Diablo 3 Closed Beta Hands-On: Part 2
In this installment we cover the Wizard and Demon Hunter classes.
In this installment, I’m going to focus on two classes: the Wizard (arcane, elemental magic) and the Demon Hunter (ranged). Both are actually excellent for ranged attacks, yet they don’t really show their true potential until around level 6 to 8. And out of the two, I’m not exactly sure which one I like better, as they both offer a unique approach to taking down a horde of enemies. If anything, the Demon Hunter seems to be a bit more "explosive" than his magic-based comrade.As seen on the official website, characters feature slots for six active spells and three passive spells. At the time of this writing, my level 9 Wizard only has three active spell slots unlocked -- the other three won’t be available until levels 12, 18 and 24. The first active spell slot won’t be available until the Wizard hits level 10; the other two will unlock at levels 20 and 30.
For this character, I am using Arcane Orb, Magic Missile and Spectral Blade. The latter spell is tied to the Wizard’s 1-handed sword -- a Legendary Sword called Griswold’s Edge -- and creates a cloud of energy slashes each time the character swings his sword. Magic Missile is the secondary ranged “weapon” in this case, and is used by right-clicking the mouse. Arcane Orb is assigned to the “1” key although it can be used by clicking its icon and then choosing a destination.The three skills I have armed and ready aren’t the only available abilities in the Wizard’s arsenal. In the Rapid Cast set, he’s unlocked Shock Pulse and Electrocute, a popular duo that I see a lot of other Magicians use. In the Offensive department, the Wizard has unlocked Wave of Force, and in the Utility section, he’s unlocked Frost Nova, Ice Armor, Magic Weapon and Diamond Skin. That said, there are still 15 spells to unlock, the last of which is Archon and level 29.
In the case of this Wizard, his primary hacking attack is the sword/Spectral Blade duo with Magic Missile set as the secondary, ranged attack. Using Arcane Orb as the non-immediate spell probably doesn’t make sense -- assigning the “1” key to Ice Armor is a more logical setup as it doesn’t require any kind of aiming. Regardless, he makes for a powerful opponent in hairy situations, and when compared to the Demon Hunter, seems a bit easier to manage in regards to leveling up quickly without suffering numerous deaths.On a side note, one of the aspects about Diablo 3 I’ve found to be a little disappointing thus far is the inability to update the character’s stats. There aren’t any points to distribute between the four attributes; they are what they are, and the only customization to be had is the path of the character’s skill tree. That said, my level 9 Wizard has an Attack of 26, a Precision of 32, a Defense of 20 and a Vitality of 21 which automatically increases as the character levels up. The character’s basic attack is 12.47 points of damage per second.
For some reason, the Demon Hunter was a bit harder to level up -- or rather, I found that this class died more frequently than the Wizard. That may be due to to his initial skills compared to the magic user, or it could merely be the current combination of weapons and skills. Nevertheless, this one is best suited using ranged weapons, traps and explosives, attacking enemies from a good distance.Still hovering at level 8, my Demon Hunter uses the Light Crossbow of Slaying as his primary weapon. He’s actually capable of carrying a crossbow in each hand, but I decided to leave the other hand open for using the Entangling Shot ability which is bound to the crossbow. This in itself is an incredibly effective, incredibly satisfying weapon combination. But by itself, the Entangling Shot releases a spear-like projectile that encumbers the target with ethereal chains while dishing out a percentage of weapon damage.
As a secondary attack, my Demon Hunter tosses out three grenades. Combined with the crossbow/Entangling Shot combo, a group of zombies can be eliminated quickly by pitching the explosives into the crowd of rotten flesh -- the remaining stragglers can be taken out a few at a time with the crossbow/Entangling Shot combo. Out of all the Active skills, the Demon Hunter has only unlocked nine including the Offensive skills Hungering Arrow, Evasive Fire, Fan of Knives, Bola Shot, and the Discipline skills of Caltrops, Vault, and Marked for Death. For the skill that’s assigned to the "1" key, I really haven’t decided on an ability that feels "right," although Fan of Knives will likely be the skill of choice simply because it doesn’t require aiming, but is an explosion of knives emanating from the character when triggered.
As reported earlier, the Demon Hunter uses a dual-resource system: Hatred and Discipline. The mana globe is actually divided in two, and specific abilities will draw their power from one of the halves, depending on their nature. Hatred is colored red and defines the offensive skills. Discipline is colored blue and defines the defensive maneuvers and some traps. Essentially this means that in the brief moment where there’s no energy for Entangling Shot, the character can still Vault away from the encounter until the Hatred energy refills.If anything, the Demon Hunter proves to be the more interesting, more challenging character of the two classes I’ve played thus far. The Magician looks and sounds extremely heroic, and less of an actual robed magic user.. at least, so far. The Demon Hunter is a bit more gruff, and his arsenal feels a bit more unique -- or rather, less RPG-ish -- than the other character. I’m looking forward to the later levels where the Demon Hunter can summon a enemy-pecking raven and set up a mechanical turret that fires arrows. Interesting indeed.
In the next hands-on installment I'll cover the Barbarian and the Monk, so stay tuned.
If you missed it: Diablo 3 Closed Beta Hands-On: Part 1
23
Comments
Read more
- Blizzard,
- Diablo-3 ,
- Action-RPG ,
- Wizard ,
- Demon-Hunter ,
- PC-Gaming
RAGE Requires 25GB of HDD, 3 Discs for Xbox 360
- Thermaltake's Chaser MK-I LCS Case with Liquid Cooling
- AMD Announces E6460 Embedded Discrete GPU
- New Toshiba USB 3.0 Drives Come with Cloud Storage
- AMD's Piledriver-based 'Trinity' to Arrive in Q1 2012
- Deals Sept 26: 50% off Panasonic 1080p Camcorders
- Nvidia Releases Beta Drivers for Battlefield 3 Beta
- SW:TOR Gets Firm Release Date, Subscription Pricing
- Windows 8 to Use Multi-Cores for Shutdown, Startup
- Bethesda Loses Again In Fight Against Fallout MMOG
OWC Introduces Fast, Cheap 275MB/s SSD for $68
- AMD Releases Battlefield 3-Ready Beta Radeon Drivers
- Deals Sept 27: Unlocked Samsung Galaxy S II $539 FS
- Valve Wants to Pull Players Off CS 1.6 with CS: GO
- VIDEO: Angry Birds Promoting Chrome Browser
- New 32nm Atoms Surface on Intel's Website
- Apple Wants to Get Rid of Motherboard Cables
- Deals Sept 28: 11.6" Dell Alienware m11x Coupon Code
- Battlefield 3 Beta and Battlelog: First Impressions
- Akitio Launches $150 Aluminum USB 3.0 HDD Enclosure
C'mon Tourchlight 2!
C'mon Diablo 3... No Tourchlight 2 for me.
"The first ACTIVE spell slot won’t be available until the Wizard hits level 10"
u ment pasive ,loving the demon hunter alltho everyting sugests hes gona be underpowered
"At the time of this writing, my level 9 Wizard only has three active spell slots unlocked -- the other three won’t be available until levels 12, 18 and 24. The first active spell slot won’t be available until the Wizard hits level 10; the other two will unlock at levels 20 and 30."
Shouldn't the second sentence start with "The first passive spell....?" Not to be picky, it's just disruptive to smooth reading.
~ Nicodemus
That UI looks very close to WoWs'. Maybe it's just a first impression thing... But good job Blizz on keeping the dark feeling to the original Diablo.
And seems like you're a long way from really getting the class'es true feeling. Blizzard's style of doing things lately (using WoW as a denominator) is that only when you're really high or at top lvl, is when the class is really fun to play because of the wide variety of skills at your disposal.
Cheers!
Release date please!!!
That UI looks very close to WoWs'. Maybe it's just a first impression thing... But good job Blizz on keeping the dark feeling to the original Diablo.And seems like you're a long way from really getting the class'es true feeling. Blizzard's style of doing things lately (using WoW as a denominator) is that only when you're really high or at top lvl, is when the class is really fun to play because of the wide variety of skills at your disposal.Cheers!
You mean, WOW's UI looked a lot like Diablo 2. =o)
im really disappointed there was no necromancer class in diablo 3, unless the witch doctor gets some of those raise em up skills i havent seen yet
What's the point of leveling up if you cant choose where you want to allocate your attribute points or choose spells you want to max out or focus on??? I am bewildered! WTF is auto leveling and who needs it? D3 is going to look like Dungeon Siege 3 where you have no control of your own choices, they are taken away from you... I hope they will fix this!
im really disappointed there was no necromancer class in diablo 3, unless the witch doctor gets some of those raise em up skills i havent seen yet
The Witch Doctor can raise minions and create a wall of zombies. The zombie wall can attack enemies that are near it. Unlike the Necromancer in D2, where he could only create a bone wall.
What's the point of leveling up if you cant choose where you want to allocate your attribute points or choose spells you want to max out or focus on??? I am bewildered! WTF is auto leveling and who needs it? D3 is going to look like Dungeon Siege 3 where you have no control of your own choices, they are taken away from you... I hope they will fix this!
You're right. Let's bring stats back so we can go back to:
Strength: Min. Required for gear
Dexterity: Min. Required for gear
Vitality: MAX
Mana: NOTHING
Gee, look at the wide range of choices D2 had.
Bad graphics.
You're right. Let's bring stats back so we can go back to:Strength: Min. Required for gearDexterity: Min. Required for gearVitality: MAXMana: NOTHINGGee, look at the wide range of choices D2 had.
No, you will play how they want you too, not how you want..
Found This Site WIth All Character Skills and Runestone Effects For Each Skill. http://www.diablo3skills.net/
Bad graphics.
As far as I know, he is still playing it on non-gaming laptop with old drivers (see part one) and for that graphics are quite good.
No, you will play how they want you too, not how you want..
I know you say that in jest, but I wouldn't be surprised if Bobby Kotick actually believed that.
you can equip 2 crossbows, reap benefits of 2 sets of affixes, and still use a skill on each mouse button...
no wonder he's dying on DH so often.
Time to update this site and use lightbox for your images. Hate when you click on an image and it takes to to a totally separate page just to view the image bigger.
Gotta hand it to Blizzard to crank out 2003 graphics in 2012. Nine-year time-warps are all the rage these days!
But what's rather more comical is how hard they struggle to make a decent RPG at all. It's like they've never heard of TSR or Warhammer, and even more humorous how "original" they act about their rip-offs.
you can equip 2 crossbows, reap benefits of 2 sets of affixes, and still use a skill on each mouse button...no wonder he's dying on DH so often.
Have to agree here. DH to level 7 last night was pretty faceroll. Only the faster moving stuff even required me to move from a set spot. But then again I was using dual hand crossbows as designed...lol.
I also see a lot of comments on the graphics as well. Diablo 3 won't be cutting edge in this department. However, those that played the SC2 beta know how much the graphics got ramped up over the course of the beta and even more into the release. They aren't beta testing art, they are beta testing core functionality right now.
This game looks like a modern version of Gauntlet Legends.
Say no more to full customization and say hello to arcade gaming
Looking at the screenshots it looks like he is using a 2-handed cross bow which does allow you to use a quiver in the off hand but it is only a small bonus (+3 disciple or hatred, can't remember which, was the only quiver I had available to buy). Personally, I ended up settling on Evasive Fire, Bola Shot and Caltrops as my abilities. It seems to work well as a combo. When stuff is getting close I hit Caltrops (1) and then hit Evasive Fire which back-flips me away from the mob(s) giving me room to work and leaves them snared. I prefer Bola Shot to grenades because it seems much easier to control and aim altho it doesn't have quite the spread that the grenades do as an ae attack. Bola shot is on 2 and it you use the hotkey to activate the ability it aims just like if you were using right or left mouse click to activate it so I don't see any need to limit the hotkeys to non-targeted abilities and only use right/left mouse clicks for targeted abilities. It's not like you need to use the numpad to move or anything else.
I haven't quite finished the beta but that's more because I spent some extra time redoing some of the random dungeons and had to stop playing a couple of times. It was nice to find a random little quest in one of the random dungeons. Came across a ghost complaining about how her bones had been stolen. Had to click on 3 jars which spawned a rare difficulty mob and some waves of skellies. After doing that three times I just had to go click on her casket. Whole thing was within a screens distance or so of where I started the quest. So far I really like it and I'm sure I'll end up playing through it as at least a couple of the classes just because it goes by so quickly.