Difference between revisions of "Thousand Pounder"

Revision as of 17:50, 5 February 2009

The Thousand Pounder is a special monster of a mini-boss variety. He is slow, but deals massive damage with his two huge maces. He appears to be a demon.

Diablo III Monster

Diablo III Monster [e]
Thousand Pounder           Boss
Classification:	Demons
Monster Family:	Bosses
Role:	Boss
Monster Stats Norm/Night/Hell/Inferno
Life:	Unknown
Mana:	N/A
Armor:	Unknown
Resistance:	Unknown
Offence Norm/Night/Hell/Inferno
Armament:	2x Mace
DPS:	High
Low Damage:	Unknown
High Damage:	Unknown
Range:	Melee
Speed:	Slow
Movement:	Slow
Monster Modifiers
None
Spells/Abilities
Enrage
Found In
Forgotten Tombs

Thousand Pounder is a special boss monster, seen in the WWI 2008 gameplay movie and a few related screenshots. It's not known if he's one particular individual out of a whole class of big, fat, dual-wielding, tattooed, demons, or if he's a special, one-of-a-kind demon. He's not an act boss or a major quest boss though, that much was made clear in the panels at the WWI event.

The demon is summoned (as is described below), and sets to attack the player. Once he's ready to rumble, Thousand Pounder moves slowly, but with tremendous power, and deals heavy damage with his two large maces. When he smacks his two maces together, you don't want to be standing in the impact zone. In the gameplay movie, a Barbarian avoids damage by jumping around the beast with Leap Attack and uses Furious Charge to smash through the fatty monster. Other classes will likely be able to have some sort of similar mobility skills, like the Wizard skill Teleport.

When his life drops below about 50%, he kicks into an enraged mode. At that point his tattoos begin to glow red and he moves much more quickly. He retains this rage until he is killed.

Thousand Pounder don't have any additional minions or other monsters to help him out, so if the player use an avoidance tactic, and tries to damage him with ranged attacks, or using skills to make him activating his slow attacks in the wrong direction, he should be relatively easy to kill. Just remember not to get hit by the maces, and you'll be fine!

Summoning Ritual and Death

Thousand Pounder is summoned up in a scripted event. The Barbarian in the gameplay movie is running through the Forgotten Tombs, when he comes upon a circle of five Dark Cultists channelling their energy to call up a demon. At first there are three pale-skinned youths dancing in the circle. They explode one by one, and then from their blood and flesh the demon is conjured.

Youths dance, then are sacrificed to call forth Thousand Pounder.

While the Barbarian watches, lights began to glow and the Thousand Pounder takes form. First his bones appear, then muscles, then skin over the top, until with a final explosion that sends the Cultists flying, Thousand Pounder bursts into life.

Bones form, then are covered by muscle.

When he is defeated his death animation is basically the summoning animation in reverse; his skin sloughs off, then his muscles, before his bones clatter to the ground.

Thousand Pounder 'Title'

The title 'Gluttony Incarnate' is a mystery. Comparing this big fella with the Siegebreaker Assault Beast, he seems to have a 'title' that would work very much like Diablo 2 Monster Modifiers. Still, 'Gluttony Incarnate' could be his title just like the Siegebreaker's 'Living siege Engine of Hell' obviously must be. The Thousand Pounder could also very well be an equivalent of a Diablo II Superunique, with a different name than other units that look the same (as the Thousand Pounder has been depicted to come in packs in concept art).

Other players have speculated that perhaps we'll see mini-bosses with names inspired by all seven deadly sins. It's purely speculation at this point, but it's as good a guess as any.

1. Lust
2. Gluttony
3. Greed
4. Sloth
5. Wrath
6. Envy
7. Pride

Spells and Abilities

• 

  Rage mode activated.
  Enrage - The Thousand Pounder enrages when he reaches 50% health, making his tattoos glow ominously, and increasing his speed and damage.

Related Monsters

• Dark Cultist - These creatures summon the Thousand Pounder.

Background

Nothing is specifically known about the background of the Thousand Pounder. Is he a "Superunique" of this "fat demon" kind, or is it a type of monster all together? The concept art seems to indicate that it's not a unique entity, showing a Barbarian with several of these creatures, but the matter in which he is summoned could suggest he is a little bit of a personality anyway. He is in either way powerful enough to require a quite advanced summoning to enter the physical realm.

Diablo I & II Monster

No monster like the Thousand Pounder is seen in Diablo I or Diablo II.

Development

The D3 Team on Thousand Pounder

Thousand Pounder was discussed in the WWI Denizens of Diablo panel.

The other way we emphasize monster character and personality is to look at the monster on whole. How do they get on screen and die? He's going to be on screen in a cool way, so we went to the the Thousand Pounder here. He's all bout hell. He's summoned from it literally piece by piece. When he gets on screen we figured he should be made and big. Express anger. Part of his gameplay is that he gets really mad when he's almost dead. Throws a huge temper tantrum and this changes how he plays and how the player has to play against him. When he's enraged we changed how he looked; made his tattoos glow, gave him new attack animations and special effects. When he dies the animation is somewhat a reverse of how he came on screen. We did this to show of the whole idea that he's from hell.

Trivia

The Metric System

Speculative (and humorous), are suggestions for what this monster could be called in non-US/UK versions of the game, where the people don't, in the words of Vincent, "know what the f**k a quarter pounder is." Somehow, calling this boss the, "Four hundred and fifty four kilo'er" doesn't have quite the same ring to it...

A thread was started with this topic in the Unofficial Diablo 3 Forums as well.[1]

Stay-Puft-Marshmallow-Pounder

On the 30th of January, 2009[2], Bashiok responded to a Battle.net thread[3] about the similarities with Stay Puft from the Ghostbusters film. His response was the image to the right here:

Similarities?

Media

You can find pictures in the Diablo 3 screenshot and picture gallery:

• Diablo 3 screenshots and pictures
• Thousand-Pounder-specific gallery contents

• 

  Summoning, part 1.

• 

  Summoning, part 2.

• 

  Thousand Pounder swingin'.

• 

  Enraging.

• 

  Concept art: 5 fat-blobs visible.

• 

  Looking like Stay Puft?

References

• WWI 2008: Denizens of Diablo Panel