Team Diablo III kicked off BlizzCon with a panel discussion about the upcoming RPG, which focused on many of the game’s features and classes. A lot of the new content is in some ways revamped from Diablo II features along with some returning favorites that will make some players very happy. Acid spitting Hydra spells anyone?

The panel began with a discussion about the 5th and final class for Diablo III, the Demon Hunter. We can now confirm that the Demon Hunter is a conventional ranged class that has an assortment of fun little tricks up their sleeves. The class utilizes traps, much like the Assassin from Diablo II but with a twist. The Demon Hunter tends to dabble in Shadow Magic and this is reflected in their traps and gadgets abilities. One trap we got the chance to take look at was the Spike Trap, which can be tossed out and opens into a spike filled vortex that will grind any demon unfortunate enough to step on it into a finely shredded paste.

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The panel demonstrated some of the other Demon Hunter skills in a new video, which included the Multishot skill, an old Diablo II favorite of the Amazon class. This popular skill returns on steroids, allowing several enemies to be pounded with multiple shots at once. And if all else fails, you have grenades. How can you not want to try a grenade tossing, dual crossbow wielding class with traps made of a grinding spike vortex?

Lead World Designer Leonard Boyarsky enlightened the crowd to the lore of the Demon Hunter. Lead World Designer Leonard Boyarsky enlightened the crowd to the lore of the Demon Hunter. Defined as an anti-hero, Demon Hunters are not born into their class, they are chosen. Boyarsky notes that the Demon Hunter’s main goal is to bring terror and destruction to demons because many of the hunters were chosen by other hunters after losing friends or family to demonic attacks. They are in it for one thing and one thing only: to make sure hell doesn’t get a foothold in Sanctuary and do anything necessary to prevent that from happening.

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The Demon Hunter has also been given its own distinctive look and animations and is the only class in the game that can dual wield weapons with their pistol crossbows.

Some other old favorite skills are returning to Diablo III as well. The Wizard will be getting the Diablo II Sorceress skills known as Meteor and Hydra. But these skills become even more awesome when you add the new Skill Runes to them. The panel displayed some of the effects that Skill Runes can have on skills like the Hydra by demonstrating what happens when you place a Skill Rune into a skill. One rune turned the normal fire Hydra into an acid spitting version, while another gave it the devastating Fire Wall spell from Diablo II.

This was a common theme with each class as they went down the list and showed some of what each class gets when they combine Skill Runes with various skills. And one of the most amusing was certainly the Witch Doctor, who could convert his snake to latch onto an enemy’s face and stun them.

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In a display of impressive math, Technical Artist Julian Love stated that with just the Skill Runes, players have almost 97 billion possible character build combinations each. That’s not including the use of Traits, Dyes or Charms. If that is accurate, that is indeed an impressive number of customization options.

Skill Runes come in five versions: Crimson, Indigo, Obsidian, Golden and Alabaster. Each rune has 7 ranks and increases as you progress. The runes amp up whatever skill you attach it to and even change the graphical effect. Effects ranged from increased number of projectiles, giant mob eating toads, acid spitting Hydras, corpse throwing Barbarians, Zombie Bears and a number of others.

Remember those pesky Charms from Diablo II and how they always cluttered up your inventory? These were useful items and many players, myself included, kept their inventory almost completely full of them, leaving just a few spaces for loot. Luckily, the Talisman system has arrived. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a dedicated inventory made specifically to keep your Charms. The amount you can carry is limited, but it increases as you level up.

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And on the subject of Charms, these have gone through some changes as well. Charms will affect core attributes now rather than some of the old affects from Diablo II.

The last topic touched on by the panel was the PvP Battle Arenas. The Battle Arenas are designed for team-oriented PvP battles. The interesting thing about PvP is that it will make use of counters to help break players out of crowd control. So no more of that getting rooted and standing there waiting to get loose while you eat a Javelin to the face.

Participating in Ranked PvP Battle Arenas will also earn you points to get new titles, Achievements, Ranks and PvP cosmetic items. Mostly these are bragging rights items, so don’t expect any game changing benefits.

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The matches will consist of multiple rounds and if you lose, expect to lose the traditional ear. Matchmaking and one on one options aren’t in yet, but Blizzard is looking at implementing those sometime in the future. While the number per match has not yet been determined, Blizzard did indicate that the fights will be multiple rounds.

The panel was a mix of both new and old news, but with the arrival of the Demon Hunter we now know all the classes for Diablo III and just what this shadowy hunter brings to the table. Stay tuned as our BlizzCon 2010 coverage continues.


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Diablo III Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

About The Author

Stacy "Martuk" Jones was a long-time news editor and community manager for many of our previous game sites, such as Age of Conan. Stacy has since moved on to become a masked super hero, battling demons in another dimension.

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