The beta Witch Doctor

I will say this from the start: I never expected the Witch Doctor to be so much fun. I had always viewed this class as a sort of Necromancer Plus, and Diablo 2's Necromancer never managed to capture my attention.

After playing the Witch Doctor in the beta to the maximum level of 13, my opinion of this class improved to a high degree.

The Witch Doctor is a combination of several archetypes. I see it as a ranged class because most of its offensive skills are used at range. Yet, some of these skills are only medium range, which sometimes may put the Witch Doctor closer to the action than he/she would like. On the other hand the Witch Doctor is also a summoner with its multitude of creepy minions. Thirdly, the Witch Doctor has access to some of the most powerful and effective debuffs (or curses) in the game. Now you may argue that the Necromancer also had these 3 traits, to which I will reply that you are right, but the Witch Doctor really is a Necromancer on steroids.

The Witch Doctor uses a resource type that's very familiar to most RPG players: Mana. Mana is very straightforward: you use it to power your skills and spells. In Diablo 3, Mana has a fast recharge rate (which can be further increased by some passives), although it is not as fast as, say, the Wizard's Arcane Power. The Mana pool also increases with level.



Read my quick primer on how skill slots work in Diablo 3, if you don't know that already.

Next is a review of all the skills and runes in the beta, broken down by skill slot, with the usual disclaimer that these are my own opinions and tastes.

Primary (left mouse - slot unlocked at level 1)
Lv 1 - Poison Dart
Poison Dart is the first skill you start the game with, and it's deceptively simple. For a negligible Mana cost (I don't understand why it's not free), it fires a single dart which does 100% weapon damage in the form of poison. On its own, this skill doesn't shine, but once you start adding runes to it, it doesn't become half bad. I have tried a couple of different Witch Doctor builds in the beta and one of them still uses Poison Dart (runed) at level 13.
    Lv 6 - Rune - Splinters
For your first Witch Doctor rune, you get Splinters, which augments Poison Dart. Now instead of firing 1 dart for 100% weapon damage, you will fire 3 darts for 60% damage each, or a total of 180% damage. Not bad, considering that your 2nd or 3rd dart can hit monsters behind the first one killed by your barrage. Besides, Poison Dart runed with Splinters is pretty good for smashing urns and stuff, as you can smash several of them in a row, with just one shot.
    Lv 13 - Rune - Numbing Dart
I will admit that I didn't try Numbing Dart at all, and the reason is simple: all this rune does is it causes Poison Dart to slow the enemy by 60% for a paltry 2 seconds. I really don't see the point of this rune, at least not in the beta and maybe not outside PvP. Either way, I think it needs an upgrade, if people are to use it. Either increase the slowing effect, its duration, or both. But in the beta, Poison Dart is not exactly a speed demon, meaning that before you can hit multiple enemies with it, the slowing effect will wear off on the initial ones.
Lv 3 - Corpse Spiders
I started out skeptical about this skill but later on I incorporated it in one of my two builds. The base skill itself is quite annoying and I don't recommend using it before you can slap a rune on it. What it does is, the Witch Doctor throws a jar which breaks, releasing 4 spiders which attack for 16% weapon damage (64% total?) "before they die". It's unclear how long their lifespan is and how many attacks they manage during that time. Suffice to say that the throwing animation makes this skill feel very slow and unwieldy, especially when it is assigned to the primary mouse button. Also, the spiders aren't exactly champion sprinters. They just skitter towards the target at a comfortable speed.
    Lv 9 - Rune - Leaping Spiders
Leaping Spiders greatly improves Corpse Spiders. Now, instead of crawling to the target, the spiders effectively leap at it (think Alien facehugger), which makes the skill feel a lot more responsive. Furthermore, the spiders' damage is increased a little to 19% weapon damage and the distance they can jump is also increased to 25 yards. I have managed to improve the feel of Corpse Spiders even more by turning Elective Mode on and assigning this to the "2" key. This allowed me to effectively spam the skill by punching the key repeatedly. The jar will break where your mouse pointer is. The cool thing about this skill is that the Mana cost is only 5 (which is nothing, as Mana regenerates much quicker than you can use it with the skill), and you can spam it indefinitely. A favorite trick is to cover the ground in spiders before a boss appears or spawns, and when he does, he'll be covered in creepy-crawlies.
Lv 11 - Plague of Toads
Although I've seen many people use Plague of Toads, I couldn't warm up to it. It feels a bit like Corpse Spiders but even though the tooltip says 130% weapon damage (which is a lot more than Corpse Spiders), it didn't seem as effective to me. Coupled with the fact that it's much shorter range and a lot more inefficient (34 Mana a pop), it quickly fell off my radar. Unfortunately there aren't any runes for it in the beta but I'm sure later on it will be augmented in more interesting ways.

Secondary (right mouse - slot unlocked at level 2)
Lv 2 - Grasp of the Dead
Five minutes into your new Witch Doctor you will reach level 2 and also one of the skills that I absolutely adore. I have found Grasp of the Dead indispensable in my short career, and both of my builds feature it. So what does it do? 1) You can place it wherever your cursor is, including at the edges of the screen, so the range is practically unlimited; 2) It slows enemies by 60% in a fairly large radius; 3) It also deals Damage over Time (DoT) to all the monsters inside its radius. The tooltip says 20% weapon damage (as physical) over 8 seconds (which is both the duration and the cooldown of this skill), but does that mean 20% each second, or 20% spread over all 8 seconds? To me it seems it's the former, because monsters are chewed to shreds inside the circle. As I said, I love this skill. There might be better skills out there but I have a feeling I will make room for this even at level 60. Oh and the Mana cost is 122, but the Mana will recharge fully during the 8 seconds in which the skill is on cooldown. The one "flaw" of Grasp of the Dead? The cooldown. It would have been really cool if it didn't have a cooldown and you could spam it, limited only by your mana, but I guess that would have made it overpowered.
    Lv 7 - Rune - Groping Eels
Groping Eels is a very good - and straightforward - addition to Grasp of the Dead. It increases the DoT from 20% to 26%. It makes a great skill even better and you can equip it very early, at level 7.
Lv 5 - Firebats
Here's another cool skill. Firebats is like your personal flamethrower. Hold the mouse down and spew a constant stream of flames in the form of bats, which deal 150% weapon damage as fire. The downside? It will gulp all your Mana in a few seconds. Also, the range isn't that great. I recommend using it only when monsters are packed close together, or otherwise wait for the rune at level 11.
    Lv 11 - Rune - Dire Bats
Dire Bats improves upon Firebats, such that I use it in both my builds. Instead of a stream of flaming bats, you will now fire a single large fiery bat which has much bigger range (40 yards, which is effectively the edge of the screen) and does more damage (220%). What I like about this skill is that the bat feels partially guided. It won't seek out monsters but if you fire it in close proximity to a monster or group of them, it seems to maneuver towards them. It will also pass through several monsters and damage all of them, though I haven't exactly determined how that works. Thanks to its huge damage, this rune allows Firebats to be very useful for AoE-ing large packs of monsters and it also works well on bosses. Although the rune doesn't improve Mana efficiency, it does make it feel more economical due to the fact that you don't hold the button down anymore.
Lv 12 - Haunt
Haunt is featured in one of my builds. At first sight it does massive damage: 575% weapon damage as arcane. The catch? That damage is spread over 15 seconds, however the Mana cost is very decent, only 98. When I first tried Haunt I wasn't very impressed because the effects aren't obvious immediately. It takes some time for this skill to work its magic (haha get it?) but it has a couple of aces up its sleeve that make it worthwhile. For one thing, this is a guided missile. It will seek out monsters in the general direction of your mouse pointer. You don't have to be precise. For another, if the monster dies while the DoT is in effect, Haunt will jump to (and afflict) another nearby enemy. It is unclear whether the DoT is reset on the new enemy or it starts where it left off on the previous one. I find Haunt great because I can spam several of them on different monsters (you can also target specific monsters if you want) and then run around kiting them. I have a feeling that it will be great for tough bosses, where you can endlessly run from them, occasionally refreshing Haunt.

Defensive ("1" key - slot unlocked at level 4)
Lv 4 - Summon Zombie Dogs
Zombie Dogs is another popular skill and it's the first summoning spell that Witch Doctors get, and early on at that. It summons 3 of these critters that follow you around and damage your foes. All fine and dandy, until you meet a tough boss like the Skeleton King. That's one of the weaknesses of Zombie Dogs: they die quickly on harder bosses. Another weakness is that they have a long cooldown (60 seconds), meaning that you can't re-summon them repeatedly when they die. Third weakness is that their damage doesn't seem to be that great. For that reason, I am not thrilled with them in the beta. There are passive skills which improve all your pets and runes also help to make them more useful so maybe they will be a lot better later on.
    Lv 12 - Rune - Rabid Dogs
Luckily in the beta we also get access to the first rune for Zombie Dogs. Rabid Dogs colors your critters a bright green, which is a great improvement over the drab grey they start out as. More importantly, they also get a DoT, on top of their usual damage, which deals 9% weapon damage (your weapon, not theirs) over 3 seconds. It doesn't seem like much but it is something. I haven't noticed much difference but at this level my Witch Doctor is too powerful for most monsters anyway.
Lv 8 - Horrify
Horrify is the most basic type of defensive spell. It makes all monsters inside 12 yards run away in fear for 4 seconds. I've only used it a couple of times, so I can have an excuse to talk about it here but in the beta I don't see the utility. I'm sure it will prove useful at higher difficulty levels, when survival becomes very important, or in PvP. Unfortunately the cooldown is long (20 seconds) and though there's a passive skill which reduces this by 2 seconds, I think that's not enough, so even in Inferno I doubt I'll use this.

Terror ("2" key - slot unlocked at level 9)
Lv 9 - Soul Harvest
Now here's a skill that is trickier to master. It's deceptively simple but it took me a while to get the hang of it. Soul Harvest is, simply put, a buff. When activated, for each enemy in a 16 yard radius, up to 5 enemies maximum, you will gain 130 Intelligence. The buff expires in 30 seconds and has a 15 second cooldown. When I first used this, my mistake was that I didn't activate it when enemies were close. After I corrected my mistake, I learned to activate it correctly. The increase in Intelligence is significant. However, the 130 Intelligence per enemy applies at level 60. Currently at level 13 the buff gives "only" 36 Intelligence per enemy. If used correctly, this skill can improve your damage considerably. If you can make sure to always activate it when there are 5 or more enemies nearby, you can deal incredibly huge amounts of damage almost 100% of the time. The only time it might not be so useful is on bosses, assuming they don't have minions, but even then, a buff is a buff. To give an example, my level 13 Witch Doctor has 53 Intelligence and does 27.99 damage. When Soul Harvest is at the maximum 5 stacks, my Intelligence jumps to 233 and my damage more than doubles, to 60.93. That's... frigging amazing! Whatever my level 60 build will include, I'll be sure to save Soul Harvest a spot.
Lv 13 - Sacrifice
Sacrifice is a skill that works in concert with your Zombie Dogs. You can't use it on its own, because it detonates your Dogs for 200% weapon damage each, to enemies within 12 yards. This skill is somewhat similar to Diablo 2's Necromancer's Corpse Explosion. The problem is that you can't use it very often since Zombie Dogs are on a long 60 second cooldown. But there is a tactical aspect to Sacrifice. If you wait until your Dogs are almost dead, that's the best time to detonate them, especially if they are off cooldown. The skill effect is quite impressive, I'll give you that, but I haven't had much use for it in the beta. I'm waiting to test it more extensively in the full game, but right now you need to dedicate 2 (out of 4) precious keys to Sacrifice + Zombie Dogs and that's simply not worth it.

Passive Skills (1st slot unlocked at level 10)
At level 10 the first 2 passive skills  are unlocked.
Lv 10 - Circle of Life
Here's a potentially interesting passive skill. For each monster that dies within 12 yards, you get a 5% chance that a Zombie Dog will spawn. You can increase that range by wearing items which increase your gold pickup range. Now, the first problem with this passive is that it doesn't seem to work if you are already using Zombie Dogs. If you thought that you would get an army of Zombie Dogs in short order, think again. This works bets if you don't normally use Zombie Dogs but would like to have some minions, nonetheless. The second problem is that the number of Dogs that spawn is same as the number of Dogs you can summon with your Zombie Dogs spell, namely 3, or 4 if you enhance this with a later passive skill. Third issue is that the summoned Dogs are the basic, non-rune-enhanced variety. For these reasons, I don't see this passive as being very useful, at least not at these low levels.
Lv 10 - Jungle Fortitude
Instead of Circle of Life, at level 10 I would pick Jungle Fortitude. The effect is simple: 20% less damage from all sources for you and your minions. Though it doesn't make much of a difference in the beta, it does allow you to play more recklessly if that's what you want. I bet that this passive will be invaluable for hardcore characters, in Inferno and PvP.
Lv 13 - Spiritual Attunement
At level 13 Witch Doctors get the most useful passive skill in the beta, one that not only increases their Mana pool by 20% but also increases the regeneration rate by an extra 1% of maximum Mana each second. I would pick this over Jungle Fortitude any day, especially since there isn't much danger in the beta, whereas there are some very Mana-intensive spells that can benefit from this.

Next, I will talk about my level progression from 1-13.

Level Progression

Level 1
Poison Dart is all you get in your first slot. Use it to kill stuff.

Level 2
Your second skill slot (right mouse button by default) is unlocked, as well as Grasp of the Dead, one of the most awesome Witch Doctor skills in the beta (and possibly the game)! For best effect, use it at range on groups of monsters. You will love it when you see how their health bars are depleted. Make sure to equip the best weapon possible (with the best DPS) which will improve the damage of Grasp of the Dead (as well as most other skills). Since Grasp of the Dead is an AoE DoT, it will be very effective in killing or seriously damaging large groups of monsters. Just be aware of its 8 second cooldown. You can also use it defensively, by placing it on advancing groups of monsters, which will slow them down enough for you to hit them with other spells. Since the duration of the DoT is the same as the spell's cooldown, you can chain this as long as you need to, whenever it's off cooldown.

Level 3
Corpse Spiders becomes available as a primary skill. I suggest hanging on to Poison Dart, as Corpse Spiders is sluggish without a rune. You get more control with Poison Dart. But that's purely my personal preference.

Level 4
Your third skill slot ("1" key) becomes available, as well as Zombie Dogs. There's absolutely no reason not to use it. Always keep your Zombie Dogs up, and re-summon if they die and the skill is off cooldown. Zombie Dogs can be very effective decoys. I wouldn't call them tanks because they will die from a powerful boss or when there are scores of enemies attacking them, but they play a very good role: that of meat shield. The Witch Doctor is, in my opinion, a ranged class and needs to keep its distance from monsters. Zombie Dogs will distract those enemies (although their damage is low) enough for the Witch Doctor to do her (black) magic.

Level 5
Firebats becomes available as your secondary skill. You can choose to replace Grasp of the Dead with this but I preferred not to. The reason is that Firebats, although an awesome spell, will deplete your Mana very quickly and it has a rather short range, requiring you to get close to the action. In contrast, Grasp of the Dead feels free to cast and can be cast at the edges of the screen, before monsters can even detect you.

Level 6
The first rune becomes available, namely Splinters which enhances Poison Dart. Equip it and you will notice a marked improvement, if you are still using Poison Dart at this point.

Level 7
A second rune is unlocked. Groping Eels enhances Grasp of the Dead and gives it an extra bit of oomph (damage), which makes that skill even better. If you liked Grasp of the Dead before, you'll like it even more now.

Level 8
You get your second defensive skill, Horrify. I don't see any reason to use it over Zombie Dogs.

Level 9
Level 9 unlocks your fourth skill slot ("2" key) and also gives you a new skill to put in that slot, Soul Harvest. As discussed above, Soul Harvest has amazing potential, provided it is used correctly and refreshed accordingly. I would strongly advise using it. The only thing you will have to keep in mind is that you need to be more pro-active and to consider each move in advance. It would be a waste to use this skill when there are no monsters nearby or when there are only 1-2 of them, because then you'll have to wait for the cooldown before you can use it again. But if you can hit 5 monsters with it, you can double your damage for the next 30 seconds.
The Leaping Spiders rune is also unlocked at this level and if you haven't used Corpse Spiders until now, I suggest you give it a try. This rune makes that skill worthwhile.

Level 10
At level 10 your first two passive skills become available. I picked Jungle Fortitude, for the reasons outlined above.

Level 11
Plague of Toads becomes available as your primary skill. Personally this one didn't work very well for me so I chose to stick with Poison Dart.
The Dire Bats rune is unlocked for your Firebats and it transforms that skill a lot. I suggest at least trying it, if not outright adopting it, going forward.

Level 12
Haunt is a new secondary skill that I highly suggest trying. If you like working with DoTs, this is the skill for you. One of my builds uses it.
The Rabid Dogs rune is now available for your Zombie Dogs. It gives them extra damage so there's no reason not to equip it if you like running with minions.

Level 13
The third passive skill is unlocked. Spiritual Attunement is better than the other passives, at least in the beta, because it increases your Mana pool as well as the regeneration rate so you can use more costly spells.
Poison Dart gets its second rune, Numbing Dart. I ignored this one completely because it's irrelevant in the beta.
Finally, a new skill, Sacrifice is now available. As discussed above, this works in tandem with Zombie Dogs but none of my builds use it.

This concludes my discussions of the Witch Doctor's skills in the beta. I have used two different builds with great success but you should know that the Witch Doctor was the only class where I turned on Elective Mode for both builds, so I could arrange my skills the way I wanted them. I found that the game was too limiting in the way skills are assigned to each key. So here are my two level 13 builds:

Build 1 - This build features:
Poison Dart (runed with Splinters) on left mouse
Firebats (runed with Dire Bats) on right mouse
Grasp of the Dead (runed with Groping Eels) on key "1"
Corpse Spiders (runed with Leaping Spiders) on key "2"
Poison Dart is for cleaning up or smashing objects. Firebats provides the Mana-intensive nuke. Grasp of the Dead provides the AoE. Corpse Spiders is for massive spamming.

Build 2 - This build features:
Firebats (runed with Dire Bats) on left mouse
Haunt on right mouse
Grasp of the Dead (runed with Groping Eels) on key "1"
Soul Harvest on key "2"
Firebats provides the Mana-intensive nuke and is also used to smash objects (yeah, it's Mana-intensive but there's no other choice in this build). Haunt provides the powerful fire-and-forget DoT. Grasp of the Dead provides the AoE. Soul Harvest is the massive damage buff.

Both of these builds are a lot of fun. Lately I've been running with the second build because it feels even more fun, with the caveat that it burns through your mana a lot faster, with Firebats and Haunt which are both costly to use.

The Witch Doctor is a very versatile and fun class. It plays sufficiently different than all the other classes in both Diablo 3 and 2 to make it feel like a brand new concept. At several points during my beta career I almost made up my mind to make it my main in the full game. Eventually, I decided I would go the "safe" route, with the Demon Hunter, but I will definitely level a Witch Doctor to 60 shortly after my Demon Hunter.

Also read:
The Beta Demon Hunter
The beta Monk
The beta Wizard
The beta Barbarian

My beta auction house strategy

After playing with the Auction House in the beta for a couple of weeks, I have developed somewhat of a tentative strategy for making both gold and money, or rather Beta Bucks (BB). I will admit, I'm a little bit disappointed at this stage but I realize that the full game will be much different from the beta.

For one thing, the Auction House itself (whether gold or real money) is filled with bugs and errors, not to mention the fact that the interface is a complete mess. I am confident that Blizzard will clean this up by launch. After all, the Real Money Auction House is going to be their main revenue generator. They better not mess this up.

One of the biggest problems with the beta interface is that it's very hard to find items. Other bloggers have already mentioned this but it bears repeating: you are presented with a series of dropdowns which are supposed to "assist" you in finding items appropriate for your characters but this only serves to muddle things up. The most basic of elements, the free text search box, is missing. Until they implement that I'm afraid people will have a hard time finding the stuff they need.

A free text search box is the most basic of search tools. Only after that should dropdowns, checkboxes and other filters be added. I would be very happy to have something very similar to the WoW AH, with some refinements.

Another big problem with the beta AH is that results, although sorted by DPS, are still not sorted properly. Furthermore, when sorting by one of the headers, the list of results gets messed up.

But enough about the AH issues. I'm here to tell you how I made a bunch of fake money, aka Beta Bucks, BB or Bobby Bucks. It's not a large amount and I'm sure others have made a lot more than this. In my defense, I didn't set up to make tons of money. I mostly had fun killing monsters, with a little AH experimenting in between. Here's what I discovered.

Crating is useless
I am aware that some bloggers are apparently making lots of gold by selling crafted items. I tried that and it didn't work. Most of the time the attributes on crafted items are just not good enough, so I always end up salvaging the freshly-crafted item.

My opinion is that there's no point in wasting time crafting stuff in the beta. I'm sure the situation in the full game will be completely different but right now there are easier (and less time-consuming) ways to make a little money.

The Gold AH (GAH)
I'm sorry to say this but blue items are very poor sellers. I don't understand how people manage (or do they?) to sell blues for thousands of gold. Yeah, I get that some of these items have rare combinations of attributes on them but in the beta there simply isn't enough variation for these items to prove truly valuable. And besides, even with crappy gear monsters are still very easy.

I haven't tried selling any rare items on the GAH because I couldn't spare any.

What did sell on the GAH is Subtle Essences. I sold every single Essence I had. Instead of trying (and failing) to sell blues, I simply disenchanted each and every one of them and sold the Essences for gold.

The Real Money AH (RMAH)
It seems that no one will buy blue items on the RMAH. It's understandable. I didn't try selling any rares but I've noticed that people will bid on them if the starting bid is low. I have bid on a couple of them myself.

Crafting materials, likewise, do not sell so don't bother.

What does sell, of course, is gold. If you check the price for 1000 gold and then price your own gold at or below that price (don't go down more than 1 cent), it will sell. Using this method I sold tens of thousands of gold. On a couple of occasions I couldn't post the gold fast enough, as it was snatched immediately.

One other thing that worked was that I kept an eye out for under-priced gold and bought all of it. Several times I found gold at 3BB/1000 gold and once I found several stacks of 1000 gold for only 1BB. Later on I sold that at over 6BB.


That's about it. In summary:
- farm gold while having fun killing monsters (wear +Gold gear)
- salvage all blue items

- sell Subtle Essences on the GAH
- sell rares on the RMAH but set a low starting bid
- sell gold on the RMAH
- buy under-priced gold and sell it for its normal price on the RMAH

Using this strategy I made somewhere north of 500BB, perhaps 700 or so. I could have made a lot more had I farmed more, but I didn't. I also bought a couple of rare items that were decently priced, so that ate into my balance.

In the retail game I won't bother with crafting, at least not until I reach level 60 on my main character and not until gold and mat prices stabilize.

One quirky thing that I noticed in the beta is that apparently there's a 500BB limit. I might have read something to that effect but I don't remember if, when and where. Take a look at the screenshot below.

Notice the total at the top. It says 498.64. The proceeds from the sales highlighted with red simply disappeared. They never went into my balance. I assume that's because of the 500BB limit. All those sales that I highlighted would have pushed my balance over 500. For that reason, the game simply swallowed the proceeds and I never saw them reflected in my balance.

The sale at the top, for only 4BB was intentionally under-priced, so I could test if the system was actually eating my money. The 4BB went, indeed, into my balance and that's how I ended at 498.64.

The 500BB limit is the only explanation I can find for this situation. That, or there's a serious bug in the system. Has anyone else met with the same problem? How, then, are people expecting to sell items for more than 500BB or even thousands of BB?

This has to be fixed in the retail game. I mean, seriously. Just imagine: you already have $400+ in your balance and you hit the jackpot. Some random monster drops this super-duper-uber item that you manage to sell for $1000. But the game eats the difference between the selling price and the amount required to fill the gap to $500. Ouch!

This is not, I repeat, NOT, by any means the be-all end-all of money making strategies in Diablo 3. It's just a small experiment I made, to see if I can get comfortable with a particular strategy. While it isn't very ambitions, this strategy at least allows me to spend a minimum amount of time on the AH and instead spend most of it playing, not messing around with crafting or playing the market. Anyway, thoughts and ideas are much appreciated.

The beta Demon Hunter

I've mentioned this plenty of times before but I will say it again: I tend to favor ranged classes in RPGs. My favorite class in Diablo 2 was the Amazon and it was only fitting that the Demon Hunter would be the first class I would try in the beta.

The Demon Hunter isn't so much as Diablo 3's Amazon but rather a combination ranger/tinkerer/rogue because apart from boring ol' arrows and bolts she also uses various devices like traps, turrets and even rockets and grenades. Diablo 3's Demon Hunter is essentially a demon assassin. Take a D2 Amazon, mix in some Assassin and this is what you get.

I chose a female for my DH, perhaps in keeping with D2's female Amazon, although the two are nothing alike.

The first thing that would make anyone hesitate to pick a Demon Hunter is the dual-resource system. At first this seemed very confusing to me. Which skills use which resource? How does each replenish? Which is more important? All these questions were hard to answer and the system itself was hard to visualize, until I got some hands-on time with the Demon Hunter.

The DH uses two resources, which is (so far) unique to this class in Diablo 3. On the left you have Hatred, and you start with 150 of that stuff. Hatred is rusty-colored. The dark blue stuff on the right is Discipline and you only get 30 of it.

Hatred regenerates quickly on its own and you use it to power some of your most potent offensive abilities.

Discipline regenerates more slowly and is used mainly for tactical abilities.

Both resources can be replenished by certain skills. Hatred, especially, can be generated by primary offensive skills, which is always a good thing. In this aspect, Hatred is similar, for example, to the Monk's Spirit. The Monk also has primary offensive skills which generate Spirit.

Read my quick primer on how skill slots work in Diablo 3, if you don't know that already.

Next, I will do a review of the skills and runes available in the beta, broken down by skill slot. Disclaimer: these are my personal opinions and tastes. YMMV.

Primary (left mouse - slot unlocked at level 1)
Lv 1 - Hungering Arrow - Hatred generator
Hungering Arrow is one of my favorite primary skills and it remained so even at level 13. It works with bows and crossbows and even though it doesn't do a lot of damage (only 115% weapon damage), it's main attraction is that it can penetrate enemies 1/3 of the time. When it penetrates, it's quite cool. If there's a single enemy, the arrow turns back and hits that enemy again, with yet another 1/3 chance to penetrate. For multiple enemies, it strikes another enemy after it passes through the first.
    Lv 6 - Rune - Puncturing Arrow
At level 6, a good skill (Hungering Arrow) becomes even better. This first rune increases the chance of the arrow to penetrate to 50%. Now you can watch in amusement how every second arrow you fire hits enemies multiple times.
Lv 3 - Entangling Shot - Hatred generator
Level 3 gives you this skill which, I will admit, I didn't use a lot. The skill itself is pretty decent because it ties 2 enemies together and slows both by 60%, also dealing 75% damage to them. It's a great crowd-control skill. At these low levels and especially in the beta, you are too powerful anyway and there's not much point in slowing enemies down, because the damage is much better with other skills. I'm sure this skill will be much more useful at higher difficulty levels.
    Lv 9 - Rune - Chain Gang
This rune simply entangles up to 4 enemies instead of 2. Again, this will be great at higher difficulties when you can fire a quick succession of Entangling Shots into groups of enemies to chain-slow them.
Lv 11 - Bola Shot - Hatred generator
This is the skill which took over from Hungering Arrow, albeit with reluctance. Bola Shot is a lot of fun to use, though it might annoy you a bit if you don't like waiting. After you hit an enemy with the "bola" there's a short 1 second delay after which the bola explodes for 130% weapon damage to the enemy. In addition, it also deals 110% damage to enemies in close proximity (7 yards). I use this skill a lot because it's barrels of fun to shoot several of these at different monsters and see them explode after 1 second. If you fire it in quick succession at monsters that are bunched together you will see them all go up in successive blasts. Unfortunately the beta is too short to give us a rune for this great skill.

Secondary (right mouse - slot unlocked at level 2)
Lv 2 - Impale - Hatred consumer
At level 2 your second skill slot will be unlocked and the only skill that can be used is Impale. If you read the description carefully you'll realize that this skill is weapon independent, meaning that you can use it with melee weapons if you so choose. I've read that someone finished the beta with a melee Demon Hunter. Whatever, if that's your poison, go for it. Impale is pretty straightforward. It consumes Hatred and does a massive 250% weapon damage to a single target.
    Lv 7 - Rune - Impact
This rune gives Impale a 65% chance to knock back the target and stun them for 1.5 seconds. I'm thinking that this could be useful for stronger monsters like rares/champions/bosses but at higher difficulty levels there are diminishing returns to stun duration. On the other hand this rune would be invaluable for a melee DH.
Lv 5 - Rapid Fire - Hatred consumer
Ah, finally a really cool skill. Rapid Fire transforms your puny bow into a veritable machine gun. You hold down the mouse button and start spraying bullets bolts at the enemy for 228% weapon damage. Even the sound it makes is pretty machine-gunny. The only downside is that is uses quite a lot of Hatred so you will run out of your main resource quickly. However...
    Lv 11 - Rune - Withering Fire
At level 11 you can rune Rapid Fire with this rune for a big improvement. Now, instead of using 20 Hatred when initially firing the skill, it only uses 5 Hatred. It also converts all damage to fire damage. This rune completely transforms the Rapid Fire. Now it is viable to use this skill most of the time, with only short periods of using something else (like Bola Shot) to recharge Hatred. But wait, there's more! Later on there's a passive skill that makes this even better! Read on to find out.
Lv 12 - Chakram - Hatred consumer
I will admit that I was stumped by Chakram. I honestly don't see a use for it as a ranged class. It might work if you go all crazy-melee-hunter but for a true ranged DH it feels very awkward. It fires a "chakram" which starts swirling in a spiral away from you, hitting monsters along its path for 150% weapon damage. The problem is that you can't aim it, making it extremely imprecise and impossible to control. It works better if there are lots of enemies surrounding you but what hunter worth her salt would allow that? I just don't know... if you can give me a good use for this skill (maybe at higher levels??), drop me a comment.

Defensive ("1" key - slot unlocked at level 4)
Lv 4 - Caltrops - Discipline consumer
Caltrops can easily become a signature skill for any Demon Hunter, especially if you like solo-ing stuff. It sets a trap underneath you. When a monster sets it off, it slows down all enemies for 60% in a 12 yard circle for 6 seconds. I use this all the time on my DH. It allows you to keep monsters at range and to hit them with all you've got while they're slowed. You can even set multiple caltrops if you want, as long as you don't run out of Discipline (about 3-4 of them).
    Lv 12 - Rune - Hooked Spines
This rune simple increases the slowing effect of Caltrops to 80%. This makes a good skill even better. Nothing else to say here.
Lv 8 - Smoke Screen - Discipline consumer
Once again, here's a skill which is pretty much useless in the beta. I can see how it can come in handy in certain situations, like when you are close to dying, for example. Just use this and you get 3 precious seconds to make your getaway. The beta hasn't presented any situations like this so the skill was useless for me. In Inferno it might come in handy if you are constantly in danger of dying. The problem is that this is a very situational skill and Demon Hunters are meant to stay away from enemies anyway so I would rather use other skills, like for example Caltrops. Oh ok, I admit that it might be quite useful for PvP. But enough of this.

Hunting ("2" key - slot unlocked at level 9)
Lv 9 - Vault - Discipline consumer
The Hunting category has been the most boring and under-used for Demon Hunters in the beta. The only mildly useful skill is Vault, which causes you to "tumble acrobatically" for 35 yards, in the direction of your mouse pointer. I use this skill sometimes, mostly to move quickly. I have yet to use it to escape a difficult encounter, though I can see that it can be very useful for those kinds of situations.
Lv 13 - Preparation - long cooldown, no resources used
Here's another useless skill (for the beta). This one has a 45 second cooldown and restores all your Discipline when used. Can't see it being useful unless you like to spam, say, Caltrops.

Passive Skills (1st slot unlocked at level 10)
At level 10 we finally get our passive skills. Luckily, you can choose between 2 of them at this level.
Lv 10 - Tactical Advantage
This one can work well with boring skills such as Vault, Smoke Screen or Evasive Fire (not available in the beta), in that it gives you 60% increased movement speed for 2 seconds after using that particular skill. I'm betting that it will be popular in some PvP builds but in the beta it's completely pointless. Luckily there's a better passive to pick at this level...
Lv 10 - Thrill of the Hunt
Now here's an interesting passive skill. The description says: "Every 10 seconds, your next bow attack will immobilize your target for 3 seconds." It seems like a very cool effect, though, to be honest, I haven't really noticed it in action. I guess that's because monsters die so quickly that it's hard to tell when they become immobilized. I also wonder if this works with attacks which hit multiple monsters. In any case, this passive is better than the alternative.
Lv 13 - Vengeance
Vengeance makes the beta Demon Hunter complete. The reason why I love it so much is that health globes now also restore some of your Hatred and Discipline in addition to health. This makes you really awesome because you can use Rapid Fire (runed) almost constantly, while also throwing down Caltrops for example. Killing lots of monsters will give you lots of health globes which replenish your resources, allowing you to kill yet more monsters.

Here ends my analysis of all the skills and runes available for the Demon Hunter in the Diablo 3 beta. Next, I will explain how my own progression from level 1 to 13 went.

Level Progression

Level 1
Really no choice here - There's Hungering Arrow and 1 skill slot.

Level 2
You get your second skill slot, as well as your second skill, Impale. Use Impale until you run out of Hatred, then switch to Hungering Arrow to replenish.

Level 3
You get Entangling Shot. You can switch to this or continue using Hungering Arrow. Either way, pick the one that feels the most fun. Entangling Shot will slow down monsters if you find they are too quick for you.

Level 4
You get your third skill slot, as well as Caltrops. Now you can finally use your Discipline resource. Place Caltrops before attacking a large group of monsters. Move to keep Caltrops between you and the monsters. Also place it behind you if you are trying to escape. There are many tactical uses for this skill and remember, you can place multiple Caltrops until you run out of discipline. Thanks to the dual-resource system you won't run out of resource for your damage dealing abilities.

Level 5
You can now replace Impale with Rapid Fire. Impale might still be a better single target skill but Rapid Fire is good for mowing down multiple enemies, especially if they are bunched together.

Level 6
The excitement starts at level 6. The first skill rune is unlocked. Hungering Arrow gets the Puncturing Arrow rune. If you switched to Entangling Shot, I suggest you switch back to runed Hungering Arrow. I find it a lot more fun.

Level 7
Nothing exciting here. Impale gets its first rune (Impact) but you won't care if you switched to Rapid Fire. If you like to play a melee DH, then this rune is mandatory.

Level 8
Smoke Screen becomes available. Yawn. I would ignore it because Caltrops is so much more useful.

Level 9
Your 4th skill slot is unlocked, along with Vault. Use Vault whenever you feel like moving quickly in one direction and you have enough Discipline, or when you are trying to escape certain death.

Level 10
Passive skills are now available. I suggest picking Thrill of the Hunt, although you may not notice the effect in action.

Level 11
Bola Shot becomes available as a primary skill. I would highly recommend trying it, if not replacing Hungering Arrow with it. Also, Rapid Fire gets its first rune, Withering Fire, which makes it way better than the basic skill.

Level 12
Chakram is unlocked. Yawn. More importantly, Caltrops gets the Hooked Spines rune which makes it more effective. No reason not to use it.

Level 13
The most useful passive for the beta becomes available, Vengeance. Use it. Also, Preparation becomes available for your Hunting Skills. I don't see any reason to use it in the beta.

In summary, here's my level 13 beta Demon Hunter build. It works really well for me and it's a lot of fun. Of course, there are tons more skills and runes until level 60 so a final build is likely to be different, also depending on your goals and style of play. I find the Demon Hunter lots of fun to play and as of now I'm 99.99% convinced that it will be my main character when the game is released.

Also read:
The beta Witch Doctor
The beta Monk
The beta Wizard
The beta Barbarian

Primer on Diablo 3's skill slots

Diablo 3 is different that the previous games in the series in many ways. One of them is the way skills can be accessed in combat. Due to the way the skill system works (you gain new skills automatically and for free as you level up), Blizzard wanted to limit skill spamming and to prevent people from facing every potential situation by simply having easy access to a large and diverse pool of skills.

To this end they implemented the current skill-swapping and skill slot system.

In Diablo 3 you are limited to a maximum of 6 skills that you can use in combat. The limitation is artificial and is given by the available skill slots. You get 2 slots for your two mouse buttons (left and right) and 4 additional slots (by default assigned to the keys 1-4). In the beta, only 2 of the latter are available, for a total of 4 active skills. That's because additional slots are unlocked at higher levels.

In addition to the 6 active skills you can also assign 3 passive skills. Once again, these passive slots are enabled progressively as you level.

There's also a special slot which is exclusive to healing potions. By default this is accessed by the "Q" key.

You can easily determine at which levels these slots become available by visiting the skill calculator for any class. If you don't feel like going there, here's the breakdown:

Active Skills
Level 1: left mouse button
Level 2: right mouse button
Level 4: "1" key
Level 9: "2" key
Level 14: "3" key
Level 19: "4" key

Passive Skills
Level 10
Level 20
Level 30

You can, of course, change the default key assignments for the active skills if you wish. As you can see, by level 30 you will have access to all the possible slots. There's no simple coincidence that at level 30 you will also be finishing the game in Normal difficulty. When you move on to Nightmare you should be able to juggle all 6 active skills as well as all 3 passives.

Skills can be swapped into these slots anytime you wish, whether in town or outside. There's a catch though. In town skills that have been freshly swapped can be used immediately, while outside town the fresh skill will have a 30 second cooldown. That's not a big deal at all, considering that you can use your other skills in the meantime. An additional limitation is that skills which are on cooldown (some cooldowns are several minutes in length) cannot be swapped until the cooldown is over.

When Blizzard recently overhauled the skill system, they also came up with a new interface for assigning those skills (and skill runes), as well as the concept of Guided vs Elective Mode. I will admit that this interface isn't the most intuitive. A lot of people have stated that it needs work and I agree. For what it's worth, I've gotten used to it and it doesn't bother me terribly.

Blizzard breaks down skills into different types. Each class has primary, secondary and Defensive skills. Typically, primary skills (left mouse) are resource generators, while secondary skills (right mouse) are resource spenders. This means that (depending on the situation of course) you can open with your secondary skill for a big nuke and when your resource is depleted you can switch to the primary skill to replenish said resource. The Defensive category ("1" key) is just that: skills that help you survive.


The next 3 skill types ("2", "3" and "4" keys) vary for each class individually. For example, the Barbarian has Might, Tactics and Rage categories, while the Demon Hunter has Hunting, Devices and Archery.

The game starts with Guided Mode as default. What this means is that when a new skill slot becomes available, you will only be presented with skills that match the related category. For example you can only assign primary skills to the left button, secondary skills to the right button, Defensive skills to the "1" key and so on.

While many people were at first horrified by this so-called "nanny mode", I will admit that it isn't as bad as it seems. First of all, if you so wish, you can choose to enable Elective Mode (Options > Gameplay > Interface) which allows you to assign any skill to any slot you wish. Second, if you start a new class you haven't played before, or if you're just getting the hang of the game, Guided Mode is a very decent tool for teaching you the ropes.

With Guided Mode, you will learn which skills generate resources, which consume them, which are defensive and which can help you in other ways. Mixing skills together from the start could prove confusing and might even drive people away from classes such as the Demon Hunter which uses 2 resources.

I urge everyone who starts playing Diablo 3 to skip Elective Mode for a while and simply let the game guide you. Once you get the hang of it, you will know when the time is right to assign your own skills. I finished the beta with all 5 classes and only then did I try Elective Mode on one of them.

This is it for my primer on Diablo 3's skill slots. If there's anything I have missed, please feel free to drop me a comment.

Disclaimer: This article is written partly in response to Diablo 3 Gold Guide's April blogging carnival. I say "partly" because I am planning to tie this into a series of future articles.

Diablo 3 beta impressions

Some of you already know that a benefactor passed me a beta key. I've been playing like crazy since then and now I can offer a few quick impressions, considering that I have completed the beta on all 5 classes. They are not level 13 yet but I have seen all that the beta has to offer. Here's the lineup:

Demon Hunter - level 11
Witch Doctor - level 10
Monk - level 10
Wizard - level 9
Barbarian - level 9

Probably the first question that springs to mind is which class I liked best. Well, I started with the Demon Hunter which I enjoyed a lot. I was convinced that in the final game I would pick this class as my main. Then I played with the Witch Doctor and doubts started creeping in. Now I like both equally but I'm leaning slightly towards the Witch Doctor, for reasons which you shall read about when I make an analysis of each class. Next, I found the Monk to be the most fun melee class, while the Wizard and Barbarian tie for last.

Here are my quick impressions.

To me (and I stress this), Diablo 3 truly feels like a continuation of the series. The moment I got into it I felt like home. There's a lot of attention to detail in the artwork and graphics, not to mention the sounds of gold or items falling, of chests opening or a myriad other small things.

The music was very good, suitably creepy in the wilds or the cathedral. I particularly appreciated the sounds of chains rattling. The occasional maniacal cackling of the skeletons in the cathedral didn't feel completely out of place.

The graphics aren't cutting edge like, say, Path of Exile. They're not even as gritty. But I'm okay with that. To tell the truth, I never thought Diablo 2 was particularly dark. D3 does seem to have a more cartoonish look to it but it doesn't bother me.

It took me almost 3 hours to beat the beta with the Demon Hunter but that's because I took my sweet time listening to all the dialogue and exploring every nook and cranny. With the other characters it was much quicker, under 2 hours.

The Skeleton King fight was kind of tough with all classes, at least at levels 9-10 and without the best equipment possible. I didn't die but I came close a few times. The trick is to pace yourself, kill the summons for health and avoid the King's whirlwind and teleport.

The Weeping Hollows is the largest outdoor zone and my favorite so far. It also seems the best zone for farming, especially if you visit the randomly appearing Den of the Fallen.

I love how Hungry Torsos crawl out of bushes unexpectedly and how skeletons pop out from coffins when you least expect it.

At about levels 8-9 you can finally unlock Town Portal after completing the Shattered Crown quest. Also, the Blacksmith opens up his services to you at this point, which only happens on your first run-through with your first character. This is important because it enables salvaging, which subsequent characters will have access to from level 1.

I like the Treasure Goblins a lot. When I see one I drop everything and follow him through the entire area until he's dead, other monsters be damned.

I like how achievements give XP bonuses. That's how they should work, otherwise they'd be useless to me.

Gold doesn't feel that scarce. By the end of my first run-through I had 16,000. Now, the account statistics tell me that I made over 70K. If it doesn't feel like a lot that's because I didn't attempt to play the Auction House or anything like that.

I love (who doesn't?) rare monsters and champions. I just wish there were more groups of them. Whenever I encounter them it's PARTY TIME!

The only yellow items (rare) I've seen drop were after killing the Skeleton King.

The game loads quickly and so do all the transitions. Grabbing a portal or a waypoint or entering a new zone is almost instant.

The interface is OK, nothing special about it, except...

The Auction House interface is a terrible mess. I truly hope they don't go live with this crap or else no one's gonna use it. OK, they will, but no one will be able to find anything on it. Searching is very bad, sorting doesn't work most of the time and some of the filters are completely broken. For example, the default search doesn't filter by item type. If I filter by rare (OK) and then change to magic, it won't show any items.

The skill interface could use a little bit of polish. It takes too much space and may seem confusing at first. It's hard to figure out what are all the spells/runes at your disposal.

I kept the guided spell system, which is default, to see how it feels and it does a good job grouping the skills. So far I haven't felt the need to switch to Elective Mode.

I haven't grouped yet and I've only used the Auction House briefly. Actually, I posted 8 items on the Gold AH and they haven't sold yet even though the prices were competitive. I had a lot more success on the Real Money AH where I managed to double my 50 beta bucks to over 100 in a short time. My secret? I just sold some gold. Oh and a yellow item I didn't need.

Being able to equip new characters with items found by older characters is priceless. It makes a huge difference and helps you to level them much quicker and safer. Kudos to Blizzard for allowing this.

Health potions are plentiful (though on a cooldown so you can't spam them) such that by the end of the beta I had about 50 of them on each class, having used much less than I found.

That's about it for first impressions. I will attempt to analyze each class in more detail in the days that follow. If you have any questions, fire away!