Diablo 4's second new class is a summoner who commands demons to fight demons

The excitement around the return of paladins to Diablo 4 almost made me forget that a second class was still on its way. During today's Diablo Spotlight video, Blizzard reminded us that the Lord of Hatred expansion will launch with a second new class, one designed to contrast the bright and stalwart paladins.

As some recent leaks have suggested, the new class is a dark and brooding group of summoners known as warlocks. It's a class that hasn't existed in the series before, but is being brought to Diablo 2 today in a surprise expansion drop. Diablo 2's warlocks are supposed to be what they looked like in the earliest stages of their demonology, and Diablo 4's warlocks are the class at their prime.

The developers describe Diablo 4's warlocks as the most "heavy metal" class in the game, using chains, fire, and their own demons to fight. The Spotlight video was mostly focused on Diablo 2's warlocks, but Blizzard said a deeper dive on Diablo 4's version of the class will happen on March 5.

From what little we've seen though, the warlocks look like a more unhinged version of necromancers who rip demons straight from hell instead of commanding an army of skeletons. I'll be curious to see how different they actually are when they drop alongside the expansion on April 28.

Some of the juiciest changes coming to Lord of Hatred were also covered briefly in the video, like a new system that basically gives you a 'playlist' of endgame activities to do. These "War Plans" solve a problem that's been in Diablo 4 for a long time: It's never clear what you should be doing next for the best upgrades, especially if you're a newer player. Now, you'll want to ping pong between dungeons and complete your War Plans to start earning points to invest in each activity's skill tree. Those skill trees will let you control what types of enemies show up and what rewards you get.

Over on the class skills trees, things have been moved around quite a bit. Every skill now has different upgrades that change how they work or what kind of element they use. A sorcerer can turn their fire hydra summons into frost hydras, for example. Diablo 4 was seriously lacking a way to actually invest in particular skills that didn't have to do with slapping on unique pieces of gear, but now builds will come together even while you're still leveling up.

All of this should help Diablo 4 feel less like you're chasing after whatever build Blizzard has decided will be good this season and start to experiment more with all the new tools at your disposal. A common criticism of the game is that it's too simplistic, but Lord of Hatred looks like it's carefully adding complexity and customization in a way that doesn't make the game as overwhelming to parse as something like Path of Exile.

Lord of Hatred launches on April 28.