Diablo 3 got little attention at Blizzcon with upcoming WoW Cataclysm and Starcraft II taking the spotlight, but it was far from forgotten. Blizzcon 09 revealed to us the Monk. As with Blizzards usual style, it is unknown when this third chapter to the Diablo series will be released, sometime in 2011 for both PC and Mac.

For those of us who can’t wait, here is what we know so far.

Diablo III takes place in a world of dark fantasy called Sanctuary twenty years after Diablo II. Its inhabitants are unaware of the lore that surrounds the land they live in. They do not know that twenty years ago demonic forces of the underworld nearly overtook the land. The surviving warriors who had fought these loathesome forces from Hell, went mad. Players will quest to save humanity from demons and ultimately, Diablo. The game will be broken up into acts in order to break up the storyline, and acts will be broken down in chapters like the previous.

There will be five classes, four of which have already been revealed as the Witch Doctor, Barbarian (returning from Diablo II), Wizard, and the newly announced Monk. The Barbarian is a guardian of Mount Arreat who has been revamped with powerful new abilities and moves. The Witch Doctor comes from the Tribe of Five Halls (a legendary umbaru race). Armed with spells and alchemical powers, a witch doctor can summon mongrels, locusts, and zombies.

Monk

One may think the monk is just another melee fighter, but that person would be wrong. Though the monk is an adept melee fighter, they are also a lot more fragile than their tank counterpart the Barbarian. A monk is a holy warrior capable of divine justice combined with deadly martial arts. The combo system for many of the monk’s skills truly help set him  apart from the rest. Monk skills that use the combo system can be chained together in different orders to achieve different results.

 – Crippling Wave (Stage 1: slows enemies, Stage 2: Debuffs (enemy does less damage to you), Stage 3: Refreshes  both of those debuffs and also does a little bit of damage with a regular attack
 – Impenetrable Defense
 – Exploding Palm (Combo)
 – Seven-Sided Strike
 – Way of the Hundred Fists (Stage 1: Dash, Stage 2: Multiple hit, Stage 3: A big hit, parry, then blast)

Wizard

The Wizard has the power to manipulate primal forces of the universe to vanquish foes. A wielder of elements, manipulator of time, with abilities to hurl earth-shattering lightning bolts, channel explosive arcane energies, and create pockets of space outside the normal temporal flow, the Wizard is a force to be reckoned with.

 – Disintegrate
 – Electrocute
 – Teleport
 – Magic Missile
 – Slow Time

Barbarian

 – Cleave
 – Stomp
 – Leap
 – Seismic Slam
 – Whirlwind

Witch Doctor

 – Firebomb
 – Horrify
 – Locust Swarm
 – Mass Confusion
 – Soul Harvest

Another of the classes from Diablo II will show up in D3 (uncertain as a Class or character), as well as many of the NPCs from Diablo and Diablo II, including Cain.

A new “Adventure” system will power randomly generated scripted events and quests. Players will be able to easily track quests, and easily find them as they will now feature the yellow marker system from WoW. In addition to storyline quests, players will also be able to complete class-based quests.

Blizzcon debuted two new monsters the snakeman and sandwasp, and also three variety of the old-time favorite the fallen; rank-and-file fodder imp, the resurrection-happy shaman, and the crazy-cousin lunatic. The game will also feature dune thresher (announced at Blizzcon 08) was inspired by the movie ‘Tremors’. The dune thresher emerges from the sand to attack unsuspecting players. Killing a large number of monsters in a row can earn players extra experience bonuses.

Diablo players will be surprised to see that checkpoints have been added to dungeons. Players that die have the option of using a Vial of Resurrection or spawning at the last checkpoint, with full gear and items and a sliver of health.

Another pleasant surprise is that items will only take up one slot each (no more playing Tetris with your inventory!). And like WoW extra inventory space can be added by having extra bags. Loot is generated per player and players will only be able to see loot they can pick up. Gold will be automatically picked up when it’s run over.

Diablo III will feature a hot bar for skills (an abbreviated version of the one in WoW with only four slots), and players can right-click on the hotbar and select from a list of to swap skills. No more skillbooks. The health potion system has also disappeared in D3 and has been replaced with health powerups. The removal of health potions will also impact the way combat is done in this game. The combat system in Diablo 3 will be more balanced, with developers trying to make it more challenging without actually being harder. They will be keeping the Hell and Nightmare difficulty levels from the previous games. The Witch doctor will definitely use a mana system for power, but a different system is being developed for the Monk and Wizard.

Strength and intelligence attributes will level automatically, allowing players to focus more on skills. Skills will operate on the rune system and is similar for every class. Each talent/spell has a single Skill Rune slot. Once socketed, the runes add various effects to the skills (they can be changed later, they are not permanent). There are five basic runes, each rune has a general type of effective plus. Every active skill (an active skill is a skill that you have to click to activate) can have all five runes affect it. Each rune will change the function of the skill. Some of the changes are minor, in some cases there’s not much of an appreciable effect, others there is a more drastic effect. Throughout the game the runes will upgrade in power.

Runes

1. Tends to be damage-oriented
2. Tends to to multiply effects, splits projectiles or bigger radiuses,etc.
3. Tends to be a very energy-efficient rune, so players can cut down cost or in some way increase the benefit of the skill
4. Tends to be more focused on death effects, critical effects
5. The Weird Rune

Diablo III will operate within the new Battle.net, which was revealed in respect to Starcraft II. Traditional LAN will not be a part of the game, but designer Jay Wilson confirmed that D3 will end up with the same “pseudo-LAN” as SC2. It will utilize a new in-house 3D graphics engine and the Havok physics engine for environments.

Be sure to check out the Monk Reveal Trailer from Blizzcon 09 and to keep coming back for updates!