Champion Profile #2 The Wizard

If you are looking for a Champion to pack one hell of a punch you might want to take a look at the Wizard.

 
In Diablo 3 the Wizard is the most similar to the Sorceress in Diablo 2. In my personal experience I always tried to master this type of class because they are fast, very powerfull, and I could get to(teleport) bosses and get the best loot.

The changes that have been made to this class would be the disappearance of the mana and the emergence of the Arcane Power Globe.

The character is able to attack continuously, but is not that strong and cannot sustain a lot of damage. Instability attempted, unsuccessfully, to create this by making her "more blasty and more vulnerable." Jay Wilson talked about this when discussing the new design of the Wizard in October 2009.

Jay Wilson: "Well for the Wizard we want to enforce the fact that she’s a glass cannon. I don’t think it’s fun to ever run out of mana. I’m not really interested in an extended resource for her. For the Witch Doctor we’re okay with mana, since he’s got some pretty good skills to recover mana that also double as attacks. And he’s not defenseless when he’s out of mana. He's got pets and ways to attack with them that aren’t mana intensive. For him that makes mana fairly interesting."
"For the wizard, when she’s out of mana she just dies. And that’s not fun. So if anything, we want to encourage how she plays. So she’s the kind of character that blasts first and asks questions later. Very vulnerable. So we want to implement a system that makes her more blasty, but even more vulnerable. We want to make that a choice for the player. "Do I want to make myself more vulnerable in exchange for being more blasty." And that’s a cool gameplay pull there."

Arcane Power is in a nutshell a resource that enables the wizard to be able to cast his/her low skills. However you will need to be selective on using the higher skills as they will require more Arcane Power.

The most important thing for building a Wizard will be developing skills.

The Active skills have Signature Spells that are free to cast but do lower damage than non-signature skills.


This will be the first character that I am planning on mastering. I love the power that this class brings as well as the mobility. Look for my progress to be tracked on here!

Wizard Footage:



Look for updates weekly on my progress and tips.

Update: 5/22 -  Level 15 still on normal.

So far I have a few hours put into this class. I like a lot of the skills and am very impressed at how blizzard has designed this character.

My Build is listed here....My Build

I enjoy playing this build and so far I am doing some very nice damage.

For my first 2 skills I choose the Magic Magic Missile which costs no Arcane power and Arcane Torrent that costs some Arcane power.
The Magic missle is good because it costs nothing and I can spam it at enemies. The Arcane is good because it does a lot of damage and can take down enemies.

The next 3 skills that I selected is Diamond skin, Wave Force and Frost Nova.

The Diamond skill makes you virtually invincible for 3 seconds and then I execute a Wave force that blasts all enemies in the vicinity of me.

Video of Wave Force:

 

As Seen above this is a truly devastating mob attack. The last skill that I have selected is Frost Nova which I pair with the Wave force to do the same thing.

Have fun and I will keep updating my progress throughout my experience building the wizard.

Did you know? Use Diablo 3 Elective Mode Today!

Hello everyone, I just found this out and I recommend anyone to give it a try.
When you first start playing there by default you can only select a certain type of skill per button...with elective you can select whatever skill from whatever category for anything you want.

After you select this you can see the arrows after selecting a new skill.

Have fun and happy Skill Selecting!!

Champion Profile #5 The Monk

I love the addition to the Monk for Diablo 3!

The Monk has a lot of really cool and neat features that make him a very powerful champion. The monk gets his power from his spirit. The Spirit amount does not change increase through levelling but can be increased using equipment.

The Monk is a Melee character who will need to get in close to enemies to deal damage. The monk has a series of powers that can be utilized to deal devestating combinations. The video below shows a great example of how fast the Monk can strike. 


Monk Fighting Action:





The Monk has a lot of great combinations to select from. Personally this was the second class that I played with and as of 5/22 I am a level 40 monk in Act 4 of nightmare. My Build can be found by following this link.

Build


I enjoy playing as this build because I don't have a gaming mouse so both of my mouse buttons I can spam by using "elective skill selection". The best thing is both the skills are offensive that I have on my mouse and don't cost any spirit.Both fists of Thunder and Crippling wave paired with most runes are very effective.

Another thing that the Monk has is some nice healing skills such as serenity. Serenity is cheap in using Spirit and has a fast cooldown. This can come in very handy when you have no health potions and you are on your last legs for life. Saved me a few times.

The next skill is the Seven sided strike. I like this skill because using the passive skill "Transcendence" this replenishes my health. The rune that I have paired with it has a decent chance of stunning the enemies that are around me which comes in handy. The downside of this skill is the cooldown takes a little time and it costs some spirit but it can be deadly for groups.

My favourite spirit consuming skill is The Lashing Tail Kick......I love this skill!
This skill is perfect when you find yourself surrounded. For anyone that watched the "Matrix " movies....when Neo is fighting all the agent smith's and they surround him....when all of a sudden he bursts out from them and they all go flying....this is what that skill is.

The Mantra "Aura" that I use is one that gives my monk the chance to dodge an attack. I like using this aura because it defensive and most of my other skills are all offensive.

So far I think this build will get me to Hell and once I am there I will see if this build will hold........

Champion Profile #1 The Barbarian

There a 5 Charaters (Champions) that you can choose in Diablo 3. One of the new changes regarding any Character is the ability to be able to make them either a male or a female. This is a new addition that the Diablo 3 development team thought was important to have.

Out of all the new classes that are in Diablo 3 the Barbarian is the only returning character from Diablo 2.

The Barbarian is your typical run of the mill smash and slash character. If you want to find yourself in a lot of close quarter fighting with monster guts flying all over than this is the character for you!

Barbs are naturally very strong and have very good natural resistances. I like to think of the barb as the "Conan the Barbarian" from the movie back in the late 80's. Now remember Arnold was not waving a staff...so don't figure on  using a magical staff and slinging fireballs or magic missiles with this Character because that's not what the Barb is capable of.

I will track all of my progress with this character in this post once I get the game and get rolling.


First Impressions on using the Barb: 5/15/2012

I chose to make this the first character that I was going to use when I started playing. I created my character and then joined a public game where there was already 3 players starting out for the first time as well. Within Minutes I was in the New Tristram and getting chills remembering the past Diablo's. I ventured into the first quest and I was off slashing and bashing my way through enemies. One of the biggest things that I noticed is the number keys have been replaced to act as skill keys and are no longer needed for potions. Potions 

Diablo 3 is almost here!

Well the time has come and I have my Pr-ordered version on its way to arrive (hopefully) by tomorrow 5/15/2012.

                                                   
Having Diablo 3 come out is a very exciting time. I have been playing the Diablo series since the birth of the very first one. The third series, according to blizzard has been in the making for 4 years but for me it feels like over a decade. That is maybe because that's what it has been! Over ten years of waiting for one of the deepest and most satisfying games of all time Diablo 2. I have achieved godly status with all classes except the druid in Diablo 2 and will be taking my experience and fully emerging it into the Diablo 3 realm.  I created this blog to document my experience throughout Diablo 3 and hopefully help some people out.

I will post updates to track my progress. Check out all the other information posted such as character classes,walk-throughs and tips to help you along your quest.