D3 is in the mail.
So I've never played any of the Diablo games, was curious what you all thought would be the best/most fun class for me to play mostly by myself but maybe with a friend or two?

Not Barbarian.

Wizard seems to be the OP of choice right now. I have heard good things about the monk as well, but I don't know how they fair with melee.

Melee is super tough, imo.

I'm basically a n00b. I played diablo and diablo 2 a bit, not obsessively but a moderate amount, 10 years ago. I chose barbarian because usually I am warrior in WoW and generally focus on those aspects in the elder scrolls games too. Anywho, I enjoy barbarian

Ah thats surprising to me, I was figuring that the class with the most HP would be the most noob friendly

It is for the first difficulties, but at later acts of inferno (4th difficulty) damage will be so insane that going into melee range is pretty much a suicide. There'll probably be some buffing to melee classes at some point, though.

I ain't gonna lie.

Barb is fun to play until you get until the higher levels, I can assume because the mobs hurts so much, but in normal/nightmare mode, you just trash enemies.

I really enjoy playing my witch doctor, he has some of the coolest spells, it's always awesome to see how your spell gets upgraded.

If you're looking to be extremely viable for end game - play a monk or wizard.

If you want to do some crazy dps, play a demon hunter.

Just out of curiousity, what does "end game" in the context of diablo mean? Beating the game at the highest difficulty, or is there something else to aspire for after that?

Well, most classes can do can Hell mode and complete it.

End game refers to Inferno mode(hardest mode) Acts 3 and 4. There seems to be a huge jump in difficulty between Acts 1 and 2, and then a bigger jump between Act 2 and 3, and then a giant jump to act 4.

It seems that most barbarians cannot solo act 2. Demon hunters can do act 2, but have an extremely hard time with it, but can do it.

Act 3 an 4 are both pretty mainly only soloable by monks and wizards at this time.

I am unsure where witch doctors stand in any of this, sadly.

I enjoyed monk a lot, also didnt play d1/d2 that much

don't worry about end-game stuff as you'll have to put in a ton of hours before that's really an issue.

i hadn't played diablo II for about 10 years before picking this game up, and i just put about 1 to 1 and 1/2 hours in playing each class (up to about level 7 or 8). it's not enough to see all the cool stuff they can do, but i think it's enough to get a feel for how you're typically going to be fighting.

if you like hanging back and kiting mobs, the demon hunter or wizard will be fun. if you like running in to huge cluster**** and bashing away without really being able to tell what exactly is going on, you'll prefer a barb or monk. if you like the whacky one, check out the witch doctor (more the first option).

another benefit to this method is you can use all the other characters as a stash for all the items you pick up but aren't sure what to do with at the moment. the shared space for all characters is really small, but you can fill up all of your characters personal stashes as well.

yes, some characters are a bit trickier than others, but the basics aren't very difficult, and you'll figure any of them out pretty quickly.

gl hf.

started a new wizard for kicks, was getting eaten alive in act 1, quaffing potions on cooldown, essentially, even after getting frost nova and aoe-explodey-thingie. This was quite a different experience from my DH, whom playing has atrophied my potion chugging button from lack of use

demon hunter... I got barb to inferno and it's still pretty fun even though i die every minute and have a 30second revive time. but playing a DH and it's hell of a lot more fun.

You're more squishy even in normal but that kinda adds to the fun. planting mines and elemental arrows with the first rune is fun too.

I've played all 5 chars. WD is the nut worst. Wizard may be the best, but I'm loving Monk the most as I'm a Barb at heart - the Monk is like a way cooler version of the Barb.

QFT.

i was plying with a dude still spamming jars of spiders in the high 20's. i can't imagine doing that for lots and lots of levels.

I was thinking from a pure fun standpoint WD would be pretty cool, I was reading their thread and its all like "O man should I use exploding zombie dogs or flaming bats or a giants head puking everywhere " sounded pretty amusing lol, but maybe gets repetitive

have level 59 barb

rerolled as demon hunter so much more fun

monk & demon hunter seem to be best classes for late game

monk has this absorb skill with no cool down insane

Same as metski, started off with a barb and rerolled DH, way more fun since barbs aren't smashing everything to bits with ease without dying in hell/inferno.

Wizard seems the most fun class this far but I haven't tried monk.

WD isn't fun.

fwiw monk got nerfed that absorb skill changed it's capped now

i've played wd, wiz, and dh. wizard is easily the most fun of the 3, has more viable damage skills than the other 2 classes combined. dh is fun as well, but i really really feel squishy, i pump out a ton of damage, and have the best snares in the game, but since the nerf to smoke screen, i pretty much only use it as an oh **** i can't move before this projectile hits me, because it costs so much discipline, i can't wait til i get gloom rune. since the change, have been using evasive fire to get away from guys, it is way cheaper, and with the rune that gives you 30 yards, i find caltrop+evasive fire to be a much much better escape option now than ss now.

witch doctor needs better skills, especially for the first 40+ levels. i feel like any build without spirit walk and soul harvest is crap, and the pets don't scale well enough to want to waste a skill slot on any of them besides maybe garg.

all 3 have a lot of worthless runes to choose from, the choice just isn't as good as blizzard advertised.

so i'd say out of wiz, wd, and dh, wiz>>dh>>>>>>wd, at least up to level 40 with all 3.