Why I'm not going to buy Reaper of Souls

So, as always, Blizzard is top notch when it comes to the art and animation of their games.  The crusader looks good, the moves look awesome and as always, the character model and moves are very well done.  I really enjoyed seeing their creative process when it came to polishing the character and the upcoming zones in Reaper of Souls.

When the panel switched to talking about "Loot 2.0" is where I started to really be disappointed.

Diablo III - Reaper of Souls - Initial thoughts...

So much to my surprise, Blizzard announced the new expansion for Diablo III last week at Gamescom.  Its called Reaper of Souls.  

D3 - Legacy Nats vs New Nats - The Evolution of Demon Hunter Playstyles.

So, in the past, I had convinced myself that the Legacy Natalya's set items were not worth the gold, compared to the updated versions.  Now that 1.05 has been released, and the increase in shadow power duration, I must say that I was wrong about this.  But I'd like to write out the thought process as to why in the past, it was not as appealing.

When I was first looking at these two Natalya's set items, I was relatively low paragon level, and I was not geared as well.  So my mindset at the time was, "I need more stats to be better", which at the time made sense.  I need to deal more damage, and the only way to do it is to have more stats in general, more dexterity, more crit chance, more crit damage and better weapons.

Diablo III 1.05 Patch - 2 weeks in

So its been a couple weeks since the latest Diablo Patch has come out, and having spent a decent amount of time within the various monster power levels, here are my thoughts on the latest changes & additions.

Updates to Existing Events.

So a few patches ago, they disabled the effect that a player's magic find stat had on chests, so 99% of the time, the big glowing chest was just a huge sign of disappointment for the players.  In this latest patch, they took a step back, and now a player's magic find stat does have an affect on what comes out of the chest, plus it becomes affected when a player has five nephalim valor stacks.  Another nice thing that Blizzard has added is that these chests count as a valor stack, so if you have three, opening the chest will give you the fourth stack.  If you are at five stack, it will reset the countdown timer.

In addition to the changes to the resplendent chests, the random side events have also been reworked with a similar mechanic.  Completing these side quests will now grant a valor stack, and they now all end with a unique monster.  I am unsure if the valor stacks affect the quality of drops from these unique monsters, but from what I have experienced, its been a mixed bag of a bunch of blue items, to getting a legendary item from another.

Diablo 3 - 1.04 patch preview thoughts

So the developers at Blizzard just released more details of what the next patch to Diablo 3 will include.  This time around, there's a new mechanic added to the game, as well as some wholesale changes to many things that are already in the game.  Here are some of my thoughts about the changes. 

Diablo 3 - some thoughts, tips and tricks after 60-ish days

So, its been just a bit over two months since the games release, and so far I've gotten three of the give classes to Level 60.  So here's a quick update on what I've been doing in the game.

I started out with a Barbarian, but once I hit 60, and tried to play a bit of Act 1 Inferno.  I quickly realized that I was not geared enough for that level, but instead of grinding it out, I decided to switch to a ranged character.  So I decided on switching to a Wizard, since at the time, we didn't have a high level wizard in the group.

Trying to get to level 60 on your first character is the hardest by far.  The nice thing with Diablo 3 is now your chest stash is shared, along with your gold.  So on your second character, you should have a decent amount of gold, which will allow you to buy items to keep up your gear.  Playing the game naturally (i.e. without dipping into the auction house or have friends give you gear along the way) means that you'll never really have gear that is the same level as your character till you reach far into Inferno difficulty.  As a result, I was able to get my wizard to 60 relatively quick.  Also, I began to use a ruby in the helmet more to get the percentage bonus for experience points to further speed up this process.  It also helped that as I played, I tried to keep decent items that I found on the way that I figure would be useful for other classes.  This and a couple visits to the auction house really helps speed the game up.

Diablo 3 - review

So, I figure I would hold off on this review till I had a decent amount of time into the game. 

  

It has been a number of years since I have played any Diablo games.  It has been so long since I clicked endlessly for hours, killing monsters and creatures of the forces of evil.  I pre-ordered and pre-loaded the first day that Blizzard starting taking pre-orders.  Was the wait worth it?  After (and still) playing the game for quite a bit, I say yes, totally worth it.  Blizzard, once again, does not disappoint.

One thing I remember back with the previous games was my lack of interest of playing through the game multiple times.  I did not "get" the whole loot collecting aspect of the game, mostly because I played on my own, so I was never exposed to "better" items, and thus, never looked into how to get them.  I do remember trying out a second play through in Diablo 2, but didn't like how everything was significantly harder.  I was young, and did not truly appreciate it in that way.  But thanks to games like Borderlands, I've gotten the loot bug.  So that is why I've been lagging a bit on my blog and YouTube work.