Like everyone else, I pre-ordered Diablo 3 (by Blizzard) and received it back in May.  However, unlike everyone else, I didn’t get to play until early June due to being in the states on business.

I’m not going to muse upon the game, mostly because if you put Diablo3 into Google you’ll find a liturgy of whines and complaints.  Don’t worry, I’m right in there on being disappointed that Blizzard put out a fairly crap product instead of releasing the product we’ve all come to know and love with the Diablo franchise.  However, what I’d like to do is go over my thoughts on Diablo 3 patch 1.0.5.

While patch 1.0.5 didn’t get rid of the Real Money Auction House (RMAH), it did fix a number of things that I didn’t like about the game.  A big one seems to be the rubber banding and lag (gotta love the always on DRM…that was a brilliant addition to Diablo, really it was guys).  Or maybe I’m just lucky.  Either way, it’s nice not having to disable every process known to man before firing up Diablo3 for a gaming session.

If you want to see the full patch notes, visit the Diablo3 blog here.

Monster Power

Thank you, thank you, thank you Blizzard for introducing this.  If you played Diablo2, you’ll remember a feature kind of like this (the Players X command).  Basically in Diablo 3, Monster Power lets the players scale monster difficulty up and down.  Level 10 in normal (with an Inferno geared Demon Hunter) means machine gunning mobs and getting a bucket full of loot.  Level 10 Monster Power on Inferno (when you’re really not geared for it) means you’re looking to see if anyone was able to catch the license plate of that Buggati Veyron that just mowed down the family dog.  All I’ve got to say is my other half and I looked at each other and sheepishly went back to a Monster Power of 1.

New Event: Infernal Machine

My other half and I haven’t started farming the components for the Infernal Machine event yet.  However, we also haven’t completed the game on Inferno yet either.  My other half has been farming, and I’m trying to get my new Vampire Darkages campaign written and prepare the one shot adventure of Savaged My Little Pony: Whinny of Cthulhu for the November 11th Amsterdam Meetup.  So this is my long winded way of saying, I have no opinion yet.

Demon Hunter Changes

Ok, I’ll admit.  When I first read that Blizzard was screwing with the Sentry ability on Demon Hunters, I was pissed.  Especially since they had just talked about in an article a few months prior on how this is one of the more underused abilities and they wanted to see people using it more.  HEY! I USE IT! Don’t screw with it!

What change did they make to it? Well, first they changed it’s base power from 1o Discipline to 30 Hatred.  I really hate this since my hatred regen is crap.  I don’t have a few million lying around for gear with high Dexterity and resistances AND hatred regeneration.  However, they did increase damage from 55% to 175% AND after a short little refresh (10 seconds I think) I can have 2 out.  This has made me have to change the way I kite, but it’s not too bad.

But then they have made it so that the Sentry can no longer critical hit.  Boooo!  They did screw around with some of the skill runes.  I think one of them increases the damage more, one reduces cooldown time, and the last increases damage on the Chain of Torment, which I never use.

And of course they had to screw with the Demon Hunter’s companion as well.  I now have a 30 second cooldown which REALLY BLOODY SUCKS WHEN YOU KEEP DYING REPEATEDLY.  I repeat, the cooldown sucks.  The rest of the screwing about on both animal companion and the rest of the Demon Hunter skills don’t affect me.  But I still really hate that 30 second refresh on my bloody bat.

Other General Changes

– Extra loot for every stack of Nephalem Valor
– Experience shrines were put back into Inferno…meh
– 2 new shrines…Empowered which increases resource regeneration and reduces cooldowns (handy) and Fleeting shrine which increases speed and pickup radius.  Meh again.
– Followers, pets, summoned creatures wont’ attack enemies that are idle.  That means no more losing goblins…about bloody time.
– Reduction of snare was reduced.  Meh.
– In the auction house I can now save search parameters and search for items like the one I have…THAT should have been around all along IMO.
–  Bosses will drop improved loot the first time they’re killed in each difficulty…..meh.
– Crafting materials stack to 500.  YAY!
– Crafting regents can be converted to the next highest level. YAY.  This actually made me over a million gold the other day since Subtle Essences were rare and I had about 500 of them.

There’s a whole bunch of other changes that came with this major patch, but I think what I mentioned made a significant change to my view of the game.  Blizzard finally listened to the players and changed things to make the game more enjoyable, in my opinion.  Sure, there’s going to continue to be whiners, but hey.

Now all I’d like to see is my repair bill drop from 30k + to something much lower….