Diablo 5 Director: 'Any Challenge Can Be Overcome With the Right Build'

Diablo 5's senior game director Joe Shely says combat will balance execution and planning, emphasizing build-centric design amid concerns from Path of Exile's Chris Wilson.

Ever wondered if Diablo 5 will reward your brain or your reflexes? You're not alone—and now we have a hint from the top.

Diablo 5 senior game director Joe Shely recently tweeted about the game's combat philosophy. "While Diablo V will continue to feature some DEX (moment-to-moment execution) mechanics, on balance the game will be an INT/STR game (planning and investment)," he said. "We are designing to the core tenet of ARPGs that any challenge can be overcome with the right build." That's a pretty clear signal: build crafting still matters most.

This comes after Chris Wilson, co-founder of Grinding Gear Games and original Path of Exile designer, shared his thoughts on Diablo 5 in a YouTube video. Wilson said he's "tentatively hopeful" about the game but worried combat has been getting more "arcadey and actioney" since Diablo 3. He hopes Diablo 5 returns to the build-centric combat of Diablo 1 and 2, though he predicts it'll lean even further into action territory.

Shely's tweet doesn't directly mention Wilson, but it sure reads like a response. And while Shely is famously media-trained, his words do offer some reassurance: the focus is still on planning and investment, not just twitch reflexes. That could mean anything from simple positioning to deeper action mechanics, but the core promise is that your build will carry you.

As a longtime Diablo player, I'm not too worried about a slightly more intricate combat system—as long as the fantasy of iterating gear and ability synergies to make monster-killing easier remains intact. It sounds like that's still the case. I do agree with Wilson that monster scaling should be ditched or dramatically scaled back to make the world feel uncompromising and dangerous, but I suspect we'll be waiting a while for those nitty-gritty details.

For now, Diablo 5 is set for a spring 2029 release window, so it's still early days. We know it takes place about 100 years after Diablo 4 and won't have towns or safe zones outside of a Baldur's Gate-style caravan of traveling companions. But combat? That's still largely a mystery—though Shely's comments give us a clue about the direction.

What do you think? Are you hoping for a more tactical, build-focused Diablo 5, or are you ready for faster, action-packed combat? Let us know in the comments!