The Diablo 3 beta is chugging along at full speed, and the players lucky enough to be exploring Diablo’s new sanctuary, fighting new monsters, and sucking up all the new awesome loot are having a great time. But there is one very obvious thing missing from the new beta: the brutal player versus player warfare that created a cult following in the previous Diablo releases. There’s no need to worry though because Diablo 3 is going to have the best PVP action out of all the Diablo releases to date. At this year’s Blizcon, the brand-new Diablo 3 Arena component was set up, and the convention attendees had the chance to try their luck on this new Diablo 3 feature.
At the time of this writing the set up for Diablo 3 Arena PVP is a four versus four team death match type of battle. So far there’s no word from blizzard as to whether or not this is going to be the final version of the arena that’s featured in Diablo 3, or if there will be other Arena modes and options available to choose as well, but my instinct tells me that this will be the format used in the retail version of the game. Teams battle it out while whizzing through the adequately sized arena and whichever team has achieved the most kills after the time limit runs out wins the battle.
The first aspect of the arena and you’re bound to notice is just how deadly this version of Diablo’s combat is. If you find yourself in a one-on-one battle you’ll be able to put up a fight for a little while, but if you run into a group of enemies, even just two or three, you’ll be smashed into dust in no time. Teamwork is very important.
Attacks and spells are fast and devastating, taking huge chunks of your life bar with each swing of your sword. Some attacks are very straightforward, like the rapid fire of the demon hunter, and the wizards arcane torrent spell. Both of these attacks put out a huge amount of damage in a specific area. On the other side of the coin there are many attacks that have to be built up. The monk ability the seven sided strike and the barbarian ability the hammer of the ancients, both take a little bit of time in order to build up the powers needed, but once it’s ready to let loose it will inflict a huge amount of instant damage on your opponent. Luckily most classes come with several different options for defense, and intelligent use of these can save your life in a sticky situation. Barbarians can absorb damage when the situation is getting bleak, demon hunters can vanish without leaving a trace, while stealthily moving about the arena. Wizards can cover their skin with a diamond coating blocking damage for a certain amount of time.
Staying light on your toes is also a big part of the Diablo 3 Arena gameplay, finding your way out of a sticky trap is equally as important as setting up little traps yourself. Whether you’re jumping through the shadows, making matter teleport magically in an instant, or flying through the air in classic Diablo two barbarian style, you’re gonna want to keep moving in order to get the battle in your favor.
In Diablo 3 health regenerates very slowly, but a quick and easy way to keep your self going is to utilize the health globes that sometimes spawn in the arena. This is another situation where staying mobile is important, because the team that’s able to secure the health globe location when they’re about to go down will more easily be able to shut down their opponents offense. A great thing about health globes is you don’t need to worry about your teammates stealing your globe because health globes restore the health of everyone on your team.
When you die and believe me you will be dying a lot, you won’t be out of the fight for long. Blizzard has done away with the counterstrike type of round structure and has taken on a more continuous type of the arena style. When you go down in battle it will only take a couple seconds to get back into the heat of the action. You need to stay alert at all times, because you can spawn at any point in the arena, may be directly in your enemies location. It’s a game idea that will keep you sharp and adds even more chaos to the battle.
Arenas are jampacked full of bloody combat, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Your weapon will strike down with devastating force and spells will slam your enemies with satisfying power. The greatest aspect of all though is the wide array of death animations. When a character finally shuffles off the mortal coil, they don’t simply just fall down like a rag doll. Depending on which grizzly method of destruction an enemy meets their end to, you’ll be looking at a wide variety of super awesome death animations! Pieces of body parts flying all over the screen, bodies disintegrated by a blast of fire, or see a frozen corpse shattered into 1 million pieces. This brings a an evil smile to my face as I watch their equipment fly all over the screen.
Based on this early preview it looks like Diablo 3 Arenas are going to be super fun. They are dirty, fast, chaotic, and are the true embodiment of everything that an action-packed RPG should be. Add in battle.net system ranking integration and we’ve really got something to be excited for. Let’s hope that those ears will be in our bags sooner instead of the date.