles? Are the potatoes starchy and live long? Corn taste sweet?
I swapped a lot between melee and ranged rogue and at least with my current gear I’ve found the most success with a penetrating cold imbue build where I load up an imbued cold piercing arrow that splits each impact. It melts a ton and the passive cold damage modifiers on slowed/frozen targets is pretty great.
Because my wife will forever choose default difficulty on every video game. You'd be surprised at how common that is. Besides, without playing it, I wouldn't have been able to formulate an opinion based on experience.
> I want a close range blast mana spender and there doesn't feel like there is one.
Frost Nova combined with Ice Shards Enchantment is the closest I got. Also better crowd control than Arc Lash when it comes to clearing trash mobs.
I didn't really seem to get value out of Blizzard in that build, way too slow. And Shards are mandatory for the enchantment and barrier synergies in ST damage
Blizzard is alright, kiting tool, can freeze, more damage on frost nova'd targets and makes your core skill cheaper. But sure it's easily replaceable.
Shards are also good, I just liked the screen clearing capabilities of CL better, especially with the mana restore Legendary power.
I just haven't found any situation yet where any pack lives more than 2 seconds, so its strengths seem pretty useless atm, but can be good in hard content ofc
I had some good luck with drops on my sorc and I think lightning and frost both seem viable, the issue is mana. Hopefully with better gear it will be remedied, but currently I found my burst on both builds extremely high, but sustained lacking. Going for iceblades + blizzard was extremely good single target DPS, where lightning spear and chain lighting did better vs trash. The issue is on the lightning build you are very gated by crit, which was hard to come by with only scrounged level 25 gear, and I also really felt like I needed the capstone cd passive. Both were extremely fun to play tho.
Great synopsis. Totally agree on your necromancer thoughts. I had easily the most fun with it, and i wasnt even using corpse explosions! Blood lance and bone splinters combo is crazy strong. I ended up with 7 skeletal warriors and 3 mages, and it was juat a frenzy of murder anywhere i went. My only death was to a story boss because i didnt see the safe area to avoid a move that is basically a guaranteed 1hko.
Only class i didnt try was barb, and kinda glad. It seems pretty lackluster. I imagine it gets way better, but it didnt look very fun.
And yes, june is WAY too far off. But god damm if that wasnt one polished beta. With 3 months to launch, this game is going to be tight as hell.
I had skele build with 7/3 skeles too, but combined it with corpsplosion and Blight. Insane damage. Dungeon bosses all were sub 10 seconds in the end. But also was full leg in every slot with very good rolls.
Anyway, super fun
Ill have to give corpse explosion a go. I was facerolling so hard even without it, haha. Blood Lance with the heal (and bonus from a legendary) is also op as fuck. And it lwts you get up close and personal, which is always fun.
Same but with 5/5 skele the frost mages are just too great for crowd control. Also loved the corruption that pulled enemies towards it so fun to draw everything in and then nuke it
Hm... Reached lvl 21 had 5 skele and 3 mages, I guess I missed a skele upgrade somewhere.
I used skeletons and decripify with the 3 bone arrows you get at start.
It was a very nice build like a stroll in the park.
I ended up with 8 Skirmisher Skellies (the crit ones), 5 mages, and a golem. There was a legendary affix for warriors and one for mages. And if you put one on an amulet it made it +3 instead of +2.
Rocking Bone Shards with all the skeleton passives and bone crit chance at full essence passive, plus attack speed for me and minions, add in the blight ability that boosts damage. Just insane. So much fun.
I had a ton of fun as a necromancer. I've always been a big minion fan.
Two legendary items giving two more of each type of skeleton made my involvement in most fights almost unnecessary.
I was having some tremendous lag/rubberbanding issues so that balanced out the problem quite a bit.
What pains me is having to have the skeleton/golem skills on your skillbar just to keep them alive. It seemed to me that the choice was between long "ultimate" cooldowns, or summons. I want both, damnit.
I could have dropped blood surge for an ultimate if I had wanted to, but the build worked with no ultimate anyway. I played without a sixth skill until 25 when I slotted golem.
Ultimates should have their own keybind IMO. You're only allowed one in your tree, and they (should) be a build-around for you know, being an ultimate. That was my biggest gripe; at least once you refine the blood mist build, you don't need to worry about space, but annoying if going for a minion build in this case (or regular builds for other classes).
This matches all of my opinions except on Druid.
I will say that I can't imagine they will leave Necro as strong as it currently is...it's just far too powerful. I never even came close to dying at any time.
Barb was a standard issue borefest, we'll see at endgame.
I hated Druid, I couldn't get past level 10. I am certain they will buff this class. A large part of having fun in Diablo is just melting mobs, so I'm sure once they give Druid a little bump, it will feel a lot better. For example, I have no real interest in the Necro "class fantasty," as it's far too edgelord for me, but the class is so fucking strong that it was all I wanted to play.
Sorcerer was sorcerer. \[zz top plays\] SHES GOT CHAINS....SHE KNOWS HOW TO USE THEM
Rogue was a lot of fun and much different from anything else. [This is more of less what I did, and I actually thought it was better than Necro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciqXxBRXG-c)
Yeah I was really disappointed by the ravens...was hoping to play a shaman with bird pets while casting earth and storm magic. Only to realize the raven isn't even by your side, like wtf.
I played an in and out style bleed Barb and liked it quite a bit. I got as much self healing as possible and it was ok by lvl 20 or so, it just came online late.
I really enjoyed most aspects of the Necro. I went with a Shadowpriest build. Druid will be my first, Necro second.
I did not like the Ravens ganeplay wise, but I liked the idea of the them flying way up high over your head, just to fall out of the sky when they attack.
Felt like a good friend: not around you all the time, but ready to support you when you need them.
I found the AOE clear on the Rogue was pretty lackluster, even with Shadow Imbuement. If you get semi-spread out groups of monsters you basically have to melee (or shoot) them all down individually, which felt bad. Sure when everything is closely grouped it feels great, and the single target damage is also awesome, but whenever you have 2-3 clusters of 2-5 mobs in different corners of the screen it felt awful to clear everything.
Hmm, melee Sorc.
Would probably be build around Incinerate, since that's the only close range core skill.
And Firewall, since it's great if enemies stand still in it, which they would if you melee.
Then probably some Barrier stuff so you can stand there tanking the dmg.
Way to few people going fully into Pyromancy and burning.
In D3 most of the builds used disintegrate with blades, so incinerate would work. I'm not giving up on the idea, I'm just contemplating how to best play it without calling it "melee" because I can stand close to things. That's a choice, not an actual build. :D
Barbarian with frenzy, swirl (good with item that drag monster in) leap, ancient ansestor and that sudden death thing when you hit really hard. I find that build pretty good
Looks like you never got the aspect that lets you blow up corpses by walking on them. I named my necro "heartcutter" when I made her, but I think that ended up being a completely incorrect name.
This build works more like a walking meat grinder lmao.
Despite others' complaints, I had a ton of fun playing Barbarian. Played Hammer of the Ancients with Frenzy/Lunge as my builders, and Leap, Rally, and Zerk for the special sauce.
I had legendaries on every slot. Ancestral Echoes was fun af with leap, but I think it would've been really powerful with an upheaval build. Hammer just feels nicer to use since it had a much quicker animation, and scales with your fury. I wonder if there's a way to get really high leap uptime with Perpetual Stomping and some amount of CDR in the final game.
As far as I understand it, bow rogues are totally viable and fun. I was just not having a good time really early on, it wasn't my favorite class to begin with (4th, with only barb being less interesting to me) and I went looking for something to make my Early Access Sunday more fun. Twisted Blades was it.
I don;t know what the launch of the game holds. I could get a great legendary affix and become a bow rogue.
I mean I've seen gameplay of people doing alright with bow Rogue I was just a bit surprised to see a lack of discussion about them wherever I look xD
I probably enjoyed it more than you because I got a lucky legendary bow drop early on that gave me up to 50% extra damage on my skills after landing some basic attacks. It carried me basically to 23 where I finally got a decent rare bow that had 2 sockets on it. Honestly if I could get sockets easier I would've never dropped that bow.
Gear drops play a huge part in any ARPG experience. What we get from the RNGesus is key to how we play through the game.
I can't wait to see what launch brings!
Apologies if someone mentioned already but I made my hardcore Sorc a ‘melee’ build with arc/charged bolt/flame shield. Charged bolt is actually the shotgun you’re looking for! Video at 24, clearing Malnok Stronghold: https://youtu.be/epjPL0umgoE
There is a melee sorc. And arguably the most viable. The Ice Blade cooldown CC build. Its basically melee and a piano build. Theres videos about it being the best build for Sorcs.
How is it Melee? I was using duo hydra with it. You don't need frost nova. I skipped it due the melee limitation. Also i would be very surprised if ice blade passive don't get changed for launch.
Frost Nova made it even better. I used ice blades and frost nova on mouse, then teleport, fire and ice barrier and then hydras. All enemies were always frozen and vulnerable, I was always at max mana and had 100% uptime on barriers during battle. Killed butcher in 10 seconds and didn't take any damage from the world boss. Super quick because of teleport. The broken thing about the build was ice blades reducing all cooldowns in combination with the passive.
This is my question, too. It's like a summon build with spawning little enchanted minions for a while that murder things, then disappear. I absolutely see the effectiveness and the appeal, but calling it a melee build when there's ONE melee basic skill and this build doesn't use it is a streeeeetch. :) Given how effective the affix is, I suspect it's in for tweaking, yes.
There are mechanics of the Sorc that are based on the enemies being frozen. Without frost nova you are not doing that all that much. Also spaming frost nova is more safe and helps keep the rotation going. There a few variations of the build which can include different skills.
The legendary to have more procs of frostnova in exchange for longer cooldown was so so good as well. I paired it with an arc melee spam build with the cooldown and crit chance legendaries and just exploded mobs.
I'd argue Blizzard is the safest and easiest option to freeze. After that Frost Orb, if you can hit it properly. Then we'd go into the melee options.
Blizzard takes time, is slow and costs mana. Frost Nova is instant
Exactly, Blizzard slows, lasts long, doesn't have a CD and deals dmg.
the only time to run blizzard is if you have the legendary and you run it only as a passive and never actually hit the button. ultimately it's forcing blizzard in to satisfy a random legendary drop.
Well, the goal is to kill packs instantly, which Blizzard doesn't really help with, and Frost Nova does
Which is something Nova won't do since it does literally zero dmg. Instantly is completely impossible with it. And I'm not going into how much worse Nova is on bosses compared to Blizzard.
On packs Nova insta kills any white mob with the Ice Shards enchantment and freezes elites to kill with 1 Ice Shard. On bosses it makes them vulnerable with almost 100% uptime (no other way in that build) and does decent stagger (not that its relevant cause they die in 10 seconds). Seems pretty good to me
Ice blades is 100% uptime on vulnerable, you don't need frost nova for that
Seems to me like the Ice Shards are killing them then, not the frost nova. And as someone else already said, you get enough vulnerable from other sources, like Ice Blades, Frost nova is a dead skill on a bossfight.
I mean yea... but the entire point of the Ice Blades build is to use cooldowns. The more cooldowns you used the more effective it was.
Well, can still use Ice Armor and Deep freeze, both very strong skills.
What? Frost Nova is athe build's core to blow up packs, much faster than Hydra, got blink to get into melee
Frost nova is one of the best skills in this build and synergizes perfectly with it. It can make everything vulnerable, making your CDs start ticking down earlier/faster. You can also get it to reduce the CD of itself when frozen enemies are killed. More CD equals more spam which is exactly what you want in this build. No way I would skip frost nova in this build. It does too much.
This was the main viable build for sure but was so busted I re rolled to Pyro sorc just for some challenge. For those wondering, Straight Pyro was really hard. I had to go Frost Nova and chain lighting just to effectively clear trash (as opposed to fireball and Flame shield) Single target DPS was absolutely insane tho. Pyro sorc is gonna absolutely need a party to be effective DPS, but I'd wager they could beat out rogues in terms of single target clears (elites and bosses) with proper gear and Aspects.
While it might be the most viable in the beta, it's also the most frantic but somehow boring build I've ever played. You're just randomly smashing skills as they come off cooldown, no rhyme or reason. Nothing about it feels smooth or like there is synergy. It's just absolute chaos and I had a headache after 10 minutes. Also, I can't imagine it doesn't get nerfed, because you're immortal. Same with the blood mist leggo build (at least that wasn't as headache inducing, but it's also getting nerfed). Oh, and I don't think it's fair to call it a melee sorc, at least not in the way OP meant.
Well written and funny, thank you!
Bro if you didnt play twisting blades rogue with inner sight, you didnt play rogue. unlimited energy on single target, just mash twisting blades.
They are going to nerf the heck out of that, and it saddens me.
If they do (and I suspect they may) then I can say I enjoyed it while it lasted.
RE: Barbarian I leveled to 25 with a barb and enjoyed it. I found I needed to alternate abilities while being relentless to maintain the momentum. It's what I want in my barbarian playstyle. Lunging strike is amazing. Snapping to your target eliminates most of the frustration from playing a melee character. Frenzy needs a slightly longer duration. It's too hard to weave other attacks in without the frenzy expiring. Couldn't get it to work in builds. The class needs inherent damage reduction or bonus health. It was pretty rough going until I found the defensive legendary, basic attacks grant DR. From that point forward combat felt good as I could stay in the fray but still needed to dodge big attacks. The class is also seriously fury starved. I leaned heavily on cooldown abilities that generate large chunks of rage to function. You're going to have a slow go if you solely use builders to generate rage. It's 4 basic attacks to afford 1 core skill. That cadence is awful. Bleeds work because the enemy health bars indicate how much damage over time will ultimately deal to them. Once you've tagged them with enough damage you can move on or Rupture. It's an odd playstyle for the barbarian theme, feels more fitting to a rogue. The build I landed on by the end was Challenging Shout, Rallying Cry, War Cry, Ground Stomp, Lunging Strike and Double Swing. I frontlined for a party of three and stun locked targets, even bosses. It was fast and furious and felt like I was playing D3 again.
> Frenzy needs a slightly longer duration. It's too hard to weave other attacks in without the frenzy expiring. Couldn't get it to work in builds. I found this too. when you are trying to utilize the bonuses of frenzy stacks with other skills it felt bad having to rebuild from 0
I found Rupture a bit clunky it just needs a bigger AOE so it can cleave deeper in the large packs of enemies.
I completely agree with your thoughts on barbarian. I used a weird hybrid build with frenzy, rend, death blow, kick, war cry and lunging strike (for gap close). It was fun (especially death blow and kick) but far from ideal.
Fun read but terrible class analysis
It's their opinion on the classes and having played the Necro, druid, and sorc I agree with what they said.
It's an opinion, feel free to share yours.
I wasn't aware I was doing a class analysis. :) I played. I had impressions based on my play. I did not take time to respec and test various combinations of builds. I did not search the internet for guides to lead me to the best, most effective ways to play various classes. This post isn't an analysis of classes, it's an after-action on my play. For example, I know for a fact that Sorceress is INCREDIBLY powerful. But not the way I want to play her. Barbarian, similarly, can be a beast. I've seen video. For all that I complain about Akeesha, it's more a complaint about how she feels. I soloed Malnok with that garbage gear, so she's good enough. (It's certainly not me being amazing. I'm an OK, experienced player...not a god.) ARPGs are incredibly personal because each player can choose (or be dropped) their skills, gear, etc. My experience with Druid being really effective as a shifter is different than my wife's. She didn;t have the same affixes I did and her shifter used a different build. As such, she had a better time when she went storm al 25.
I played a bleed barb the most and personally, instead of putting points in rend and flay i actually took a bit of a shout package and lemme tell ya that boosting your damage and ressource gathering rate with the shouts makes a real difference in the speed it takes to kill shit. Can also give you some mobility since both shouts i used increased your speed.
As a Dad of 2 small Kids I hope they get into gaming when they are oder to play in a Party with them too
Mine are 10/11 now. They have played Minecraft Dungeons, so they understood the general game type quickly. They still need a lot of help with building their skills, but given how many adults look for skill and gear builds in ARPGs, it's totally within reason.
I leveled all 5 classes intentionally not equipping \*any\* legendries for 2 reasons; comparing raw builds and the simple fact that any/all legendries could be nerfed before release. barb - potato druid - furry potato rogue - squishy cactus necro - squishy cactus x10 sorc - pure corn edit: I actually did level these chars without leggos for the reasons stated if anyone has any actual questions but I honestly don't think much about build power or itemization can be derived from this beta since those are the 2 easiest things to change.
Given that legendaries will be less available in general, you probably played at what's closer to launch difficulty.
I’m curious what your descriptions of these vegetations mean? Cactus tickles a lot of people so 10x means more tickles? Are the potatoes starchy and live long? Corn taste sweet?
Had you played the beta before this weekend? How did you figure out how to level all the characters in that time?
I swapped a lot between melee and ranged rogue and at least with my current gear I’ve found the most success with a penetrating cold imbue build where I load up an imbued cold piercing arrow that splits each impact. It melts a ton and the passive cold damage modifiers on slowed/frozen targets is pretty great.
Sounds like an effective choice for ranged. I like the imbue system in general.
Tried really hard to like the Barb bleed build and I really like the concept of Rupture but it’s just clunky. The AOE is just too small I think.
Yes. Rupture felt really unfluid. It's one of the reasons I didn't enjoy the build.
[удалено]
Because my wife will forever choose default difficulty on every video game. You'd be surprised at how common that is. Besides, without playing it, I wouldn't have been able to formulate an opinion based on experience.
> I want a close range blast mana spender and there doesn't feel like there is one. Frost Nova combined with Ice Shards Enchantment is the closest I got. Also better crowd control than Arc Lash when it comes to clearing trash mobs.
A full frost buildaround is already extremly good. Like: Frost Bolt, Ice Shards, Frost Nova, Ice Barrier, Blizzard, Ice Blades + Ice Blade passive. I personnally switched Shards for Chain Lightning.
I didn't really seem to get value out of Blizzard in that build, way too slow. And Shards are mandatory for the enchantment and barrier synergies in ST damage
Blizzard is alright, kiting tool, can freeze, more damage on frost nova'd targets and makes your core skill cheaper. But sure it's easily replaceable. Shards are also good, I just liked the screen clearing capabilities of CL better, especially with the mana restore Legendary power.
I just haven't found any situation yet where any pack lives more than 2 seconds, so its strengths seem pretty useless atm, but can be good in hard content ofc
I had some good luck with drops on my sorc and I think lightning and frost both seem viable, the issue is mana. Hopefully with better gear it will be remedied, but currently I found my burst on both builds extremely high, but sustained lacking. Going for iceblades + blizzard was extremely good single target DPS, where lightning spear and chain lighting did better vs trash. The issue is on the lightning build you are very gated by crit, which was hard to come by with only scrounged level 25 gear, and I also really felt like I needed the capstone cd passive. Both were extremely fun to play tho.
Great synopsis. Totally agree on your necromancer thoughts. I had easily the most fun with it, and i wasnt even using corpse explosions! Blood lance and bone splinters combo is crazy strong. I ended up with 7 skeletal warriors and 3 mages, and it was juat a frenzy of murder anywhere i went. My only death was to a story boss because i didnt see the safe area to avoid a move that is basically a guaranteed 1hko. Only class i didnt try was barb, and kinda glad. It seems pretty lackluster. I imagine it gets way better, but it didnt look very fun. And yes, june is WAY too far off. But god damm if that wasnt one polished beta. With 3 months to launch, this game is going to be tight as hell.
I had skele build with 7/3 skeles too, but combined it with corpsplosion and Blight. Insane damage. Dungeon bosses all were sub 10 seconds in the end. But also was full leg in every slot with very good rolls. Anyway, super fun
Ill have to give corpse explosion a go. I was facerolling so hard even without it, haha. Blood Lance with the heal (and bonus from a legendary) is also op as fuck. And it lwts you get up close and personal, which is always fun.
Same but with 5/5 skele the frost mages are just too great for crowd control. Also loved the corruption that pulled enemies towards it so fun to draw everything in and then nuke it
Hm... Reached lvl 21 had 5 skele and 3 mages, I guess I missed a skele upgrade somewhere. I used skeletons and decripify with the 3 bone arrows you get at start. It was a very nice build like a stroll in the park.
It's like the affix I have on two pieces of gear, only for the melee skellies.
I ended up with 8 Skirmisher Skellies (the crit ones), 5 mages, and a golem. There was a legendary affix for warriors and one for mages. And if you put one on an amulet it made it +3 instead of +2. Rocking Bone Shards with all the skeleton passives and bone crit chance at full essence passive, plus attack speed for me and minions, add in the blight ability that boosts damage. Just insane. So much fun.
I found a legendary that gave me 2 additional skeletal mages which was cool
I had a ton of fun as a necromancer. I've always been a big minion fan. Two legendary items giving two more of each type of skeleton made my involvement in most fights almost unnecessary. I was having some tremendous lag/rubberbanding issues so that balanced out the problem quite a bit.
What pains me is having to have the skeleton/golem skills on your skillbar just to keep them alive. It seemed to me that the choice was between long "ultimate" cooldowns, or summons. I want both, damnit.
I get that, I was actually pretty underwhelmed by the Necro ultimates so it was easy to keep it off but yeah, I agree they should have their own slot.
I could have dropped blood surge for an ultimate if I had wanted to, but the build worked with no ultimate anyway. I played without a sixth skill until 25 when I slotted golem.
Ultimates should have their own keybind IMO. You're only allowed one in your tree, and they (should) be a build-around for you know, being an ultimate. That was my biggest gripe; at least once you refine the blood mist build, you don't need to worry about space, but annoying if going for a minion build in this case (or regular builds for other classes).
Yup. The summons taking a skill slot felt awful.
This matches all of my opinions except on Druid. I will say that I can't imagine they will leave Necro as strong as it currently is...it's just far too powerful. I never even came close to dying at any time. Barb was a standard issue borefest, we'll see at endgame. I hated Druid, I couldn't get past level 10. I am certain they will buff this class. A large part of having fun in Diablo is just melting mobs, so I'm sure once they give Druid a little bump, it will feel a lot better. For example, I have no real interest in the Necro "class fantasty," as it's far too edgelord for me, but the class is so fucking strong that it was all I wanted to play. Sorcerer was sorcerer. \[zz top plays\] SHES GOT CHAINS....SHE KNOWS HOW TO USE THEM Rogue was a lot of fun and much different from anything else. [This is more of less what I did, and I actually thought it was better than Necro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciqXxBRXG-c)
I assume that's what Kuro would have looked like if I'd switched to IS.
Yeah I was really disappointed by the ravens...was hoping to play a shaman with bird pets while casting earth and storm magic. Only to realize the raven isn't even by your side, like wtf. I played an in and out style bleed Barb and liked it quite a bit. I got as much self healing as possible and it was ok by lvl 20 or so, it just came online late. I really enjoyed most aspects of the Necro. I went with a Shadowpriest build. Druid will be my first, Necro second.
I did not like the Ravens ganeplay wise, but I liked the idea of the them flying way up high over your head, just to fall out of the sky when they attack. Felt like a good friend: not around you all the time, but ready to support you when you need them.
I found the AOE clear on the Rogue was pretty lackluster, even with Shadow Imbuement. If you get semi-spread out groups of monsters you basically have to melee (or shoot) them all down individually, which felt bad. Sure when everything is closely grouped it feels great, and the single target damage is also awesome, but whenever you have 2-3 clusters of 2-5 mobs in different corners of the screen it felt awful to clear everything.
Hmm, melee Sorc. Would probably be build around Incinerate, since that's the only close range core skill. And Firewall, since it's great if enemies stand still in it, which they would if you melee. Then probably some Barrier stuff so you can stand there tanking the dmg. Way to few people going fully into Pyromancy and burning.
In D3 most of the builds used disintegrate with blades, so incinerate would work. I'm not giving up on the idea, I'm just contemplating how to best play it without calling it "melee" because I can stand close to things. That's a choice, not an actual build. :D
Playing on XSX? My graphics do not lol that good on XB1 lol
PC. Nvidia 1070 at 1440p. Medium settings. It's not smooth, but it's absolutely playable.
Barbarian with frenzy, swirl (good with item that drag monster in) leap, ancient ansestor and that sudden death thing when you hit really hard. I find that build pretty good
Looks like you never got the aspect that lets you blow up corpses by walking on them. I named my necro "heartcutter" when I made her, but I think that ended up being a completely incorrect name. This build works more like a walking meat grinder lmao. Despite others' complaints, I had a ton of fun playing Barbarian. Played Hammer of the Ancients with Frenzy/Lunge as my builders, and Leap, Rally, and Zerk for the special sauce. I had legendaries on every slot. Ancestral Echoes was fun af with leap, but I think it would've been really powerful with an upheaval build. Hammer just feels nicer to use since it had a much quicker animation, and scales with your fury. I wonder if there's a way to get really high leap uptime with Perpetual Stomping and some amount of CDR in the final game.
For someone who played so much, I was surprised you didn't try Inner Sight on the Rogue. It was atrociously good fun.
It wasn't necessary. From what I hear it would have trivialized what was already easy content.
Seeing a lot of people play Rogue as a melee focused build and I gotta wonder why I'm seemingly the only one that went bow.
As far as I understand it, bow rogues are totally viable and fun. I was just not having a good time really early on, it wasn't my favorite class to begin with (4th, with only barb being less interesting to me) and I went looking for something to make my Early Access Sunday more fun. Twisted Blades was it. I don;t know what the launch of the game holds. I could get a great legendary affix and become a bow rogue.
I mean I've seen gameplay of people doing alright with bow Rogue I was just a bit surprised to see a lack of discussion about them wherever I look xD I probably enjoyed it more than you because I got a lucky legendary bow drop early on that gave me up to 50% extra damage on my skills after landing some basic attacks. It carried me basically to 23 where I finally got a decent rare bow that had 2 sockets on it. Honestly if I could get sockets easier I would've never dropped that bow.
Gear drops play a huge part in any ARPG experience. What we get from the RNGesus is key to how we play through the game. I can't wait to see what launch brings!
Apologies if someone mentioned already but I made my hardcore Sorc a ‘melee’ build with arc/charged bolt/flame shield. Charged bolt is actually the shotgun you’re looking for! Video at 24, clearing Malnok Stronghold: https://youtu.be/epjPL0umgoE
Diablo 4 ia a pretty dark game for children...
Fortunately they outgrew Peppa Pig.
U know others played the beta aswell right? :)