Diablo 4, the next title in Blizzard Entertainment’s legendary action RPG series, doesn’t have a release date yet. Despite this, interest in the game has been rising steadily for the past year, buoyed by gameplay reveals and features from the California-based studio. Four of the five playable classes that will appear inDiablo 4have been revealed so far, all returning classics from previousDiablotitles.
One of the most interesting of these classes is the Sorceress, which hasn’t featured in the series sinceDiablo 2. With her long-range crowd control focus and low HP pool, it would be easy to assume that the Sorceress is just another name forDiablo 3’s Wizard. However, that isn’t entirely true. Here’s our complete breakdown of how theDiablo 4Sorceress and theDiablo 3Wizardstack up beside each other.
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Elemental Skills in Diablo 3 and Diablo 4
On the surface, there’s several elements that the Sorceress and Wizard share. They’re both glass cannon casters with a focus on area-of-effect skills and crowd control. In addition, they can both harness theDiabloelemental powers of Cold, Fire, and Lightningto deal damage and cripple their enemies.
Where the twoDiabloclasses differ is in how they apply these elemental specialties. The Wizard fromDiablo 3combines their Cold, Fire, and Lightning skills with special Arcane magic. This subset, which is unique to the Wizard inthe entireDiabloseries, allows them to summon illusions, twist time, and teleport.
Whilethe Sorceress inDiablo 4won’t have access to these Arcane abilities, her purer focus on Cold, Fire, and Lightning does come with its own perks. Unlike the Wizard, which had to use special skills to Freeze enemies, the Sorceress can lock her foes in place simply by applying repeated Cold damage. When using Lighting, the Sorceress can sometimes cause balls of Crackling Energy to drop from fallen enemies. These act a little like Health Globes, but restore Mana instead. Finally, the Sorceress will have skills that key off the Burning status effect, though they haven’t been fully revealed yet.
The Diablo 4 Sorceress’s Enchantment System
Like all the classes inDiablo 3, the Wizard’s abilities were limited to his active and passive skills. These could be further modified through the use of gear, allowing players to build the class in many different ways. However, apart from these skills, the only thing that divided the Wizard from the other classes was the size of their HP pool and their Arcane Power resource.
The Sorceress takes this a step further, with a unique class mechanic that really helps to separate her from the otherDiablo 4classes.The Sorceress' Enchantment systemallows her to use her skills in a completely different way. While all of the classes inDiablo 4will have 6 slots to place their active skills in, the Sorceress has 3 Enchantment slots as well.
All ofthe Sorceress' skills inDiablo 4come with unique passive effects that apply when they’re placed in an Enchantment slot. These effects can radically change the core functionality of the class, givingDiablo 4players another way to customize their playstyle. One of the effects we know so far is that placing Ball Lightning into an Enchantment slot will cause all Crackling Energy pickups to be replaced by harmful Ball Lightning instead. This removes a core way for the Sorceress to regain Mana, but greatly increases her potential damage output.
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Will Wizard Fans like the Sorceress in Diablo 4
While there are clearly some big differences betweenDiablo 4’s Sorceress andDiablo 3’s Wizard, the two classes do still fill the same role. Speculation is running high on what thefinal class to be revealed inDiablo 4might be, but it’s unlikely to be another magical caster. Based on the rest of the line-up, the brutal Barbarian, agile Rogue, and hybrid Druid, the Sorceress will definitely be filling the niche of squishy caster.
What’s interesting is that the Wizard shared this niche inDiablo 3with the Necromancerand Witch Doctor. Although the three classes had radically different approaches to spellcasting, they definitely overlapped in terms of survivability and crowd-control. InDiablo 4Blizzard seem to be working hard to really separate the classes, giving each one their own unique feel and special abilities. This should really add to replayability, especially if the fifth class has the same range of systems that the first four have.
That being said, the Sorceress inDiablo4 will definitely be a solid pick for any player that enjoyed the Wizard inDiablo 3. Players who enjoy blasting their opponents to bits in an elemental storm of Cold, Fire, and Lightning won’t be disappointed by the high-risk, high-reward hero.
Although the release ofDiablo 4is probably still years away, we can expect more information and reveals from Blizzard over the following months. In particular the choice ofthe fifthDiablo 4classwill really help us get an idea of how they all fit together.
Diablo 4is in development.
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