Diablo 3: Introducing the Wizard

The newest class is a master of time and energy.

Blizzard developers announced today that they've taken a leaf out of old-school pen-and-paper gaming books when it came to creating the new playable class for Diablo III, the Wizard.

Wai Ching described the Wizard as a 'high magic' character that doesn't need to resort to summoning or life spells. "Those would all be outside the realm of what the Wizard does; she's all about channelling the power of the universe". Accordingly developers avoided using a fireball or firebolt type effect as the base offensive spell for the wizard as this would be too 'elementalist'. Magic missile was the final choice, along with the ability to improve the number of missiles or beasties targeted as skill points are added to the ability.

The class discussion panel, including Ching as well as Julian Love and Jay Wilson, concentrated on four of the Wizards skills: Magic Missile, Electrocute, Slow Time and Disintegrate. Slow Time and Disintegrate are marquee skills for the Wizard.

Slow Time, originally conceived as a full time stop, eventually became part of the Reality Control kit for the class. With multiplayer options also in mind devs eventually dropped the complete time-stop aspect of the spell, and changed it into a slow time bubble area effect.

Disintegrate is a new beam weapon type spell that utilises the sweep of the mouse to control the damage - mobs take more damage the longer they are caught in the beam, effectively being heated up. This is the real face melter!

And there's more news and interviews to come! In the meantime we've got a small gallery of Wizard shots for you to enjoy.