35 replies to this topic

[duffman]

There are many similarities and differences between the Monk and the Barbarian... Ideally, the Monk is a fast, fragile, melee character, and the Barbarian is a powerful, tough, tank. Blizzard points out they like this contrast between melee characters, but this could be a future problem in gameplay balance. If Blizzard sticks to their philosophy of having powerful characters, the Barbarian will have to fit both its rolls: total beastly power, and high endurance tank. So basically he's hard to kill, and is super strong. The Monk, is supposedly the opposite, so he is fragile, but also super strong. Okay, like all the classes, they're sorta similar, but also extremely different. Both have high damage output, but one is much tougher than the other. The point could be made that the Monk is hit and run, where he does his bit then runs away, but the Barbarian (at this point) has even better "fleeing" skills than the Monk. (Ground Stomp and Leap). To balance this, Blizzard could decrease the Barbarian's damage, but this would conflict with the idea that the Barbarian is a total beast smashing skulls left and right. They could make the Monk more durable, but this would just make the Monk and Barb have similar gameplay: run in, soak up damage while killing everything. So, 3 questions: in what ways is the Monk better than the Barbarian? Diablo is all about the single player experience, so why play a Monk instead of a Barbarian? (besides the obvious answer of wanting to try all the classes). And in every aspect (AT THIS POINT IN DEVELOPMENT) the Barbarian is better than the Monk, so what could you change to make them even, but keep them different? Keep in mind this is all IMO, so don't just post if you're gonna rage.

[ScyberDragon]

I think the diference beween the monk and the barb is going to be burst damage versus sustainability.

Monk: 20dmg ... .... ... 20 dmg

Barb: 5dmg 5dmg 5dmg 5 dmg 5dmg 5dmg

the monk feels powerful because of his quick burst dmg. The barb feels powerful because of his constant barrage. So it all depends on how you want to play.

[AcidReign]

I think it is important to note that the Monk uses his physical combo attacks to generate Spirit, which is used in the Monk's signature spells. So the Barbarian is just hack, hack, hack, and the Monk would be hack, hack, cast. It doesn't sound too different, but I bet the strategy in the gameplay makes a drastic change.

[Gulliver]

Couldn't read that...

Excessive exposure to big blocks of text has made me leery of them. Will there be cake if I donate 15 seconds of my life for reading it?

E: my point is that you should keep your post in shape (use that enter button) and express your thoughts maybe in a bit more compact way ;P

Edited by Gulliver, 19 September 2010 - 08:51 AM.

[Eskanasi]

ScyberDragon, on 19 September 2010 - 05:21 AM, said:

I think the diference beween the monk and the barb is going to be burst damage versus sustainability.

Monk: 20dmg ... .... ... 20 dmg

Barb: 5dmg 5dmg 5dmg 5 dmg 5dmg 5dmg

the monk feels powerful because of his quick burst dmg. The barb feels powerful because of his constant barrage. So it all depends on how you want to play.

Case in point, the rogue in WoW and the Warrior in WoW. They're both so drastically different that they can't be compared at ALL to each other. This is how the monk and barbarian should be.

(Even though recently the warrior has gotten some burst damage skills like bladestorm... please discount these as irrelevant)

Edited by Eskanasi, 19 September 2010 - 11:25 AM.

[Macros]

The way I see it, the Monk at it's top will do more damage than the Barbarian. However he'll be forced to run around so much that he won't be able to do all that damage all the time. This way they'll be a bit more balanced.

I'd also like to think there will be enemies that the Barbarian can die from quicker than the Monk. Maybe the Monk could just put up his defense thingy where he swirls his weapon around and the Barbarian would have to run

[LichinK]

And also you should take the speed of the monk as a factor. I think its like 1 atck the barbarian 2 atacks or 1,5 atack of the monk, or thats what i think by just looking at them. Bigger wepons = more waight = less speed.

[Malachi]

Yea, the monk will most likely be faster the the Barb. So it might just be reversed...

Barb: 25dmg.......................25dmg
Monk:   5dmg. 5dmg. 5dmg. 10magic dmg.

Interesting topic indeed.

Edited by Malachi, 19 September 2010 - 03:21 PM.

[Akuma_Gin]

Both are awesome and both will be balanced, don't worry And we still don't really know much about the Monk because we've only seen like 4-5 skills and that's it, so let's just be a bit more patient for the Blizzcon where I'm hoping all skills will be revealed at last in their finalized state

[AcidReign]

What resource system do you think the 5th class will use?

[Eskanasi]

AcidReign, on 20 September 2010 - 03:38 AM, said:

What resource system do you think the 5th class will use?

I'm a fan of a sandwhich man  

But beyond that it may charge up attacks, mana, a combination, or something

[Daanland]

i think it could go either way... tho a barb could taunt a monk with his range attacks and then stomp crazy follow with bash or ww?

[nadenitza]

AcidReign, on 20 September 2010 - 03:38 AM, said:

What resource system do you think the 5th class will use?

Sugar for life and Flour for mana - he'll have skillz like trowing cookies, exploding pancakes, fire gravy, whirlspoon, way-of-the-hundred-tastes...

Yes the fifth class is a barbomoknazonish cook!

[Equinox]

If the barb can just stand there and really soak up damage, I'm going to be seriously dissappointed. I was assuming barb were to be health based while monk dex based or something... and overall monk would win because he'd take less overall damage, but he wouldn't be able to afford to take it often...

[Metalcorej]

I also think it's worth noting that the Monk will likely have higher Dodge than the Barbarian. So survivability may not be too different for each class, although the Barbarian's skills can correspond to more of a tank build I assume.

Monk will be agile, so fast attacking burst DPS combos with most likely good dodge so he doesn't die super fast.

Barbarian can probably be a brute tank with a shield, able to tank and block lots of damage while controlling crowds and hack-hack-hacking away with consistent attack damage.

I'm only speculating, but I'm sure the Monk will have inherently higher dodge. If not, they'll probably have plenty of skills that allow them to lessen damage or that increase their ability to avoid attacks.

Edited by Metalcorej, 18 October 2010 - 03:59 PM.

[KuhnzKing]

The barb has some really cool high powered skills, that do a ton of damage. I think its going to be tough for the monk to go toe to toe with the mighty barb. Especially with skills like this:

- (HOTA)Hammer of the Ancients- (lvl5) does %275 weapon damage + 36 physical damage with %45 chance of critical strike.

-Bash, at lvl 5 having %260 weapon damage, with a chance for knockback.

Both of the attacks are pretty quick too, no real recovery time, and each only cost 1 fury orb. Using Ancient Spear to drag em in and smashing with the Hammer of the Ancients is gonna be godly.

Compared to the other melee class in the game the Monk. Who has fast attacking combo moves, but his damage is nothing compared to the barb.

-Way of the hundred fists,
first- %130 weapon damage
second- 10 strikes for %8 weapon damage
third- area attack for %90 weapon damage.

-Exploding Palm
first- %55 weapon damage
second- %80 weapon damage
third- bleeds for 100 dmg over 7 seconds.causes 200% more dmg when moving. If target dies it explodes dealing 60-100% of its life



i love the Arena Diablo 3 video on you tube. You can really see how fast paced it is, you can see the 2 barbs going at it, and it is absoutley insane. Battle is going to be nothing like WOW, and a lot like D2. They are attacking so fast, with so many cool special effects, The Barbs in the video is kicking some major ***

[traderjoes]

I think the Monk takes on the role of being "quicker to the punch". Someone might swing their weapon first, but the Monk will be able to strike their enemies first, effectively stunning them before the enemy lands a hit on the Monk. Over time, the Monk will wear the enemies out with his swift barrage of punches.

The Barb on the other hand, most likely shines when he is able to time his swings and land a mighty hit on his enemies. And trust me, when those Barb hits land, even though they are few and far between, they're going to hurt.

If you guys remember, in D2, there were such things as Faster Hit Recovery. If you were able to "stunlock" an opponent using fast attacks, your opponent wasn't able to attack you or move anywhere until the stunlock wore off. So perhaps, the Monk is an "in-your-face" type of fighter that deals damage constantly, allowing little or no time in between his attacks for enemies to strike him. The Barb, on the other hand, will swing his mighty weapon, hoping to finish off his opponent in one or a few more blows if he is able to land an attack. Enemies will have a chance to implement hit-run techniques in between the Barb's slowish attacks.

Analogy: Getting hit by a truck if you can't dodge it fast enough (Barb) vs. getting hit by a bunch of small rocks being thrown at you (Monk). Both hurt, just in different ways.

Gulliver, on 19 September 2010 - 08:48 AM, said:

Couldn't read that...

Excessive exposure to big blocks of text has made me leery of them. Will there be cake if I donate 15 seconds of my life for reading it?

E: my point is that you should keep your post in shape (use that enter button) and express your thoughts maybe in a bit more compact way ;P

Thanks for wasting my time, douche. I'd much rather have spent my time reading the OP's post than having wasted my time reading yours. Next time, have something useful to contribute before posting.

[italofoca]

The only reason the barbarian will soak up more damage is because he must expose himself to danger to do more damage. In the end each class intend to be equally good at damage and survive. The only difference is that they use different strategies.

So, just because the monk can't soak damage does not mean he will die alot or anything. He's not able to endure damage because his offensive strategies does not evolve taunting the whole screen to focus on you or anything like that. Just play attention in the monk's gameplay videos: he keeps destroying a few targets very quickly while disabling the others with that flash oif light skill or the creeping wave. Also, when that giant bell skill was announced, blizzard stated that they wanted to monk to feel more caster then the barbarian. I believe this means the monk will have much more ranged attack options.

[KonataX]

I actually think both classes might be close to equal on all terms

the monks attacks apply more buffs to himself and debuffs to the enemy than the barbs do
some of those buffs are increasing his defense (was in a review)

there could even be one that reduces the damage he takes by a percent

and by comparing the above stats, the monk actually will end up doing more damage than he barb
since his speed is godly (the speed in his trailer at least)

his 3 hits for 100% weapon damage and applying buffs or debuffs will prob hit around the time a barb can hit him once with one of his monsterous attacks of almost 300%

although it might be more like 3 monk hits per 1.5 barb hits
the damage is pretty even basically, but the monk applies buffs and debuffs per hit
tactic wise the barb might actually be better, due to his leap and attacks like that ancient spear

for the monk his speed and the attacks that allow to move around fast, will make him hard to even target let alone when he does get hit he could have a buff that softens the hit

so all in all, they are overall even in all aspects
just in different ways

the barbarian is more powerful in a more direct sense
but the monk is more ability reliant to keep things even

[jinir]

Post 16 was pretty good in actually attempting to throw some numbers out there. This is a great topic but please keep in mind we are speculating so don't take it to heart. At the current moment we are going to lean on who we favor as a class.


Don't know-

How does arena.net influence balancing in choosing matches?

• Tiers of armor?
  
• Level?
  
• Runes socketed in skills?

How can runes affect a class vs another class (IE Monk vs Barb)

Another question I'd have at release of game is, is there a 2v2 or 3v3 setup that can absolutely prevent an opposing team from reaching the health potions in middle via slows or stuns as long as enemy is x amount away from them?

I'd love to throw in the mix but the best I can do is say that I bet at different meta states of the game one will be better than the other in different battles.

I mean After I finally sat down and read about diablo 3 (in my attempt to not hype myself up, which failed) I saw how they changed runes. Player skill (as in actually pressing buttons and calculating enemy maneuvers) coupled with a build using runes who knows. I still don't know all the arena facts tbh, and I don't think that's public yet. Like, can a barb wearing a lower tier armor fight against a monk with higher tier armor on? I saw the blizcon video saying the arena.net will attempt to balance, but I do not know how it calculates balance.

In any aspect just throwing it out there against my best guess with no evidence, a monk vs a barb is going to be a very quick intense fight (just as every other battle on arena game-play will be). Don't look for what your all are use to with CCing and healing. Players will drop and fast. I will say whoever has a good rune setup and expectations from other players will dominate as long as they don't sit there and just tank damage.

Lastly, the one thing I noticed in the one arena.net stage I saw was Health potions (sp? not sure what they are called) being positioned in the middle. So better yet than guessing class vs class, I'd said coming up with ground level tactics to control the middle. IE. a wizard teleing immediately at beginning of battle to draw enemies away from middle while another character hangs around the end of mid towards there side. After first initiation instantly going to middle to fill up (even if its not much health lost) to ensure they have the lead over the opposing team.

I'd say that's a sound thought (again its all thought). But I can say in all of the few videos we have seen controlling those potion spots before the opponents can get there is absolutely crucial. You WILL have the advantage if you've caused damage to opponent and you heal up (even if you were already ahead.)  


Sorry if post is long- I will edit if I get any more conclusive facts reading OP- but I wanted to add my 2 cents since I just watched a ton of D3 videos and blizcon.

Edited by jinir, 05 January 2011 - 03:47 AM.