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Season 20 Begins 3/13!

We have the official announcement that Season 20 will begin on March 13th! As a reminder, Season 19 will end on March 1st, as was announced on the official Diablo Twitter account. You can find the full announcement below, along with the patch notes for the upcoming patch 2.6.8!

Originally Posted by Nevalistis (Official Post)

Season 20 begins March 13, shortly after our next Diablo III patch. Read on to learn more about the brand-new Season buff, three brutally feral new class sets, and a handful of item reworks coming in Patch 2.6.8!

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Table of Contents

• Season Theme
• Season Cosmetic Rewards
• Season Journey Rewards
• Seasonal Conquests
• Haedrig’s Gift
• Patch Notes
• FAQ

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New Season Theme

Season 20 is the Season of the Forbidden Archives. Many adventurers have come to learn the power that dwells within the ancient nephalem artifact, Kanai’s Cube. However, none understand this power better than the equally celebrated and reviled Horadrim, Zoltun Kulle. Kulle was able to unlock and harness the power of the Cube like none before, leveraging its power to siphon and archive the energies of powerful items. With Season 20, we explore the power Kulle might lend to your fingertips if his experiments went unchecked.

 

For the duration of Season 20, the slots in Kanai’s Cube that allow you to equip three additional Legendary powers will not be restricted to their usual categories. While normally a player can equip one power each from the Weapon, Armor, and Jewelry categories, Season 20 players can mix and match between all three! This might allow you to run two Weapon powers with one Armor power. Or perhaps you might choose to run three Amulet powers instead. The choice is yours, and we’re as eager as you are to experiment with the new build opportunities this creates!

 

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Seasonal Cosmetic Rewards

Beginning with Season 17, we began re-introducing previous Seasonal rewards to make them available to players who may have missed them the first time around. For Season 20, this means awards originally available from Season 8 are returning to the Season Journey.

 

 

However, we know it’s nice to have something new to aim for if you’ve participated in previous Seasons. We’re continuing to provide new End of Journey rewards as introduced in Season 17, with two new cosmetic rewards for those who complete the entirety of the Season journey. Feast your eyes upon the Teganze Warrior Portrait Frame and Bat pet!

 

 

In addition to the Boots and Pants slots of the exclusive Conqueror Set, you’ll be able to earn a series of portrait frames that smolder with demonic fires of the Burning Hells. The iconic “wings” of Andariel will also be available once more, allowing you to truly embrace your inner Maiden of Anguish.

 

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Season Journey Rewards

If you’ve been diligently slaying demons for the past few Seasons and reached Conqueror in the Season Journey each time, you’ve surely accrued a few extra stash tabs. You’ll earn one additional tab each Season by finishing the Conqueror tier, up to a maximum of five:

• Guardian of Sanctuary: Finish a level 70 Nephalem Rift on Torment XIII difficulty within 5 minutes.
• Gem of My Life: Level three Legendary Gems to level 55.
• All I Do is Win: Complete 2 Conquests this Season.
• Warm Thoughts: Kill Izual at level 70 in under 15 seconds on Torment XIII difficulty.
• Money Ain’t a Thang: Slay Greed on Torment XIII difficulty. Treasure Goblins outside of Nephalem Rifts will sometimes open portals to Greed’s domain, The Vault.
• Take U There: Reach Greater Rift Level 60 Solo. Greater Rift keystones can be obtained from any Nephalem Rift guardian.
• Power Amplification: Use Kanai’s Cube to augment an Ancient Legendary item with a level 50+ gem.
• Cubic Reconfiguration: Use Kanai’s Cube to reforge a Legendary item.

 

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Seasonal Conquests

Want to prepare your Conquest plan for Season 19? Here are the challenges you’ll face!

 

For Curses!/Stars Align, pick any Cursed Chest event that requires killing monsters and defeat over 350 or more at level 70 on Torment X or higher. Push your way to Greater Rift level 75 to complete Divinity/Lionhearted. For the fiercest demon slayers, Boss Mode/Worlds Apart is a speed challenge where you’ll need to eliminate the following bosses at level 70 and Torment X in under twenty minutes:

 

• The Skeleton King
• The Butcher
• Zoltun Kulle
• Ghom
• Cydaea
• Rakanoth
• Diablo
• Adria
• Queen Araneae
• Maghda
• Belial
• Siegebreaker Assault Beast
• Azmodan
• Izual
• Urzael
• Malthael

Finally, Years of War/Dynasty will be a great test for those who enjoy mastering various Class Sets, and if that’s not enough, Masters of the Universe/Masters of Sets will challenge your tactical understanding of Set Dungeons.

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Haedrig’s Gift

Finally, the Class Sets rewarded for completing certain chapters in the Season Journey courtesy of Haedrig’s Gift have rotated once more. We’ve listed the available Sets below. For those new to Seasons, here’s how it works:

 

Completing Chapters 2, 3, and 4 of the Season Journey will reward you with three of Haedrig’s Gifts. Each Gift contains a few pieces from one of your Class Sets. Players can only unlock one Class Set in this manner per Season across Hardcore and Non-Hardcore, so choose wisely!

 

The set you receive depends on the class of the character you’re playing when you open each Haedrig’s Gift. To collect a full Class Set, you’ll need to open all three on the same character.

Here are the sets granted by Haedrig’s Gift in Season 20:

• Barbarian – Immortal King’s Call
• Crusader – Seeker of the Light
• Demon Hunter – Natalya’s Vengeance
• Monk – Uliana’s Stratagem
• Necromancer – Trag’Oul’s Avatar
• Witch Doctor – Spirit of Arachyr
• Wizard – Vyr’s Amazing Arcana

 

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Patch Notes

Below you will find the final patch notes for the most recent update for Diablo III, Patch 2.6.8. Changes specifically from the last version of the PTR have been highlighted in RED.

 

 

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Last updated February 28 @ 10:00 a.m. PST.

Below you will find the patch notes for the most recent update for Diablo III, Patch 2.6.8.

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PATCH 2.6.8

Table of Contents:

• General
• Seasons
• Classes
  • Crusader
  • Witch Doctor
• Items
  • Barbarian
  • Witch Doctor
  • Wizard
• Bug Fixes

Note: The following changes apply to both PC and Console versions of Diablo III unless otherwise noted.

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General

• Infernal Machines and Organs are now subject to vacuum pick-up
• Crafting plans from Bounty Caches are now guaranteed to drop unless all plans have been learned

Seasons

• A new Season Theme has been added for Season 20, the Season of the Forbidden Archives:
  • For the duration of Season 20, all slots in Kanai's Cube will be able to select Legendary powers from Weapon, Armor, or Jewelry
    • This means you could select three Armor powers, three Weapon powers, three Jewelery powers, or any other combination thereof across all categories
    • Items are not self-additive or multiplicative (meaning, you cannot stack multiples of the same item's power)
    • Once the Season has ended and characters roll over to Non-Season, players will have all currently active powers in their Kanai's Cube reset
    • Developer's Note: As we outlined in our Developer Insight blog, we want to continue to get creative (and maybe a little crazy) with the Season Themes and powers we add to the game. We heard from some players that they preferred themes that made your character directly feel more powerful rather than needing to focus on the environment around you. If that describes you, then the Season of Forbidden Archives should be right up your alley, and we're really interested to see how this changes the game for Season 20.
• Two new Seasonal rewards are available for players who fully complete the Season 20 Journey, including a new portrait frame and pet

Classes

• Crusader
  • Developer's Note: We're not convinced that this change has fully reigned in Crusader performance to be more in line with other classes. We'll be continuing to keep an eye on overall Crusader performance (as well as performance among the other classes) in 2.6.8 and beyond.
  • Heaven's Fury
    • The animation for the Fires of Heaven rune can no longer be cancelled early.
• Witch Doctor
  • Spirit Barrage (Phantasm)
    • The periodic attacks from Spirit Barrage (Phantasm) are now twice as slow, but twice as powerful
    • Developer's Note: We rolled this change back between PTR and Live as it was creating additional bugs. We may consider re-exploring this option in the future if we find this adjustment is still needed.

Items

• Developer's Note: With Patch 2.6.8, we're adding three(!) new class sets with similar goals to those we included in the previous patch. Each set was designed primarily with boosting long-requested skills and play styles we lifted directly from community feedback. Frenzy, Spirit Barrage, and Hydra were requests that offered a lot of opportunity for gameplay exploration, and we're looking forward to seeing what players do with these new tools at their disposal. Additional changes to associated supplemental Legendaries have been included to round out these builds.
• Mantle of Channeling
  • The bonus granted by this item now occurs 1 second after channeling has begun
• Barbarian
  • New Class Set: Horde of the Ninety Savages
    • 2-Piece Bonus: Double the effectiveness of all Shouts. Feared, Frozen, or Stunned Enemies take double damage.
      • Developer's Note: The callout that Stun may be the best fit for this set bonus was definitely heard, but we didn't want to take away other potential builds enabled by experimenting with Fear or Frozen. We hope this opens up a variety of options for Barbarians to explore!
    • 4-Piece Bonus: Each stack of Frenzy reduces damage taken by 6%. Frenzy lasts twice as long.
    • 6-Piece Bonus: Frenzy deals 1000% increased damage per stack.
  • Undisputed Champion
    • Frenzy gains the effect of every rune and deals 300-400% increased damage.
  • Bastion's Revered
    • Frenzy now stacks up to 10 times and hits an additional time per stack. Each additional hit will chain to any enemies within 15 yards and the damage is split between all affected enemies.
• Witch Doctor
  • New Class Set: Mundunugu's Regalia
    • 2-Piece Bonus: Big Bad Voodoo now follows you and lasts twice as long.
    • 4-Piece Bonus: Gain 60% damage reduction for 30 seconds when you enter the Spirit Realm.
    • 6-Piece Bonus: Spirit Barrage deals 20000% increased damage plus an additional % equal to 5 times your Mana Regeneration/Second.
      • Developer's Note: We found this set was overperforming at the highest end, but we also wanted to maintain its capabilities at early gearing stages. The addition of a base multiplier and reducing the effectiveness of the Mana Regeneration bonus should accomplish this goal.
  • The Barber
    • Instead of dealing direct damage, your Spirit Barrage now accumulates on the target. When you stop casting, it explodes dealing 225-250% 400-500% of the accumulated damage to all enemies within 15 yards.
    • Is now classified as a Ceremonial Knife, with a base 1.4 attack speed
  • Gazing Demise
    • Spirit Barrage gains the Phantasm rune. Each active Phantasm lasts twice as long, increases the damage of Spirit Barrage by 40-50% 100-150%, and also increases the attack rate from Manitou spectres.
  • Ring of Emptiness
    • You deal 250-300% increased damage to enemies affected by both either your Haunt and or Locust Swarm.
• Wizard
  • New Class Set: The Typhon's Veil
    • 2-Piece Bonus: Double the duration of Hydras and increase the number of heads on multi-headed Hydras by two.
    • 4-Piece Bonus: Damage taken is reduced by 8% for each Hydra head alive as long as there is one available. Each time you take damage, a Hydra heads dies. Heads cannot die more than once every 2 seconds
    • 6-Piece Bonus: Hydras deal 1200% 1300% increased damage for each Hydra head alive.
      • Developer's Note: We've continued to tilt more of the power for Hydra in favor of the 6-piece set bonus and away from the supplemental Legendary items.
  • Serpent's Sparker
    • You may have one extra Hydra active at a time and they deal 450-600% 250-300% increased damage.
  • The Magistrate
    • Frost Hydra Your Hydras now periodically cast Frost Nova and deal 450-600% 250-300% increased damage.
  • Etched Sigil
    • The bonus granted by this item now occurs 1 second after channeling has begun.
  • Deathwish
    • The bonus granted by this item now occurs 1 second after channeling has begun.

Bugs

• Several issues with adding/removing players to group and starting new games as a group have been resolved
• Captain Crimson's Trimmings
  • Fixed an issue where the set bonus did not increase damage reduction when using Devour - Voracious
• Barbarian
  • Fixed a bug where Threatening Shout (Grim Harvest) would not activate when enhanced by the Horde of the Ninety Savages set bonus
• Crusader
  • Corrected the spelling of “Imperius” on the flavor text for several pieces of the Aegis of Valor set
  • Fixed an issue where the bolts cast by Fist of the Heavens - Divine Well failed to zap enemies
• Demon Hunter
  • Fixed an issue where In-geom was not properly dropping for Demon Hunters
• Wizard
  • Fixed a bug where Arcane Torrent would get an extra damage multiplier from Etched Sigil and Deathwish
  • Fixed a bug where Hydra (Frost Hydra) was getting a damage bonus instead of Attack Speed bonus from its owner's Attack Speed; this rune now benefits from Attack Speed in the same manner as other Hydra runes
• PTR Specific
  • Note: The following issues were only live on the PTR, but we're including the fixes here for visibility and to indicate intended functionality on live.
  • Fixed a bug with Bastion's Revered where it would not properly benefit from Convention of Elements
  • Fixed a bug where Big Bad Voodoo would not properly follow its owner through zones when utilizing the new 2-Piece set bonus
  • Fixed a bug where Hydras would have a short delay after being summoned

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FAQ

Q: When does Season 20 start?

 

A: Season 20 begins Friday, March 13 at 5:00 p.m. PST in North America, 5:00 p.m. CET in Europe, and 5:00 p.m. KST in Asia. For time zone conversions, see this site.

 

Q: When do Seasons go live for players on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch?

 

A: Seasons go live for all console players globally Friday, March 13 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time, regardless of which regional version of the game you may have. Please note that Seasonal Leaderboards for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch are still separate by hardware platform.

 

Q: When will Season 20 end?

 

A: We are no longer providing anticipated end dates for Seasons. However, we are committed to keeping Seasons roughly three months in length (give or take a few weeks based on development needs) and will continue to provide a minimum of two weeks advance notice for when the Season will be ending.

 

Q: When are the non-Seasonal Leaderboards being wiped?

 

A: Non-Seasonal Leaderboards are tied to what we call “Eras,” each of which lasts about 6–12 months. The most recent era began November 12; the Era will be resetting with the release of Patch 2.6.8. For more information on Eras, please see this post.

 

Q: What will happen to older Seasonal and Era records?

 

A: Starting with Season 10, we removed old personal bests from Season 1. When Season 19 arrives, we will remove old personal bests from Season 10, and so on. We will be doing the same for personal bests from the previous Era when the next one goes live.

 

Seasonal Leaderboard records are not being cleared and will remain archived both in game and on our website.

Diablo IV Quarterly Update: February 2020

The first quarterly update for Diablo IV has been posted! This blog contains a huge amount of information regarding Diablo IV, and we highly suggest reading through the whole thing!

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment (Official Post)

 

Table of Contents

Introduction to Quarterly Updates
Luis Barriga, Game Director

UI Design, Controller Support, and Co-Op
Angela Del Priore, Lead UI Designer

Monster Family & Design Highlight: Cannibal Tribes
Candace Thomas, Senior Encounter Designer

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Hello, and welcome to the new blog section of the Diablo IV website!

 

The Diablo IV development team has been hard at work since BlizzCon and we are all still incredibly energized by the response to our announcement and follow-up blog posts. We can tell you are all excited to see more info coming from the team and about how the game is coming together.

 

Well, we have some great news for you today. We are stoked to deliver the first of our quarterly blog updates with you, and this one happens to be a doubleheader.

 

First, we have a word from our Lead UI Designer, Angela Del Priore, with some super cool updates on post-BlizzCon feedback, controller support on PC, and a deep dive into couch co-op. If you’d like to jump to her update right now, click here.

 

Our second update is by our Senior Encounter Designer, Candace Thomas. She shares a first look at a new set of enemies: the cannibal tribes of the Dry Steppes. You’ll see some amazing new art by Igor Sidorenko, read some of our in-world lore, and even watch video of these flesh-eaters in action. To check out Candace’s update, click here.

 

We hope you enjoy both of these updates. We’re looking forward to your thoughts and comments on them, and please also let us know the sorts of things you’d like to hear about next. We realize many of you are curious about different aspects of the development process—some of you love reading and re-reading lore, while others of you may geek out over item tooltips or want to hear some early music tracks. So be sure to tell us what excites you most! Our goal for these updates is to cover a wide variety of subjects and, over the course of development, share something exciting for everyone. 

 

Once again, we want to thank you all for sharing in this journey with us.

 

See you in Hell.

 

-Luis Barriga-
Game Director, Diablo IV Team

 

 

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UI Design, Controller Support, and Co-Op

Angela Del Priore, Lead UI Designer

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For anyone who isn’t familiar with user interface (UI) design, our team is responsible for communicating game systems to the player and providing players with the inputs they need to engage with those systems. So while we are focused on helping the player achieve what they want to do, we also need to balance that goal against the vision for the game while maintaining the clarity of what our interface is trying to communicate.

 

As you might imagine, this means that we iterate on our UI regularly. As systems change, the UI changes with it, which can in turn cause player goals to change. The UI then needs to adapt while keeping our visual language consistent across the entire game. Visual polish is one of the last things we focus on for this reason. Please keep that in mind as we talk through and show some of our in-progress work, but feel free to let us know your thoughts!

BlizzCon Demo Feedback

It’s been a few months since BlizzCon, but we still wanted to take a moment to address some of the UI-specific feedback we received from the demo and announcement videos.

 

Inventory

 

We saw a lot of feedback around the inventory, either regarding its coloring, the style/size of the item icons, or overall aesthetic. To avoid interrupting gameplay with pockets of inventory management, we’re not planning on bringing back different-sized items. However, we’ve been tackling the other points from a variety of directions.

 

With item icons, we’d initially pursued a painterly style to stay in line with the overall art direction of the game, and we’re finding that it doesn’t come across as well when we’re talking about small elements in the UI. We’re now exploring another approach more directly based off the 3D models to give them natural texture and realism.

 

 

 

We’ve also toned down the brightness and saturation of the icon backgrounds, as well as added secondary visual cues for indicating rarity via the border decoration. This way, we’ve made rarity indicators visually more subtle but hopefully with a wider range in accessibility.

 

We received some non-specific feedback about the inventory, but we had guesses as to what people were reacting to based on our own observations. We’ve reorganized the layout of the inventory to what is hopefully a more balanced composition, and across the board we’re looking at the color spread and contrast levels of individual UI pieces.

 

 

We hope to both home in on our goal of a gritty, realistic UI, while balancing ease of use. As the inventory screen is something our players will probably interact with the most, we really appreciate your feedback in this area.

 

Rebinding Left-Click

 

A surprising number of players asked for the option to rebind their primary skill to anything but the left mouse button so that they could separate moving from attacking. Adding more flexibility to our binding options had already been on our radar for a while, and the demo feedback helped confirm that this was a customization feature that players really wanted.

 

In addition to giving players the freedom to assign any skill to any slot from the get-go, all skill slots can now have their keys rebound. We’re committed to supporting skill rebinding for controllers as well.

 

The Left-Corner Action Bar

 

 

We went through a lot of iteration on this piece of UI. The left-corner configuration came about because we wanted to try clearing the central combat area and freeing up the bottom of the screen where the isometric camera already sees less. However, based on usability test results, the team’s feedback, and the feedback we received from the demo, we’re going to move the default position of the action bar back to the bottom center for PC players.

 

 

 

That’s not all, though! The preferred position changes to the left-corner when people play further away from the screen. This doesn’t come as a surprise given the shift in viewing angle (illustrative diagram below not to scale), but it does mean that the center configuration isn’t a majority winner on PC since we’re supporting controller input. So, while we will only stick to the corner configuration on consoles, we will offer both left and center positions as options on PC.

 

 

Supporting controllers on PC

 

This is the first time a Diablo game is being developed simultaneously for both PC and consoles, but the decision to support controller input on PC is what caused the greater paradigm shift for us. We wanted to give players the ability to switch between the two options freely, so our UI needed to be unified enough that swapping hardware inputs on the fly wouldn’t throw people completely off kilter. A unified UI means our layouts are more grid-based for ease of navigation, but it doesn’t necessarily mean an identical interaction flow.

 

 

We try to maintain this sort of approach, of keeping established keyboard and mouse conventions while creating controller-friendly shortcuts or alternate flows, throughout the game. Controller support shouldn’t be a limiter on how complex our game can be; it just means we have more paths that we need to consider. It’s not a simple undertaking, but we’re really striving for a native feel for both types of inputs.

 

Couch Co-Op UI

 

We know many players enjoyed couch co-op in Reaper of Souls, and that the biggest complaint was the inability to do anything while one local player had a UI screen open. When the topic of couch co-op came up early on in development, we looked at the number of people who utilized this feature in Diablo III and found that the 2-player setup accounted for an overwhelming majority. For Diablo IV, we decided to focus on improving the favored 2-player co-op experience and set up our core progression UI screens such that they can be opened independently or at the same time.

 

 

We iterate on this interface regularly and ease of interaction comes before visual polish, but we still welcome impressions at any stage. Everyone approaches the game with a different set of experiences and, consequently, different expectations for how things should look or work and it’s always interesting to hear these perspectives.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

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Monster Family & Design Highlight: Cannibals

Candace Thomas, Senior Encounter Designer

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If you had the chance to watch our World and Lore Panel during BlizzCon, you learned that monsters in Diablo IV are classified into “families.” In our various panels we covered different monster families such as the Fallen, who are returning to once again terrorize Sanctuary, and the Drowned, who are a brand new threat plaguing the shores of this world. We touched on their story, combat abilities, the regions they inhabit, and how they interact with one another in a meaningful way. Now, we would like to give you a look into another new family: The Cannibals.

 

What is a Monster Family and Why Does it Matter?

 

Cultist Family—Diablo IV

 

Before we dive into the specific mechanics of the Cannibal family, let’s take a moment to talk about our design philosophy when it comes to monsters.

In the bestiary of Diablo III, we classified monsters into broad categories like demon, unholy, undead, humanoid, or wildlife. These monsters served as an anchor to the story by adding to the overall setting and tone, which made the whole game feel complete.

 

In Diablo IV, the vast and seamless world we created necessitates a slightly different approach to worldbuilding and storytelling. It requires building Sanctuary as a living, breathing character—especially through its creatures. Since we have everything from serene ocean cliffsides to the gaping maw of Hell itself, what does that mean for the bestiary? Well, to fill those areas and make them feel real, we definitely needed to have more non-aggressive wildlife than in Diablo III. But never fear, we still have plenty of monsters to fight.

 

Every monster has been reimagined, but in a darker, more gritty art style. We have lovingly handcrafted every creature you’ll encounter from the ground up: that includes demons, NPCs, Act Bosses, and even the skittering critters you can crush underfoot. Though we still pay tribute to some hallmark gameplay—such as Fallen Shamans resurrecting other Fallen—we have completely reimagined things in other places.

 

To have these creatures feel more sophisticated and robust, we designed them in what we call “monster families” and archetypes. Each family has a different combat style and feel. For example, the Drowned family has five members in various archetypes: bruiser, ranged combat, melee combat, swarmer, and dungeon boss.

 

Drowned Family Lineup in Diablo IV

 

Each archetype plays a different role in combat. Swarmers strike in groups, making AoE attacks feel satisfying. Bruisers are larger monsters with high health values, which will make damage over time abilities feel good. Melee combat units act as shields by standing in the way of projectiles for their ranged counterparts. Situations like this provide the player with interesting positional dilemmas if they want to focus fire on ranged units. When adding all of this together, each encounter with the Drowned will be slightly different with regards to player positioning and choice of attack. These rich and varied combat experiences are the power of a monster family.

 

Who Are the Cannibals?

 

Cannibal Family Lineup in Diablo IV 

 

“Corpses riddled with bite marks. Splintered bones scraped clean of marrow. Tongues sawed off and eyes gouged out of their skulls. These are the bloody fingerprints the Cannibals leave behind—if they leave behind anything at all. No one is certain where they come from, but some legends claim they are a former tribe of barbarians, banished from Arreat years ago. Whether their cannibalism led to their exile or developed out of desperation afterward is unknown. The outcasts brought their endless hunger to the Dry Steppes, and from there spread to the far corners of the world to prey on lonesome caravans and unsuspecting villages.

The few who have survived encounters with these butchers share the same stories. They tell of the mad fire that burns in the eyes of all Cannibals, of how eating the flesh of their victims in battle only fuels their hunger for more. They whisper of the unlucky souls spared in the attacks, hauled off like livestock for the raiders to pick clean until their next hunt. And then, they say no more. The silence speaks for them: sometimes it is better to die than to live and remember.”

 

—Liya Khal’tib

 

A Battle for Survival

 

 

Now that we’ve introduced some new lore about this family, we can dive into how we try to use them to give a cohesive experience narratively, while also providing the peaks-and-valleys of combat expected in a hack-n-slash ARPG. So what does this mean for Cannibal combat design? How do we convey their story through combat? We took a couple of approaches:

 

Weaponry 

 

The Cannibal family has four members. They each have their own unique weapon and a significantly different silhouette or stance to help differentiate them from one another. There are two standard melee combatants: one wielding a two-handed greatsword cleaver, which delivers a slow, sweeping frontal attack; and the other using a lightweight halberd which allows them to leap at players from a great distance and crash down with a devastating attack.

 

 

The bruiser uses a spiked club in each hand to deliver intense blows that will stun players if they aren’t paying attention. By contrast, the dual-axe-wielding swarmers can unleash a flurry of frontal attacks that will quickly kill if left unchecked. However, this is a less binary pass/fail than the bruiser’s stun attack. If the player finds themselves surrounded by flurrying swarmers, getting hit by the bruiser’s dazing blow would remove all possibility of escape. It’s combinations of attacks like these that make this family so deadly.

 

 

Archetype

 

Earlier, we explained how different monster archetypes play different roles in an encounter. For example, players who want to efficiently kill ranged monsters will need to learn how to reposition their accompanying melee attackers so that a cleverly dropped area of effect ability will target both clusters of enemies. This makes for interesting on-the-fly decision-making, and skilled players will be able to spot the optimal positions for these attacks very quickly.

 

 

By design, the Cannibal family has no ranged units. Instead, they spring at the player with supernatural swiftness. Some may close the gap by leaping over obstacles and would-be competitors, while others will swiftly and deftly maneuver through other monsters to get first blood. This provides a very different experience and gives the player less time to make thoughtful positioning decisions, thus making combat with these flesh-eaters feel frenetic.

 

That’s it for today. Thanks for staying a while and listening!

 

If you've been reading this site over the last year and a half then you've probably noticed I have a fondness for covering the long rumored Diablo Netflix series. We've known for quite a while that the series is a very real thing and, at this point, is basically one of Blizzard's worst kept secrets due to a leaked tweet from the potential showrunner and a public trademark filing. The most recent development comes in the form of yet another confirmation of the series with a LinkedIn profile found by GameSpot. The profile in question is for Nick van Dyk, President of Activision Studios, which clearly confirms all of the rumors we've been following on the development of the animated series.

* Executive producer of Diablo, a TV adaptation of Blizzard Entertainment’s IP, rendered in anime style. The show is currently in pre-production for distribution worldwide through Netflix.

Now we know that the show is still in pre-production, so we might not see anything of it this year. Unfortunately, we still know nothing about the plot of the show, but there is a clue in the cancelled comic that Blizzard was going to publish with Titan Comics. Before its cancellation, we knew that the story for the comic was to focus on Lilith, the creation of Sanctuary, and the birth of the Nephalem and after announcement of Diablo IV those plot points make a lot sense. Could the animated series be written to cover that same story? There are a vast amount of half-told stories and lingering lore threads that could fill countless episodes worth of content with stories from the Diablo franchise, but focusing on Lilith's backstory or potential lead-ins into Diablo IV's story seem like safe bets.