...and after 3 nights of playing, I just beat the game on Veteran with my build, lvl.38 at the final boss, ~19 hours. All quests done that I could find, but I didn't go out of my way to explore at all. Can definitely see the game being much longer if you explore every map out since there's a ton of them and they're huge.
Pros:
+Combat feedback is good. Normal sucks. But Veteran solo play is a good challenge for the first time through. Died a bunch, but the personal riftgate system made it not really frustrating, and it was way more satisfying getting through boss heros or boss fights on veteran.
+Character build system is amazing. So many options, tons of varieties even within a single class, let alone within a dual-job class + constellation options.
+Cheap respec is really nice since there's so many options and lets you change up your playstyle until you find one you like
+Nice looking world/game from an art design perspective. Armor sets all look pretty dull is the only downside.
+Decent amount of quests; could be more, but it's not bad
+Big ass map and tons of them, lots of secrets
+Fairly polished. No real bugs encountered or anything. Ran smooth.
Cons:
-Honestly, I think the loot isn't very good in this game, which makes me sad. I got soooooooo much junk. I'd only get a cool new weapon upgrade about once every 5 hours, so I'd be using the same weapon for 5 hours straight. Even armor, I'd get a noticeably better piece of armor about once every 2-5 hours. For most of the game I'd never get a single piece of useful loot. I thought playing on Veteran with better drops there'd be some decent loot, but in my experience the loot drops were dozens and dozens of the same damn item over and over.
-For all the character build options, you have so few skills points,
especially for dual-jobs, that the game really limits how much of the character's skills you can use at one time. I think at 39 levels in, I had about 1/5th of the skill tree done on my main job, and 1/20th of the skill tree done on my 2nd job. And on Constellations, I only managed to find 10 shrines of the 50, so with only 10 points I got like 2 constellations done (though tbf my falcon dive added to my main melee attack was pretty sweet; but man there's soooooooooooooooooooo much other stuff out there I never even got to see; I get that being a loot game that is for higher difficulty runs/extra characters, but still I feel like because there's so many skills I actually ended up seeing far fewer % of them in a single run than I would in most other loot games so it's a little unsatisfying there). I think I would've liked it if you got about twice as mainly skill points on leveling up and you got a few constellation points on leveling up as well.
-Game lacks any theaterics what-so-ever. When I beat the final boss and it just died like a normal enemy and the game just said "go see someone to report it" and I do and it's just a quest finished...yeah. It was really hard to care about any of the story or characters or quests because it just felt like they put so little effort into the presentation of it.
-Inventory management is a pain in the butt like a lot of loot games. No real quick way to see which armor stuff is better without studying it in-depth. Warping back to sell stuff is boring as always.
Still the core gameplay is fun and on veteran it was the perfect challenge with my build so it was always satisfying pushing forward. I think they definitely made a good diablo-game, even if it's not as good as diablo except for the character build options.
Only nightblade can dual wield with the Dual Blades skill. Every other class unlocks it through specific items. You could maybe buy back 2-3 skill points and redistribute them towards raising Nightblade so you can buy Blade Barrier. Not only will that give you a defensive measure, it will also raise your HP a bit (because you get physique/cunning/spirit/hp/mp with every mastery level).
As for life leech, Shaman's grasping vines has a modifier that adds it. It's also a good skill to slowing enemies. Shaman also has an upgrade to Brute Force which replenishes health, but that requires a 2-handed weapon. Nightblade has some higher level skills with some life leech. I haven't used them extensively though. There's probably some others but I can't check check right now. There is also a component (Hallowed Fang I think) which adds a skill that steals health.
Thanks for your tips. Blade Barrier really helped save my ass a ton of times in the final dungeons. Being able to alternate between P.Burst, Potion and Blade Barrier as HP restore tactics while using a Wendigo Totem and attacking kept me alive through a bunch of fights where just having P.Burst & Potion wouldn't have been enough.