Well, Blamazon, you can choose the path of a kicker sin or a claw sin. For claw sin, i have to disagree with you and say that phoenix strike is an awesome charge-up skill when you get used to it. You can choose among fire, lightning or ice. Here is some nice builds you should look:
The Warrior-Monk, and Uber-Tristram Assassin Build - Guide v. 1.1 (by JanusJones)
http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=392666&page=1&pp=10
The build above is one of the best. You can learn the basics of kick and blade-fury sin. Basically: important skills (you should thing about maxing) venom, shadow master, dragon-talon; other important skills: fade, cloak of shadows, mind blast, death sentry. Dont forget blade fury.
A reminder: if you go for exclusively physical damage kicker or if you choose to use dragon tail, max tiger strike.
The C/C Natalya's Phoenix Striker (by skygoneblue)
http://strategy.diabloii.net/news.php?id=599
This looks like the first sin i've ever made and is a good and fun char to play. You can use this build and choose a different skill instead of
claws of thunder (
blades or ice or
fists of fire) and use either
dragon claw or
dragon talon as finish move. You can choose different gear too instead of natalya's (wich you'll certainly do if you choose talon as finishing move).
Baically: max phoenix strike, max other elemental charge-up, max claw mastery (claw choice, don't do it if you finish with kick), max dragon talon (kicker only). Spend other points in shadow disciplines like: fade, shadow master, mind blast, cloak of shadows. I recomend 1 point in death sentry.
There are other builds, but all martial artists can derivate from changes on those 2, imo.
Good luck!
