Prepare to lay waste to the demons of the Burning Hells.

Core Controls

Click to open doors.

To move, point your mouse cursor at the spot you’d like to go to, left-click, and your character will walk there, avoiding obstacles on the way. You can also hold your mouse button down to move, dragging your mouse to change direction. Sanctuary is a huge world, and you’ll find plenty to interact with. To see if you can use an object, move your mouse cursor over it. If it becomes highlighted, then you can click on it to interact with it.

Click to hear the pleas of others.

That’s it. You’ll interact with objects like doors, gates, and treasure chests this way. You can also pick up items by clicking on them. If you find someone you want to talk to, clicking on them will let you speak to them and hear what they have to say. Click. Click. Click. But the more dangerous denizens of Diablo III won’t stand around waiting for you to click on them.

Combat Controls

Combat is the thumping heart of Diablo III. As you venture through haunted graveyards, blistering deserts, and other dangerous locations on your journey, you’ll be pursued by monsters that rear up in the shadows, dash towards you in swarms, and burrow through the ground beneath you. Sometimes you’ll hear them in the darkness before they attack you. Most will chase you if you run.

Click to slay your enemies.

Click on a monster, and by default, your hero will swing or shoot at it, depending on whether you have a melee or ranged weapon equipped. If you hit the monster, you’ll do damage to it based on the weapons you have equipped (you can check the average damage you’ll do in the Inventory page, default key “I”). While you’re attacking a monster, you’ll see a red bar with its name at the top of your screen: this is the monster’s health, a visual depiction of how much damage it can take before exploding violently or collapsing in a crimson puddle at your feet. When you reduce the bar from its filled state (red) to empty (black), the monster dies. (If you see the upper half of its torso crawling towards you, clawed hands still reaching for your throat, it’s not dead.)

Action Bar

In the bottom center of your screen, you’ll see a bar made up of small squares. This is your action bar. The action bar contains your active skills, class-specific powers that help you slay demons faster or stay alive longer. It also displays powerful limited-use items, like healing potions (default key “Q”). Using these abilities and items carefully can mean the difference between life and death in tough battles. You use skills in your action bar by pressing the appropriate number key or mouse button (displayed underneath the skill’s icon). For more information on using skills from your action bar, read the Combat and Skills section of this guide.

Life, active skills, potion, menu buttons, and class resource.

OTHER BUTTONS

To the right of your action bar, you’ll see other buttons:

Use portals to return to town.

Town portal: Clicking on the blue circle button (default key “T”) will slowly summon a portal that will return you to the safety of your camp or town. The portal is two-way, so after you’ve finished your business in town, you can return to the wilderness or dungeon you’ve left behind. You’ll unlock the town portal ability early in Act I. Note that only one portal can be opened at a time, and there are some areas where you cannot create a portal. Skills: Clicking on the sword (default key “S”) will open your Skills window, where you can select and view your abilities. Additional information on your skills can be found in the Combat and Skills section of this guide. Inventory: Clicking on the silhouette (default key “I”) will open your Inventory window. Your inventory holds the loot you’ve acquired on your journey, both the items you have equipped and what you’re carrying. You can find more information on your inventory in the Inventory section of this guide. Quests & Journal: Clicking the chalice (default key “J”) will open your quest log, which contains a list of your active quests and a journal describing the creatures and people you’ve encountered. More information on your journal and quests is available in the World section of this guide. Game Menu: Lastly, clicking the computer icon (default key “ESCAPE”) will open the Game Menu, where you can review and change settings outside of the game.

Game Menu

The game menu.

Options: You can tweak your Diablo III play experience to your specifications through the following submenus:

• Video: Adjust your video settings to change resolution, display parameters, improve performance, and more.
• Sound: Modify your sound settings, game volume, subtitles, and more.
• Account: Choose your game language, which auction house you’d like to use, and more. The options available to you in this submenu are affected by the region of your battle.net account.
• Social: Adjust options for your friends list, enabling notifications or blocking players you don’t want to chat with.
• Gameplay: Modify information displayed in-game, from tooltips to damage numbers, and more.
• Key Bindings: Change the functions of your keys from the default Diablo III key bindings.

Achievements: View a list of your accomplishments in Diablo III. More information on achievements can be found in the Playing With Friends section of this guide. Customer Service: Get in touch with Blizzard Customer Service for help with an issue or to report a bug. Open Game: Change your game into a publicly-accessible game that anyone can join. For information on public games, look to the Playing With Friends section. Leave Game: Leave your current game (your current progress will be saved) and return to the Main Menu. Exit Diablo III: Close the Diablo III game client. Return to Game: Close the game menu and return to the game you’re playing.

Attributes

Hint: for all attributes, higher is better.

Each hero in Diablo III possesses immense power—incredible muscle, speed, sturdiness, or brilliance—that allows them to defy darkness. These core qualities are called attributes, numbers that represent just how potent a particular hero is in their areas of expertise. Here’s a brief overview of heroic attributes in Diablo III:

• Strength: The primary attribute for Barbarians. Strength increases Barbarian damage, and increases Armor for all classes.
• Dexterity: The primary attribute for Demon Hunters and Monks. Dexterity increases Demon Hunter and Monk damage, and increases Dodge Chance for all classes.
• Intelligence: The primary attribute for Witch Doctors and Wizards. Intelligence increases Witch Doctor and Wizard damage, and increases resistances for all classes.
• Vitality: Increases Life, the amount of damage you can take before dying.
• Armor: Decreases the amount of damage you take from enemy attacks.
• Damage: Indicates the average amount of damage you deal with your attacks. Damage is derived from your equipped weapons, primary attribute, attack speed, and critical hit chance.

Each class has each one of these attributes, but depending on your preferred play style, you might be more interested in some attributes more than others. For example, if you find yourself darting in and out of combat to deliver quick strikes instead of going toe-to-toe with enemies, you might be more concerned with your Damage, and less concerned with Vitality. It’s less valuable to increase your health if you’re rarely hit. Attributes are raised automatically as your level increases. You’ll grow more powerful as you destroy your enemies and progress through the game. In addition, many pieces of equipment that you’ll find are enchanted to confer specific bonuses to attributes when they’re equipped; select your gear to bolster the attributes you care about most. You can check your current attributes at any time from the Inventory page (default key “I”).

Difficulty Levels

Diablo III is not over when you finish its final Act. After completing Diablo III on Normal difficulty, you’ll unlock a new difficulty level with which you can continue the game: Nightmare. If you survive the increased difficulty and complete the game on Nightmare, you’ll unlock the even more challenging Hell level. And, if you’re able to best Hell…Inferno awaits. You will carry your existing character (and all of that character’s levels, skills, powers, and equipment) over to the new difficulty level – but that doesn’t mean you’ll be free to squash helpless demons. Using your existing character on a new difficulty level is necessary. You’ll need every advantage you can get just to stay alive. In Nightmare and Hell mode (and beyond), you’ll continue to gain levels and skill runes, but you will also find items, gems, potions, armor, and weapons only available in these difficulty levels. As you grow in power, so too will your enemies. In Inferno difficulty, defeating certain bosses grants you a temporary boost to abilities called Nephalem Valor. This lasts 30 minutes, persists through death, and stacks with other Nephalem Valor buffs up to five times. Each Nephalem Valor buff provides a 10% increase to the Magic and Gold Find statistics. Good hunting.

Hardcore Characters

You can create a hardcore character from the character creation page after reaching level 10 with any Diablo III hero. Hardcore characters begin playing Diablo III at Normal difficulty and advance through subsequent difficulties just like normal characters. They differ from normal characters in one crucial area, though: IF YOUR HARDCORE CHARACTER DIES, THAT CHARACTER IS PERMANENTLY DEAD. They will never be playable again. There is only one way to successfully play a hardcore character: don’t die. Hardcore characters have access to the hardcore-specific gold auction house, but are unable to purchase items from or sell items to non-hardcore characters. They cannot use the real money auction house. Hardcore characters can only share the items in their stash with other hardcore characters on your account. Hardcore characters are not recommended for the faint of heart.

Combat & Skills

Skills are the legendary powers that define heroes: the ground-shaking strikes, waves of flame, and frightful invocations that flash across the battlefield, scattering groups of minor demons and wracking Hell’s most murderous lieutenants with pain. Each class has its own unique skills, specialized to complement that class’s particular talents. For example, the Barbarian can use the Whirlwind skill to spin in an arc and attack all adjacent enemies at one time, perfect for taking on an entire group of monsters and smashing them into gory paste. Some skills are defensive in nature, while others are utility-focused. The overwhelming majority of your skills, however, are attack skills, suited for killing different types or numbers of enemies quickly.

Kill with skill.

Resources

Most skills are powered by your class resource, a limited reserve of strength, like your Life, that depletes as you use your most powerful attacks and abilities. You can keep your eye on that resource—and, by extension, how much power you have left to use your abilities—by glancing at the colored globe opposite your Life, in the lower right of your screen. All classes possess their own unique resource. You can find out more about them on the appropriate class pages.

Fury (Barbarian), Hatred/Discipline (Demon Hunter), Spirit (Monk), Mana (Witch Doctor), and Arcane Power (Wizard).

Using Your Skills

Use the proper skill to slay your foes.

To get the most use out of your skills, you should place them in your action bar. You can do this by opening your Skills menu (default key “S”) and clicking on the skills you’d like to use. Your skills will be automatically assigned to a number key on your keyboard or a button on your mouse.

Not pictured: Khazra orphans.

You can use any skill in your action bar by clicking on the icon or by pressing the corresponding number key or mouse button. To target a monster with an attack skill, make sure it’s highlighted (hover your mouse over the monster), then press the key or mouse button that corresponds to the skill you want to use. If you’re successful, the foe you’ve set your sights on should melt away into a ruin of smoking flesh and burnt blood. Well done.

Experience and Leveling

When you gain a level, you’ll know it.

As you kill monsters and complete quests, you’ll gain experience, a numerical representation of your increasing power. Reaching a new experience threshold (for example, going from level one to level two) is called “gaining levels.” Often, you’ll unlock one or more new skills when you gain a level. The new skills you’ve unlocked appear on your screen; you can view them at any time on your Skills menu (default key “S”). You unlock more space for skills on your action bar at levels 2, 4, 9, 14, and 19, up to a maximum of 6 active skills, so you’ll grow in versatility as well as power.

Passive Skills

Select passives on the Skills menu.

Once you reach level 10 (and again at levels 20 and 30), you’ll unlock a passive skill slot, up to a maximum of 3 passive skills. Passive skills don’t appear on your action bar and aren’t used by clicking on them or hitting number keys. Instead, they grant bonuses that enhance you at all times. For example, they might make you harder to hit or make your defensive spells last longer.

Changing Your Skills

Click on skills to change them.

You’ll increase your repertoire of monster-slaying skills quickly, and you’ll soon find yourself with more options than you can place on your action bar. Changing the skills at your disposal can be done from your skills menu: simply choose the skills you’d like to use. If you try to swap active skills while you’re roaming the wilderness or crawling through a dank dungeon, you’ll incur a cooldown before you can use them, meaning that they’ll be unavailable for a brief recharge time based on the difficulty level you’re playing on:

• Normal: 5 seconds
• Nightmare: 10 seconds
• Hell: 15 seconds
• Inferno: 2 minutes

Skill Runes

Skill runes are a means to customize your skills beyond their basic powers. Beginning at level 6, you’ll start unlocking runes for your skills, allowing you to drastically modify their functions. For example, you might increase the range or duration of a particular skill or change it so that it sends enemies flying away (where previously it only did damage). A skill that you once had to carefully aim at a group of foes might now seek them automatically.

Choose runes from the Skills menu.

You can access your skill runes in the Skills menu. After selecting the skill you’d like to use, you’ll see a list of the runes below it: just choose an unlocked skill rune you’d like to apply. You can only apply one rune to a skill at a time. To experiment with the full list of Diablo III’s skills and runes, try out the Skill Calculator.

Life

While you make every effort to dispatch and dismember your foes, they’ll be doing the same to you. If a monster hits you, your Life (represented in the red globe on the bottom left of your screen) will be reduced. Your Vitality attribute (in conjunction with any passive skills or vitality-boosting gear you’re using) dictates how much Life you have. Life regenerates slowly over time, but you can recover it faster by snatching up health globes dropped by slain monsters.

Health globes restore your Life.

Walk over a health globe and you (along with any nearby allies) will receive a small portion of healing. More dangerous foes will drop more potent, larger health globes. There are other ways to recover Life: some equipment and skills increase your regeneration rate, and certain friendly characters and allies can restore you to full Life both in and out of combat, but health globes are by far the most common way to heal yourself. When your Life gets dangerously low, you’ll see a red halo encompass your screen: that’s a sign that you need to escape from battle, heal, or both. When the red globe is empty, you’re dead.

Death

You will die.

Death isn’t the end in Diablo III, but neither is it something to be taken lightly. When you die, you are returned to the last checkpoint you reached: checkpoints are invisible spots on the map that track your progress through the game. You’ll return to life with full health, but any consumables you’ve used will be gone permanently, and any items you have equipped will suffer a small amount of damage (10%) to their durability. Damage to your items’ durability will cost gold to repair. More information about item durability can be found in the Equipment section of this guide.