I downloaded this game yesterday and played for a few hours, this game reminds me of Diablo 2 (D2), the dark and evil feeling, the map looks like D2 map, but especially the many different kinds of build that I can possibly try out, just look at the
skill tree, ahem, skill FOREST to exact.
I'm playing a summoner witch, now at level 9 and having fun so far, still thinking of how I'm going to play it out, there's just so many possibilities, I can choose between having more health or more energy shield because some items provide a boost to energy shield, and I'm thinking of whether to go full summoning or a balance between damage dealing and summons.
Then they have this skill gem system, instead of learning skills or getting it through level-ups, you get your skills through gems from drops or questing rewards, I'm not sure of other ways but I got a skill gem off a monster that I killed, and a couple more through questing. There's also support gems that modify your skills, so far I haven't gotten any yet, and there's also totems, I found a taunting totem but I can't use it yet because it requires 16 strength, I'm only at 14.
I like customization, I like playing with different kinds of build, I like my builds to be viable for the content if I spend enough effort to research, I don't like a single over-powered build that rules it all.
In D2, I remember playing a firewall sorceress, a hydra sorceress and a frozen orb sorceress, each build has its own kind of fun and play style. Then there's also a nova sorceress and some other exotic builds like meteor sorceress or even a melee sorceress, there's no single answer to the content, it's just a matter of how I want to play it.
But in Diablo 3 (D3), for a wizard, I think the only build people play with nowadays is the critical mass spam build, every other build seems to be mediocre, or even completely useless, especially at later part of the content, a wizard simply cannot survive without critical mass, very lame.
Just look at hydra, in D2, it's about kiting and it's possible with teleportation and running, but in D3, sorry no, it's all about gear if you want to play a hydra build because teleport has a cooldown and you can't run faster than most of the mobs, so you need really awesome gear to be able to take hits, then it's all about gear, so no matter how much effort you put into researching the ultimate hydra build, it's useless without awesome gear.
For D2 players, PoE is a must have, and it's free-to-play, even when it goes live. So go download it now, just
create an account and you should see the download link. I'm using a Starhub 50Mbps connection and it took me about 1.5 hours to download and install.
And to be fair to D3, yes, I had my share of fun for a while, I also earned 166.07 USD through the real money auction house, but still, it was a major disappointment, I had expected so much more, for me it's take the money and move on.
