Diablo (series): Difference between revisions

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A [[Hack and Slash]] game series from [[Blizzard Entertainment]]. Notorious for having [[Play the Game Skip The Story|an elaborate backstory and plot that nobody ever follows]] concerning a war between [[Heaven and Hell]]. As a sort of simple graphical [[Roguelike]], [[Random Drop|the pursuit of the]] [[Rare Random Drop|perfect randomly-generated equipment]] and [[Level Grinding|character build]] to satisfy one's inner [[Munchkin]] gives the game tremendous replayability.

The first game was essentially a huge dungeon crawl, consisting of 16 levels of increasing difficulty under Tristram, the only town in the game, where various NPCs provide you with quests, healing, and equipment. The goal was to get to the [[Big Bad]], Diablo, in [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]]. The non-canonical third-party expansion pack ''Hellfire'' added eight new separate levels, four new quests (a quest to kill another Diablo-esque baddy in the crypt near the church, [[Lighter and Softer|a quest from Lester the farmer, a cow quest and a quest to retrieve a teddy bear]]) as well as three more characters (Monk, Bard and Barbarian) in addition to the original three ([[Fighter Mage Thief|Warrior, Rogue and Sorcerer]]), but you had to enter a special edit to a text file to get the last two of those quests and new characters.

The first game was essentially a huge dungeon crawl, consisting of 16 levels of increasing difficulty under Tristram, the only town in the game, where various NPCs provide you with quests, healing, and equipment. The goal was to get to the [[Big Bad]], Diablo, in [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]]. The non-canonical third-party expansion pack ''Hellfire'' added eight new separate levels, four new quests (a quest to kill another Diablo-esque baddy in the crypt near the church, [[Lighter and Softer|a quest from Lester the farmer, a cow quest and a quest to retrieve a teddy bear]]) as well as three more characters (Monk, Bard and Barbarian) in addition to the original three ([[Fighter, Mage, Thief|Warrior, Rogue and Sorcerer]]), but you had to enter a special edit to a text file to get the last two of those quests and new characters.

The second game followed the storyline, which ended with the protagonist of the original game implanting Diablo's soulstone into his own forehead (it's implied that it was the warrior). Despite remaining at 640x480, it brought numerous gameplay improvements and was now broken into four acts, each with its own town and six quests per act (except Act 4, which had only three). The expansion pack, ''Lord of Destruction'', added 800x600 resolution, two new characters ([[Fragile Speedster|Assassin]] and [[The Beast Master|Druid]]) in addition to the original five ([[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Barbarian]], [[The Minion Master|Necromancer]], [[Action Girl|Amazon]], [[Hot Witch|Sorceress]] and [[Church Militant|Paladin]]) and added Act 5, in which, after defeating Mephisto and Diablo in the original game, the player confronted Baal, the last of the three Prime Evils.

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** Revive is the Necromancer spell that turns corpses of monsters into your minions.

** The Witch Doctor's Wall of Zombies spell in the third game.

* [[Anti Grinding]]: In the first game, each floor had a finite number of enemies, limiting experience and item acquisition.

* [[Anti-Grinding]]: In the first game, each floor had a finite number of enemies, limiting experience and item acquisition.

** It's obvious fast enough that you can still grind by starting a new game with the same character, resetting the entire dungeon bosses and all.

* [[April Fools' Day]]: [http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/community/merchandise/gps/index.xml Deckard Cain GPS voice pack].

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* [[Bald of Awesome]]: ''Diablo II'' Barbarian.

* [[Barbarian Hero]]: The Barbarian is available as a character class in ''Diablo II''.

* [[Battle Trophy]]: In ''II'', after a victory in [[~~Pv P~~]] mode, you win the ear of your foe.

* [[Battle Trophy]]: In ''II'', after a victory in [[PvP]] mode, you win the ear of your foe.

* [[Bigfoot Sasquatch and Yeti]]: ''Diablo II'' has scores of them.

* [[Big Good]]: Tyrael.

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* [[Combat Tentacles]]: Andariel, [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|the Maiden of Anguish,]] uses four of these, each [[Spikes of Villainy|tipped with a spike.]]

** Baal has this as an attack. He uses them to kill Marius.

* [[Convection Schmonvection]]: Act IV's River of Flame.

* [[Convection, Schmonvection]]: Act IV's River of Flame.

* [[Cool Sword]]: The angelic runeblade Azurewrath (which was mentioned in the first game's manual, introduced in ''Diablo II'' as a unique crystal sword, then later updated into a much more powerful phase blade) has been given an [http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/azurewrath Awesome] model for ''Diablo III''.

* [[Corrupt Church]]: The Zakarum in the second game, except for the PC Paladins. The Archbishop Lazarus was part of the Zakarum in the first game, although as an individual he qualifies as [[Evil Chancellor]].

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** Pre-1.10 MSLE, and to a lesser extent, post-1.10 LEFE, LECE, or LEFECE monsters probably still count, though, since dealing any damage to them can mean insta-death.<ref>LE, or Lightning Enchanted, causes a monster to release sparks when hurt. The other modifiers mentioned either greatly increase the number of sparks (MS or Multi-Shot), or add enormous amounts of damage to them (FE and CE, or Fire Enchanted and Cold Enchanted).</ref>

* [[Fantastic Racism]]: The Angel Imperius displays this in the [[Expanded Universe]]. Even Tyrael shared his prejudice before Uldyssian's [[Heroic Sacrifice]] showed him that humanity was capable of nobility and virtue.

* [[Fighter Mage Thief]]: Played completely straight in ''Diablo'', with the Warrior, Sorcerer, and Rogue, respectively. In ''Diablo II'', the archetypes get expanded on and diversified, with the Paladin and Barbarian descending from the Warrior, the Assassin and Amazon descending from the Rogue, and so on. Most classes can be played as two or even all three types, though.

* [[Fighter, Mage, Thief]]: Played completely straight in ''Diablo'', with the Warrior, Sorcerer, and Rogue, respectively. In ''Diablo II'', the archetypes get expanded on and diversified, with the Paladin and Barbarian descending from the Warrior, the Assassin and Amazon descending from the Rogue, and so on. Most classes can be played as two or even all three types, though.

* [[Fireballs]]: It has fire magic in it after all so that's almost compulsory.

* [[Fire, Ice, Lightning]]: a few variants of this, but played completely straight by the Sorceress.

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** It's possible that poorly geared characters, that can deal more damage than their own HP, end up having trouble killing monsters in hell difficulty.

* [[He Who Fights Monsters]]: {{spoiler|Every protagonist. No exceptions.}}

* [[Hey It's That Voice]]: The narrator and Mephisto are voiced by Paul Eiding, who some may instantly recognize as the voice of the Colonel from Metal Gear Solid.

* [[Hey, It's That Voice!]]: The narrator and Mephisto are voiced by Paul Eiding, who some may instantly recognize as the voice of the Colonel from Metal Gear Solid.

** And Aldaris from [[Starcraft]].

** And [[Ben 10 (Animation)|Grandpa Max]]

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** At least one of them, the Archangel of War, wanted to genocide the entirety of humanity and Class X-4 [[Apocalypse How]] the material plane of Sanctuary on the grounds of "Demons had some hand in making it exist." Light is ''definitely'' not good in the Diablo universe.

* [[A Lighter Shade of Gray]]: While the other angels are described as [[Blue and Orange Morality|unfathomable in their motivations]], Tyrael has humanity's best interests at heart.

* [[Linear Warriors Quadratic Wizards]]: As with nearly all branches of RPG's that host both [[The Big Guy|Fighter]] and [[Squishy Wizard|Mage]] types, ''Diablo II'' plays this pretty straight. In early levels your [[Disc One Nuke|physical, combat class]] will sweep the floor with any [[Mooks]] standing in their way. Later levels see the caster become a borderline [[Game Breaker]], especially those who went with [[An Ice Person|Frost or Cold effects.]]

* [[Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards]]: As with nearly all branches of RPG's that host both [[The Big Guy|Fighter]] and [[Squishy Wizard|Mage]] types, ''Diablo II'' plays this pretty straight. In early levels your [[Disc One Nuke|physical, combat class]] will sweep the floor with any [[Mooks]] standing in their way. Later levels see the caster become a borderline [[Game Breaker]], especially those who went with [[An Ice Person|Frost or Cold effects.]]

** Not... really. Casters are ''easier'' since they depend less on items (most Fighters basically require quite good items to succeed, while some casters can get by with any old thing), and the Sorceress has free access to Teleport which makes a huge difference, but for the toughest bosses, a Fighter is always better. A "Smiter" can beat Uber Tristram with relatively mediocre items; for a Sorceress, it's almost impossible without preposterously rare items.

** Averted in [[~~Pv P~~]]: every single class has several builds to duel with at each [[~~Pv P~~]] level cap. There are melee builds dubbed "caster killers" for how effectively they can trash Necromancers, casting Druids and Sorceresses. This is in part due to a piece of armor which gives any class the ability to teleport, a skill normally reserved for the Sorceress. Even low-level duels are well-matched between caster and melee.

** Averted in [[PvP]]: every single class has several builds to duel with at each [[PvP]] level cap. There are melee builds dubbed "caster killers" for how effectively they can trash Necromancers, casting Druids and Sorceresses. This is in part due to a piece of armor which gives any class the ability to teleport, a skill normally reserved for the Sorceress. Even low-level duels are well-matched between caster and melee.

*** But only with Enigma<ref>A basically-impossible-to-legitimately-obtain armor that can give anyone the Sorceress's Teleport skill.</ref>

* [[Living Legend]]: The hero of the first, not so much. But of the second? Travels the world, solving everyone's problems and actually kills all three lords of hell. [[Living Legend]].

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* [[Magic Is a Monster Magnet]]: Attracting demons is an [[Informed Flaw]] of using magic, but since you have a fair chance of being torn apart by them any time you set foot outside your house ''anyway'', at least you'll be better able to defend yourself...

* [[Mana]]

* [[Min Maxing]]

* [[Min-Maxing]]

* [[The Minion Master]]: Summon-focused necromancers. They can have more than 30 minions of various types on screen at a time, which is a [[Game Breaker]] in multiple senses.

* [[Mirror Boss]]: Nihlathak and The Ancients use skills accessible to Necromancers and Barbarians. Nihlathak in particular is fitting, as using your abilities quick enough prevents him from using the same (very deadly) abilities against you (both use up corpses)

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** The fact that they can crash the game when dealing a finishing blow to the player in earlier versions, makes it worse.

* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: ''Every'' hero in the series has done something or another to screw things up. Including frigging ''Tyrael'', your archangel ally.

** Marius, however, is the shining example. Not only does he ''violently bugger up'' by yanking Tal Rasha's Soulstone (and thus releasing Baal) while Diablo and Tyrael were occupied, but he breaks things worse by inaction due to ''not'' going through the [[Hell Gate]] and having the Soulstone fragment destroyed. [[Alas Poor Scrappy|This does little to make his death at the end of the main game any less tragic.]]

** Marius, however, is the shining example. Not only does he ''violently bugger up'' by yanking Tal Rasha's Soulstone (and thus releasing Baal) while Diablo and Tyrael were occupied, but he breaks things worse by inaction due to ''not'' going through the [[Hell Gate]] and having the Soulstone fragment destroyed. [[Alas, Poor Scrappy|This does little to make his death at the end of the main game any less tragic.]]

* [[Nintendo Hard]]: Hell difficulty since patch 1.10 in ''Diablo II'', where it was massively beefed up as a result of being [[It's Easy, So It Sucks]] in the prior patches. To stand a chance in this difficulty level you need to have a proper character build, to play through the game so many times over to level your stats, and the proper equipment dropable only on this difficulty at [[Rare Random Drop|extremely low rates]], to stand a chance against the later bosses.

** In Hardcore mode, the difficulty of the game essentially forces you to play cooperatively; beating the game on your own requires a very specialized build and a great deal of skill and/or patience.

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* [[Nothing but Skulls]]: Skullpiles as treasure chests, in addition to lying strewn about in Chaos Sanctuary. Made worse by the nature of the [[Random Drop|Random Drops]] game - ''How can you not find a skull in a pile of skulls?''

** Justified in that the skulls you ''want'' are the skulls of arcane demons - apparently the rest are a more mundane variety.

* [[One-Hit Kill]]: Some builds are focused around doing so much damage in a single strike that they can kill any monster or opponent in [[~~Pv P~~]]. Notably, the twinked Blizzard Sorceress and the Charging Paladin. It is also technically possible, with perfectly set-up gear and skills, to kill the final boss on the hardest difficulty over the course of several minutes with a single stab from a Necromancer's Poison Dagger skill.

* [[One-Hit Kill]]: Some builds are focused around doing so much damage in a single strike that they can kill any monster or opponent in [[PvP]]. Notably, the twinked Blizzard Sorceress and the Charging Paladin. It is also technically possible, with perfectly set-up gear and skills, to kill the final boss on the hardest difficulty over the course of several minutes with a single stab from a Necromancer's Poison Dagger skill.

** Due to a bug in how damage is dealt when Fire-Enchanted monsters explode upon death, they can easily OHK an unprepared player. The mini-boss Nihlathak is infamous for both his potential to drop desirable items and his potential to kill even ''prepared'' players in an instant by using the corpses of his dead minions as area-of-effect bombs.

* [[One-Man Army]]: Every playable character in the ''Diablo'' games can, and will, kill hundreds (if not thousands) of demons and other creatures over the course of the adventure.

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* [[Sealed Evil in A Duel]]: In ''Diablo II'', {{spoiler|Tal Rasha uses his own body as an extension of a soulstone to imprison Baal. He is [[Grand Theft Me|possessed]], and has to be tied up and magically bound in a tomb, his spirit fighting Baal's for eternity. Or until Marius came along and tugged on the ringpull. Ooops.}}

* [[Shaped Like Itself]]: The randomly-generated items and monsters sometimes have matching affixes, leading to things such as "Flaming Longsword of Flame" and "Ghostly Ghost".

* [[Shout Out]]: In ''Diablo II'', it's possible to hire a mercenary named "Jarulf"; being the screen name of Pedro Faria, the author of the greatest ''Diablo'' resource ''Jarulf's Guide''.

* [[Shout-Out]]: In ''Diablo II'', it's possible to hire a mercenary named "Jarulf"; being the screen name of Pedro Faria, the author of the greatest ''Diablo'' resource ''Jarulf's Guide''.

** It's also possible to hire a mercenary called "[[The Day the Earth Stood Still|Klaatu]]"

** And a bunch of the Rogue mercenaries are named after staff on the old "official unofficial" diabloii.net site.