An Introduction: Diablo 3 Tips for Beginners

Are you, like many people, new to the Diablo franchise? Or are you coming into the game and are utterly confused by how Diablo 3 differs from its predecessors? Either way, I’ve come across a lot of people who don’t understand a few things about how basics of the game work, and others that are unaware of key features that impact how you play the game. Here are the four things I think it would help every beginner to know.

Statistics

Diablo is all about gear, and all this gear has stats on it. What stats are good for whom? The first thing you want to figure out is your primary stat, which is Strength for Barbarians, Dexterity for Monks and Demon Hunters, and Intelligence for Witch Doctors and Wizards. When you’re first starting out and wondering what to put on, typically you want to seek out gear with your primary stat on it, since it will almost always be better for you. These stats also impact more complicated statistics, but these won’t be important to your Normal Difficulty playthrough.

Vitality is also important, but not seriously so until Acts 3 and 4 of Normal. Partway through Act 3, you may notice yourself dying easily to certain magical attacks, such as the green pools spawned by Heralds of Pestilence. Having 3000 or 4000 health should be more than enough, and I’ve seen certain classes beat Normal Difficulty Diablo with 2500 health or so. If you notice yourself dying, pick some up. Otherwise, Vitality isn’t too big of a concern until the beginning of Nightmare.

Elective Mode

Elective Mode allows players to have more than one ability from a spell category on their bar, if they wish. It also allows players to move their buttons around. For example, if you wanted to run both Magic Missile and Electrocute as a Wizard, you could. You could also put either spell on any button you had available, not just left or right click.

Advanced Tooltips

Advanced tooltips are enabled by checking the corresponding box in the Interface section of your Gameplay Options. When checked, all of your spells will show more detailed descriptions, allowing you to see how much damage the spell deals, heals, or buffs you instead of the more flowery but nonspecific descriptions you start out with.

Monster and Player Health Bar Numbers

If you want to see exactly how much health you and your enemies have, as well as text displaying damage and healing numbers, you can enable these in the HUD section of your Gameplay Options. I usually leave all of these options checked, since I like seeing as much information as possible.

Go Out and Kill Stuff

With these few things in mind, your first foray through Normal Difficulty of Diablo 3 should be much easier. On top of that, these are things you’ll definitely want to keep in mind for Nightmare and above. Normal allows you to mostly coast through the game, but in Nightmare, you’re going to need all the help you can get, at first.

Look for more information on transitioning to Nightmare Difficulty next week!