Well, I don't play HardCore, but the Abilities work the same in both cores, so I will offer my 2 cents worth

I have played melee style on Fighter, Samurai, Paladin and Monk since the abilities were introduced, and have found that the ones that work best for me on ALL my melee char's are PowerStrike and Multi-Strike.
I always put my first 2 ability points into MultiStrike, then 1 into PowerStrike. I then build Multistrike up for the next 5 , and add 1 more to PowerStrike. The rest got into MultiStrike
The fact that these abilities are not always designed for the char that uses them really does not impede their effectiveness at the higher lvls, as this is really where you need them.
Monk may be better off with his Double-Hit rather than Powerstrike. I am still test-driving that one
This post was edited by Paparick on Apr 7 2011 05:30am