Monk, Barbarian, Demon Hunter, or Wizard?

[Sandraudiga]

Going to start playing again, but I am not sure which class to concentrate on. I know when I left Barbarians were just starting to get overpowered and my monk was lagging behind a fair bit, wizards were nerfed hard, and demon hunters were gimmickly overpowered given each nether tentacle was hitting 3-4 times.

Of course, given I've not played for months I imagine alot has changed, alot has fixed, and more has been broken.

In terms of gearing to a time and gold constraint, which class has the most potential for a slightly more casual player? More of a gold restraint because I doubt its changed that what you get drop is vendor trash and you need to buy all your gear.

Thanks

[traen]

Barbarian is considered to be slightly cheaper to gear than other classes. Basically you can gear up a barbarian capable of killing elites on mp5 for just 500k gold.
Also you need a class that can farm FAST, because that's where you get items you sell on AH and paragon levels to get more MF(to get more items to sell on AH).
WW barbarian is fast. Tempest rush Monk is fast, but will cost you much more to gear him up.

Some people prefer ranged gameplay. Obviously you should not pick barbarian if you don't like melee classes. Anyway, after few weeks of farming you'll become bored of whatever class you choose. The gameplay did not changed much . Maybe even became worse due to lack of a challenge.

[Djuntas]

Look into CM Wizard. I can farm MP2-3 fast with little deaths for around 30 million gold.

Edit: Don't think any build can be good until you spend atleast 5 million gold, anything else is a lie. Unless the US AH is really as cheap as all we europeans think it is.

Most classes just stack crit>crit damage now days for high damage numbers to. Personally as CM Wizard you can make the build start to work for around 2 million gold. You need like 500 life on hit, 500 all res, 30% crit, and around 2 attack speed.

[traen]

Look into CM Wizard. I can farm MP2-3 fast with little deaths for around 30 million gold.

30 million gold is a lot of money for starters. Doubt that op got so much money.
Also I've never heard about "fast farming" with CM wizards. How many 5ns elites do you kill per hour and how much exp/hour do you make?

[Vook]

Look into CM Wizard. I can farm MP2-3 fast with little deaths for around 30 million gold.

And my barb could clear MP2-3 fast with only around 10 million gold. :P

For farming, I'd say Barb wins, hands-down. Cheapest to gear up, and fastest farmer in the game with WW builds. CM wizard has to constantly stop and cast, whereas WW can just keep moving, only stopping to pick up items.

[melodramocracy]

Based on what I see in pubs, if pure speed / efficiency is what you want, barb is still the way to go.... a TR monk can move as quick, but probably can't kill as quick unless he / she has some very serious gear.

But really, you should play what you feel to be most fun. I don't think any class is doing badly at this point.

[Asta]

What spec are WW barbs running now days? (Slight changes every so often) And what are some general gear priorities?

[traen]

What spec are WW barbs running now days? (Slight changes every so often) And what are some general gear priorities?

You don't have much choice really.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...kRP!hZY!YZZcYc
Unforgiving is for fast farming on low mp, replace it with either lifesteal or one of the armor passives if you lack survivability or are playing on higher mp.
You can replace bash with frenzy if you farm elites(for keys for example) on very high mp, or use bash with stun rune.
You can replace war cry with something if you have really good survivability, but honestly I see no interesting options to help you farming.

Gear priorities...
High dps main hand, ideally with crit damage+socket+str. Echoing fury is a nice option because it increases both main and offhand speed.
Dagger offhand, with lifesteal+crit damage+socket+strength, offhand dps is not really important(700 is enough), speed is.
24 movement speed - 12 from boots, 12 from either Inna's legs or Lacuni bracers.
Lifesteal on belt. Immortal king is a good cheap option, add either helm or gloves/chest and get some all res for free.
At least 40-45% crit, ideally 50+. Increased attack speed got higher priority than crit damage even if your dps number looks lower. Crit+IAS makes your life significantly easier.

[Sandraudiga]

Thanks for all the info guys, after reading these posts and looking at leveling speed, I've decided to go WW barb. So far I am farming MP1 act 1 inferno after spending just over 1 million gold.

Not super efficiently time wise, but the exp and gold are steady so I can buy more gear as the gold permits. Or, you know, I could win the drop lotto and actually wear something I farm myself.

[Asta]

Thank you very much traen, helps a lot.

[chadwix]

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/C.../hero/20787708

Melee wizards are the best Blizzard just got a buff making its damage go from 210% to 510%, you can do mp3 without any effort using it.

Barbs are only worth doing if you wanna mp5 or higher, they are slower than wiz's and wd's at lower mp lvls. But at mp7 or 8 they start to really shine.

Echoing fury is really annoying (unless you die alot), i wouldnt take one unless it had 80+ crit and a socket. 2.56 attks per sec while in wotb mode is something to strive for.

Most importantly dont trust paper dps with the ww barb.

[overtheocean]

Barbarian is considered to be slightly cheaper to gear than other classes.

[gainesvilleg]

Thanks for all the info guys, after reading these posts and looking at leveling speed, I've decided to go WW barb. So far I am farming MP1 act 1 inferno after spending just over 1 million gold.

Not super efficiently time wise, but the exp and gold are steady so I can buy more gear as the gold permits. Or, you know, I could win the drop lotto and actually wear something I farm myself.

I don't think it is a lotto anymore, drops are much improved as far as I can tell. I bought the game at launch and played until I got stuck at Belial at end of Act II Inferno (did not use auction house), so I basically quit to play other games (this was early June last year). I just returned after 8 months away a couple days ago and the drops I have found have been amazing. Doubled my DPS and health in less than a day from what I had when I left. Easily destroyed Belial and finished the game (beat Inferno that is).

You don't need to spend one penny in AH anymore, at least to beat Inferno which was really my only initial goal. I still have yet to buy, sell, or trade any items, I find it more fun playing with what I find. Seems like that patches have both gimped Inferno and boosted drops.

I wish there was a PVP league for non auction house users, that is the only disadvantage I can see in not using auction house. Unless you are trying to make real life money...

[Lolsteak]

CM Wiz is fun until your hand starts hurting, a 2h Rend Barb is a pretty easy farmer aswell.

[Sandraudiga]

I don't think it is a lotto anymore, drops are much improved as far as I can tell. I bought the game at launch and played until I got stuck at Belial at end of Act II Inferno (did not use auction house), so I basically quit to play other games (this was early June last year). I just returned after 8 months away a couple days ago and the drops I have found have been amazing. Doubled my DPS and health in less than a day from what I had when I left. Easily destroyed Belial and finished the game (beat Inferno that is).

You don't need to spend one penny in AH anymore, at least to beat Inferno which was really my only initial goal. I still have yet to buy, sell, or trade any items, I find it more fun playing with what I find. Seems like that patches have both gimped Inferno and boosted drops.

I wish there was a PVP league for non auction house users, that is the only disadvantage I can see in not using auction house. Unless you are trying to make real life money...

Perhaps it is just my luck. I've farmed out 4 paragon levels in the last couple days, using only a helm exp gem, and I have yet to find a drop that was even worth selling. I've had plenty of ilvl 63 drops, far far more than when I left, thanks to MP1-5.

Given another million gold though I've managed to up my crit chance to 62% and I am tearing through everything with whirlwind, so here is hoping I can get to the higher end of MPs soon and perhaps get lucky with drops.

[Deleted]

CM Wiz is fun until your hand starts hurting, a 2h Rend Barb is a pretty easy farmer aswell.

Wow your hands must hurt if you ever pvp in wow or play SC2 at all hell if you play games like LoL your hands must hurt as well I dont want to sound rude but nothing in D3 requires a lot of effort or APM to do its just plain old button mashing at its finest the fact that most specs just lets you hold down your mouse button and nothing else to do them is another story all together.

[Nerraw]

CM Wiz is fun until your hand starts hurting, a 2h Rend Barb is a pretty easy farmer aswell.

Not worse than any other ARPG or fast-paced RTS/MOBA. ^^

[traen]

CM Wiz is fun until your hand starts hurting, a 2h Rend Barb is a pretty easy farmer aswell.

O_o Is there any cm wizard who actually smashes keys by himself? Use mouse/keyboard macro instead. You press your mouse button and while its pressed your mouse will spam 3 skills for you.
If you play d3 a lot you might seriously damage your hands playing cm wizard without gaming mouse. D3 will become outdated in few years, but you won't be able to get your health back.

Wow your hands must hurt if you ever pvp in wow or play SC2 at all hell if you play games like LoL your hands must hurt as well I dont want to sound rude but nothing in D3 requires a lot of effort or APM to do its just plain old button mashing at its finest the fact that most specs just lets you hold down your mouse button and nothing else to do them is another story all together.

"most specs", but not CM wizzard. You usually do around 500+ apm to play cm wizard. Its considerably more than in sc2. Its just stupid mindless smashing 3 buttons as fast as you can.
Anyway, no sane person would ever do it, all wizards use macro.

I used macro for farming with my ww barbarian as well, btw. Sprint every 2.9 seconds, and war cry every 20 seconds. Less buttons to press, more efficient rage usage, faster farming.

Perhaps it is just my luck. I've farmed out 4 paragon levels in the last couple days, using only a helm exp gem, and I have yet to find a drop that was even worth selling. I've had plenty of ilvl 63 drops, far far more than when I left, thanks to MP1-5.

Given another million gold though I've managed to up my crit chance to 62% and I am tearing through everything with whirlwind, so here is hoping I can get to the higher end of MPs soon and perhaps get lucky with drops

First 4 paragon levels is nothing. I get around 10m exp per 15minute run. It means that leveling to lvl4 will take me just 4 runs or 1 hour.
The market is bloated with trash gear, so you won't find anything good in just 4 runs.
I think that anything worth more than 1 million drops once per 20 runs.
Also while your MF is not very high, you would not see many decent drops. MF affects the amount of properties generated on item. Realistically you'll find your first 10m+ item after paragon lvl 20-30, and 100m+ after lvl50. Or maybe you will not. Its random

[gainesvilleg]

Perhaps it is just my luck. I've farmed out 4 paragon levels in the last couple days, using only a helm exp gem, and I have yet to find a drop that was even worth selling. I've had plenty of ilvl 63 drops, far far more than when I left, thanks to MP1-5.

Given another million gold though I've managed to up my crit chance to 62% and I am tearing through everything with whirlwind, so here is hoping I can get to the higher end of MPs soon and perhaps get lucky with drops.

Well, I wasn't talking about finding stuff worth selling. I was talking about finding stuff that easily gets you strong enough to beat the levels in front of you. Last June I quit when I got stuck at the end of Act II Belial: I refused to use AH. Nothing was dropping in Act II that allowed me to finish Act II. Now, after returning, stuff was dropping like flies in Act II that allowed me to easily beat Inferno completely. Probably isn't stuff worth selling, because if it drops easily there won't be a market for it (lots of supply = low prices).

Probably the stuff dropping in Inferno won't get you strong enough to run MP10 or whatever, but why would you expect it to? It should get you enough gear to beat the next tier, etc. If you want to jump immediately to the top tiers, I agree you probably need AH to do it. As for me, I'm just playing the game without AH and now that Inferno is beat, I will see how difficult I can go before I get bored again.

I'm one who doesn't really understand the fascination with the AH, unless like I said you are trying to make money off of it. But there are better ways to make money than playing Diablo LOL.

[Deleted]

O_o Is there any cm wizard who actually smashes keys by himself? Use mouse/keyboard macro instead. You press your mouse button and while its pressed your mouse will spam 3 skills for you.
If you play d3 a lot you might seriously damage your hands playing cm wizard without gaming mouse. D3 will become outdated in few years, but you won't be able to get your health back.



"most specs", but not CM wizzard. You usually do around 500+ apm to play cm wizard. Its considerably more than in sc2. Its just stupid mindless smashing 3 buttons as fast as you can.
Anyway, no sane person would ever do it, all wizards use macro.

I used macro for farming with my ww barbarian as well, btw. Sprint every 2.9 seconds, and war cry every 20 seconds. Less buttons to press, more efficient rage usage, faster farming.


First 4 paragon levels is nothing. I get around 10m exp per 15minute run. It means that leveling to lvl4 will take me just 4 runs or 1 hour.
The market is bloated with trash gear, so you won't find anything good in just 4 runs.
I think that anything worth more than 1 million drops once per 20 runs.
Also while your MF is not very high, you would not see many decent drops. MF affects the amount of properties generated on item. Realistically you'll find your first 10m+ item after paragon lvl 20-30, and 100m+ after lvl50. Or maybe you will not. Its random

Oh really? 500 APM to play a wizard and you need a macro to do it ? I dont think you know what 500 APM feels or is like sorry break it to you and this comes from someone whos main is a wizard.