I'm wondering; which difficulty do most people recommend for the best experience? I plan on playing as a Priest. I enjoy challenging games when the gameplay lends itself to harder difficulty levels, but I'm not sure if this game's combat is actually challenging (forcing me to play 'smart', use tactics, etc) or simply tedious? Thoughts?

*I've heard that Hard difficulty yields better loot/rewards. Can anyone confirm?

Thanks!

According to devs, Hard difficulty does yield better loot. If you enjoy challenging games I would suggest you giving Hard difficulty a try. Some players call combat tedious but you can employ tactics as well by giving your companions a few simple commands (attack, retreat) or by finding which spells/items work best against certain enemies.

Thanks, I'll give it a try!

Difficulty also affects the health of your companions - on hard, your companions actually have more health, thereby making the game easier, not harder - since your companions won't be dropping quite as fast as they would on easy.

Enemy attacks don't appear to increase with difficulty - their health just goes up. Which does unfortunately mean battles take longer - this definitely gets worse as the game goes on unfortunately, as by the third act enemy health on hard hits ludicrous levels.

IMO hard is still MUCH easier than easy, due to both the increased companion health as well as the significantly higher chance of getting better loot.