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Just finished Act3 of Normal and as I watch the GSL VODS from last night, I thought I'd ramble a bit about my impressions of the game, and especially of the Monk class, for any who care to listen.
First off, the game is easy. Yes, yes, I know it's only normal difficulty, ok, but I should be at least a little challenged by now, I would think. I can stand toe-to-toe with pretty much any boss, including the end-of-act ones. I can kill any mob in seconds, using only primary attacks if I want to. Died a couple times from laziness when I wasn't really paying attention, but that's it.
I don't know if other players are having a similarly easy time (is it just me? is it just a monk thing? idk). I've been soloing the first play through so have been pretty isolated from other players' experiences. I'll probably delve into the party-oriented aspects of the game starting with Nightmare.
But somehow, Diablo 3 still manages to be fun, despite its ease. Huge props to Blizzard for designing the game in a way where you just don't get bored. Amazing variety in skills, amazing variety in enemies, amazing variety in terrain, random events. Just really well done. And it looks great.
I'm also a big fan of automatically picking up gold. Super convenient, I'm surprised no one (that I've seen) has ever thought of that before. Another cool thing are the little health globes which are dropped. I know some people don't like them, but I think they do a good job of keeping the action moving and making the game fun and offense-oriented.
Ok, now the Monk stuff. Generally, SUPER fun to play. Really customizable, can really tweak it to fit the style you want: support-ish, mass aoe, mobility, etc.
I'll also break down my impressions of all the skills so far. But keep in mind that this is only up to level 30, so I don't have all the skill/rune combinations yet. I have tried everything extensively, though. I've never had a set build, I just use whatever the most recently unlocked skill/rune combo is.
+ Show Spoiler +
Primaries: Seem really powerful given that they're free and spammable.
Fists of Thunder: Meh. It's not bad. But I'm not a huge fan either given the other options. The teleport given by the first rune can actually get pretty annoying. I don't ever really use this.
Deadly Reach: Quite good. Nice cone-shaped aoe with the first rune. It has a slight bit of range, which given the monks quick speed, actually allows you to kite things if you want to.
Crippling Wave: Also quite good. Self-based circular aoe. Also synergizes well with other monk skills as a lot of the monks damage is self-based circular aoe.
Way of the Hundred Fists: My favorite. Seems to generate spirit the fastest. Mostly single target damage, but chained with an aoe knockback.
Secondaries: Overall my least favorite skill slot. They don't seem nearly as effective as others (possible exception of Wave of Light)
Lashing Tail Kick: It's ok. Not bad, but not special either. Self-based aoe. Knockback. I actually am starting to hate knockback on the monk. So much of my damage is aoe that knockback seems to actually hurt me by lessening my damage. Still I sometiems use this because it synergizes well.
Tempest Rush: Why, Blizzard? Why? This skill is god awful. I guess I can see a possible use in HC, if you're afraid of getting trapped, basically you sprint through enemies dealing (really) minor damage and knocking them around. But you're spending a lot of spirit at the same time. To deal like no damage. I just don't understand.
Wave of Light: Ok, initially, I HATED this skill. It's clunky. Hard to aim. Deals decent damage though. When I unlocked the second rune though everything changed. Became instant, self-based aoe and since that rune has been my go-to secondary.
Defensive: Nice variety, all pretty useful, I don't have a clear favorite.
Blinding Flash: Aoe blind. Decent duration, even works pretty well on bosses and elite enemies. Pretty good.
Breath of Heaven: Simple heal, which gains variety and utility with runes (increased heal, damage to enemies, buffing, spirit-gain, etc). I don't use it much but I can see it's utility in parties as the heal is aoe.
Serenity: 3 second invulnerability. Super handy. I use this a fair bit. Can see it being invaluable in HC. Runes are also really powerful.
Inner Sanctuary: Surrounds you with a circle which is impassable to enemies for 5 seconds. Gives you a bit of breathing room. Runes allow circle to provide healing, buffs, etc. I like it.
Techniques: Possibly my favorite skill slot. All are powerful. I have a hard time picking which to use.
Dashing Strike: Cool in-battle mobility. Rune can add a stun, which is handy. Not amazing, but decent.
Exploding Palm: WOW. This skill is amazing. Makes a foe bleed for 3 sec, and if dies when bleeding, blows up and deals crazy damage to surround enemies. Very, very, good. Is really good for taking down mixed groups of squishy/tough enemies. You place this on a squishy, target it, and then everything around it blows up.
Sweeping Wind: Deals damage to all foes in area periodically, renewed every time you hit with a melee attack. Increases in power every time you crit, which given high dexterity and aoe attacks, happens a ton. Easy to keep up, too, even in between mobs. I use it very often, even more so if it didn't compete with Exploding Palm.
Focus: other candidate for my favorite slot. Some interesting skills, pretty powerful.
Cyclone Strike: Pulls nearby enemies to you and hurts them. Ok damage, but value lies in sucking everything to you, allowing other aoe skills to just wreck them. Very useful, I like it.
Seven-sided Strike: Strikes nearby foes seven times, divided among how many foes are around, while making you invulnerable at the same time. Very useful, especially against bosses (all seven strikes are made against a single target, tons of damage). I can almost one-shot some bosses with this.
Mystic Ally: Summons an ally. Standard skill. The ally is pretty good, but I don't see myself taking this over either of the other options.
Mantras: Auras which either buff you and all allies or hurt nearby enemies. These are pretty standard, and decent skills. But (at least not with the runes I have yet) not very interesting, mostly a matter of personal choice, your party's needs, and what syncs well with the rest of your skills.
Mantra of Evasion: Increased dodge chance. Good, because Monk dodge chance will already be crazy high. When I have this up I dodge almost everything
Mantra of Retribution: Reflect melee damage. This is ok. Can see it being good against bosses. But seeing how much I dodge things, not as useful as it could be.
Mantra of Healing: Regenerates life for you and allies. Standard. Straight-forward. Decent.
Mantra of Conviction: Don't actually have this yet (1 level away) but am looking forward to it. Enhances damage for all foes nearby. Can see it syncing really well with Sweeping Wind and other aoe skills.
Well, that's it. Enough for now, will probably edit later with more thoughts. Enjoy.
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I Cant play because battle.net doesnt accept my key...
want to play  ((
But about the blog itself, yes if heard the same about the difficulty. Did you have any problems with the servers? Because that seems like a big issue for most
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As a demon hunter you can sometimes have a rough time with champion mobs or bosses with gapclosers/high speed/jailer abilities but once I laid my hands on a 58 DPS crossbow things started dying very quickly. Having a templar buddy made the tight spaces in the Bastion Keep a bit more manageable and now that I've had some practice on staying away from stuff on normal difficulty then nightmare and onwards should be lots of fun.
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Hey, I play Monk too and I'm loving it. My build is full Utility, since I'm playing exclusively in groups with friends. The bosses are much hard in 4mans, they can 2 or 3 shot you.
Just so you know, go into your options and turn on "Elective Mode". It unlocks the slots... you don't have to have 1 Technique, 1 Defensive, etc. You can have 4 Techniques and 2 Primaries. I don't use a Secondary at all.
My build uses Fist of Thunder with the first rune so I have a zero-cd Shadowstep to blink around the map, and Way of the Hundred fists to peel for my ranged dps. I use Breath of Heaven, Mantra of Healing, Blinding Flash, and Sweeping Wind, with the passive to reduce enemy damage by 25% when I deal damage. In encounters I pop Sweeping Wind, blink between mobs ensuring that everything is debuffed as much as possible, heal, peel, and then add my dps.
There's many more ways to play the game than singleplayer clickfest 
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Dashing strike vs the butcher. Awesome awesome. Just avoids all his frontal attacks with ease!
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I like using the 1st part of the combo as Fists of thunder with the teleport rune (that shit is amazing not sure how it could annoy you to be instantly on top of your target) then attack with the runed hundred fists that adds 3 strikes to the middle part of the combo. You get to instantly be on top of the target you choose followed immediately by that machine gun fist action and then the AoE.
I really like the fact that all the spirit generators are tied to the same combo line (if that makes sense) that really opens up a lot of variety in how to combine them and the runes together for some interesting attacks.
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Hyrule18982 Posts
Turn on Elective mode and you can use multiple skills from the same group. I don't even have any secondary skill bound right now. I have fist of thunder + teleport rune and way of the hundred fists on my mouse, then blinding light, breath of heaven, and exploding palm on 1-3 (I still haven't unlocked 4 yet).
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On May 18 2012 03:48 tofucake wrote:
Turn on Elective mode and you can use multiple skills from the same group. I don't even have any secondary skill bound right now. I have fist of thunder + teleport rune and way of the hundred fists on my mouse, then blinding light, breath of heaven, and exploding palm on 1-3 (I still haven't unlocked 4 yet).
COPYCAT!
Teleport rune on mouse1 and hundred fists on mouse2 is just sooooo good. I swap in deadly reach with tank rune sometimes for tankin'
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I play Monk too and I'm at level 31, and I agree with most of your observations. I feel that the Monk is a little bit OP. The Mantra of Conviction combined with Vortexing in mobs and then blasting them down with Wave of Light (w/ 2nd rune) or Exploding Palm is extremely powerful. Conviction makes things melt like butter.
Also, I don't know if you dual wield fist weapons or use a Staff, but I find Crippling Wave best with the one handers (because the attack speed is faster) and Hundred Fists is best with the slower, 2 handed staves at this current level.
Another thing about Exploding palm, it has a rune where it gives you 5 Spirit per mob that gets caught in the explosion.
Yeah. I never run out of Spirit.
My only complaint is that Dashing Strike and Exploding Palm are in the same skill group. As they, plus Mantra of Conviction, are my favorite skills in the game.
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On May 18 2012 04:21 Brindled wrote:My only complaint is that Dashing Strike and Exploding Palm are in the same skill group. As they, plus Mantra of Conviction, are my favorite skills in the game.
You need to go through you menu's and turn on elective mode. It will allow you to put any skill anywhere no restrictions.
I REALLY don't understand blizzards intention with having 'non-elective' mode on by default, it only serves to confuse people and leads them into believing there is less variety then there actually is. Usually people are just nitpicky about blizz stuff but this is just so absurdly obnoxious that I am baffled by its inclusion into the game. It's downright insulting.
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Weird! Does elective mode do anything else to you or penalize you for having the ability to use any skill at will?
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Just wanted to say that automatic gold picking was done in Baldurs Gate: Dark alliance and Champions of Norrath. Like 8 years ago 
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On May 18 2012 05:04 Psychobabas wrote:Just wanted to say that automatic gold picking was done in Baldurs Gate: Dark alliance and Champions of Norrath. Like 8 years ago
And also done by Torchlight!
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On May 18 2012 05:02 Brindled wrote:
Weird! Does elective mode do anything else to you or penalize you for having the ability to use any skill at will?
Nope, no downside whatsoever.
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I think you guys need to start getting to the higher difficulties. Normal is a breeze with all classes. Starting in nightmare, monk's dps gets piss poor and you will need more defensive skills. I had a wizard friend join my party, and his dps was INSANE compared to mine (although our defense is much higher of course :O).
Either way I like monk a lot also so far, but I feel like a lot of you guys are overrating him based on your experiences in normal (which again, is really easy for all classes)
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Also, from hell and inferno, its literally impossible. elite mobs, are .... . crazy terribly hard. not doable even with good groups sometimes (inferno monk experience)
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Normal is WAY WAYYYYYYYYYY to easy. I think in total I died like 5 times. Which includes the time I died when I thought I had paused the game but i didn't and went away.
You need to go through you menu's and turn on elective mode. It will allow you to put any skill anywhere no restrictions.
I REALLY don't understand blizzards intention with having 'non-elective' mode on by default, it only serves to confuse people and leads them into believing there is less variety then there actually is. Usually people are just nitpicky about blizz stuff but this is just so absurdly obnoxious that I am baffled by its inclusion into the game. It's downright insulting.
Wait what, you can do this with elective mode? Awesome.
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Just tried out a full tank build with Deadly Reach + Armor rune, Mantra of Evasion, the dexterity to armor passive, WotHF with dodge rune (Or cyclone/sweeping wind) , breath of heaven, blinding flash, and serenity.
This build is for groups only, I have a Wizard, DH, and WD friend for big deeps.
It's amazing. So much fun to be completely unkillable, getting upwards of 45% dodge and tons of armor. Don't even need a shield, I just DW for spirit gen.
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United States5162 Posts
I know everyone wants normal to be harder, but I really think it was fine as it was. I went through most of normal feeling the most powerful badass in the world. It's great fun being able to run into the middle of a mob and completely demolish them up using a sweet skill combo. This is good for most gamers, and everyone else had NM and up - and just for reference, the first champion mod in NM rocked my groups world after only dying once to Diablo.
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On May 18 2012 17:41 Enderbantoo wrote:
Also, from hell and inferno, its literally impossible. elite mobs, are .... . crazy terribly hard. not doable even with good groups sometimes (inferno monk experience)
Uh, im pretty sure it cant be harder than D2 Hell Unleashed. Any comparison?
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EPT
