Spyderman: Introduction

Here's another situation that I never thought I would find myself in: writing about a Diablo 3 variant character.

I collected my thoughts about D3's Reaper of Souls expansion in an editorial named Second Chances, explaining how the design team behind the expansion made a series of changes that significantly improved the gameplay. I played the game in co-op fashion with my wife Liz, running a non-variant Monk character to get a sense for what had changed in the gameplay. Eventually I decided to create a solo character and test out one of the Witch Doctor variants that had interested me back in the earlier days of non-expansion Diablo 3. I had gone as far as creating a new character and testing him out for an hour or two in 2012 before abandoning the project due to frustration with the release version's gameplay. This character would be a Witch Doctor named Spyderman and he would be based around the use of the Corpse Spiders skill. (Fun fact: I wanted to use the name "Spiderman" but the D3 client wouldn't allow me to choose it. I guess there's some kind of copyright infringement lockout in their system.)

Corpse Spiders is one of the four signature skills for the Witch Doctor class in Diablo 3. This means that it does not require any of the class resource (mana in this case) to be cast, and it's basically a "free" skill that can be used when your character's other skills are on cooldown or require more mana than can currently be used. Like pretty much all of the other signature skills, Corpse Spiders is a weak offensive option that is meant to be a complementary or last resort option for dealing damage. You are supposed to be using more powerful stuff to make your way through the game, not this wacky skill where the Witch Doctor tosses a jar of spiders onto the ground. It was the sheer silliness of the skill that made me want to create a character around its use. Here's our main variant rule for Spyderman: Corpse Spiders is the only skill that he can use that deals direct damage. The other five skill slots must be used on abilities that do not deal any direct damage. With only one damaging skill available, and that a signature skill not intended for serious combat, this looked to be a major uphill struggle.

Fortunately the Witch Doctor class brings a strong assortment of crowd control abilities that synergize reasonably well with the use of the spiders. Horrify grants a fear effect on a relatively short cooldown that would buy Spyderman some additional time to use his Corpse Spiders. The Hex skill would offer up a second form of crowd control, turning enemies into chickens or pigs or some other kind of barnyard animal where they would be helpless to attack or use any of their abilities. Later on, Spyderman would unlock the Mass Confusion skill and open up a third form of crowd control, turning his foes against one another rather than having to fight them himself. (Unlike the Necromancer's Confuse skill in Diablo 2, he would even continue to earn experience when they killed one another.) I would also make use of Soul Harvest's stacking ability to gain additional Intelligence, since Spyderman was going to need all of the damage boosts that he could find. Finally, Spirit Walk would be an indispensible tool for disengaging from fights and getting out of a million different bad situations. I would not be playing Spyderman as a Hardcore character, but I did intend to avoid dying as much as possible.

My plan was to play through the traditional Campaign Mode once while leveling Spyderman up to the cap at level 70, then decide what to do from there. I kind of doubt that Spyderman will be too viable in Torment difficulty due to the enrage timers on the main bosses there; I'll have to wait and see what happens with his character. This is a fun attempt to see how far I can go with the goofy Corpse Spiders ability. If I can clear the whole game in the campaign, I'll be pretty pleased with this guy. I decided to use Expert as the difficulty level to start, the hardest of the three options available before unlocking Master and Torment difficulties. I'll be able to adjust upwards and downwards from there as needed. Spyderman will be able to make use of the blacksmith and jeweler crafting designs that I found with my non-variant Monk (I'm not paying to upgrade the town artisans again), but that's all that he'll be sharing with my previous character. He'll need to come up with his own items, his own gold, his own gems, his own crafting materials, and so on. I'm certainly not gifting him a bunch of legendary items with their level requirements removed, or even dropping a Flawless Royal ruby into a socketed weapon. Either of those options would make the whole early portions of the game a complete joke for a low-level character. Spyderman is going to have to come up with his own gear - that's the whole point, after all. Finding items and building up a new character from scratch is my favorite thing to do in the Diablo games.

Wish Spyderman luck, he's going to need it.