There’s lots of pieces of media where the power of evil forces can be used to do good. For decades, anti-heroes like Ghost Rider have been using demonic powers to fight super villains. For example, in games like Dungeons & Dragons, players have the choice of being warlocks, making pacts with potentially malevolent otherworldly beings in order to gain magic and become adventurers. One wonders why in a game like Diablo, where there’s no shortage of demons with bottomless magic, there hasn’t really been a class of that kind before. Besides the well-intentioned Necromancer and some of the Demon Hunter’s dabblings, dark magic is few and far between.
Diablo 4 is the perfect opportunity to correct that. The upcoming game will be entrenched in the context that Heaven is still recovering from Diablo’s siege, and without so much heavenly power to go around, Paladins and Crusaders are liable to be few and far between. Instead, physically powerful warriors might be inclined to dabble in dark powers to gain what they lost. Dark as that may be, there’s room for a morally scrupulous character in the gritty world of Diablo. As Lilith rises to power and a new age for demonkind looms overhead, this might be just the right time for Blizzard to introduce players to a Blackguard class.
When a party brings a Paladin on board, they expect someone who can strike the balance between powerful damage and durability. A Blackguard would probably do the same thing. A Blackguard would join the Diablo 4 class roster as a sort of foil to the traditional holy warrior—still similar in their might, but different in their motivations. Rather than being motivated by piety and a holy sense of justice, a Blackguard would be motivated more similarly to the Demon Hunter, filled with hatred for evil forced besides whatever otherworldly being empowers them.
The effects they conjure in battle would likely look similar to the power of demons, conjuring shadow magic and hellfire to tear through fiends without mercy. A Blackguard would probably differ from a Paladin by being much more DPS oriented than its traditionally crowd control heavy counterpart. This kind of character might also have a keen insight on the weaknesses of demons and other types of evil enemies, learning to deal more damage to specific types. A Blackguard might even be able to take control over demonic forces, whether they will or not, or summon a small squadron of fiendish allies similar to the Necromancer’s undead minions.
It’s up to Blizzard how it interprets the concept of a Blackguard. It could be possible that the Blackguard is doing evil things for good reasons, and genuinely wants to stop Lilith. It could also be that the Blackguard sees the fight against Lilith as a way to gain more power, or as a necessary struggle to get a demonic patron ahead of her. It would be interesting to see how Blizzard writes a character of this type. A Blackguard could end up looking a lot like a Death Knight from World of Warcraft, but the particular setting of Diablo means a more specifically amoral angle would flourish.
The Barbarian may be the most significant obstacle to the Blackguard’s entry to the game, as the Blackguard would surely be another heavy weapons master. However, there’s more than enough room for mechanical differences to set them apart. Diablo games have had room for more than one Strength based class before. As Diablo enters a new chapter with a new antagonist, it would be great if Blizzard pushed the limits of what the player can be. Something like a Blackguard that can turn the powers of evil against themselves would demonstrate that there’s a future full of new ideas and experimentation ahead for Diablo.
Diablo 4 is in development for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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