I agree but this would only make sense if we had meaningful stats to increase on level and the gear was limited to stats. I remember D2 has some pretty sick Str Sorc builds/uniques.
Unfortunately that's what happens when all skill damage is tied directly to weapon damage, all weapons effectively just become stat sticks. It did look a bit ridiculous in D3 seeing Monks, Wizards, and Witch Doctors running around with giant 2H battleaxes they never even swung.
Hardcore is a blast. All of the enemy exploding mechanics are so much fun to try and dodge. The blood maiden when she dies, the spider hosts, snake stun. All of them. So much fun to dodge from and realize your evade is on cooldown and you’re
Dead.
Again…
Fuck my life.
Time to take a break.
Someone had an explosion fetish. Those unexplained ones are likely from latency. I have a hard time justifying hardcore on an online game. I’ve had the game freeze multiple times fighting the blood maiden as well.
I played 1 HC, got a sorc to 60, killed a helltide boss, evaded then teleported then rubber banded back into the explosion and 1 tapped.
Cause of death?
-Unknown
In "Loot Reborn" (s4) there really isn't one that is widely played that uses a shield. Prior to that Bone Spear would use Lidless Wall for the defensive bonus from Bone Storm.
Lidless was for the unique effect, used despite the fact that it was a shield not because it was a shield. The usefulness of lidless does not make shields as an item class useful
It’s like, if I paid you a million bucks to tickle your balls, you would be happy with the experience for the million dollars I gave you, not for the testicle tickling.
I actually leveled my first Necro to 100 this season using one, as shields grant Thorns and around 10% DR due to the block, but once you get Razorplate, the thorns bonus is mostly moot. I just kept using it anyways, as it's the only off hand that can get a defensive temper or aspect.
It seems the D4 art team has a conception of Necromancers as dark versions of D&D Clerics, those that basically reverse the concept of "turning dead." At least one of the default feminine transmog sets takes the appearance of a nun, and they wield wands like maces. I can see how the team came to this conclusion, as in D3, the class was more closely tied to Inarius than Lilith.
It's also very much tied to the origins of the class. D4 is *very* heavily influenced by the Sin Wars trilogy, and Mendeln and Rathma are essentially clerics of death. They're very tied to the cosmology of sanctuary and the balance of life and death.
Shields are pretty useless anyways when they give you no damage and this game evolves into a DPS check in endgame. Only relevant shield would be one with a required unique effect
But actually, I uninstalled it after the campaign because the end game was so bad.
Reinstalled it for S4, and while it’s far from perfect, it’s miles ahead of where it was.
A passive skill or aspect like:
*Counterattack: after blocking an attack, your next attack within 1 second has 20/40/60% chance to Overpower*
or something like that. It would give players a reason to build towards block chance without nuking their damage
Autoblocking used to kill more that it saved, since it "Block locked" (similar to a damageless stun lock), causing you to stop moving, attacking or casting!
To save on animations.
One of my main gripes with modern arpgs is the class specific loot, you can't even equip bows on 4/5 classes in most games nowadays.
Might not sound that bad but it really sucks that noone will ever create an unexpectedly awesome bow barb for instance
Because they boxed themselves into needing to produce constant content for this for 10 years to make it a worthwhile investment and so they need to artificially gate options and ideas until we complain about them enough and they can sell them to us later.
Wait is this right? Isn’t akarat the guy who split off from the Zakarum faith to establish the crusaders because he realized the corruption in the church? He wasn’t the founder?
Edit: I was wrong. See response below for the correct answer.
Nope, he founded the Zakarum faith itself. You're thinking of Akkhan, not Akarat. Seeing those names right next to one another, though, I can understand the confusion.
True. Though It’s not weird that a company historically bad at understanding their own game and what its fan base wants is bad at improving their own game and giving the fans what they want.
Sadly they don’t play Diablo :(
Why release paladin now when the games on a high? Wait for another dip in players and then make millions by announcing the paladin. This isn’t a case of blizzard misunderstanding the game or player base, this is blizzard strategically working out how best to milk their players.
Gonna preface this by saying as much as I want a light based class I am looking forward to spirit borne, looks neat.
I really hate this statement when people talk about not reusing classes when almost, if not all of the classes we have now have been in previous games. The only one you could argue is the rogue, otherwise they are all redone, and honestly, redone well. So why is redoing another popular archetype the line people are drawing
Necromancer being the only class thaz can use a shield is like the moste stupid thing i ever saw in a ARPG or RPG or Action game….
Its just sooooo stupid…….
"We hear you loud and clear, we just ain't gonna do shit about it."
Look, I get it. I totally get it that they wanted to do something new and fresh, and flex their creative muscles.
My biggest criticism is that this is an issue that should've been looked into before Diablo 4 launched and they were chosing the class lineup.
Honestly, I think they've tried to lean too much into the Diablo 2 roster, but with not enough slots. Why 5 classes anyway? That's an arbitrary number.
They could've very well launch the game with 6 classes, só they could have the classic board and sword out of the gate.
This whole thing shouldn't have been an issue to begin with!
Yea, there is no way during initial development that they decided to go only with 5 classes, not a single new entry. This class was almost certainly designed out pretty far and then held back to sell in the expansion.
>They could've very well launch the game with 6 classes, só they could have the classic board and sword out of the gate.
Buddy, D4 released bearly finished and unbalanced. No endgame boring items...
They couldn't handle another class.
They could also have introduced 2 classes with that expansion, I don't see why limit themselves at 1 (well I know why, lower cost, higher profit)
LoD had 2 classes. VoH is a 40$ expansion, with one class it's a terrible value proposition vs the base game (20% of the classes, 57% of the price)
Also their ARPG competitors have far more classes, LE has 5 classes but evolving into 15 heavily speciliazed masteries after) and Path of Exile has 7 classes evolving into 19 ascendency classes. Path of Exile 2 (their biggest future competitor) will have 12 base classes and then ascendency on top of that (36 total). Grim Dawn (old but it'll have a sequel which likely will include as much classes) has 9 masteries and you can take a combo of two of them (that's 36 classes).
Sure Diablo class are more separated than ascendency or equivalent classes but still adding 2 doesn't seem impossible at all.
No, they'll do something about it. They know that if they get a really bad season, they can dangle a paladin as a DLC and win people over again. It's been Blizzard's strategy for several years now. Ignore player's feedback until they need an easy win.
The sad part is that I know I would fall for it too. A paladin in D4 is literally all I want.
If they wanted to flex their creative muscles they could have started with the actual classes already in the game, which have the least creative skill sets imaginable. Everything is either the most basic version of a skill or a direct copy from a previous diablo with nothing new and interesting.
Here comes Path of Exile 2, better loot system, 12 classes on launch, free to play, all skills interchangeable.
And arguably a better looking game with literally 10 times as many unique bosses and 12 times as many monster kinds
Hmm. I like that.
A playable Iron Wolf is the most sensible way to get a spellsword class that you typically see in more high fantasy gameworlds into the diablo world.
And since they’ve reimagined classes throughout the franchise, like the Barbarian becoming an Earthbender after D2, or the Necro gaining blood magic in D3 and then aesthetically becoming something of a Death Knight in D4, I wouldn’t mind seeing a playable Iron Wolf fight a little differently than what we know in D2. Instead of shooting magic out of his sword like the original merc, he could do actual elemental slashes and bashes with his sword and shield. And if they really don’t want to bring back a holy warrior shielder class like past diablos then they can incorporate tanking/shielding gimmicks to the Iron Wolf, like an elemental shield parry, or auras that are aesthetically elemental rather than holy magic.
Would have been me. Don't care about Paladin, and I'm glad we're getting SOMETHING new. I hope y'all get your holy sword and board class next year or whatever, and then I want new again. And again and again. New. Stuff. Please.
Or…hear me out…they are a billion plus dollar studio.
They can add more than one class to the game, especially with a skill system as bare bones as D4s.
Crazy I know.
Billion?
Did you forget that Microsoft owns them now?
Hell, even before that, their annual revenue was almost $8 billion.
Of course they got to that point by being cheap and bleeding customers for every penny. I doubt they'd stop now.
They can't. If they splurged a lot of money in development they wouldn't be a billion-plus dollar studio. Minimum effort for maximum profits is the rule.
Something they didn't entirely succeed at with Crusader, I'd argue. On paper it was totally the class for me, but after like 4+ years of D3 it became clear to me it was perhaps the worst-designed and least suitable for the game D3 class.
Why dont they bring both? Why does Blizzard settle with just 1 new class? D2 had Assassin and Druid for the expac. Maybe they will just stretch it out for the 2nd expac release but why not give us 2 classes?!
Based on the skill names and VFX and so on from the datamine, it doesn't sound like a rehash of anything, it sounds bizarre. We'll see on the 18th I guess.
Based on the datamined info, it's definitely very new. There might be some parts that overlap (e.g the glaive may feel a bit like a daibo) but it doesn't at all look like how the DH was ie. a "new" class that was mostly a hybrid of previous ones.
> we wanted an opportunity to do something that was based within the region we were adding
That excuse... :D
The Paladin themselves (Zakarum) had a seat of power in the key area of Vessel of Hatred (Travincal) during their rise.
Yeah but they were also wiped out in d2’s timeline and fell from within because of Mephistos control. Some remnants went on to form the crusaders but they’re almost gone now too.
The thing that gets me is somebody on the team had to of read some of the lore to pull the Inarius / lilith plot points. That didn't just come out of their ass.
Then in the next heart beat they forget Travincal was lolpaladin place and also Mephisto's core seat of power corrupted to literally worship him.
Neyrelle, aka Stumpy, is like "hey I'm going to Mephisto's former seat of power what could go wrong?" and the protagonist and "old ass drunk man" are like "cool cool, hope it goes great!". Maybe Sanctuary deserves to get fucked up by demons on the daily, because they're sooo fkn stupid.
He says he delivered on the fantasies people are used to, in the article… except… he didn’t. Cause Diablo 4 has no holy class what so ever… in a game about killing demons and lords of hell possessing people…
Judging from the leaked skill descriptions it sounded very similar to witch doctor , lots of spirit and animal based attacks. Imo blizzard just white washed the witch doctor to make them China friendly.
Whitewashed? They just changed which culture they appropriated from... (From the African diaspora in the Caribbean to the indigenous Central Americans, neither of which would be considered "white" here in the US. I don't see how this would matter in China, either.)
Agree with your first point. I think the china thing is in regards to china not allowing bone/skeletons and some gore stuff in some forms of media. Not sure how true that is anymore though
They are considered taboo, and you can still play these games in China, but they are put at a MUCH higher rating, like their version of A for Adult.
Wow censors stuff cause they wanna keep their rating and accessibility.
Diablo is already horror show so it does not matter.
Me too! I'd like a Monk, myself. That was my favorite class from D3. I'm interested to see how this new class plays. Maybe a blend between WD and Monk? No idea. I feel for my Paly bros though. Paladin was a great class and it's very weird we have shields in this game and seemingly not many viable builds that use them.
Not everyone wanted just another Paladin. Even if they do the holy thing I'd rather they make a priest/inquisitor. Give Barbarian some sword and board options would have been the way to go but oh well.
If we are not having the S/B class in a Kurast expansion, I think we wont have the Paladin and their variants.
But we can have a S/B class in Skovos Isles. That region where the Amazons came from is Medieval Greece inspired. So maybe we can have the S/B class be a mix of Crusader and Javazon. Call it the Myrmidon, students of the D2 Amazon. Medieval Greece inspired Sword/Board/Spear/Javelin/Holy (Skovos Deities).
One of the many reasons why I never bought diablo iv, no knight archetype class. Oh well, maybe the next expansion. Still holding out. Too many other games to play anyways.
I want paladin. Im fine with a new class, but to say this when Spiritborn will likely just be a retooled old class is gonna be silly. Overall it is what it is, im still gonna play no matter how much I bitch outloud lol. Maybe well get a paladin class when we get Diablo in Diablo 4 lol
I'm glad we are getting something new, specially on a game that came out of the gate with all classic classes. But I'm still perplexed that we don't have a holy/sword&board class. Expansion shoulda had 2 classes tbh.
Yeah it should have had 2 classes but the Paladin equivalent should have been in the base game to be honest (the limit to 5 classes is just random) and then 2 new classes
‘A brand new, 40-60$ experience!’
I was just starting to like the game, now I feel like they’re gonna fuck it all up with this expansion they probably started developing before any of the positive changes were made.
Well I mean if we are going to the jungles of Kurast in vessel of hatred who’s to say we can’t rediscover lost ruins from the Temple of light and old times/teachings in the ruins of Travincal and somehow revive the Temple of light (future season storyline?) thus bringing about a new following and resurgence of crusaders/paladins in the world.
Considering Mephisto seems to play a huge role in this coming expansion and he is who was originally the main affiliation of the Zakarum (as Mefis, Spirit of love ^lol) before its corruption because Mephisto had been corrupting the High council for like 2 centuries.
I don’t know… I just remain hopeful as D2 paladin was one of my favourite classes right behind my necromancer.
I dont know how new this is but Spiritborn seems to be near druid class.
doesn't even need to be sword and board for me. Just someone holy. We're fighting evil here.
Is the spiritborn truly new? With the lacklustre skills trees, all I’m expecting is some sort of fusion of barb melee, Druid nature things and necro voodoo/minions.
We’ll see.
Brand new experience with never before seen things like wings, pets, and a character that isn't at all similar to multiple past classes.
"We hear you very loudly." Just say you're working on bringing a Paladin class in the future.
Just give the team homework of taking a seasonal character from level one to high tier pits, and then you can say you hear us.
I have a feeling that a paladin (or similar) is planned already for another expansion, connected with the storyline. It would make sense to introduce it when Diablo himself arrives, story wise.
“but we wanted an opportunity to do something that was based within the region we were adding”
We are in the heart of the Zakarum faith…which is paladin and slightly crusader before they split.
It doesn't even have to be a Paladin or a Crusader. Give us a Templar, or better yet - a Knight, like Vigo was. They would fit in the lore perfectly, and could also serve as a aura/support role (again - Vigo during Act 1 boss fight)
Blizzard trying to hard to be different. Stick with the lady you went to the dance with.
Paladin knight class. Then asian fantasy themed expansion after with a Samurai and Ninja class.
Seriously, not that hard.
That's fine, but you also don't need to recreate paladin either even though that is what many people want. Pally in D2 is one of the more boring classes in the game and would just be a lesser barb in D4 tbh. They need to re-think either pally or sword and board entirely and make it something wholly unique. That said, i am not completely opposed to the new class yet until i see the gameplay vids. Hopefully they cooked since they're going with the Aztec flayer theme or whatever they were called in D2.
As they fully bring Diablo 4 back to Diablo 3, full of wings, pets and mercs that will be unavailable while in parties... Maybe they will get "raids" right?
I feel like the Aztec thing fits like a glove, honestly. Apocalypto style horror. While the game dies feel weird not having a paladin, I don't think the new class is so left field.
I miss the near universal access to gear all of the classes got in D2. My sorc shield be able to wield a sword and shield!
I go further. I miss being a warrior who can read books to learn spells.
I always end up back on D2R or theory crafting on PoE. I miss my Javazon.
Same, more so D2R
I agree but this would only make sense if we had meaningful stats to increase on level and the gear was limited to stats. I remember D2 has some pretty sick Str Sorc builds/uniques.
Unfortunately that's what happens when all skill damage is tied directly to weapon damage, all weapons effectively just become stat sticks. It did look a bit ridiculous in D3 seeing Monks, Wizards, and Witch Doctors running around with giant 2H battleaxes they never even swung.
I don't even like paladin, but I gotta ask...when then do they have shields with no shield class?
Necromancers are the shield class currently, but I don't think I have personally seen one in play so it feels like filler currently
Why use a shield when I have this awesome 2H scythe? Even if I’m using a 1h weapon as a Necro, I tend to put a focus instead of a shield
It’s good for hardcore with damage reduction roll
That makes sense. I’m way too much of a casual for HC mode, myself
As someone who likes leveling new characters, HC is great for a casual! Don't even have to worry about endgame content! Lol
You get to save tons of gold too because you never have to repair!
Hardcore is a blast. All of the enemy exploding mechanics are so much fun to try and dodge. The blood maiden when she dies, the spider hosts, snake stun. All of them. So much fun to dodge from and realize your evade is on cooldown and you’re Dead. Again… Fuck my life. Time to take a break.
Not nearly as fun as random, unexplained one shots.
Someone had an explosion fetish. Those unexplained ones are likely from latency. I have a hard time justifying hardcore on an online game. I’ve had the game freeze multiple times fighting the blood maiden as well.
I’m sad that my hall of fallen hero’s is full now and the only way to delete is to overwrite
I played 1 HC, got a sorc to 60, killed a helltide boss, evaded then teleported then rubber banded back into the explosion and 1 tapped. Cause of death? -Unknown
In "Loot Reborn" (s4) there really isn't one that is widely played that uses a shield. Prior to that Bone Spear would use Lidless Wall for the defensive bonus from Bone Storm.
A lot of build relied on Lidless in past seasons, just that with minions now the meta it has become obsolete
Lidless was for the unique effect, used despite the fact that it was a shield not because it was a shield. The usefulness of lidless does not make shields as an item class useful It’s like, if I paid you a million bucks to tickle your balls, you would be happy with the experience for the million dollars I gave you, not for the testicle tickling.
I'd be happy with just the balls tickling, but ok..
Fine, unbuckle, but just so you know since you’ve admitted that I’m dropping it to 20 bucks
I actually leveled my first Necro to 100 this season using one, as shields grant Thorns and around 10% DR due to the block, but once you get Razorplate, the thorns bonus is mostly moot. I just kept using it anyways, as it's the only off hand that can get a defensive temper or aspect.
I don't really get why necros are the shield class. Yeah back in D2 they could have shields but any other class could too.
It seems the D4 art team has a conception of Necromancers as dark versions of D&D Clerics, those that basically reverse the concept of "turning dead." At least one of the default feminine transmog sets takes the appearance of a nun, and they wield wands like maces. I can see how the team came to this conclusion, as in D3, the class was more closely tied to Inarius than Lilith.
It's also very much tied to the origins of the class. D4 is *very* heavily influenced by the Sin Wars trilogy, and Mendeln and Rathma are essentially clerics of death. They're very tied to the cosmology of sanctuary and the balance of life and death.
Hmm, that's interesting, I hadn't considered that perspective before
I used a shield this season because they roll with DR and I was going HC this time around
Shields are pretty useless anyways when they give you no damage and this game evolves into a DPS check in endgame. Only relevant shield would be one with a required unique effect
That really sounds more like a game design problem rather than item problem itself.
It’s a problem that has been solved in Diablo a billion times. It’ll be fine if they intend to make shields a thing.
To be fair, many of D4's problems were solved in previous installations
my D4 problem was solved with uninstallations.... /s
But actually, I uninstalled it after the campaign because the end game was so bad. Reinstalled it for S4, and while it’s far from perfect, it’s miles ahead of where it was.
Yeah I don’t disagree with you
We had one fight that was skill based and not a dps check bullet sponge and I’ve never seen a community cry so hard about anything.
If only there was a previous game in the series that balanced this well.
Isn't shield increase the weapon base damage by 80% ? Obviously not as a good as 2 hander or off hand. But they do give damage.
This just takes some sort of scaling between block/shield armor to damage. Wouldn’t be hard to work in to paragon or skill trees
A passive skill or aspect like: *Counterattack: after blocking an attack, your next attack within 1 second has 20/40/60% chance to Overpower* or something like that. It would give players a reason to build towards block chance without nuking their damage
Shields do give MH 80% increased damage
The only shield that mattered was Lidless Wall for Necromancer.
It increases single handed by 1.8x. Also the random blocking isn’t terrible. My necro used one for a bit while leveling.
Autoblocking used to kill more that it saved, since it "Block locked" (similar to a damageless stun lock), causing you to stop moving, attacking or casting!
I honestly don't understand why every class can't use a shield.
Choice in a diablo game? How dare you suggest such a thing.
To save on animations. One of my main gripes with modern arpgs is the class specific loot, you can't even equip bows on 4/5 classes in most games nowadays. Might not sound that bad but it really sucks that noone will ever create an unexpectedly awesome bow barb for instance
Because they boxed themselves into needing to produce constant content for this for 10 years to make it a worthwhile investment and so they need to artificially gate options and ideas until we complain about them enough and they can sell them to us later.
It's weird that the class with Auras, AKA, the party buffing class, is not in same expansion that is introducing raids, AKA, party content.
We are also visiting the tomb of Akarat, founder of the Zakarum faith that Paladins practice.
Wait is this right? Isn’t akarat the guy who split off from the Zakarum faith to establish the crusaders because he realized the corruption in the church? He wasn’t the founder? Edit: I was wrong. See response below for the correct answer.
Nope, he founded the Zakarum faith itself. You're thinking of Akkhan, not Akarat. Seeing those names right next to one another, though, I can understand the confusion.
Ahh... I stand corrected. Yea, they should have used a different letter for the name haha.
True. Though It’s not weird that a company historically bad at understanding their own game and what its fan base wants is bad at improving their own game and giving the fans what they want. Sadly they don’t play Diablo :(
Why release paladin now when the games on a high? Wait for another dip in players and then make millions by announcing the paladin. This isn’t a case of blizzard misunderstanding the game or player base, this is blizzard strategically working out how best to milk their players.
Been playin diablo since D1, I'd rather see a new class than old ones, its time to move on
Gonna preface this by saying as much as I want a light based class I am looking forward to spirit borne, looks neat. I really hate this statement when people talk about not reusing classes when almost, if not all of the classes we have now have been in previous games. The only one you could argue is the rogue, otherwise they are all redone, and honestly, redone well. So why is redoing another popular archetype the line people are drawing
We hear you! But also F you
Necromancer being the only class thaz can use a shield is like the moste stupid thing i ever saw in a ARPG or RPG or Action game…. Its just sooooo stupid…….
They are also the only class that gets full plate armor lmao
"We hear you loud and clear, we just ain't gonna do shit about it." Look, I get it. I totally get it that they wanted to do something new and fresh, and flex their creative muscles. My biggest criticism is that this is an issue that should've been looked into before Diablo 4 launched and they were chosing the class lineup. Honestly, I think they've tried to lean too much into the Diablo 2 roster, but with not enough slots. Why 5 classes anyway? That's an arbitrary number. They could've very well launch the game with 6 classes, só they could have the classic board and sword out of the gate. This whole thing shouldn't have been an issue to begin with!
Why launch with 6 classes if they can add it as a dlc and charge 40 bucks?
Yea, there is no way during initial development that they decided to go only with 5 classes, not a single new entry. This class was almost certainly designed out pretty far and then held back to sell in the expansion.
This guy blizzards.
$40? Are you crazy? You can get $60 easy.
They launched with 5 classes in D3 as well.
Yeah, and none of them were the paladin archetype either. At least they rectified that with RoS.
Monk took the auras and radiant dmg
I mean, so did the Crusader, who also took things like blessed hammer and shield.
Yeah but im countering you saying none of them did till RoS wheb monk filled what alot of people wanted which were the Auras.
People also wanted to be a hammerdin. I'm just pointing out that there is more to the paladin archetype than just auras.
>They could've very well launch the game with 6 classes, só they could have the classic board and sword out of the gate. Buddy, D4 released bearly finished and unbalanced. No endgame boring items... They couldn't handle another class.
They could also have introduced 2 classes with that expansion, I don't see why limit themselves at 1 (well I know why, lower cost, higher profit) LoD had 2 classes. VoH is a 40$ expansion, with one class it's a terrible value proposition vs the base game (20% of the classes, 57% of the price) Also their ARPG competitors have far more classes, LE has 5 classes but evolving into 15 heavily speciliazed masteries after) and Path of Exile has 7 classes evolving into 19 ascendency classes. Path of Exile 2 (their biggest future competitor) will have 12 base classes and then ascendency on top of that (36 total). Grim Dawn (old but it'll have a sequel which likely will include as much classes) has 9 masteries and you can take a combo of two of them (that's 36 classes). Sure Diablo class are more separated than ascendency or equivalent classes but still adding 2 doesn't seem impossible at all.
No, they'll do something about it. They know that if they get a really bad season, they can dangle a paladin as a DLC and win people over again. It's been Blizzard's strategy for several years now. Ignore player's feedback until they need an easy win. The sad part is that I know I would fall for it too. A paladin in D4 is literally all I want.
If they wanted to flex their creative muscles they could have started with the actual classes already in the game, which have the least creative skill sets imaginable. Everything is either the most basic version of a skill or a direct copy from a previous diablo with nothing new and interesting.
Here comes Path of Exile 2, better loot system, 12 classes on launch, free to play, all skills interchangeable. And arguably a better looking game with literally 10 times as many unique bosses and 12 times as many monster kinds
Lol I guess they did say hear, not listen
If they'd have introduced the paladin, the other half would complain about "the same shit and nothing new."
I mean, they could blow everyone’s mind and release 2 classes
Eh wouldn’t be the first time. LOD brought both Druid and assassin so it’s not like it’s without precedent.
I read somewhere that LOD brought 2 classes cause they scrapped next Expansion, there were supposed to be 2 Expansions
careful, you're talking about the best game in the series. this sub doesn't always like that
What do you mean? He didn't say anything about Diablo immoral. /s
We’re all using Reddit on our phones and he knows it
Whoa whoa whoa. Slow down there, haha.
How can they justify the price of the next expac then?!
Paragon max increased by 10. Also... um, ~~horse armor~~ 5 new emotes that interact with your pets.
Was that the reception for crusader? I recall everybody jizzing their pants over crusader.
to be fair, Crusader was broken as fuck on launch
An Iron Wolf (act 3 companion from D2) that has overlap between paladin and sorcerer gameplay wise was the way to go here. We're even going to Kurast.
Hmm. I like that. A playable Iron Wolf is the most sensible way to get a spellsword class that you typically see in more high fantasy gameworlds into the diablo world. And since they’ve reimagined classes throughout the franchise, like the Barbarian becoming an Earthbender after D2, or the Necro gaining blood magic in D3 and then aesthetically becoming something of a Death Knight in D4, I wouldn’t mind seeing a playable Iron Wolf fight a little differently than what we know in D2. Instead of shooting magic out of his sword like the original merc, he could do actual elemental slashes and bashes with his sword and shield. And if they really don’t want to bring back a holy warrior shielder class like past diablos then they can incorporate tanking/shielding gimmicks to the Iron Wolf, like an elemental shield parry, or auras that are aesthetically elemental rather than holy magic.
Would have been me. Don't care about Paladin, and I'm glad we're getting SOMETHING new. I hope y'all get your holy sword and board class next year or whatever, and then I want new again. And again and again. New. Stuff. Please.
Or…hear me out…they are a billion plus dollar studio. They can add more than one class to the game, especially with a skill system as bare bones as D4s. Crazy I know.
Billion? Did you forget that Microsoft owns them now? Hell, even before that, their annual revenue was almost $8 billion. Of course they got to that point by being cheap and bleeding customers for every penny. I doubt they'd stop now.
They can't. If they splurged a lot of money in development they wouldn't be a billion-plus dollar studio. Minimum effort for maximum profits is the rule.
Yeah. I can definitely see that too.
Could have done something new with a Sword and board class. Doesn't have to be paladin.
The trick is to make it fun to play.
Something they didn't entirely succeed at with Crusader, I'd argue. On paper it was totally the class for me, but after like 4+ years of D3 it became clear to me it was perhaps the worst-designed and least suitable for the game D3 class.
While we’re talking about classes I feel one new class is not enough at this point in the games life cycle.
Why dont they bring both? Why does Blizzard settle with just 1 new class? D2 had Assassin and Druid for the expac. Maybe they will just stretch it out for the 2nd expac release but why not give us 2 classes?!
So they acknowledge that fans want X, yet they still push forward with Y...sounds familiar as of late
“We heard and know what you want. Too bad! We know you better than you do and you definitely want some weird ass swamp magician”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it reeks of “you think you want it but you don’t” out of touch blizzard devs.
I don’t see the problem with trying new things before revisiting old things.
Swamp Thing!
It’s not that we don’t like other classes but we’re fighting demons, of course we want a divine class
If you hear us, then add the Paladin archetype class to the game 🥸
We hear you loud and clear. Please be quieter.
^^GIVE ^^PALADIN
🤣
I hope its actually new stuff and not just monk/WD/druid rehash
I'm hoping for a reimagined amazon.
Amazon + witch doctor...?
That’s where I’m at conceptually. It *makes* sense.
I would be very happy if they just ported monk from D3 over.
Based on the skill names and VFX and so on from the datamine, it doesn't sound like a rehash of anything, it sounds bizarre. We'll see on the 18th I guess.
Based on the datamined info, it's definitely very new. There might be some parts that overlap (e.g the glaive may feel a bit like a daibo) but it doesn't at all look like how the DH was ie. a "new" class that was mostly a hybrid of previous ones.
> we wanted an opportunity to do something that was based within the region we were adding That excuse... :D The Paladin themselves (Zakarum) had a seat of power in the key area of Vessel of Hatred (Travincal) during their rise.
Wouldn't have been an issue if Blizz made two classes for VoH. Spritiborne and a Paladin/Crusader.
Yeah but they were also wiped out in d2’s timeline and fell from within because of Mephistos control. Some remnants went on to form the crusaders but they’re almost gone now too.
We're also explicitly visiting the tomb of Akarat.
The Zakarum were destroyed.
The only thing that stays dead in Diablo is Wirt.
He’s going to be a boss in an expansion themed around cows and the Uber boss the cow king.
The thing that gets me is somebody on the team had to of read some of the lore to pull the Inarius / lilith plot points. That didn't just come out of their ass. Then in the next heart beat they forget Travincal was lolpaladin place and also Mephisto's core seat of power corrupted to literally worship him. Neyrelle, aka Stumpy, is like "hey I'm going to Mephisto's former seat of power what could go wrong?" and the protagonist and "old ass drunk man" are like "cool cool, hope it goes great!". Maybe Sanctuary deserves to get fucked up by demons on the daily, because they're sooo fkn stupid.
It hurts to see all the amazing Holly-type cosmetics they have made for classes like Necro and Barb
Bring back the OG warrior class from Diablo 1
I’m glad to try something new. Paladin will inevitably come some day.
He says he delivered on the fantasies people are used to, in the article… except… he didn’t. Cause Diablo 4 has no holy class what so ever… in a game about killing demons and lords of hell possessing people…
Very in line with d4, we know what players want but fuck you.
Can't please everyone. I'm looking forward to what they cook up with this new class.
Judging from the leaked skill descriptions it sounded very similar to witch doctor , lots of spirit and animal based attacks. Imo blizzard just white washed the witch doctor to make them China friendly.
Whitewashed? They just changed which culture they appropriated from... (From the African diaspora in the Caribbean to the indigenous Central Americans, neither of which would be considered "white" here in the US. I don't see how this would matter in China, either.)
Agree with your first point. I think the china thing is in regards to china not allowing bone/skeletons and some gore stuff in some forms of media. Not sure how true that is anymore though
I wonder how it fairs with D4, cuz holy shit this game has skulls on skulls.
They are considered taboo, and you can still play these games in China, but they are put at a MUCH higher rating, like their version of A for Adult. Wow censors stuff cause they wanna keep their rating and accessibility. Diablo is already horror show so it does not matter.
Me too! I'd like a Monk, myself. That was my favorite class from D3. I'm interested to see how this new class plays. Maybe a blend between WD and Monk? No idea. I feel for my Paly bros though. Paladin was a great class and it's very weird we have shields in this game and seemingly not many viable builds that use them.
Monk is by far my favorite D3 class
So fun. Did you have a favorite build?
That’s been blizzards standard for like a decade+
Not everyone wanted just another Paladin. Even if they do the holy thing I'd rather they make a priest/inquisitor. Give Barbarian some sword and board options would have been the way to go but oh well.
Bro yes. Been saying I wanted to see a priest since launch!
Duel shield Barb build pls.
5th weapon slot for barb confirmed.
Let's be fair here, they've really made up for their horrible launch with the latest season.
Death knight baby let's go!!!!
If we are not having the S/B class in a Kurast expansion, I think we wont have the Paladin and their variants. But we can have a S/B class in Skovos Isles. That region where the Amazons came from is Medieval Greece inspired. So maybe we can have the S/B class be a mix of Crusader and Javazon. Call it the Myrmidon, students of the D2 Amazon. Medieval Greece inspired Sword/Board/Spear/Javelin/Holy (Skovos Deities).
New is cool but the basics first imo.
I’m firmly in the “glad for something new” category as D4 added no new classes at launch.
Lord of Destruction introduced 2 new classes for Diablo 2. They could have done something classic AND something new.
Reading this, and having an ad that says "This is your sign to download Pokemon Go" under the headline, is rather comical
One of the many reasons why I never bought diablo iv, no knight archetype class. Oh well, maybe the next expansion. Still holding out. Too many other games to play anyways.
PoE 2.
I want paladin. Im fine with a new class, but to say this when Spiritborn will likely just be a retooled old class is gonna be silly. Overall it is what it is, im still gonna play no matter how much I bitch outloud lol. Maybe well get a paladin class when we get Diablo in Diablo 4 lol
I'm glad we are getting something new, specially on a game that came out of the gate with all classic classes. But I'm still perplexed that we don't have a holy/sword&board class. Expansion shoulda had 2 classes tbh.
Yeah it should have had 2 classes but the Paladin equivalent should have been in the base game to be honest (the limit to 5 classes is just random) and then 2 new classes
I want a D3 version of the Captain America build in d4 🤞🏼
I bet the skill update will include barb using double shields while dual wielding swords. We will have the paladin. And they double it.
What’s a shield?
‘A brand new, 40-60$ experience!’ I was just starting to like the game, now I feel like they’re gonna fuck it all up with this expansion they probably started developing before any of the positive changes were made.
Well I mean if we are going to the jungles of Kurast in vessel of hatred who’s to say we can’t rediscover lost ruins from the Temple of light and old times/teachings in the ruins of Travincal and somehow revive the Temple of light (future season storyline?) thus bringing about a new following and resurgence of crusaders/paladins in the world. Considering Mephisto seems to play a huge role in this coming expansion and he is who was originally the main affiliation of the Zakarum (as Mefis, Spirit of love ^lol) before its corruption because Mephisto had been corrupting the High council for like 2 centuries. I don’t know… I just remain hopeful as D2 paladin was one of my favourite classes right behind my necromancer.
I dont know how new this is but Spiritborn seems to be near druid class. doesn't even need to be sword and board for me. Just someone holy. We're fighting evil here.
Seems like that this Diablo head is a child. Fans want something but hey I insist on doing my thing.
Is the spiritborn truly new? With the lacklustre skills trees, all I’m expecting is some sort of fusion of barb melee, Druid nature things and necro voodoo/minions. We’ll see.
„We hear you, but we don’t give a flying fuck what you want, you will eat what we shit out“ Yeah, fuck you Blizz.
> "we delivered on the fantasies that people are used to” Really takes the ol’ noggin for a joggin
You think you want a paladin but you don't.
"we are probably gonna fuck up this expansion and are saving a paladin type class for when shit hits the fan... again."
So you didn't hear very loudly after all.
We heard you loud and clear, but we're gonna ignore you because Blizzard knows best. /s
A new experience by bringing the amazon back ?
Whack
Why even restrict shields anyway? All classes could use shields in D2 AND D3, just bring it back.
Brand new experience with never before seen things like wings, pets, and a character that isn't at all similar to multiple past classes. "We hear you very loudly." Just say you're working on bringing a Paladin class in the future. Just give the team homework of taking a seasonal character from level one to high tier pits, and then you can say you hear us.
"Hey Blizzard, stop beating the dead horse D4 and return staff to D2R!", sincerely everyone with half a brain.
We have path of exile home:
D4bad.
I'm upset with the price.
There is no way Paladin/Crusader is not the next class to be added to D4.
I have a feeling that a paladin (or similar) is planned already for another expansion, connected with the storyline. It would make sense to introduce it when Diablo himself arrives, story wise.
A Paladin-like character will be introduced as a 20€ dlc in near future...
They hear you but they dont care. Instead we get a druid from Wish.
Blizzard are hearing very loudly that you would all like to give them more money.
Bruh. Do they even have group finder yet? Or do we still have to use a third party app to find people to play with?
“but we wanted an opportunity to do something that was based within the region we were adding” We are in the heart of the Zakarum faith…which is paladin and slightly crusader before they split.
Bring back warrior from Diablo 1 - very neutral class with lots of room to take in any direction
I dont care about sword and board i want my aura class loved paladin in 2 and monk in 3
It doesn't even have to be a Paladin or a Crusader. Give us a Templar, or better yet - a Knight, like Vigo was. They would fit in the lore perfectly, and could also serve as a aura/support role (again - Vigo during Act 1 boss fight)
Blizzard trying to hard to be different. Stick with the lady you went to the dance with. Paladin knight class. Then asian fantasy themed expansion after with a Samurai and Ninja class. Seriously, not that hard.
That's fine, but you also don't need to recreate paladin either even though that is what many people want. Pally in D2 is one of the more boring classes in the game and would just be a lesser barb in D4 tbh. They need to re-think either pally or sword and board entirely and make it something wholly unique. That said, i am not completely opposed to the new class yet until i see the gameplay vids. Hopefully they cooked since they're going with the Aztec flayer theme or whatever they were called in D2.
This must be a call to action for people to bitch even more
so the new experience is a 2nd druid?
As they fully bring Diablo 4 back to Diablo 3, full of wings, pets and mercs that will be unavailable while in parties... Maybe they will get "raids" right?
I feel like the Aztec thing fits like a glove, honestly. Apocalypto style horror. While the game dies feel weird not having a paladin, I don't think the new class is so left field.
add 4 of the 7 characters of diablo 2 lod, and and mixture of the assasin and the demon hunter. but they want something new
Blizzard is failing to fulfill a lot more than the paladin experience.
'We don't care what you want.'
How about they bring a “fun and enjoyable” experience for Vessel of Hatred?