I played it a bit. Did my usual making classes to face off against Medreth and his goons (it's a group of NPCs right beside where you spawn in the beta, the best place to test stuff).
There was quite a few changes in this new BB and there some that are also missing because it takes a few days to release one (and they had a problem) so we don't get the latest bugfixes in this crunch time period (for example, there was a balance pass earlier this week but it's not in the BB).
They also made a tiny change to pathfinding that ended up in a huge exploits, going by the release notes, that exploit shouldn't be possible so it should be fixed. Outside of that, pathfinding is much better even if it still has its quirks. AI is snappier (i.e. react better, party members and enemies). Outside of not using their class abilities, party members are kind of autonomous (most of the time, I've seen a few quirks there too, especially with ranged characters). Unnoticeable change: memory footprint was greatly reduced.
I need to try two new options that disable some combat related stuff (auto-attacks and stopping on engagement), I'm not sure how they behave but stopping on engagement might solve a tiny problem I have with the AI (aka pit-stop at a nearby enemy when you are asking them to go elsewhere). I also need to try the queuing. There are still a couple of bugs here and there that are pretty obvious, but the rest are under the hood and stuff most people won't even realize are happening.
There was more portraits and apparently more are being touched up (if they don't make it at release they will come with the expac). They are awesome looking. Speaking of art, I think some of the FX was toned down and I find the Wizard's fireball mushroom fire-cloud amusing.
I discovered a few things this build too:
- Ranger pets show up in the party layout re-org window (think TOEE) so you can position it where you want.
- There are scrolls that increase lore for a time, could be handy for some stat checks or using higher level scrolls.
- The Wizard's spell Rolling Flame bounce off walls if it can't go in a straight line for all of the spell length.
- Having a Wizard walk in his own slicken pool means his caused his own downfall.
I play on normal so every opinions is based on that difficulty. I made a Paladin, Monk, Chanter, Druid, Cipher, Wizard, Ranger, Barbarian and Fighter so far. I never take a 6th party member and leave the BB party members as built by the devs. You start at level 4 and max is level 8.
Paladin: I had better success with it than in previous build, yet it doesn't seem to have changed, go figure.
Chanter/Druids: Still the kings of classes. Druids are still overpowered (slightly) and their spiritshift got better (and I know they also got a wildstrike buff but it's not in the BB). Chanter got their best invocation nerfed (too much *sniff*), but their buff/debuff chants still rocks.
Monk: I tried to make a interrupt build monk, it was a failure lol. I wanted him to hit things super-fast with his fist, but I picked the wrong enemy to face-off I think. I haven't tried a "normal" monk yet though.
Cipher: A two-handed weapon with a shirt on and I was surprised by how well he survived melee (no defense buff on).
Fighter: Looking at BB Rogue, I wanted to make something that was hitting as fast as her. So I made a dual wielding Fighter with high Dex and using fast weapons. Then I realized that I was playing a Expertise Fighter (my favorite DnD 3.5 build) and that if I invested in stealth and mechanics it could replace a rogue (without doing as much burst damage though and no in-combat invisibly, nor escape, nor dirty fighting…) but with more defensive potential. Fighters are constant damage while Rogues are burst and debuff.
Wizard: I think they got a few spells with higher damage now, can make nice damage dealers, but they also have nice debuff. I discovered Miasma of Mind-Dumdness (-10 Resolve/Perception/Intelligence for 25 seconds…by what the stats are doing that's -20 deflection for 25 seconds, super awesome against high deflection creatures so your party graze less often…or for doing more crits).
Barbarian: didn't play it long so I don't even remember what happened outside of getting knocked down by a fighter, sight.
Ranger: much improvements, still some stuff to improve, but that class went a long way. I did more content with it than the others. Faced off all the beetles (using mostly weapons and a few suppress affliction to shutdown that poison). Cleared the spider caves (aggroed 10+ of them and the party survived…with two members still standing) and the Ogre.
The Ogre is a level 6 boss fight, my party was level 5. I tried it 3 times with a banged up party (after dealing with all the spiders) and there wasn't enough juice to deal with him and his pets (bears). The best I did is taking him to near-death. See that Ogre two-shot anyone so he is dangerous. I went to the inn to rest (out of supplies, I should have packed my reserve before leaving the village) and fought him fresh. A single downed character. Didn't even cheese the fight much (aka CC is awesome and you can abuse it).
Didn't try a Priest or rogue., BB Priest and BB Rogue do a good enough job. I use BB Priest as a mid-range/melee fighter (despite the crappy health and deflection). Priest would probably fall with the Druid/Chanter though, their Holy Radiance can be upgraded so many ways (debuff, damage, buff, etc). BB Rogue is a good damage dealer, but she is fragile, rogue aren't meant to flank not off-tank (see fighter write-up).