Diablo 4

[Aberzombie]

Diablo IV Vessel of Hatred Official Cinematic Trailer

New Trailer for the upcoming expansion (October 2024). It's....dark.

[Aberzombie]

And they revealed the new playable class...The Spiritborn. Just from the very brief description and picture, it seems to me to be kind of a love-child of the monk and witchdoctor.

We'll know more on July 18th. Apparently.

[Aberzombie]

Today is the day they reveal more information on the new class for the expansion. I look forward to seeing the details.

[Aberzombie]

I watched the Spiritborn trailer (which included some gameplay), and my first thought was....it's a lot like a monk. Since then I've seen a few articles that agree with me.

Basically, you run and jump around the battlefield, calling on animal spirit guardians to empower you in various ways: Gorilla, Eagle, Jaguar, Centipede.

I'll more than likely play one.

[Aberzombie]

Blizzard-Whoopi Goldberg ‘Diablo 4’ Feud Goes Up In Smoke As Studio Makes Amends With ‘The View’ Host

I had no idea this feud was a thing, or that Whoopi is apparently such a passionate fan of the Diablo franchise. Cool story.

[Aberzombie]

I picked up the new expansion pack the other day, but beings so busy I've only had a little time to check it out. Maybe 40 minutes total.

So far, while it's kind of cool, I am not impressed.

If you play the expansion with an existing character, it knocks that character back to level 50. However, if you start a new character, it defaults to putting you at the same starting point, but at level 1.

That, to me, is a bit discouraging. Like maybe whomever was developing this didn't think things through all the way. Like they didn't care that people might be pissed if, for example, their level 71 sorcerer got knocked back to level 50.

Anyway, I think I'll just keep playing through the expansion with my sorcerer. Then see if the game will let me start from the very beginning with one of the new Spirit Borns.

[Phillip Gastone]

Youtube animator Carbot has done amusing Diablo videos for pretty much the whole series

[Aberzombie]

Weird. As previously mentioned, they reset existing characters to level 50 to play Vessel of Hatred. Then I hit level 60, and suddenly it jumped me up to level 86.

I’m wondering if the people who developed this were on some kind of drugs.

[Aberzombie]

Well, I beat the Vessel of Hatred Expansion with my fire sorcerer. The ending sets up for either more expansions, or a fifth game.

I was thinking of writing a more in-depth review. That would come later, probably after I've had a chance to play a Spirit Born character. For now, I'll just say I've had fun playing the game, but the story just isn't as good as the earlier games.

[Aberzombie]

First impression of the Spiritborn - kind of like the love child of a D3 Monk and a D4 Druid. Fighting moves and elemental spirit powers.

I started the one I created at the very beginning of the game and have him up to 17th level. He's....okay. Not the greatest class. The build I'm using makes heavy use of poison power. So while I keep hitting the bad guys, the poison is also eating away at their health.

You get 4 spirit animals to choose from: Eagle, Gorilla, Jaguar, and Centipede. Each one has its own theme. Centipede is poison. Gorilla is toughness and doing lots of thorns damage. Not sure about eagle and jaguar.

The special ability you unlock at level 15 is adopting one of the spirit animals of the class as a primary. In this case, I chose the gorilla. It does damage as thorns in a radius around you whenever you use a gorilla power. Then makes all powers gorilla powers.

I'm not crazy about some of the looks of the character. He has tons of piercings I couldn't get rid of. And the looks of the armor and helms they get don't blow my skirt up, so to speak. But that's just cosmetic stuff. Not really important.