Dune Thresher

Dune Threshers are large subterranean creatures that "swim" under the surface of deserts, attacking victims. Dune Threshers are animal type monsters.

Diablo III Monster

Diablo III Monster [e]
Dune Thresher
Classification:	Animals
Monster Family:	Dune thresher
Role:	Stealth Attacker
Monster Stats Norm/Night/Hell/Inferno
Life:	Unknown
Mana:	None
Armor:	Unknown
Resistance:	Unknown
Offence Norm/Night/Hell/Inferno
Armament:	Fangs, Claws
DPS:	Unknown
Low Damage:	Unknown
High Damage:	Unknown
Range:	Melee
Speed:	Fast
Movement:	Fast
Monster Modifiers
None
Spells/Abilities
Sand Burrowing
Found In
Tardein wastes Outside Caldeum

Witch Doctor casting Plague of Toads on a Thresher.

Dune Threshers are mostly located north of Caldeum, which would imply that the game will take us to the surrounding desert areas. They are the croco-sharks of the sand and represent a great threat to anyone wandering the desert. Well, besides heroes like the average player in Diablo III. Above two primary front legs these beasts are equipped with a second pair of appendages in the form of gigantic talons which supplement its leap-and-bite attack. The beasts are very fast and most dangerous.

The animation shows the monster basically swimming under the sand, with the "shark fins" sticking up, implying that it probably travels quite fast when in sand.

As you can see here, a pretty nice hole is left after where the Dune Thresher jumps out. The splashes on him as both from the toads (the green) and his own blood (the red).

Spells and Abilities

• Sand Burrowing - The Dune Thresher is able to dig itself down into the sands of deserts and transport itself quite rapidly under the surface of the sand, and is also capable of making a spring attack from under the dunes up onto the surface.

Known Subtypes

• Dune Thresher

Related Monsters

• Scavenger (used for hunting Threshers)

Development Background

The Dune Thresher was the subject of a presentation during the Diablo 3 Heroes and Monsters panel at BlizzCon 2009. The following is not a direct transcript, but it summarizes the panel discussion.

The Dune Thresher

Work in Progress

AKA "Sand Shark"

This monster was largely inspired by the monsters in the movie Tremors. Those were crazy carnivorous giant worms that lived under the desert. They ate anyone they caught standing on the sandy surface, but were unable to reach anyone who stood on a rock outcropping.

We liked the idea of the sand being dangerous in D3, and tried to use this monster for that purpose in the sandy desert areas. He's been very tricky to get working properly, and that's got a lot to do with his behavior being too complicated to work smoothly with the speed of Diablo 3.

The idea is that the Sand Thresher would submerge, but only when he's on the sand. He can't burrow under other surfaces. Also, when he's submerged he's invulnerable. You can only attack him when he's above ground.

Our original idea was to let him attack while he was under the sand. This was going to be a nasty sneak attack, one that players could not fight back against. They'd have to run to a rocky section or a road where the Thresher couldn't attack, since we wanted players to have to play more tactically.

The idea was cool, but it didn't really work. The players were confused by this. They couldn't see the Thresher when he was underground, and didn't know what was happening. The Thresher has a dorsal fin, but it wasn't very visible in all of the screen chaos and battles going on. We had some cool diving animations to make the Thresher more visible, but even with those he wasn't obvious enough.

Even when players did see him, he didn't work, since players just ignored him. There was no reason to hang around and wait for the Thresher to come to the surface, when it was easier just to run to the next screen to find more non-hidden enemies to fight.

The fix we eventually used is what's in the game now. We're trying to play up the idea of the Thresher as a shark, like the original working name. He's a hunter, a stalker. Now he moves very fast while underground, and closes in quickly. He can no longer attack from underground, so he swims under the player and then emerges right next to them, ready for combat.

That's pretty fun, and he's a cool monster, and is very effective against ranged attackers, who don't like monsters they can't hit appearing out of the ground beside them. But the Thresher isn't at all what we wanted initially, which was a creature that interacted with the environment and forced players to do the same, and to play tactically. So we're still working on it, hoping to improve it eventually.

Game Lore

Concept art of a Dune Thresher.

The Dune Thresher is described in an entry from the journal of Abd al-Hazir:

These beasts travel silently under the dunes, and attack surprised land-based victims, dragging them down under the surface. Due to the fact that the Threshers attack from the sand, many believe that they are safe as long as they travel on solid rock. This is a dangerous misunderstanding, as it's quite common for the Thresher to attack quite far up on the rock and literary drag their victim with them down below the sand dunes, likely suffocating the victim, unless it's killed before that. The attack is made with a jump from the sandy depths up unto the rocks. Professional Thresher-hunter Franklin Burroughs says that an experienced hunter could possibly survive such an attack, but the average city-dweller would be "lunch".

When hunting, it will generally not chew it's pray, but rather let the effective juices of it's digestive system take care of it, essentially melting the pray alive.

The Dune Thresher uses the rhythmic sound of footsteps to determine what creature is a potential meal, and where they are. Experienced hunters will adapt by walking slightly more irregular as well as careful, regardless if it's on rock or on the dunes.

These Dune Threshers once lived in the more settled locales, but was driven away to the deep desert wastes of the Borderlands a long time ago. The average city dweller will rarely ever see a Thresher. Every so often, however, whether due to injury or old age, one of these unholy beasts ventures to the edge of civilization to feast on the frail human animal. When this happens a professional hunter is called in to put an end to the threat.

When hunting a Dune Thresher, direct combat is inadvisable. It's much easier, as well as safer, to rely on hunting Scavengers, subduing them and using them as baits. Other burrowing animals could potentially also be used, but the thresher needs to be interested in the movements of the animals, and the scavengers have the added advantage of hurting the Thresher from within it's stomach, often killing the beast before they themselves expire due to the acid contents of the Thresher stomach. If they fail to cause lethal damage to the Thresher, it's possible to use attached chains to drag the monster up to permanently disable it.

We currently lack information to tell whether or not the meat of a Thresher is at all edible, or if the only reason to hunt them would be to diminish their murdering attacks.

Development

The Dune Thresher was shown in September 2008 in the Writings of Abd al-Hazir: Entry no. 0004 and Entry no. 0005. It was included in the GamesCom 2009 demo as well.

Media

You can find pictures in the Diablo 3 screenshot and picture gallery:

• Diablo 3 screenshots and pictures
• Dune Thresher gallery search

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  3D rendering of the Dune Thresher.

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  Dune thresher concept art.

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  Impressionistic concept art of the Thresher.

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  Witch Doctor casting Plague of Toads on a Thresher.

References

• Dune Thresher screenshot
• Writings of Abd al-Hazir: Entry no. 0004
• Writings of Abd al-Hazir: Entry no. 0005