Blizzcon Begins, Diablo 3 Wizard Class Unveiled

Blizzcon is officially underway today, starting with a presentation showcasing the Worldwide Invitational tournament held earlier this year. A company spokesman went on to talk about the tournaments being held for World of Warcraft 3v3 Arena, Warcraft 3, and Starcraft 2, followed by word that Starcraft 2 was not yet ready for beta, but that Blizzcon attendees would be included in the first round of testers when the beta program starts. The big news of the presentation, though, was the unveiling of the Wizard class — the third such class to be announced, along with the previously mentioned Barbarian and Witch Doctor. Read on for some more details.

The trailer illustrating the new class showed actual gameplay demonstrating the Wizard's spells and abilities, some of which hearken back to the Sorceress in Diablo 2. Attacks such as Meteor and Chain Lightning seem to be returning, and several new spells were seen, including one invoking a spherical shield that seems to alter the flow of time within it, allowing the Wizard to dodge projectiles and approaching enemies with ease. Another spell sends tornadoes storming through the room. Here's Blizzard description of the class from their press release: "The wizard is a wielder of the elements and a master manipulator of time, who combats the hordes of the Burning Hells by launching environment-shattering lightning bolts, channeling explosive arcane energies, and creating pockets of space outside of the normal flow of time."

Comments

Not Blizzard fan, not a Fred "Wizard" Savage fan

[Anonymous Coward]

but I just want to get a bot Wizard named Fred Savage to go into all the channels and pimp out pictures of the Power Glove associated to Goatse. It's about time Nintendo updated their product list to a better All-Powerful Glove that has a Windii DS "pooper" on the wrist. This should get even with Apple's Iphone/Itouch pedo-raver hardware, puting some power back into those that were receivers all those unhappy years -- from the richkids that bought Power Gloves anticipating Next would morph into their modern beatnick OSX so they could doosh on shag-carpet while converting their 17MB Wave to an MP3 at their gig.

But for the love of God, someone sue Blizzard for tainting D&D intellect: it's like Monopoly, and every roll of the dice you pay the fuckin' Game Master 10 credits for your turn and after spending 250 credits to go around the board you are only refreshed to 200 credits. They are a bunch of Smack dealers, using psychologists to profile the demographics on how many nerd boners they can get to keep everyone from putin' down the sauce.

D&D is meant to be SATISFYING whether you WIN or LOSE. Blizzard is tarnishing this, to loop it forever into a corporate 411 scam. Look, our lives and parents suck: we don't want anything worse, so give us somthing moddable that you can't kill like Hellfire mod to Diablo 1, or non Blizzard Battle.net lockin.

Fuck you Sam Lantinga, you libSDL turncoat! Ryan "icculus" Gordon is turning in his New Jersey basement because you work for Blizzard and continue eating the stale health-chips.