Inherent BonusesEdit

These are the trickiest things about class-specific items. Every type of class-specific item has one or more types of inherent bonuses. All can have random +1-3 skill points, to up to three skills just like staves/wands/scepters have in Diablo II. There are some rules to this, Amazon bows can only have +skills from her bow tree, and her spears/javelins can only have +skills from that skill tree. You can also get up to Clvl 30 skills now, not just Clvl 24 which was the case (due to a bug) in Diablo II. In addition to these random +skills, most of the Class-specific weapons have other, juicier inherent bonuses.

By "inherent" we mean that these bonuses occur naturally on the items, and have no effect on the potential magical/Rare properties that the item might generate with as well. This is in contrast with class-specific Skill Level and Skill Tree prefixes, which are magical properties. These are all described in full detail on the individual item pages, but here is a quick overview:

Assassin Claws, Barbarian Helms, Druid Helms get the least bonuses. They have no inherent bonus other than the possibility of getting +1-3 to up to three random skills.

The Amazon has the widest variety of items, with two bows, one javelin, and two spears. The bows can have +1, +2 or +3 to her bow skill tree, and the spears/javelin get the same bonuses to the spear skill tree. She can also have +1-3 to up to three random skills. See her page for the full listing of odds and stats.

The Paladin has very nice bonuses on his shields, usually from 5-35% resist all. He can also get +AR and Damage on them, adding that bonus to his melee attack. He can also have +1-3 to up to three random skills. See any of the Paladin Class-Specific pages for all the details.

The Necromancer's Totems all come with +poison damage. This adds the poison only onto his physical attacks, either melee or ranged, and doesn't help with spells or with minions, so it's not of that much use later in the game. He can also have +1-3 to up to three random skills.

The Sorceress has the widest variety of bonuses, with 6 types of +hps and 7 types of +mana found on her Orbs. These are inherent, you could find a normal Orb without any sort of enhancements at all and it could have +55 mana or hps on it. Either is very useful for the Sorceress. It can also have +1-3 to up to three random skills. See her pages for a full list of the potential bonuses and the odds of getting each type of them.

Uniques and SetsEdit

There are only a few Unique Class-specific items. Some of these are very useful, for example Titan's Revenge (Amazon only Javelin). They are all Exceptional quality items, so they can be useful for mid-high level characters, and their Clvl requirements keep low chars from using them.

There are a few Class-specifics in the new Expansion Sets as well. Obviously those items in a set can only be used by one character class, though generally the rest of the items in the set are open to be used by anyone.

AppearanceEdit

Keep in mind that these items are just like normal/exceptional/elite items, where the same base item graphic is used for all quality levels, with different stats for each quality of it. So a Falcon Mask looks just like the Exceptional Sacred Feathers and the Elite Sky Spirit.

Most of the class-specific items show up in the artwork on your character as well. The Amazon's do not, they look basically like any other bow or spear or javelin of the same size. There are slight differences, but nothing really noticeable to others.

The Assassin's Claws show up on her of course, and as these are the designed weapons for her, most every Assassin you see in a game will have one type or another.

The Barbarian Helms do show up, and rather dramatically in some cases. His helms have various odd shapes, like an animal skull, a helm with huge horns poking straight up, and there are two with wings as well.

The Druid's helms have the most variety in appearance, and the most obvious changes. He can of course transform into a werewolf or werebear as well, and when transformed he looks like an animal, with no sign of any of his equipment, including any of the animal head helms.

The Necromancer Totems have very cool inventory artwork, but they aren't showing up in the game very well. The totems are just the size of bucklers on his arm, so any details are hard to see.

The Paladin's shields look basically like any other shield, and the Sorceress' Orbs look like she's got a wand, so neither of those characters get any fashion bonus points.