I played during early access and open beta. I went back for open beta because of druid and necro.
Classes to max level of 25 during the beta. Sorcerer, Necromancer, Rogue, and Druid.
All gameplay was on "Veteran" though it felt like easy.
Class that are broken easy. Necromancer.
Starting out with 4 skeletons to follow you around you're already taking the easy route, couple that with all the abilities you can unlock for them and they are a cake walk of a class.
Class that can be made broken easy. Rogue and Sorcerer.
Sorc can basically be unkillable at 25 fighting bosses solo without ever taking any damage, cooldown are an afterthought as with a passive you can get past all cooldowns quickly. Feel free to see what that looks like.
https://clips.twitch.tv/SlipperyKindShrewResidentSleeper-Fry-TEw3rJRi8mSU
Class that is a dumpster fire. Druid - At least by 25 there was no method to make them even come close to competing with any other class in the game. They struggle to keep their secondary resource, only able to use it 3 times from full to empty. You can get some of it back using howl and charge, but it's still fairly lack luster. Their standard attacks time to kill a single enemy is about 15 seconds. Which sounds fine until you remember there's 40 mobs and this is diablo. At 15 you unlock a quest to get your special things, but the location to do the quest is like the other side of the map. The world map, not the area map. So you don't access to it in beta to try anything about it. Seems silly to put a level 15 quest on the other side of the map.
I didn't care for most of the voice acting.
The price of $70+Tax is quite high for a game. Lets see if the strat pays off.
With that said pre-orders came with crap for other games. Games I don't play nor have a desire to play. Even gave you stuff for Diablo 3...why not just give us stuff for Diablo 4? I mean we are afterall ordering Diablo 4, not world of warcraft, diablo III, or Diablo Immortal. Fail. For the low low price of $100 you can get 2 things that will benefit you for a battle pass and a stupid emote.
They make sure to notate that the 3 junk things they gave you belong to other games that are sold and downloaded separately. Thanks for giving me things I will never use?
Some positives.
I like the open world aspect to an extent. I don't like that if you walk out of town your portal disappears. I'd like to be able to use my portal if I step out of town for a minute to grab a few more gold for a purchase and come back.
I like that you can open your map and just click on a waypoint to teleport directly to it.
If you use your emote wheel in a dungeon you can exit the dungeon directly from there. But you can also just open the map and click the steps you entered from.
I like the idea of doing dungeons to unlock the aspects to upgrade the rares. Imprinting is a handy feature.
Looks like there is 100 levels and paragon is already implemented to some extent (even though we didn't have access to it).
You can upgrade gear 4 times (legendary) 3 times (rare), 2 times (uncommon), and one time (junk?)
Looks like there is higher tiered items in harder difficulties. Which should make for some interesting builds.
Graphics look nice. I enjoyed the "viewpoints" where you could see the areas in some places almost like it was first person. Just goes to show you that a lot of these levels are designed in a 3d world and the camera is just fixed to over the shoulder. Fun thing I played with in unreal looking at how creating top down games works.
World bosses! Killed one during the beta. Was hard, but fun.
Statues of Lillith - Unlocks bonuses for all characters on the account, not just the one you got it on. Also, your other characters can still use them for some quick EXP.
Renown - The completionist in you will rejoice to know that you get bonuses for being one. These too apply to all characters on the account.
Cosmetics - You can break down gear to get the parts for them, as well as unlock that cosmetic permanently. This also applies to all characters on the account.
They have mounts. Not 100% how useful this is going to be, but if nothing else it's got me curious. Perhaps quickly make it to world bosses/events.
Overall. I got the game already, so I'm going to give it a proper go at release.
CWTN