Properly geared, it appears a monk will bash your head in and the heads of the three other fools that dare face his furious fists.

I fully agree. Look at the selection of skills available.

Wait, I nearly forgot that my DH has the Legacy Nat set. I can just keep doing the followings:

Smokescreen with tactical advantage. You can't see me, you can't see me. I can be anywhere anytime. I will then make my FIRST move.

Vault with stun?
Caltrops........pick your runes.

Impale with stun? Fan of knives with stun? Bola shot with stun? Etc etc with stun? I will keep smokescreen up if the stun doesn't work. If the stun work, I will be blasting you away.....

Well, the above is just theory.

I think you're forgetting about their teleport-and-kill-you skill. Every class has a break root and invincibility skill and Monks should have at least a 40% chance to dodge every attack (and attribute DHs share). Monks have, essentially, devastating melee and ranged attacks while also having a high dodge.

I don't think I would enjoy dueling, but strategy is another matter... My thoughts are more along the line of Cluster Arrow which travels about 6 yds / frame covering 35 yards in 5-6 frames. That's pretty much instantaneous so the only hope for an opponent is activating their invincibility skill when you stop to fire in the first place or auto-dodging the arrow.

Evasive Fire will require testing but has the potential to be super annoying in PvP.

This discussion should probably move to its own DH forum thread. This is supposed to be a gripe/praise thread for the superiority of monks. I'm not all that interested in theorycrafting for PvP dueling before I've even participated in one duel. Some corrections to your post, however, Smoke Screen has a very brief cooldown so there's no such thing as consecutive seconds of invisibility. Your Impale math fails to take into account 20-50% chance to dodge depending upon the opponent.

Posted by ecocd at 01/16/2013 06:19 AM

This discussion should probably move to its own DH forum thread. This is supposed to be a gripe/praise thread for the superiority of monks. I'm not all that interested in theorycrafting for PvP dueling before I've even participated in one duel. Some corrections to your post, however, Smoke Screen has a very brief cooldown so there's no such thing as consecutive seconds of invisibility. Your Impale math fails to take into account 20-50% chance to dodge depending upon the opponent.

Thanks for your corrections.

My theory has flaws, as you correctly pointed out. It is good that I don't duel in real life based on simple theorycrafting. Only real battles give real results.

I am removing my DH discussion from this post.....waiting to see a PvP DH post.

@Khan

I agree, the monk is a beast. @Metta was roflstomping us pretty good last night wasnt he? There wasnt much I could do against 7ss especially in conjuncion with FoT and other speed/dodge skills. I'm still going to try different builds with the barb to see if i can hang with monks better. We'll see. I will say dueling with multiple player while essentially pointless is pretty good for lulz at the very least.

Dh rocks with smokescreen, ballistic and roflcopter strafe rockets ^^.

@ecocd Barbarians actually lack an invincibly skill, and wizards also seem to be short of one. the closest things are diamond skin and ignore pain, but neither make you anywhere near invincible.

There wasnt much I could do against 7ss

If the targets are less than 7, does that mean some of the kicks are to the air, or some targets receive more than one kick?

man just tried pvp for the first time... monks are pretty beastily

not sure how to combat them... but thats what this is about right? figuring things out

Posted by shniggies at 01/17/2013 12:14 AM

man just tried pvp for the first time... monks are pretty beastily

not sure how to combat them... but thats what this is about right? figuring things out

One could argue that it was Blizzard's job to figure that out before they released it.

They may have and we just haven't figured it out yet...

I don't know man, I went on my monk and I was getting owned by a witch doctor last night.; Seven Sided Strike is pretty dangerous, but still.

What did the WD use? Haunt, spirit walk, and corpse spiders?

Yep...haha. They used Grasp of the Dead and Spirit Vessel too for some of the time.

time to lvl a WD?

Yea monk is pretty beastly for pvp gotta say, wonder what skills will be best though in the end. I definitely like my chances as a WD though.

For anyone interested in using a Monk, I have a somewhat strange build that I use. Feel free to try it and let me know how you feel about it.

FoT-Thunderclap (obvious)
Serenity-Ascension (OBVIOUS)
SSS-Sudden Assault (obvious)

Exploding Palm (Creeping Demise)
Mantra of Healing (Circular Breathing)
Tempest Rush (Tailwind)

Passives: Doesn't matter really, but I use Guardian's Path, Beacon of Ytar, and OWE.

The first three abilities go without saying. The problem is against mobile heroes like WD, DH, and even Wizard, they will use their range against you. Especially against DH and WD, they will go invisible and make you waste your Serenity. A regular attack often does not kill in 1 hit (it has to crit), so DH/WD can take one hit and then you're kinda screwed. I counter this by using Tempest Rush and Exploding Palm. I turn on Serenity, Tailwind in, and touch them with EP. With high enough DPS, this is almost guaranteed to kill ALL but the tankiest of WD/DH. Much like Haunt and Rend, this is unavoidable damage and will automatically register the damage. Another useful skill would be Dashing Strike - Flying Side Kick for the stun, but I'm not sure where I would put it.

EP is also great against Barbs and other Monks. I often go toe to toe with them for a bit, then when we're both close to death, I touch with EP and Tailwind out of there. The 80% slow ensures they will not chase you down.

The build is pretty spirit heavy so I ended up using Guardian's Path, Mantra of Healing, and on top of that, I have a 2+ regen Inna's Radiance and SoJ. DPS isn't really an issue, but I'm trying to see if I can get away with having a bit less spirit regen.

Overall, it ends up turning into a "I kill you, but you killed me" type of game. There's really no answer for high DPS Barbs and WD who Rend or Haunt you. But at least you won't keep dying without killing them. Also, monks can still "pull ahead" in kills because they have more multi kill potential (with Serenity/SSS).

Let me know what you think!

@Metta

I haven't tried your build, but pretty much agree with the first 3 obvious choice.

I have been thinking of using Dashing Strike in PvP (when I level my hardcore monk this skill was actually one of the skills made available early in the game, and its great positioning ability caught my eyes when I thought of PvP), as you have also pointed out that this could be a useful skill.

Two other candidates which might be useful, but require testing:
1. Blinding Flash for CC
2. Wave of Light - Blinding Light for the 3 second stun on critical hit