Diablo II is one of those storied classic PC games that's pretty much always fun to come back to—so much so that some players have put thousands of hours into the game over more than two decades. Across all those years, though, the game itself has barely changed, becoming something of a familiar, comfortable blanket of hellfire for longtime players.
That makes last week's introduction of a new playable Warlock class in Diablo II Resurrected’s new "Reign of the Warlock" DLC a pretty big deal. And after playing through a few Acts with the Warlock over the recent holiday weekend, I found the new option to be a great excuse to come back to a game that's overdue for a shot in the arm.
War-locked in
How your Warlock build goes depends heavily on which of the three main upgrade branches you choose to go down. Of these, I found the Eldritch branch had been the most interesting and fun to explore. That's in large part because of a new skill that lets you levitate a powerful two-handed weapon in front of you while still holding a strong shield in your hands. It seems like a small change, but my relief was palpable in this playthrough as I was able to avoid these kinds of tough choices between defense and offense as I juggled my inventory.