Editing Diablo (section)

==The Second Game==
Although Diablo was slain beneath Tristram, it wasn't without cost. Prince Aidan thrust Diablo's soulstone into his body in an attempt to contain the Lord of Terror, but was ultimately consumed from within; as the demon-summoning Dark Wanderer, he sets off to recover the soulstones of the other Prime Evils, allowing them to be free to crush Sanctuary and then return to the Burning Hells. Neither of the other adventurers from Tristram fared any better; Moreina was slain by the Lesser Evil Andarial, Maiden of Anguish, and resurrected as a demonic undead creature called Blood Raven, whilst Jazreth lost his mind and became a demon-binding mystic called the Summoner.

The player takes the role of one of the five classes, attempting to catch up to the Dark Wanderer and stop his evil plans, with designs of ultimately slaying Diablo and Mephisto alike by invading the Burning Hells and shattering their soulstones upon a mystical anvil. They succeed, but Baal remains free... until the expansion pack, ''Lord of Destruction'', was released, which adds two new classes (who can fight through the entire game) and revolves around traveling to Mount Arreat to stop Baal before he can take possession of the Worldstone. Along the way, Moreina and Jazreth are also put of their misery.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] liked this game so much that they did up a [[splatbook]] to play in the ''Diablo'' world using [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition|''Dungeons & Dragons'' 3rd edition]] rules, the now-obscure but pretty faithful ''Diablo II: Diablerie''. Sadly, it came out before ''Lord of Destruction'', so it only features the base ''Diablo II'' classes. Still, they work fairly well under the 3rd Edition rules, and manage to be surprisingly faithful to the actual game.

===Diablo II Classes===
''Diablo II'' set new ground for the series by coming up with a new mechanic; skill trees. Each class has three unique sets of special talents that it can develop as it gains levels, making them far more flexible, whilst still having a coherent structure that made it easier to build around than the original game's Warrior/Rogue/Sorcerer trinity.

The [[Amazon]] hails from the warrior-caste of the matriarchal jungle culture of the Askari. As mentioned above, she builds on the talents of the Rogue and is a primarily ranged-focused fighter. Her skill trees are Bow & Crossbow (trick shots like fiery arrows, freezing arrows, homing arrows, etc), Passive & Magic (basic buffs like increased chance of criticals and spell-like effects like illusionary doubles to draw aggro), and Javelin & Spear (melee attacks and special projectiles).

The [[Assassin]] is a female warrior from the Viz-Jaq'tar, a martial order of elite wizard-killers specifically founded and trained ''by'' the Vizjerei Mage Clan in order to police the Mage Clans and ensure that they never fall into demonic corruption again. They favor claw weapons, wielding esoteric martial arts and deploying lethal enchanted traps in their duties. An assassin is a quick-moving, quick-hitting character that favors hit-and-run tactics. Her Martial Arts skill tree increases her lethality in melee, whilst Shadow Disciplines enhance her abilities to escape from danger and Traps, of course, allows her to leave all kinds of nasty surprises for anyone trying to follow her. They're one of the two classes added by the ''Lord of Destruction'' expansion pack.

The [[Barbarian]] hails from the lands surrounding Mount Arreat, where tribes of these savage warriors have defended the Worldstone for countless generations. One of the two melee-focused classes, alongside the Paladin, the Barbarian is a killing machine, plowing into the ranks of the enemy and leaving only piles of corpses in his wake. So not too dissimilar from [[Dungeons & Dragons]], then. His skill trees are all straight-forward; Combat covers special attacks like Bash, Combat Masteries is an array of permanent passive buffs, and Battlecries act to temporarily buff the Barbarian and allies and debuff enemies.

The [[Druid]] hails from the lands of Scosglen (yes, we winced too) and is a distant cousin to the Barbarian, historically and culturally. Although magic users, the druids stand apart from the Mage Clans, forsaking the use of sorcery in favor of their own brand of nature-magic. They're pretty close to their ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' cousins, being capable melee fighters, potent spellcasters and skilled summoners [[CoDzilla|all at once]]. Their Elemental skill tree covers basic attack spells, like Firestorm and Tornado. Their Shapeshifting skill tree lets them turn into a [[werewolf]] or werebear and beefs up their skills in said forms. Their Summoning skill tree lets them call animals, killer plants and even nature spirits to fight alongside them. They're one of the two classes added by the ''Lord of Destruction'' expansion pack.

The [[Necromancer]] is not what you'd expect in a game like this. The Necromancers of Sanctuary are actually [[Wizard|Mage]]-[[Cleric|Priests]] dedicated to honoring and upholding the Balance, a mystical philosophy developed by their founder, Rathma, and embodied in the [[dracolich]] pseudo-deity Trag'Oul, which emphasizes the importance of equilibrium between life and death, as well as light and dark. Consequently, necromancers stand opposed to angels and demons alike, judging both to be dangerous to the existence of humanity and Sanctuary as a whole. Given everything angels have done in this setting, they have their heads screwed on right. The Priest of Rathma is akin to the Sorceress in being a caster class, but is a minion-master in contrast to the Sorceress' "blow shit up" focus. His skill trees consist of Summoning (minion-making), Bone & Poison (offensive and defensive spells) and Curses (debuffs).

The [[Paladin]] is a worshiper of the Zakarum church, a holy warrior who has managed to avoid succumbing to the rot that has eaten his religion out from the inside over centuries of guarding the soulstone of Mephisto, Lord of Hatred. A melee-focused class, the Paladin is a classic tank, specializing more in soaking up damage than in brutally hewing through enemies. Its magic manifests mostly in the forms of holy auras, both Offensive and Defensive - this means Paladins excel when they can fight in groups, as they naturally buff the rest of the party. Their Combat Skills tree covers various holy magic spells and attacks, such as their iconic Holy Bolt and Smite powers.

[[Image:Sorceress_vs_Baal.gif|thumb|right|[[Star Wars|I '''am''' the Senate.]]]]The [[Sorcerer|Sorceress]] follows in the wake of the [[Sorcerer]] from the first game. Hailing from the Zann Esu clan, an [[Amazon]] Mage Clan (but not the same as the Askari people) dedicated to the mastery of [[Elementalism|elemental arcana]], she specializes in blasting the hell out of enemies with Fire, Ice and/or Lightning magic.  The Sorceress was notorious for ''Static Field'', the single most cheese spell in the history of the franchise; an AOE bomb that would knock a hard 25% of current health off almost anything as lightning damage.  Now, anything based off "percent of current" is going to be subject to diminishing returns, but the fact that it worked the same on anything from trash mobs to the prime evils meant it was so lethal to bosses it had to be capped to stop working once the target was below 50% total health in hell mode (%33 in nightmare).

===The Remaster===
''Diablo II'' is getting a remaster with purdy new HD graphics. Although it had been in development by Activision subsidiary Vicarious Visions since 2019, news of a remake never got out until early 2021 when control of Vicarious Visions was transferred to Blizzard. It was officially announced a month later. Due to release in 2021 for PC and basically every current fucking console, ''Diablo II: Resurrected'' will allegedly only update the graphics, cinematics and netcode of the original game and its expansion. Fans were '''highly''' skeptical, and were rightful to be so, as it was ''just'' one year prior that Blizzard rolled out the remaster of ''[[Warcraft|WarCraft III]]'', which was a total fucking disaster on multiple levels -including removing your ability to even play the original WarCraft III! The devs behind this game claim that Resurrected won't do that, and will stick to the same classes, core systems and gameplay that people loved from the first game, while adding a few quality-of-life changes from ''D3'', like a shared stash between characters and automatic gold pickup. Only time will tell if they are true to their word, or if Diablo fans get let down again.