"Monk is too hard/impossible" - is it true?

[StargazerLily]

I've been a Wizard and I figure, I'm pretty useless with kiting so decided to make a melee class in the hopes to tank and just take it to the face a bit better. So after tossing between barb and monk I thought I liked Monk and the premise of it a lot more (evasion tanking and mass skill consumption, with healing etc, much more my thing).

However after reading a lot of topics I've become really scared. So many people are saying (or at the least implying) that playing a monk is out-rightly near impossible. However I've seen a lot of people making videos and be successful at playing a monk, and generally from what I've seen and played myself I don't understand where the whole big problem is?

These are the main problems, and what I personally think (and would like either an agree or disagree/feelings about it):
- "Monks are gear dependent and you need to spend lots of money to get anywhere"
-- I thought this was pretty much every class? My Wizard can't do anything without decent equipment. My DH can't do anything without decent DPS. I hear people all the time saying the same thing about barb. Each time, it's the same sentence, "Class X can't do anything without spending millions on equipment, much more than class Y". Are monks really at a disadvantage moreso than others, or are people just feeling "woe is my class"?

- "Monks die in a few hits because they're melee and you need to be ranged to do this game"
-- I saw a video of a monk doing their stuff, and they didn't seem to get hit at all. Is this problem more of a playstyle issue, or possibly not having the right stats, or not tanking effectively or something? I've heard even as melee you still need to do a bit of kiting and maneuvering, and if you're swarmed then you need to pop a skill or get out. However, this is pretty much true for all classes?

So my final thought is, are monks really that more hard done by than other classes? Or are people just suffering "class-envy" and being unrealistic about expectations about monks because they hit Inferno and suddenly the difficulty spike hit the roof?

[Corayo]

tanking wise, monks are FAR superior to barb. Stacking dex to raise dodge and avoiding damage is much better then trying to reduce damage taken and block incoming damage.

Either way in inferno mode, you are almost always going to get 1 shot by everything so ranged is your best option.

[Krez]

Bah; world first Inferno Hardcore Belial was a Barbarian. He certainly was not being one or even two shot. There's Monks that take next to know dmg when fighting some of the Inferno bosses. Do some youtube searches and you can find a ton of videos of different classes doing it.

[Deleted]

I honestly think Monk is the most gear dependant class of all Diablo 3 classes. They mostly rely on dodging (dexterity) and healing most of the damage they take while stacking resistances and armor. If you have noticed, their heals are a set amount, like healing 6990 life, and therefore stacking health on the expense of other stats will devalue the heals. They are however more squishy than the Barbarian due to their lower armor, so if you are having bad luck and not dodging alot, you might panic. Monk is usually more fun and has a more diverse gameplay and build possibilities than the other melee 'tanky' class the Barbarian.

As the Monk, the Barbarian is also very gear dependant, but instead of relying on dodge, they rely on having a massive health pool because their heals are percentage based instead of a set amount. An example is the ability Revenge, that heals 5% of your maximum health. Barbarians can take much more pounding with the right passive abilities and do have a more true, classic, tank feel to them and have alot more brute force.

Both the Monk and the Barbarian are fun classes, it just comes down to how you actually want to play. If you stack Resistance to All Elements and armor, you will never be one shot by enemies in Inferno. This is coming from someone playing both a 60 Monk and Barbarian, quite far into Inferno on both.

[parkerlynne]

I play a DH and my boyfriend plays a Monk. I get my ass kicked in so many situations where he excels because of the high dodge and ability to heal. Being a Wiz/DH and going Monk though will make you feel underpowered because you'll be trading damage for survivability instead of glass cannon'ing it up. He has done a lot of work making sure his gear is well itemized but by no means has he poured millions of gold into his set.

Our roommate on the other hand plays a barb. He has 80k health and the bf has about 15-18k. Each survive about the same amount.

[Deleted]

act 2 inferno here as a barb.. getting 30k hits with 500+ resist.. and i got 22k buffed.. and the whasps? meh.. just run as fast as you can.. need atleast 50 mill or so to get further.. so atm afk farming


so if you are complaining about monks, DONT :P

[Deleted]

Not impossible, but easily the most gear dependant, you really need a good amount of resistances, armor (through dex), life on hit (some hps) and IAS. Barbarians 'seem' to have more solid defence (hence being the most reliant hardcore class)

[Athorha]

act 2 inferno here as a barb.. getting 30k hits with 500+ resist.. and i got 22k buffed.. and the whasps? meh.. just run as fast as you can.. need atleast 50 mill or so to get further.. so atm afk farming


so if you are complaining about monks, DONT :P

It;s your fault you still have the healthpool as any half decent barb at level 50

[Deleted]

Monks and Barbs are the most gear dependent classes on Inferno. They're pretty close in viability, if you just prefer the Monk playstyle then go for that.

Is it gonna be easier than a Wizard? The general consensus is no.

Is it "too hard" or "impossible"? Also no, it'll probably just take longer because you have to have the gear in order to progress. However with smart AHing and a little luck you could do Act 1 with relative ease, Act 2 will take pretty good gear and Act 3 will probably require awesome expansive gear.

[Banzhe]

I've been a Wizard and I figure, I'm pretty useless with kiting so decided to make a melee class in the hopes to tank and just take it to the face a bit better. So after tossing between barb and monk I thought I liked Monk and the premise of it a lot more (evasion tanking and mass skill consumption, with healing etc, much more my thing).

However after reading a lot of topics I've become really scared. So many people are saying (or at the least implying) that playing a monk is out-rightly near impossible. However I've seen a lot of people making videos and be successful at playing a monk, and generally from what I've seen and played myself I don't understand where the whole big problem is?

The problem is that people who write those posts either fail / hit a wall in whatever act they are, simply can't play the class after the balancing.., and of course people thinking they can read their way through a game as simply and trivial as diablo..., there's no more magic to it then paying attention to what's going on, adjust your abilities accordingly along with any stats that might benefit at any given time.

[JayJay09]

Tanking with a monk is so much easier than with a barb. You simply can control your survivability much better. I have both classes on 60 and can say that my monk didn't have any problems so far. I am in act 1 (inferno) just before leorics manor and haven't bought anything in the ah. I tossed over some stuff I found on other chars, but there's nothing amazing among these items. And I actually don't die.. If I die it was due to not paying attention. I always had at least one ability ready to push before I died. So far I just cannot say that monk is impossible to play.. Really not. Act 2+ just is for both melee classes damn hard to master.. You need a long breath to do that.. And money.. More than ranged classes. Way more. And the monk is very build dependent.. You actually have to take Transcendence, Seize the Initiative, One with Everything, Serenity, Breath of Heaven and Deadly Reach (with armor glyph) or Crippling Wave with the dmg debuff on mobs.. Or both while trying to keep both effects up all the time.. (attack speed needed; and it's annoying to play like that since cw does not have the range of dr).

But endgame gameplay didn't convince me anyway so far. I have DH, Barb and Monk on 60 and with all I am forced to take the most defensive and (somewhat) least enjoyable playstyles (okay, the DH just fires into the void and runs away as fast as he can when he sees a mob enter the screen --> boring, I am forced into taking all the long range abilities and I would absolutely not know what to do if it weren't for hungering arrow that I send in the direction I suspect mobs to be).

[dezzick]

act 2 inferno here as a barb.. getting 30k hits with 500+ resist.. and i got 22k buffed.. and the whasps? meh.. just run as fast as you can.. need atleast 50 mill or so to get further.. so atm afk farming


so if you are complaining about monks, DONT :P

Lol, you should have at least 50k health... your resists are fine. Your health sucks.

[Deleted]

dont expect to beat act 2 solo if you dont spend at least 10 million gold
give me 300 million gold and i built a monk that is nearly immortal
but without investments you be able to do shit as monk - on the other hand the more money you spend, the easier it gets

[glo]

Simple answers:

Are monks impossible to progress through inferno with? No.

Are monks (and barbs) balanced in difficulty with ranged? No where remotely close.

Are monks able to be played with their intended abilities in inferno? No. Get ready to stack all defensives, a mantra, and only one spirit generator as your sole DPS ability.

If you can get past all of that and you still want to play one, have at it. It's not impossible, but many people find it not much fun.

[Honzi]

Doesn't matter if you're barb or monk, you need a ton of money to progress through act 3+. I beat act 2 solo with my barbarian by spending about 3 mio gold. Now in act 3 I'm getting raped by white mobs.
So I played my Hunter a little bit, breezed through act2 and the first third of act 3 without investing more than 50k gold. It's quite laughable to be honest.

[Ashnazg]

*shrug* its not so bad. Even if you grab defensive abilities on a monk, you can rune them to be offensive. E.g. 15% more damage on heal, 30% more damage on blind, Moc/overawe for 48% more damage. Then build full glass cannon, and nuke mobs down within the span of your immunities. My monk farms A3 fairly easily, including part past Siegebreaker (no Tyrael there), with 33k dps (50k with blind buff), 1k LoH, 26k hp, 330 resist all, 5k armor, 25% move speed (gear only, no passives), and 42% dodge.

Its a high stakes game, with 0 room for error, but highly rewarding and fun.

[Torched]

I have a Barb and Demon Hunter both farming Inferno, the barb was my first class to reach inferno and was/is my main char. The gear on my Barb is worth somewhere around 40-45 millions and I´m farming act 3-4 on him.
My demon hunter gear is worth 900k..... yes 900k! and I´m farming act 3 Siege breaker runs on him, he has 82k dps with sharpshooter (was lucky getting a 1.2k dps crossbow for 200k.)
The difference in gear requirement is SO MUCH between these 2 classes that its just insane, I reached act 3 on my DH in my first hours after I reached 60 on him, I just steamrolled everything in act 1-3 while I was stuck on act 2 and 3 on my barb for a long time until I had spent millions on millions on some extremely good gear like Stormshield with 31% block and justice lantern with very good stats, a string of ears with 20% melee reduce dmg and a very good helm of command with socked and very good stats.

On the DH.. everything dies so fast that its just not even funny, only groups that are hard are elite with reflect damage, invor minions, fast (only if the mob type is already fast) and some combos with vortex.

Ive started to run siegebreaker runs on the DH instead of my barb since I can do them faster then with the barb, I might die more often but that does not even matter when I can kill elite packs 2-3 times faster.

Conclusion.
Demon Hunter is the class you want to roll if you don´t want to spent millions on millions to get as far as a barb or monk will go and do it in a faster way as well.

[Alilei32]

tanking wise, monks are FAR superior to barb.

Nope. Once geared Barbs>Monks because of one word. REVENGE.

Watch Kripp's streams. Hes got like 40 inferno mobs on him including 2 rares and just stays at full health.

[Vook]

I'm at Act 3 Inferno on my Monk so far, and it has required a ton of gear purchases, resistance stacking, and forced use of 1h+shield.

Hard, but possible.

It's really just the fact that melee are forced to stack all kinds of (quite expensive) defense and resistance gear, whereas ranged can just go all-out glass cannon and faceroll, for the most part.

[Arararagi]

dont expect to beat act 2 solo if you dont spend at least 10 million gold
give me 300 million gold and i built a monk that is nearly immortal
but without investments you be able to do shit as monk - on the other hand the more money you spend, the easier it gets

Nowhere near the truth, I've spent a total of 2 mill on the AH and I'm at the end of act 3.