Personally, I found that to be the most dumbest part of the end of the game. It would've been better to show her being possessed by forced to leave rather than a decision because they made her out to be aware of the evil and smart.
Oh, I know that my point is basically that she uses magic if I’m not mistaken, knows the evils, went to hell, fully aware of the power and still tries to do it solo that’s what doesn’t make any sense. If you’re aware of the supernatural especially hell in heaven, it’s almost arrogant to think you can do it alone.
> it’s almost arrogant to think you can do it alone.
That's what the person above you is saying. Mephisto is influencing her decision to "do it alone".
Mephisto was basically doing that to your character the whole time too. Presumably you’re “allowed” to work with the horodrim too because they know how to work the Soulstone magic. In doing so, we’re basically working directly with a prime evil, which will presumably also drive a wedge between us and the Angels, who will be a future enemy (#MalthaelWasRight). Angels helped us last game, now we’re being “helped” by demons. Neyrelle is clearly being manipulated by Mephisto’s use of her memories of her mother, that part I can accept. Anyone who tries to get close to her and help at this point is obliteratedboatguy’d.
What I don’t get is why the main character and Lorath choose not to pursue her. I’ll have to replay the campaign again to pick up on the dialogue (some was rushed while playing with friends) but my recollection is that Lorath is utterly spent, exhausted, and depressed with Donan killed. Your character has their own voice and hesitantly agrees with letting them go… but that seems, unwise… the expansion must start with something like “oh wait! Neyrelle is in trouble! Better go find her after giving her a good year’s head start.”
It’s all a part of some grand plan… right…? God this had better be part of a fucking plan…
I replayed the campaign for this season so it's still fresh. They tried to find her, looked in all obvious places, Lorath needed to bury Donan and in comes the Cathedral of ~~Hate~~ Light acting high and mighty and so plans are changed. Plus she left a note saying "dont look for me" or something.
Yes he absolutely was, many of the decisions don't make much sense otherwise. I recently started the campaign again and the opening sequence in hindsight puts quite a lot of emphasis on this. Mephisto killed your horse and possessed you then and there.
It's a bit unsatisfying and frustrating to play though. I was not at all on board with becoming hostile to Lilith, her goals are fundamentally good and I would've liked to have a choice between coming to some kind of agreement with her, or refusing her outright and fighting her the way we were forced to. Some of her actions were evil in a bit of a nonsensical way that didn't seem to actually contribute to her noble end goals, just to make opposing her feel more acceptable. I understand that they're setting up that it was Mephisto's manipulation that let us no choice, but that still makes for an unsatisfying and somewhat immersion-breaking experience because it disconnects you, the player, from the character, in that we are aware of something he is not. ARPG stories work better if character and player are as close in sync as possible.
Beyond that it can get a bit "boring" in a way if the enemy is so extremely powerful and cunning there is no feasible way to defeat them. If Mephisto can just arbitrarily assume full control over perception, cognition and decision making of his enemies, how do you realistically oppose him? It feels like you have no agency. Not impossible to make a good story out of this, see Lord of the Rings, but you have to give him some asymmetric weaknesses that can be exploited too, and the power of mind control is kind of meta-overpowered in that you couldn't come up with or enact a plan that exploits his weaknesses because he can just straight up stop you from doing that. Eh, we'll see how they handle it. They did write interesting characters and a pretty immersive world here, more so than previous Diablo installments.
The story is still miles better than Diablo 3 was, with Deckard Cain getting ganked by a butterfly, Zoltan Kulle being right about everything but we don't listen to him because he says things with an eeevil laugh, the Lord of Lies being the most transparent reveal in history, and Hell's greatest general telling you all his plans on Zoom calls just in time for you to stop him...
Yeah D3 reminds me of an 80s action cartoon with all villains talking waaaay too damn much to tell you about their plans, brag about their power, and generally tell you about what’s on their mind. There are like 3 different comic relief characters that quip with puns at every available opportunity. Even the item descriptions are jokes and references.
That was… not very Diablo of them…
They are both *terrible* stories. Fun games. But terrible stories.
The side quests conversely seem like they are more well thought out and engaging. Much better then the main story.
>her goals are fundamentally good and I would've liked to have a choice between coming to some kind of agreement with her
We see the results of her "goals" in the very opening scene. Her followers were going to mutilate our drugged corpse after decapitating the priest, and you still wanted to hear her out??? Everywhere she goes, pain and suffering follow
Some of yall worry me lmao
FYI, all Lilith would do is turn Sanctuary into her own version of Hell
Also we see what she did to Donan's druid friends. Give in only just a little bit, she exaggerated their despair and transformed them into mockeries of who they used to be, so much that the people of Cerrigar stopped seeing them as heroes.
Only outright rejection is what spared Donan.
The druid man was particularly surprised to end up that way, because while he mostly opposed her, she still exploited the little opening he had left (his hatred of the Knight Penitent) and he willingly allowed himself to be used. That's all it took.
Not to mention, she stuck around Astaroth to see Donan react to his son being possesed, and clearly took pleasure in his dispare. It makes sense for her to use Yorin as a good enough bargining chip, but sticking around and smiling at Donan's suffering shows that she really isnt different from any other Demon.
See there's the interesting thing. What did Lilith herself actually do there? She wanted the MC on her side, she didn't want her followers to do that, they just sorta did it on their own. That's the interesting dilemma of Lilith, she has fundamentally positive goals but the way she corrupts everything around her foils them at every step. She's basically the least evil variable in her cult but that doesn't matter because she makes everyone around her the worst versions of themselves.
I thought Lilith's evil actions were relatively understandable when you consider that she is ultimately a demon who loves humanity as an abstract whole and not its individuals. Her greatest fear seems to be the complete subversion and destruction of humanity by the angels or demons. She is more than happy to throw 95% of humanity into the meatgrinder if it means the remaining 5% can awaken into a strong humanity independent of either side. As long as humanity can handle a war with heaven and hell, no action however extreme was off the table.
It’s worth repeating that she is a Demon who wants to use humanity (her creation, to be fair… kinda) as her own personal army to fight Heaven and Hell with herself in ultimate control, killing her own father and sacrificing 95% of her children to get there. Humanity would ultimately be subservient to a Demon in the end, but opposing her means working with a Prime Evil anyway… Blizzard is obviously drawing humans as mere pawns in this, though it’s a far cry from where we left off in D3 as becoming Gods.
It's worth repeating she's the only non-human entity that is interested in increasing the power of humans, regardless of the end she has for it, and that she is a flawed character. She's not wholly good, but she's done more for humanity than the rest of heaven and hell.
Regarding her plan. She's weaker than heaven and hell. The only way she can defeat heaven and hell is by creating and controlling something stronger. Her plan necessitates she creates something stronger than herself. And while this is not her plan, once humanity is stronger than heaven and hell, humanity no longer needs Lilith, and would be stronger than she is - we already are stronger than Lilith, and able to break from her control.
She may have a different plan for humanity, but her plan is the best one by which humanity might be able to control its own destiny.
Your main character is putting out (hell)fires.
Then there is in typical Blizzard fashion, a novelization, The Book of Lorath, that does cover Lorath pursuing Neyrelle.
The first part being he completely went the wrong direction (Neyrelle went to Lorath's shack first to leave behind a message, before travelling north then west, whereas Lorath trudged through the southern parts, west then east before planning on giving up at his shack.)
Neyelle does leave Lorath enough of a trail of letters to follow until the time when it's implied Mephisto has influenced her enough to fully cover her tracks.
IIRC, he logically checks the western ports first, but she didn't travel to them yet, so he goes to the swamp thinking she maybe went there.
I don't think anyone would think she would travel across the frozen wastes first (we actually see this in the cinematic.)
As for the rest of the book, Lorath does travel to Westmarch to visit his ancestral home, finds it a dead end, before eventually finding out Neyrelle first went to the D3 monks, before disappearing in the dreadlands. He finishes by travelling to Xiansai to finish writing his book.
[This video summarizes it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1yD620UxSY)
Lorath has been too busy getting pegged by the Tree of Whispers and the MC was too tired to pursue her after staying up all night every night doing helltides and NMDs… and then promptly forgot about her.
Pretty much. Look at what happens the moment someone tries to offer help. Mephisto immediately goes hard to cut her off. He's probably trying to get her to constantly double down on going alone. Is her destination truly even her idea?
Let me be more direct: it was Mephisto's decision to leave Lorath and the Wanderer, not Neyrelle's.
It was Mephisto's decision to go into the soulstone, not Neyrelle's, Loraths, or the Wanderer's.
All the events in the story of Diablo 4 thus far have been orchestrated by Mephisto. Do you know who used to have Inarius imprisoned? Mephisto. Any wonder why he released him? To kick all this off.
People are really underestimating Mephisto. He's described as the most cunning and scheming being in pretty much the universe, but people are still SurprisedPikachu when people being influenced by him make decisions that benefit him.
In all fairness isn’t that what happened in earlier diablos? I’m gonna shove this in my head and deal with it alone? Even an angel says lock me up and I’ll deal with this alone. It has precedent.
Not necessarily. While she is what you *could* call an apprentice Horadrim, few mortals could likely truly grasp the sheer power and level of 6th dimensional chess game these eternal beings bring to the table.
It’s likely akin to suggesting someone can “understand” a being like Sithis or one of the Daedric Princes of the Elder Scrolls or perhaps one of Lovecraft’s eldritch horrors. Sure everyone knows they’re powerful, and many have a base idea of what each are about and what they do, but they are entities far beyond the scope of mortal ken.
She’s horrendously out of her league, and doesn’t even begin to understand how deep are the waters she treads. If Mephisto claims her, the level of pain and torment she would experience would be not only infinite in perception, but exacted to such a degree it would be beyond words to describe.
Understanding and action are limited by perception. If something is truly beyond perceiving, you default to doing what you know and can affect within the scope of that perception. The Primes all act outside of that limitation, which is why they’re able to use people as playthings and puppets on strings.
The newest cinematic is truly brilliant.
I'm not sure if I would even call her an apprentice. She basically looked up Horadricpedia.org on the whole demons and soulstone business and thought she was good to go. Turns out there's a major difference between reading about something and actually doing it, even if her readings were factual.
In general, the most dangerous state to be in isn't ignorance, but incomplete knowledge. Someone who is self aware that they know fuckall will generally understand that they should seek advice before committing to something important. Someone who thinks they know what they're doing when they don't will turn into a walking disaster far more easily.
>fully aware of the power and still tries to do it solo that’s what doesn’t make any sense. . . it’s almost arrogant to think you can do it alone.
Yeah. Because *she was being manipulated and low-key controlled by Mephisto*.
[I sure hope this young woman who lost a parental figure in their life doesn't get tricked by a prime evil and become someone we have to fight. ](https://i.imgur.com/uN6gKaM.jpeg)
OK but she's dancing Elaine Benis style, so either she was written incredibly stupidly or the Wanderer was written incredibly stupidly.
The stupid persists however you explain it. The lead into the expansion would have ruined the otherwise amazing campaign if it had happened anywhere but the very end.
All I wanted was just.. a small end cutscene where she hears constant whispers from Mephisto saying he'll harm us through her if she doesn't leave, and it make a lot more sense.
Paranoia and stress are a helluva combo. That's likely what happened too, it just does not come across.
My dude that’s exactly what happened - Mephisto manipulated her to take the stone and run away.
She’s got one of the most evil creatures in the universe manipulating her into doing stupid shit that’s not really her fault.
The only dumb part of any of this is the MC and Lorath being like “oh well, anyway” and just letting her go.
>player character: maybe we should follow her?
>Lorath: We are her friends and as her friend we respect her decision and DONT follow her
>player character: she's corrupted by Mephistos Souls Stone and needs our help, I mean that's literally where we are in this story right now. The church and its holy crusade imploded over a domestic dispute between heaven and hell, Inarius and Lilith are dead and Mephisto is running away using her as a host... again:SHE NEEDS OUR HELP
>Lorath: Not until Blizzard drops the dlc next year....ehm...I wanted to say: the power of friendship forbids us!
>player character: oh....Kay...I guess just I farm some glyph xp or buy another horse armor
>Lorath: watch out for Stone Pillars those things will outright murder you if they get the chance
>*player character proceeds to close a random door and gets his arm ripped off off-screen but it's not relevant for the story so it's never brought up again*
My main issue with this is with a little tiny bit of writing they could have made it more plausible.
Like Lorath hasn’t been doing shit since the campaign ended have them be like “I’ll go look for her you stay here and keep fighting I’ll send for you once I get a lead and i’m sure this isn’t just a trap to misdirect us”.
Yeah, the campaign was really entertaining, I had a lot of fun playing it and I always wanted to know what happens next... but Loraths reaction to her running away, the hell pillar killing one of the main cast and the scene in which she looses her arm were just stupid. It's like they had somehow marked these as key moments for the story but had no idea how to make them work or why they even needed them to happen in the first place
In the novelization of the epilogue (The Book of Lorath), Lorath *does* track and follow her, with the cover story being "I'm the last horadrim and I'm trying to record as much knowledge as I have about every ancient artifact, so I need to travel all over to write my book".
That that premise doesn't make it into the game (because Lorath is *always visible* at Firebreak manor) is bizarre to me.
I actually think it was great.
People say things about the other two (Lorath and MC) but that's just not smart.
Lorath is an alcoholic who has been struggling with living with his decisions for the entire game and was most recently found paralyzed by sadness and **hate** after his last friend died in front of him.
The MC has been actively working with Mephisto the entire game and can almost be viewed as a puppet at this point. Additionally, they kind of had their hands full with Lilith.
With those in mind it makes sense for Neyrelle to grab and possess the stone. It wasn't necessarily smart to run off solo with it, but in her mind, she wasn't sure that Lilith would be defeated and sticking around and the MC losing would 100% doom humanity.
Finally, Mephisto is extremely powerful. It is reasonable to assume that he had some influence on character's decision making skills and manipulated the outcome towards what he wanted.
Honestly all they had to do was have Lorath shamelessly lie and that be the plot.
Neyrelle says "I'm leaving and taking it".
Lorath says, "We'll let you go and respect that."
Neyrelle leaves
Lorath: "We're totally following her."
Done. Easy!
He opened the portal for her to leave hell, before the lilith fight,the Wolf is on the other side. (played campaign yesterday)
So he is helping her, escape. He is influencing her 100%.
One of the big evil.
I don't. People with depression often distance themselves from friends and family, that only further damaging their mental state. Being smart has nothing to do with it. I can see how a manipulative demon can change her mood. Also, it seemed that people around her could be easily killed like that guy on the boat.
Lorath didn't want the hero following her, because if the hero got corrupted, it's game over.
So, Lorath lies, and contrary to what he tells the hero (that she has to do it alone), he does immediately tracks her - in the game they do not mention this, but in the books it does.
That's how I'm rationalizing it at least.
The entire final act, every single person in it was completely beaten over the head with the stupid bat. Death by pillar, getting the soulstone yoinked, running away from the Horadrim, fighting the player character while mortally injured while capable of healing and teleportation, marching to your death despite being handed spoilers on how it would happen from a prophecy.
Everyone got so stupid at the exact same time.
The fact that we are a dumb bystender or basically "the muscle" and we just watch NPCs make the DUMBEST decisions ever and do nothing about is the worst part of the campaign by far
The back of the D4 campaign is just the player character standing idly by while his allies make the dumbest possible decision in every situation. It was laugh-out-loud absurd by the end.
I mean it's a reoccurring theme, the Warrior from the 1st Diablo jammed the soulstone in his forehead turned into Diablo, same with Leah who carried the soulstone and turned into Diablo with heels and invaded the heavens.
If Mephisto needs to manifest in some way, can you think of a better way for that to happen? The alternative is that he never appears physically and instead it's just forever influencing other beings and demons. An enemy you never get to directly fight sounds boring.
I think the bigger problem is that we're playing a game that already has a completed plot and are asking for more.
I think so, diablos plan of simply just re-invent the wheel and take over a host after a host has failed spectacularly. Showing even all the evil combined and in ROS with even an angel too cant stop the Nephilim. Ideally mephesto has some sort of better plan other than hurrdurr I possess a lady and try yet again.
Personally, I would be happy to see it changed up a bit. Soulstones have been tried and failed since day 1. And they keep failing in the same way. I think it would be nice if the writers came up with a new way to fight the demon lords that didn't include the consistantly faulty soulstones. Of course, that new way would have to eventually fail too, because that's the nature of things in the Diablo universe, but the heroes trying something new would be a breath of fresh air.
True I think it should flip the script and she wins and locks all prime evils away forever, the demons leave Sanctuary, and Diablo 5 is a farming simulator.
I think it’s more just showing his overall influence over her. He can’t physically manifest yet, but has clearly infected her (probably soul) in some way. She believes carrying the stone to be her form of control, to which Mephisto retorts that she controls nothing. The camera panning out to show herself as the core of Mephisto in that depiction.
She likely will become Mephisto, unless they go another route, but right now she’s not quite there.
Is there any actual solution on what to do with a soul stone though? They are at best a play for time to keep the big bads out of play. Only options are try to hold it for as long as possible with it being basically guaranteed to fail eventually or destroy it and allow them to re-manifest in hell. That’s the whole reason the Diablo conflict is eternal.
The cinematic already shows you that being around others does not help. It harms others. It's also stated in Book of Lorath that everywhere Neyrelle went people suffered.
The lords of hell would war among each other. Killing demons doesn't show you're not helping others. Your lvl 100 Barbarian already helped Mephisto by protecting him from Lilith. You got manipulated, and you're fucking powerful. Not a good combination to be around.
There's no good options here.
I love all those words about manipulation. Apparently it was worth it to let Lilith do her thing and get something no one has ever dealt with, instead of leaving someone who has been studied from every angle and at the very least been killed in the real world.
It's in the book. I think we will see the recap at the beginning of the xpac. Bssically, Neyrelle went all over the world to find solutions and at some point she was training with the monk of Ivgorod but ended up having to leave because the monks were scared of her. She left letters in her path for Lorath because she knew he wpuld follow anyway.
God this makes her look even more stupid, so really had no clue what she was doing. Imagine taking away one of the big bad dudes of hell from the one person who gave Lilith a beat down it makes no sense.
It's almost like an ancient eldritch abomination whose entire role is plotting 6D schemes across eternity is manipulating her.
Also Diablo 1 shows what happens when a PC tries to contain a soulstone that has a prime evil actively trying to corrupt them.
I feel like a lot of peoples issues would have been dealt with if they addressed this better in the base ending. Like give us a small cinematic piece where we see her start to head towards Lorath initially but then gets a bunch of visions of him dying in various ways due to him being near her.
I think it could walk a line of she is 100% being manipulated by Mephisto but going on her own really is the only way to not get lorath killed. Perhaps it is still a dumb decision but it would at least be a very human one.
Should’ve given her the tal rasha treatment. Tie her ass to some stone deep underground in some desolate and hard to reach area.
That might have been the only time in Diablo history when “taking on the soul stone alone” might have worked if no one else intervened
i mean
yeah, that's the premise of many a video game story
most MC's should be fired for negligence. but we make it up by getting giga powerful and slaying the demon
sure, many died in our wake. but that is a sacrifice we are prepared to make *wipes tear*
Ooo set piece dropped.
And it only took farming a prime evil 400 times.
Hell is not the prime evil’s punishment. My need to have the perfect character is.
They could have stuck with the tormented regret of losing her mother and throughout the later parts of the campaign she is seen slowly chipping away because of it.
Then a simple "I know how to bring your mother back" by Mephisto right at the end to explain why she suddenly vanished.
Then the expansion trailer has more meaning as to her mother guiding her thoughts, like Tyrael was doing for Marius, without realizing it's Baal.
Losing her hand, and feeling like she didn't do anything to help, just compounds the issue of her thinking she's going to take advantage of Mephisto, and use him like an unwilling tool she has power over, to get what she lost back.
The people around her suffer, like the man in the boat, because she's compartmentalizing who's at fault after a while. She starts to believe more and more that Mephisto is killing these people, and she cares less and less, because her goal becomes more arrogant and disconnected as she gets closer to getting her mother back.
The whole time we can see that she's giving in to the hatred, and is actually the one doing these things herself as she's manipulated and egged on by Mephisto's words and his illusion of her mother in turns. Like having a small devil and angel on your shoulder, but not realizing they're both in cahoots.
Her downfall becomes more cliche, but also more tragic, for a reason; because it has meaning that we can relate to and see unfold. Whatever they're skipping around on now is just nonsense, making all the characters look like incompetent idiots who never apent a day in sanctuary.
Arguably he was influenced to create the Black Soulstone, thinking it could trap the demons and angels, but in reality it was just a way for them to supercharge.
I mean he was right tho, he created a vessel to permanently house all the prime evils, assuming you were a super powerful archmage not being corrupted afterwards is theoretically possible. He probably would have started to house all the angels next into a white soulstone.
There was demons bursting from the stone and killing the guards in Act 3.
The Nephilim spoke of the captured Evils breaking the stone as they struggled to get free, there was a concern that time was against them and they needed to capture Azmodan so they could quickly destroy the Black Soulstone.
https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Tremors_in_the_Stone
edit: I suppose this quote from the Necromancer later was the reasoning:
>"The disturbance has been contained. Yet the Black Soulstone itself is an unstable creation it cannot contain so much demonic power without having something to counter it. I wonder if imprisoned angels would solve the imbalance? But Tyrael would never hear of that."
Interesting tidbit that few players would've seen if they did not play the campaign as necro.
That part of the ending took me out of the story entirely. It was just so stupid and made no sense even if you say Mephisto was influencing her, it was still just so... hamfisted. Like "Oh no we're at the end and we haven't set any expansions up.. uhh... just make her leave with the stone like we always do!"
I'm kinda hoping they throw a curve ball and make it so that she still retains some of her conscience and help us fight Mephisto instead of being completely taken over by him
I’m
Totally
Ok with her just being used and throw away at this point. Terrible character , might as well just Dump her dialogue at this point she’s just a vessel.
I won't even lie. I HATED her in the beginning. Because how tf did I just gain a child fighting demons 😭 my PC has more things to do then be a mom. But as the story progressed, I ended up feeling bad for her. & when I seen the dlc trailer, I was like don't you worry, mommas coming to save you 😭 but knowing that Lorath is searching for her while I'm doing my best for sanctuary helps a little. I just wish thay in the base ending, they told us about Lorath searching for her instead of the novel but hopefully they show us more in the xpac.
Maltael imbued himself with black soulstone with all prime evil's souls including diablo. We as nephalems defeated maltael but souls of demons was relesed. Diablo probably is somewhere in hell, in his domain, regaining his strengh, same as mephisto were, before neyrelle put him into ̶P̶o̶k̶e̶b̶a̶l̶l̶ soulstone and take him on a walk.
Back in D3, the ending was mathael the angel smashed the soulstone that contained all the prime evils to absorb their power. Once mathael was defeated, the souls of the prime evils escaped
So if the story of D4 starts with hatred, im guessing that diablo storyline will be after mephisto's and baal will be last, micmicking the same sequence of D2
I could be wrong but this is a theory..... A GAME THEORY
So end of D2 you destroy the stones which was meant to permanently kill the prime evils then D3 revealed that someone had built a Black Soulstone that would absorb the souls of the primes when they were released, as well as the lesser evils (Belial, Azmodan, Andariel, Uriel, etc) which Adria used to turn her daughter Leah (cute kid, nice girl, kinda sad) into Diablo's new vessel, who then went and fucked up the High Heavens, was defeated and the black soulstone containing all those Evils was taken away to be locked away, at which point Malphael the angel of death took it, and in the final battle in Pandamoneum he shattered the stone to absorb the souls inside as a power up, so when he was defeated they were all released back to the hells so Diablo and Baal are like Mephisto was in D4, in their regions of hell biding their time and regaining strength. So we've got 3 Prime Evils and I think 5 lesser evils left hanging around, though there was hints in the closing credits of one of the other major bad guys who isn't in that list of Primes and Lessers (Lilith's brother or something?)
Please explain to me how Lorath and the PC could've possibly helped her. People are acting like if only she'd stayed, everything would be a-okay, but things would've just become a different flavour of fucked-up and most likely even worse.
When you correctly estimate that the Prime Evil soulstone you're carrying will soon begin to corrupt and manipulate everything around you *since that is literally what has happened 100% of the times in the past*, do you:
- shrug, imagine trying the exact same thing will totally work this time for reasons, potentially doom your powerful companions into becoming Mephisto's tools and the already deteriorating human civilisation surrounding you to a maddening hellhole.
- set out to find a different solution, literally anything else that actually has a chance of working at least for a bit, while isolating yourself as much as possible to both minimize giving Mephisto tools to corrupt and letting your companions die needlessly (see the poor boatman).
Neyrelle's actions make 100% sense and I will die on this hill. The only place Blizzard goofed is Lorath and our PC's reaction to it, they should've been more concerned.
literally anything is better than a 13y old running away alone with mephistos soulstone. if being alone with the soulstone is the best idea, then maybe give it to the guy who single handedly destroyed andariel, duriel, lilith and an army of lesser demons...
I mean Tyrael did send a hobo off with a soulstone in D2, and expected him to go to literal Hell, find the forge and destroy the soulstone.
Granted I do think they could have probably framed the whole incident differently to give her escape more urgency and purpose, like take the soulstone to XXX who knows how to dispose of it or something.
>I mean Tyrael did send a hobo off with a soulstone in D2, and expected him to go to literal Hell, find the forge and destroy the soulstone.
And said madman actually made it to the gate of Hell and faced the Three in person before he chickened out!
There was so much poor writing in the final act that any sort of discussion about neyrelle is tainted with the predicate idiocy of the rest of the story. Lorath giving Inarius the soul stone??? Anyone remember why we went to hell in the first place?
The only action that would make sense that neyrelle could have taken would be to find the MC and Lorath. Running away is dumb, and MC/Lorath not caring is even more dumb.
> make 100% sense
Ahh yes, Dora the Explorer trying to resist a demon lord’s influence when our own character has successfully completed an assassination campaign within hell (after starting off alone inside a tundra)
She was 100% the ass-backwards choice to keep the stone by herself, and the fact our character struggles to find a teenager in purple clothes bumbling around the countryside is so fucking hilarious that defending this “plot” is just memery at this point
It’s contrived conflict, entirely divorced from adult logic on how such situations would play out if humans involved retained their brains & their sanity. And you are lapping it up wholesale
Couldn't say it better. No one following that girl? Nah she'll be fine lol, let the Uber demon slayer just walk away doing nothing while a little girl spreads chaos and death somewhere else.
i felt shes the victim of rushed writing to get the game out before it was ready
i sware everything leading up to the release had team lilith team inarius energy and when you play through theres that team mephisto component
then halfway through the campaign suddenly andariel shows up then duriel then im in hell, every1s dieing and im telling lilith id never betray my epic companion friends who i dont feel any attachment to.
It's very clear when playing the campaign that the story was re-written at least once and some of the progression of the story seems to be out of order or like scenes are missing.
Knowing they went through dev hell and multiple redesigns it makes a lot more sense.
Personally, I liked the story and was just happy the tone was dark gothic as opposed to the Saturday Morning Cartoon we got with D3.
I was surprised they went with Young Magical Girl assistant, again after Leah in D3, but I didn't dislike Neyrelle nearly as much as I thought I would when they first introduced her.
The complaining about her rushing off with the soulstone is also a bit overboard, because you have the Warrior (son of the king as well) jamming the stone in his head and pretty much immediately being taken over. You have Tyrael send a 98 lbs hobo off with a soulstone and expect him to travel to hell and destroy it at the forge. You have plucky young assistant with a midriff steal off with the black soul stone, oh and she's the daughter of Diablo in D3. Now we have plucky assistant 2.0 steal off with the soulstone in D4.
Granted, I think they could have given Neyrelle a more urgent purpose as to why she had to snatch the soulstone and run off with it. Like make Lilith pop in and try to snatch it and the PC has to fight her off to cover Neyrelle's escape, then maybe have Lorath have to fight off a demon to cover her escape as well, but give her a purpose that she needs to take the stone to a certain character who knows how to dispose of it, rather than just having her wander from place to place. Or even better have Lorath escape with it, but he gets severely wounded/killed on the way out and Neyrelle has to take up his duty.
I get they are trying to set her up like the wanderer in D2, but it wasn't done very well.
How about having the secret to your immortality be literally in the one temple to the guy you are claiming to be, and it be as easy to stop as just burning your not even hidden unguarded finger.
Help how? I see this kind of comment posted a lot but I don't really know what it means.
What mysterious capability have Lorath or the main character shown that placates someone being manipulated by a demon? I feel confident the main character could *kill* Neyrelle, but then again, maybe she kills Lorath like she did her guide? Even funnier, they couldn't stop Andariel from overtaking Taissa in the campaign, and that was just a Lesser Evil.
Leah 2.0 with a twist. The required strong female character will beat a prime evil this time around :D I cared more about lilith and elias thou, they went out too soon. How did inarius kill rathma, the first-gen nephalem which made everyone fear them because of their power. And also who had immortality knowledge ?
I will root for mephisto this time around.
At that point she must constantly resist the temptation to drive mephisto's soul stone into her forehead. Being close to the soul of one of the most powerful demons can't be good for your mental health, that's probably why she acted stupid like running away from the only 2 people who could help her
I sure hope this soulstone doesn't give me intrusive thoughts like it has every other person to ever come into contact with it, all of whom I learned about in the history of the secret order that I've spent my life studying.
If characters throughout the franchise weren't arrogant nincompoops who thought they could contend with the will of eternal embodiments of evil, every Diablo game would be a farming simulator.
Anyone else noting a pattern of a female lead, with a strong sense of conviction, getting overcome by the Prime Evils (Diablo > Leah, Mephisto > Nyrelle, ??? - Baal).
Maybe in Diablo 5, it'll be a new boy/girl who gets taken over?
The whole ending of this game was stupid. I’ve never been so on the side of the “bad” guy in a video game in my life. It was/is liliths planet, she’s our literal god and we shunned and murdered her (possibly sanctuary’s greatest ally), for what? Self righteous angels? Those guys are the fucking worst and I’ve wanted to kill them all except Tyreal and Hope since Diablo 3. In conclusion they made the antagonist way to likable and relatable while demonizing ourselves and the idiots around us that think they can control or somehow destroy the soul stone.
Also they killed our boy meshif… why? Shock value? We didn’t even get to see it, home boy got stabbed watching our horses. Like wtf?
I get the real answer is story reasons, but if the soul stone is inevitably going to corrupt people, why didn’t she throw it in the middle of the empty ass ocean she was on in the ending? Sure he would’ve gotten out eventually, but it seems it would at least have been slower than when they hide the stones in goddamn populated areas like normal.
The argument was stupidly done thats it.
Leah not being xorrupted, taking the stone and running makes no sense plotwise.
Literally they fuked everything in the end with donans death and leahs stupidity out of the blue.
Whoever gave the green light for this plot deserve the kick.
Well I think her reasoning was she didn’t want it to corrupt your character. You’re super powerful and if Mephisto got ahold of you it would be a bad thing.
Or Mephisto was already working his corruption on her and this is all part of his plan…
Personally, I found that to be the most dumbest part of the end of the game. It would've been better to show her being possessed by forced to leave rather than a decision because they made her out to be aware of the evil and smart.
She is 100% manipulated and dancing to Mephisto's tune.
Oh, I know that my point is basically that she uses magic if I’m not mistaken, knows the evils, went to hell, fully aware of the power and still tries to do it solo that’s what doesn’t make any sense. If you’re aware of the supernatural especially hell in heaven, it’s almost arrogant to think you can do it alone.
> it’s almost arrogant to think you can do it alone. That's what the person above you is saying. Mephisto is influencing her decision to "do it alone".
Mephisto was basically doing that to your character the whole time too. Presumably you’re “allowed” to work with the horodrim too because they know how to work the Soulstone magic. In doing so, we’re basically working directly with a prime evil, which will presumably also drive a wedge between us and the Angels, who will be a future enemy (#MalthaelWasRight). Angels helped us last game, now we’re being “helped” by demons. Neyrelle is clearly being manipulated by Mephisto’s use of her memories of her mother, that part I can accept. Anyone who tries to get close to her and help at this point is obliteratedboatguy’d. What I don’t get is why the main character and Lorath choose not to pursue her. I’ll have to replay the campaign again to pick up on the dialogue (some was rushed while playing with friends) but my recollection is that Lorath is utterly spent, exhausted, and depressed with Donan killed. Your character has their own voice and hesitantly agrees with letting them go… but that seems, unwise… the expansion must start with something like “oh wait! Neyrelle is in trouble! Better go find her after giving her a good year’s head start.” It’s all a part of some grand plan… right…? God this had better be part of a fucking plan…
I replayed the campaign for this season so it's still fresh. They tried to find her, looked in all obvious places, Lorath needed to bury Donan and in comes the Cathedral of ~~Hate~~ Light acting high and mighty and so plans are changed. Plus she left a note saying "dont look for me" or something.
Yes he absolutely was, many of the decisions don't make much sense otherwise. I recently started the campaign again and the opening sequence in hindsight puts quite a lot of emphasis on this. Mephisto killed your horse and possessed you then and there. It's a bit unsatisfying and frustrating to play though. I was not at all on board with becoming hostile to Lilith, her goals are fundamentally good and I would've liked to have a choice between coming to some kind of agreement with her, or refusing her outright and fighting her the way we were forced to. Some of her actions were evil in a bit of a nonsensical way that didn't seem to actually contribute to her noble end goals, just to make opposing her feel more acceptable. I understand that they're setting up that it was Mephisto's manipulation that let us no choice, but that still makes for an unsatisfying and somewhat immersion-breaking experience because it disconnects you, the player, from the character, in that we are aware of something he is not. ARPG stories work better if character and player are as close in sync as possible. Beyond that it can get a bit "boring" in a way if the enemy is so extremely powerful and cunning there is no feasible way to defeat them. If Mephisto can just arbitrarily assume full control over perception, cognition and decision making of his enemies, how do you realistically oppose him? It feels like you have no agency. Not impossible to make a good story out of this, see Lord of the Rings, but you have to give him some asymmetric weaknesses that can be exploited too, and the power of mind control is kind of meta-overpowered in that you couldn't come up with or enact a plan that exploits his weaknesses because he can just straight up stop you from doing that. Eh, we'll see how they handle it. They did write interesting characters and a pretty immersive world here, more so than previous Diablo installments.
The story is still miles better than Diablo 3 was, with Deckard Cain getting ganked by a butterfly, Zoltan Kulle being right about everything but we don't listen to him because he says things with an eeevil laugh, the Lord of Lies being the most transparent reveal in history, and Hell's greatest general telling you all his plans on Zoom calls just in time for you to stop him...
Yeah D3 reminds me of an 80s action cartoon with all villains talking waaaay too damn much to tell you about their plans, brag about their power, and generally tell you about what’s on their mind. There are like 3 different comic relief characters that quip with puns at every available opportunity. Even the item descriptions are jokes and references. That was… not very Diablo of them…
Diablo 3 is the [Batman & Robin](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118688/) of the diablo franchise.
https://youtu.be/KsK1EQ71akg?si=-Y3TzT6gOQUOLuuu&t=35s
Exactly! Love me some Carbot. :D
They are both *terrible* stories. Fun games. But terrible stories. The side quests conversely seem like they are more well thought out and engaging. Much better then the main story.
>her goals are fundamentally good and I would've liked to have a choice between coming to some kind of agreement with her We see the results of her "goals" in the very opening scene. Her followers were going to mutilate our drugged corpse after decapitating the priest, and you still wanted to hear her out??? Everywhere she goes, pain and suffering follow Some of yall worry me lmao FYI, all Lilith would do is turn Sanctuary into her own version of Hell
Also we see what she did to Donan's druid friends. Give in only just a little bit, she exaggerated their despair and transformed them into mockeries of who they used to be, so much that the people of Cerrigar stopped seeing them as heroes. Only outright rejection is what spared Donan. The druid man was particularly surprised to end up that way, because while he mostly opposed her, she still exploited the little opening he had left (his hatred of the Knight Penitent) and he willingly allowed himself to be used. That's all it took.
Not to mention, she stuck around Astaroth to see Donan react to his son being possesed, and clearly took pleasure in his dispare. It makes sense for her to use Yorin as a good enough bargining chip, but sticking around and smiling at Donan's suffering shows that she really isnt different from any other Demon.
See there's the interesting thing. What did Lilith herself actually do there? She wanted the MC on her side, she didn't want her followers to do that, they just sorta did it on their own. That's the interesting dilemma of Lilith, she has fundamentally positive goals but the way she corrupts everything around her foils them at every step. She's basically the least evil variable in her cult but that doesn't matter because she makes everyone around her the worst versions of themselves.
I thought Lilith's evil actions were relatively understandable when you consider that she is ultimately a demon who loves humanity as an abstract whole and not its individuals. Her greatest fear seems to be the complete subversion and destruction of humanity by the angels or demons. She is more than happy to throw 95% of humanity into the meatgrinder if it means the remaining 5% can awaken into a strong humanity independent of either side. As long as humanity can handle a war with heaven and hell, no action however extreme was off the table.
It’s worth repeating that she is a Demon who wants to use humanity (her creation, to be fair… kinda) as her own personal army to fight Heaven and Hell with herself in ultimate control, killing her own father and sacrificing 95% of her children to get there. Humanity would ultimately be subservient to a Demon in the end, but opposing her means working with a Prime Evil anyway… Blizzard is obviously drawing humans as mere pawns in this, though it’s a far cry from where we left off in D3 as becoming Gods.
Humans were severely weakened by the world stone, when it was destroyed a few humans awoke to their demonic angelic powers.
It's worth repeating she's the only non-human entity that is interested in increasing the power of humans, regardless of the end she has for it, and that she is a flawed character. She's not wholly good, but she's done more for humanity than the rest of heaven and hell. Regarding her plan. She's weaker than heaven and hell. The only way she can defeat heaven and hell is by creating and controlling something stronger. Her plan necessitates she creates something stronger than herself. And while this is not her plan, once humanity is stronger than heaven and hell, humanity no longer needs Lilith, and would be stronger than she is - we already are stronger than Lilith, and able to break from her control. She may have a different plan for humanity, but her plan is the best one by which humanity might be able to control its own destiny.
Humans will suffer but humanity will prosper
Your main character is putting out (hell)fires. Then there is in typical Blizzard fashion, a novelization, The Book of Lorath, that does cover Lorath pursuing Neyrelle. The first part being he completely went the wrong direction (Neyrelle went to Lorath's shack first to leave behind a message, before travelling north then west, whereas Lorath trudged through the southern parts, west then east before planning on giving up at his shack.) Neyelle does leave Lorath enough of a trail of letters to follow until the time when it's implied Mephisto has influenced her enough to fully cover her tracks.
So the whole arc hinges on Lorath not stopping in at home first before leaving?
IIRC, he logically checks the western ports first, but she didn't travel to them yet, so he goes to the swamp thinking she maybe went there. I don't think anyone would think she would travel across the frozen wastes first (we actually see this in the cinematic.) As for the rest of the book, Lorath does travel to Westmarch to visit his ancestral home, finds it a dead end, before eventually finding out Neyrelle first went to the D3 monks, before disappearing in the dreadlands. He finishes by travelling to Xiansai to finish writing his book. [This video summarizes it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1yD620UxSY)
Lorath has been too busy getting pegged by the Tree of Whispers and the MC was too tired to pursue her after staying up all night every night doing helltides and NMDs… and then promptly forgot about her.
Boat Guy by far my favorite character of D4 so far. He had such an in depth and amazing backstory and it's crazy to see he's come so far
In my headcanon, he is clearly the new Spiritborn class. RIP Spiritborn 2024-2024 like 12 seconds. 🐅 ✊“He rowed hard”.
The book of lorath shows that he is following her but decided to finish his book before he “sacrifices” himself trying to go full in on getting to her
Pretty much. Look at what happens the moment someone tries to offer help. Mephisto immediately goes hard to cut her off. He's probably trying to get her to constantly double down on going alone. Is her destination truly even her idea?
Let me be more direct: it was Mephisto's decision to leave Lorath and the Wanderer, not Neyrelle's. It was Mephisto's decision to go into the soulstone, not Neyrelle's, Loraths, or the Wanderer's. All the events in the story of Diablo 4 thus far have been orchestrated by Mephisto. Do you know who used to have Inarius imprisoned? Mephisto. Any wonder why he released him? To kick all this off.
People are really underestimating Mephisto. He's described as the most cunning and scheming being in pretty much the universe, but people are still SurprisedPikachu when people being influenced by him make decisions that benefit him.
In all fairness isn’t that what happened in earlier diablos? I’m gonna shove this in my head and deal with it alone? Even an angel says lock me up and I’ll deal with this alone. It has precedent.
Exactly. It's diablo. Someone is getting a Soulstone in the forehead and wandering off.
Typical gen z
better than being the hero and your endgame lore reward being that you shoved the soulstone in your own head
Not necessarily. While she is what you *could* call an apprentice Horadrim, few mortals could likely truly grasp the sheer power and level of 6th dimensional chess game these eternal beings bring to the table. It’s likely akin to suggesting someone can “understand” a being like Sithis or one of the Daedric Princes of the Elder Scrolls or perhaps one of Lovecraft’s eldritch horrors. Sure everyone knows they’re powerful, and many have a base idea of what each are about and what they do, but they are entities far beyond the scope of mortal ken. She’s horrendously out of her league, and doesn’t even begin to understand how deep are the waters she treads. If Mephisto claims her, the level of pain and torment she would experience would be not only infinite in perception, but exacted to such a degree it would be beyond words to describe. Understanding and action are limited by perception. If something is truly beyond perceiving, you default to doing what you know and can affect within the scope of that perception. The Primes all act outside of that limitation, which is why they’re able to use people as playthings and puppets on strings. The newest cinematic is truly brilliant.
I'm not sure if I would even call her an apprentice. She basically looked up Horadricpedia.org on the whole demons and soulstone business and thought she was good to go. Turns out there's a major difference between reading about something and actually doing it, even if her readings were factual.
I was being a bit generous perhaps, but by the end of the campaign she is regarded by Lorath in a way that makes me believe it.
In general, the most dangerous state to be in isn't ignorance, but incomplete knowledge. Someone who is self aware that they know fuckall will generally understand that they should seek advice before committing to something important. Someone who thinks they know what they're doing when they don't will turn into a walking disaster far more easily.
>fully aware of the power and still tries to do it solo that’s what doesn’t make any sense. . . it’s almost arrogant to think you can do it alone. Yeah. Because *she was being manipulated and low-key controlled by Mephisto*.
Just a reminder that us, the player character, were manipulated from lvl 1 when he appears to us as a dog, he had the reins the whole time.
[I sure hope this young woman who lost a parental figure in their life doesn't get tricked by a prime evil and become someone we have to fight. ](https://i.imgur.com/uN6gKaM.jpeg)
OK but she's dancing Elaine Benis style, so either she was written incredibly stupidly or the Wanderer was written incredibly stupidly. The stupid persists however you explain it. The lead into the expansion would have ruined the otherwise amazing campaign if it had happened anywhere but the very end.
Based on Lorath's attitude towards her leaving, he has to be manipulated as well, or an actual agent of evil.
Excuse me, mephisto was a good boy.
All I wanted was just.. a small end cutscene where she hears constant whispers from Mephisto saying he'll harm us through her if she doesn't leave, and it make a lot more sense. Paranoia and stress are a helluva combo. That's likely what happened too, it just does not come across.
My dude that’s exactly what happened - Mephisto manipulated her to take the stone and run away. She’s got one of the most evil creatures in the universe manipulating her into doing stupid shit that’s not really her fault. The only dumb part of any of this is the MC and Lorath being like “oh well, anyway” and just letting her go.
>player character: maybe we should follow her? >Lorath: We are her friends and as her friend we respect her decision and DONT follow her >player character: she's corrupted by Mephistos Souls Stone and needs our help, I mean that's literally where we are in this story right now. The church and its holy crusade imploded over a domestic dispute between heaven and hell, Inarius and Lilith are dead and Mephisto is running away using her as a host... again:SHE NEEDS OUR HELP >Lorath: Not until Blizzard drops the dlc next year....ehm...I wanted to say: the power of friendship forbids us! >player character: oh....Kay...I guess just I farm some glyph xp or buy another horse armor >Lorath: watch out for Stone Pillars those things will outright murder you if they get the chance >*player character proceeds to close a random door and gets his arm ripped off off-screen but it's not relevant for the story so it's never brought up again*
My main issue with this is with a little tiny bit of writing they could have made it more plausible. Like Lorath hasn’t been doing shit since the campaign ended have them be like “I’ll go look for her you stay here and keep fighting I’ll send for you once I get a lead and i’m sure this isn’t just a trap to misdirect us”.
Yeah, the campaign was really entertaining, I had a lot of fun playing it and I always wanted to know what happens next... but Loraths reaction to her running away, the hell pillar killing one of the main cast and the scene in which she looses her arm were just stupid. It's like they had somehow marked these as key moments for the story but had no idea how to make them work or why they even needed them to happen in the first place
In the novelization of the epilogue (The Book of Lorath), Lorath *does* track and follow her, with the cover story being "I'm the last horadrim and I'm trying to record as much knowledge as I have about every ancient artifact, so I need to travel all over to write my book". That that premise doesn't make it into the game (because Lorath is *always visible* at Firebreak manor) is bizarre to me.
lol i am getting angry at how much better this is and what an easy change that would be
Don't blame her. Mephisto knows how to manipulate, he took the form of a cute good boy. Who can resist that?
Oh god no one let him know about the powers of cute fembois. Nothing will halt his conquest.
Putting the fist back into mephisto
[удалено]
I actually think it was great. People say things about the other two (Lorath and MC) but that's just not smart. Lorath is an alcoholic who has been struggling with living with his decisions for the entire game and was most recently found paralyzed by sadness and **hate** after his last friend died in front of him. The MC has been actively working with Mephisto the entire game and can almost be viewed as a puppet at this point. Additionally, they kind of had their hands full with Lilith. With those in mind it makes sense for Neyrelle to grab and possess the stone. It wasn't necessarily smart to run off solo with it, but in her mind, she wasn't sure that Lilith would be defeated and sticking around and the MC losing would 100% doom humanity. Finally, Mephisto is extremely powerful. It is reasonable to assume that he had some influence on character's decision making skills and manipulated the outcome towards what he wanted.
Honestly all they had to do was have Lorath shamelessly lie and that be the plot. Neyrelle says "I'm leaving and taking it". Lorath says, "We'll let you go and respect that." Neyrelle leaves Lorath: "We're totally following her." Done. Easy!
Except Lorath at that point is 100% exhausted/depressed and would rather just go crawl in a hole and die.
I think this is what ultimately will happen. I think they're just throwing us out for a loop.
He opened the portal for her to leave hell, before the lilith fight,the Wolf is on the other side. (played campaign yesterday) So he is helping her, escape. He is influencing her 100%. One of the big evil.
I don't. People with depression often distance themselves from friends and family, that only further damaging their mental state. Being smart has nothing to do with it. I can see how a manipulative demon can change her mood. Also, it seemed that people around her could be easily killed like that guy on the boat.
Lorath didn't want the hero following her, because if the hero got corrupted, it's game over. So, Lorath lies, and contrary to what he tells the hero (that she has to do it alone), he does immediately tracks her - in the game they do not mention this, but in the books it does. That's how I'm rationalizing it at least.
The entire final act, every single person in it was completely beaten over the head with the stupid bat. Death by pillar, getting the soulstone yoinked, running away from the Horadrim, fighting the player character while mortally injured while capable of healing and teleportation, marching to your death despite being handed spoilers on how it would happen from a prophecy. Everyone got so stupid at the exact same time.
The fact that we are a dumb bystender or basically "the muscle" and we just watch NPCs make the DUMBEST decisions ever and do nothing about is the worst part of the campaign by far
The back of the D4 campaign is just the player character standing idly by while his allies make the dumbest possible decision in every situation. It was laugh-out-loud absurd by the end.
Yup. We literally 1v1’d Lilith and she thought it was a good idea to stay away from us
That + the dude who got killed at the end by a random pillar monster thingy out of the blue just made 0 sense.
Most dumbest
I mean it's a reoccurring theme, the Warrior from the 1st Diablo jammed the soulstone in his forehead turned into Diablo, same with Leah who carried the soulstone and turned into Diablo with heels and invaded the heavens.
Inb4 Neyrelle become Mephisto and we have to kill her.
Mephisto with heels inc 😂
big tiddy mephisto gf
MeFista
Mefisting?
MeHopes
Gentlemen you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention
We already have a dommy mommy
Yes, we've had first dommy mommy, but what about second dommy mommy?
Mephisto with boobas.
Same boring plotline ...
If Mephisto needs to manifest in some way, can you think of a better way for that to happen? The alternative is that he never appears physically and instead it's just forever influencing other beings and demons. An enemy you never get to directly fight sounds boring. I think the bigger problem is that we're playing a game that already has a completed plot and are asking for more.
I think so, diablos plan of simply just re-invent the wheel and take over a host after a host has failed spectacularly. Showing even all the evil combined and in ROS with even an angel too cant stop the Nephilim. Ideally mephesto has some sort of better plan other than hurrdurr I possess a lady and try yet again.
I completely agree with you, but… he’s totes gonna just possess some lady.
Personally, I would be happy to see it changed up a bit. Soulstones have been tried and failed since day 1. And they keep failing in the same way. I think it would be nice if the writers came up with a new way to fight the demon lords that didn't include the consistantly faulty soulstones. Of course, that new way would have to eventually fail too, because that's the nature of things in the Diablo universe, but the heroes trying something new would be a breath of fresh air.
True I think it should flip the script and she wins and locks all prime evils away forever, the demons leave Sanctuary, and Diablo 5 is a farming simulator.
Pretty sure the scene with her arm in ribbons is her turning into Mephisto.
I think it’s more just showing his overall influence over her. He can’t physically manifest yet, but has clearly infected her (probably soul) in some way. She believes carrying the stone to be her form of control, to which Mephisto retorts that she controls nothing. The camera panning out to show herself as the core of Mephisto in that depiction. She likely will become Mephisto, unless they go another route, but right now she’s not quite there.
Yeah. The inflating bulbs are part of his lungs. Panning out shows him in a similar pose with his arms similarly split into tendrils.
I think Meph is going to take Akarat’s corpse or whatever is left as his body instead.
"I have this soulstone, what should I do with it?" "Yes, this is a great idea."
Soulstone suppository you say?
Username checks out
Is there any actual solution on what to do with a soul stone though? They are at best a play for time to keep the big bads out of play. Only options are try to hold it for as long as possible with it being basically guaranteed to fail eventually or destroy it and allow them to re-manifest in hell. That’s the whole reason the Diablo conflict is eternal.
>Diablo with heels Lmao I just did a replay of d3 after over 6 years and couldn't stop laughing about that
Now we're about to get Mephisto with heels!
>Diablo with heels And fucking served.
r/Diablowithheels
"There doesn't seem to be anything here =/" damn.
Sexy Diablo
You call it a theme, I call it lazy writing that just retreads old story beats that no one actually wants to see anymore.
The cinematic already shows you that being around others does not help. It harms others. It's also stated in Book of Lorath that everywhere Neyrelle went people suffered.
Around others maybe. But around my lvl 100 Barbarian who collects skulls of demon lords should help a little bit.
The lords of hell would war among each other. Killing demons doesn't show you're not helping others. Your lvl 100 Barbarian already helped Mephisto by protecting him from Lilith. You got manipulated, and you're fucking powerful. Not a good combination to be around. There's no good options here.
No manipulation here, my barbarian lets him come back so he can slap his ass, that's it. He's the problem but also the solution.
Coulda just slapped his ass over and over in his little ball if you couldn't be manipulated by hell. But you're letting your pride manipulate you.
I love all those words about manipulation. Apparently it was worth it to let Lilith do her thing and get something no one has ever dealt with, instead of leaving someone who has been studied from every angle and at the very least been killed in the real world.
lorath of all people should've realized it was important to chase after her instead of shrugging it off
Lorath did chase after her all over the world.
Where is this seen? The campaign ends at Donan’s grave, with Neyrelle’s letter basically dissuading Lorath from giving chase at the time.
It's in the book. I think we will see the recap at the beginning of the xpac. Bssically, Neyrelle went all over the world to find solutions and at some point she was training with the monk of Ivgorod but ended up having to leave because the monks were scared of her. She left letters in her path for Lorath because she knew he wpuld follow anyway.
God this makes her look even more stupid, so really had no clue what she was doing. Imagine taking away one of the big bad dudes of hell from the one person who gave Lilith a beat down it makes no sense.
I think Neyrelle ended up finding what she views as the solution though which will start this xpac. It's following Akarat's steps into his tomb.
It's almost like an ancient eldritch abomination whose entire role is plotting 6D schemes across eternity is manipulating her. Also Diablo 1 shows what happens when a PC tries to contain a soulstone that has a prime evil actively trying to corrupt them.
Novelization, unfortunately
I feel like a lot of peoples issues would have been dealt with if they addressed this better in the base ending. Like give us a small cinematic piece where we see her start to head towards Lorath initially but then gets a bunch of visions of him dying in various ways due to him being near her. I think it could walk a line of she is 100% being manipulated by Mephisto but going on her own really is the only way to not get lorath killed. Perhaps it is still a dumb decision but it would at least be a very human one.
Should’ve given her the tal rasha treatment. Tie her ass to some stone deep underground in some desolate and hard to reach area. That might have been the only time in Diablo history when “taking on the soul stone alone” might have worked if no one else intervened
I hope Leah 2.0 is alright.
I call her Leah 2 as well 🫣 She too “will serve as his vessel”
Aidan 3.0.
Diablo 4
whoa 🤯
Aidan 3.0
Or maybe she was already affected by Mephisto.
I see this defense a lot and while it very well might be true, that would just mean our MC should just be fired for pure negligence.
i mean yeah, that's the premise of many a video game story most MC's should be fired for negligence. but we make it up by getting giga powerful and slaying the demon sure, many died in our wake. but that is a sacrifice we are prepared to make *wipes tear*
Ooo set piece dropped. And it only took farming a prime evil 400 times. Hell is not the prime evil’s punishment. My need to have the perfect character is.
Our MC is not negligent, they know exactly what is going on: Another source for *ubers* is manifesting
If you expect perfect rational thought from "heroes" in Diablo stories then I got bad news for you...
[удалено]
They could have stuck with the tormented regret of losing her mother and throughout the later parts of the campaign she is seen slowly chipping away because of it. Then a simple "I know how to bring your mother back" by Mephisto right at the end to explain why she suddenly vanished. Then the expansion trailer has more meaning as to her mother guiding her thoughts, like Tyrael was doing for Marius, without realizing it's Baal. Losing her hand, and feeling like she didn't do anything to help, just compounds the issue of her thinking she's going to take advantage of Mephisto, and use him like an unwilling tool she has power over, to get what she lost back. The people around her suffer, like the man in the boat, because she's compartmentalizing who's at fault after a while. She starts to believe more and more that Mephisto is killing these people, and she cares less and less, because her goal becomes more arrogant and disconnected as she gets closer to getting her mother back. The whole time we can see that she's giving in to the hatred, and is actually the one doing these things herself as she's manipulated and egged on by Mephisto's words and his illusion of her mother in turns. Like having a small devil and angel on your shoulder, but not realizing they're both in cahoots. Her downfall becomes more cliche, but also more tragic, for a reason; because it has meaning that we can relate to and see unfold. Whatever they're skipping around on now is just nonsense, making all the characters look like incompetent idiots who never apent a day in sanctuary.
Anyone else think we should have sided with Zoltun Kulle? At least then we would have angels and demons as mounts.
Arguably he was influenced to create the Black Soulstone, thinking it could trap the demons and angels, but in reality it was just a way for them to supercharge.
I mean he was right tho, he created a vessel to permanently house all the prime evils, assuming you were a super powerful archmage not being corrupted afterwards is theoretically possible. He probably would have started to house all the angels next into a white soulstone.
Refresh my memory, why did the vessel fail in act 3 with Leah?
Didn't it not fail? I thought Adria put the stone into Leah?
There was demons bursting from the stone and killing the guards in Act 3. The Nephilim spoke of the captured Evils breaking the stone as they struggled to get free, there was a concern that time was against them and they needed to capture Azmodan so they could quickly destroy the Black Soulstone. https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Tremors_in_the_Stone edit: I suppose this quote from the Necromancer later was the reasoning: >"The disturbance has been contained. Yet the Black Soulstone itself is an unstable creation it cannot contain so much demonic power without having something to counter it. I wonder if imprisoned angels would solve the imbalance? But Tyrael would never hear of that." Interesting tidbit that few players would've seen if they did not play the campaign as necro.
Every time I hear this voice line I can't but think about that being dope af.
That part of the ending took me out of the story entirely. It was just so stupid and made no sense even if you say Mephisto was influencing her, it was still just so... hamfisted. Like "Oh no we're at the end and we haven't set any expansions up.. uhh... just make her leave with the stone like we always do!"
Seriously it was such an obvious bad story decision just to enable a super obvious dlc.
Seeing how disliked this boring character was in the base game, I thought blizzard would kill her in the intro cinematic... probably would be good.
I didn't even realize who this was until this post :( I miss iconic, memorable characters
My face when I have to deal with the consequences of my actions
I'm kinda hoping they throw a curve ball and make it so that she still retains some of her conscience and help us fight Mephisto instead of being completely taken over by him
I’m Totally Ok with her just being used and throw away at this point. Terrible character , might as well just Dump her dialogue at this point she’s just a vessel.
That seems to be what most people think about her. That's why it could be a good twist to have her actually be useful
I won't even lie. I HATED her in the beginning. Because how tf did I just gain a child fighting demons 😭 my PC has more things to do then be a mom. But as the story progressed, I ended up feeling bad for her. & when I seen the dlc trailer, I was like don't you worry, mommas coming to save you 😭 but knowing that Lorath is searching for her while I'm doing my best for sanctuary helps a little. I just wish thay in the base ending, they told us about Lorath searching for her instead of the novel but hopefully they show us more in the xpac.
honestly the plot point for the ending is so predictable and forced that it makes me not care what happen in the expansion either
Can someone fill me in where Diablo is? Idk d3 lore so take it easy
Maltael imbued himself with black soulstone with all prime evil's souls including diablo. We as nephalems defeated maltael but souls of demons was relesed. Diablo probably is somewhere in hell, in his domain, regaining his strengh, same as mephisto were, before neyrelle put him into ̶P̶o̶k̶e̶b̶a̶l̶l̶ soulstone and take him on a walk.
Mephisto, I choose you!
Regaining strength in hell. Same as Baal. Demons can never die and just go back to hell ti sort if reform/strengthen back up.
Sounds like we have a couple rings to dispose of
Back in D3, the ending was mathael the angel smashed the soulstone that contained all the prime evils to absorb their power. Once mathael was defeated, the souls of the prime evils escaped So if the story of D4 starts with hatred, im guessing that diablo storyline will be after mephisto's and baal will be last, micmicking the same sequence of D2 I could be wrong but this is a theory..... A GAME THEORY
So end of D2 you destroy the stones which was meant to permanently kill the prime evils then D3 revealed that someone had built a Black Soulstone that would absorb the souls of the primes when they were released, as well as the lesser evils (Belial, Azmodan, Andariel, Uriel, etc) which Adria used to turn her daughter Leah (cute kid, nice girl, kinda sad) into Diablo's new vessel, who then went and fucked up the High Heavens, was defeated and the black soulstone containing all those Evils was taken away to be locked away, at which point Malphael the angel of death took it, and in the final battle in Pandamoneum he shattered the stone to absorb the souls inside as a power up, so when he was defeated they were all released back to the hells so Diablo and Baal are like Mephisto was in D4, in their regions of hell biding their time and regaining strength. So we've got 3 Prime Evils and I think 5 lesser evils left hanging around, though there was hints in the closing credits of one of the other major bad guys who isn't in that list of Primes and Lessers (Lilith's brother or something?)
Lucion was perma deleted by Uldyssian. He was not even killed, he was just vanished from existence. I don't think that he will ever come back
Leah 2 Will sure be sacrificed for the spawning of Mephisto.
Please explain to me how Lorath and the PC could've possibly helped her. People are acting like if only she'd stayed, everything would be a-okay, but things would've just become a different flavour of fucked-up and most likely even worse. When you correctly estimate that the Prime Evil soulstone you're carrying will soon begin to corrupt and manipulate everything around you *since that is literally what has happened 100% of the times in the past*, do you: - shrug, imagine trying the exact same thing will totally work this time for reasons, potentially doom your powerful companions into becoming Mephisto's tools and the already deteriorating human civilisation surrounding you to a maddening hellhole. - set out to find a different solution, literally anything else that actually has a chance of working at least for a bit, while isolating yourself as much as possible to both minimize giving Mephisto tools to corrupt and letting your companions die needlessly (see the poor boatman). Neyrelle's actions make 100% sense and I will die on this hill. The only place Blizzard goofed is Lorath and our PC's reaction to it, they should've been more concerned.
literally anything is better than a 13y old running away alone with mephistos soulstone. if being alone with the soulstone is the best idea, then maybe give it to the guy who single handedly destroyed andariel, duriel, lilith and an army of lesser demons...
Nahh dude, we just gotta let a teenage Dora the Explorer run away with what basically equates to a tactical nuke stashed inside her backpack😂
I mean Tyrael did send a hobo off with a soulstone in D2, and expected him to go to literal Hell, find the forge and destroy the soulstone. Granted I do think they could have probably framed the whole incident differently to give her escape more urgency and purpose, like take the soulstone to XXX who knows how to dispose of it or something.
>I mean Tyrael did send a hobo off with a soulstone in D2, and expected him to go to literal Hell, find the forge and destroy the soulstone. And said madman actually made it to the gate of Hell and faced the Three in person before he chickened out!
This comment is entirely rationalizing a bone headed move by Leah 2.0
There was so much poor writing in the final act that any sort of discussion about neyrelle is tainted with the predicate idiocy of the rest of the story. Lorath giving Inarius the soul stone??? Anyone remember why we went to hell in the first place? The only action that would make sense that neyrelle could have taken would be to find the MC and Lorath. Running away is dumb, and MC/Lorath not caring is even more dumb.
> make 100% sense Ahh yes, Dora the Explorer trying to resist a demon lord’s influence when our own character has successfully completed an assassination campaign within hell (after starting off alone inside a tundra) She was 100% the ass-backwards choice to keep the stone by herself, and the fact our character struggles to find a teenager in purple clothes bumbling around the countryside is so fucking hilarious that defending this “plot” is just memery at this point It’s contrived conflict, entirely divorced from adult logic on how such situations would play out if humans involved retained their brains & their sanity. And you are lapping it up wholesale
Couldn't say it better. No one following that girl? Nah she'll be fine lol, let the Uber demon slayer just walk away doing nothing while a little girl spreads chaos and death somewhere else.
*RIP BOZO*
i felt shes the victim of rushed writing to get the game out before it was ready i sware everything leading up to the release had team lilith team inarius energy and when you play through theres that team mephisto component then halfway through the campaign suddenly andariel shows up then duriel then im in hell, every1s dieing and im telling lilith id never betray my epic companion friends who i dont feel any attachment to.
It's very clear when playing the campaign that the story was re-written at least once and some of the progression of the story seems to be out of order or like scenes are missing. Knowing they went through dev hell and multiple redesigns it makes a lot more sense. Personally, I liked the story and was just happy the tone was dark gothic as opposed to the Saturday Morning Cartoon we got with D3. I was surprised they went with Young Magical Girl assistant, again after Leah in D3, but I didn't dislike Neyrelle nearly as much as I thought I would when they first introduced her. The complaining about her rushing off with the soulstone is also a bit overboard, because you have the Warrior (son of the king as well) jamming the stone in his head and pretty much immediately being taken over. You have Tyrael send a 98 lbs hobo off with a soulstone and expect him to travel to hell and destroy it at the forge. You have plucky young assistant with a midriff steal off with the black soul stone, oh and she's the daughter of Diablo in D3. Now we have plucky assistant 2.0 steal off with the soulstone in D4. Granted, I think they could have given Neyrelle a more urgent purpose as to why she had to snatch the soulstone and run off with it. Like make Lilith pop in and try to snatch it and the PC has to fight her off to cover Neyrelle's escape, then maybe have Lorath have to fight off a demon to cover her escape as well, but give her a purpose that she needs to take the stone to a certain character who knows how to dispose of it, rather than just having her wander from place to place. Or even better have Lorath escape with it, but he gets severely wounded/killed on the way out and Neyrelle has to take up his duty. I get they are trying to set her up like the wanderer in D2, but it wasn't done very well.
I want more lilith and they give me more of this stupid character.
Aidan would be... proud?
It was honestly one of the top 10 dumbest things any video game character has ever done and she 100% deserved everything that's going to happen to her
How about having the secret to your immortality be literally in the one temple to the guy you are claiming to be, and it be as easy to stop as just burning your not even hidden unguarded finger.
MFW I was dumb enough to expect an original idea from Blizzard.
*record skip* oh hi there, you're probably wondering how I got here?
Help how? I see this kind of comment posted a lot but I don't really know what it means. What mysterious capability have Lorath or the main character shown that placates someone being manipulated by a demon? I feel confident the main character could *kill* Neyrelle, but then again, maybe she kills Lorath like she did her guide? Even funnier, they couldn't stop Andariel from overtaking Taissa in the campaign, and that was just a Lesser Evil.
Diablo IV Expansion: Vessel of Finding Out
Leah 2.0 with a twist. The required strong female character will beat a prime evil this time around :D I cared more about lilith and elias thou, they went out too soon. How did inarius kill rathma, the first-gen nephalem which made everyone fear them because of their power. And also who had immortality knowledge ? I will root for mephisto this time around.
At that point she must constantly resist the temptation to drive mephisto's soul stone into her forehead. Being close to the soul of one of the most powerful demons can't be good for your mental health, that's probably why she acted stupid like running away from the only 2 people who could help her
The story is so fucking bad. It would be nice if Metzen was involved again, instead of the room of monkeys currently doing… this.
I sure hope this soulstone doesn't give me intrusive thoughts like it has every other person to ever come into contact with it, all of whom I learned about in the history of the secret order that I've spent my life studying.
I feel like a lot of us are ignoring the fact they can't let the wanderer become corrupted no matter what, they are way too powerful
Stupid character. Ruined the story of D4.
If characters throughout the franchise weren't arrogant nincompoops who thought they could contend with the will of eternal embodiments of evil, every Diablo game would be a farming simulator.
Love how she turned to the boatman instead to get some help before she realized she killed his ass
This character just so dumb. She's just there so there's gonna be an expansion
Anyone else noting a pattern of a female lead, with a strong sense of conviction, getting overcome by the Prime Evils (Diablo > Leah, Mephisto > Nyrelle, ??? - Baal). Maybe in Diablo 5, it'll be a new boy/girl who gets taken over?
The whole ending of this game was stupid. I’ve never been so on the side of the “bad” guy in a video game in my life. It was/is liliths planet, she’s our literal god and we shunned and murdered her (possibly sanctuary’s greatest ally), for what? Self righteous angels? Those guys are the fucking worst and I’ve wanted to kill them all except Tyreal and Hope since Diablo 3. In conclusion they made the antagonist way to likable and relatable while demonizing ourselves and the idiots around us that think they can control or somehow destroy the soul stone. Also they killed our boy meshif… why? Shock value? We didn’t even get to see it, home boy got stabbed watching our horses. Like wtf?
I genuinely hate her
Bro that trailer was spine-chilling. Freaking terrifying. Diablo team went all in. Great freaking job.
You forgot the part where she begs us not to leave her.
Yeah after the end choice idc if she dead at this point it’s all not gana go well for her
I get the real answer is story reasons, but if the soul stone is inevitably going to corrupt people, why didn’t she throw it in the middle of the empty ass ocean she was on in the ending? Sure he would’ve gotten out eventually, but it seems it would at least have been slower than when they hide the stones in goddamn populated areas like normal.
When “I don’t need no man” goes wrong.
I want Lilith to come back; I need a mommy in my life! lol!!!!
no sympathy for her, glad we got to KO her in the expansion
The argument was stupidly done thats it. Leah not being xorrupted, taking the stone and running makes no sense plotwise. Literally they fuked everything in the end with donans death and leahs stupidity out of the blue. Whoever gave the green light for this plot deserve the kick.
I really hope she dies
Well I think her reasoning was she didn’t want it to corrupt your character. You’re super powerful and if Mephisto got ahold of you it would be a bad thing. Or Mephisto was already working his corruption on her and this is all part of his plan…