Diablo III

If the game industry would just dial back on graphics a little bit, they'd have profit margins that are better than razor thin.

That's one of Blizzard's advantages. Their games have good graphics, sure, but they're not obsessed with being "so bleeding edge your eyes weep just looking at it," which is cheaper than their competitors and gives them more room for other stuff. My guess is that the Necromancer pack will either be the same as Reaper of Souls or cheaper, but definitely not more expensive. Is this pack going to include another campaign?

edited 16th Jun '17 1:40:04 PM by Discar

No extra campaign, just the extra character class (with two extra stash tabs and two extra character slots to go along with it), one reason more than a few observers have said it had better not be priced as though it were a full expansion pack or they won't bother. The biggest naysayers are convinced it will cost $30 or over, or even $50 or over. At this point, I wonder if they're waiting until launch to announce the price. (Did they do that with Reaper of Souls? I've only been playing Diablo III since this time last year.) Unless it is absurdly extortionately priced, I'm planning to cough up the cash myself. (I am still learning new ways to get the most out of the six character classes that already exist - the Monk and Witch Doctor especially at the moment - but the idea of a seventh character class to explore is very appealing, even if the two extra stash tabs are more appealing still.)

Yeah, unless Blizzard decides to be ludicrous with the pricing, I intend to buy the necromancer myself. Like I said, making worth-while DLC without turning it into some pre-order "Look forward to the many, MANY ways you can continue to give us money!" shit deserved to be rewarded.

Last night I heard the line from the Wizard that I like: "You dare attack me?"

We finally have a price on the Rise of the Necromancer pack: 14.99 USD, along with a June 27 release date. Not too bad, I'd say.

-imitates Mr. Burns- Excellent.

edited 20th Jun '17 7:57:53 AM by Demetrios

That is a LOT more than I was expecting for just a character. I was expecting 9.99 max.... I only have 12$ in my b-net account >.<.

edited 20th Jun '17 7:53:38 AM by Memers

Well, that's in keeping with my original prediction for the release date. (So if, Eagal, you insist on collecting based on my "early to mid July" prediction from a few posts thereafter, I will offer you $5000 in Monopoly money.) And yes, the price is very reasonable. Sold!

Fantastic, thanks Blizzard!

It's a bit steep a price, but not outrageously so.

If I were as hooked on DIII as I was two-three years ago, I'd buy the Necro pack in a heartbeat. Now, though,.. I might have just outgrown the game.

Last night I killed two Treasure Goblins at once on my Wizard.

Goblin Shrine.....

I've never seen one of those.

It spawns a slew of various goblins from those shrines.

Good luck trying to catch them all...

Even for those with ranged abilities?

Speaking of abilities, in other news, they still haven't updated the skill calculator to include the Necromancer. >.<

edited 27th Jun '17 7:14:38 AM by Demetrios

It just came out today, it'll take awhile to properly configure it to work with the class without running into potential bugs in the program

It's now out in North America; there's a few hours yet before it goes live in Europe. Of course, everyone and their brother is downloading it, so the servers are getting clobbered (my connection so far has only occasionally staggered up above 20KB/s, and the total file size is over 3 GB). The patch notes are here if you want to see what's included with both the Necromancer DLC and the other 2.6.0 material.

As for Goblin Shrines - well, Bandit Shrines if you want to be pedantic (and I always do) - my usual multiplayer group and I have had some evenings where we've run into two in a single play session; if you have a build with high AoE and/or DPS, like the Marauder Demon Hunter build or the Manald Archon Wizard build, it's possible to mow down every one of them, same as it's possible to mow down every Goblin in a rift that has a crowd of 18 or so. But you have to be fast! (Especially if one or more is a Gelatinous Sire.)

edited 27th Jun '17 11:37:27 AM by mlsmithca

Well, I'll wait for some days before buying it, so that I can read about other people's opinions. I mean, I'm quite sure I'll end up buying it anyway, but the No Mans Sky fiasco should have taught us about thinking it twice before buying something the first day.

I can confirm, incidentally, that the new Set Dungeon interface does now set the bar for basic completion 50 enemies lower - even for the Spirit of Arachyr dungeon (which thus requires that 55 enemies be killed for basic completion; odds are you won't have completed either objective by then).

I would go through each dungeon that I claimed in an earlier post should be markedly easier with the new interface also displaying every enemy on the map from the start instead of after the basic completion number have been killed, but I think my focus for a while will be on the Necromancer.

Started up a Necro, played for a little while and decided that since I am already making thing easy for myself by actually using my Paragon points I should go hit up my stash to see if there is anything useful for him at level 20 still in there. Doing so made me realize something I had never truly noticed before - Hellfire Amulets don't have minimum levels. So, I made him one. Rolled Ancient, got a semi decent passive - Serration (+1% damage for every 1.5 yards you are from the target) and.... 22,787 life per hit. At a time when he only has 3105 health. Functional immortality for quite a while =)

I'm curious, but in story mode, does the Necromancer get the same amount of voiceover as the other classes? (including the unique dialogue with the followers?)

I just saw and got the update today. Didn't realize Diablo was updating till I saw how slow the internet was while watching Netflix.

Fought the new boss in act II.

While I haven't completed the campaign, so far there has been just as much voice work as the other classes.

I've only just beaten the Skeleton King in Campaign Mode (it is indeed correct to note that Hellfire Amulets - and Hellfire Rings - have no minimum level requirement and so can be equipped from the very start), but the Necromancer seems to have a similar amount of follower dialogue to the other six classes. I don't know if the voice actors for the followers, artisans, and other NPCs were called back to provide unique responses.

(EDITED TO ADD: I think some of them, at least, have recorded new responses to the Necromancer's dialogue in Campaign Mode. At the very least, I'm guessing Kormac's dialogue at the end of Act IV when he admits to having initially misjudged the player character and which is tailored to the character class must have required getting Dominic Keating back in the studio.)

I don't know if this has happened to anyone else, but I've also suddenly received the various cosmetic rewards for seasons that occurred before I started playing (I think Season 6 was just winding down when I started playing; I've been there for the entirety of Seasons 7-10), including the various banner shapes/accents/etc. from Season 1 and the pennant from Season 3. Perhaps a nod to the fact that the whole concept of seasons only went live on console starting this past season?

Haven't explored the new areas yet; I think I want my Necromancer to be a bit better at dealing damage first, which may require playing through Rifts and Greater Rifts to harvest the class-specific Legendary and Set items. (So much for my proud achievement of having put every Legendary item in the game into Kanai's Cube!) As things now stand, I have three pieces of the Grace of Inarius set and one of each of the other three. (No more Primal Ancients since the second Deathseer's Cowl, but I did get an Ancient Bones of Rathma shoulder piece from Kadala.) Yes, I suppose I could send one of my other twelve characters into the new areas, but where's the fun in that?

(EDITED TO ADD: Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Greater Rift leaderboards have been reset in the wake of the Challenge Rift implementation. I wondered if that meant it has now become necessary to beat a Level 70 Greater Rift again in order to get Primal Ancients to drop... and then on the next Greater Rift I beat after that occurred to me, I got Primal Ancient Raekor gloves. I'm perhaps not a huge fan of the Raekor set, or even the Raekor/Immortal King build, but the gloves were the last non-Ancient Raekor piece I had, so I'm certainly not complaining.)

edited 28th Jun '17 12:00:11 AM by mlsmithca