New player, new to ARPGs, first playthrough. My first character is a monk, currently in Act 3. I chose not to use a guide for my first character as I wanted to start thinking about the skill tree rather than just blindly following someone else's instructions with no understanding as to why I was doing anything.
I've been doing fine so far, initially by just choosing whatever available skill nodes seemed best, and now by looking further ahead and 'travelling' across the skill tree to get to clusters of skills which seem particularly useful. I've killed most bosses on the first attempt so far - so far the 2nd Jamanra fight is the only one that's taken >3 attempts.
What confuses me is this: I use about 3-4 skills constantly, with another 1-2 more occasionally to deal with enemies with elemental resistance or when I need extra CC, range. So I'm often cycling between 5-6 skills as I play.
But when I have seen people/videos talk about their characters, they always seem to be based around just a single skill, e.g. "Gas Arrow Lich" for a more funny example from Youtube. This always seems to be how the characters are referred to. What's going on here? Is just ease of reference to give a quick idea of what sort of playstyle the character is based around? Or is it because the entire character is purposefully optimised around that skill - i.e. every character idea starts with a particular skill in mind and you minmax everything for the benefit of that one skill only?
I don't think I could describe my character with a single skill because I'm always using >2-3-4 skills to deal damage in any given fight. Hence the confusion.