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Diablo 4 just got another magical class with the warlocks, who share a few key similarities with necromancers and sorceresses. But for Diablo 4's Lord of Hatred DLC, developers at Blizzard Entertainment made the new class stand out against its spellcaster siblings by asking themselves one super duper important question: Who would win in a punch up?
Warlocks in Diablo 4 operate on the other side of the coin to necromancers. Rather than reviving bones from the dead to fight by your side, warlocks rip portals wide open to pull out still living demons that do your bidding, no matter how painful the task. One skill makes it rain demons onto your foes, while another forces them to link together and create a breathing wall to protect against damage. Poor, ugly demons.
Lead class designer Stephen Trinh suggests, in an interview with the PC Gamer magazine, that the more brutal, hardened warlock skills came about as a way to differentiate the class from other spell slingers in the series.
"When we were talking about warlocks, [we asked ourselves] how are they different from necromancers and sorceresses, as spellcasters?" Trinh says, "And the thing that we came to is if they got into a fist fight between the three, the warlock would beat both of them."
Blizzard actually tried something pretty exciting for the launch of warlocks, announcing the class for Diablo 4, Diablo 2, and Diablo Immortal at the same time - though, there are, of course, big differences in the warlocks' playstyles between each game.
As for Lord of Hatred, the expansion got off to a rough start with login issues and bugs hanging over its release, but Blizzard's since squashed many of its technical problems.
