Serious expansion class speculation

[MustBHacks]

I'd think Paladin / Necro(Just because blizz is adamant about WD NOT being a necro)
Plus paladin gives blizz an excuse for all those STR/INT mods on swords =P
Then for the expansion after that I was thinking Druid / Amazon-esk(Since there's only 1 physical ranged class)

[Apocalypse]

But another dex based class would also upset the item balance. To bring it up to the 'zen' balance pretty much it has to be a strength-class.

Shield and spear hoplite sounds good too, but as someone mentioned in Diablo universe it's our templar starting weapon. Why don't they just make templar follower as a class then? (Which is terrible idea IMO)

well i assume we will be getting 2 classes in the xpac so make 1 str and make the shield/spear user a str/dex combo class. balance saved. for the str class make it something cool and unique like a death knight that starts at level 55 or something already

[Wolfpaq777]

Only 1 strength class. Only 2 melee. So I agree with your conclusion that the next class will be strength based and melee. Shapeshifter or knight/paladin/blackguard could fit this role nicely.

For another class I would really love to see a rapid actual combo+finisher oriented class such as D2's assassin but as others have mentioned this might overlap a little too much with the monk/demon hunter. I really hope we get 2 classes per xpac again but I'm not sure how likely that is given the incredible amount of work required to come up with 20+ new skills, 15+ new passives and hundreds of rune effects.

[Apocalypse]

Only 1 strength class. Only 2 melee. So I agree with your conclusion that the next class will be strength based and melee. Shapeshifter or knight/paladin/blackguard could fit this role nicely.

For another class I would really love to see a rapid actual combo+finisher oriented class such as D2's assassin but as others have mentioned this might overlap a little too much with the monk/demon hunter. I really hope we get 2 classes per xpac again but I'm not sure how likely that is given the incredible amount of work required to come up with 20+ new skills, 15+ new passives and hundreds of rune effects.

not to mention how hard it is to make a new character without people saying "oh it plays just like X char"

[Sulle]

Only 1 strength class. Only 2 melee. So I agree with your conclusion that the next class will be strength based and melee. Shapeshifter or knight/paladin/blackguard could fit this role nicely.

Yeah you are right. Melee classes are outnumbered by ranged and we also only have 1 str class, so weŽll definitely see a melee str based class in the expansion. The other class could basically be anything, but a dual class like a druid/shapeshifter would make sense.

[imthedan]

If one of the classes isn't a shapeshifter, I'll be shocked. It fits everything that is needed, and is easily at least tied with the most requested class at the moment (you could throw Pally and Necro there as well, but the Druid would be the most unique to add).

Although, I hope they add two classes.

[yovargas]

As I've said several times, shapeshifters simply don't work in the Diablo style of play and specially D3's 6-skill hotbar system. If somebody can think of a way to do it that wouldn't be either highly cumbersome or merely visual, I'd like to hear it.

[imthedan]

What are your reasons for it NOT working? I think it could work very well. Treat it similar to Archon for the Wizard. When you shift, you get access to new skills. Six skills when shifted are plenty. The shifting isn't the problem; the problem is creating another aspect to the Druid other than shifting. I think it would have fit nicely as the WD's niche minus the poison damage stuff. If he could summon wolves and stuff to help him fight and was more of a walking buff, then that would be cool.

That can't happen, so there would have to be another aspect to the druid other than shifting. Maybe, you could mix a paladin with him as his other part. Give him a shield and sword and auras, but instead of a holy damage, he has different elemental damages.

So, you have a shifter as one part, and if you choose to play him as another way, you can use him as a shield/sword 'auradin' type player that has auras that increase damage for him and others. That was just off the top of the head, so I am sure others have ideas as well, but a shifter is more than doable.

[Zorrah]

Lock him into 5 skills shifted and save button 6 for the toggle, and the shapeshift skill itself.

Though, really, the only problem I had with the druid is that, even in Diablo II, it felt like my builds were, A paladin, with summons, a Barbarian with summons or a sorceress with summons or windy druid. I wound up picking the windy druid because the wolf felt too paladin and the bear felt too barbarian. Not to dis those who love the class though.

That does leave the question, what builds of druid would we want for DIII. I'm in favor of a more force of nature focus. Returning skills, Raven, volcano, hurricane, tornado. Rune tornado to turn it into twister. Also rune tornado to add birds, which add bleed damage or bats which add poison (disease) damage. New techniques, blades of grass,turn ordinary grass into sharp caltrop like growths, make grass grow where there isn't any, and it's the same death caltrop grass. Causes slow. Rune for poison. Overgrow, root mob. Vampire vine, summoning, single vine that will stun an enemy and drink it's blood while stunned, giving it a life tap. Single target, doesn't work on bosses. Spirit of life. Summons a spirit that gives it's health to nearby players, thus is always dying, but the health is transferred to players, so this is really more of a healing skill than a summons.

Shapeshifting should be a small part of the druid, but a very powerful one. I'd say he'd have about 4 different shapes + a travel form for his escape technique. It'd be balance with the rest of the travel moves, with a decent cooldown. His other forms would have cooldowns and durations designed so that even if he had all 4, he would not be able to be in a shifted form 100% of the time, but they would be far more powerful than his DII forms.

That's something I would like to see for the druid.

Edit: or better yet, he can have 1 shapeshifting skill, but it would be his rune that determines what he shapeshifts into. This can be the same or separate from his move ability. If this were just his move ability, that would actually be kind of interesting as well. Base form, Bat, above the action, can't really be a target while in this form. Wolf, runs through mobs while dealing modest bite and claw damage. Form of a force of nature, runs through the mobs while dealing fire and lightning and ice damage.

[Bosscelot]

I like the idea of a strength-based nature focused driud type character however I'm also sad that the desert ranger was dropped.

Honestly the idea of combining the two would be really cool. Instead of a northern-european inspired isn't-nature-wonderful smelly hippie you get some sort of desert-sage/warrior who considers nature to be a harsh mistress. Almost like a Fremen from Dune. Instead of transforming into a bear he/she transforms into a scorpion or something along those lines. To get around the 6 skill limit give the class certain abilities that 'change' when in one of their different forms. Like normally they have a paladin-esque charge skill; they rush forward in a straight line and bash/smash/slice their target causing knockback and a stun. In the scorpion form they dive underground and 'slice' the ground as they move forward, causing damage to anything in the path before erupting out of the ground to cause a huge amount of damage to their target. On the one hand you have a way to stun/knockback an enemy and running the risk of being blocked compared to a guranateed high damage hit but with no status-impairing effects. IDK just brainstorming (and quite tempted to draw some of this stuff!)