Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls goes live tonight at midnight PST.

[Pappy13]

I took advantage of the 100% XP boost over the weekend to get all 5 classes to level 60 in hard core and even managed to add on 11 Paragon levels. I sure do hope that RoS is gonna add 2 new slots for toons otherwise I'm gonna have to delete a max level character to create a Crusdader. That would really suck. Surely Blizzard won't do that to me. 

What's new in RoS:

Crusader
 - Strength based Melee class
 - Crusader specific weapons and sheilds.
 - All new skills/runes

Act V
 - New Boss - Death.
 - New Mobs
 - New Areas

Level cap raised to 70
 - New level 60-70 legendaries.
 - New skills
 - New Runes
 - New Passives

Mystic
 - Enchanting. Replace one attribute on an item with another attribute.
 - Requires materials and gold.
 - Can only replace one attribute, once chosen cannot change any other attributes.
 - Replacement attribute based on attribute to be changed.
 - Transmogrify. Replace the look of an item with another that you have acquired.

Adventure Mode
 - Free movement around the map once campaign mode has been completed
 - Each act has 5 Bounties.
 - Bounties can be Bosses, Dungeons, Uniques etc.
 - Blood shards drop from mobs which can be redeemed for items.
 - Rift keys drop from mobs which can be used to open rifts.
 - Cache rewards.
 - Completing 5 bounties for an act increases rewards.
 - Completing all 25 bounties for a game increases rewards.

[Tenshot13]

I'm debating on getting the expansion. I've been playing a lot lately and got every character in the 20s except DH.  Might wait for a bit and see the reviews.

[Pappy13]

Rookie.  I have every class to 60 on both normal and hardcore. I think I'm paragon level 40 something on Normal and 11 on hardcore. Think I'm close to 1000 hours played in total.

[Tenshot13]

Rookie.  I have every class to 60 on both normal and hardcore. I think I'm paragon level 40 something on Normal and 11 on hardcore. Think I'm close to 1000 hours played in total.

If course I'm a rookie, the only reason I started playing again was because of your post a couple weeks back.

[Pappy13]

Expansion is off to a very nice start. I was online last night when the expansion went live. A message popped up stating that the expansion content was now playable. Many people were already in a game waiting to kill Diablo. As soon as the expansion went live they killed Diablo and were immediately granted access to Act V. I had to log off my account and log back in to get access to 2 new character slots, but had no trouble doing that. I played the crusader a bit and then went to bed. No issues.

See what others had to say about the expansion on Reddit.

[Pappy13]

I'm finding out there's a lot more to the expansion then I realized. Couple of things I've found out after playing for a day and reading Reddit.
 
1) Act V isn't your typical act. I don't want to give away too much, but it reminded me of when Death Knights were introduced into WoW and I got a chance to play their starting zone for the first time and I thought it was game changing. Act V has that kinda feel to it.
 
2) Followers now have quests and their own legendaries. Not that this is a big deal, but it's always nice when you find things you didn't know existed.
 
3) Rifts are not typical levels. Dozens of Elite mob packs one after the other with no trash mobs in between. Be careful in Hardcore, it's easy to trigger 4 or 5 packs of elites at once and be saying ba-bye to your toon.
 
4) I didn't realize just how many levels of gems their really are. Marquise gems start dropping in Act V which are like 5 or 6 levels higher then the highest level gems that I currently have on any of my toons. How is that possible? Well, gems have to be combined to create higher level gems then what drop at level 60. It takes 3 gems plus a healthy bit of gold to create 1 gem of the next highest quality. So for example lets say I wanted to replace the 5 Ruby gems on my Barbarian with 5 Ruby gems of the next highest quality. That would mean I would need to find 10 additional Ruby gems to combine with the 5 I have for 15 total to make 5 of the next higher level. Now lets say I want to go up another level, well it would mean finding 30 additional Ruby gems to combine those into 10 of the next highest level to combine with the 5 that I have to create 5 of the next highest level. Not to mention the gold to go with that. You can see how going up a couple levels of gem quality really starts to add up and that's just 1 gem type for just 1 toon. Long story short, I haven't found enough gems at level 60 to combine to get anywhere close to the level of gems that are dropping now. I can start replacing the gems in my sockets one at a time without having to combine anything and they'll be like 5 or 6 gem levels better. Whoa. I had no idea I was so far behind.

[bsmooth]

Thoughts on the Crusader? I like the gem thing.

[Pappy13]

Thoughts on the Crusader? I like the gem thing.

I just hit 20 tonight with the Crusader so really just starting to play the class. I really didn't care much for the spinning hammer skill, but I only had the first rune so maybe other runes are better. I do like the skill that allows you to throw your shield and it can bounce up to 3 times. Captain America doesn't have shit on my Crusader in that regard. The drop from the heavens on your sword skill seems a bit overpowered, but it has a 30 second cooldown on it so I guess not really any more then several other OP skills with 30 second cooldowns. I like the passive that allows you use 2 handed weapons in your main hand and still carry a shield as well. Overall the class seems to fit in well with the other classes. There's enough difference here from the Barbarian to make you want to play the class and there's plenty of different types of skills that you should be able to create the type of toon you want whether that be an unstoppable tank or a powerful damage class. Was talking to a couple guys tonight that hit 60 with their crusaders and they said they were really rocking at 60. Probably gonna be a little tweaking of the skills by Blizzard as time goes on and I'm sure there will be shouts of NERF in the near future, so you might want to get in on the action now before the nerf bat hits.

[bsmooth]

I have not tried the 2h weapon in one hand yet

[Pappy13]

Update on the Crusader. I'm now level 50 and have completed Act IV. At this rate I think I'm going to finish Act V before I hit 70, but that will give me some time to play Adventure mode to hit 70, so that sounds about right. I didn't skip any content, but I didn't make sure that I killed every last mob before moving on either.

I may have been a bit hasty on the blessed hammer skill for the Crusader. After a few more rune choices and a bunch of play testing, I've come around on it and it's pretty much been on my skills bar since level 25 or so. Still doing a lot of skill swapping to find just the right combination of killing efficiency and durability to play hard core, but I've found a lot of useful skills. Unfortunately I've found the Law skills to be pretty worthless. These are the most Crusader specific skills in the game and I haven't really found a need to put any of them on my skill bar. They really need to be beefed up or reworked or something to give them some oomph. It just seems wrong to completely bypass that tab, but I can't really seem to justify removing something else. There's something wrong about that.

I LOVE the 2 hand passive skill. If the best weapon I have is a one hand weapon I swap out the passive for something else, but anytime a 2 hand with better stats drops I no longer have a choice to make about equipping it or a shield, I simply pop on the passive and there ya go. It's brilliant. Not mandatory, but there when you need it. Has made 2 hand weapons useful and possibly even preferred over 1 hand weapons which is really nice for a change.

I haven't really found Crusader shields to be a requirement, I often run with a regular shield over a Crusader shield so something seems to be missing there. They need to have something special on them that make them a better option over just a plain shield. They typically have some Crusader specific stat on them but so do a lot of just plain old shields, so nothing really seems to give them a decided edge which I think they should have for a Crusader. Maybe that's the way Blizzard wants it, but it just seems wrong to me whenever I'm using a regular shield on my Crusader.

I don't know if it's the class or the other changes to the game but my Crusader feels a bit OP to me. I pretty much can tank anything without fear. I really only have to be careful on very few elite packs with just the right combination of skills, pretty much everything else I can just stand toe to toe. It really shouldn't be that way especially for a hard core toon. Even on my HC Barb there were plenty of elite packs that I couldn't just tank them, I'd have to hit and run using rend or something and I often had to jump out to safety for fear of being surrounded. Not on my Crusader. My Crusader doesn't run. Ever. He might have to move out of the lava pool or poison at his feet from time to time but that's about it and his health bar barely ever moves. Now I'm only playing on Hard difficulty because it is Hard Core after all and I've found that moving to Expert level on Hard Core is just too sketchy. Every time I've tried it, I end up dieing. Expert would be a breeze on Normal mode where dieing on the rare occasion is no big deal. I'll see where the sweet spot is on Normal mode when I start playing those toons, but right now I'm having too much fun playing hard core to switch. It might sound backwards to some, but I've actually found HC to be much more enjoyable than Normal. Normal just seems to limit any feeling of challenge or accomplishment in the game. I guess there's challenge in being able to play Torment levels without dieing every 5 minutes, but it's not the same as knowing that all your hard work can be erased in one false move in hard core.

[bsmooth]

I like Blessed Hammer and the shield toss. I have not seen you on the chat you started.

[Lee]

2) Followers now have quests and their own legendaries. Not that this is a big deal, but it's always nice when you find things you didn't know existed.
 

I've come back to the game for the expansion.  I do like it so far.  I could not locate anything or any quest indicating the above.  Can you help me because I would love to do this aspect of the game as well...

[Pappy13]

I've come back to the game for the expansion.  I do like it so far.  I could not locate anything or any quest indicating the above.  Can you help me because I would love to do this aspect of the game as well...

Talk with all the followers once you hit act V. One of the conversations should lead to a quest. The only quest that I've hit so far was with the scoundrel, but my understanding is that they all have them. The quest with the scoundrel was pretty short, but a quest nonetheless.

By the way talk with everyone that has the * above their head. There is also a very short quest in the "town" of act V that I have found by talking with folks. More accurately under the town. Some of the conversations are quite humorous as well.

As far as the legendaries, there are apparently legendaries for each of the 3 followers trinkets which are unique to them. I forget exactly what they are called for each of the followers.

[Pappy13]

I like Blessed Hammer and the shield toss. I have not seen you on the chat you started.

Yeah, I haven't seen a whole lot of people joining the chat so if no one is in them then I don't join. I'll make it a point to start joining the chat even if it's just me.

[Pappy13]

Diablo 3 gem calculator.

It would have taken 729 gems (that drop at lvl 60) and 3 million gold to make 1 gem of the highest quality prior to the expansion.