SwolePonHiki wrote:I chose monk because they have good skills for this, and it lets my shroud come online earlier.
Starting skills are of very little importance. The total amount of experience of all your starting skills combined is about equal to what you earn in the first 2 dungeon floors. Generally you want to choose a background for its gear or other perks that don't usually appear in the first 2 floors.
SwolePonHiki wrote:Is this a viable strategy?
Yes. It is not 100% optimal (that is to say, there are better strategies if you are looking for maximum winrate), but it is certainly good enough to win with. Quite comfortably in fact, because Minotaurs are way above average in terms of species effectiveness.
SwolePonHiki wrote:Should I consider a different race/class/God, or different sources of evasion?
if you are looking to play melee, Monk is a pretty weak background compared to Gladiator (which starts with a better weapon and more strength) or Berserker (which starts with a powerful god and more strength). As far as Gods go, Trog is really great with melee and Okawaru is great with big weapons in general. Realistically Dithmenos doesn't do as much for you. If you are looking for a fun evasion theme, yes, I think Dithmenos increases your effective evasion by more than any other god (Okawaru's Heroism will increase your evasion to some degree, but probably not as much). If you are looking for a fun build and don't wish to optimize too much, you'll still do fine; I already mentioned that the Minotaur species is so strong it will comfortably carry the suboptimal choices.
SwolePonHiki wrote:What attribute should I be leveling? (I'm not sure if I should go for strength to get rid of the EV penalty on armor, or dexterity to double down on EV, or some balance of the two.)
Strength, for sure. Mostly because it substantially increases the damage of your attacks (including riposte attacks). The reduction of EV penalty is icing on the cake.