RobotAnna over on reddit/r/diablo recently wrote a in-depth guide to “Betamaxing” — the act of unlocking all the Achievements in the Diablo 3 beta. While doing this grants you nothing but bragging rights for now, this can be done in ~8 hours of gameplay by the enthusiast gamer.
Diablo 3 Over Achiever Achievement
DEEP POCKETS – Is bugged as hell. You won’t be able to see your progress, and if you log out or switch characters your progress is reset. Also bringing out a companion to pick up gold breaks things. I personally got it by just playing my first character and not using any companion scrolls until I got it. If you don’t have 3-4 hours straight to play, stockpile +Gold equipment which should bring it down an hour or two. It takes some time to get a lot of +Gold % items, so if you stockpile the equipment it’s not bad to save this achievement for last. 10,000 gold is really a stretch but Gold drops are extremely frequent in the Diablo 3 beta. Rumors swirl that gold drops will not be so frequent in retail game play.
GETTING TO LEVEL 13 – is impossibly slow and grindy unless you join public games, so don’t be afraid of public games like I was before the achievement patch.
CO-OP ELITE KILLS – is similarly bugged as is Deep Pockets, if you log out or switch characters it resets, but you should get this well before 10k gold if you play co-op games exclusively.
THOROUGH INSPECTION – isn’t that thorough, just go to all the areas.
THE JAR OF SOULS event and THE MATRIARCH’S BONES event – to get these, go to the Cemetery of the Forsaken when you join a skeleton king run instead of zooming straight for the cathedral. One of the crypts will have either of the events. If you complete either even if you’re alone but in a co-op game you will get the achievements for co-op and not co-op. It seems to only give the achievement to the person who starts the event. Also for some games it’s nice to just go run these events while others are working toward the skeleton king, as it gives everyone an xp boost, and is a welcome change of scenery.
LIFE SAVER – fucking sucks and is dumb because nobody ever dies. Chat people up in games, ask them to strip naked and bite the dust for you (maybe phrase the first part differently so you won’t be a total creep) and you’ll either get enough people to help you eventually, or you’ll find a kindred soul that wants to work together. In that case, add each others’ battle.net emails and just make level one characters, make friends only games, and go suicide on things. That’s really the fastest way to do it.
THE LEGACY OF CAIN (CO-OP) is a gimmie achievement if you just start a new character and run through public games.
MASSIVE BLOW – This one is for killing 20 monsters in one hit. I got this by happening to be the only one doing that miniboss right before the skeleton king where the pillars spawn enemies until you destroy them. The Jar of Souls event and a wizard is another easy way to get this done.
INSTANT KARMA – was kind of a bitch (heh) and seemed kind of bugged. I ran a skeleton king game all by myself to avoid being with people who rush it, and used a level 9 demon hunter to boot (may as well get xp right!) I ended up dying like a billion times running around trying to get him to kill his dudes, and eventually after one time I died it gave me the achievement when I started the fight again. A weird achievement, if I were to do it again I’d run a solo game on a higher level character.
MIND ON THE METAL – I’ve heard can be bugged, so be careful. There are only 3 recipes you can possibly get.
IRON HEART – is actually the grindiest achievement but I dinged it when I was working on my 4th level 13. Also the game will make you think you can get to level 5, giving you neat but worthless recipes for things that are far above the 13 level cap, and then crush your dreams horribly when you are almost there: 
Also an obligatory class review and review of the game:
Barbarian – If I HAD to pick a favorite, this would be it. I generally like wizardry and spellcasting, but Barbarian is visceral in a way that few video games ever achieve. It’s fun to smash things and have blood, bodies, and scenery fly all over and into the camera.
Wizard – That said, the wizard is fun, has a great variety of abilities to use and seems to vary greatly depending on what abilities you use. I’ve played this the most, and I think it will get very interesting once there are more skill slots and runes and the like.
Monk – I also liked Monk a lot, though it seemed like a more agile Barbarian that doesn’t hit as hard. I don’t think I’d main this one, but it’s solid and the agility is fun.
Demon Hunter – grew on me. I didn’t like it much at lower levels, but they’ve done a lot of soulsearching on this class and given it some very interesting and fun abilities. I like the one that wraps a small bomb on enemies and explodes the best. It seems to be a lot like the WoW hunter spiritually, as in it was a new class that Blizzard didn’t quite know what to do with at first, but has worked on it and refined it until they came up with something that’s something of a cult favorite. I think history will repeat itself here.
Witch Doctor – was my least favorite by far, though fans of stealth and subtlety might enjoy it. I like the idea behind it, you send like, frogs and zombies and bear spirits and shit to kill your enemies, also you get pet zombie dogs. It seems more like a hero class though, something you do for a challenge after you get good with another class, or something you take to back up some real life friends playing melee classes.
Overall, I’m increasingly getting the feeling this game is going to be one for the history books, and will be heavily played still 20 years from now, just like Diablo 2. To understand my background, I’ve only played a smattering of D2. I had religious parents growing up and the computer was in the common room, so playing a game about satan and demons just wasn’t going to happen, and trying it more recently I feel like it’s a really good game with an ancient UI that I have a hard time wrapping my head around now. D3 really does feel like D2 with what we’ve learned about game interfaces in the last 15 years, so I couldn’t be happier about the general direction this game is going.
Not everyone is going to agree with everything they’re doing with this game, especially seeing as the dev team behind it has almost none of the original developers, yet notice that most of the bitching you hear is from people who either aren’t in the beta and dismissed the game as a WoW clone from an early screenshot with proper lighting, or from hardcore vets of D2 that are so sold on the wacky community solutions to flaws with the game that they’ve come around to freaking out when the flaw is fixed–but will be there on D3′s launch day with
Thank you RobotAnna
PS. Don’t forget to check the forums for our Diablo 3 Beta Achievement List and guide to achieving them all.
