My Diablo III first impressions

[EncodedNybble]

So, I'm only level 28 or so, but I can stay this the only thing I like about D2 (which I loved!!! I played for almost a decade) better than D3 is the fact that it had the necromancer in it. I guess that and you got to see more animations. That is all.

Sure there is less reason to "roll a new character" since you can change skills on the fly, thus making the only reason to roll new character is to have two different sets of items. Sure, a weapon swap/skill swap would be good, but that's not a major complaint. I *ABSOLUTELY LOVE* the fact that skill damage is based on weapon damage. This makes any character class just as good as another (more or less) at MF/GF. No longer is MFing purely a sorc/pally thing, horray!

The lack of stat points is a little :-/ but, pretty much the only stat distribution in D2 was str, dex = as much as you need for gear. The rest into vitality. Only exception were if you wanted max block (more dex) or were an energy shield sorc (more energy). Plus, now you sorta customize your stats via your gear. Your gear gives much more stats than it used to.

Uniques (now legendary) also have 1 completely random affix on it, allowing for potentially even more uber stuff. So far I'm loving it and I'm not even out of normal.

I *LIKE* having 6 skills to select from instead of 2. I *LIKE* not having skill points with a skill tree as it makes skills of all levels more viable. Anyone remember D2 pre 1.10? Save all skill points until level 24/30 and start pumping into the one-2 skills you will ever use in the game. That made anything up to 24/30 a joke as you never wanted to "waste" skill points in shitty skills. You got friends to help you or just prayed your normal attack was enough.

Another thing to note, this is the first patch. Anyone remember D2 1.01 (after the day 0 patch)? That's right, very few exceptional items, NO elite items. No unique exceptional or elite items. A lot of the skills were jacked (lightning mastery reduced mana consumption!). A lot of content and balance changes were added via patches and expansions, expect the same.