Diablo III Preview

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Written by BuckGB on January 1st, 2011

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At this year's Blizzcon, Blizzard took the veil from what they say is the final class for Diablo III: the demon hunter. Armed with detonating bolas, molten arrows, grenades, and throwing knives, she (all character classes in Diablo III can be played as either male or female) is a ranged-attack class fighter, one who can set traps for monsters before leaping away to safety. In addition to the demon hunter, Diablo III's other classes warrior, witch doctor, wizard, and monk seem to make a good balance of close-range brute force, magical attacks, and effects-based classes. Interestingly, Blizzard is also implementing a revamped rune system that can be applied to any class' various skills. By equipping various colored runes (alabaster, crimson, golden, obsidian, and indigo) to different skills, they take on different effects. For example, when using the warrior's weapon throw ability, using an obsidian rune with the ability will make your character throw hammers that stun enemies, whereas a golden rune will turn the move into corpse throw, which can have disastrous effects on any nearby enemies. Essentially the rune system makes for deeper combat than you would get with just normal skills, and it's obviously going to be a matter of experimentation, trial and error in order to find the best combinations for any given situation. Similarly, Blizzard is introducing a new system of traits which basically provides secondary skills to complement your primary ones into Diablo III's combat as well. Traits are gained when you level up, and you can spend points on them accordingly to, say, bolster the strength of certain kinds of armor for the wizard.

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