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Plague Knight
September 13, 2026 at 10:06 PM
Updated internal link states after new pages were added (2026-09-12)
The Plague Knight is the first all-new class announced for Diablo V, and the only one named so far. Blizzard describes it as "the embodiment of walking death", a class that roams the battlefield "spreading disease and pestilence, ultimately consuming it for power".
Pre-launch article. Diablo V was announced on 12 September 2026 and is scheduled for Spring 2029. As of 13 September 2026 the game has been public for one day, no playable build has been shown, and Blizzard describes it as "still early in development". No skill, resource, weapon or armour piece has been named for the Plague Knight, and class mechanics were explicitly deferred to 2027.
Senior Game Director Joe Shely introduced it at the panel and was careful to frame it as the first of more than one new class:
"We're also going to be bringing new classes to the game. The Plague Knight is the first new class that will be joining Diablo V. This is a heavily armored class, walking death. You're going to be roaming the battlefields spreading disease and then consuming it for power."
The phrase "the first new class" is the only hard statement about the size of the new-class group. It confirms at least one more exists, and it gives no number. See Classes for what was and was not said about the roster.
Senior Art Director John Mueller explained how the two halves of the name fit together:
"True to its name, the Plague Knight is a class that uses disease, plague, and contagion as its weapons. But because they are knights, there's also a noble aspect to their purpose... they find ways to absorb and channel that power to slay demons."
That answer matters for reading the class. The Plague Knight is not described as corrupted or as serving Diablo. It is framed as someone who takes the fallen world's own contagion and turns it back on the forces of Hell, which sits alongside the question the team says the game is built around: what must you become when the world has already fallen.
Two mechanical ideas have been stated, both in the same shape in every account:
Heavy armour. Shely called it "a heavily armored class". Nothing further about defences, mobility or survivability has been said.
Spread, then consume. The class spreads disease and pestilence across the battlefield and then consumes it for power. Both Blizzard's announcement post and Shely describe the loop in this order, and Mueller describes it as absorbing and channelling that power to kill demons.
Whether the consumed disease functions as a resource, a buff, a stacking mechanic or something else has not been stated, and no number, cooldown or resource bar has been shown.
Any named skill, passive, resource or specialisation.
What weapons the class uses. "Heavily armored" is the only equipment statement, and it says nothing about armament. See Itemization.
Whether the Plague Knight has a place in the story, or any connection to the Heir to Westmarch.
Concept art or in-game footage. None has been published separately from the panel presentation.
