Diablo III starts on Nightmare

[pandalishus]

Perhaps DH is OP, or I've just got a good eye for cheap AH gear, but I thought Normal was too easy. I only died 3-4x, two of which were on bosses and almost all of which could have been avoided. I certainly enjoyed the Normal play-through, but it was easy-mode. Then I began Nightmare. Yes, boys and girls, this is where the game begins.

The very first zombie you meet along the road to Tristram took 3 hits from 400 dps build to take down. Before I'd met the second "vile mother" (or whatever they're called), I'd already entered a cellar I had to leave & re-enter three times just to down the elite that had spawned. When another pack of elites dropped spinning laser turrets that I had to dodge, I nearly crapped my pants. I began to look up the road and preemptively lay traps, just to have a safe avenue of retreat. After 45m of play in Nightmare, I logged last night without even having entered the cathedral "proper," and I had almost died no fewer than 5 times. Granted, I'm soloing, but Nightmare is where you really start to see how hard Hell can hit.

Oh, and if you're playing hardcore in NM mode, prepare for your game to end before the Skelly King.

PS My DPS is now 520 w/ 3700 HP. Rawr.

[Vejuz]

I dunno. Act 3 is kicking my butt, but on the other hand a lot of my equipment isn't that great. I tried looking for decent equipment on the AH, but I can hardly find anything that is an upgrade for my stuff for less than 5k.

What's your technique for combing the AH? I'm not sure if I'm doing it wrong, or if Wizard gear is just inflated in price.

My wizard does, however, have 50%-ish magic find though So at least there's that. ;p I get an awful lot of VIT/STR gear that'll be great for my barbarian.

[pandalishus]

Yeah, it could be a difference between DH and Wizard. As for what I do:

Set max buyout to 2000 (or whatever). Set quality to "Rare." Pick the slot to upgrade. Set min stats (if it's important). Search. I can typically find some pretty solid deals over the course of a play session. I have to "leave game" regularly, but I try to do that after checkpoint saves so I don't lose progress.

[Prospero]

The only thing that bothered me about the demo is how faceroll easy it was. Good to know they crank it up.

If only my copy would get here soon. That's what I get for ordering it from a bookstore -_- Couldn't pass up dat store credit.

[pandalishus]

Of course, the forums have a post by a guy who's already soloed The Butcher on Inferno (though he said Act II was nuts). Not sure I like the sound of that. Now that I've caught up with the Nightmare curve, it's still kinda faceroll. I'm hovering just beneath 900 DPS and it's not been too hard. sure, enemies hit harder and I have to be more aware of the environment, but nothing's really giving me too much trouble. Tak, Vejuz and I downed Skelly King on Nightmare about 45m ago and it wasn't too tough. LOTS more XP than on Normal, so it took about 2-3m (compared to about 30s on Normal solo), but we weren't in any serious risk of dying from what I could tell.