Here’s a link to my feedback from the last weekend: Diablo 4 Beta Feedback - The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
I’ll be keeping it in the same format, but not repeating content. Since we only had 2 additional classes to try out this time, I’ll be focusing my feedback on those classes and any new experiences I had with them. Of course, for background, I was able to get both classes to level 20, but I personally had less time to play and thus only tried 1 build each. Naturally, this review will be shorter since I already did my more “generic” review last weekend.
The Good
-The druid was about the same pace as the rogue in my experience, which is the pace that I most enjoyed. Admittedly, I did level and keep her as a pure werewolf, which may have added to this, but I was expecting some struggles with this build based on the massive influx of complaining about shapeshifter balancing in the forums. To my surprise (not sure why it was a surprise really, it’s the forums…), I didn’t struggle at all and I didn’t really have an amazing weapon.
-The survivability of the necro and the druid were on point, for me anyway. I didn’t die with either of them, and I only came close one time each (because I was tired and being dumb). Getting hit on my necro was pretty chunky and most mobs clocked me pretty good, if they could get past my skeletons. Likewise, the werewolf felt like when my rogue would get hit, but she healed pretty well from my skills and crits so it even kind of felt like my rogue in that way too.
-The necro summons setup is actually pretty sweet. If you’re making a summoner, put the summons on your skill bar (yeah I know, that can suck to take up 3 skills just to do your summons, plus you probably took army, so that’s all of them). If you aren’t making a summoner, take the extra bonuses from sacrificing them. A win/win for necros!
The Bad
-We couldn’t get to the druid class perks. I’m putting this in The Bad because, let’s be honest, if you’re going to put the class in, we should be able to test this as well. That’s fine if you don’t want to allow us to do the quest since it is technically in an area that we can’t get to, but at least put it in there for us to utilize. Just good advice for future betas.
-The necro summons were so up and down in terms of power. They were extremely overpowered at the beginning of the game, then leveled out near the “later levels”, and at the last boss of the main quest-line they were basically useless. This could be easily solved in a couple of ways: 1. Make a “go here” command for summons that you can bind. 2. Make the summons smarter (avoid ground damage places, get behind shields, etc.). 3. Make the summons take less AoE damage (this would be VERY tricky to get right and you would have to fine tune it for PvP). I’m sure other solutions exist, but those are just some I came up with. I hope they stay viable throughout the rest of the levels though.
The Ugly
-Alright guys, I know this is beta, but come on… Who did this? On my summoner necro, I was able to start buffing my skeleton mages at level 12 in my skill tree. “What the problem is?” you ask? Why am I buffing a skill I CAN’T EVEN LEARN YET! Someone explain the lore of that to me. Mastering a spell you can’t even practice yet? I was honestly a little blown away by that one. I was so confused when I looked down my skill tree and saw that. It’s just… Ugly design. I hit the skill tree in Ugly last review, but I had to call out this specific instance. It’s not that the skill tree looks bad, but the skill node alignments are just terribly placed.
-Should I say anything about the character models for druid and necro female? No? People already rode that horse until it died, shot it 14 times with a 6.5 Creedmoor, then buried it, raised it from the dead and fed it to a dog? Okay cool, I won’t… I lied, I will. Necro male and female look exactly the same, I honestly had to look at the facial presets to find the bearded one to figure out which one was which. Druid male and female definitely need some model work. Custom body changing sliders might be good for all the classes. I honestly loved the looks of the other classes. Like female rogue, perfect. She’s female, I can tell by her female qualities, but she isn’t DDD cups with a thin piece of fabric for her “chest armor”.
Things I Didn’t Categorize
-I’m not sure if this is a bug or not, but I went with the brutal vine creeper on my werewolf, and when I AoE strangle things, then swipe away, my attacks don’t seem to crit all that more often. No idea if it’s just because I’m unlucky or if it’s a glitch. Or maybe that’s not actually how that skill works. I don’t know, I just work here.
-Not a lot on the side of necro summoner legendaries right now that I could see. I might be wrong, which is okay (actually I kind of hope I am). If you don’t have any more in line or planned for, I would definitely work on that.
TL;DR
Another great beta weekend! Werewolf druid was fun and decently balanced, summoner necro was very volatile with it’s balancing. Dumb strong early, kinda meh late. Cool summoner system though, but why could I buff skeleton mages before I even got them? Couldn’t get the druid boons so that’s pretty butt, I mean at least give them to us without the quest. Necro female, and both druid models are kinda yikes. Body sliders for the classes would help everyone be happy. Overall good experience for sure!