So I've gotten my Priest of Mitra up to 22 now, with my barbarian friend at 22 as well. We've done literally everything together so far aside from a few solo things at the very beginning. We mutually decided wrecking stuff together was way more fun so we skipped the rest of the single player quest.
So far I'm finding things interesting every fight. Positioning and spell selection are varied and require some fast thinking. Jump back, run a little circle around the Barbarian to group up everything, Wave of Life to get a HoT on us and activate my feat that gives me bonus damage for the next few spells, Cleansing Fire, Smite the one at highest health, Rebuke that straggler, Cleansing Fire again, Repulse if things are getting crazy, Radiance if we're getting hurt too badly...
I'm still deeply in love with the healing system. Primary heals are HoTs, and you have a single direct heal that's on a 30 second timer, and a 60 second debuff gets placed on anyone hit by it that won't let them get it again until a minute passes. It turns direct heals into true "oh crap" buttons, and makes healing more a study of keeping HoTs up while nuking in between. There are no targetted heals. Health bars are therefore merely an indication of in what direction the next heal should go rather than something to click on. The difference sounds subtle on paper, but in practice it makes the game SO much more immersive as you're running around using your AoE cone heal on people that need it rather than scanning through health bars and clicking Flash Heal.
As for the rest of the game, the difference between the Release version and the Beta version is rather drastic. Release runs much, much smoother, with hideously fast load times. A lot of stuff has been polished up. Icons have been redone in some places to stand out better, animations for everything are in (the rest animation is just classy, you bend over a bit with your hands on your knees and pant for breath), and my frame rate has gotten even smoother.
With 16x AA, everything set to max, and a solid draw distance, I'm staying above 30 easy in nearly all situations, and the game looks drop dead gorgeous. VERY detailed textures, spell effects that each are unique and flashy in their own way (without being overdone), volumetric lighting coming down through the trees, bump maps... I can't really describe how beautiful the game is.
Now, a lot of people would say "Gameplay > graphics", and I agree with that. However, solid graphics like these add an amazing sense of immersion that gameplay alone cannot. Gameplay PLUS graphics > gameplay alone. :D
I could ramble on and on about the game, so I'll ask this instead. What do you guys want to hear about it specifically? I'd love to answer questions or discuss various topics, but I don't want to be talking to myself here. :)
