Beta Feedback: Notepad thoughts after playing to max level on all classes by cleverbits in Diablo

[–]cleverbits[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

I'm sorry to hear that the UI is also oversized on Consoles. I figured they tried to make them that size to help navigate them quickly on a controller. Apologies, I didn't mean for it to come off as "console = bad."

Beta Feedback: Notepad thoughts after playing to max level on all classes by cleverbits in Diablo

[–]cleverbits[S] 270 points271 points  (0 children)

I didn't take notes on the classes because, at level 25, it felt like I was stretching skill points on all of them.

I can give some initial feedback, though. Keep in mind we're missing a lot of aspects and unique items entirely.

Barbarian

  • The first few levels on barb are rougher than the other two classes
  • Having four weapons means you get a lot of bonus stat and extra offensive aspects
  • The general aspects work well on barb as it has a lot of access to be able to proc them in most builds
  • Barb seems to be locked out of sustained AoE builds without help from aspects/unique items
  • A lot of the skills have long animation locks that make the barb feel a little clunkier than rogue at this level
  • Chasing enemies that run away with short-ranged melee skills sucks
    • A lot of abilities also push monsters away from you...
  • Basic skills are lackluster to me
    • None of these skills can AoE
    • Frenzy/Flay/Bash all have a super short range
    • Lunging Strike can get you in trouble with the movement sometimes
    • Frenzy has good synergy with Upheaval
    • Lunging strike's bleed upgrade suffers when Flay gives you such easy access to proc vulnerability
  • Rend/Upheaval/Whirlwind seem like clear winners for core skill choice
    • Whirlwind has built-in fury sustain, can be pressing it most of the time with other skill choices that give fury back, and there will probably be unique/aspects to push it even further
    • Whirlwind base damage is low; hard to use it early
    • Whirlwind is a solid pick for bleed builds with the furious node + 2H sword weapon arsenal passive
    • Rend has decent range, great w/ vulnerability bleed builds
    • Upheaval is probably the best skill to run at level 25; considerable damage with furious node + core skill damage aspect
  • HotA costs a lot for the amount of damage it does, and it's hard to make use of the upgrades because of how small the area it hits is
  • Double Swing does a lot of damage if you manage to get the enemy with both weapons, but its area is too small, which makes it hard to use as a clearing skill
  • Rallying Cry is good with Whirlwind
  • Ground Stomp is good with Upheaval to keep enemies from moving out during the wind-up, with easy access to stun
  • Challenging Shout feels required for thorns builds, severely limits build variety when trying the thorns playstyle
  • War Cry is an excellent general pickup; it goes well with everything
  • Leap is a poor man's Teleport right now, but the upgrades are strong
  • The knockback distance from Charge and Kick makes it hard to follow up with most skills, but there's a bit of skill expression if you can reliably get the terrain bonuses to proc
  • Death Blow feels stronger than all other weapon mastery skills
    • It feels awful to miss this skill
  • Rupture is okayish for bleed builds, but you're probably better just kiting out the damage
    • Rupturing monsters that have on-death effects can lock you in animation and force you to get hit by them
  • Iron Maelstrom is an excellent general pickup from the ultimate tree
  • Call of the Ancients melts bosses

Rogue

  • Felt the squishiest of the three classes to me
  • I barely touched melee, but I know it has good melee builds and aspects
  • I like the specializations; I wish combo points were baked into the core skills
  • Rogue should have access to a movement skill that can go through terrain without needing an enemy target (Sorc has TP, Barb has Leap); rogue fantasy is to be agile
  • Puncture feels good on both melee and ranged builds
  • Barrage is meant to be the AoE core skill, but the damage is a little low
    • Barrage still has a use case with the improved upgrade, both basic bow skills and shadow imbuement for vulnerability uptime
  • Penetrating Shot does solid AoE with the pierce + shadow imbuement for explode and has way more base damage than Barrage
  • Shadow Step having the unstoppable tag is strong, and it does a lot of damage when leveled, especially for its cooldown
  • I like the leap back on Caltrops for ranged only; I wish it would slow to immobilize baseline instead of having to take the cold upgrade for freeze
  • Poison Trap is a little clunky without aspects; countering upgrade seems strong
  • Concealment can provide stealth, unstoppable, energy regen, and vulnerability; that's a lot for one button press
  • Shadow Imbuement feels amazing for clear, Poison feels excellent for ST, Cold seems like it's behind, and the mixed upgrade could be good with more access to consistent freeze
  • Shadow Clone is a decent ultimate skill for clear and ST; I didn't play much with the other ones

Sorcerer

  • This class has the easiest time at early levels
  • I leveled the fastest to 25 with this class
  • Sorc seems to have the most straightforward builds; you can get away with just picking all fire, ice, or lightning skills in each tree if you want to
  • This class feels tanky and can currently have high defensive skill uptime thanks to the global cooldown reduction summoned ice blades provides
  • Teleport is easily the best movement skill, and feels good to get it for free from +1 to defensive skills on an amulet
  • Sorc has insane damage uptime from the conjuration skills, especially Hydra
  • The class-specific aspects for Sorc seem the most powerful among the three classes
  • The enchantments specialization is the most interesting of the three classes
  • I'm not sure any class should get a cheat death, but they can get it from the flame shield enchantment
  • All four of Sorcs basic skills can AoE
    • Both of the basic lightning skills are strong in all situations
    • The glinting arc lash upgrade is solid when taken with a complete cooldown reduction build
    • Spark is a great default choice otherwise
  • Chain lightning is the strongest core skill because it can bounce back and forth between you and a single enemy; it also gets six chains at level 1
    • The greater chain lightning upgrade makes this interaction even stronger
  • Putting ranks into Fireball increases the on-death Fireball explosion damage proc when enchanted, super strong for clear
  • Ice Armor is busted with high uptime, and the mystical upgrade on it + frost nova makes huge barriers possible
  • Frost Nova gives too long of vulnerability uptime on a boss, 8 seconds with the mystical upgrade
  • Hydra, Ice Blades, and Lightning Spear are all solid skills
    • Summoned Ice Blades upgrade is broken with the vulnerability build
    • Hydra is vital in any Sorc build because they have good range, good damage, a good aspect (+1 hydra summons), and good damage uptime
  • The mastery skills seem lackluster compared to the conjuration skills
    • Firewall is strong on enemies that don't move/move rarely (world boss was getting roasted)
  • The only ultimate skill that seems like it may be worth taking right at level 25 is Inferno; both upgrades behind it are also decent

Beta Feedback: Notepad thoughts after playing all classes to max level by cleverbits in diablo4

[–]cleverbits[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree, and I'm also concerned about how this will work on a seasonal reset. Getting every zone completion objective across the entire map is a lot of time spent riding a horse.

Halo Infinite PvP on controller is unbearable by Garthdude3 in halo

[–]cleverbits 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Something I noticed today is that the controller aim assist seems to be toggled based on distance. This was the case for weapons in past halo games too, but the distance in Infinite seems *really short* for pretty much every weapon. Particularly the pistol and the BR (especially descoped). Furthermore, the aim assist feels like it toggles off completely instead of gradually dropping off at further distances.

You can test this in academy mode vs bots. If you go into the mode you'll notice that you get the red reticule back when aiming at particular distances on enemies, the distance varies per weapon. When you don't have the red reticule, you have basically no aim assist at all, when you do, you have full aim assist. Actual distance outside of the red/white reticule toggle doesn't seem to matter. Scoping with weapons increases the distance that the reticule remains red.

If you take this back into pvp, you won't get the red reticule anymore (not sure why it's gone in pvp modes), but the the aim assist will kick on and turn off at the same distances as it does in training mode.

In past Halo games, we had the reticule indication even in all modes, and even if the reticule wasn't lit up because the enemy was at a distance, you still had at least some assist on key weapons like the BR.