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[[Boss]]es and [[champion]]s are found in Diablo 3 as they were in the previous games in the series, and are the real focus of most reward/difficulty to be found during combat.
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==Development==
[[Image:Mon-siegebreaker1.jpg|thumb|150px|The [[Siegebreaker Assault Beast|Siegebreaker]] eyes his next victim.]]
The D3 team has created a huge variety of monsters for our slaughtering pleasure, and the denizens of the underworld are customized, personalized, and quite versatile. Bosses have been greatly upgraded in appearance and size, and the AI has been improved as well, but unfortunately they are not the main targets for item hunting anymore. This is a big departure from previous Diablo games, and was received with worse than mixed reception.
As the [[D3 Team]] describes it, the monsters and characters evolve at the same time, feeding off of each other. Jay Wilson described this process in a December 2008 interview.[http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?pager.offset=2&cId=3172030&p=]
::"...the monster design. As we get further and further into the game, our goal is to make monsters that we can't figure out how the player can defeat [with the existing skills] and give the player the tools they need to defeat them. So the design of the monsters has a direct relationship to the design of the classes. That's kind of an ongoing thing; we [decide] "Let's create a monster that has really debilitating rooting attacks that just get you stuck when you encounter them." Then we see that this really screws with the Barbarian, so we give him a skill that lets him break out of roots so that he can counter that. Those things are interesting and allow for the player to have a broader, deeper character. On the other hand, we don't want to go too far -- a lot of mechanics of ''World of WarCraft'' are based heavily on control, and we want to make sure that Diablo 3 stays mostly a combat game based mostly on attacks.
In an interview from October 2009, Leonard Boyarsky described the monster design process in more detail. [http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Hellforge/Diablo-III-The-Lore-of-the-World-An-Interview-with-Leonard-Boyarsky/page1]
::'''Leonard Boyarsky: '''A lot of the monster design stems from what is needed from a gameplay perspective. So different guys from our team from different disciplines like art, design, effects… will get together and will call a strike team and will really kind of brainstorm what would be cool to fit this niche in the game that we know we need. In the broadest sense we’ll know we’ll need let’s say a ranged monster, we’ll know we’ll need a monster that casts buffs on other monsters, and how can we bring something original to that. How can we make that an interesting character, or interesting monster. And then, a lot of the times the artists will give a personality or a kind of feel to those monsters and then we’ll come in and work with them on the lore.
::What we wanna do for a lot of the stuff is decide whether it’s from the lore side of the demons – whether it’s naturally occurring, and then we’ll try to come up with backgrounds for those different things. And sometimes, we’ll have the idea for, well, you’re in this area so this is the kind of... from a lore standpoint this is the kind of monsters or the kind of animals that you’d encounter, but we really don’t put any kind of requirements in terms of the gameplay of them. We could say, “Oh, you’re gonna run into a goatman here, or whatever” and then they will be able to run with that, because it’s pretty wide open, you know you can do a lot of different stuff with the characters.
===Monster Shape, Color, and Silhouette===
Blizzard's designers work hard to give the monsters distinctive shapes, colors, and outlines, so they'll be recognizable at a glance, even through the busiest of on-screen action. This slide from a panel at Blizzcon 2009 shows the distinctive design of D2 and D3 monsters.
[[File:Bz09-m-d2shape-color.jpg|center|D2 and D3 monsters have distinctive shapes and outlines.]]
==Classifications==
We're grouping monsters as they were sorted in Diablo II, as [[Animals]], [[Demons]], or [[Undead]]. At this point, this is purely for ease of organization. It's not known how monsters will be grouped in the final game, and/or if the familiar aspects of their types, such as undead taking extra damage from blunt weapons, will be retained in Diablo III. This information will be added to the wiki as soon as Blizzard makes it available. Consider all these classifications as tentative, for now.
===Classification by Function===
The Diablo design team classifies monsters by their function, with all monsters grouped into a few types, depending on their AI. The design goal is to group different types by how they best cooperate with each other, and you'll see the same types of monsters together in different areas throughout the game.
* '''Swarmer:''' Weak. Typically melee.<br>
It's a lot of fun to fight tons of little monsters at once. These function basically as "health walls," giving the players something to kill and gather health orbs from. They're not really meant to be dangerous.
* '''Ranged:''' Projectile speed. Arc. Direct.<br>
Most dangerous type other than bosses, since they can all attack you at once. Unlike melee enemies. Ranged may employ some evasive movement AI as well, rather than just running in to die like swarmers.
* '''Lieutenant:''' Resurrecting. Buff. Spawners.<br>
These are higher level monsters that can cast spells or share abilities with the swarmers and ranged lesser monsters. They can resurrect, buff, spawn, etc. They're not in large numbers, but are high priority targets.
* '''Elite:''' Tough. Stronger attacks. Or both.<br>
Designed to make the player pause and think. High damage attack, high hit points, etc. Something different. Scary and dangerous, more so than the lieutenant.
* '''AOE:''' (Area of Effect). Point blank, line, radial, cone.<br>
Area of Denial characters. Change the "game space." Set the ground on fire, make player move. Mix up the gameplay. The description terms refer to the types of shapes their spells can create, thus forcing the player to avoid or play differently than normal.
*''' Weakener:''' Debuff. Slow. Drainer.<br>
Kind of like Lieutenants, but they make swarmers and ranged guys more threatening.
* '''One offs:''' Sleeper, Alarm, Bee Hive, Linked, Sapper, Thief<br>
Various monsters that have cool abilities. Jay Wilson purposely didn't explain what they were, saying he wanted fans to have fun debating them.
==Monster Types==
It's not yet known how monsters are classified in ''Diablo III''. There are monsters seen in the early screenshots and gameplay movie that look to be animals, and quite a few undead, and others that might be demons, but there's no telling if that ''Diablo II'' classification system will be reused in ''Diablo III''. We're tentatively referring to the monsters by their apparent demon/undead/animal genus, for the sake of easier organization, but do not take that as evidence that they'll be sorted by those types in the game.
==Resistances and Immunities==
The D3 Team is not planning to grant many immunities to monsters in Diablo 3. They want enough resistances to require characters to use more than one type of attack all the time, but they don't want to make some monsters too hard for particular characters to deal with. Jay Wilson elaborated on this in a November 2009 interview. [http://diablofans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23550]
::'''Jay Wilson:''' We aren't looking to have full immunities or anything of the sort; however we are considering keeping one-element immunities on enemies. Because of the way our skill system works it's almost impossible to build a character that won't have some alternate skill to attack an enemy. So then it becomes an interesting use of a skill or skills that you may not be using all the time. We think that's interesting and fun gameplay, to have to adapt to situations. The adaptation just shouldn't be realizing your character or class is broken and you have to run away or you need to get in a multiplayer game. Those are things we intend to avoid forcing the player into.
==Bosses==
[[Image:Mon-thousand-pounder1.jpg|thumb|none|300px|Thousand Pounder. A boss!]]How bosses will be distributed through From what players saw during the game is not yet knownBlizzcon 2008 and 2009 demos, and still something the design team is working onbosses in Diablo 3 are much as they were in Diablo 2. They may follow something like the D2 system of SuperUniques in a few {{iw|SuperUniques}} and set, scripted locations, with lots of champions and random bosses(with random modifiers) scattered around the rest of the game world. No players have yet seen any Act Bosses, or they may break away with even the mighty [[Siegebreaker Assault Beast]] from that tradition. What we do know is that the bosses will WWI 2008 gameplay movie (who was 10x larger than any monster in Diablo 2) said to be hugea not especially impressive enemy, and have taking the game as a lot of individual stylingwhole. One boss battle is shown at the end of * See the [[WWI 2008boss]] gameplay movie, es page for many more details and it's an amazing fight against comments from the development team on this issue.* See the [[Siegebreaker Assault BeastBoss Modifiers]], an enemy far larger page for the 20~ known special modifiers bosses can spawn with; many more than all of in Diablo II's act bosses put together. ===Superuniques===
A Superunique is a specific kind of monster in Diablo III. They are displayed with their names in purple, have set spawn locations, and are often part of a quest or event. They will have special attacks such as Vampiric, Knockback and Jailer. While some superuniques are always found on given locations (e.g. [[Odeg the Keywarden]] always appears somewhere in the [[Fields of Misery]]), others only spawn occasionally. The probability of finding some is really low and encountering them can require hundreds of attempts. This is why the "A Unique Collection" achievement is one of the hardest to complete in Diablo III.
[[File:Dataminer.jpg#sthash.CbH2aoqb.dpuf|thumb|none|600px|A Superunique with its purple name]]
===Champions===
There are several types of champions in Diablo 3, much as there were in Diablo 2. These are monsters that spawn alone or in small groups, and are less powerful than bosses, but much stronger than normal monsters. See the [[champion]]s page for more details.
Known types of Diablo 3 Champions:
* Champions
* Fanatics
* Possessed
* Frenzied
==Behavior/AI==
Monsters are going to be smarter and more varied in their behaviours in ''Diablo III''. The [[D3 Team]] wants to force players to play smarter, and use tactics other than simply rushing to kill the monsters as soon as they are sighted. So some creatures have very powerful attacks that need to be avoided, others work very well in groups, others run away if threatened or only attack in packs, and so forth.
==Deaths==
The [[D3 Team]] has repeatedly talked about the fact that monsters in the Diablo series are chiefly defined by their entrances and their exits. Creatures don't live for very long, so what they do in life is less memorable than how they appear, and how they die. This issue came up in Blizzcast #8. [http://www.diii.net/blog/comments/blizzcast-8-live-with-diablo-iii-goodies]
::'''Bashiok:''' Julian back to you, one of the major effects systems is the death system which kind of goes over how monsters die. Which is one of the cooler parts of the game, and we’ve seen a little bit of that before at WWI and BlizzCon, but what is the system and can you explain it to those listening and what does it do in the game?
[[Image:Critical-hit1.jpg|frame|A Dark Cultist gets splatted by a critical death.]]
::'''Julian:''' Yeah, something pretty close to my own heart there. We recognized that monsters really live to die in Diablo. We developers don’t have a lot of time to express their personality, or much time to make the character's experience with monsters meaningful. Most of what players are doing is killing them. So one of the things we were interested in doing during development was making as many different ways for monsters to die as possible. So that was kind of the goal, and think we’re up to something like 35 ways for any given monster to “bite it” at this point. ::The basic theory is to really extend on the idea that Diablo II started with, which was that you would hit monsters and you would see the damage you did to them reflected on them. And we said, well let’s take that further, monsters could burn to death when you hit them with a fiery sword, and then we added the idea of [[crits]] and monsters could explode across the screen, and it just kind of went from there. But that’s essentially the idea. ===Special Death Animations===Monsters that die to a [[critical hit ]] get a special "critical death" animation, which is extra gory. The monsters literally explode, leaving chunks of themselves scattered across the ground. These animations are customized for whatever type of damage killed them; the chunks have flames licking across them from fire damage, sparks and arcs from lightning, etc. Physical damage critical deaths tend to leave huge slicks of blood, and give a battlefield a lovely post-massacre patina. These special deaths are even extended to individual skills, with acid spells causing them to dissolve, [[Locust Swarm]] bugs eating them down to their bones, [[Disintegrate]] turning them to ash, and many others. Lots of these effects were demonstrated during a panel at [[BlizzCon 2008]], an lovely excerpt from which you can view below: <youtube>bdxzTV2qhLs</youtube>
==Component System==
===SuperUniquesBosses===In lack of a name of Bosses were technically called "boss typeSuperUniques" units, we are in Diablo II. We're calling them [[SuperUniqueBosses]]s in Diablo III, just for nowthe sake of simplicity.
====[[Thousand Pounder]]====
[[Image:Mon-thousand-pounder1.jpg|100px|left]]Inside the [[forgotten Forgotten Tombs]] of the [[WWI 2008]] gameplay video, we got familiar with the [[Thousand Pounder]] as he was summoned in to the scene. He's also seen in concept art work, and looks more like an overly powerful monster than an actual type of boss, like a SuperUnique.<div style="clear:both;"></div> ====[[Leoric]]====[[Image:Mon-skeleton-king1.jpg|100px|left]][[Image:Mon-leoric1.jpg|100px|right]]The Skeleton King returns in Diablo III, and he's up to his old skeleton-summoning tricks. He's found sitting on his throne, must be awakened by the use of a quest item, and does not return in a good mood. Leoric wields a gigantic hammer and commands a vast army of the undead. He is a quest boss and was the final creature to defeat in the Blizzcon demo build (October 2008.) See [[The Skeleton King]] quest article for more details.<div style="clear:both;"></div>
====[[Activated Vessel]]====
[[Image:Mon-activated-vessel2.jpg|left|100px]]Scary looking humanoid demonic creation made from willing [[Dark Vessel]]s. Activated Vessels are mutated, half-demonic things who fight furiously and move very quickly. It's a good idea to kill off the Dark Vessels before they can activate, if at all possible.<div style="clear:both;"></div>
====[[Dark Demon]]====
[[Image:Mon-dark-demon1.jpg|left|125px]]These odd, half-skeletal creatures are summoned from raw, red manhole-like openings in the ground by [[Dark Cultist]]s. They are quadrupedal, and look a bit like a dog crossed with a crocodile, then turned inside out. They are quick of foot, but appear to possess only melee attacks.<div style="clear:both;"></div>
====[[Dark Vessel]]====
Dark Vessels look a bit like [[Dark Cultists]], but Vessels lean on tall crooks, and remain motionless until they transform, while Cultists are mage-like enemies who cast a variety of spells and summon demons.<div style="clear:both;"></div>
====[[Dune Thresher]]====
[[Image:Mon-dunethresher1.jpg|left|100px]][[Dune Thresher]]s are apparently mostly located north of [[Caldeum]], which would imply that the game will take us to the surrounding desert areas. They are the croco-sharks of the sand, and is a great threat to anyone wandering in the desert. Well, besides heroes like the average player in [[Diablo III]]. Above two primary front legs these beasts are equipped with a second pair of appendage in the form of gigantic talons that supplement its leap-and-bite attack. The beasts are very fast and most dangerous.<div style="clear:both;"></div>
====[[Fallen Shaman]]====
[[Image:Mon-fallen-shaman-bashiok.gif|left|100px]][[Fallen Shaman]]s return in Diablo III, but none have yet been seen in screenshots. We only know of them thanks to this animated gif, which [[Blizzard]]'s D3 Community Manager, [[Bashiok]], had in as his forum signatureavatar. [[Fallen]] were in D1 and took on an expanded role with new AI, shamans, and grouping habits in D2 ({{iw|Fallen Diablo 2 Fallen}}). How they'll progress in D3 remains to be seen, but everyone seems to like this monster type, so their return is a popular one.<div style="clear:both;"></div>
====[[Ghoul]]====
[[Image:Mon-ghouls3.jpg|left|100px]]These swarming monsters appear to be the zombie cannon fodder of [[Diablo III]]. They are blue-skinned [[undead]] who spawn in great numbers, are quite fleet of foot and quick of movement, but are fairly weak and easy to kill. [[Ghoul]]s can be seen climbing up the walls and swarming the [[Barbarian]] in the beginning of the [[WWI 2008]] gameplay movie. They die almost as fast as they race to battle (which is quite quickly).<div style="clear:both;"></div>
====[[Lamprey]]====
[[Image:Mon-lamprey2.jpg|left|100px]]Lamprey are squirming eels that emerge in a flood from a ruptured [[Grotesque]]. They are not powerful monsters, but are disgusting in their fecundity and must be stomped out, like giant maggots.<div style="clear:both;"></div>
====[[Savage Beast]]====
[[Image:Mon-beast2.jpg|left|100px]][[Savage Beast]]s are large, buffalo-like herd beasts seen in the plains areas of Diablo III. They have a very fast charging attack, and gore with their huge tusks up close, though the few seen in the WWI 2008 gameplay movie died pretty easily. They're not just animals either; they've been mutated by [[Diablo]] (or someone?) to become monstrous.<div style="clear:both;"></div>
====[[Scavenger]]====
[[Image:Mon-scavenger1.jpg|left|100px]]The [[scavenger]] returns from [[Diablo I]], and it's taken on some properties of the {{iw|Leapers Leapers}} from [[Diablo II]]. They look more like animals than demons, and are somewhat badger-like in their furry, striped appearance. But they leap and dart around wildly, and seem quite capable of swarming an unwary hero by sheer numbers.<div style="clear:both;"></div>
====[[Skeleton]]====
[[Image:Mon-skeleton3.jpg|left|100px]]As iconic as [[zombies]], animated human [[skeleton]]s have been featured in all of the Diablo games, and just about every other fantasy RPG ever made. In D3, plain skeleton warriors are joined [[Skeletal Summoner]]s, [[Skeletal Archer]]s, and [[Skeletal Shieldman]], and (perhaps) other types not yet revealed.<div style="clear:both;"></div>
====[[Skeletal Archer]]====
[[Image:Mon-skeletal-archer1.jpg|left|100px]]The basic bones with a bow, [[skeleton archerSkeletal Archer]]s return for their third go 'round in the Diablo series, and they are much as they've ever been. A humanoid skeleton with a bow and a relatively slow firing rate. They are not dangerous one on one, but a pack of them can be pretty nasty, especially against low armor or stationary targets.<div style="clear:both;"></div> ====[[Skeletal Executioner]]====[[Image:Mon-skeletal-executioner2.jpg|left|100px]]Skeletal Executioners are a larger, more powerful version of skeletons, instantly recognizable by their red hoods, huge shoulder pads, and the massive headsmen axes. They only pick up the axes when they are about to use them, and they use both arms to deliver vicious overhead chops with their weapons. Skeletal executioners have a short range charge attack that they finish with a devastating chop of their axes. Being hit by one won't actually kill a character in a single blow, but it's quite painful. <div style="clear:both;"></div>
====[[Skeletal Summoner]]====
[[Image:Mon-skeletal-summoner5.jpg|left|100px]]These skeleton shaman spawn with packs of [[Skeletal Archer]]s and [[Skeletal Shieldman]] for protection. The Summoners are larger than regular skeletons, and have glowing purple/pink orbs around their upper bodies. These may be shields, decoration, or an indication what type of elemental damage they deal. During battle the summoners stay to the rear of their foot soldiers, where they keep busy summoning fresh skeletons, or hurling purple projectiles at any players who stray into range.<div style="clear:both;"></div>
====[[SkeletonThe Unburied]]====[[Image:Mon-skeleton3unburied1.jpg|left|100px]]As iconic as [[zombies]]These huge, hulking, animated human [[skeleton]]s have been featured spike-covered monsters are undead; the largest type of undead ever seen in all any of the Diablo games, and just about every other fantasy RPG ever madetitles. In D3, plain skeleton warriors They are joined [[Skeletal Summoner]]sslow of foot and hard-hitting, [[Skeletal Archer]]smuch like the club-wielding {{iw|Blunderbore Blunderbores}} seen in Diablo II. The only Unburied yet seen were early in the game, and [[Skeletal Shieldman]]during the demo levels available at Blizzcon 2008, and (perhaps) other types were not yet revealedtoo nasty. It's expected that we'll find more dangerous varieties of them later in the game, since that's how the monsters in Diablo III roll.<div style="clear:both;"></div>
Walking corpses have a unique talent, in that upon death they sometimes break in half, but continue the battle as their upper bodies snap off and become a [[Crawling Torso]].<div style="clear:both;"></div>
====[[Wood Wraith]]====
[[Image:Mon-wood-wraith1.jpg|left|100px]]The only type of this monster yet seen is called the [[Wood Wraith]], but they are called Gnarled Walkers in the concept art, and that seems a more likely name for the entire monster type.
Gnarled Walkers are not just living, Ent-like trees, but are demonic, possessed um... trees. From the concept art they look to be things, mad plants, rather than individual entities. They do not have faces, and they are not bipedal bodies formed from wood. They are literally demonic trees, soulless and mindless and deformed by the dark magics that have animated them.<div style="clear:both;"></div>
====[[Wretched DeadMother]]====[[Image:Mon-walking-corpse-f2.jpg|left|50px]][[Image:Mon-zombie-unknown.jpg|left|50px]]These [[zombie]]s come in male and female varieties, and appear to be a slight upgrade from the generic, brains-loving shamblers. They look somewhat gothic, and have the females in ripped gowns, the males like they've just spent their allowance at [http://www.hottopic.com/hottopic/index.jsp Hot Topic]ability to summon more undead by regurgitating dead bodies.
<div style="clear:both;"></div>
[[Image:Mon-zombie3.jpg|left|100px]][[Zombie]]s return to [[Diablo III]] in much the same form as they occupied in [[Diablo I]] and [[Diablo II]]. Humanoid, slow, shambling, and just generally unpleasant. Their slow speed and negligible intelligence makes them perfect targets for new characters to warm up and level up against.
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