Rounding out the available player classes (Monk, Wizard, Witch Doctor and Barbarian), the Demon Hunter will be more of a gadget-driven character, her background detailing her as a nomadic character solely fixated on studying demons, incorporating their technologies into her arsenal and making them as afraid of her as she’s been of them. The detail that demon hunters are “not born, they’re made” highlighted the idea that while the other classes were formally trained in their professions, Demon Hunters typically find someone who’s been tormented by demons in the past, recruit them and begin training them from that point on.
Diablo III will feature a new, more accessible skill tree as well as a new tab system that makes customization easier to work with.
Concept drawing of the new Demon Hunter class.
New attacks and techniques include a Raging Spear attack for the Barbarian, a Meteor attack for the Wizard, and a Spirit Walk technique for the Witch Doctor that allows players to walk around and through enemies, his body teleporting to the place his spirit traveled to.
A new Talisman system within the game serves as a dedicated inventory for your collected charms.
She's badass, all right...
In Diablo III, collected charms are more focused on revising the player’s core attributes for your characters. Under Diablo II, this was more of a wild card system and there was no telling what abilities a charm would augment.
Players can now collect Skill Runes, which modify your character’s abilities. This has been intensely varied and per the last count, over 96 billion combinations were possible, some interesting variations occurring with the Witch Doctor’s spells, certain runes now allowing them to summon a rain of flaming toads as well as call forth a single giant toad, which will happily eat your opponents but leave the loot behind…
The Skeleton King has come for your soul.
Diablo III’s newly announced Battle Arenas will both act as a dedicated place for one-on-one duels as well as focused on team-based play.
With Battle Arenas, players will be able to take their main character (which they’ve no doubt leveled and upgraded a bit) into battle, the Battle.net system supporting matchmaking, custom games and progression-based rankings.
The Barbarian attacks with fire bats!
Developers stated that they’re aiming for a similar gameplay time as found in Diablo II while vying for a much more replayable experience.
Randomization is going to be key, and developers are currently designing an engine to add random events, random monster encounter and random level exits into the game.
Next up: StarCraft II and World: Cataclysm »
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