A friend of mine asked me for the inside scoop tonight, “what’s the best class?” or “which class should I play?” I guess after playing the beta for 6 months I should have an idea? Right? Well, no. Blizzard’s goal has always been to balance the classes and provide for a unique play style for each one. Even though people know this, they still want to know which one is the best. Unfortunately, there isn’t a good answer for these poeple. But here are some ideas that might help you decide which class to play.

How are you going to play Diablo 3?

Are you going to be a hardcore player and play a character as high as you can before dying? Blizzard has said that no one on their internal testing team has beat Inferno mode, so survivability is going to be very helpful. Ranged classes are going to be inherently safer to play than melee classes like the Barbarian and the Monk.

Do you plan to PvP someday? Are you going to race through the story and then be settled with the game? Do you plan to play more than one class? Are you hoping to make a lot of gold farming? Once you know your play style you could take a look at my Diablo 3 builds and see which play description sounds most interesting to you.

For example, my Witch Doctor Farming Build works like this: “Sprint around using Spirit Walk, jump into combat with Locust Swarm and Wall of Zombies. Pop Mass Confusion if it’s up and start throwing Fire Bombs. When the going gets tough, pull out your Gargantuan. Everything dies, loot it and sprint to the next room. If you need to get the hell out of there, use Spirit Walk again and run for the hills.” – If that play style makes you excited then maybe you should play the Witch Doctor? You can play around with a near infinite # of build class combinations at Blizzard’s Skill Calculator.

Melee or Ranged?

The most important decision might be whether you want to play hand to hand (Monk and Barbarian) or play ranged (Demon Hunter, Wizard and Witch Doctor). If you decide to play ranged, do you want to have minions running around? Do you want to send walls of zombies at your enemy and other Halloween themed creatures? If so, that’s the Witch Doctor. Otherwise do you want to use a ranged weapon, be really mobile and have a play style akin to the Hunter in World of Warcraft? That’s the Demon Hunter. Your last ranged option is magic, arcane, blizzards, fire, meteors, teleportation, etc. That all comes with the Wizard.

If you want to play melee, you can be a Monk or a Barbarian. The Barbarian leaps into battle and uses brute force to strike down its foes. The Monk uses dexterity and a little bit of magic to stay alive while doing damage. It really comes down to how you want to experience the game vs. what class is mathematically the best.

Math

The only thing I can think of when it comes to which class might be “the best” is the fact that the Barbarian is the only class that uses Strength. There may be less competition for their gear and those gems. That’s a long shot though, and I wouldn’t play a class only for that reason.

What other class you pick, make sure that you learn about its skills before you load up the game on May 15th and waste a bunch of time reading tooltips.

Important: Many of the strategies and tips I share here were originally inspired by the people at the Diablo 3 Gold Secrets Forum. If you're serious about making the big bucks in Diablo 3, or just being the best players, you need to signup ASAP.