Difference between revisions of "Follower"

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A '''Follower''' is [[Diablo III]]'s answer to {{iw|Mercenary Mercenaries}}. Followers can be equipped with a small amount of [[item| gear]], and [[spells]] and [[skills]] can be chosen for the follower by the player. There are three basic classes: the [[Enchantress]] named Eirena, a ranged [[magic]] caster, the [[Templar]] named Kormac, a melee [[tank]] similar to the [[Paladin]], and the [[Scoundrel]] Lyndon, who is a ranged [[crossbow]] user.
 
  
Followers should not be mistook for [[hirelings]], who serve a different purpose in Diablo III.
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'''Followers''' are [[NPCs]] who assist your hero in his or her battle against the [[demons]] overrunning [[Sanctuary]].  There are three Followers in Diablo III, each of whom has a unique story, look, and combat style. They are: [[Eirena]] the [[Enchantress]], [[Kormac]] the [[Templar]], and [[Lyndon]] the [[Scoundrel]].  There are no additional followers in [[Reaper of Souls]].
  
==Followers in Diablo III==
 
  
The followers in Diablo III are well removed from the mercenary system in Diablo II. One of the largest differences is in the name itself--followers are not hired, they are recruited through quests. There are three followers in Diablo III, which will all be gained within the first Act.
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Followers are only usable in single player games; they return to town and will not assist you when playing with other players.
  
To see more about the individual followers, visit:
 
  
* The [[Enchantress]] (Eirena) entry.
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The design theory is that Followers are helpful when playing alone, but not so powerful as to make them mandatory, and not so complicated that players need to constantly attend to their survival. (There is no way to feed them potions, though they do share in the benefit of health globes. As they do not die there are no resurrection costs.)
  
* The [[Scoundrel]] (Lyndon) entry.
 
  
* The [[Templar]] (Kormac) entry.
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==Follower Types==
  
  
===Lore Abiding Citizens===
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The three followers take on different roles in combat, though they should be roughly equivalent in usefulness, with their style of combat determining which one your character will find most useful.
  
The followers, much like the [[Artisans]], are recruited through [[quests]] that the player must complete in order to gain their trust and companionship. Afterwards, they will be available for play and customization. Unlike mercenaries, the followers will be recruited through the storyline in this way, allowing Blizzard to funnel a lot of narrative through the action of the game.
 
  
Fortunately, there are plenty of words from the men in blue themselves on the aspect of [[lore]] in the follower system, such as these quotes from [[Leonard Boyarsky]] in an interview with FZ.se[http://www.fz.se/artiklar/intervju/20110513/diablo-iii-followers]:
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Each follower has eight unique skills, four of which can be enabled at a time, with two new ones coming online every five levels. Players can retrain their follower at any time afterwards, to use different abilities. See the various followers pages for full details on their skills.
  
<blue>The first thing that happens when you meet them is that you can play through a short sequence that sort of explains their roles in the world. Then it's up to you whether you want to dig deeper into their stories by completing side missions and such. They’ll also make small talk while you run around in the world and you get to know them that way, too.</blue>
 
  
<blue>First, I think they [the followers] are much more distinct characters now than they ever were before. As I’ve already pointed out we’ve put much effort into developing your companion's personalities. We want the players to use them as much for their personalities as for their abilities.</blue>
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* The [[Enchantress]] Eirena is a mage with numerous powerful ranged magical attacks and a variety of helpful buffs.
  
Continuing on that theme, Boyarsky also conducted an interview with Game Planet[http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/pc/games/156898/features/136995.20110513.Diablo-IIIs-Followers/] where he stated:
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* The [[Scoundrel]] Lyndon is an ex-thief and archer who wields a crossbow. He has numerous bow attacks and can debuff monsters, slowing and poisoning them.
  
<blue>As you’re running through the main story arc, you’ll encounter them doing similar things to you. They’re adventurers fighting the good fight. You’ll interact with them in their story and then they have reason to follow you and to help you in your quest. These happen in the first third of the game, they’re spread out a little bit. Once you’ve unlocked them you can keep them with you or send them back to town and choose which one you want.</blue>
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* The [[Templar]] Kormac is a heavily-armored [[tank]], ready to act as a meat shield for your ranged attacker. He can take on large groups of melee fighters and draw enemy attention in the toughest scrap.
  
In addition to this, each quest for the follower is character specific so, as an example, a quest for Kormac involved retrieving holy scrolls stolen by [[Leoric]].
 
While the mercs in D2 had no personality whatsoever, and were very much throw-away expendable characters, the followers have their own sets of motivations, their own goals, and they also react to the world around them. Boyarsky goes into a bit of detail about this in an interview with Ausgamers[http://www.ausgamers.com/features/read/3058885]:
 
  
<blue>We’ve put a tonne of work into their voice-talent and the number of lines they have to talk to you about stuff, to really bring them to life and add a lot to the experience of the world.</blue>
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[[Image:Followers 3.jpg|center]]
  
The rather jarring days of having a mercenary step into [[Hell]] for the first time, and immediately poking things with a stick without so much as a comment, seems to be over.
 
  
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==Followers Availability==
  
===Followers in Single and Multiplayer===
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Followers can only be utilized in single player playing in a game on Battle.net. If another player joins your game, your follower will return to town. [[Jay Wilson]] contributes insight to this design philosophy in an interview with Now Gamer.<ref name=nowgamer>[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:I7CTo2B7bmsJ:www.nowgamer.com/features/921601/diablo_iii_interview_jay_wilson_talks_followers.html+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk Followers in Multiplayer] - Now Gamer interview with Jay Wilson, Blizzard Entertainment, 13/05/2011</ref>
  
Followers can only be utilized in single player. If a player joins a game, then the follower being used will return to town. [[Jay Wilson]] contributes insight to this design philosophy in an interview with Now Gamer[http://www.nowgamer.com/features/1353/diablo-iii-interview-jay-wilson-talks-followers?o=4#listing]:
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<blue>Followers aren’t in [[PvP]] at all, and in cooperative Followers return to town. We found that having four players and four Followers on-screen all at once was pretty chaotic and hard to tell what’s going on. We logic’d out that a player is better than a Follower, they’re better companionship and they’re certainly more effective than a Follower. We figured any player would prefer to have another player, so at that point we decided to have the Follower return to town. You can always get him back later – if the other player leaves the Follower will return.</blue>
  
<blue>Followers aren’t in PvP at all, and in cooperative Followers return to town. We found that having four players and four Followers on-screen all at once was pretty chaotic and hard to tell what’s going on. We logic’d out that a player is better than a Follower, they’re better companionship and they’re certainly more effective than a Follower. We figured any player would prefer to have another player, so at that point we decided to have the Follower return to town. You can always get him back later – if the other player leaves the Follower will return.</blue>
 
  
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If the other people in your game leave you will be asked if you'd like your follower to rejoin you and will instantly appear where you are, if you say yes.
  
===Follower Death===
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When starting [[Adventure mode]] with a new character, all followers are instantly unlocked.
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In [[Adventure mode]] in [[Reaper of Souls]] followers are available instantly, there is no requirement to discover each of them again.<ref>[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/unlocking-followers-adventure-mode Followers in Adventure mode] - Blizzard CM, 19/02/2014</ref>
  
Followers do not die in Diablo III. They are simply incapacitated.
 
Part of the reason for this is the general amount of frustration of having to go back to town and pay a gold fee to resurrect a mercenary, and the lack of logic that follows from that. The other reason being that the followers are not mercs, they are [[NPC]]s with their own story that is relevant to the overall plot of the game.
 
  
When a follower is incapacitated, they will revive after a short time on their own, or the player can revive them by standing above them and waking them up. The process of waking them up leaves the player vulnerable to attack, so it will be best to revive them when there aren't any enemies in the vicinity. While the follower is incapacitated, the player will not receive any bonuses that originate from them.
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<blue>Grimiku: You’ll still need to complete the campaign mode at least once in order to unlock Adventure Mode, but once it’s unlocked all of your characters of that game type (Normal or Hardcore) will be able to access it, even brand new ones.</blue>
  
  
===Beyond Normal Mode===
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==Follower Skills==
  
From what [[Bashiok]] describes, the followers won't have much use beyond normal mode[http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=27808220764&pageNo=1&sid=3000#11]:
 
  
<blue>Well, followers are essentially a flavor bonus to those playing through normal the first time by themselves. It provides some story elements, but more importantly it gets the idea in their head of playing with another person. You come across each of them pretty quickly in Act 1, and then they help you throughout the rest of the game if you'd like. They aren't required to beat the game on Normal, even if you're playing by yourself. Feel free to leave them behind if you like. But they are pretty awesome.  
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Upon reaching [[level]] five, the player can choose one of two [[spells]] or [[skills]] for the [[Templar]] and [[Scoundrel]] and again choose between another two spells at level 10, 15 and finally 20. Skills for the [[Enchantress]] can be chosen first at level 15 then again at 20, 25 and finally character level 30.
  
They're also tuned so that they become very weak starting in Nightmare, and then are completely unusable in Hell. Even if you're playing alone, you will probably not be using Followers past Normal - - you can try but they're going to just be one-shot back to back. They're there as a bit of flavor, to help get people into the mindset of co-op if they're a bit reluctant, and... that's about it. They won't be usable at end-game, and they'll never replace the abilities and power that another player can bring.</blue>
 
  
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Each different type of follower offers a customizable skillset to either boost the player's effectiveness in a certain area, or cover a weakness in another. Details of those in the skill sections of the [[Templar]], [[Scoundrel]] and [[Enchantress#Skills|Enchantress]] pages.
  
===The Follower Interface===
 
  
[[Image:Templar_skillpane.jpg|500px|thumb|center|The [[Templar]]'s interface.]]
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Followers' skills can be changed at any time by simply left clicking on the new skill you want, the other skill is automatically deselected.
  
The [[interface]] for followers is separated into three basic sections: Gear, Skills, and [[stats]].
 
The gear portion of the pane lets players equip their followers with [[item]]s.
 
The skills interface allows the player to assign skills or spells to the follower for each milestone bracket of levels.
 
The stats portion of the interface allows the player to view relevant statistics such as [[health]] and [[elemental]] resistances.
 
  
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==Experience==
  
===Skill System===
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In D3V, much like the player, followers gained experience and benefited from plus to experience items, however they were never more than one level behind the hero. Followers also benefit from bonuses such as the [[Massacre]] boost which gives bonus experience.
  
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In Reaper of Souls, followers now automatically acquire the player's current level, and will level immediately when the player does.
  
One of the larger changes from mercs in Diablo II is the ability to assign abilities to the followers, instead of picking a vague type from a list. Gone are the days of useless [[Flux]] mercs from Act III!
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[[File:Followerdetails.jpg|right|thumb|160px|Benefiting from a Scoundrel's items.]]
  
Upon reaching [[level]] five, the player can choose one of three [[spells]] or [[skills]] for the follower. Each subsequent five levels, up to level twenty-five, will award an additional choice for the player. Each different type of follower will offer a customizable skillset to either boost the player's effectiveness in a certain area, or cover a weakness in another.
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==Gear==
  
The interface for the Templar's skill selection can be seen below.
 
  
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Any gear or gems you equip on your follower that adds [[Gold Find]], [[Magic Find]] or [[Experience]] will add 20% to the player's total bonus for those. For example, a [[Hellfire Ring]] that adds +35% experience bonus, if worn by a follower, will be worth 7% bonus to the player.  The 20% bonus can not take the player beyond the 300% cap for GF/MF however.<ref>[http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/6413021282?page=2#38 Follower Magic/Gold Find] - Blizzard CM, 24/08/2012</ref>
  
===Follower Inventory===
 
  
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Followers can only equip certain weapons, rings, and amulets. In addition, each have their own special class-specific item slot, the [[Templar]] has [[Templar Relics]],  the [[Scoundrel]] has [[Scoundrel Tokens]] and the [[Enchantress]] has [[Enchantress Focuses]]. [[Reaper of Souls]] added six legendary items. Each follower has two legendary items, one granting immortality, the other enabling all skills. Along with the legendary property these each spawn with 5 random affixes.
  
The player is able to equip the follower with two [[ring]]s, an [[amulet]], a main-hand [[weapon]], and an off-hand item when applicable, which includes [[shield]]s and possibly [[orb]]s. The locked box in the inventory pane will be an item that is unique to that follower, which is unlockable at level 25. The unlockable item will be gained through completing the follower's questline, and only one special item is known at the moment: [[Kormac]] the [[Templar]] can unlock a holy book to equip that will aid him in battle.
 
  
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Each of the followers has a different Main Stat, which influences damage done.
  
===Follower Statistics===
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*Strength for the Templar
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*Dexterity for the Scoundrel
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*Intelligence for the Enchantress
  
  
The [[attribute]] section of the interface for mercenaries is gone with the introduction of followers. Instead, the relevant statistics displayed are the [[health]] of the follower (current health and maximum health), the range of damage they will inflict with a standard attack, and also resistances.
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Set item bonuses for wearing multiple items from a set do not apply when they are equipped by a follower. As a Blizzard CM clarifies:
It is currently unknown what effect, if any, equipping a follower with an amulet containing player [[attributes]] will have, or if there are restrictions on gear or modifiers that the followers will be able to equip.
 
  
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<ref>[http://blues.incgamers.com/Posts/10/1/72/1334/214395/followers#postId_554307 Set Bonuses from Followers] Blizzard CM, 11/10/2012</ref>
  
==Development==
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<blue>Vaeflare: As it stands currently, in order to receive the benefits of set bonuses, the set items need to be equipped on your main character. Set items equipped on Followers will not contribute to set bonuses.
  
  
It was said by the D3 development team for ages that they "weren't ready" to reveal mercenaries in Diablo III, or otherwise they "didn't know" what they would do with them. In April of 2011, the follower system was indeed revealed, but to the chargrin of Blizzard, it was leaked by the Korean Blizzard official website on accident. Diablo fans quickly picked this up[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/new-follower-video/] and accepted it as real due to the superb quality of the presentation of the video. The day after, Blizzard unveiled the followers in an official capacity[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/followers-artwork-and-interface-shots/] in a deluge of interviews, information, and new screenshots.
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We’re aware that this isn’t ideal, and we’re looking into some possibilities that would make using set items on Followers a more appealing choice in the future.</blue>
  
  
Previous comments by the development team follow:
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[[File:Ashearas-vestments.jpg|right|thumb|100px|Calling all Followers]]
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There is an interesting set, Asheara's Vestments which, when all four items are equipped by a player, has a chance to summon all your followers, fully equipped. They will disappear after a period until the bonus chance spawns them again.
  
The team has said they hope to include full mercenaries as a feature, and that if they do they'll be bigger and better than mercs were in D2. But they've given no details yet. [http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/pc/games/156898.Diablo-III/features/133759.20090831.BlizzCon-Diablo-III-devs-discuss-design-decisions-direction-depth-drops/]
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The specifics of what followers add to the player's stats is listed under 'Adventure' in their 'Details' tab, see the image on the right.
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Items worn by followers will lose durability and require repairing just like players' items, however each item has to be placed in the repair slot individually for the merchant to repair.
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==Buffs==
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There is no mechanism to feed [[health potion]]s to your Follower, though they do share in the benefit of [[health globe]]s, [[Nephalem Globe]]s. The Followers also possess various buffs and healing spells, which they can use to help your character, as well as themselves.
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Any buffs that a player can apply to party members in a multiplayer game will apply to your follower when playing with them in a single player game.
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==Follower Death==
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Followers do not 'die' - if their health reduces to zero, they rest for a short while and will automatically return to your side once their health is restored.
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There are also Legendary Follower Items with the 'Follower cannot die' affix: [[Enchanting Favor]] (Templar), [[Skeleton Key]] (Scoundrel), and [[Smoking Thurible]] (Enchantress). While these items are equipped, followers not only cannot die, but they in fact take no damage whatsoever. This can be used in conjunction with a [[Unity]] ring to have followers absorb half of all damage dealt to players in single player mode.
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==Follower Quests and Lore==
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The followers, much like the [[Artisans]], are recruited through [[quests]] that the player must complete in order to gain their trust and companionship. Once this is done, the Followers can always be found in the town area, where a player may choose one of them to accompany him into battle. Followers have their own individual quests, which shed more light on their back story as well as the overall game plot. A player will need to work through the entire game with each of the followers, individually, to experience their full game plot and all of the quests.
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==Follower Achievements==
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There are a number of achievements players can earn that are related to Followers.
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{{achievement header}}
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<achievement type="single">The Comfort of Strangers</achievement><achievement type="single">Dirty Little Secrets</achievement><achievement type="single">The Art of Conversation</achievement><achievement type="single">For the Order</achievement><achievement type="single">Secrets of the Ages</achievement><achievement type="single">To Catch a Thief</achievement><achievement type="single">A Guiding Light</achievement><achievement type="single">Me, Myself & Eirena</achievement><achievement type="single">Stolen Moments</achievement><achievement type="single">Friends with Benefits</achievement><achievement type="single">I Got What you Need</achievement><achievement type="single">I'll Be Your Wingman</achievement>
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==Follower Development==
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'''August 2008'''
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The development team said they hoped to include full mercenaries as a feature, and that if they do they'll be bigger and better than mercs were in D2. But they gave no details at that time.<ref>[http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/pc/games/156898.Diablo-III/features/133759.20090831.BlizzCon-Diablo-III-devs-discuss-design-decisions-direction-depth-drops/ First mention of Mercenaries] - Gameplanet interview with Julian Love, Blizzard Entertainment, 31/08/2008</ref>
  
 
<blue><font color="#FFFFFF">Do those NPC's provide abilities to the hero, like a proper party system?</font><br>
 
<blue><font color="#FFFFFF">Do those NPC's provide abilities to the hero, like a proper party system?</font><br>
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[[Leonard Boyarsky]] spoke in more detail about their plans for Mercs at Blizzcon 2008.
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'''October 2008'''
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[[Leonard Boyarsky]] spoke in more detail about their plans for Mercenaries at Blizzcon in October 2008 in an interview with IncGamers.[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=u1R2P7Jzsag Two types of Mercenaries] - IncGamers interview with Leonard Boyarsky, Blizzard Entertainment, 10/10/2008</ref>
  
 
<blue>We have two different types of mercenaries now. As you saw in the demo, if you got the quest where you could rescue the adventurers or their leader, those guys are a low level and are just along for the quest, or are cannon fodder. You can't really control them or have anything to do with them at all.
 
<blue>We have two different types of mercenaries now. As you saw in the demo, if you got the quest where you could rescue the adventurers or their leader, those guys are a low level and are just along for the quest, or are cannon fodder. You can't really control them or have anything to do with them at all.
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Leonard went on to say that there would be different hireables to fill different roles, such as tanks, artillery support, etc.  
 
Leonard went on to say that there would be different hireables to fill different roles, such as tanks, artillery support, etc.  
  
No more updated info has since been released, though in April 2011 Bashiok hinted[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/mercenaries-system-reveal-draws...-closer/] that an announcement was imminent.
 
  
<blue>We’re not quite ready to talk about our approach, but I will say it’s something that’s been a part of the game since before announcement. We have a very solid direction for them. </blue>
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'''May 2011'''
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It was said by the Diablo 3 development team for ages that they "weren't ready" to reveal mercenaries in Diablo III, or otherwise they "didn't know" what they would do with them. However, in May 2011, the follower system was indeed revealed, but to the chagrin of Blizzard, it was leaked by the Korean Blizzard official website by accident.<ref>[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/new-follower-video/ Follower video leaked] - Blizzard Korea, 12/05/2011</ref>
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The Diablo community quickly picked this up and accepted it as real due to the superb quality of the presentation of the video. The day after, Blizzard unveiled the followers in an official capacity in a deluge of interviews, information, and new screen shots.<ref>[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/followers-artwork-and-interface-shots/ Blizzard reveal Diablo 3 Followers] - Blizzard Entertainment, 13/05/2011</ref>
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'''May 2011 - Only Viable in Normal'''
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The initial plan was that Followers would not be viable past [[Normal]] difficulty, as Bashiok explained in May 2011.<ref>[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/official-followers-page-plus-blue-answers Followers in Normal difficulty] - Blizzard CM, 13/05/2011</ref>
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<blue>Well, followers are essentially a flavor bonus to those playing through normal the first time by themselves. It provides some story elements, but more importantly it gets the idea in their head of playing with another person.... They aren't required to beat the game on Normal, even if you're playing by yourself. Feel free to leave them behind if you like. But they are pretty awesome. ...(snip)...
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They're also tuned so that they become very weak starting in Nightmare, and then are completely unusable in Hell. Even if you're playing alone, you will probably not be using Followers past Normal. They're there as a bit of flavor, to help get people into the mindset of co-op if they're a bit reluctant, and... that's about it. They won't be usable at end-game, and they'll never replace the abilities and power that another player can bring.</blue>
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After players talked about finding ways to make Followers viable in Hell, especially for their Magic Find and other item finding bonuses, Bashiok made the developer's intentions even clearer.<ref>[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/official-followers-page-plus-blue-answers/ Preventing use on higher difficulties] - Blizzard CM, 13/05/2011</ref>
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<blue>Followers will not stay alive easily past Normal, and if they’re not alive you aren’t going to be getting their bonuses. I’m sure people will try to game this, and ideally they will fail. If not we will ensure followers are not part of the end-game MF equation. They are not intended to be, and we will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure they cannot be.</blue>
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'''October 2011 - Now Viable in Higher Difficulties'''
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The developers changed that design theory later in development, and announced at BlizzCon in October 2011 that Followers were being rebalanced to remain viable throughout the higher difficulty levels. Bashiok added an update on that in early January, 2012.<ref name=viability/>
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<blue>A lot of us wanted to see followers become viable throughout the game too, and agree they really add something to the experience as a whole. One of our main driving forces in making this decision was the benefits of the co-op experience, and the disadvantage of playing alone in the Nightmare, Hell, and Inferno difficulties. Followers won’t follow you into co-op games because you’ll already have the superior firepower of your friends to help you, but playing alone you’re going to want to take advantage of their benefits. We’ve made the later difficulties of the game brutally difficult, and we realize that for those attempting to tackle these later difficulties alone, they’re really going to actually want some additional support in the form of the followers.
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Some players didn’t like their experience with mercenaries in Diablo II. We took feedback regarding mercenaries very seriously when designing Diablo III followers, and they differ from mercenaries in a few key ways that we think set them apart and resolve many issues. First of all, there is no resurrection or cost to your followers’ deaths, which makes their upkeep far less intrusive. When a follower takes enough damage to “die”, they simply take a knee, catch their breath, and after a few moments are back in the fight. That downtime could potentially have an effect on your own survival, but it’s unlikely to create a situation where you’re worrying about them or constantly working to keep them alive. We don’t want to turn what could be a fun benefit into a punishment by making players pay for their followers’ poor combat choices.
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Secondly, when you die, so does your follower. These aren’t characters that can hope to compete or continue on without you. While some players prefer to be the lone wolf taking on the forces of evil, our intent isn’t to dilute the hero aspects by adding more wolves to your wolf pack. We want followers to be an extension of your bad-assery, not a liability. The followers could almost be considered automated buffs/damage skills, but of course with quite a bit more flavor and customization options.
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We still have some tweaking to do with the followers, including their skills and end-game balancing. We continue to discover cool little ways to improve how each follower performs and the complements the different heroes. Our intent is to ensure players who take followers along find them to be helpful additions to their single-player experiences.</blue>
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===Follower AI===
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The AI and pathfinding of followers in Diablo III is much improved, but it's one-size-fits-all; there are no options to set the Followers in some sort of "aggressive/defensive" mode, nor can players point to specific spots and tell the Followers to remain there.
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[[Jay Wilson]] spoke about the AI challenges they faced, and what players can expect from follower AI, in an April 2011 interview with Now Gamer: <ref name=nowgamer/>
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<blue>'''NowGamer''': You’ve talked in the past about improvements to enemy AI – what about NPCs?
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'''Jay Wilson''': They were a bit easier because they tend to lean on the monster AI, use a lot of the same things as them. Making the Followers interesting revolved around making our monster targeting systems better. In Diablo II monsters pretty much just targeted whatever was closest to them, which meant if you played as a necromancer, it could be kind of a boring class because you almost never get attacked by anything. Your scouts always moved fast to get in front of you. So we said ‘OK, let’s have enemies that attack in different ways, or choose their targets in different ways’.
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<br>Take an enemy that burrows for example – they’re really most dangerous to a ranged class, so that’s what they focus on – they burrow and make a beeline for a ranged character. Whereas a lot of enemies will go ‘I want to attack somebody, but if I can’t reach one of the guys closest to me, or he has a lot of people attacking him already, I’m just going to choose somebody else’. So the attacks get spread out a little more. It makes having a Follower a lot more interesting because they’ll pick up some of the enemies’ focus but not all of it.</blue>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
==Patch Changes to Followers since Release==
 +
 
 +
 
 +
'''[[Patch 1.0.2b]] - 6 June 2012'''
 +
 
 +
*Monsters who are charmed by the Enchantress’s skill “Mass Confusion” can no longer kill event NPCs.
 +
 
 +
 
 +
'''[[Patch 1.0.3]] - 19 June 2012'''
 +
 
 +
[[Enchantress]] Skills
 +
 
 +
:[[Mass Control]]
 +
:Radius reduced from 15 yards to 8 yards
 +
:If Enchantress also has [[Reflect Missiles]] trained, Mass Control will no longer accidentally [[hex]] the player when both skills are activated
 +
:Skill will now correctly target enemies in all circumstances
 +
 
 +
 
 +
'''[[Patch 1.0.4]] - 21 August 2012'''
 +
 
 +
*The last follower a player had active in a single-player game will now be restored automatically after leaving a multiplayer game
 +
*The frequency of follower dialogue has been reduced
 +
 
 +
 
 +
'''[[Patch 1.0.8]] - 8 May 2013'''
 +
 
 +
[[Templar]] Skills
 +
 
 +
:[[Loyalty]]
 +
:Now regenerates 310 life per second (up from 155)
 +
 
 +
 
 +
==Media==
 +
 
 +
===Gallery===
 +
 
 +
<gallery>
 +
File:Ashearas-vestments.jpg|Calling all Followers
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File:Ench action.jpg|[[Enchantress]] in action
 +
</gallery>
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 +
 
 +
===Video===
 +
 
 +
 
 +
This is the reveal video for the Followers released on the 12th May 2011 by the official Korean site before, it seems, Blizzard Irvine was ready to do so.
 +
 
 +
<youtube>2S3U8I_a_x8</youtube>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
==References==
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<font size="-3">
 +
<references/>
  
  
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{{Character navbox|d3}}
 
{{Character navbox|d3}}
  
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{{Skill navbox Diablo III|follower}}
  
 
[[category:NPCs]]
 
[[category:NPCs]]
[[category:mercenaries]]
 
 
[[Category:Basics]]
 
[[Category:Basics]]
 
[[category:followers]]
 
[[category:followers]]

Latest revision as of 16:45, 20 August 2015

Followers are NPCs who assist your hero in his or her battle against the demons overrunning Sanctuary. There are three Followers in Diablo III, each of whom has a unique story, look, and combat style. They are: Eirena the Enchantress, Kormac the Templar, and Lyndon the Scoundrel. There are no additional followers in Reaper of Souls.


Followers are only usable in single player games; they return to town and will not assist you when playing with other players.


The design theory is that Followers are helpful when playing alone, but not so powerful as to make them mandatory, and not so complicated that players need to constantly attend to their survival. (There is no way to feed them potions, though they do share in the benefit of health globes. As they do not die there are no resurrection costs.)


Follower Types[edit | edit source]

The three followers take on different roles in combat, though they should be roughly equivalent in usefulness, with their style of combat determining which one your character will find most useful.


Each follower has eight unique skills, four of which can be enabled at a time, with two new ones coming online every five levels. Players can retrain their follower at any time afterwards, to use different abilities. See the various followers pages for full details on their skills.


  • The Enchantress Eirena is a mage with numerous powerful ranged magical attacks and a variety of helpful buffs.
  • The Scoundrel Lyndon is an ex-thief and archer who wields a crossbow. He has numerous bow attacks and can debuff monsters, slowing and poisoning them.
  • The Templar Kormac is a heavily-armored tank, ready to act as a meat shield for your ranged attacker. He can take on large groups of melee fighters and draw enemy attention in the toughest scrap.


Followers 3.jpg


Followers Availability[edit | edit source]

Followers can only be utilized in single player playing in a game on Battle.net. If another player joins your game, your follower will return to town. Jay Wilson contributes insight to this design philosophy in an interview with Now Gamer.[1]

Followers aren’t in [[PvP]] at all, and in cooperative Followers return to town. We found that having four players and four Followers on-screen all at once was pretty chaotic and hard to tell what’s going on. We logic’d out that a player is better than a Follower, they’re better companionship and they’re certainly more effective than a Follower. We figured any player would prefer to have another player, so at that point we decided to have the Follower return to town. You can always get him back later – if the other player leaves the Follower will return.


If the other people in your game leave you will be asked if you'd like your follower to rejoin you and will instantly appear where you are, if you say yes.

When starting Adventure mode with a new character, all followers are instantly unlocked. In Adventure mode in Reaper of Souls followers are available instantly, there is no requirement to discover each of them again.[2]


Grimiku: You’ll still need to complete the campaign mode at least once in order to unlock Adventure Mode, but once it’s unlocked all of your characters of that game type (Normal or Hardcore) will be able to access it, even brand new ones.


Follower Skills[edit | edit source]

Upon reaching level five, the player can choose one of two spells or skills for the Templar and Scoundrel and again choose between another two spells at level 10, 15 and finally 20. Skills for the Enchantress can be chosen first at level 15 then again at 20, 25 and finally character level 30.


Each different type of follower offers a customizable skillset to either boost the player's effectiveness in a certain area, or cover a weakness in another. Details of those in the skill sections of the Templar, Scoundrel and Enchantress pages.


Followers' skills can be changed at any time by simply left clicking on the new skill you want, the other skill is automatically deselected.


Experience[edit | edit source]

In D3V, much like the player, followers gained experience and benefited from plus to experience items, however they were never more than one level behind the hero. Followers also benefit from bonuses such as the Massacre boost which gives bonus experience.

In Reaper of Souls, followers now automatically acquire the player's current level, and will level immediately when the player does.

Benefiting from a Scoundrel's items.

Gear[edit | edit source]

Any gear or gems you equip on your follower that adds Gold Find, Magic Find or Experience will add 20% to the player's total bonus for those. For example, a Hellfire Ring that adds +35% experience bonus, if worn by a follower, will be worth 7% bonus to the player. The 20% bonus can not take the player beyond the 300% cap for GF/MF however.[3]


Followers can only equip certain weapons, rings, and amulets. In addition, each have their own special class-specific item slot, the Templar has Templar Relics, the Scoundrel has Scoundrel Tokens and the Enchantress has Enchantress Focuses. Reaper of Souls added six legendary items. Each follower has two legendary items, one granting immortality, the other enabling all skills. Along with the legendary property these each spawn with 5 random affixes.


Each of the followers has a different Main Stat, which influences damage done.

  • Strength for the Templar
  • Dexterity for the Scoundrel
  • Intelligence for the Enchantress


Set item bonuses for wearing multiple items from a set do not apply when they are equipped by a follower. As a Blizzard CM clarifies:

[4]

Vaeflare: As it stands currently, in order to receive the benefits of set bonuses, the set items need to be equipped on your main character. Set items equipped on Followers will not contribute to set bonuses.


We’re aware that this isn’t ideal, and we’re looking into some possibilities that would make using set items on Followers a more appealing choice in the future.


Calling all Followers

There is an interesting set, Asheara's Vestments which, when all four items are equipped by a player, has a chance to summon all your followers, fully equipped. They will disappear after a period until the bonus chance spawns them again.


The specifics of what followers add to the player's stats is listed under 'Adventure' in their 'Details' tab, see the image on the right.


Items worn by followers will lose durability and require repairing just like players' items, however each item has to be placed in the repair slot individually for the merchant to repair.

Buffs[edit | edit source]

There is no mechanism to feed health potions to your Follower, though they do share in the benefit of health globes, Nephalem Globes. The Followers also possess various buffs and healing spells, which they can use to help your character, as well as themselves.

Any buffs that a player can apply to party members in a multiplayer game will apply to your follower when playing with them in a single player game.


Follower Death[edit | edit source]

Followers do not 'die' - if their health reduces to zero, they rest for a short while and will automatically return to your side once their health is restored.

There are also Legendary Follower Items with the 'Follower cannot die' affix: Enchanting Favor (Templar), Skeleton Key (Scoundrel), and Smoking Thurible (Enchantress). While these items are equipped, followers not only cannot die, but they in fact take no damage whatsoever. This can be used in conjunction with a Unity ring to have followers absorb half of all damage dealt to players in single player mode.

Follower Quests and Lore[edit | edit source]

The followers, much like the Artisans, are recruited through quests that the player must complete in order to gain their trust and companionship. Once this is done, the Followers can always be found in the town area, where a player may choose one of them to accompany him into battle. Followers have their own individual quests, which shed more light on their back story as well as the overall game plot. A player will need to work through the entire game with each of the followers, individually, to experience their full game plot and all of the quests.


Follower Achievements[edit | edit source]

There are a number of achievements players can earn that are related to Followers.

Name Points Description Banner

<achievement type="single">The Comfort of Strangers</achievement><achievement type="single">Dirty Little Secrets</achievement><achievement type="single">The Art of Conversation</achievement><achievement type="single">For the Order</achievement><achievement type="single">Secrets of the Ages</achievement><achievement type="single">To Catch a Thief</achievement><achievement type="single">A Guiding Light</achievement><achievement type="single">Me, Myself & Eirena</achievement><achievement type="single">Stolen Moments</achievement><achievement type="single">Friends with Benefits</achievement><achievement type="single">I Got What you Need</achievement><achievement type="single">I'll Be Your Wingman</achievement>


Follower Development[edit | edit source]

August 2008

The development team said they hoped to include full mercenaries as a feature, and that if they do they'll be bigger and better than mercs were in D2. But they gave no details at that time.[5]

Do those NPC's provide abilities to the hero, like a proper party system?
Julian Love: That's also not yet finalised. We're trying to make them definitely a step above the henchmen of Diablo II, but how big of a step is something I can't say yet. Hopefully next time we reveal something I can show you more.


October 2008


Leonard Boyarsky spoke in more detail about their plans for Mercenaries at Blizzcon in October 2008 in an interview with IncGamers.Two types of Mercenaries - IncGamers interview with Leonard Boyarsky, Blizzard Entertainment, 10/10/2008</ref>

We have two different types of mercenaries now. As you saw in the demo, if you got the quest where you could rescue the adventurers or their leader, those guys are a low level and are just along for the quest, or are cannon fodder. You can't really control them or have anything to do with them at all. When you have what we are calling followers, they are the guys you can equip, give them different weapons, you can give them different armor. They will probably have some quests that involve them. Much more than in Diablo II, you could equip them but they were more like a game mechanic in a body of an NPC. Where this time, were making them much more individuals with their own back story and their own reason for being in the world.

Leonard went on to say that there would be different hireables to fill different roles, such as tanks, artillery support, etc.


May 2011

It was said by the Diablo 3 development team for ages that they "weren't ready" to reveal mercenaries in Diablo III, or otherwise they "didn't know" what they would do with them. However, in May 2011, the follower system was indeed revealed, but to the chagrin of Blizzard, it was leaked by the Korean Blizzard official website by accident.[6]

The Diablo community quickly picked this up and accepted it as real due to the superb quality of the presentation of the video. The day after, Blizzard unveiled the followers in an official capacity in a deluge of interviews, information, and new screen shots.[7]


May 2011 - Only Viable in Normal

The initial plan was that Followers would not be viable past Normal difficulty, as Bashiok explained in May 2011.[8]


Well, followers are essentially a flavor bonus to those playing through normal the first time by themselves. It provides some story elements, but more importantly it gets the idea in their head of playing with another person.... They aren't required to beat the game on Normal, even if you're playing by yourself. Feel free to leave them behind if you like. But they are pretty awesome. ...(snip)...


They're also tuned so that they become very weak starting in Nightmare, and then are completely unusable in Hell. Even if you're playing alone, you will probably not be using Followers past Normal. They're there as a bit of flavor, to help get people into the mindset of co-op if they're a bit reluctant, and... that's about it. They won't be usable at end-game, and they'll never replace the abilities and power that another player can bring.


After players talked about finding ways to make Followers viable in Hell, especially for their Magic Find and other item finding bonuses, Bashiok made the developer's intentions even clearer.[9]


Followers will not stay alive easily past Normal, and if they’re not alive you aren’t going to be getting their bonuses. I’m sure people will try to game this, and ideally they will fail. If not we will ensure followers are not part of the end-game MF equation. They are not intended to be, and we will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure they cannot be.


October 2011 - Now Viable in Higher Difficulties


The developers changed that design theory later in development, and announced at BlizzCon in October 2011 that Followers were being rebalanced to remain viable throughout the higher difficulty levels. Bashiok added an update on that in early January, 2012.[10]


A lot of us wanted to see followers become viable throughout the game too, and agree they really add something to the experience as a whole. One of our main driving forces in making this decision was the benefits of the co-op experience, and the disadvantage of playing alone in the Nightmare, Hell, and Inferno difficulties. Followers won’t follow you into co-op games because you’ll already have the superior firepower of your friends to help you, but playing alone you’re going to want to take advantage of their benefits. We’ve made the later difficulties of the game brutally difficult, and we realize that for those attempting to tackle these later difficulties alone, they’re really going to actually want some additional support in the form of the followers.


Some players didn’t like their experience with mercenaries in Diablo II. We took feedback regarding mercenaries very seriously when designing Diablo III followers, and they differ from mercenaries in a few key ways that we think set them apart and resolve many issues. First of all, there is no resurrection or cost to your followers’ deaths, which makes their upkeep far less intrusive. When a follower takes enough damage to “die”, they simply take a knee, catch their breath, and after a few moments are back in the fight. That downtime could potentially have an effect on your own survival, but it’s unlikely to create a situation where you’re worrying about them or constantly working to keep them alive. We don’t want to turn what could be a fun benefit into a punishment by making players pay for their followers’ poor combat choices.


Secondly, when you die, so does your follower. These aren’t characters that can hope to compete or continue on without you. While some players prefer to be the lone wolf taking on the forces of evil, our intent isn’t to dilute the hero aspects by adding more wolves to your wolf pack. We want followers to be an extension of your bad-assery, not a liability. The followers could almost be considered automated buffs/damage skills, but of course with quite a bit more flavor and customization options.


We still have some tweaking to do with the followers, including their skills and end-game balancing. We continue to discover cool little ways to improve how each follower performs and the complements the different heroes. Our intent is to ensure players who take followers along find them to be helpful additions to their single-player experiences.


Follower AI[edit | edit source]

The AI and pathfinding of followers in Diablo III is much improved, but it's one-size-fits-all; there are no options to set the Followers in some sort of "aggressive/defensive" mode, nor can players point to specific spots and tell the Followers to remain there.

Jay Wilson spoke about the AI challenges they faced, and what players can expect from follower AI, in an April 2011 interview with Now Gamer: [1]

'''NowGamer''': You’ve talked in the past about improvements to enemy AI – what about NPCs?

'''Jay Wilson''': They were a bit easier because they tend to lean on the monster AI, use a lot of the same things as them. Making the Followers interesting revolved around making our monster targeting systems better. In Diablo II monsters pretty much just targeted whatever was closest to them, which meant if you played as a necromancer, it could be kind of a boring class because you almost never get attacked by anything. Your scouts always moved fast to get in front of you. So we said ‘OK, let’s have enemies that attack in different ways, or choose their targets in different ways’.


Take an enemy that burrows for example – they’re really most dangerous to a ranged class, so that’s what they focus on – they burrow and make a beeline for a ranged character. Whereas a lot of enemies will go ‘I want to attack somebody, but if I can’t reach one of the guys closest to me, or he has a lot of people attacking him already, I’m just going to choose somebody else’. So the attacks get spread out a little more. It makes having a Follower a lot more interesting because they’ll pick up some of the enemies’ focus but not all of it.


Patch Changes to Followers since Release[edit | edit source]

Patch 1.0.2b - 6 June 2012

  • Monsters who are charmed by the Enchantress’s skill “Mass Confusion” can no longer kill event NPCs.


Patch 1.0.3 - 19 June 2012

Enchantress Skills

Mass Control
Radius reduced from 15 yards to 8 yards
If Enchantress also has Reflect Missiles trained, Mass Control will no longer accidentally hex the player when both skills are activated
Skill will now correctly target enemies in all circumstances


Patch 1.0.4 - 21 August 2012

  • The last follower a player had active in a single-player game will now be restored automatically after leaving a multiplayer game
  • The frequency of follower dialogue has been reduced


Patch 1.0.8 - 8 May 2013

Templar Skills

Loyalty
Now regenerates 310 life per second (up from 155)


Media[edit | edit source]

Gallery[edit | edit source]


Video[edit | edit source]

This is the reveal video for the Followers released on the 12th May 2011 by the official Korean site before, it seems, Blizzard Irvine was ready to do so.


References[edit | edit source]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Followers in Multiplayer - Now Gamer interview with Jay Wilson, Blizzard Entertainment, 13/05/2011
  2. Followers in Adventure mode - Blizzard CM, 19/02/2014
  3. Follower Magic/Gold Find - Blizzard CM, 24/08/2012
  4. Set Bonuses from Followers Blizzard CM, 11/10/2012
  5. First mention of Mercenaries - Gameplanet interview with Julian Love, Blizzard Entertainment, 31/08/2008
  6. Follower video leaked - Blizzard Korea, 12/05/2011
  7. Blizzard reveal Diablo 3 Followers - Blizzard Entertainment, 13/05/2011
  8. Followers in Normal difficulty - Blizzard CM, 13/05/2011
  9. Preventing use on higher difficulties - Blizzard CM, 13/05/2011
  10. Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named viability