History VideoGame / Diablo

See also ''BaldursGateDarkAlliance'' and ''its'' spiritual successor ''ChampionsOfNorrath''. (They take a lot of cues from the ''Diablo'' series and ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}''; the developers have cited ''Diablo'' as a prime inspiration.)

Of course, in multiplayer games over Battle.Net, players nearly always skip everything until an act's final boss with [[LeakedExperience help from more powerful players]], and then just continue to play in one particular area over and over again for XP and loot. [[FanDumb Thus, nobody actually plays 95% of the game. Those who ]]''[[FanDumb try]]'' [[FanDumb are quickly ignored]] unless playing in a private party for that exact purpose.

Diablo goes to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAb7o6_MqoI

** Also the Wanderer in the Diablo II opening cinematic, convincing those thugs at the WretchedHive to try and go BullyingTheDragon. HilarityEnsues.

* {{Rule of Three}}: To craft the weapon that will open the path to Mephisto's lair, You must use the Eye, Heart, and Brain of Khalim.

** The Barbarian Ancients guarding the World Keep: [[FireIceLightning Talic, Korlic and Madawac]].

* RuleofThree: To craft the weapon that will open the path to Mephisto's lair, You must use the Eye, Heart, and Brain of Khalim.
** Plus the [[RuleOfThree Three Prime Evils]].

* DarkIsNotEvil: The Necromancer in the 2nd game is, going by his commentary, at worst an AntiHero. [[http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/classes/necromancer.shtml the official website]] states that his own purposes are often aligned with those of the forces of Light.

Of course, in multiplayer games over Battle.Net, players nearly always skip everything until an act's final boss with [[LeakedExperience help from more powerful players]], and then just continue to play in one particular area over and over again for XP and loot. [[FanDumb Thus, nobody actually plays 95% of the game. Those who ]][[FanDumb ''try'']] [[FanDumb are quickly ignored]] unless playing in a private party for that exact purpose.

Of course, in multiplayer games over Battle.Net, players nearly always skip everything until an act's final boss with [[LeakedExperience help from more powerful players]], and then just continue to play in one particular area over and over again for XP and loot. Thus, nobody actually plays 95% of the game. Those who ''try'' are quickly ignored unless playing in a private party for that exact purpose.

* BadassBoast: In ''Diablo II'', just before you're about to fight Diablo; "Not even ''death'' can save you from me!"[[spoiler: He's right]].

* DumpStat: Energy tends to be looked down upon.

** Inverted with the energy stat. There's only one, maybe two, builds where a guide does not explicitly tell you to ''never, ever'' put a point into energy.

*** The upcoming Diablo III has completed a transition in the franchise from a Roguelike in the vein of ADoM to more of an action RPG with an emphasis on real-time battle rather than square-by-square exploration and planning.

A HackAndSlash game series from BlizzardEntertainment. Notorious for having [[WasteOfTimeStory an elaborate backstory and plot]] [[{{YMMV}} that nobody ever follows]] concerning a war between HeavenAndHell. As a sort of simple graphical {{roguelike}}, [[RandomDrop the pursuit of the]] [[RareRandomDrop perfect randomly-generated equipment]] and [[LevelGrinding character build]] to satisfy one's inner {{Munchkin}} gives the game tremendous replayability.

* BlackMage: The Sorceress.
* TheBlacksmith: Griswold in Diablo I. Followed by several in the second game: Charsi, Fara, Hratli, Halbu and Larzuk.
** Diablo 3 has Haedrig, one of the artisans that travels with you.

** Act V features three actual [[BonusLevelOfHell Bonus Levels Of Hell]] filled with nasty enemies, namely [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Abaddon, The Pit of Acheron and the Infernal Pit.]]

* CatchPhraseInterruptus: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmSna5Df1hY Shown]] in the initial Diablo 3 Demo, where the Barbarian cuts Cain off in the middle of his catchphrase, who then complains that no one listens to him.

* CrateExpectations: Wonderfully averted in D2. There is (usually) one interactive crate in the entire game. One. Everything else is either a barrel, a jar, or some horrible hellish construction involving NothingButSkulls.

* DemonSlaying: You will be doing this a ''lot'' in this series. The Demon Hunter class in ''3'' in particular is built around this.

** In Diablo II, the Barbarian class is able to dual-wield any single-handed weapons, and use any two-handed sword in one hand (and thus dual-wield two-handed swords).
** In Diablo II's expansion, the Assassin class is able to dual-wield claw-class weapons, and has a passive skill to use them as a shield while doing so.
** In Diablo III, the Demon Hunter class is able to dual wield crossbows. Her introduction trailer shows her using them with a bit of GunFu.

* ExperienceBooster: The Experience Shrines in D2 provide a temporary boost to your experience gain rate.
* FallenHero: [[spoiler: All three player-characters from the first game wound up this way by the time of the second. The fighter became possessed by Diablo's soulstone; the rogue...well, Blood Raven's her; and the sorcerer became the Summoner who's causing Lut Gholein a small hell's worth of grief. And possibly every hero from the second game has gone AxCrazy or some other form of loopy. Yes, the Paladin included. The Barbarian is possibly excluded as the dev team has confirmed that the male barbarian in Diablo III is the same barbarian from Diablo II]]
* FateWorseThanDeath: [[spoiler:Both Tal Rasha and the player-character from Diablo make the unwise decision to insert a soulstone containing a demon into their bodies. The end results were not pretty for either of them. Tal Rasha [[HeroicSacrifice knew exactly what he was getting into and why]], and the PC [[MoreThanMindControl had been corrupted by Diablo himself]]]], but it still sucked in the end.

** This was true for the first two games, but Diablo III retcons the info given in the first game. The Goatmen or Khazra were once humans, but they were transformed by evil mages called Vizjerei. Apparently, the info given in the first game was cover-up story created by the Vizjerei to cover their atrocities.
* FighterMageThief: Played completely straight in Diablo, with the Warrior, Sorcerer, and Rogue, respectively. In Diablo 2 and 3, the archtypes 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.

* HealthDamageAsymmetry: In Diablo 2:

***** The Burning Soul is still extremely dangerous even with patch 1.13. The combination of fast, extremely long range, and high damage lightning that are rapidly spammed, which means a character without maxed lightning resistance in hell difficulty will die extremely quickly.

* LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards: As with nearly all branches of RPG's that host both [[TheBigGuy Fighter]] and [[SquishyWizard Mage]] types, Diablo 2 plays this pretty straight. In early levels your [[DiscOneNuke physical, combat class]] will sweep the floor with any {{Mooks}} standing in their way. Later levels see the caster become a borderline GameBreaker, especially those who went with [[AnIcePerson Frost or Cold effects.]]

* ContinuityNod: ''Diablo III'' brings many items from previous games back; some of them are in-game callbacks, some are ShoutOuts, and some lampshade how they were treated in previous games (Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac, Stone of Jordan).

* ConvectionSchmonvection: Act IV's River of Flame
* CoolOldGuy: Diablo 3 Barbarian, definitely. [[SoCoolItsAwesome He can still twirl Whirlwinds and he's probably pushing sixty!]]

* CoolSword: The angelic runeblade Azurewrath (which was 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.

The third game in the series, ''Diablo III'', was announced in June 2008 for a 2012 release. Trailers for it are on Blizzard's homepage. In the meanwhile, the developers of the first two ''Diablo'' games, Blizzard North, resigned ''en masse'' and formed "Flagship Studios", which continued to produce HackAndSlash games, specifically ''HellgateLondon'' and ''Mythos''. After Flagship folded, the same people formed "Runic Games", which produced ''VideoGame/{{Torchlight}}''. All three titles can be considered {{Spiritual Successor}}s to ''Diablo''; they certainly all play similarly.

* CoolSword: The angelic runeblade Azurewrath (which was introduced in Diablo II as a unique crystal sword, then later updated into a much more powerful phase blade) has been given an ''awesome'' model for Diablo III.

*** Also in Diablo III is a ''Legendary'' mace called ''[[{{Anime/Urotsukidouji}} The Overfiend]]''. Oh dear...

*** Also in Diablo III is a ''Legendary'' mace called ''[[Anime/Urotsukidouji The Overfiend]]''. Oh dear...

*** Also in Diablo III is a ''Legendary'' mace called ''The Overfiend''. Oh dear...

* DemonSlaying

See also ''BaldursGateDarkAlliance'' and ''its'' spiritual successor ''ChampionsOfNorrath''. (They take a lot of cues from the ''Diablo'' series and ''{{Borderlands}}''; the developers have cited ''Diablo'' as a prime inspiration.)

* NintendoHard: Hell difficulty since patch 1.10 in ''Diablo II'', where it was massively beefed up as a result of being ItsEasySoItSucks 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 extremely low rates, to stand a chance against the later bosses.