Diablo 3 Season 11 -- Monk

I've done a few of the Diablo seasonal achievements. It reinvigorated life into the game and the extra tabs are nice.

Why Do Seasonal?

I've done the story at least 3 times and spent countless hours doing endgame rifts and such. With seasonal you start from scratch so it's a new challenge. It lets you really see the unique styles of a new character.

Monk

Normally I avoid the monk in fantasy games. I don't like the fiction of an unarmed guy punching his way against foes wearing plate mail. I find the physical manifestation of focused willpower to be unconvincing. True, I'm already accepting magic and elves and the power of gods, so a little chi isn't too extraordinary, it just isn't my thing. 

So why play a monk? Mostly because I have played all of the other classes. I thought I would hate the Demon Hunter but I loved it. Maybe monk would be the same.

Nope. I didn't like it. Maybe it was the set I used. Maybe it was the low damage before you hit extreme endgame. It just didn't work for me. The dodgy nature of the monk meant jumping into every fight and hoping that your incredible evasion would save you. And usually it does, but sometimes it doesn't. I died a whole lot.

There are good think about the monk. The set I played, Raiment, really felt like a monk. I zipped around the battlefield punching things to death. There would be moments of power and moments of defense. Sometimes I could coincide everything and unleash devastation on a boss while completely immune. Of all the classes, the monk felt the most iconic. The end game barbarian feels like a squishy wizard who casts spells and avoids combat. Conversely, the firebird wizard feels like a barbarian who is most comfortable when surrounded by enemies in melee range. 

I would have played necromancer but I had just gotten one leveled up and really didn't want to start another.

Community

The online community is pretty great. I don't actually want much of that in my Diablo, but all of my interactions have been positive. I got someone to power level me, saving me hours of grinding. It's easy to find groups to do rifts, bounties, or whatever else you need. I found someone to help me with three of the conquests with almost no searching.

Diablo In My Future

I'm not going to play this season any more. One of my buddies wants to use this character for open play so I'll wait for the season to end before we start up again. Then I'll bring my necromancer back and see how far we can get in the open environment.

Blizzard says that won't be announcing Diablo 4 at Blizzcon, so I bet there is a lot of time to keep playing D3.