New Diablo III Classes

Who are the next two classes to be unveiled for Diablo III? So far we have the Barbarian who murderizes thing with weapons, the Witch Doctor who is a caster with some unorthodox summoning skills and lastly a Wizard who is a quintessential magical dynamo. So what do we have left? Well for one thing we know that no older classes are included in the final two.

Toastmold's Theories

Hunter
The first potential class that I can think of could be a Hunter that includes components of the Amazon, Druid and Assassin. The Hunter would be a primal fighter that relies on ranged attacks, animal related skills and a variety of traps. One example of an interesting animal skill would be something like the Druid's Raven spell. The Raven spell is more interesting than a fat bear that just walks around to get punched in the face. Yeah this class is inspired by the World of Warcraft Hunter, but it would end up being quite unique. Although this sounds like a lot to jam into one class, I think it could be feasible, and would lead to a wide variety of play styles and tactics.

Crusader
Surely at least one of the final two classes is going to be melee oriented. Which leads me to a potential replacement for the Paladin. The ‘Crusader’ would be a holy melee fighter that fills a similar role of the Paladin, but with some twists. Perhaps it would have fewer, more useful auras. One problem in Diablo II is that the Paladin often feel like a mobile aura that whaps on things with a wet noodle. So maybe auras will appear in a reworked manner. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them jazz up the melee component with something like the Assassin’s combo system. Perhaps they could even incorporate the spending of built up charges to trigger a short term aura, instead of just having a boring aura that you click to turn on permanently.

Jitan's Ravings

Inquisitor
Lore wise I think this class will be considered a Mage Hunter due to this quote: "Our list of ills seems never-ending: the state of our downtrodden and the slums they are forced to live in, our incompetent leadership, the reemergence of the intolerant Zakarum, and their quarrels with our mage class...I could go on for pages"

This figure from this link is what I think this class will look like.

Gameplay-wise I don't think his role will be limited specifically to Mage hunting. He probably will have a few anti-caster spells, like an anti-magic field, dispel, and silence, but I think his primary role will be single target dps and enemy debuffing. Since the Witch Doctor seems to be missing several Necromancer curses, it seems like it would be pretty neat if they converted them into offensive auras for the Inquisitor. He might not be decked out in plate like D2's Paladin, but I think he should have skills that will reduce certain kinds of damage for a very brief period of time or something. That way he can put up his defense and run straight at a specific target while only taking a minimal amount of damage from the other creatures.

Ranger
Probably pretty similar to the Amazon but I think she will take the role of party buffer. This will be done through the use of spirits similar to the druids but more interesting. I don't really see this class as a minion summoner because it would overlap too much with the Witch Doctor. Giving her single pet summons like the Necromancer's Golem could be interesting, but I think this would feel too much like the Hunter in WoW. Limiting her to a specific type of ranged weapon like the Amazon was with bows and javelins would be kinda blah so instead she should get a bunch of generalized ranged weapon buffs so she can use whatever she finds.

Shape Shifter

Another possibility is that they will add a shapeshifting class of some sort. In this interview, Jay Wilson makes an interesting comment about how they can't begin working on skills for the fifth class until it has a character model. This strikes me as odd because earlier he says that they've been using a placeholder model to create skills for the unannounced fourth class. It seems to me whatever this class is, it's skills are directly linked to its model. Might be something dull like a reworking of the shapechanging aspects of the Druid class or it's a huge shapeless chunk of goo that takes on random shapes.