I have never played a Diablo game before. I am interested in Diablo 3 though, and I have a few questions/concerns about Diablo 2, (gotta understand the past to understand the future) and how Diablo 3 is looking in the beta right now.
While I haven't played a Diablo game before, I have played a similar type of dungeon crawling series before. The series I'm talking about is Champions of Norrath, and its sequel, Return to Arms. CoN was a fun game, but it had a lot of problems, so I want to know if Diablo shares those problems. Things were somewhat balanced near the start of the game. Low levels weren't too bad. The higher level you got though, the worse the class balance got.
It basically went like this.
Warrior
God (not a playable class, but I'm trying to make a point)
Ranger
Mud (also not a playable class)
Shadow Knight
Berserker
Shaman
Cleric
Dung (once again not a playable class)
Wizard
To say the warrior was imbalanced, is not quite a statement that most can actually comprehend. A maxed out Wizard could deal maybe 800 damage a spell. A maxed out warrior could hit for 100k about every half a second. And yes, that will instagib a boss. The warrior was also the best in every other way. Magic resist, armor, so much health regen you were functionally unkillable, etc.
Another problem it had was that healing became significantly worse at higher levels. At level 1, a health potion brings you back to full in a couple seconds. Getting to higher levels, you quickly realize healing is not instant, and a health pot is basically just an increase to your passive regen. Even the best health pots take about a minute to fully you if you spam them. Once again, this made the warrior even more OP because your normal health regen could full heal you in about 4 seconds.
What's worse is that it seemed like boss damage was balanced around the warrior's unbelievable tankiness. A late game boss would 1-2 shot most classes, and would always one shot a squishy like the wizard.
Some may ask why I care about class balance. Well, I like alts. When I want a nice change of pace, I don't want to feel like I'm going to a direct downgrade. I don't want to level up a wizard in Diablo 3, and then start playing a monk and realize the monk is terrible.
So I guess what I'm asking is, what kind of flaws did Diablo 2 have. How was the class balance of Diablo 2 at early, mid, and late game. Please tell me it doesn't share the same flaws as Champions. How is Diablo 3 looking so far in the beta. What flaws appear to have carried over from Diablo 2, if any. What news flaws does the game have, if any.