Monk

The Monk is one of the five playable characters in Diablo 3. He was the fourth to be revealed, at Blizzcon 2009, and plays as a melee/caster hybrid, with a martial arts/kung fu type theme to most of his attacks. His appearance is reminiscent of a European monk, while his saffron robed garments, religion, and combat style draw more from the Eastern, Shao Lin style influence.

Though only eight of the Monk skills have yet been revealed, the character design calls for numerous fast-hitting, arcade-style chain combo attacks, a variety of defensive active and passive skills, and various unknown types of party-boosting Auras.[1]

The character feels similar to the Assassin and Paladin from Diablo II, and while he shares a name and some traits with the Monk from Hellfire, Blizzard has disowned that expansion pack and claims no connection between the characters. [2]

Background

Diablo III Class [e]

Monk
Role:	Melee/Caster
Primary Attributes:	Strength Dexterity Vitality Willpower Life Mana
Class Skills
Skills and Traits
Background
Origin:	Sanctuary
Affiliation:	Monks of Ivgorod
Friends:	None Known
Foes:	None Known

The male Monk character comes from the Monasteries of Ivgorod in the Foothills. They are taken into the Monastery at a young age, where they are taught ancient knowledge; they believe in 1001 gods that dwell within everything (one god in water, one god in fire, one god in the air, etc.), martial arts, and meditation to purify the body and soul.

The Monks have a fondness for structure and creativity, which is why they have various symbols on their bodies. Their light magic is brought to life through runes, symbols that invoke the light to aid them. It is said that each Monk has a tattoo on his back, that chronicles their lifetime/adventures (needs confirmation), and that it may take a monk an entire lifetime to complete the tattoo on his back.

The monk serves the Elder Monks of the monastery, who seek to destroy evil in all forms. He thinks of himself as the weapon of the gods against all that is evil. He is a peaceful, patient and good man who aids those who suffer, with no hatred against anyone, in contrast to the Barbarian. He is adept in Martial Arts, being able to defeat multiple foes without the aid of weapons.

Leonard Boyarsky, Diablo 3's lead story designer, discussed this in an August 2009 interview.[3]

(The Monk) comes from a place called Ivgorod, you know when we started looking at a story about a monk we didn't want to just have what would be considered the standard monk. At Blizzard we love to put a little twist on things and do things a little bit differently. So we thought it would be interesting to take some kind of 13th century... well not factual, but some kind of Eastern European 13th century monk and combine it with the more Eastern style; not only in terms of the look but also in terms of the philosophical. So he has the Eastern philosophy integrated into him, the movement has a lot to do with life and the gods mixed in with a very theocratic, organised religious belief system.

But he's very devout, he's fighting the good fight; he's a holy warrior. He's very straight-ahead in what he does, there's no gray area for him and it's not that he's inflexible -- he does what he thinks is right. If he has to meditate on that for two days he'll do it because he's got to do the right thing - his fighting is his way of worshiping. That's how we approached him, which gives him a very different feel. The Barbarian has a good mythology; we gave the Witch Doctor a very rich mythology. In the game they have a very different experience as different characters, but also, possibly come into conflict with each other because of their different belief systems.

Class Design

The "theme" of the Society of Monks is a mix of "spiritual" Buddhism and "eradication of evil" of the European churches while maintaining an Asian/Indian visual theme. Abd al-Hazir writes about an encounter with a Monk in a tavern, in his 32nd entry of the Writings of Abd al-Hazir.

The monk was partly made as an opposite to the Barbarian, with more focused gameplay. He is also relatively weak, so a lot of the class design is built upon the monk debuffing his foes, to receive less damage himself.

Jay Wilson mentioned that D3 Team wanted to make a character that isn't necessarily one of the easiest characters to start with, but the Monk will even out with the other classes later on in both power and difficulty.

With the Monk, we really wanted another melee class, but we wanted him to be the polar opposite of the Barbarian. Somebody who focused on speed over toughness, who could use magic where the Barbarian really doesn’t, and who had a combat style that required a little bit more finesse. He’s kind of the opposite of the, “I’m going to run in and try to overwhelm all my enemies with my sheer ferocity.”

For the Monk, we really were inspired by fighting game characters and games like God of War, where we wanted a character that could do really cool moves in rapid succession. So, we decided to do a combo system for him where many of his combat skills have different stages to them so as you use them, you move from stage 1 to stage 2 to stage 3. You can mix and match abilities as well and put them together.

So with the other classes [in multiplayer], the Monk moves forward because he’s faster than everyone else, and gets in front of the fight. He tends to disable enemies a lot. He can blind them. He can debuff them. If he stays, however, he could be in trouble because he’s a lot more fragile than the Barbarian. So, then he’ll step back and then all of his friends can come in. He can certainly do a lot of damage. If used right, he’s ridiculously powerful. We have a lot of skills that focus on placing something on a monster. For example, we have the Exploding Palm skill where the third stage will place a bleed damage-over-time (DoT) effect on the monster. If the monster dies while this DoT is on him, and there’s a high chance that he will, the monster explodes and does damage to everyone around him. So it really supports this idea of, “He runs in. He does something and then he backs off or goes after another monster because he knows the first monster is already dead.”

-- Jay Wilson interview

Combat System

Way of the Hundred Fists in action.

The Monk's concept was that of a fighting game character, where the player could create combos by pressing the right buttons at the right time. This being not so different with the Monk, as almost all skills have 3 stages. Each stage of each skill performs a specific action. The player can chain these stages into a combo, being able to create 64 different combos from only 4 spells. In addition to that, many custom combos can be made that fit the player's style of combat.

Using a skill will cast the first stage of that skill. The player has a 0.6 second window to press the skill again to advance to the next stage of that (or a different) skill, that may lead to the 3rd stage of said skill. Alternatively, the player can wait for the 0.6 second window to pass, to re-use the first stage of the skill.

An Example:

Use/Objective of Skill(s): Easy for Beginners, Depth for veterans.
- Stage One: Way of the Hundred Fists, move in close to the enemies.
- Stage Two: Crippling Wave, lower the damage of the enemies.
- Stage Three: Exploding Palm, Apply the DoT to a damaged enemy and watch the bunch of monsters go boom! (make sure the enemy dies before the bleed ends)

Julian Love described the theory behind the Monk's combat design in an October 2009 interview. [4]

PD: So you think it'll be inviting to brand new players as well as experienced players? Because it seems like it could make him more challenging for people who, you know, aren't used to the game.

Julian: Yeah, there is an intent that he will be a little bit more challenging, that he is a little bit more for the not-beginner user. That doesn't mean you won't be able to jump right in with him and still be successful. I think that the intent here is that there is just enough of a learning curve that people who want to master that character have some place to go with that idea and become really good at it.

...But somebody who's more of a master might really follow the intricacies of how to combo multiple skills together, so something that they might do might be rather than just clicking away and having fun with that, they might be doing things like where they rush in, hit a combo that sort of stuns monsters, position themselves in the middle of that pack, then let off the big AoE [Area of Effect attack]; they're a little more efficient with their moves and maybe taking a little bit less damage as a result of it.

During the BlizzCon 2009 Diablo 3 Heroes and Monsters panel, it was said that the combat style was influenced by the combat styles of the Assassin in Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction and the | Rogue class in World of Warcraft.

Attributes and Skills

Monk Skills

The Monk skill trees as revealed at BlizzCon 2009 were clearly works in progress, with temporary names and the skills assigned to the trees at random. There were no prerequisites or synergies of any kind, and it's highly likely the Monk's skill layout will be entirely different when we're next given a look at them.

A
B
C

The monk uses a very special combat system that is better explained above.

Tree A Skills

Seven Sided Strike

The A-Tree seems to be a "Combat" skill tree, with skills related to dodging, or maneuvering in combat.

Tier 2 Skills
- Force Without Thought
Tier 3 Skills
- Seven Sided Strike
Tier 4 Skills
- Inner Sanctuary
- Way of the Hundred Fists

Tree B Skills

Exploding Palm

The B-skills resemble a debuffing tree, where you make your opponents weaker (or part of your arsenal with Exploding Palm.

Tier 1 Skills
- Crippling Wave
Tier 2 Skills
- Exploding Palm

Tree C Skills

Impenetrable Defense

The C-skills seem to be the "Holy" skills, with power infused by the Light, especially Impenetrable Defense.

Tier 1 Skills
- Impenetrable Defense
Tier 2 Skills
- Radiant Visage

Development

The Monk was the Fourth class to be revealed by Blizzard, debuting during the opening ceremony of BlizzCon 2009, in front of 26,000 cheering fans and countless DirecTV viewers. As with much of Diablo III, the D3 Team took inspiration from old Pen and Paper RPGs and from Fighting Games/Console Brawlers.

As of December 2009, the female version of the Monk has not been revealed and there's no indication that she soon will be. There will be male and female versions of all the characters, but Blizzard has reported that the concepting of the female monk was tricky to get right, hence the delay.