I would say the monk excels at lower levels, without getting completely useless at higher levels, he stays good but not excellent. So if you have trouble with pre Caed Nua gameplay the monk is definitely a class I would consider.

So it looks like the monk doesn't really excel in any one aspect, but rather is a good tank with good melee damage output. Is that a fair assessment? It seems to me I'd rather have a fighter tank, and a barb for AoE or melee rogue for single-target damage.

 

(ignoring roleplaying aspects, this being the builds forum)

 

I suggest you try a monk.  At first I thought the idea of taking damage to dish it out was ridiculous.  Now I've "refined" my monk and stopped trying to deflection stack and rather focused on getting more Con instead.  Cipher who was one of my top damage dealers is gone to mid tier damage dealer in my current playthrough.  The Monk is topping the chart at level 7 with the Barb and Wizard close second. My barbarians where not dishing it out properly until I started going for two handed, namely the Estoc/Pollaxe (changing depending on your target DR types).  

 

But as I was saying a good monk build is relevant through the whole game.  The only 2 classess I've have hard time making proper damage builds are the Paladin and the Priest.  The Priest is a no brainer, I use him to make the others do more damage or hit harder.  The Paladin I've been using with Zelous Endurance/Focus as a tank to free up action economy for a priest or altogether replacing the priest.

I can't edit my original thread, but here are portraits with proper blue to match moon god blue in game.  The other ones had far too much turqoise.

 

Moonlike

 

Portraits:

(Drag drop to folder: PillarsOfEternity_Data\data\art\gui\portraits\player\male)

 

Edited May 16, 201510 yr by luzarius