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.
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.
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 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)
A special thanks to cherubdown for spotting this news.
I really enjoyed the article btw. Good job.
+1 internetz
Like I said a little higher up, the don't really like fire and forget skills anymore. If you're going to have a passive, they make it a passive and put it as a trait instead of a skill, so I really doubt they would change it back to being a toggle like aura, or a very long duration ability.
Rep cookies for the best suggestions!
The word aura really only means a surrounding light or power around something, so while almost all previous games that I have played personally do indeed make auras permanent, there is nothing inherent in the word that means it has to be. Just another indication of how much they are changing from Diablo II while still attempting to please the huge masses of fans, I think.
Yeah they specifically said the game will not be balanced.. ¬¬ I remenber they say the monk will be harder to play.
I think combos will be a nice add, something to make the monk feel different compered to the barbarian.
I think a set of monk skills will be weaker, cost no spirit and generate a good amount of spirit while giving some small effects, like weaker forms of cc and damage buffs. The other set of monk skills will cost spirit, will not generate it and will have devastating effects. Finnaly the monk will have a set of other skills (like auras and the dash skill) that cost small amount of spirit and do not generate it.
The combo is problably a mechanic to make a single skill possible in each ofthose sets. For exemple, they can make the first and second hit of a certain combo cost no spirit and generates alot of it while the turn one consumes it.
So the monk class will be a "delayed burst one". Wich means he will be more burst damage oriented and less sustened damage oriented (unlike the barbarian), however his "burst" takes a few moves to occur. So the challenge is to keep yourself alive until you unleash your super move.
This is how im imagine the monk. I think it's a very elaborated class, with many unique mechanics.
They do sound different than the barbs shouts IMO. Shouts seem to be more of a straight buff (and he also has one that debuffs enemies,) while Auras are an instant effect followed by a buff. Seems like enough of a difference as far as buffs go.