Here is my beta feedback for my first beta character.
I tried a druid on the second world tier. Got them to level twenty. I wasn’t really tracking time but I think it took me maybe 6 hours.
I wanted to go with a storm druid concept, specifically lightning.
Storm strike was my basic skill. Doesn’t seem to do much dmg, but needed to build mana. Animation and sound was a bit lowkey but I quite enjoyed it when it chained many times.
My spender was lightning strike. I loved the sound and visuals. When you hold it down a while it strikes everywhere. quite fun. Damage wise, it was OK. I normally would wipe out a pack, including elites, spending 90% of my mana.
For defense I went with rock armor. I actually tried all of them. Cyclone armor was just worthless IMO. The werewolf heal was cool but 20% just wasn’t enough. The werebear howl was notable but testing made me decide the 50% shield rock armor gave me + immune to crown control is simply better in every way. Visually, rock armor is decent, sound as well.
I tried all the companions. I settled on vines. Wolves didn’t seem useful. When I activated them they would overshoot the target and then have to chase it down. Also didn’t notice the damage they did. Ravens were my first choice and while I liked using the active effect to block a choke point I found the immobilize from vines more useful with similar damage. Visually, I liked the active effect of vines quite a bit as well.
For the wrath skills I settled on hurricane. It synergized extremely well with vines and ended up being the bulk of my damage. Visually, it is underwhelming.
Towards the end of my gameplay a legendary gave me a point in all wrath skills and I tried out rabies. It was a useful addition to my vine+hurricane group clear. I also found it noticeably added damage against single targets, although nothing insane. Visual were obvious but nothing special. All in all I think it being obvious is important though.
I also took the passive nodes that gave me 30% faster mana gain. Since the generators do so little damage I felt these are necessary.
Roaming the world was fun. I’d get a pack of mods, fire off my abilities and clear the vast majority of them. Rinse and repeat. Quests are fine. Voice acting is top notch. I know we are in a single area, but towards the end of my playtime I was definitely ready for a change of scenery.
This brings me to bosses. The first boss I did was the one in Light’s Watch dungeon. I did this from level 8-10. Entered at 8, left level 10. The sub bosses in the dungeon were tough but I was able to take care of them with a bit of kiting. The final boss of the dungeon was different. It was faster than me, did tons of chip damage and once I got the the adds they would knock me down over and over.
I died over twenty times on that boss. Fighting this boss is when I tried all of the defensive skills. Started with cyclone armor (which is worthless IMO) and went through all of them. Settled on rock armor which is, IMO, the best one.
Fighting that boss as a new player took me from ejoying the beta quite a bit to feeling like maybe I just suck and wondering how long it is going to take me to get to 20.
My enjoyment while playing the game varied. 1-10 was alright. I remember feeling pretty good levels 7 and 8. After the dungeon I felt pretty bad. When I came up with my vine+hurricane combo things were better. From level 14-20 I felt like my ability to kill gradually was decreasing. Not a good feeling for an ARPG.
I tried a second dungeon around level 16. The first sub boss convinced me to leave and never try a dungeon again.
I also feel the need to comment about bosses sitting in death areas on the ground. This is stupid game design. As a melee character it feels really bad when I take twice as long to kill a boss simply because they are constantly sitting in death ground areas and I had to just twiddle my thumbs until they move so I can actually attack them. Since ranged characters don’t have this issue, it means ranged characters are just going to be better, period.
All in all, I found the new player experience as a druid to be poor. I felt underpowered. I don’t have any comparison with the other classes, since this is my first character, but from chat it seems druids have it rough compared to the other classes.
Finally a bit about myself. So Blizzard know where my feedback is coming from. I consider myself a somewhat casual ARPG enthusiast. I’ve played many ARPGs - D1, D2, D3, Titan’s Quest, Grim Dawn, Torchlight, POE. Last Epoch, Wolcen, and likely others I’m not thinking of. I’ve spent thousands of hours over the years playing ARPGs.
That said, I don’t like to start crunching numbers to min max characters. For example, while I’ve spent about 800 hours according to Steam in POE, I consider it overly complex and obtuse for the average player. Without following a build guide they will likely never reach maps, let alone experience endgame.
My favorite ARPGs are likely Titan’s Quest, D2, and D3. Last Epoch is looking good but it isn’t done yet so I’m withholding judgement.
OK, that is enough rambling from me. I hope someone from Blizzard reads this and that my feedback will be useful to someone.