Poor Gameplay Experience for Monk Players

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k_mystes#2869 wrote:

# Poor Gameplay Experience for Monk Players
Should Most Melee Classes Even Exist?

## I. Core Issues with Monk Builds
1. **Shield Charge Builds Lack Survivability**
The Shield Charge build suffers from abysmal survivability. Additionally, the Soulrend skill requires both Wind Dancer and Ghost Dance, while the character’s effective health pool is far too low.

2. **Prohibitive Mana Costs**
Mana consumption is outrageously high. With a maximum mana pool of 750, a single skill cast can cost up to 300 mana. After the removal of the Pathfinder’s mana leech nodes, the new support gem *Oath of the Vaal* only works for one skill—down from the previous universal mana leech on all damage. Combined with the already exorbitant skill costs, mana starvation is a constant problem.

3. **Unnecessarily Tedious Critical Strike Ball Generation**
Gaining critical strike balls is overly cumbersome and difficult. Coupled with the heavy reliance on multiple Spirit skills, the build becomes extremely clunky and unenjoyable to play.

4. **Redundant Elemental Herald Skills**
Skills like Herald of Ice, Herald of Lightning, and Herald of Ash cannot trigger on the same target simultaneously. Why not consolidate them into a single skill called **Herald of Elements**?

5. **Unusable Single-Target Melee Skills**
This is a loot-farming game, yet some melee skills have had their attack speed reduced and only target a single enemy. These skills are essentially never used by players.

## II. Flaws in Monk Ascendancy Passives
1. **Unused Active Skill in Invoker Tree**
*Unfettered Fury*, an active skill in the Invoker ascendancy tree, is completely unviable and sees zero play. It should be reworked into a passive skill.

2. **Poor Design of Shaula’s Zealot Tree**
The core requirement of Shaula’s Zealot is converting damage to Chaos damage—but this key mechanic is tied to a ring instead of being integrated into the ascendancy’s own passives.

3. **Underwhelming AoE Range Talents**
The newly added attack range talents offer negligible benefits to Monks. The base range of Monk skills is already vastly inferior to that of Titan skills; a mere 6% or 12% increase does nothing meaningful. Ultimately, the root cause is the excessively small base range of Monk skills themselves.