Yesterday Blizzard held a live stream discussing the upcoming addition of the Diablo 3 Necromancer. Lead VFX artist Julian Love and Senior Game Designer Travis Day took time out to answer questions. Some of these have been asked before and we have quick run-down of their answers if you can’t watch the video.
Here’s a quick summary of the 47 minute session….
- No release date yet
- The D2 Necro was used as a “jumping off point” for the new Necromancer.
- Revive is returning
- The Necro will differ from the Witch Doctor. He’s a darker character, pets are controllable in that they can be pointed in direction. Resource models are being tested.
- Corpses will appear to used corpse related skills
- There’s no poison on the Necro in the Diablo 3 version.
- Melee Necromancers will be possible, a lot of skills that have an up close and personal theme.
- Iron Maiden won’t be coming with this necro. They don’t want that style of gameplay and there are “cooler things that could do”.
- The amount of active summons possible is still being determined based on performance and what is actually fun.
- The Necromancer can wield anything that’s not class specific. They are developing scythes at the moment.
- The Necromancer will have golems and they are coming up with new golem types.
- There will be between 4 and 5 types of golem.
- Necro can be played with pets or the main character doing the damage depending on how you want to play the class.
- There will be two-handed scythes.
- Some pets will be permanent and some will be temporary only lasting for a short period of time. There will be skeleton archers and mages.
- Necromancer can be built around blood abilities, it’s a “strong theme”.
- The Necromancer will start with 4 sets.
- The Necromancer will have things that remove HP to do damage. It will “show up in a big way”
- There are no damage over time spells.
- Decrepify will be part of the Necromancer’s arsenal. It was in the BlizzCon demo.
- The Necromancer will have no “special form” like Archon.
- Lots of curses
- The Necro is not being built as a support class. Curses and other skills will help with support if needed.
- The D3 Necromancer is not related to the Diablo 2 Necromancer as far as lore is concerned.
- There will be no additional UI elements to handle pets.
- The Necromancer is being added as DLC and will require Reaper of Souls to play also.
- The Necromancer will be part of the group meta for Greater Rifts. Curses will help the whole group.
- The Necromance will have its own set dungeons, With four sets planned there will be a set dungeon for each set.
- There will be life steal skills due to the blood skills costing health in addition to essence. Making it work means giving the class the ability to recoup heath.
- Lidless Wall might become a Necromancer item. This will be looked at later.
- Revive has been a challenge due to there being over 1000 unique monsters which means 1000 x 6 pieces of unique art. By fay the most expensive skill made in Diablo to date.
- Figuring out how corpses work has taken a lot of time.
- It’s been exciting adapting the Diablo 2 to the new Diablo 3 Necromancer.
Hopefully it won’t be too long until we hear more about the Diablo 3 Necromancer.