Diablo 3 is coming, and we're all dressed for the prom. We've got the brutish Barbarians with their beautiful Wizard cohorts. Now, we just need our support characters. In a recent interview with Blizzard Lead Designer Jay Wilson, the Monk class is delved in to a bit - and could fill that co-op strategy "support" role nicely. Diii.net asks the big questions, and we love the big answers.
It's no surprise that Diablo 3 is an item collecting game. We can't wait to get our hands on some of the unique armor, and weapons in the game. How will the Monk, who's definitely got fists of fury, utilize this armor and weaponry as a class-lite?
"One of the things we’ve talked about with the Monk is that a lot of his skills don’t really use his weapons. So he’s doing melee skills with his weapons almost holstered. For instance, Debilitating ... I think it’s called Crippling Wave now. We change them a lot and I get mixed up on the titles. Anyway, the Crippling Wave skill seems like it should be a staff skill. It’s kind of AoE, he does it and affects a lot of guys around him. So it’s a possibility that we’ll do skills and redefine them based on combat styles and have those styles have a weapon preference.
We do different versions of armor for every character. The Diablo II Sorceress could use heavy plate mail without actually looking like she was covered in heavy plate mail. For us, our focus is to make sure that every character has armor that they look cool in. So the Monk’s armor isn’t going to look like heavy plate armor. It’s going to look like a shirt, what our imagination of what the Monk’s armor could be. It’s definitely going to be equipment, but he’s not going to look like he’s covered in metal, like the barb is likely to look."
Since we started out here with the question of support magic, we have a bit of information on the Monks in-game tattoos - all associated with the 1001 gods the Monks worship. This association generally lends itself to passive magic of sorts, and we're hoping to see this Tattoo lore play into the Monks class and skills quite a bit. The one thing that is still undecided is whether or not the Monk class fits the bill for a solid support character. Diablo 3's Jay Wilson still isn't sure exactly which class gets the co-op support boost, but it sounds like the Monk could be it!
"We definitely want to [add a support role] with one class. Whether or not it’s the Monk hasn’t yet been decided. The Monk does seem to be the logical choice. The only reason we might not do with him is that he’s too logical."
We'll bring more co-op strategy as we learn more. For now, the Monk is looking pretty snazzy, and will hopefully bring us a great co-op experience.
Source: Diii.net