Monks over-powered?

[KDubya]

In terms of the whole armoured thing, Iron Wheel now really gives you a lot of DR to play with even without armour. I guess it's a level 11 ability, but still I wouldn't say it's that hard getting to level 11 going solo.

 

The problem with that is opportunity cost. Level 11 opens up Flagellant's Path which is a great AoE damage and debuff that also zips you across the battlefield. Level 13 gets you the Twins which are crazy good and level 15 opens up Resonant blows which in my limited use seem OK, possibly good.  Waiting for level 15 just seems like a long time to wait.

 

You can only store 10 wounds at a time, if you are going to spam out Torment's, Force of Anguish, Flagellant's and maybe the twins you just won't have that many wounds stored up for that long. Plus they time out. If you were going with heavy use of Auto Attack fueled by Turning Wheel then I could see the appeal of Iron Wheel as you will not be using many wounds as is.

 

 

 

 

Fighter and Monk have basically the same role, they just fill it a bit differently. Monk has the highest damage potential but they are less reliable : if you don't get enough wounds while your teammates get slaughtered, fighter would have been superior.

 

Because of wounds system, you'll have to make choice between all great monk abilities, when creating your build and also during play.

 

Fighters can just stack everything.

 

Fighters also benefited the most from 3.0 and WM II.

Now they can morph freely into a mind lance 2 times per encounter, and can become immortal for a decent time.

 

I'm not saying fighter is better : basically monk are a bit stronger, but fighter are more reliable (and have major defensive tricks).

 

Even just auto attacking with one wound dropped on Lightning Strikes will have you out damaging a Fighter just using your fists. A Fighter needs Durgan steel weapons, zero recovery with Superb+ enchantments to overtake a Monk in damage output from fists that self upgrade. If desired you could give the Monk the same dual wielded Durgan death dealing weapons and be better than the Fighter again.

 

A Fighter has some cool defensive tricks but PoE is dominated by your ability to survive long enough to dish out massive offense. Defensive abilities in excess of what are needed are wasted. It is better to kill faster than to survive better, plus the delay in killing will result in more damage taken.

[falchen]

Because of wounds system, you'll have to make choice between all great monk abilities, when creating your build and also during play.

 

Fighters can just stack everything.

 

I think that'd only be an advantage if fighters actually had good abilities worth using.  If anything I think the difference between them is that a monk requires micro while a fighter can just stand there hitting things.

[Messier-31]

 Monks over-powered?

 

Not only overpowered, but also overrated. Mr Miyagi wannabes should sit and pray, or whatever monks generally do. Just take your karate dragonfighting elsewhere, ffs.

 

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[AndreaColombo]

I think that'd only be an advantage if fighters actually had good abilities worth using.

Heresy!

[Elric Galad]

 

I think that'd only be an advantage if fighters actually had good abilities worth using.

Heresy!

Charge !

[Brimsurfer]

Monks are not over powered, ever tried playing a dual wielding full offensive Fighter in medium or heavy armor? Its just that some of the other melee classes like Rogue (melee),  Paladins and Chanters (melee) are underpowered when compared against monks. I know Pallies and Chanters are sort of support classes but I am talking about overall usefulness of melee classes (considering Chanters melee because of high base deflection and some of their invocations have really short cones but that can be just my opinion)..........

 

Also Monks have one obvious playing style and that is of a destroyer, put good DR and Constitution on them watch them pulverize everything, this is not so obvious with Fighters because they are normally used as damage takers but if you build one offensive Fighter, you'll be surprised how quickly he destroys stuff....... makes skulking in shadows with a melee rogue look utterly useless..... Paladin and Chanter? I see no logic in these two classes, instead get a Priest and Wizard for dispels and CC and send your Monk and Fighter into fray and watch your enemies fall apart...

 

Talking about PotD (I find other difficulties quite easy, its possible you might find some of the underwhelming classes mentioned above, performing reasonably well on lower difficulties)

Edited March 17, 2016 by Brimsurfer

[dam]

So I tried PotD solo with a rogue for ages, getting last act and stuff. It was tough but do-able, I went tanky with retaliation, a shield and deep wounds. I could usually ground my enemies down between my sneak attacks and the raw retaliation Deep Wounds (which I got to 5 damage per tick in the end), especially in conjunction with stuff like Overwhelming Wave on the White Crest Armor.

 

However I decided I wanted to re-roll, so recently I started a monk, again solo and PotD. Damn, it's so much better.

 

With Torment's Reach you're essentially getting a AoE Sneak Attack that you can use far more many times in a single battle than all a Rogue's per encounter abilities put together (sure, it's a crushing lash which things can be immune to, but still). You also have Swift Strikes which significantly ups your speed and duration, making you DPS like crazy - not to mention that both of these are level 1 abilities. Then later you get all the tank abilities like Crucible of Suffering, which is on top of your great accuracy and pretty good endurance as well as deflection.

 

Going back to the rogue, sure with Dirty/Vicious Fighting, Deathblows, Finishing Blow, Reckless Assault and Backstab you're going to get maybe slightly higher damage on the whole (because of Reckless Assault - although if you're running Lightning Strikes I'd say it's arguable) and certainly higher burst damage (with Backstab and Deathblows) but when you compare that damage to the Rogue's fairly miserable lack of bulk and defenses and it the monk wins pretty much hands down every time - particularly when you factor in the AoE of Torment's Reach letting you tidily handle mobs. You're also more free to recklessly DPS with two weapons, as you do have the health to take the hit.

 

And sure maybe rogues are better in a party context with more people running the CC, but even still they are much more situational than a monk who gets similar to sneak attack damage every few seconds and can spam that AoE, and has great bulk.

 

Then I went onto compare a monk to a fighter, and sure the fighter is likely the better pure tank (Unbroken, Triggered Immunity, Constant Recovery) but I'm not seeing anywhere near the DPS per that amount of tankiness that I do with the monk. Likewise, when you look at a Paladin, though it does have great tankiness due to Faith and Conviction it's certainly limited in offensive clout due to Flames of Devotion still only being a few times per encounter.

 

I guess what I'm getting at, compared to rogue the tankiness and AoE abilities are far greater than the slight loss of damage, and compared to a paladin/fighter the loss of tankiness is far greater than their somewhat lack of DPS. Anyone else feel this way? I'm certainly not calling for a nerf or anything like that, but I was surprised to go from a rogue to a monk and really see the damage spike and to find PotD so much easier.

 

Just because rogues are actually underpowered doesn't mean monks are overpowered, you know.

[Jojobobo]

Just because rogues are actually underpowered doesn't mean monks are overpowered, you know.

I think this a little redundant, relative comparisons to the other classes is the only reasonable metric you can go by. And I don't think rogues are crazily underpowered, just the ease of use with monks because on their bulk while retaining DPS and AoE is pretty tasty. People have said this is only relevant on solo play, but in party play you can get them into situations where they take more wounds (let people flank them, etc.) so I think they are a low risk high reward kind of class.

 

Monks are not over powered, ever tried playing a dual wielding full offensive Fighter in medium or heavy armor? Its just that some of the other melee classes like Rogue (melee),  Paladins and Chanters (melee) are underpowered when compared against monks. I know Pallies and Chanters are sort of support classes but I am talking about overall usefulness of melee classes (considering Chanters melee because of high base deflection and some of their invocations have really short cones but that can be just my opinion)..........

 

Also Monks have one obvious playing style and that is of a destroyer, put good DR and Constitution on them watch them pulverize everything, this is not so obvious with Fighters because they are normally used as damage takers but if you build one offensive Fighter, you'll be surprised how quickly he destroys stuff....... makes skulking in shadows with a melee rogue look utterly useless..... Paladin and Chanter? I see no logic in these two classes, instead get a Priest and Wizard for dispels and CC and send your Monk and Fighter into fray and watch your enemies fall apart...

 

Talking about PotD (I find other difficulties quite easy, its possible you might find some of the underwhelming classes mentioned above, performing reasonably well on lower difficulties)

I'd say you're right, Armored Grace gives nice DPS and fighters have plenty of ways to boost base damage. Maybe the tankiness of a fighter compared to the monk when you focus on DPS is better, it's a tough call. The AoE of monks, as it is level 1, is pretty good however.