I am trying to build up my alternate character roster and I have a low level monk and a similarly level disciple. Honestly the disciple seems all around better than my monk, in staying power and use (heck he is a full healer to boot). So my question for you high level monks is what are the major strengths that a Monk has that others do not (even beyond comparing him to a disciple)?
Monks hit way harder than a disciple. Especially when you use your cool downs. The monk will pull ahead pretty quickly as they gain more abilities.
The main strength of a monk is the ability to feign death without cooldown and the ability to do heavy burst damage later in life, post 50. They also can tank against melee based attacks decently with a variety of dodge and parry abilities. The problem really is that from 1-50 they are not that special of a class. Post 50 monks get an aum that reduces the cooldowns on all their abilities signifigantly and that makes a major difference for them. Also the 5 piece pota bonus is one of the most powerful things any monk can ever have. Reducing the cooldown of your main burst damage producing ability ( Fists of Celerity ) by 50% is gigantic. If you get all the refresh reducing gear and abilities you can, you can basically keep reed in the wind up 95% of any fight, which makes you pretty beastly defensively when added in with the other defensive abilities like iron skin and find the center. Monks also get one of the best debuffs in the game, quivering palm, which is triggered when you parry, and reduces the mobs damage output by 50% for 15 seconds. Regardless of whether you are a drunken monk or dragon monk you will have the ability to do large amounts of burst damage post 50 with fists of celerity + three finger strike chain and the fist chain. If you are drunken you will be able to do 9, 12, 9, 9 attacks with your fist chain, throw a qj on top and maybe proc a static burst off some voltaic wraps and you get some truly massive numbers, 1 million damage bursts are not unheard of against some of the squishier encounters. The problem is that it seems to me that monks are really gear and buff dependant and getting both of those things can take quite a long time. The other great thing about being a monk is that you have fd, so you can go hard on damage early and not worry too much about whether the tank has enough gear to hold agro, because you can fd on global cooldown, as long as taking agro doesnt get you instantly killed.
