Sup, so my new apt has a small office room, more of a study really, & I want to buy a desktop to put in there. I use my laptop for work related stuff, so I’ll literally only use this to play D2 & surf the web

Any suggestions before I just buy a basic desktop from best buy for like $400 ?

If you are just gonna surf and play D2, then yeah, one from best buy will be fine.

Or to put it another way... It's very hard for us to build a decent computer for under like $700, not including monitor.

IMO, get some peripherals and just use your laptop in there. Nice monitor and keyboard/mouse. Maybe some speakers.