Diablo 3 update nerfs Monk, Wizard, Demon Hunter

Blizzard are in the process of making their first round of hotfixes for Diablo 3. Monks who rely on the Mantra of Healing with a Boon of Protection rune, prepare to be sad. A post spotted by Videogamer on the Diablo 3 forums from community manager Bashiok says that the skill has been severely nerfed. "We recommend discontinuing its use until the rune is replaced with a new rune and mechanic in a future patch."

"The Boon of Protection rune was approximately ten times over its budget on the benefits it provided, and it was quite simply a mistake on our part to let the rune ship as it was," he added. "We don't intend to take these quick and drastic measures often, but considering the severity of the issue, we felt it important to correct it swiftly."

A full list of hotfixes is due to be released tomorrow, but some players are claiming that the wizard's force armour is weaker than it was and the duration of the Demon Hunter's smoke screen has been culled.

"Class balance is an ongoing investigation, and by no means do we believe the game is now perfect," said Bashiok in a follow up forum post . He also responded to player claims that melee classes were being entirely outclassed by their ranged allies on Diablo 3's ultra-hard Inferno difficulty tier.

"The game is young, there were some skills that threw things out of whack, and we expect the landscape to settle out a bit more evenly. Or at least change again so we can continue to monitor the impact.

"Maybe we're wrong, maybe there's no current chance for monk or barbarian to compete with ranged, but our current suspicion is that's incorrect and until we know for sure we're not going to turn any dials."

Diablo 3's first week has been a quite a ride, what with all those disconnection problems and hacked accounts . Find out what we think of the game itself in our Diablo 3 review .