Diablo III Monk Skill Tree Dissected

After checking out Diablo III firsthand at BlizzCon, Diii.net has dissected the eight skills that currently make up the monk’s skill tree. One of eight:

Seven Sided Strike
Mana cost: 30
Rank: 1/5.
Description: Dash at your enemies, striking six times in succession for 50% of your weapon damage.

Rank: 2/5
Description: Dash at your enemies, striking 7 times in succession for 50% of your weapon damage.

A very fun skill. Much like a finishing move in a fighter. The Monk teleports to his target, Dragon Flight style, and commences to strike multiple times. As best I could tell, the Monk was invulnerable, or perhaps intangible, during this attack. He’s not visible except as flashing series of human shapes, all shining gold and two-dimensional. You can see a screenshot to the right, or see it featured in the Blizzcon B-roll gameplay footage. The evolution of the skill was described in detail during the Monk design panel as well.

The hits always seemed to land, and did considerable damage in total. If this one was cast on an empty space, the monk would do three flashing hits before stopping. He’d also stop short of 6 if the target died along the way. If there were multiple targets in the area, he seemed to select targets randomly, hitting each of them some number of times out of his total of 6.

This one was best used on single or double targets, ideally a boss that needed finishing off, especially a teleporter or another elusive one, since all the hits would go to it in rapid succession, and hit it no matter how it squirmed.

Fun and effective. What more do you want?