Well, sorta, provided that they can crit a lot and trigger Swift Flurry (/Hearbeat Drumming) chains. So when they stack Accuracy (rapier with modal is really good for this) and/or target enemies with low Deflection (they are absolute beasts vs enemy casters, usually).

IMO rogues are a little more consistent in general.

Edited October 19, 20205 yr by Haplok

Swift Flurry tends to deliver very high dps on enemies where it doesn't matter much because they are dead quickly anyway.

 

That's.... not entirely true in my opinion. They are robe-killers. And rapidly eliminating enemies that are usually the biggest treat in a given fight does have great tactical value.

Of course, there are other methods also, but monks are pretty great for this.

4 hours ago, Boeroer said:

No. Not if you look at a whole playthrough. Whispers of the Wind + Resonant Touch is very strong and maybe that's what he's referring to, especially in combination with Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming, but there are so many combinations of situations, classes an abilities and items and party compositions that it's impossible to say what has the highest single target dps when it comes to the "real" playthrough. Of course you can theorize around what would be the highest dps on paper under the most preferable condition - but those discussions are moot most of times since most theory falls flat as soon as you let your theoretical super-dps-guy loose on some Risen Armsmen and such. For example a Streetfighter with blunderbuss and Vanishing Strikes has higher dps in the late game and most likely during the course of the game. But if he drops dead more often - does he really do more dps? Monk can surely be a very, very good single target dps character, among the best if you ask me. On top of that it can also be a lot of fun to play. 

So if Whispers of the Wind and Resonant Touch are essential to Monk single target DPS, then multi-class Monks won't be huge single target DPS characters?

Well, you do trade some end game power for a much stronger character in early and mid game.

But if you have some neat combos, for example Forbidden Fist + rogue Toxic Strike, the loss might not be that big at all.

And for example a Shadowdancer is no weakling.

You guys have encouraged me to perhaps try both Devoted/Monk and Devoted/Rogue front-line to compare. I shouldn't need a dedicated tank unless I am trying to kill the mega-bosses...

Shadowdancer does great dps. Better than SC Monk in the mid game. Later in the game there are no great improvements anymore though. Deathblows is nice but it doesn't come near to Resonant Touch and Whispers of the Wind.