It’s not that I have anything against monks, per se. They seem like cool enough people. And my Diablo III monk, Shan, was a cool dude. He just wasn’t a demon hunter, you know?
Shan fought his way to the final boss of Diablo III, won the day, got some kind of cool unique staff or something, and started the game again on a harder difficulty. All the while, I’d been curious about the other classes in the game, but given that I only had so many hours to dedicate to clicking on monsters, I had made new characters in most of the other classes but I hadn’t really explored them.
That changed when I decided, about a month ago, to start really playing as my demon hunter, Aielah. It was during one of those “50% bonus XP” weekends, and shortly after firing her up, I found that I didn’t really need to be playing on normal difficulty. I kicked it up to hard, and oh, how the experience points rolled in.
By the time I got to the Skeleton King I had unlocked a ton of abilities, and had also realised: The demon hunter is a really, really fun class to play. To the point where I was realising that when it comes down to it, I didn’t actually really like playing as a monk all that much. (As you may or may not remember, I never was too sure what class to begin with.)
I play Diablo III solo almost exclusively; I find that playing with other people turns the game sort of overly mechanical, like we’re racing through each room, dispassionately picking up loot, and racing on to the next room. The single player game already feels that way too often, and I don’t need it exacerbated by the presence of others.
Since picking Diablo III back up I’ve found that the demon hunter is a really fun solo class. Whereas Shan flies forward into combat and does as much up-close damage as possible, Aielah is much more tactical. I’ve got her vault ability keyed to my third mouse button, so I can send her cartwheeling around the battlefield at a moment’s notice, stunning and knocking back enemies in her way. (I was always annoyed by my monk’s comparative inability to deal with fast-moving ranged attackers.) Her fan of knives ability is never not fun (you could say she’s a… fan of knives), and while most of her time is spent machine-gunning enemies from a distance, she can combine her vault and fan of blades and turn herself into a precision smart-bomb.
Boss fights, too, are much more tactical — I have to keep my distance and worry much more about positioning, which… well, for lack of a better way to put this, makes Diablo III feel more like a game than a click-fest.
This past weekend I dove back in for a while, mostly to try out the new Reaper of Souls content. (I still haven’t played the new chapter, though I imagine I will as a demon hunter at some point. I’m looking forward to Adventure Mode, though.) Out of curiosity, I started a character in the new crusader class. I like the class so far, but I quickly found myself feeling bored by the up-close combat, wishing I could be controlling Aielah with her quick jumps and extreme mobility. (The crusader doubtless gets more fun as you level her up; I’m sure I’ll chip away at her campaign over the months to come.)
So. It’s a demon hunter’s life for me. I’m sure a lot of you have done something similar; completed the game as one class and switched to another, only to find that you like it better. So, I turn it over to you: Two years after Diablo III came out, what’s your favourite class, and why? Bonus points if you include a screenshot of your hero.
Comments
7 responses to “Two Years Later, I’ve Found A Diablo III Class That I Really Like”
I’m with you on this one. The Demon Hunter’s Crit rate passive mechanic is just really fun.
Try sticking to a big Two-Handed crossbow with the slowest attack speed you can find!
Blowing things away with an explosive AoE attack and then rolling away to regenerate crit rate for your next assault is incredibly satisfying.
My favourite so far is the crusader. The combat is heavy and forceful, and it’s the heavy armour class I’ve been waiting for them to add to the game since the last of the original class list was announced. It has a good balance between healing and weighty combat, where I found the monk’s overall design to err too much on the healing side.
I want to retry my crusader now that some of the buffs have rolled in.
The Wizard is still so overpowered that its the best class by far. I have an equally geared (and higher sheet DPS demon hunter), that is still outclassed by my Wizard in actually killing things and doing higher torment difficulties.
I’ve tried them all and there’s plenty to like about Demon Hunter, Barbarian, and Crusader, but I simply cannot move on past the Wizard. BZZZZZOW! Disintegrate is just too cool for words, and Archon mode is the most satisfying of all the super special abilities when you glyph it with the multiple-thousand-percent transformation explosion. If that doesn’t vaporize an elite or boss from the get-go, the resulting fight is a curb-stomp battle worthy of anime.
Frozen Orb is just too good. Too damn good. I always come back to my Wiz.
Black hole + frozen orb + electrocute, with elemental exposure, cold blooded and glass cannon is just too amazing a combo to pass up.
Frozen orb was nerfed in the latest patch.
Yeah, but only its area. It’s still OP as hell I understand. (in that its damage % is still great, and it will still hit twice, just not as many)
after levelling a monk and wd to 70, i tried out the dh, and it is rather fun! i’ve had more fun with this class than the other two combined, it fully made me reminiscent of my first playthrough of borderlands 2 with the commando! though it feels rather squishy, but after finding the right legendaries to compliment my play style, that didn’t matter, it does well even with a bunch of elites mobbing you in T2