5th class definitely has to be ranged. So far, there's your heavy warrior type class, the barbarian; the offensive caster, the wizard; the support/alt caster, the Witch Doctor; and the fast, light, damage dealing/holy melee class, the monk. What's obviously missing is the ranged class.
I definitely believe that the this class would be a ranger/woodsman type character. Uses ranged weapons, is a nature class, probably has one or two pets, and could use traps. Also, I believe (correct me if I'm wrong), that the ranger doesn't ONLY use bows; they also use a wide variety of weapons, which fulfills the multiple weapon master theory.
This also fills in the two classes that haven't made a comeback from Diablo 2: the Amazon and the Druid. The barbarian returned, the witch doctor is essentially a necromancer with some druid like qualities, the wizard is obviously a sorceress, and the monk is a hybrid of the Assassin and Paladin. This isn't to say all of the classes have to be similar to those from Diablo 2, but all of the other classes revealed so far seem to follow that pattern, and you have to have a ranged class.
The ranger seems to fit the missing niche very well, and fills in the missing aspects of the Amazon, Druid, and Assassin: the Amazon's ranged combat and well rounded melee, the druid's nature pets, and the Assassin's traps. True, the Witch doctor does have some druid aspects, including pets, but the which doctor is from the Jungle, not the Forest (nature), and the witch doctor's pets are undead, and therefore inherited from the necromancer, not the druid. The druid's elemental damage tree is definitely not coming back, and I think that the possibility of having shape-shifting in Diablo 3 is rather dubious.
In my opinion, the Druid's shapeshifting was one of the worst aspects of Diablo 2. It looked bad, and when you were shapeshifted, you couldn't really use any of your magical abilities: you just ran around killing things with your basic attack. With Diablo 3's dependence on abilities, I think that it is highly unlikely that Blizzard would include an ability that prevented you from doing anything other than running around punching things. And not to mention, shapeshifting would completely eliminate your ranged attack: a werewolf cannot use a bow. 'nuff said.
And on a few other topics:
First of all, there are no muskets in Diablo. Or gadgets, any type of machinery, or things that go boom.
Additionally, I think that the archivist was the closest you're going to get to a bard class in Diablo. True, there was a bard class in Hellfire, but Hellfire is not part of Diablo lore; look at the barbarian: he was in Hellfire too, but is completely different from the Barbarian of Diablo 2.
And finally, I think that it is doubtful that the paladin will be returning. He already is represented by the monk; there are no healing classes in Diablo, period, and the Barbarian has shield mastery, so that is ruled out too.
I also think that the idea for a demon master that a few people were discussing was interesting, if not necessarily realistic. True, the ranger is a very predictable move, and Blizzard might try something really creative for the ranged class like that, but I still think that the ranger class is the best fit, because of the evidence I have mentioned above. True, turning into a demon would be awesome, but that would carry similar problems with shapeshifting (though I suppose that a demon could still use spells and stuff). But then again, the witch doctor appears to be the "dark" character, with voodoo magic and stuff; not really scary, but it is looking like Diablo 3 will be kind of tame compared to its predecessors, as the visuals look like they are borrowing more from WoW than from the dark gothic fantasy of Diablo 1 & 2 at the moment...
0
I definitely believe that the this class would be a ranger/woodsman type character. Uses ranged weapons, is a nature class, probably has one or two pets, and could use traps. Also, I believe (correct me if I'm wrong), that the ranger doesn't ONLY use bows; they also use a wide variety of weapons, which fulfills the multiple weapon master theory.
This also fills in the two classes that haven't made a comeback from Diablo 2: the Amazon and the Druid. The barbarian returned, the witch doctor is essentially a necromancer with some druid like qualities, the wizard is obviously a sorceress, and the monk is a hybrid of the Assassin and Paladin. This isn't to say all of the classes have to be similar to those from Diablo 2, but all of the other classes revealed so far seem to follow that pattern, and you have to have a ranged class.
The ranger seems to fit the missing niche very well, and fills in the missing aspects of the Amazon, Druid, and Assassin: the Amazon's ranged combat and well rounded melee, the druid's nature pets, and the Assassin's traps. True, the Witch doctor does have some druid aspects, including pets, but the which doctor is from the Jungle, not the Forest (nature), and the witch doctor's pets are undead, and therefore inherited from the necromancer, not the druid. The druid's elemental damage tree is definitely not coming back, and I think that the possibility of having shape-shifting in Diablo 3 is rather dubious.
In my opinion, the Druid's shapeshifting was one of the worst aspects of Diablo 2. It looked bad, and when you were shapeshifted, you couldn't really use any of your magical abilities: you just ran around killing things with your basic attack. With Diablo 3's dependence on abilities, I think that it is highly unlikely that Blizzard would include an ability that prevented you from doing anything other than running around punching things. And not to mention, shapeshifting would completely eliminate your ranged attack: a werewolf cannot use a bow. 'nuff said.
And on a few other topics:
First of all, there are no muskets in Diablo. Or gadgets, any type of machinery, or things that go boom.
Additionally, I think that the archivist was the closest you're going to get to a bard class in Diablo. True, there was a bard class in Hellfire, but Hellfire is not part of Diablo lore; look at the barbarian: he was in Hellfire too, but is completely different from the Barbarian of Diablo 2.
And finally, I think that it is doubtful that the paladin will be returning. He already is represented by the monk; there are no healing classes in Diablo, period, and the Barbarian has shield mastery, so that is ruled out too.
I also think that the idea for a demon master that a few people were discussing was interesting, if not necessarily realistic. True, the ranger is a very predictable move, and Blizzard might try something really creative for the ranged class like that, but I still think that the ranger class is the best fit, because of the evidence I have mentioned above. True, turning into a demon would be awesome, but that would carry similar problems with shapeshifting (though I suppose that a demon could still use spells and stuff). But then again, the witch doctor appears to be the "dark" character, with voodoo magic and stuff; not really scary, but it is looking like Diablo 3 will be kind of tame compared to its predecessors, as the visuals look like they are borrowing more from WoW than from the dark gothic fantasy of Diablo 1 & 2 at the moment...