Monk = Support character?

[:1]Way back when, it was asked/discussed about the potential for a healer or support character, and if I recall correctly, Jay shot it down, saying that all characters will be DPS characters.

Since Blizzcon 2010, however, it appears as though the monk may have to pick an aura or other support/defensive skill as one of his 7. Does this seem counter to the original plan, or does it fit? Given the known rune effects, might even passive auras turn into active, damage-dealing skills?

Anyway, food for thought...|||Quote:








Since Blizzcon 2010, however, it appears as though the monk may have to pick an aura or other support/defensive skill as one of his 7.




Why would he have to? I didn't realise there were only 6 attack skills.

No this won't happen.

Defensive skills are there for a reason, it encourages good gameplay. If you could just click everything to death it would be a bit boring no?|||I don't think it has to be, but that's what I'll use him for. So far I'm shooting for a Monk Support character because the Monk seems the most versatile even with the little skills he has. I can't wait for more to come out. The Monk will definately be great in team play.|||It is certainly not only a support character. There are enough attack skills to make him a DPS character. I can also imagine that, even as a DPS character, you could have one "support" skill like an aura that would help you and the other. Just like the Barbarian can take a cry he shares with all the party. To me, a simple skill does not make a character a support one.

Now there could be a possibility to transform the monk in a "pure" support character. He indeed has a lot of possible support abilities.

- one skill (Circle of Wrath) that is a group healing (and at the same time damage skill)

- one cleaning skill (Breath of Heaven)

- one protection skill (Inner Sanctuary)

- 4 auras : health regeneration, enhanced damages to enemies, reflect damages, increase resistances.

Some other abilities are more crowd control abilities like Blinding Flash.

So in the end there are some possibilities. However, at this stage we do not really know enough about these abilities to say what would be possible in terms of build.

- Do these abilities require spirit? If so, you need to have combo skills to charge your spirit before using those. No longer a true support character.

- Do the auras stack? Four of these abilit�es being the auras, if you cannot stack them, it reduces the possibility to make such a support character.

Finally, I would say that I would not like to play such a character. If a good part of the support role is just to have the auras, this is just a buff bot (someone that is just here to give you the aura). Actually, it is quite the same as being a second act mercenary from Diablo 2... Not a very exciting way of playing. This kind of gameplay disappeared from recent MMO's and for the good reason that it was not really fun to play (actually, it was not really playing at all, just standing there behind the group with your buffs )|||Quote:








- Do these abilities require spirit?




Every skill that is not a combo skill requires Spirit. So far the combo skills only generate 3 Spirit per successful hit, whether you can generate more Spirit by hitting multiple enemies with a combo skill like Sweeping Wind is unknown.

All non combo skills required at least 25 Spirit to be used.|||Quote:








Way back when, it was asked/discussed about the potential for a healer or support character, and if I recall correctly, Jay shot it down, saying that all characters will be DPS characters.

Since Blizzcon 2010, however, it appears as though the monk may have to pick an aura or other support/defensive skill as one of his 7. Does this seem counter to the original plan, or does it fit? Given the known rune effects, might even passive auras turn into active, damage-dealing skills?

Anyway, food for thought...




u took it wrong, its just something like life leech, just a mechanics which helps u stay alive without huge hp pool. Not something u can build your char around as a healer, this just will never happen in diablo game|||A guy with a beard like that, as full support?!? Can't see that happening. I mean, you guys saw the beard, right?|||while the monk has more support type skills than other classes, mainly barb and demon hunter I think that every class has some type of skill(s) that will be able to benefit the group instead of merely being a damage spell.

Whether is be slowing multiple opponent, disorient type spells, spells that lower enemy damage, increase group damage...things like that.

At the moment is appears that the monk is the only class that heals. While some might think this is better than others, lowering enemy damage, rooting/slowing them to help get out of LOS, and disorients can all have just as much benefit.

We will have to wait for all the class skill trees to be released before we can really speculate.

I think I will be playing monk as my first character and focusing on PvP. For that I plan to have a good deal of support abilities: Circle of Wrath, Breath of Heaven, Inner Sanctuary, Blinding Flash are all very good abilities for PvP situations|||Spirit generation is kinda tricky... I can't see the support skills as spammable. All of them uses 25 and up spirit, combos generate about 3 per hit. >.<|||hell naw...just cause he has heal skills doesn't make him a support char. d2 paladin had heal skills and plenty of party support auras and barbs had party support warcries but they both pwned pvp and pvm by themselves.