Sarah James, Guides Writer: I wasn't going to bother trying out Necromancer initially, having already tried a ranged class the previous weekend, but the character model won me over. Those skeletons are not skipping arm day. I do love their vibe, though-their weird, gross spell animations feel really at home in the game's grimdark world. Honestly I found levelling the Necromancer pretty dull for that reason-it didn't really seem to matter what my build was as long as I was regularly hitting the 'buff the skelly boys' button, and I never found any reason to switch from the default minion type. At least in these early levels, you really can just stand around and let your undead mates do all the work for you. Robin Valentine, Senior Editor: Those skeletons are not skipping arm day. Why would I use these toothpicks when I can cleave enemies with an oversized claymore? The only thing I didn't enjoy about Barbarian is the number of weapons-I get that's the entire point of the class, but it felt like a lot of admin assigning abilities to weapons when I was happy bleeding with a big sword and bludgeoning with a big hammer.

The shouts also give some added survivability in prolonged melee. Between the both of them I had an answer to everything I could apply big bleed to powerful enemies with Rend and make space while their health ticked down, and hordes of enemies I could funnel together and decimate with Upheaval's big damage cone of hurled debris.

Sean Martin, Guides Writer: I definitely get the Barbarian feeling underpowered at first, but I think I had the opposite experience once I unlocked the Rend and Upheaval abilities. At least Blizzard seems very aware that some buffs are needed. Apparently Barbarians are intended to get more powerful later on, when they get access to legendary weapons, but I don't think that's an excuse for the early game to be a slog. It turns those fights into a game of health potion management, and that's just not fun. Even beyond their low damage, the game at this stage just feels fundamentally hostile to melee-so many of the bosses demand you be constantly moving and staying out of their way and that's just not possible when you're trying to swing a two-handed hammer at them.

Barbarians look great-like the grimdark lovechild of Conan the Barbarian and a fridge-but they hit like a wet noodle, and it made for a really slow and frustrating journey to level 20 for me. Robin Valentine, Senior Editor: This was the first class I played in the closed beta, and it did not make for a good first impression.

Best diablo 3 class