Diablo III

[Random Wanderer]

It felt like they took a long time for one expansion if they're planning another, but maybe I've gotten used to DLC release rates, and forgotten how long it takes for expansions to come out. They do seem to have done a good job of fitting the crusader into the game as if it was a character class that had been there the whole time, with individual dialogue and comments and the like at all the appropriate times when other characters have them, and different dialogue from other people sometimes, depending on what the crusader says.

[Rising Dragon]

I don't have RoS yet, but as far as the characters go I don't care. I wanted a knight-type melee class that wasn't black, and RoS delivered. I'm happy.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Rising Dragon

I don't have RoS yet, but as far as the characters go I don't care. I wanted a knight-type melee class that wasn't black, and RoS delivered. I'm happy.

In most games it is nearly impossible to see the skin colour or indeed, any other kind of genetic features, after you give them full body armour. So I am not sure how it matters.

[Random Wanderer]

Remember folks, in order to actually see if the two-handed weapon (that the crusader can use in one hand with a passive skill) is better than your one-hander, you need to actually select the passive skill in question, otherwise the comparison will be for you wielding it in two hands, and you won't see the bonuses from your shield. It may sound obvious, but I was thinking "oh, I'll switch to that passive when I find a two-hander that's actually worth using" without bothering to actually think it through any further than that, so of course all the two-handers looked worse than my one-handers.

[Birdway]

I'm pissed I couldn't get my revenge on Adria.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

Yeah, the Crusader is pretty awesome. So damn tanky, I love the hell out of Falling Sword though, my god. I have the most stun happy build though. Slash 25% chance to stun glyph, Sweep Attack 50% chance to stun glyph, Falling Sword 100% chance to stun glyph, Shield Glare aoe blind... Lastly, Consecrate... incase I do actually get hit and need a heal.

Originally Posted by Birdway

I'm pissed I couldn't get my revenge on Adria.

Er, you do?

[Jazzrat]

I got a slow 2hander + shield setup currently going at Torment I with my crusader. It's pretty much a breeze right now but going forward into higher torment level i can see it hit a wall since amount blocked doesn't scale at all and doesn't work on a lot of ground based AoE.

I'm using
Punish + Roar for AoE dmg on block
Blessed Shield + Divine Aegis to get a bit more armor and life regen

Condemn + Eternal Retaliation = free 1160% dmg that can potentially have zero CD if i can hit 15 target
Judgement + Resolved = +80% crit chance and immobilize to help keep my target near me for condemn
Falling Sword + Rapid Descent = i can initiate quickly and gtfo earlier if thing goes south
Law of Justice + Bravery = resist aura + CC break on activate

Trait wise i got
Heavenly Strength for 2h +shield
Renewal for heal on block
Hold your ground for 15% block
Divine Fortress for +% armor based on block

The idea behind this build is to utilize the higher dmg of 2h instead of dps and bypass the speed issue with abilities that isn't affected by my weapon speed or wrath generation.

Basically I just wade into the enemies and watch them kill themselves on my block. 1 v 1 is really slow but that's not a problem since the most dangerous time is during the start when there's a group of elites tossing tons of special abilities at me and blocking my escape path.

[Mahou]

My Crusader is still very young and in Act 1, but I've found myself happy with mostly Punish and Sweep Attack. The side effect of Punish keeps me unharmed most of the time and Sweep Attack clears the path against enemy groups. Shield Glare from time to time, but stuff like Taunt and Iron Skin? For solo play rather unnecessary on Normal. I admit, though, that Blessed Hammer is also very nice and its memory of D2's Hammerdin . For some reason, Malthael was somehow easier on my Monk than on my Wizard (both on Normal) and I can't recall that there was a major sheet DPS gap between them (as both had around 100k).

[Random Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Mahou

My Crusader is still very young and in Act 1, but I've found myself happy with mostly Punish and Sweep Attack. The side effect of Punish keeps me unharmed most of the time and Sweep Attack clears the path against enemy groups. Shield Glare from time to time, but stuff like Taunt and Iron Skin? For solo play rather unnecessary on Normal.

You'll find (or I found) Iron Skin to be more useful as time goes on. Works well in combination with Condemn+Vaccuum rune, for instance, but also helps in certain mobs and certain boss fights. Just a useful all around tool for a tank to have. Of course, I've stopped using Punish in favor of the group damage effect of Slash, so maybe the difference is significant.

[King Lycan]

I just started playing this weekend a friend from my Guild in GW2 got me a code . So far I love it I'm playing Wizard and its awesome currently at lvl 24 and I just spent all my money leveling up my blacksmith. Hopefully this game will keep me occupied till DS2 for PC gets released. I also will be buying the expansion pack on Friday, so let me get some names so I can play with some of you guys :3 .

[Skane]

Finally decided to give the game another try, and I got to say... the Crusader is mighty fine. An actual tanking character.

The much improved loot helps too... doesn't feel like I'm grinding for scraps any more. The absence of the AH also makes it much more easy-going, without having to constantly worry about grinding out enough gold to buy better gear.

Also, shield throwing is awesome. I fully expect to see all manner of "Steve Rogers" in public games.

Cheers.

[Flying Dagger]

I am tempted to try RoS, since I have heard a lot of good things about it.

Although my ARPG mood has more or less been oversaturated after the paragon grind in D3 and then recently starting Path of Exile... I wouldn't even have touched that PoE a few others I know started the game.

Even with that, somewhere in my mind that I refuse to acknowledge... RoS is calling out to me... I probably at the very least want to try the crusader and do the new Act to find out more about the story (which as I have read isnt all too satisfying).

le sigh.

[Ithekro]

Is it "Lord of Destruction" level improvements though?

[Jazzrat]

I'm not a hardcore diablo 2 player but i have played PoE and Torchlight 2. Here's what i think about the features in the expansion.

Crusader class
Plays like a paladin from D2 and WoW. There's a lot of option in play variety with skill and rune set that lets you specialize in melee or range and a lot of focus in AoE dmg. I leveled with a range spec and now i m up to torment 3 using a melee tanking spec. It does need some balancing to bring on par with all other classes but it does have a unique play style that's fresh to play with.

Adventure Mode
This mode flags 5 quest in each act for you to complete and gives you Rift fragment and blood shards when you finish each set in the specific act. It encourages player to move around more instead of just farming a specific zone. Blood shards are just currency for you to gamble for more items ( ala Gheed in D2 but not using gold) while Rift fragment opens up a randomized dungeon for you to tackle.

Nephalem Rift dungeons is built with all the different tileset and with randomized monsters and a random boss mob at the end of it. To spawn the boss, you need to kill enough monsters in the Rift.

Loot 2.0 Don't need RoS to access
No more AH, better unique drop rate, smart loot that tailor drops for your class better. Just good stuff all around that addresses the probably weakest part of the game.

Mystic crafter
This crafter allows you to change the looks of your gear and reroll a single stat in your gear. This made a lot of drops very useful because you can just change the junk stats to something you want with it.

Act V
The tile set is great with a variety of gloomy city, dark swamp and derelict angelic fortress. While the bosses isn't spectacular like Belial, they are decent and Maltheal was a pretty interesting fight. Story-wise is kinda weak but then again, other than Diablo 2, very few ARPG had good stories. Cutscene wise though is disappointing especially at the end. They went with the art book style cutscene all around and while it's a nice aesthetic, it's never as exciting as the CG that Blizzard games are well known for.

[Sugetsu]

Diablo 3 finally looks very promising and I would love to buy it, but come on... how greedy can blizzard get? Demanding freaking 80 dollars for the game plus expansion is just... oh well...

Maybe one day the complete game will retail for $40 or so... one can only hope.

[Random Wanderer]

Finished act V. Well... that was a pretty blatant setup for a followup expansion pack.

Spoiler:

Although really, I've killed Diablo 3 times by now. The fact that he's loose again doesn't really scare me. They'll have to come up with something more intimidating than the boss that we slaughtered before we leveled up in this expansion.

It had been months since I played, and compared to what I remembered the Crusader felt really powerful. Able to both dish it out and take it better than any character I'd made before. Although patches since the last time I played may have made other classes more powerful than they used to be, and the improvements to the loot system definitely help. Now that I've won with my Crusader I may have to test out my other kids, although since my old characters were made before the changes to the difficulty settings they may be underleveled to take into Act V.

[kiak666]

Originally Posted by Random Wanderer

Finished act V. Well... that was a pretty blatant setup for a followup expansion pack.

Spoiler:

Although really, I've killed Diablo 3 times by now. The fact that he's loose again doesn't really scare me. They'll have to come up with something more intimidating than the boss that we slaughtered before we leveled up in this expansion.

It had been months since I played, and compared to what I remembered the Crusader felt really powerful. Able to both dish it out and take it better than any character I'd made before. Although patches since the last time I played may have made other classes more powerful than they used to be, and the improvements to the loot system definitely help. Now that I've won with my Crusader I may have to test out my other kids, although since my old characters were made before the changes to the difficulty settings they may be underleveled to take into Act V.

Spoiler for Possible Future Expansion:

Well I can definitely see a corrupted Nephalem as the next big threat, seeing how they keep emphasizing that a Nephalem is stronger than both Angels and Demons.

[Jazzrat]

Neighbourhood had an electrical fire on a power pole and thought just add a few more bits of what I played so far since I'm stuck in the dark.

Spoiler:

Continuation wise for the story, I think we will probably see more on Nephalem, Inarius and Lilith for next expansion. Last part of the dungeon had a bunch of lore scroll on them for no reason. As for Diablo, he's the bowser to your mario at this point. I doubt Blizzard can kill him off for good. It's just not profitable to kill the character your franchise is named after.

As for crusader, the lack of innate 30% dmg reduction is starting to rear it's ugly head for me especially with a melee heavy built in torment 3. While I can still survive it, I had to sacrifice dps stat to do it. Also Indomitable Fortress trait only takes your shield block chance when calculating armor bonuses which sucks when I have half of my total block chance from trait and punish buff.

Until Blizzard take another balancing pass on crusader, it's probably easier to use a range setup if you plan to go far in torment mode. Also, you can add me ingame as #1197 Jazzrat on the US server though I mostly play on Asian timezone.

[Random Wanderer]

Hmm... they've upgraded the wizard's Ray of Frost since I last played one. It's actually a valid offensive power now.

As I suspected, the patches that have gone in since I last played have reworked the characters enough that it's better to start over from the beginning and learn how things work now than to try to work with an old character who was built on old rules.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

Hmm Jazz, big difference between T2 and T3? I was doing T2 last night without much issue, but I do tend to play a bit more defensively.