Poll: Am I The Only One Bothered By How In Diablo III.......

[Atmos Duality]

Since you put it that way, it's a little of column A, a little of column B.
Design wise, boring as hell. Not overly powerful in melee compared to other classes due to slow weapons and lacking in physical power... but the auras did may up for that.

In Diablo 2, properly built Paladins have some of the highest melee damage in the game.
Vengeance goes right through most of Hell Mode resistances and does very high damage, Smiters can abuse Crushing Blow with an incredible attack speed and 100% hit rate. Chargers carry amazing damage buffs in one shot even without auras. Hell, even stacked Sacrifice Paladins outstrip most Barbarians for single-target damage.

The ability to inflict damage as you're attacked and heal over time without potions was nice.
Much as I prefer turn-based combat, in a game series like Diablo, I prefer to muck right in and swing hard and fast hits that kill quickly.

That said, my list was only really a comparison between the last game and this one... sadly, the Monk/Paladin were the only ones left as the others were so obvious, so I had to pair them.
In a theological sense, they're both warriors of body AND mind and they're usually associated with religion in some way or another.

I prefer combo characters, but alas, Diablo 2 only provided us with the Assassin for that.
Though the Monk/Paladin comparison is solid in theory; Blizzard (from what I can tell) is splitting some of the old character classes up and mix-matching them into new ones.
Monk got the Assassin's Martial Arts tree, but is also getting parts of the Paladin.
Demon Hunter is part Assassin, part Amazon between the ranged skills and traps.
Witch Doctor is most of Necromancer with parts of the Druid thrown in.

The only two direct ports are of course the Barbarian and Sorceress.

OT: I'm only hoping that Diablo 3 doesn't possess the mind-meltingly boring grind of Hell mode preparation. Anyone who wasn't rushed or geared up to the teeth with hacked/duped items playing Diablo 2 will know how overbearing Hell Mode actually is. Most of the people who complained about 1.09 being too easy were the same people who had the best gear and didn't actually play the game; they just sat in the Bloody Foothills and let someone's cold sorc rush them.
Ladder consisted entirely of Light Sorcs and Hammerdins after 1.11c. Why? Duped items and elemental coverage.

 

[Rblade]

I think a necro would be terrible to balance and they are trying to make pvp a viable option.

And although I can't speak for all classes I know that necro's where pretty much impossible to defeat in player versus player D2 against my druid. D2 wasn't balanced for pvp much at all.

 

[DragonChi]

Druids were added in the expansion, however. I'm sure they'll get around to it. Thing is, though, I've already played Diablo 3. It's called Torchlight.

Speaking of which, do you recommend that game? I watched Yahtzee's review on it and the game still kind of interests me.

can you link me to the D3 review from Yahtzee. I don't see any review from him about it. Unless you mistook the Torchlight episode as a D3 review. I don't see how he can review a game that isn't out yet. So I think you may have been mistaken. If im wrong, please link the review.

Think he was joking about D3's new look and how it's less Diabloesque and more WoWish.

Right..I think the review your referring to, is the Torchlight Review. You didn't provide a Link to your source of information, and that is the only episode that somewhat resembles a Diablo-esque game, and saying that the game being reviewed looks like WoW in some respects in art style. Torchlight does look similar to WoW, but D3 is nowhere close IMHO.

They were referring to Torchlight to begin with, so they aren't mistaken at all.

OT: I honestly doubt it'd bother me, either way. The Witch Doctor is definitely being toted as the token summoner class, so I doubt that the game will lack one.
Personally, though, I usually end up tinkering around with all the classes and build options, so it really wouldn't make a difference to me, in the end. I had a bit of fun with a Summon/Curse build Necromancer, but I really wouldn't miss it.

I apologize, I didn't catch that. I never saw the original post so I had assumed the game being spoken about was D3. My Bad.

 

[Canid117]

Diablo II had the same number of classes when it started as Diablo III is starting with and the witch doctor can summon. I am also pretty sure the official list of abilities hasn't been released.

 

[Elijin]

Personally, I wait for a game to be released before I go and get my knickers in a knot about it.

 

[Cheesus333]

I think the Witch Doctor is supposed to be the main summoner, and I reckon he'll have a few available from the get-go. They look pretty cool as well, swarms of carnivorous insects, spirit beasts, all that good stuff.

Also, there are the same amount of classes in the original Diablo 2 as there are in the original Diablo 3: five of them. There might be more in any expansion packs, who knows?

 

[The_Author]

I'm going to reserve judgment on Diablo III's classes and balance until they actually finish developing the bloody thing. I'm more upset by the fact that blizzard has been teasing us with this game for almost five years now (not counting all the rumors and dross since 2003). they keep us complacent with gameplay trailers and shiny cinematics while giggling to themselves and pissing off to design new WoW expansions. I understand that it's their main source of income anymore, and surely they've polished the process of making new content to a mirror shine, but hanging we Diablo fans out to dry seems excessively sinister, even for them. I think they'll toss a summoner class in at some point, probably between the next two launch delays.