The Queue: It is the Wednesday before Diablo 4 (my dudes)

I don’t know if there are any frogs in Diablo 4. I haven’t noticed any, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. So even though we’re largely talking about Diablo today, we will have to make do with this very ordinary and not at all harmful Warcraft frog. It’s probably fine.

This is the Queue, our daily Q&A column in which I answer your questions and we all hang out in the comments section to argue about it. Let’s get to it.

Blizzard hasn’t given a reason, but I have invented a justification for it in my own mind.

While we know Amazons have left Skovos in the past, since we played an Amazon in Diablo 2. However it’s far from common Skovos is an isolationist nation that typically seems to limit its contact with the outside world. And, isolated as they are, they have had no reason to leave their homes, where they have their own problems. They don’t know what’s been going on in the rest of Sanctuary, and have no reason to venture beyond their borders.

But now we’re going to Sanctuary, and we’re bringing our problems with us. The Amazons cannot help but know how the world is faring as what threatens Estuar, as they face similar threats.

From this, I can see two option. The Amazons become more insular, cutting themselves off from the world more completely in an attempt to avoid the evils threatening the world beyond. Or they see that the threats to Skovos are threats everywhere, and must be fought beyond their shores and Blizzard stealth drops playable Amazons in a couple of patches.

I’m rooting for that option.

I tend to be a Necromancer main in D4, and I’m going to stick to what I know for Lord of Hatred. With the class changes, even playing a class I know feels pretty fresh, and — because many legendary powers have been rolled into the skill trees — there’s new gear with new powers that unlocks a lot of new options.

Shortly before the review servers I had access to play on went offline, I got a pair of boots that gave me +1% speed for every minion I had. I was running with 25 minions at the time, between talents and gear, and had a minion army beyond my wildest dreams. Then I tempered +move speed to it, with a max roll of 30%. Then I masterworked it to max level, and did the final level of masterworking which adds another stat to the gear — it procced +44% movement speed.

One of the main problems Necromancers have is speed. They don’t have movement abilities (or very limited ones), and at late game that means they can’t clear things as quickly as other classes simply because they can’t move quickly. But with this combination, I was so fast. It was beautiful.

I won’t have that character when the actual expansion goes live, but I look forward to collecting gear anew and finding more fun things to explore as a Necromancer. (Hopefully a speedy Necromancer.)

But… I am a long-time fan of Paladins, and with how busy it’s been over the past few months I haven’t had a chance to try them. (Plus the class changes have hit them as well, so they’ll be at least a little different in the expansion.) I may check out the Paladin, though I’m going to level a Necromancer first.

Not long at all. You should find all of your abilities to be familiar, but the updated skill trees offer you more opportunities to tweak those abilities. All passives boosts are gone, so your skill tree is active abilities and modifiers to those abilities.

It looks overwhelming, but it really isn’t — and if you’ve played Diablo 3 you’ll find the setup familiar, even though Diablo 4’s interface makes it look different. When you pick a skill, you then have several tiers of options to modify that skill. Many of those modifiers are familiar, as things that were previously in the tree (some simply exact duplicates) or as things that have moved around. Others are legendary powers, moved into the skill tree, which let you bring your build online without collecting lots of gear. There are modifiers that are brand new and will open all new build options, but they are not the majority.

Most of these modifiers are level locked, so you will largely pick up your typical skills, level a bit, and then unlock some options to modify that skill. Level a bit more and you’ll unlock more modifiers. Level a bit more and you’ll have even more options. Because you pick up all of these abilities gradually, it doesn’t feel as overwhelming as you might think, from looking at the skill trees.

You’ll find the major building blocks of your class to be familiar, so while it’s a drastic change, it’s not like your class will play completely differently.

I recommend distracting yourself from the problem. Smother your feelings with other activities! Play the game (anything but housing). Watch your favorite TV show. Listen to some music. Read a book. Do anything but think about these exclusive items.

Continue this at a frantic pace until you have forgotten. If it takes a year, it takes a year.

Or you can just tell yourself that these items are cursed, and bestow a terrible fate on their owners. Their beauty is a trap. You would not want them.

Paladin is far more my vibe, though I have to admit, I enjoyed playing the Warlock more than I expected. I went in thinking the vibe was awful and I had no interest in summoning demons. But since they were the big new thing, I had to at least give them a try, and…

They are fun to play. Ugh. I didn’t want them to be fun to play. They’re sort of a cross between a Necromancer and a Sorcerer, but they aren’t squishy like a pure caster typically is.

I didn’t play the class much, because there are only so many hours in the day. But I was very annoyed to find they were fun.

Diablo has no naming scheme and follows no rules. Runes and Charms both are a system of chaotic magic, defined by no grammar.

And for those of you trying to figure out what we’re talking about, these are the names of different set Charms in Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred, which you can equip to provide different types of bonuses. Some of these runes have set bonuses, so you might find a Phoba of Slaughter you could equip with a Mlor of Slaughter to give you the two-piece bonus, which provided 5% damage reduction and +10% damage to elite monsters. That was a pretty generic bonus, and there are many more interesting and class-specific set Charms to collect.

But as to the grammar of them? The rules are all made up (and the points don’t matter), at least as well as I know.

That’s all for today, friends. I’ll probably be back tomorrow also, so I’ll see you again soon. (Probably immediately, right in the comments section.) Take care everyone!