Which subclasses are best and what are they good at?
There are 4 monk subclasses in the 2024 Player’s Handbook. Each subclass enhances their martial artistry differently:
- Warrior of mercy: Is equal parts healer and equal parts a damage dealer.
- Warrior of shadow: Taps into shadowy magic to become a deadly ninja.
- Warrior of the elements: Draws upon the powers of the elements to strike with elemental power and extend their reach.
- Warrior of the open hand: A martial artist specialist that supplements attacks with disabling techniques and incredible speed.
While each subclass grants different powers, they do not substantially alter your approach (even if certain details do change). Namely that your monk will likely remain a hit and run melee specialist. True, the mercy monk might mix this with healing, shadow monks might strike from darkness and elemental monks might strike with a longer reach. But the essence of playing as a monk remains the same with each of these subclasses, unlike something like a valor bard for instance, which turns a bard into a melee warrior.
The monk in 2024 has a bunch of strong options and this guide is designed to help you choose the right one for your character. I’ve outlined what they do, how they work and how good they are to help you choose.
Warrior of mercy
What are they?
A pragmatic combination of healing and harming. Yes, they seek to help those that are injured, but they also understand when someone is beyond help, whether physically or morally, and are swift to put such individuals out of their pain.
Key abilities
- Make some of your unarmed strikes into healing strikes instead of harming strikes.
- Enhance your strikes with extra damage.
- Allow certain strikes to cause the poisoned condition or heal allies from conditions.
- By level 17, you can even bring people back to life.
What are they good at?
Healing and dealing extra damage. The healing will never be large and is most comparable to lay on hands. The kind of healing you use to revive a downed ally. But the fact it can easily be combined with your many other attacks makes it a very viable option while you deal out damage.
You can also focus on dealing more damage to enemies while nullifying them somewhat with the poisoned condition. This gives the subclass a decent amount of balance.
How effective are they?
Pretty good. They more replace a paladin’s role as backup healer than a cleric’s role as main healer. But the fact that you can heal and still make several attacks, or even heal multiple allies in a turn is probably even better than the pretty good lay on hands.
Hand of harm is strong. It works out as better damage than flurry of blows (especially before level 10), but at this point, you can also apply the poisoned condition to attacks as well.
While raising from the dead with hit points is pretty good (and all parties should have an option like this), it comes much later than other classes’ raise dead abilities. Yes, it’s better than things like raise dead and spare the dying, but it comes so late in your progress and should be used infrequently that it’s probably going to feel less useful.
Score: 4/5
Warrior of shadow
What are they?
Stealthy ninjas, these monks not only have the natural agility of all monks, but also possess powers to help them move stealthily and strike from the shadows.
Key abilities
- Gain darkvision, minor illusion and the darkness spell. They can see through their magically created darkness and move it each turn.
- Teleport between areas of darkness, gaining advantage on their next attack.
- Become invisible while attacking as long as you can stay out of bright light.
What are they good at?
Stealth and striking from the shadows. This makes it easy for shadow monks to last a long time and deal more damage due to their consistent advantage.
How effective are they?
Shadow monks are extremely effective. Being able to see through your own darkness makes it really easy to just lurk in your darkness spell and jump in and out of it for relative safety and easy advantage.
You’ll likely find your DM adapts their approach to these abilities so you may need to beware of things like blindsight, AoE spells and saving throw spells. But in reality, they’re a hugely effectively subclass and probably one of the best in the game.
Score: 5/5
Warrior of the elements
What are they?
Monks capable of tapping into elemental powers to enhance themselves. They are an updated version of the way of the four elements from D&D 2014 getting one of the biggest overhauls of any subclass.
Key abilities
- Able to gain an extra 10ft reach to unarmed strikes, change their damage type and push targets.
- Can launch an AoE blast of elemental power like a weak fireball.
- Use a focus points to gain a fly and swim speed.
- You can also take a damage resistance and increased movement with step of the wind.
What are they good at?
Staying out of danger with extended reach and flight. Controlling the battlefield by pushing enemies around. Bypassing damage resistances. These monks find it much easier to execute hit and run strategies because they can stay out of the melee reach of their enemies and even fly while striking.
How effective are they?
Extremely in my opinion. The features of the elements monk almost bypass a monk’s natural problems; their lack of durability. By keeping them out of reach of many enemies, hit and run tactics become much easier. Of course, you’re still vulnerable to ranged attacks or being surrounded, but even then, you’re so maneuverable that in many cases, you can find someway of getting out the way (flight and great speed are helpful here in particular).
If you’re really cunning, you can do things like combine the push feature from elemental attunement with the shove on unarmed attacks you get from tavern brawler to push enemies even further. If you work with a friendly spellcaster, you can also line up enemies for nasty AoE spells.
Score: 5/5
Warrior of the open hand
What are they?
Open hand monks are hyper-focused on the martial arts elements of the class. This means you can do more with your attacks like pushing enemies around and knocking them prone. These monks are also extremely fast.
Key abilities
- Supplement attacks with effects like a 15ft push, knocking prone or preventing opportunity attacks.
- Grant yourself minor healing.
- Use step of the wind for free when you use another bonus action.
- Use your quivering palm to deal explosive damage.
What are they good at?
Controlling the battlefield by helping allies gain advantage or pushing enemies where you want them. They’re also extremely fast so can easily get to the places they’re needed most, including charging at pesky spellcasters lurking on the back lines.
How effective are they?
Pretty good. They work really well at hit and run tactics which is important for the monk. Their level 6 healing feature is a bit weak to spend a bonus action on, but otherwise, this is a pretty effective subclass.
Score: 4/5
Which monk subclass is best?
There are no bad monk subclasses in D&D 2024 (yet) so whichever you opt for, you can know you’re getting an effective subclass.
However, I do think some are more effective than others. The warrior of shadow can be extremely effective and challenging for a DM to target. My concern here is that tackling a monk like this might require entire tactical shifts for a DM by including creatures with things like blindsight, AoE attacks and saving throw spells. This essentially means bypassing a lot of the shadow monk’s features. In some respects, I think this monk could be a little problematic for balancing encounters.
So while I think the warrior of shadow is a very powerful subclass, I actually think the warrior of elements is the best. It’s hugely effective at hit and run techniques, has the best reach of any character, can fly and can help allies out a fair bit. For me, this is not only an effective monk subclass, but also a really fun one to play as well.
Which monk subclass do you think is the best? Let me know why in the comments below.
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