The Monk Officially announced!

[Necrolis]

the info: http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/characters/monk.xml
the vid:

the borderlands new area was also unveiled: http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/world/e ... rlands.xml

[onyx]

Are we finally going to have, after all these years, a real martial arts character? Assassin doesn't count, she can only slice and kick.

Monk looks good, kind of reminds me of the Brick character class from Throne of Darkness in appearance. Any word on the female monk yet?

[marhawkman]

Hmm... Sweet! I love it already.

Hehe... did you guys check out the vids of 5 of the monk skills?
crippling wave: does damage and adds a status of some sort
Impenetrable defense: redirects projectiles
Exploding palm: looks to be a variant of corpse explosion that works on living targets
seven sided strike: kinda like dragon flight
way of 100 fists: looks to be similar to strafe as a melee skill.

[DemonicAngel]

Mixed thoughts on the Monk. They were going for a fighting-game kind of feel, which I'm not sure fits with a Diablo feel. I'll have to play the Monk to make my decision of whether I think it's right or not, but the Monk just became a contender for who I'm going to play first. It's either the Monk or the Wizard right now.

Hehe... did you guys check out the vids of 5 of the monk skills?
crippling wave: does damage and adds a status of some sort
Impenetrable defense: redirects projectiles
Exploding palm: looks to be a variant of corpse explosion that works on living targets
seven sided strike: kinda like dragon flight
way of 100 fists: looks to be similar to strafe as a melee skill.

From diii.net:

Way of the Hundred Fists
Use/Objective of Skill: This Skill has visually distinct stages, the stages feel like moderate moves from console brawlers.
Stage One: Dash to the target, dealing damage.
Stage Two: Multiple Strikes to enemies around you.
Stage Three: AoE attack.

Crippling Wave
Use/Objective of Skill: The Monk is fragile but fast, the debuffs make the hits of enemies avoidable/weaker.
Stage One: Slows the Movement speed of targeted enemies.
Stage Two: Reduces the damage of targeted enemies.
Stage Three: Refreshes both Debuffs (Stage one and two) on all enemies around you.

Exploding Palm
Use/Objective of Skill: Distinctive "signature" Skill, fulfill the fantasy of internal damage.
Stage One: Damages enemies.
Stage Two: Damages enemies. (Identical to stage one)
Stage Three: Applies a Moderate DoT debuff on the enemy, if the enemy dies from the debuff, he explodes and damages monsters around him.

Seven-Sided Strike
Use/Objective of Skill: To "become the chain lightning".
Stage One: Attack numerous amounts of enemies around, like chain lightning (see above).
Stage Two: Unknown.
Stage Three: Unknown.

Impenetrable Defense:
Use/Objective of Skill: To provide the Monk with some defense against ranged attackers.
Stage One: Start swirling your staff with skill, deflecting all Projectiles that come close to you.
Stage Two: Unknown.
Stage Three: Unknown.

[marhawkman]

Hmm... I was mostly right on some but a bit off on 7 and 100....

a physical chain lightning? that sounds like it'll be fun to use.

[Hans]

The Monk looks good.

[Al-T]

The screenshots look good.
The speculation is just that.
My glass is half-empty at the moment

[Hans]

I downloaded a HD game play version and will watch it when I get home.

I have been at diii.net and looking up on the information about the Monk.

[D2 MOD player]

I too, when seeing they would have a monk that did martial arts, just about died. Then I thought, well Onyx beat them to it. Come to think of it there's still several classes on his mod I have yet to play. But the Monk (D3) definately looks great, it may be the first I play as well. It mentioned on Tom's Hardware there was no release date announced for D3 yet, so it could go to 2011. But I think that's no suprise, I wasn't one of those people that thought it would come out 6 months after announcement. That and Starcraft 2 was delayed. They said it was because of the Battlenet delays, but then they stated single player was only partially completed. So the Battlenet thing was just an excuse to cover up the truth. It was supposed to emphasis single player! I guess the multiplayer was the first to get trimmed out since that's the real life to the game. That and it's very likely both Starcraft II and Diablo III will both not have LAN play, will both have unwanted copy protection (which does not stop piracy whatsoever), and will both require logging into Battlenet even for single player! I've read some in other places and that's upset alot of people, but I'm guessing they will still buy it. I know I will.

There are some good utube videos, especially a full screen version of the one on the Blizzard website. I could actually see what was going on! Probably just filter Diablo 3 with videos in the last month.

[DemonicAngel]

Any word on the female monk yet?

Found this on diii.net too.

There is no female Monk at the moment, but according to Jay Wilson, they have started the process on creating the female Monk.

[Hans]

It will likely be the Assassin in a nun's costume and her weapon will be a ruler.

I hope they will not require Bnet to play single player or install DRM programs that are close to being spyware.

[marhawkman]

I hope they will not require Bnet to play single player or install DRM programs that are close to being spyware.

My game computer is a standalone system. It has no internets at all. And if it requires a background program like the PC version of Spore did.... I'm not getting it. Those programs make your average computer virus look like a harmless novelty.

[D2 MOD player]

Hopefully it won't be that bad guys. I don't know what kind of protection it has.

Get a level 90 monk, as a quest reward you get parially disabled DRM. Get level 90 on all characters and you get to freely donate it to your neighbor and keep a copy yourself.

[Hans]

I hope they will not require Bnet to play single player or install DRM programs that are close to being spyware.

My game computer is a standalone system. It has no internets at all. And if it requires a background program like the PC version of Spore did.... I'm not getting it. Those programs make your average computer virus look like a harmless novelty.

It is sad that companies do this.

I will likely stay away if it does.

[marhawkman]

Hmmm.... Yeah, I don't get it. As incredibly overboard as "secuROM" goes in trying to "protect" the game Spore, a hacked SecuROMless version was available BEFORE the official release date. I mean really.... Hijacking your client's computer to prevent them from trying to pirate your software is going too far. Now doing what D2 did to prevent people from using copies is fine. !: it actually works, 2: it doesn't cause problems for the user.

[FoxBat]

I'm pretty confident that if Blizzard were going to require an online check to play, they'd just eliminate the single player portion altogether. As is they're already going to try and force your new character onto battle.net unless you explicitly opt-out of it. (or at least, if you have an active internet connection.)

As for offline DRMs though, your guess is as good as mine. EA were the doofuses throwing alot of that stuff on their games though, and Blizzard isn't publishing under them.

[Hans]

As for offline DRMs though, your guess is as good as mine. EA were the doofuses throwing alot of that stuff on their games though, and Blizzard isn't publishing under them.

All it takes is one to start the ball moving in that direction.

[D2 MOD player]

Sorry about getting this into a negative direction.

Anybody else have comments or just plain excitement about the Monk class?

[marhawkman]

I have excitement. Truth is I've not heard of Blizzard using DRMs so I'm not really worried too much.

[Kieran]

The Monk class personally to me looks the best so far, this is what I'm going to start with!

[D2 MOD player]

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/PC-Gam ... ,9607.html

Why yes Onyx. There is word on the female monk, I hope you forgive me for reporting it 6 months after your question.

It's concept art only. I think it's stating there will be a bit more on it later.

[D2 MOD player]

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Diablo ... ,9681.html

And here is the scary female barbarian.

[Hans]

I find the Female Barb sexy.

[DemonicAngel]

Everybody probably already knows but Blizzard has now formally showed the female monk, including 3D character models.

http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/characters/monk.xml

[D2 MOD player]

I always forget to go to that site.

Now that's a fine looking lady. I have no complaints about the barbarian sweetheart however. I'd say I can't wait to see these in action but you know, I'll have to wait.