Adam

Gonna go ahead and say he's probably in place for the beta only to facilitate people dungeoning so they're not reliant on tradecrafts that may or may not be implemented, or an economy that is, put lightly, way out of touch with reality.

FOOL! Crystals were INTEGRAL to the WRUPing process!

I'm guessing possibly a reference to the reports of long queues to log in to the servers during early access.

FUGU!

comment'd

The 45 minute runs in vanilla Stratholme. This was hard mode and heroic before there were heroics and hard modes. You had to get every pull just right, use potions wisely, time mana breaks, and play your best in level 60 blues and greens.

I remember being on teamspeak back in the day with my friends, with the tension and excitement, and then finally when everything clicked and you saved the girl...awesome.

What I'm interested in re: the annual pass is how they're going to re-incentivize it 3, 6, 9, 12 months after Diablo 3 drops. The implied value at that point will be much lower after the shine has come off D3, so are they going to have to add new freebies to keep it interesting? Free SC2 Protoss episode? "Titan:-themed ingame pets? And if so, will they extend these benefits to continuing annual pass members?

Flintlocke for president '012!

Re: Agility, you're right it should not be something we actively seek out on items by and large, but there is still something to be said for having an agility 2-hander instead of a strength weapon, as long as it has mastery on it, but it depends on what kind of gear build you're working on.

For threat, a strength weapon will give you a bit of an edge over an agility weapon for that added attack power, but consider that for the same ilevel, an agility weapon's DPS is the same as a strength weapon, so you're only missing out on ~600 AP.

Avoidance wise, agility packs a stronger punch than strength does

The caveat to the agility weapon discussion should be: PRE-RAID. Once you start running raids, get your grubby hands on Akirus as fast as you can (or another epic 2-hander)

So, bottom line, get the best 2-hander you can, preferably with mastery on it for avoidance or hit for threat. If you want a threat weapon, get a strength mace (or axe or sword). If you want an avoidance weapon, get an agility axe (or polearm).

Don't discount agility as a tanking stat, too - Agi brings more dodge rating per point than strength does, and that touch of crit doesn't hurt threat generation. Most lists actually have pre-raid agi weapons as better tank 2-handers than strength ones.