Class roles in Inferno?

[raveharu]

It's inevitable that group work and selecting the right class combos will be easier than a bunch of random players with no tactic whatsoever.

It has worked for every ladder reset in D2lod, the ones who reached Hell first are always the ones in clans or play in a group with strategy.

[Zorrah]

Don't want to get trapped in the roles required trap. If you actually have classes that are really good at healing and tanking, then they make content that doesn't require heals and tanks too easy. The trap is, that you then have to make the content so hard that those classes are required, and no one wants to see that.

[Raesene]

Don't want to get trapped in the roles required trap. If you actually have classes that are really good at healing and tanking, then they make content that doesn't require heals and tanks too easy. The trap is, that you then have to make the content so hard that those classes are required, and no one wants to see that.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. I have no problem with skills that provide a healing/tanking purpose, but I don't think that should ever be the "role" of a character. A monk who hits his heal button every once in a while should still be punching and kicking and whatever in between, and the killing power he provides should be his primary contribution. Healing should be balanced to be as effective as CC (i.e., the amount one can heal is roughly the same as the amount of damage saved through stunning or whatever).

Ideally, everyone in the group should be providing utility to help control the fight. Every class is certainly capable of it.

[RazeBarb]

I'm already hearing the WoW nerds cry:

"You play Monk, why don't you constantly heal and buff us??!!1"

[Raesene]

I'm already hearing the WoW nerds cry:

"You play Monk, why don't you constantly heal and buff us??!!1"

It's too bad we don't have game naming, so we can set it to "3dps, need one monk for heals".

[HardRock]

Strict class roles (other than DPS) won't work very well in D3, due to how the resources are set up. It's always more optimal to try and stay in combat and deal damage. That said, I can see some potential for Monk and DH builds, that could focus on healing and CC, while not becoming a hindrance to the party.

The Demon Hunter is uniquely suited for a dedicated CC role, because her tactical abilities have no cooldown. Their Discipline cost can be overcome with items and skills that make Discipline management much easier. I'm thinking about a build like this for this task: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#..VYR!bXf!..Yab

The passives and Suppresion Fire would make spamming Caltrops a breeze, which stops enemies in their tracks with the 80% slow and you can also use Vault to get around quickly on the battlefield to put Caltrops where they're needed.

I said this in another thread already but due to the cooldowns on most defensive abilities of the other classes I think it won't be a good idea to play a purely support oriented build with them. It will be much better if everyone in the party will have at least one CC skill and you try to prolong their duration as much as you can by carefully timing their use.

For example, let's say your party consists of a Barb, a Wizard, a WD and a Monk. Then if party members work together and bring Ground Stomp, Frost Nova, Horrify and Blinding Flash you can keep nearby enemies under control for 14 seconds every 20 seconds. That's a much more powerful combo than either class can do by itself. Teamwork will be king in Inferno.

As for healing, the Monk has many good skills for this purpose, that can also buff the damage of players with passives. Here's my planned base build for a support heavy Monk: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#V.XhS!acf!Y.Zaa

Crippling Waves' Tsunami effect combined with the Resolve passive provides a very strong, spammable debuff capability in a 17 yard radius. Direct healing skills like Breath of Heaven will also buff the affected players damage by 15%. Cyclone Strike's Soothing Breeze effect could be another choice to provide this buff and it also synergizes really well with Crippling Wave.

[Cincinnati]

I don't even get why they gave the monk a pure heal skill. At least make it an interesting one and not just a push-for-huge-heal skill.

[HardRock]

Look at its rune effects. Breath of Heaven can be used for many things.

[lorieninfl]

It really makes little sense to enter a group of 4 and have predetermined roles. If things were going poorly (lots of deaths, etc), then if you were a monk, it might just simply behoove you to switch to a healing setup. If you were a barbarian, to put more damage mitigation abilities on. Just for the sake of getting something done. But, if you are enter a game with 4 people and everyone is just dpsing and moving along fine, why gimp yourselves?

[Apocalypse]

I'm already hearing the WoW nerds cry:

"You play Monk, why don't you constantly heal and buff us??!!1"

cause wow is the only mmo with healers