Eagle-eyed fans have noticed that Diablo 4's skills are linked to weapon damage after the game was shown during the Diablo Hell's Ink tour. While Diablo 4's recent gameplay leak, taken from the fantasy game's private test build, showed off a fair amount of the game in development, this official video gives us a more "legitimate" look at how Diablo 4 plans to manage its gear and skill design - and so far it's a bit more similar to Diablo 3, albeit with one very significant difference.
Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 may be considered some of the best RPGs on PC, but each brings a completely different approach to space. The former is a more old-school, hardcore experience with more emphasis on honing your specific skill set - in some cases, this means that certain classes, such as the Diablo 2 Sorceress, can become incredibly powerful using certain skills regardless of their equipment.
Diablo 3, on the other hand, is a more accessible experience - allowing you to freely change all possible skills on the fly and tie the damage of almost all skills to your weapon damage stat. This means that gear becomes essential regardless of class. The skill featured in the Diablo 4 Hell's Ink Miami video - Lightning Spear - says "Create a crackling lightning spear that seeks out enemies for 6 seconds, dealing 15% (59-72) per hit." While it certainly resembles Diablo 3's format, a Diablo Reddit user points out one incredibly important difference.
As a commentator SwagettiYolonese Points, Diablo 3 skills are basically in the hundreds and thousands. For example, the barbarian's first basic attack, Bash, deals 320% weapon damage to an enemy. Earthquake, one of Barb's most powerful skills, deals 4800% weapon damage to enemies. This means that even a slight increase in your weapon's base DPS greatly exacerbates the impact on your skills.
Conversely, the 15% multiplier shown on Lightning Spear makes small weapon DPS increases almost negligible, meaning that other stats, affixes, and passives on the weapon are likely to be much more effective compared to its base damage value. If all Diablo 4 skills follow suit, this should address one of the most common complaints about Diablo 3's gear and skill system - its over-reliance on pure gear stats thanks to huge, stacking stat multipliers.
During previous update, game director Luis Barriga said the team plans to "put more of the player's power back into the character to make build choices more efficient, rather than having most of the player's power come from the items they've equipped." However, he notes that the team wants "element selection to always feel meaningful." The result sounds like it could strike a good balance somewhere between Diablo 2 and 3, though we'll have to wait to get into the game ourselves to know for sure.
Here's the video in question if you want to see the numbers for yourself - the stat windows for Executing Wand and Lightning Spear can be seen from around 2:35 to 2:40:
The first closed beta of Diablo 4 to be open to the general public is designed to allow players to fully immerse themselves in the final part of the upcoming game in November. Meanwhile, Path of Exile improvements are being rolled out as the developers try to calm a frustrated community ahead of Diablo 4's release date. We'll be sure to keep you posted on all the details, such as all the Diablo 4 classes you'll be able to choose from at release.
