I've been trying to relive the pre-nerf ranger glory days, and can't figure out which alt to continue leveling. Killing things fast brings me the most enjoyment, what are the highest DPS classes for grinding? I'm debating between Necro/Monk/SK, currently my necro is 48 and I simply plow through mobs. How does a SK match up in terms of DPS at higher levels, my level 30 SK with twink gear is nowhere near the DPS as my necro.

Also how are 2hnders for monks? My level 20 monk is unbearably slow to level currently, I have a 44/44 2hnder that i'm thinking about trying on him. Currently he's using 17/36 1hnders but the DPS is abysmal.

SK kind of drags until you get a ridiculous weapon. Then he does enough damage that Life Leech/VE keep you mostly alive and it gets a lot more fun.

I can't speak for any other classes at the high end except Rangers. My SK is consistently 4.5-7.5k on groups. Around 3.5-7k single target usually. Ranger is closer to 4-5k now and can't really handle groups. Both level 97 and using level 68 elite unique weapons.

I have a 99 ranger, 99 monk, 97 shaman, 97 bard, 97 necro, 91 wizard and an 80 cleric.

Monk is certainly the best I have for farming. He's basically unkillable, does consistent 8-12k dps with constant 5 up mobs. Even elites don't particularly matter due to his massive healing capabilities. Make sure you are using Shadow Dancer boots once you reach level (54 I think). With gearing you can have 60%+ haste, 60%+ skill haste, 75% crit and over 150% crit damage. Chain and plate classes can gear up better than this, but no one has the awesome AoE damage and healing that monks have.

Actually during the ranger glory days, it got to the point where I would farm with my monk instead because of his immunity to fear and damage shields.

Bard is also pretty effective. He sits around 8k dps and is also basically unkillable due to gearing and spec. VERY micro-heavy. If you just want to burn shit down, this is not your class, but it is a very fun class.

Necro is a terrible farming class because you can't brainlessly farm. It takes a ton of attention not to die and you aren't just spamming the D key but rather strategically pulling mobs. This is a fun class if you like to see shit burn. This is not a DOT class. There are no DOT classes in this game, not yet at least.

Wizard is a terrible class. Don't bother. Worst casting DPS out of all my casters including my shaman. The long cooldowns, poor survivability, oft resistant mobs which is heightened by specializations and poor crowd control make the wizard the worst class I have played in the game so far.

Shaman is a fun, brainless farming machine. Autoattack and press D, that's it. You can't really farm 5 up non-stop, but you can constantly farm 2 or 3 without ever stopping. Casting and farming is pretty useless with any class due to knockback. The only class I am familiar with that has talents to prevent knockback is a wizard.

Cleric is basically the same as a shaman but you can farm 5 up. It is an auto-attack build, just press D and farm. Some of the talents are broken, but lots of stuns and strong heals and buffs make cleric a very, very easy class to level.

It helps for me that I have mountains of exceptional and elite gear which I was able to farm when Rangers were demi-gods.

Do you have any suggestions on gear/skill rotation for monk/necro? For my Necro, i'm just simply spamming fireball/corpse explosion, life-tapping when necessary. Focusing on casting haste/crit/int for stats, not really sure how to gear this guy. IE I have a 2hnder that has +48 firedmg and +4% to fire, I don't notice a difference when spamming fireballs.

I apparently have no clue how to gear/play monk. I have high armor elite yellow boots + decent elite 1hnders, I still kill things at a snails pace.

I suppose there are a number of ways to play the necro, but how I do it is just the fireball/corpse explosion. I focus on building crit and crit damage and cast haste comes after that. This is because Invoke Fear talent's auto-fire response to being hit is an instant and cast time doesn't matter. Most of your DPS will come from that or from Corpse explosion.

Do you have a character in Hell level already? If so, visit towns until you find a 45/45 2h blunt at the merchant, buy it and give it to your monk. I cant imagine a scenario where you'd have the ability to use a 2H weapon in this game and decide to go dual wield. Dual wield weapons are vastly inferior. Even my ranger uses 2H weapons.

The monk is easy, just spam viper, spam tiger, spam dragon and spam crane kick. Max out crane kick as soon as you can, max out tiger next, then you can choose where to go next.

The whole 1h vs 2h weapon thing does seem like it should be evened out a bit, at least the dmg/atk speed ratios - especially for rogues who don't have the option to use a 2h

For example:

Nightfall + Earthcaller (lvl 68 1h dagger and 1h sword)
47/49 (combined)

vs

The Grandfather (lvl 68 2h sword)
63/42

With all other combined stats being relatively equal.

Never seen any of those weapons. Screen pic of the grandfather?

Here they are goats. I think the Nightfall has been buffed but I've yet to find the new one...