Thoughts After 4 Hours As Barbarian

PC General Discussion
1

EDIT (2023-03-19): I ended up overcoming the difficulty issue at WT2, but I ultimately needed better gear. In comparison, I started a sorc today and it's almost boring how easy everything is.

EDIT (2023-03-25): The recent changes to delay the decay of Fury has given the barbarian more attack power when moving from mob to mob. Noticed this while heading to the Ashvana 3PM EST attempt.

So after playing for about 4 hours as the Barbarian in World Tier 2 reaching level 12, my general impression is the game has some fair balance but it isn’t perfect.

Where it fell short was running the Forbidden City. I ended up giving up on completing it as I couldn’t do (and take) enough damage to really make any decent progress. I spent more time running away from the boss’s range attacks (since they hit very hard) and focusing down the adds than really hitting the boss. After dying about 5-6 times to this boss, one attempt almost getting to the final third health, I just said screw it and figured my gear was trash.

I’m getting large amounts of rubber-banding and it is usually at inconvenient times (large fights).

I never really understood the part of the opening cutscene where you go to check on your dead horse and then quietly walk away as your torch burns out with enemies around that then cuts to the next day when you find a cave to rest.

The cutscene where you watch the people lynch the priest was also too focused on showing the priest getting murdered. Almost to a Mortal Kombat level of gore-focus to the point that it loses its impact and just gets boring to watch. I get it, the community kicked and screamed for a more gory/horror themed game, but I’m not sure about this execution.

Enemy archtypes are an interesting addition, but other than adding some variety they’re not really all that special. The small ones deal light damage and the largest ones stun or cause vulnerability. Obviously, focus down the easier to kill enemies and then just dodge the larger ones.

I’m not a fan of the inclusion of phone-game elements being implemented in this game. There are over 20 crafting materials, 3 types of currency, and your gear is upgradeable. The blacksmith upgrades aren’t very helpful early game as you can find better gear (unless you are just having a bad day with the RNG).

10 Likes
2

The melee in this game is the same as “Undecember” experience. Guess only range dps have far better times clearing. There should be much Higher defense stats for melees.

7 Likes
3

Or higher health. I checked around level 10 and I only had 120 health. Using a tier 2 health potion is overkill at level 10 as it instantly gave back 40% + another 35% over 8 seconds for a total of 75% of my max health.

1 Like
4

I like the game being hard. Back in Diablo 1, you would die like 20x against the Butcher. Then later version of the game if you aren’t one shotting 100 mobs at a time, you’re left wanting. Hopefully this game returns to the Diablo 1 difficulty.

13 Likes
5

I’m not complaining about the game being hard, but I definitely feel as though melee is lackluster. The game scales to your difficulty so I would assume a reasonably geared person at level 10 (I had about 2-3 rare items) should be able to kill the boss without having to get into a 10+ minute fight.

5 Likes
6

Did you make any potions? Increased Def and Thorns damage may help

7

At the time, no. Didn’t have any money cause I spent it all on upgrading gear before I realized that it’s largely a waste since I replaced both of the items I upgraded about 20 minutes after leaving town…

1 Like
8

Are you playing on the first difficulty level? Adventurer? Or Veteran? On my barb adventures, though I only got to level 5 before being kicked and stuck in the queue… and then at the end of the queue, saying my login timed and having to REENTER the queue…

Anyway on Adventurer it seems pretty easy. I wanted to switch to Veteran actually to see how it felt but was worried it would kick me and I’d be in a queue again.

I find dancing around and dodging around the big attacks allows me to use pots and get the new pots that drop fairly well to avoid damage enough to kill bosses.

Also I just LOVE that you gain an exp boost just by being near someone else and not even needing to group.

And finally, a really love the writing and asthetic of this one, Lilith is also very interesting so far and I hope we can side with her but of course I doubt it >.>

9

Veteran (World Tier II).

The game was largely a cake walk until I got near level 10 and then things started picking up with larger enemy packs.

2 Likes
10

Played 5 hours as barbarian, reached lvl 16 and refunded. I have no intention to play a Diablo MMO which is looking and playing worse than both D:I and D3.

8 Likes
11

Oh, interesting! I look forward to that… if I can get on again I’m going Vet for sure to test it out.

1 Like
12

You definitely have to watch out with character positioning after you get to the first town.

13

Just like Undecember, I hope they don’t screw up Melee like this during the launch. In that game it became harder and much worse to play Melee after tier 3-5. I can see Diablo 4 doing the same mistake! Like 3-4 swipes from boss and you dead. One of the Werewolf lvl 9 boss is quite annoying with the bleed. I had shield and warcry still useless along with life steal.

1 Like
14

I have played a Barb to 20 and a Sorc to 10. Sorc is BY FAR easier to play. All the mechanics in this game punish melee but do nothing to stop ranged. It is pretty bad.

5 Likes
15

The developers discuss how damage mitigation in the game works and it’s largely armor and resistances doing the work. So even if your health pool is doubled at low levels available in the beta it won’t make much of a difference. Armor, resistances, and the Fortify aspect will make the biggest difference. Do you have the Fortify aspect on your gear? If you’re playing tier 2 difficulty without this, you’re likely going to get hurt a lot as a melee class. If it’s still really rippy with fortify, I hope they consider further dmg mitigation for melee

1 Like
16

Thanks for confirming the feelings I was getting. Wasn’t sure if it was a “I’m just bad” or if the balance isn’t quite right.

1 Like
17

no i put all dmg mitigations still bad! just whirl/bleed and pummel lifesteal for offense. Im speaking from lvl 10 anyways

18

I love the difficulty. Diablo 3 was painfully easy. I had it on like the fourth tier or something, and it was a breeze. In this one, you actually have to be careful and consider your gear and skills. I really enjoy it.

3 Likes
19

I noticed that. I took a stab at the Forbidden City around lvl8 (nearly got myself killed a few times) as a Rogue so I didn’t get to the end- decided I needed better gear to take the FC on. :wink:

20

go try undecember, diablo 4 will be the same for melee players xD If they dont fix this!