I have made a triumphant and glorious return to the world of Sanctuary. Reaper of Souls, the first Diablo III expansion, has been played and conquered once so far.
The main campaign kicks off with Malthael the Angel o’ Death grabbing the much bally-hooed Black Soulstone. This houses Diablo (of course) and he is wanting to use it along with the Worldstone, souls, angel, demons, duct tape, gauze pads, ball bearings and the Colonel’s 11 herbs and spices to put an end to the eternal war of evil vs. good. You must fight your way through his army and stop him in the typical monster slaying faction.
Ok, now that the story is out of the way, is this expansion worth it? You get a level cap pushed to 70. You get a new act to play through. A new character class, the Crusader, is available to play. You gain one new offensive skill and a few new passive skills. The auction house is gone! Thank the gods for that! Loot drops are now viable places to acquire gear. There is a final difficulty level called torment that is unlocked. You gain a new play mode called Adventure. This gives you something to do once the main story is complete. You can also add paragon levels to your characters if you are at max. These give passive buffs and that is pretty sweet. Finally, they added a new craftsman, the Mystic to the alter item abilities and transmogrify gear.
So is all this worth a crap? I think it is. The campaign mode seems short, but it is only one additional act in the story. Unlocking Adventure mode is sweet. It gives some good replay potential. It is just a series mini-missions that culminate in more treasure. Then mix in the paragon system to keep gaining experience while at max level. It does get stale butchering your way through Hell’s minions without gaining any XP. This gives a good bit of replay value.
The loot drop changes are fantastic! Getting better gear from random elites instead of hoping for an end boss to drop something useful is great! Hell even on normal I have had legendary item drops for characters off of random elites. Plus the items see to be more useful too. Nothing is worse than getting barbarian and monk gear off a boss when I’m rocking a witch doctor. Now that it seems like more class specific items drop more often. I love the new loot system and will not miss the ridiculousness of the auction house.
The Mystic is a mixed bag for me. Transmoging gear in Diablo seems silly. I swap out gear much too often to spend the time playing costume design with my character. Plus the camera angle is not the best for viewing how sweet your new transformed gear looks. However, being able to swap item stats and abilities on items is sweet. Sure this is randomized and that gives me a mean case of gas! At least they show you the potential changes and even give you a few to choose. So it is random, but they at least give you a choice of random.
On the outside this seems a bit pricey for what feels like a short expansion. I’m a fan so I had no real problem grabbing it. It is a fun bookend to the events of Diablo III. Plus I really dig the adventure mode.
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