Diablo Immortal recently announced their newest class, the Tempest, would arrive on May 23rd as the eighth playable class and the second class that has made its debut in Immortal. The Tempest is the team’s take on a fast-paced “battlemage.” Last week, I took the Tempest for a test drive and interviewed Ryan Quinn, Senior Narrative Designer, and Emil Salim, Lead Artist, for a deeper look into who the Tempests are. In addition, I also got to test drive some of the endgame updates coming with the end of May update. So, without further ado, let's dive in.
Tempest Storyline
All Tempests hail from Pelghain (known as the Cold Isles to outsiders), located north of the Dreadlands. A millennia ago, their civilization thrived under the rulership of their two Emperesses Mehrwen and Ksathra. Though they ruled peacefully together, they had very different views on what was most important. Quinn explained their two views as follows:
“This old empire of Pelghain was ruled by two people with vastly different ideals about Empire. One [Ksathra] whose idea of empire was expansion and legacy, leave the deepest mark you can on the furthest corners of the earth. And one [Mehrwen] whose idea of empire was based on something more ephemeral, this idea of purity of soul. When they started to feel their power wane, the source of the conflict between the two emperesses was, what do we do with the power remaining to us?
"Ksathra, her perspective was, we should invest this in a small number of people in the empire whom we can trust to shepherd the rest of this great experiment for centuries to come. Mehrwen’s perspective was, well no, that’s not going to work, that’s just going to create an upper cast and an undercast. We should spread it out amongst everybody and let them live slightly better, slightly more potent lives; then, when it’s gone it’s gone. And that question of, what do we do with the essence of who we are as these great and powerful beings, that’s what tore their society apart.”
In the current Immortal timeframe, all Tempests are the last scions of Mehrwen. Of course, many years have passed since they disappeared, so it is only natural that the way in which their followers express Mehrwen’s ideals has changed. As a new Tempest, our journey starts with how we find ourselves exiled to the mainland.
Quinn also clarified that the timing is such that when our Tempest gets exiled and finds themself on the mainland, that is about 2-3 years before the start of the Immortal storyline. So, once we show up in Wortham, our character will have been bopping around the mainland for a few years. Although this intro storyline is well done and doesn’t take very long to complete, it will be optional, and if you decide not to do that, you’ll start right up in the main content of Immortal.
Tempest Gameplay
One of my first impressions of The Tempest is that it reminds me a bit of the playstyle of my Weaver in Guild Wars 2, but only in how it moves around and how they both weave together two different elements. The Tempest feels frenetic and easy to pick up but with a lot of depth to unpack. It feels like a class in which anyone can play well, but in the hands of someone who has mastered it, it’ll be a wild and crazy time.
One of my favorite aspects of the Tempest is that as I would fight, I’d passively spawn zephyrs, which would mirror my attacks. At first, I wasn’t paying attention to how they were spawning, and I was running through wrecking things. Quite often, they’d end up standing alone and not accomplishing much of anything. As I got more comfortable with it, I started thinking about where I was going while fighting to try and spawn them more strategically. Then, with the skills I needed to aim, I could ensure that everything I was fighting was getting hit and that mobs were getting hit by multiple attacks at once. The first time I did this well, it was an absolute delight, and I had a ton of fun trying to maximize this.
Quinn also explained that “trying to strike that balance, trying to make a diverse or hybrid class, that can be multiple things to multiple people, that was the big goal for us.” From this brief preview, I’d say they met that mark well. The way I was playing Tempest most often was more like a melee brawler, but it also still felt similar to playing Sorcerer in Diablo IV. That’s how I tend to gel with most classes; I almost always end up in the melee brawler vein. However, there’s also a lot of room with different builds to be more evasive or hang back and control the battlefield more.
They’ve also included the Tempest Trial Dungeon, which allows players to pick one of the three Tempest builds and enter an abbreviated version of the Mad King dungeon. I love this addition because it is a great way to test everything before creating a new character or swapping classes. Obviously, this Trial Dungeon can be completed multiple times so you can get a feel for how each spec works.
Endgame Updates
Two major updates are also arriving with the Tempest. The first is there will be a level squish down to level 300. Although I agree a level squish is warranted in this case, it’s always a bit nerve-wracking because I never want to feel like I have lost power. Of course, the team’s goal is that we won’t lose power, and I certainly did feel incredibly powerful on the test build, but it’s hard to say for sure until I am on my character and able to make one-to-one comparisons. If it goes the same way the squishes in WoW have, it might feel off at first but will quickly become unnoticeable a month or two later.
The second significant change is that the paragon trees are reduced from 15 to five. It is hard not to feel that many options are being removed; it’s a huge difference. However, I also strongly feel that most of those paragon trees were just filler. In the new system, we’ll still be able to unlock every node in the tree if you want, but you’ll only be able to have five abilities active plus one special ability. Although there are fewer total trees, I believe I’ll have a bit more flexibility to customize my build with this new system. There are certainly some attractive options in these new trees.
For example, the Frenzy of Battle tree has some options for decreasing the decay and increasing the other effects of a kill streak. Something that would be particularly useful when trying to gain more paragon levels. I put this tree into effect, went into a terror rift, and got my kill streak to just shy of 200. That felt amazing to do, but I’m sure other players will manage to push it even higher. We can only have one tree active at a time, so there’s still no mixing and matching between them. What I like most about this streamlined system is that it allows me to hone in on what I want to accentuate in my build. The current trees often felt like I was sinking points to fill them up for no real reason.
I can’t wait for this update to go live on May 23rd and try everything on my account. I loved playing Tempest and can’t wait to see if it’ll draw me away from Crusader in a way none of the other classes have.
Full Disclosure: Blizzard provided travel and accommodation for this event for the purposes of this preview.
