Is DH still a good class after the latest patches?

[sneakytails]

"easy" but fun.

however I dont think it would be the end of the world in d3 if a guy could take some 3 socket armor with decent stats and stick a resist all jewel in it for example. Instead you are forced to find it only through a extremely rare drop and high priced purchase or if you are lucky a trade. If anything it would increase economic activity, cheaper armors that sell for junk would all of a sudden have a purpose.

I do not mind the progression curve that much I just dislike the fact that there are no real avenues in the game to help with the stat straight jacket. I really enjoyed the charms and such in d2.

My upgrades for my demon hunter are going to be around 5-10 mil each on the armor and way past that for a weapon. Its too high.

[galzohar]

Finding your own gear in D2 is a myth, to be honest. Sure you could do it, but unless you were an overpowered class (summon necro, hammerdin, meteorb sorc), there was no way your power would have been anywhere near someone playing the same class but doing extremely minimal trading (and by minimal I mean for items that you could practically get for free 1-2 days after a ladder reset by making a post on the forums). In D3 the situation is pretty much the same. Except now with inferno which is much more difficult than D2 hell you actually need to do even more trading to keep going. Basically, A1 is about equivalent to D2 hell, as you can complete it with items that you can get practically for free. Act 2-4 are a "new" difficulty level that didn't exist in D2 as you cannot beat them using the same method.

If you wanted charms in D2 that were worth the space you needed to trade for them too. Nothing special there except they were an annoyance that destroyed your inventory space yet you practically had to have them if you wanted to be competitive.

You can definitely get anywhere by just farming yourself. Sure, quickly farming act 3 can get you up to 4 times the loot (usually much less) than quickly farming act 1, but farming 4x slower is still going to get you where you want to be pretty damn fast.

By the way, if you need 5-10mil to upgrade ANY of your items, but are still stuck in act 1, you sir are doing it wrong. 5-10 mil upgrades are what you need to move from farming act 2 to farming act 3! And if you can farm act 2 quickly, you already make a pretty decent amount of gold per hour, not a whole lot less than those "rich" players farming act 3. Sure you can't compete with OP barbs/wizards, but it's really not THAT bad.

[magicrectangle]

there was no way your power would have been anywhere near someone playing the same class but doing extremely minimal trading

I won't dispute that, but that's not the problem the notwink/notrade players have. Nobody expects untwinked to be able to be as powerful as twinked, that would just be stupid. The key difference is that in D2 untwinked you could, with a modicum of skill, take any class (and almost any spec) through the entire game successfully.

Heck I used to run no trade / untwinked hardcore groups with friends. You could make pretty much anything work with a little skill and patience.

In D3, getting through inferno as a notwink/notrade player is an exercise in frustration. That sort of play was one of the real joys of Diablo 2, and it just isn't there for D3. I don't mind D3 for what it is, but IMHO that's a huge hole in its ability to be considered a successor to D2. As a hack and slash game, standing on its own, D3 is pretty good. As a successor to D2? Meh.

I'm sure the people who didn't enjoy notwink play are already giving this post a big "who cares," but the number of people who played and enjoyed D2 that way was substantial.

[sneakytails]

Finding my own gear in D2 is all I have been doing for years running Hardcore untwinked spearazons, A class that is VERY gear specific and VERY depedant on resists just like some of us are in D3. Its a lot of fun to play this way (self found), It just feels like a steady improvement over time for the effort I put in instead of walls and frustration. My point is here is that the game gives you Mechanisms to get those items that add to the enjoyment of the game.

In d2 you could buy a cruel war pike of quickness from a vendor and punch two sockets in it via Larzuk and then use the itemization in D2 to stick either gems, runes or jewels in the sockets. Just one example of getting a decent weapon.

Charms in D2 could be found or re-rolled via the cube and while this does take a tremendous amount of effort it is very doable. Charms allowed a player running self found or just starting out to supplement his or her equipment, something you cannot do in d3.

I am just not a d3 farmer I guess and I feel that there needs to be more ways to help with the equipment slots like in d2.

[galzohar]

Untwinked in D2 with non-OP builds was probably just as slow and time-consuming as getting through act 1 inferno in D3 using the same rules, which would make sense considering it's a similar difficulty level. Act 2 inferno is just a difficulty level that didn't exist in D2. If it did, you wouldn't be able to do it untwinked, either, at least not without unbelievable amounts of time spent.