Blizzard’s Jay Wilson: Necromancer victim of ‘own success,’ could arrive with Diablo 3 expansion

Five classes, Blizzard had said – five classes that the player will initially select from on his first run through of Diablo III. Two of those classes were revealed at the World Wide Invitational at Paris, France this year, and only one of them has returned from a 20-year furlough from the Lord of Terror’s last campaign in Sanctuary. The other was a Witch Doctor, who’s origins and lore do not disguise the fact that it has replaced the loved Necromancer. Lead designer Jay Wilson explains its absence in Diablo 3.

Though many still do ask, there’s a simple reason why Blizzard decided to cut out the respected Necromancer: there wasn’t much to improve with the class. Blizzard’s lead designer on Diablo III, Jay Wilson, says that the cursing, corpse-exploding, Bone Spear-hurling, poisoned dagger-stabbing, Unraveller’s Head-toting legend of Diablo II just didn’t leave enough room to be something new in Diablo 3.

In short, the Necromancer was perfect – too perfect, in fact, to be of anything useful for the adventure Blizzard had planned for us next. “A victim of his own success” were the exact words Wilson used. He further added:

Our approach for classes in Diablo III is that we donÂ’t have a strong desire to bring back classes from the previous game. The goal is to try and give people new gameplay and not just re-hash old gameplay. WeÂ’re not just making a Diablo II with updated 3D graphics.

So Blizzard created the Witch Doctor instead. The class had pets and similar skills – many of which were likened to that of the Necromancer’s own. Only now with the Witch Doctor, Blizzard could do away with many of the rules that applied to the Necromancer and create a new “Necromancer” without the limitations. Wilson takes it away:

If [the Necromancer] dealt damage, it was through corpses laying around or through his pets. The Witch Doctor, his pets are a little more transient. If you watch the gameplay video, you really notice his pets come and go like crazy. ThereÂ’s a wall of zombies that go away fairly quickly or pets that just kind of blow up willy-nilly. That was intentional – to try and make him different than the Necromancer.

That doesn’t mean the Bone Spirit spamming days won’t arrive at all, however. In fact, the lead designer says that the expansion of Diablo 3 could be a great way to reconsider the old classes’ reintroduction to the continuing saga of Sanctuary.

In fact, Blizzard D3 team wants the D2 classes back, and even many of the lore covering the 20-year gap since Diablo 2 has mentioned some of the heroes of old. Final notes from Wilson, we quote below:

But after weÂ’ve established Diablo III as its own game with its own type of gameplay and experiences, I wouldnÂ’t be opposed to looking at old classes. We are trying to design [the Witch Doctor] class so that if we did bring back the Necromancer, thereÂ’s room for him. WeÂ’re looking out ahead of time at what our expansions are going to be, so weÂ’ve got to keep room open for some of those other classes down the road. ThereÂ’s a lot of people on our team who arenÂ’t happy with our class choices.

Well, here’s to hoping. And here’s to hoping that we aren’t left with just hope. More on Diablo 3 as we get them.