Diablo 4 developers chat War Plans, the overhaul of Skill Trees and the "Heaven and Hell" relationship between Warlock and Paladin

As we sit in the afterglow of Diablo’s 30th Anniversary Spotlight, the excitement in the community is palpable. With the Warlock making a surprise debut in Diablo 2 Resurrected, it's actually stolen much of the spotlight from Diablo 4, and lest we forget, Diablo 4 is about to get its own huge overhaul with Lord of Hatred launching on April 28.

During my visit to the Blizzard campus, we got the chance to sit down with Systems Designer Aislyn Hall and Design Director Colin Finer, who talked us through the meat of the upcoming update, so here's more on War Plans, the redesign of that skill tree and just a little more on how the two new classes symbolize more synergy between all of the heroes. Here's everything I learned during our chat (well SOME of it, there will be a part 2!)

The architecture of War Plans and endgame progression

War Plans functions as a "funnel system" designed to solve the aimlessness of the current endgame by providing a structured, roguelike progression path. Players will generate War Plan Boards that randomize various activity nodes, such as Infernal Hordes or Nightmare Dungeons, alongside randomized bonus rewards. This system is built for speed and "seamlessness."

Once you select a node, you are teleported directly to the activity, and notably, no keys are required to enter. While the boards provide a specific path, players aren't locked in; if a board doesn't suit your current build or mood, you can reroll the entire thing to start a fresh path.

"The thing we think we're missing right now is that there's a really clear loop chase, like, people will play their character to get stronger, but there's no reason or no compelling sort of progression past that. So we're looking to add that in the form of what we're calling meta progression in these activity trees. Where you're given a reason beyond just getting more powerful, you're actually making your activities more powerful and increasing risk and reward."

As you complete activities via War Plans, you earn experience that allows you to permanently modify and "spec out" these activities. This creates a meta-progression loop where you aren't just making your character stronger, but making the world itself more dangerous and rewarding. For example, a highly progressed Helltide board might cause Hell Worms to spawn Chaos Rifts, which in turn spawn multiple Hellborn.

These modifications can introduce badass enemies that drop high-tier materials like Obducite or Profane Mind Cages in activities where they didn't previously appear.

War Plans is designed to be "entirely additive," meaning the traditional method of using keys to farm specific activities still exists if you want to focus on one area. However, the system heavily incentivizes variety through a "playlist" feel that rewards you for moving between different types of content. For social players, the system features cross-progression. If you join a friend's War Plan and help them complete a Nightmare Dungeon node, you receive experience toward your own Nightmare Dungeon activity board, allowing for "cross-pollination" of progress even if your individual boards don't perfectly align.

Thematically, War Plans represents the "cleanup phase" after the campaign, where you are actively pushing back the forces of hell from Sanctuary. The developers are moving away from a single "beat this and you're done" boss encounter in favor of multiple victory points. Each War Plan board has a finite amount of progression to "cash in on," intended to give players a sense of completion so they can leave satisfied rather than feeling aimless.

The Warlock and The Paladin (no that's not a parable)

The new expansion brings two new classes, one of which you can be playing right now if you have preordered Lord of Hatred. The Paladin is already making waves in Season 11, but what specifically were the team thinking when adding these two classes and was there any particular thought that went into the two bouncing off eachother, in a Yin and Yang type manner?

Without diving too much into the specifics of the Warlock (as the Diablo 4 Warlock will have their own class specific deep dive in March), Finer and Hall talked us through how the introduction of these specific classes highlight a fundamental shift away from class specific boundaries to encourage party synergy. The developers describe the relationship between these two classes as a thematic dichotomy of "heaven and hell," noting that while the Warlock is "a lot more selfish" in its playstyle, the Paladin is "a lot more giving". This distinction is central to the Paladin’s identity as the first class intentionally designed with the potential for a "fully supportive" role, incorporating iconic auras and mechanics like tanking and taunting that were previously less defined.

A major component of this interplay is the introduction of uniques and mechanics that amplify damage for the entire party rather than just the individual player. For example, the Paladin can utilize a unique item that causes "purified" enemies to take increased damage from all sources, allowing the Paladin to be highly effective in a group without needing to deal high personal damage. This "Z DPS" (zero DPS) viability is being expanded across all classes, but the Paladin serves as the primary example of this shift. "We've actually seen much more of an appetite with the Paladin [to play as a party]."

To facilitate this cross-class cooperation, the team is retooling how keywords and status effects work. In the past, effects like "Chill" often only boosted the damage of the player who applied the effect; however, in Lord of Hatred, these are being changed so that chilled enemies take increased damage from all sources. This means a Warlock can directly "cash in" on the crowd control and debuffs provided by a Paladin, creating "combinatorics across party play" where players are incentivized to set their friends up for massive damage rather than just competing for kills.

The Skill tree overhaul and character customization

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The skill tree and paragon boards center on a philosophy of shifting passive power away from active skills to create a more streamlined and impactful levelling experience for the player in Lord of Hatred.

The developers have intentionally "cut out the passives" from the skill tree. Previously, players felt forced to spec into passives first before choosing skills, whereas the new goal is to have players focus on six highly customized, strong skills on their bar without the bloat of 2% fire damage nodes. The first half of a player's journey is spent customizing specific skills, for example, changing a Fireball to explode in larger sizes or consume the Overpower mechanic. Stuff that feels more impactful. Overall, the first 20 levels or so will take a little longer, but the back half will be much faster with more skills at your disposal. "That actually also alleviates the concern about having too many big decisions to make too quickly."

The level cap is also increasing from 60 to 70. While the total time to reach max level remains the same, the experience is now more front-loaded. It is slower at early levels to make decisions feel weightier, but will move much faster in the back half.

In addition to these changes, because the level cap is rising, the skill cap has increased. Though the exact number of points per skill node (possibly up to 12 or 15) is still being finalized.

When asked for clarification on whether the Paragon boards themselves were undergoing major changes, the developers told us that no major systematic changes are happening here, but they are moving content around. The team views Paragon as the "proper place" for passive growth, not the skill tree. Much of the numerical power previously found in skill tree passives is being moved to the paragon board.

The devs described the game's system like something of an onion, in that complexity is peeled back gradually. They want the game to be "easy to learn, almost impossible to master," ensuring the players are overwhelmed by every system in the first 10 minutes.

Lord of Hatred arrives April 28, and you can find out more on the Warlock March 5 in a Developer update

Between the front-loaded leveling experience and the "onion" approach to system complexity, it’s clear Blizzard is trying to make the journey to level 70 feel substantial without being a slog.

On March 5, the team will have more to share when we take a closer look at the Warlock class in a Developer Update livestream, along with more on what’s next for Diablo 4.

This was all just one part of a much longer conversation about Diablo 4's rejig. Stay tuned for part 2 (which includes FISHING).

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