Diablo 4, the next title in Blizzard Entertainment's legendary action RPG series, doesn't have a release date yet. Despite this, interest in the game has been rising steadily for the past year, buoyed by gameplay reveals and features from the California-based studio. Four of the five playable classes that will appear in Diablo 4 have been revealed so far, all returning classics from previous Diablo titles.
One of the most interesting of these classes is the Sorceress, which hasn't featured in the series since Diablo 2. With her long-range crowd control focus and low HP pool, it would be easy to assume that the Sorceress is just another name for Diablo 3's Wizard. However, that isn't entirely true. Here's our complete breakdown of how the Diablo 4 Sorceress and the Diablo 3 Wizard stack up beside each other.
Elemental Skills in Diablo 3 and Diablo 4
On the surface, there's several elements that the Sorceress and Wizard share. They're both glass cannon casters with a focus on area-of-effect skills and crowd control. In addition, they can both harness the Diablo elemental powers of Cold, Fire, and Lightning to deal damage and cripple their enemies.
Where the two Diablo classes differ is in how they apply these elemental specialties. The Wizard from Diablo 3 combines their Cold, Fire, and Lightning skills with special Arcane magic. This subset, which is unique to the Wizard in the entire Diablo series, allows them to summon illusions, twist time, and teleport.
While the Sorceress in Diablo 4 won't have access to these Arcane abilities, her purer focus on Cold, Fire, and Lightning does come with its own perks. Unlike the Wizard, which had to use special skills to Freeze enemies, the Sorceress can lock her foes in place simply by applying repeated Cold damage. When using Lighting, the Sorceress can sometimes cause balls of Crackling Energy to drop from fallen enemies. These act a little like Health Globes, but restore Mana instead. Finally, the Sorceress will have skills that key off the Burning status effect, though they haven't been fully revealed yet.
The Diablo 4 Sorceress's Enchantment System
Like all the classes in Diablo 3, the Wizard's abilities were limited to his active and passive skills. These could be further modified through the use of gear, allowing players to build the class in many different ways. However, apart from these skills, the only thing that divided the Wizard from the other classes was the size of their HP pool and their Arcane Power resource.
The Sorceress takes this a step further, with a unique class mechanic that really helps to separate her from the other Diablo 4 classes. The Sorceress' Enchantment system allows her to use her skills in a completely different way. While all of the classes in Diablo 4 will have 6 slots to place their active skills in, the Sorceress has 3 Enchantment slots as well.
All of the Sorceress' skills in Diablo 4 come with unique passive effects that apply when they're placed in an Enchantment slot. These effects can radically change the core functionality of the class, giving Diablo 4 players another way to customize their playstyle. One of the effects we know so far is that placing Ball Lightning into an Enchantment slot will cause all Crackling Energy pickups to be replaced by harmful Ball Lightning instead. This removes a core way for the Sorceress to regain Mana, but greatly increases her potential damage output.
Will Wizard Fans like the Sorceress in Diablo 4
While there are clearly some big differences between Diablo 4's Sorceress and Diablo 3's Wizard, the two classes do still fill the same role. Speculation is running high on what the final class to be revealed in Diablo 4 might be, but it's unlikely to be another magical caster. Based on the rest of the line-up, the brutal Barbarian, agile Rogue, and hybrid Druid, the Sorceress will definitely be filling the niche of squishy caster.
What's interesting is that the Wizard shared this niche in Diablo 3 with the Necromancer and Witch Doctor. Although the three classes had radically different approaches to spellcasting, they definitely overlapped in terms of survivability and crowd-control. In Diablo 4 Blizzard seem to be working hard to really separate the classes, giving each one their own unique feel and special abilities. This should really add to replayability, especially if the fifth class has the same range of systems that the first four have.
That being said, the Sorceress in Diablo 4 will definitely be a solid pick for any player that enjoyed the Wizard in Diablo 3. Players who enjoy blasting their opponents to bits in an elemental storm of Cold, Fire, and Lightning won't be disappointed by the high-risk, high-reward hero.
Although the release of Diablo 4 is probably still years away, we can expect more information and reveals from Blizzard over the following months. In particular the choice of the fifth Diablo 4 class will really help us get an idea of how they all fit together.
Diablo 4 is in development.