Diablo III Demon Hunter Interview

Another interview focusing on Diablo III’s Demon Hunter profession has reached the Internet, and this time it comes to us via GameSpot. Art director Christian Lichtner and senior game designer Jason Bender step in to provide the answers:

GS: What types of skill trees are available to the hunter and what do they specialize in?

JB: The demon hunter is interesting in that it’s the class with the most sort of duality. The fiction behind the demon hunter is that they’re a little bit crazy about hunting demons–they’re obsessed. But at the same time, they’re really calculating and really precise, and they plan. So with their resources and their skill trees, we split their skills into the categories of discipline, including traps, preparation, things that take a lot of forethought, and hatred, which is the red-eyes insanity the fuels their high-powered burst attacks, alpha strikes, multishots, flame arrows, and things like that. [The demon hunter] really feels more visceral, and there’s some interesting interplay in the resource system that allows you to switch back and forth between your discipline abilities and your hatred abilities. It’s a little more complex and nuanced than some of the other classes; it’s a class about precision and playing [one skill set] off the other.

GS: How does the demon hunter differ from the rogue and amazon classes from previous Diablo games?

JB: The demon hunter has some similarities with the amazon, with the bow and whatnot, but focuses a lot more on traps. It goes back and forth between the mainstay of ranged attacks–dual crossbow-pistols and flipping through the air.highly mobile stuff–and control. [The control aspect] is a little bit more like the assassin’s traps. To manipulate where the monsters are, you might set a spike trap in one area and then backflip out away and multishot into that area while the [enemies] are trying to get through it. It takes a little bit from both styles and combines them into something that’s completely different with the way the skills and resources interact.