The Monk Breaks his Vow of Silence

Since the DiabloWiki.com - Monk Monk was first announced back in 2009 at Blizzcon, very little information was known about the class and how he would play. The only real info we got was that he would be Diablo III's Holy warrior and would play like a classic arcade fighter with combo moves at his disposal. Much later, we found out that the Monk's resource system would be http://diablowiki.com/Spirit" class="wiki-link">http://media-diablofans.cursecdn.com/attachments/16/736/wiki2.gif" alt="DiabloWiki.com - Spirit"/> Spirit. It was learned that the Monk would be using his combo moves to build his spirit and then unleash it using other skills at his disposal. Bashiok has shared a little more info on this system and how it will function.

Official Blizzard Quote:



Spirit is static. It doesn't regenerate, and it doesn't degenerate. Punching demons and using melee skills builds Spirit, and most monk skills spend it.
This is what makes the Monk's system different than the Barbarian's. The DiabloWiki.com - Barbarian Barbarian uses fury which builds by both attacking and taking damage and then used for other skills. However, his fury will begin to deplete once out of combat. It seems as though the Monk will be able to hold onto his Spirit until he finds it necessary to use. This can have a huge impact on gameplay since the Monk will not be required to continuously find new demons to kill in order to keep his fighting momentum going.

Another commonality the Monk will have with his other melee partner is through the use of auras. One one time, we were not even sure what class would be having auras as part of their skill set. Blizzard contemplated the idea with the Monk being the obvious choice but at the same time, that was the problem they had with adding them to his skills. Blizzard eventually decided that this was the correct way to go and gave auras to the Monk to use at his disposal. There was a lot of debate, since then, on how these auras would actually work in the game. In Diablo II, players were required to keep an aura skill as one of their active skills limiting them to only one mouse button for any other skills. They would also last indefinitely until removed from the mouse button. For Diablo III, the use of auras will be much different from this.

Official Blizzard Quote:



Auras are not permanent...they're short, powerful buffs.

Going off of this similarity between these to classes, there is also the runes that go into both auras and shouts for these classes. Just like every other skill in Diablo III, there will be rune effects that change the skill in some way. What kind of changes can we expect by adding DiabloWiki.com - runestones runestones to these skills?

Official Blizzard Quote:



[Auras] can absolutely be runed. Like all skills.

The Diablo III barbarian has only ever had one true shout, and a couple others which have similar limited duration buffs. But, multiply that by 5 for runes and we have 15 shouts, compared to Diablo II's ... six? I think.

Granted every rune doesn't change the mechanic of the shout, but most do. We've covered most if not all the Diablo II Warcry tree shout skills through rune effects.


Moving on to the Monk's combo moves, the Monk is able to chain attacks together with each stage of the attack being more deadly and potent. Skills like the http://diablowiki.com/Hands of Lightning" class="wiki-link">http://media-diablofans.cursecdn.com/attachments/16/736/wiki2.gif" alt="DiabloWiki.com - Hands of Lightning"/> Hands of Lightning and http://diablowiki.com/Crippling Wave" class="wiki-link">http://media-diablofans.cursecdn.com/attachments/16/736/wiki2.gif" alt="DiabloWiki.com - Crippling Wave"/> Crippling Wave are just a few examples of the Monk's fist of fury power. Each combo has three stages that are built upon and any other combo can be swapped out at any stage to continue the chain. Because of this intricate combat system, a comment was brought up on how players would be able to track which stage of a combo they were on. First, it was mentioned that the combo stages do reset but only after a good amount of time. Bashiok's additional response iterates, again, that the Monk can be played by any player yet can be mastered by skilled players to be even more lethal.

Official Blizzard Quote:




We don't want tracking of combo stages to be so important that there needs to be a UI element to keep track. It should be that if you're up on your game you're tracking combo stages and it helps you get a slight edge, but if not, you're kicking ass anyway and will probably do fine. Also, we have made changes to skills so they're consistent; such as making all stages capable of a dash. The final stage on combo skills is still usually the powerful topper. I was specifically referring to a movement component not being tied to a specific stage of a combo skill (if it exists). There is some spreading out of mechanics to ensure really important pieces like movement and damage mitigation can't be 'missed' because you counted wrong. But doing damage is doing damage, for the most part, so big combo finishers still very much exist on the third stage.

With all of this combat going on, there is always the question of how it will play out in a co-op game. One user on Battle.net specifically brought up the potential for griefing in hardcore with some of these skills. He mentions the use of zombie wall that would block in another player and causing them to be stuck with a bunch of demons behind it.

Official Blizzard Quote:




There's no player collision. You can't block others, only monsters can do that. (exception being in the arena against enemy players, of course)
So, when playing with other people, we will not have to worry about accidentally (or purposefully) causing harm to our friends. However, once in PvP, that is a different story. Full use of many skills will be able to be used to group together your opponents to make it easier to take them down quickly or stop them from getting a health orb.

A special thanks to cherubdown for spotting this news.

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