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We're grouping monsters as they were sorted in Diablo II, as [[Animals]], [[Demons]], or [[Undead]]. At this point, this is purely for ease of organization. It's not known how monsters will be grouped in the final game, and/or if the familiar aspects of their types, such as undead taking extra damage from blunt weapons, will be retained in Diablo III. This information will be added to the wiki as soon as Blizzard makes it available. Consider all these classifications as tentative, for now.
===Classification by Function==
The Diablo design team classifies monsters by their function, with all monsters grouped into a few types, depending on their AI. The design goal is to group different types by how they best cooperate with each other, and you'll see the same types of monsters together in different areas throughout the game.
* '''Swarmer:''' Weak. Typically melee.<br>
It's a lot of fun to fight tons of little monsters at once. These function basically as "health walls," giving the players something to kill and gather health orbs from. They're not really meant to be dangerous.
* '''Ranged:''' Projectile speed. Arc. Direct.<br>
Most dangerous type other than bosses, since they can all attack you at once. Unlike melee enemies. Ranged may employ some evasive movement AI as well, rather than just running in to die like swarmers.
* '''Lieutenant:''' Resurrecting. Buff. Spawners.<br>
These are higher level monsters that can cast spells or share abilities with the swarmers and ranged lesser monsters. They can resurrect, buff, spawn, etc. They're not in large numbers, but are high priority targets.
* '''Elite:''' Tough. Stronger attacks. Or both.<br>
Designed to make the player pause and think. High damage attack, high hit points, etc. Something different. Scary and dangerous, more so than the lieutenant.
* '''AOE:''' (Area of Effect). Point blank, line, radial, cone.<br>
Area of Denial characters. Change the "game space." Set the ground on fire, make player move. Mix up the gameplay. The description terms refer to the types of shapes their spells can create, thus forcing the player to avoid or play differently than normal.
*''' Weakener:''' Debuff. Slow. Drainer.<br>
Kind of like Lieutenants, but they make swarmers and ranged guys more threatening.
* '''One offs:''' Sleeper, Alarm, Bee Hive, Linked, Sapper, Thief<br>
Various monsters that have cool abilities. Jay Wilson purposely didn't explain what they were, saying he wanted fans to have fun debating them.
==Monster Types==