We May Know What Class Diablo 4’s Vessel Of Hatred Expansion Will Bring

I was not actually expecting Blizzard to reveal a new Diablo 4 expansion at BlizzCon, given that we’re only a little ways into season 2 at this point. But, timing aside, it was apparently at least time for a teaser, which is what we got with the reveal of Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred.

The game’s first official expansion is coming in “late 2024” which is all we get, and that means we probably have three more three month seasons after the current season 2, and it seems that these expansions may not quite have a yearly cadence, which I think is fine.

Vessel of Hatred takes us to Diablo 2’s jungle world Nahantu and will deal with Mephisto, the Prime Evil that ran off with our friend after the events of the base game. Blizzard has said the “main storyline” of Diablo 4 will only continue in these big expansions, not in seasons, so here we are.

But the most interesting thing here is that Diablo 4 is promising not just a new class, but a new class that the series has never seen before. Even though my first thought when seeing a jungle region is the return of the Amazon or Witch Doctor, that is not the case. However, we do believe we may know what type of class this is through a datamine from a few weeks ago.

Well, that datamine got the name of the expansion wrong (Lord of Hatred not Vessel of Hatred), but we’ll see about the class which is the “Spiritborn,” which has a nature theme and wields a glaive. I’m not sure if that’s a stabby long glaive or a throwing glaive, but given the limited ranged options in the game right now, a throwing glaive would seem more likely to me. I also feel like that class name may change, if I had to guess.

As for a “nature-based” class I do wonder a little bit about that, given that we already have nature-based druids and element-based sorcerers. Before this I was almost positive that the next class would be either a Paladin, Monk or Amazon, but here we are, and it’s none of the above. Blizzard seems to be interested in expanding into new classes than reviving old ones, as they also just gave Diablo Immortal a totally new class this past year, the Blood Knight.

More datamine rumors include that this expansion will bring back the mercenary system for hiring and leveling followers. And it might have an actual raid as a new endgame activity with multiple wings and big rewards.

But all Blizzard has confirmed is the name, location, story focus and the existence of a new class. Given that this is late 2024, I doubt we will hear much more about it for a while, but I’m already hyped this early on, and I’m really looking forward to it.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.