History VideoGame / Diablo

* EliteMook: Quite literally. Elite mooks basically have a different colored name, more hit points, some new powers, and drop higher loot. Otherwise, they're the same as their type.

* {{Brawnhilda}}: In ''Diablo III'', the female barbarian, full stop.

** In III, on the hardest difficulty (which is inferno), elite mooks and bosses will have enrage timers which will force you to kill them in a hurry or face the consequences.

* FallenHero: [[spoiler: All three player-characters from the first game wound up this way by the time of the second. The warrior 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.

* DangerousForbiddenTechniques: Studying these is why the Wizard of III got into trouble. It's also why they can use Arcane and Time magic while none of the other playable mage-classes of the other two games could.

* PhysicalHell: Of course, there wouldn't be a game otherwise. Not there originally, Diablo makes it literally out of HighOctaneNightmareFuel.

* BarbarianHero: The Barbarian is available as a character class in ''Diablo II'' and ''III''.

* HappyEndingOverride: The second game is one of the few games that matches ''ChronoCross'' in the sheer brutality of this--''everything'' you did [[ShootTheShaggyDog only made the problem worse]]. It looks like the third will apply this to the second as well.

The third game in the series, ''Diablo III'', was announced in June 2008 and will be released on May 15th, 2012. Trailers for it are on Blizzard's homepage.

* DamageSpongeBoss: Izual, first boss encountered in Hell, from ''Diablo II''.

* OneStatToRuleThemAll: In most cases, non-Vitality point assignment is only recommended for meeting equipment requirements. What happened to avoiding getting hit, and so being able to add to strength and agility? Well, all right, so far it's only Amazons who get to enjoy Slow Missiles...

** Smiters and Kicksins rely on combining high crushing blow (takes a large chuck of a foes HP) chances with high attack speed (to get crushing blow off a lot). They tend to be poor in non-boss non-PVP situations.
** Summonmancers are considered by far the easiest class to solo the game with. They can not function at all in PVP unless you're able to perform a successful "tele-stomp" which involves teleporting yourself and all your minions onto someone and killing them with the combined might of their blows.

** 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.

** At least for Azmodan, that will change in D3, he is the BigBad .

** Possibly referenced with the exploding cow corpses in Tristram in D2.
** The Pony Level in D3, found by data miners. Only time will tell if it's an actual level or garbage data inserted as a TakeThat to data miners.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: The male barbarians of D3 and D2 being the same person. But Blizz [[http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=27508584306&postId=275061593826&sid=3000#0 changed]] it.

* AndIMustScream: The Diablo 1 Warrior. You ''know'' that somewhere during his voyage to the East, he realized that Diablo has more and more control over him, and that instead of seeking salvation, Diablo will make him free another Prime Evil.

* ArtifactTitle: By the time of Diablo III, Diablo is dead. We hope.

* BagOfSharing: The chest in Diablo III allows you to transfer the gear between your characters easily.
* BaldOfAwesome: The male Diablo III monk and the Diablo II Barbarian.
* BarbarianHero: The Barbarian is available as a character class in Diablo II. It's also slated to return in Diablo III.
* BareFistedMonk: Diablo III monk uses punches and kicks for his special attacks, even when carrying weapons.
* BigfootSasquatchAndYeti: Diablo II has scores of them.

** 'Diablo III' has Haedrig, one of the artisans that travels with you.

* BribingYourWayToVictory: [[http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2397-Diablo-3-Auction-House-Announced-Spend-and-Earn-Real-Life-Money! Diablo III will allow real life currency to be used in the auctionhouse.]]

* CoolSword: 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.

* DangerousForbiddenTechniques: Studying these is why the Wizard of III got into trouble. It's also why they can use Arcane and Time magic and none of the other playable mage-classes of the other two games could.

* EnemySummoner: Sand maggots in Diablo II which spit poison and lay eggs.

* ExperienceBooster: The Experience Shrines in ''Diablo II'' 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 warrior 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'']]

* FighterMageThief: Played completely straight in Diablo, with the Warrior, Sorcerer, and Rogue, respectively. In ''Diablo II'' and ''III'', 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.

* GratuitousGerman: The Diablo III logo, but you need a very high resolution to read it.

* GridInventory: Diablo virtually named this trope.

* GuideDangIt: Many game mechanics are not described in game or in the manual. Attack speeds, for example, in Diablo 2 are different between characters, do not often correspond to the descriptions given for items, multiple attack moves like Zeal and Strafe increase the speed in unusual ways, and these and other properties are not described anywhere, they had to be found by outside players in outside guides.

* InsurmountableWaistHighFence: Tristram is delimited by these on all four sides in ''Diablo I''.

* MoneyForNothing: Money has three uses in Diablo. Reviving your mercenary, repairing your gear, and gambling (in which you spend money on an item with unknown properties). It's still one of the best ways to get good equipment in single player.

* OverdrawnAtTheBloodBank: And not just monsters. The Paladin in ''Diablo 2'' has a skill called Sacrifice, which grants him bonus damage in exchange for losing some health. Every time he uses the skill, about a gallon of blood spills out of him.
* OvershadowedByAwesome: It's hard to make the Diablo II expansion climactic when the previous game ended with you effectively beating ''the Devil in Hell''.

* PerpetualBeta: Both games have suffered from this. Diablo 1 had a long history of GoodBadBugs and {{Game Breaking Bug}}s, most notably item-duplicating, in its day. The second game is more notable for being in this state even after a decade of semi-annual support. Most skills are bugged and many are outright broken [[http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=754786 even after ten years of patches]]. A few particularly offensive examples of bugs that still plague it:

* PhysicalHeaven: Diablo 2 has you sent to Hell to kill Diablo. Turns out the forces of heaven have set up a fortress there and in fact have a few angels patrolling the place trying to keep things under control. Care to guess how that turned out?

* RagdollPhysics: Diablo 3. Enemies ([[LudicrousGibs and their chunks]]) go ''flying'' when the killing blow is strong enough.

* {{Red Herring}}: The Diablo 3 Beta contains a red herring in form of some [[spoiler: black mushrooms]], even referring to the trope in the description.

* {{Roguelike}}: The randomly-generated dungeon maps and loot, and the SaveGameLimits designed to prevent SaveScumming, essentially make it a real-time Roguelike with [[strike:3D]] isometric graphics and multiplayer. Hardcore mode in Diablo 2 features the Roguelike tradition of the permanency of death, and the option of having your corpse lootable is similar to the bones file feature of NetHack.

*** 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.

** In the first Diablo game, there was a Staff called the 'Rod of Onan' which could never ever be a reference to the Biblical story of the sin of Onan. It summoned golems from the earth.

** On the Diablo III page describing the barbarian's Berserker Rage passive, the quote "you wouldn't like me when I'm angry" is attributed to one [[IncredibleHulk "Bannar the Berserker"]]

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

* {{Speedrun}} - Diablo manages to hold two speedruns that are astounding for entirely opposite reasons: The original Diablo was crushed in [[http://speeddemosarchive.com/demo.pl?Diablo_Sorcerer_312 0:03:12]](!) through obscene luck manipulation and glitching, while Diablo II has a much longer run of [[http://speeddemosarchive.com/Diablo2LoD.html#Sorceress100p 4:22:xx]] beating the game 100%... on Normal, Nightmare, and Hell, all from a fresh file.

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

* UnwittingPawn: The protagonist of ''Diablo I''. Even the Archangel Tyrael falls into this category a bit. Or a lot, if you believe Izual. Arguably ''everyone'' in the series was a UnwittingPawn to the Prime Evils. Especially in the first game. Nobody ever figures out the true agendas of the Prime Evils until it's too late.

** The synergy system succeeded in averting this trope, although certain skills such as Psychic Hammer and Blade Sentry are still viewed as useless beyond the first few character levels. Classic Diablo 2 played this straight. Minion-based Necromancer builds had to rely on golems because of how weak skeletons were and most Sorceresses had to wait until they were level 18-24 to have a single skill worth putting more than a single prerequisite point into.

* WhiteHairedPrettyGirl: The female Diablo III Monk.