[:1]I finally posted my Monk PvM hands on report.
http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/com...m-report-monk/
Too long to quote here, but I'll insert the skills comments, at least. See the main page article for links and images and lots more, etc.
Quote:
Monk Skills
I played all five characters through the PvM demo this year, most of them more than once, and I have no hesitation in stating that the Monk was the strongest of the five. All of the characters were fairly easy, especially in single player, but the with Monk I was laughing at how easily he slaughtered the monsters. He had a big damage combo and an AoE nova-like attack that dealt huge damage to multiple targets, more than enough to finish off anything but a boss, and it healed him in the process. For the monk, health orbs were pretty much ornamental, since I never need any to stay alive.
As I said in the �First Character� thread, I�ll probably go with a Monk first, since I�ll want to play through very quickly to gather site info, and he seems like the strongest char, based on what a beast he�s been in the last two Blizzcon demos. Obviously Blizzard will look to make the characters equivalent in their strength come the final game, and you can only project so much from a few quick play sessions in the Blizzcon demos, but at this point, the Monk looks like he�ll be a terror, at least through normal difficulty.
The power of the characters at level 9 was largely a function of the skills they�d been pre-planned with. You didn�t get to pick them; the characters all had 3 skills (all that are available at that point of your eventual 7) assigned, with 8 points spent in them. Most characters had 5 points in their main attack skill, with 1 and 2 in the other two support activities. That was true of the Monk at least, who had 5 points in his combo skill Hands of Lightning, 2 in his support skill Circle of Wrath, and the last point in his unnecessary defensive skill, Blinding Flash.
Here they are, with their stats, from the Monk skills page in the wiki.
Hands of Lightning
Description: Unleashes a series of increasingly powerful lightning infused punches that deal X% weapon damage as lightning damage, and has a higher chance than normal to interrupt enemy attacks.
* Rank Five: Deals 300% weapon damage as lightning damage. Higher than normal chance to interrupt enemy attacks.
Hands of Lightning was the mainstay, as will be the case for all Monks with their combo skills . Combos do bonus damage, grant special properties (lightning damage and interrupt attacks on Hands of Lightning), and build up Spirit. You have to do combos to build up the Spirit you need to cast your other skills, but since all combos are much better than using the normal attack, and they do not cost any resource, there�s no reason you wouldn�t want to use them.
Note that Hands of Lightning was level 5 in the demo. Maxed out, at that stage in the game, and this made it very damaging. Presumably the +lightning damage goes something like 100/150/200/250/300, (if not just +60% per skill point) and at level 5, even with my Monk just using the crappy Fist he had to start with, it was much more than enough to devastate any number of enemies.
The punches only seemed to hit the single target I had lined up, but it does a lot of damage, and the lightning sparks into other nearby monsters. Quite often I�d land the three hits of the combo on three different monsters, since the first target would die from one hit, the second target from the second, and I�d need a third enemy to get the final hit and the big lightning explosion.
The only time I had to use this combo more than once on anything was against very large monster groups, or against a couple of large bosses. And even they only took 2 or 3 cycles through the 3-hit combo to meet their fate. Or I�d throw in a Circle of Wrath if I had enough Spirit for that, especially against larger groups of enemies.
The only drawback of Hands of Lightning was the fun factor. It was a fairly plain attack. It looks pretty with the big lightning blasts, but it�s basically just a straight ahead right, left, right combo. It doesn�t hit multiple enemies, it doesn�t debuff them, it doesn�t let you dash across the screen to start hitting, etc. It�s the lowest level combo skill for a reason; it�s just a damn powerful attack to use against a single or a few enemies, and sure, killing them quickly and efficiently is fun. But if I were playing for real, I�d probably respec it to another combo when I had the chance. (Though it might be handy long term for the huge lightning damage.)
Circle of Wrath
Description: Creates a blast of holy energy that heals the Monk and nearby allies for X-X health and damages enemies for X-X holy damage.
* Rank Two: Costs 25 Spirit, Heals the Monk and his allies for 38-68 health. Deals 15-30 holy damage.
Circle of Wrath was even more powerful. I believe it was level 2 in the demo. The Spirit cost was the same for each level, but the damage dealt and the healing increased. Keep in mind that spell damage in Diablo III is not a flat number; it�s like a listed weapon damage; subject to modification by skills, item modifiers, traits, etc. Thus the damage of Circle of Wrath (and all other Monk Holy Magic attacks) will increase greatly as the Monk levels up, adds +%spell damage equipment, etc.
At level 2 in the early going, it was fairly devastating. Almost all regular monsters would die in one blast of this, so I soon learned to save it for use when I was in range of at least half a dozen enemies. Just the damage from it was impressive and time-saving, but the fact that it healed as well was just silly. I thought it was overpowered in practice, since I was never below 80% hit points with my Monk, thanks entirely to this skill. (And the fact that I killed all of the monsters before they had a chance to do much more than raise their crude implements.)
Hands of Lighting granted 3 Spirit per hit, or 9 per full combo. So it took about three of them to charge up enough Spirit for one Circle of Wrath. I didn�t note the Monk�s total Spirit pool at level 9 or 10, but it was maybe 30 or 40% full when I had enough to have a CoW, man. I always did before I was up to 50% Spirit, since there was always a good sized pack of monsters that needed liberation from their earthly forms. The only point in the entire demo where I�d have liked to use several of these in a row was against The Warden and his huge mob of climbing ghouls at the very end of the demo.
I didn�t charge up enough Spirit in advance for that, since like every other game on the PvM demo, I was about 14 minutes into my 15 minute play session and was therefore madly racing through the vast jail level of The Mad King�s Torture Chamber trying to find the six prisoner ghosts so I could activate the Warden at the end of the quest and get the Skeleton Key to finish the demo. But while beating on the Warden and his assorted undead associates, I earned up enough Spirit to unleash several CoWs, and they were devastatingly effective against so many weak skeleton and ghoul targets at such close proximity.
Blinding Flash
Description: Creates a flash of light that blinds all nearby enemies. Blinded enemies will not attack unless they are attacked first. Lasts for X-X seconds. Blinded enemies have a X% reduced chance to hit.
Truly the third of the Kardashian sisters, Blinding Flash was as unnecessary as the various defensive skills available to the Monk in last year�s Blizzcon demo. In fact, in another eerie parallel to those useless celeb siblings, I�m not entirely sure that this is the correct name for the third skill. It was definitely a defensive skill, but I couldn�t swear that it wasn�t Serenity. Needless to say, I didn�t use it more than once or twice, before marrying it off to a Laker and forgetting that it had ever existed.
Let�s just say that you won�t have a whole lot of need for defensive skills in the early going with your first (or second, or eleventh) Monk. Well� maybe if you were playing in a party, and the other characters weren�t very strong and you wanted to help out the rest of the group (though simply chopping your way through everything slithering or shambling would do that as well)?
Quite likely you�ll want some of the defensive skills for very special occasions. This one sounds like it would help against a really nasty boss pack, or against a bunch of ranged attackers. And the defensive skills will probably be very useful later in the game; just not so much early on, as powerful as the Monk is in his killing techniques.
When I leveled up (as all characters did a few minutes into the demo) and reached level 10, gaining a skill point and access to Tier Four skills plus my 4th skill slot, I stuck the point into Way of the Hundred Fists.
Way of the Hundred Fists
Description: A series of punches strike enemies in front of the Monk that cause X% weapon damage.
* First hit: A short range dashing attack that deals 100% weapon damage. Grants X spirit points.
* Second hit: Attack rapidly 6 times for 8% of weapon damage. Grants X spirit points.
* Third hit: Attack all enemies near the monk for 85% of weapon damage. Grants X spirit points.
It was unnecessary, as well as Hands of Lightning was doing, but I wanted to compare the two. I hadn�t really noticed the skill levels at that point, and soon regretted my choice, since rank one Hundred Fists wasn�t nearly as effective as rank five HoL. Hundred Fists was more fun and flashier, with the Superman dashing first punch, and the ability to hit multiple enemies at once, but with just one point the damage was considerably lower than Hands of Lightning.|||Thanks for the write-up. I too am thinking of playing the monk for my first character, but more from a PvP aspect. damage is always an important aspect in PvP, but its some of the monks other skills are what really draws me to him over the Barb for a first character.
depending on how many moves the monk will require for damage, Circle of Wrath, Crippling Wave, Serenity, Blinding Flash, Breath of Heaven, and Dashing Strike all look like skills that could make the monk a real contender when it comes to PvP
I think that a monk with the following skills could be a solid PvP class:
Hands of Lightning
Crippling Wave
Dashing Strike
Seven Sided Strike
Circle of Wrath
Breath of Heaven
Blinding Flash
This is assuming Seven Sided Strike is the best damage dealing move that uses Spirit (would change to a different one if it dealt more damage). But other than that this build has ways to deal damage, debuff enemies (crippling wave), close distances (dashing strike), crowd control (blinding flash), and defensive skills to help yourself and teammates survive (breath of heaven and circle of wrath).
I am real excited for this class and cant wait til I get to try it out for myself|||i can't even consider pvp monk yet. too much unknown with his remaining skills and traits, not to mention the skill runes. Curious to see how combos work in the arena; since it'll be hard to get 3 straight hits on an enemy, will the devs modify them somewhat? Increase the allowed time between consecutive hits?
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