the 5th Class CAN be Meelee/Ranged

WITHOUT weapon switch, mind yall. Here's my ingenious idea that'll tie up the loose ends I see in the 4 announced classes thus far:

When the Monk was announced, I became quite dismayed. And not because he's totally not awesome. But the balance of classes just doesn't seem right.

"Where's the tank?" I ask.

The Barb, most people have been telling me. Yeah-the-****-right. He wants to run in with guns (or hammers or swords) blazin with one in each hand. Don't tell me he's about defense and taking damage. In DII (I'll keep comparisons to a minimum), he was second in defense to the Paladin by a looong shot. With the final character to be revealed almost too obvious to be obviously an archer or ranged physical of some sort, that leaves out any option for a true platemailed tank...

Or so one would think...

My idea of an archer has a wrist mounted crossbow, like so: http://lilith.gods-inc.de/macavity/I...s-huntress.jpg

This leaves his second hand open for an awesome shield in which he can bash opponents with, thusly making him a shield basher/archer extraordinaire, in no particular order. We'll call him the Ranger for now. His fighting style allows for utmost protection when it comes to choice of equipment, so you'll likely be outfitting him/her in full plate mails and heavy helmets. This allows him to be in the front lines with the Monk and the Barb, smashing away with his shield skills, and then start firing away at a moments notice. Man that sounds awesome...

So to translate this class' play style to actual gameplay, he would have both his crossbow and shield available by default. His skill and accessibility with both are balanced and he can use both alternately if he wants. Some skills and/or spells will strengthen his shield, letting him sit behind it sentry style and pick away with impunity. Other shield skills will be more offensive, like the Paladin's bash or charge. As for the crossbow, I see no reason why they wouldn't give him a volley shot. The Witch Doctor is having all kinds of fun volleying Skulls of Flame over the hordes of fallen to hit the shamans. Perhaps the Ranger can choose between a volley shot or a straight shot for some or all his arrow/bolt skills. The volley will have less velocity and therefor be slower and hurt less, but allows for single-target precision in crowds to deliver that awesome explosion arrow (or whatever arrow/bolt skills he has). The straight shot having less control but more speed and damage (not counting spell/skill damage, just physical weapon dmg).

The Ranger's resource system would obviously have something to do with keeping the two vastly different but enormously harmonious gadgets in balance.

And there we have it! A perfectly well-rounded group of five original character classes! What's that you tell me? 4-player limit, you say? ****....|||i agree with you that i was a bit upset when they announced the monk for pretty much the same reason. i wanted a sword/shield tank and a archer(mainly archer) and the monk killed one of them for sure. your idea sounds interesting but i really like my archer to be more about quickness than strength but that does not mean your idea would not also be fun to me. my only concern would be balance. usually in these type of games the long range character are the easiest to kill. to give the best defense to a ranged character might be really unbalanced.

now to balance it i would assume they would lower the damage of either the crossbow or the shield (probably crossbow) to the point where it might take too long to actually kill anything. with a nerfed crossbow to balance the class you would end up using your shield 80% of the time or killing it transit which would bring us right back to the nimble archer.

i must say however that i like the creativity of the class.|||yes. i kinda like the idea. but i prefer my rangers long range focused. (spears or bow/xbow)

and with no custom stats, you couldn't decided if you wanted to focus on range or shield bashing. (though i think thats what the runes are for, but I havent looked into them much, yet)

I once was thinking of a double-shield class. that could be fun.

but it won't happen as there are no archers announced yet.|||The 5th class will be mainly ranged because that's the class archetype the game is missing the most right now.

The barbarian is the current tank melee archetype, but a shield-focused (paladin-esque) class may be introduced in the expansion.|||really hope one is as it is a fun class for me, usually. hell just give me back the paladin in an xpac...just umm make sure he forgot how to throw hammers|||Thanks for the feedback, Apocalypse. You're right about the OP issue, which strangely I haven't even considered yet.

-perhaps we could nerf his firing rate

-bow skills could have less AoE styles- we want him to be a true sniper anyways, not mage-like a la the DII Amazon.

-Shield skills could possibly demand that he put his crossbow away for full proficiency, and vice versa.

Otherwise, I don't think nerfing bow damage is too necessary, as long as it's not too powerful in the AoE department.|||Or maybe we could downplay shield tactics but then we would have to downplay his entire Defense game, but not by too much. Plate mail instead of full plate is good still in my op.

Also, my nephew had brought up a good idea about the Ranger's travel skill (a la teleport/leap/spirit walk/double jump(?)). It can be a hookshot that is a part of his wrist contraption. Walls don't necessarily have to be the targets, he could simply shoot the ground around him in a small-ish radius and use the momentum to propel him forward.|||Quote:








Or maybe we could downplay shield tactics but then we would have to downplay his entire Defense game, but not by too much. Plate mail instead of full plate is good still in my op.

Also, my nephew had brought up a good idea about the Ranger's travel skill (a la teleport/leap/spirit walk/double jump(?)). It can be a hookshot that is a part of his wrist contraption. Walls don't necessarily have to be the targets, he could simply shoot the ground around him in a small-ish radius and use the momentum to propel him forward.




Oh my god, you've just made the Link class. I won't respect Blizz if they don't put that in the game and have Myamoto at the launch.

+: Only 4 players at multiplayer is sad. =/|||lol i bet even in games of 4 i end up alone most of the time. people who play diablo have always been so greedy they are used to running off alone. even now with shared loot the idea of going off alone will be burned into their minds. that plus they wont wanna share shrines lol|||Multiplayer games are usually better when you play with people you know, that wanna play with you, not just play with people.