Vanguard Monks

This is mainly for quinn, but since i haven't seen him in a while ill ask you guys for input.  Ive been playing a drunken for a month now because i want to give them a fair list of suggestions to help balance them.  If theres no objection ill run these past a developer tonight since ill be testing with a few. 

Drunken

1) Magnificent drunken swagger - Increase the duration to 20 seconds (5 second increase) to make it equal to find the center.
2) Magnificent drunken swagger - change to 10 endurance cost (vs 2 jin)
3) Slap hands - fix it so it stops damaging the drunken monk  fixed
4) Slap hands - increase its dmg and make it more consistent (ie adds a 600-700 pt counter instead of 20 to 900)
5) Slap Hands - change jin cost to 3-4 (i think its 7, which is way to much for a 45 second ds)
6) Slap hands - add a hate increase to this buff (its only used when tanking anyways)
7) Fool hardy swagger - increase the hate of the defensive target by 14% to all mobs in ae (what it should do atm, but is buged)
8) Staggering Fist - reduce endurance cost to 10 (its 20 end for 75% wpn dmg and 0.1 sec stun on a 8 second recast) its already 12, im stupid and had a debuff on when looking at it
9) Lurching Feint - doesn't open finishers on raid mobs as far as ive noticed, needs to be fixed (make it 100 dmg if thats what it needs)

Stance related
1) increase the avoidance on defensive (its way to close to harmonious, AND they get endurance reduction)
2) move the + hate to either the defensive stance or to a secondary toggle buff, so we can tank with defense AND agro

Harmonious
1) Withering palm - reduce the jin cost to 4( its 6 atm)
2) Find the center - change to 10 end cost (instead of 2 jin)

Stance related
1) reduce endurance cost of tiger stance to 25-30% penalty (instead of 40)
2) increase the jin regen at 50 ( u have more jin, you should regen slightly faster)

Dragon
1) feet of the fire dragon - increase its dmg to atleast 8k per 16 sec (2k per 4 sec, still less then auto attack)
2) dragon rakes its claw - make it a full 360 ae, not just frontal cone
3) Dragon breath - if its gonna stay ae, up its dmg to 10-15k ae on a 2 min reuse (full 360 degree ae, no frontal cone)
4) Dragons rage - melee +400 instead of just 400 dmg, makes the attack useful
5) Divine ae line - reduce recast to 10-15 seconds.  30 seconds is long and in that time i can whirling strike for more dmg
6) Sundering dragon - increase dmg to 6k over 6 seconds (again 2k per 2 sec, even with auto attack)
7) dragon sweeps its tail - make it instant reuse, or at least 10 second
8 ) dragon sweeps its tail - make it melee + 300 dmg (not just 300 dmg)
9) Sun dragons corona ---- still open ---- (we know it should be dps buff and not an ae)

Stance related
1) increase the hp regen on the dragon stance to at east 200 hp at 50 (out of combat) and 72 (in combat)
2) stone dragons - make the ac gain % based instead of a set number, or just switch to %parry/dodge
3) storm dragon - increase the % dmg (and change it to dmg instead of melee dmg so it affects spells)

Drunken Swagger - I agree should be 20 sec duration, I'm fine with the 2 jin cost.

We sure that Slap Hands is actually damaging us?

I know in the combat log it states that we BLOCK the attack and slap the enemy for XXX damage etc, but the hit from the mob still goes through 90% of the time, so its not really Blocked. So is the mob damage going through the damage you're referring to?

If is says we block then slap, the block should stop the mobs hit from landing as far as I'm concerned or at least reduce the damage it does if it is intended to go through since it was blocked.

The Jin cost to it is rather high at the moment for it as well , if it Stops the mob Damage with the block etc then the cost is justified though.

Foolhardy Swagger - yup it's bugged

Staggering fist, i think the 20 end is ok since it is not on global cool down

Not sure defensive needs much in the way of more avoidance since it has a damage shield included with it, if it is all avoid whats the point of the damage shield then.......Possibly Add some Mitigation instead

I agree the + hate needs to be moved to the defensive stance, as it is now ill tank in the midrange stance just for the hate it gives, Originally it was on the offensive stance ....that was no good, Midrange stance is slightly better, Defensive is where it needs to be.

Pushing Hands - Is it intended to have to try and Push Mob from stance 5 + times for it to be effective ........Trying to push some mobs in APW from stance  takes entirely too many attempts , possibly change the endurance cost if this is the case


Baruka
Drunken Monk of Sartok

I'd kinda like to pursue these suggested stances some more.  I play a harmonious monk and I can say that the harmonious stance changes would be excellent.  I don't know how the other stance proposals would feel to dragon and drunken monks, though.

as far as drunken go heres the reasoning.

harmonious defensive stance is near identical to drunken

7% dodg/parry + 20 end reduction
8% dodge/parry +40 pt ds

Not sure about you but to me the clear winner is harmonious by a land slide.  There needs to be a larger gap in that drunkens stance needs to be the clear best tanking defensive stance of all the monks.  Theres a million ways to do it, but in the short term the most logical step is increasing the avoidance/adding mitigation (or spell mitigation)


Slap hands is hurting the monk, pop it on a lvl 32, turn attack off, your hp goes down by 4-5% every time you get hit and the mobs hp only goes down by how ever much your damage shield is.  (slap hands is ment to be a damage shield not really a block, this was confirmed by quinn a while back.

Staggering is just such low dmg/utility since the interrupt doesn't work on raid mobs or big group mobs.  that 20 endurance for 1k dmg seems like a waste is all.

Yes pushing hands is ment to take 5-6 pushes per named mob to remove stance.  otherwise mob stances would be trivial.  in raids you need 4-5 people pushing stance to get it off in a decent amount of time (minimum 2-3)

Still don't see us needing any major avoidance addition to our defensive as it would take away from the damage shield portion of it. We have other ways of increasing avoidance, reed/stagger etc
Think mitigation would be more suited (mainly since our offensive reduces mitigation + mit for defensive wouldn't be out of line)
The damage shield portion of defensive increases with stats i believe, i know mine slaps for about 135+ unbuffed, ill have to check it raid buffed and see what the diff is.

I do agree that harmonious defensive is too close to ours i don't really see it as being better than ours, we do have an aum ability that lowers ability cost etc.

I will have to test slap hands a bit more, only time i've just let anything hit me testing it was against another player, and i let my damage shields kill him.........ill have to re-examine logs

I'm still fine with Staggering the way it is........can be macro'd to make it more useful ;) which is nice since secrets procs with every hit....it not being on global cooldown is what gives it its utility, for that alone the 20 endurance is fine.

Would be nice if there were 4-5 ppl removing stance on every raid heh not allways the case on pvp server if anything needs a cost reduction its pushing hands imo.

well harmonious defensive stance stacks with our aum ti, making them cost next to nothing for most of their attacks which is a serious advantage.

I dont see a ds being a utility, mine averages 50 on raid mobs, make sure your removing gear that adds a damage shield.  I know most t5 continental effects add ds. 

Slap hands is really hard for me to parse it seems to me that i get hit for 200-300, and slap the target for "900" and my hp goes down and his doesnt move. The hard part is that it has to be level 30 3 dots (ish) other wise they will never hit you enough to parse.  What i did was pop iron skin and remove avoidance gear.  I should be getting hit often but for almost no dmg, and my hp still drops 5-10% a hit..... not sure about pvp, it might work there but pve is definatly bugged.

I guess if nothing else id like staggering to be the same reuse time as crescent kick since CK exploits staggering.  Then i could spam the 2 in row every time.   with aum kor and raid buffs its close but it still throws my macro off.

I agree 100% pushing hands needs to be 30-35% end not 50%.  It kills my dps when i have to push a mob 5-8 times, to remove a stance, and ahve to do that 5-6 times a fight.

The Continental DS is not added to the Slap from our defensive, least it does not show up like that for me and i've played drunken since beta2, the continental damage shield shows up as Mob takes XX damage from your damage shield on average this one may be anywhere from 30-50 depending what continental stuff i swap in/out

. Where defensive Stance shows up as you slap mob for XXX etc. They are separate entities...Separate damage shield effects, and i do consider the damage shield portion of our defensive as Utility. Now they should add Hate to the Slap portion of our damage shield......That would be even better utility.......Who wouldn't get mad at being slapped every time they took a swing at ya ;P

If they put stagger on the same timer as CK you'd wind up using one of our other attacks less which would not be good.

So drunken monks already have a better offensive stance than harmonious, and do more damage due to their extra thousand fist finishers.  Now we need to make their defensive stance better as well.  What would be the point in playing anything but drunken monk?  I am all for improving their defensive stance if it means their offensive stance takes a hit.  I do agree that the additional hate should be added on the defensive stance and not neutral.

Lead you play a harmonious and you constantly start issues and frankly instead of complaining everytime you feel harmonious is being threatened, you should be suggesting things.

1) Drunken is the tank, so sorry you dont agree but:
     they have the weakest dmg attacks (other then thousand fist line at LVL 50)
     they have the most taunts (3 vs harmonious's 1)

2) I did suggest a reduction in the endurance cost of harmonious offensive stance (which would make it more viable and easily more dps over the entire level range from 15-50), if you feel your offensive stance still wouldn't be better then drunken after that, why not suggest a simple solution? like add a 5-10% dps.  Personally i think the 10-15% end drop in cost would be more then enough but it would require testing either way

3) Harmonious are currently the most ridiculously over powered of the 3 monks, as such theres no real point in playing the other two at the moment, the point of these suggestions was to bring the other 2 monks into a even battle field.   Dont get me started on diamond skin either.

4) Harmonious' monks defensive stance is by far the most optimal stance of all 9 at lvl 50.  It may not offer increased dmg directly but the endurance reduction WITH defensive buffs makes it a really good choice.  A 50-100 pt ds on drunken defensive stance doesnt make up for the endurance reduction on your stance. 

If you want to suggest something pls do, but stop trying to hijack threads where you try to keep harmonious monk the most powerful... Frankly its the middle stance and should be moderate at best not the number one choice of 90% of monks. 

Harmonious should be more dps then drunken (which it is at all levels other then 50) and a worse tank (which it isnt, infact harmonious is the top tank of the 3)

"So drunken monks already have a better offensive stance than harmonious"

Dont know about the harmonious, but as far as a drunken goes, my stances change regularly, I use them ALL , you won't catch me using offensive to tank etc, or defensive to dps, Granted i can do both with midrange but I only use that for the hate gain atm + the cost reduction.

Harmonious is and has been the monk of choice for most monks I've seen.........with Dragon being the least viable, and drunken in the middle....This has changed alot since beta, when everyone had a dragon, Drunken and Harmonious were 50/50 or something like that.

Your suggesting that drunken offensive take a hit, if our defensive gets any attention? the - mitigation is a deterrent for using offensive as it is. If thats the case the Harmonious Defensive should what ? receive a downgrade since it is far to close to the drunken defense?

There are 3 Viable Monk Paths, No one should outweigh the other, each has its pros/cons, if you look back in the patch history, Drunken has received the LEAST amount of attention out of the 3 choices availible.

Suggesting improvements would be helpful, complaining about suggestions with a valid argument is helpful, Complaining   about suggestions on an assumption.....well we all know what happens when you assume anything....

Offensive stances should have penalties.
1) Dragon most dps gain most mitigation lost
2) Drunken Second most dmg gain, second most mitigation lost
3) Harmonious adds no direct dps gain and removes no mit....instead it adds crit and costs endurance....which we all agee is currently to high of a cost.  But it also makes it viable to tank in dps IF you want (not the best option but you wont suffer as much as drunken or dragon)

I like how all the stances arent copy and pasted but it makes them harder to balance.  If drunkens defensive stance got better

The alternative would be to go to a dumb down system where its all cookie cutter.  But atleast then it wold be so crystal clear who is tank and who is dps.  And exactly where the harmonious would sit

Offensive
Dragon          30% dmg 15% crit 1k proc   15% XYZ penalty (avoidance/dodge/parry???)
Harmonious  25% dmg 10% crit  500 proc  10% penalty to XYZ (avoidance/dodge/parry???)
Drunken        20% dmg 5% crit  250 proc  5% penalty to XYZ (avoidance/dodge/parry???)

Defensive
Dragon          5% dodge/parry,  50% spell rune vs 2/6 elements (fire and ice rune already)
Harmonious  10% dodge/parry,   50% spell rune vs 4/6 elements + ds
Drunken       15% dodge/parry , 50% spell rune vs 6/6  + ds and hate

Hey Fujitsu,

   You look like your suggesting something almost symetrical in the improvement and detriments of the 3 monk types, but why do you go away from this in your recommendations on the Dodge/Parry ?  If you wanted to make this consistant then it should be something like this :

Dragon          4% dodge/parry,  50% spell mit vs 2/6 elements (fire and ice rune already)
Harmonious  8% dodge/parry,   50% spell mit vs 4/6 elements
Drunken       12% dodge/parry , 50% spell mit vs 6/6

Xon

lol honestly cause i suck at math in my head...im really that bad. 

I would still like to know what the crit cap is because I am not sure at lvl50 that harmonious really gain anything from their offensive stance.

well still kinda close to the things talked about in the drunken GU3.3 thread so Ill back this for the most part.

would like to see both the def and off use the same scale respectively though either 4% or 5% when doing the % for style 's

it was mentioned but needs to be added to {the list  here} keep the minor ds and the hate gain in the def stance for drunken.
 still want drunken swagger buff lengthened, as I talked about in  GU 3.3 for drunken. no need for perm, but a solid 20-25 seconds out of 2 minutes would be specatular. and non overpowering  / unbalancing consdiering SOE messed up with Diamond skin already.

so what I am asking is:
Dragon          5% dodge/parry,  50% spell mit vs 2/6 elements (fire and ice rune already)
Harmonious  10% dodge/parry,   50% spell mit vs 4/6 elements
Drunken       15% dodge/parry , 50% spell mit vs 6/6 minor DS currently available in def, hate gain from mid stance moved to here

So feeding off input from people here, i went and adjusted the stances a bit, my only concern is the defensive stance for drunken might be a bit to high if we go off the 5% thing, but then again the same could be said about dragons offensive, so i guess ultimately it balances out. 

Just curious, but how would harmonious/drunken/dragons feel about this as a proposed change?    As a drunken id be ecstatics about the defensive and would accept the loss in dps on offensive.    As a dragon it would be a huge improvement over current defensive stance and a nice improvement over our current offensive.

I really dont play harmonious a lot so i dont know how theyd feel, id assume most harmonious would be happy to get rid of the endurance penalty, and have a clearly better offensive stance then drunken.  With the crit cap seemingly so low that at 50 tiger stance is hardly noticable this might be a good solution.  But again i wont make suggestions any time soon, this was mostly a suggestion thread for when QTM gets back but it would be nice to get a clear consensous

think its on the right track honestly. as a drunken loosing 2% dps will still keep me in the top 5 with-in the raid. I am positive of that.  the improvements to def are huge and needed.
best of all the 3 styles are working together instead of calling for nerfs to each other. nice to see and be part of in this commuinity honstly.

Now if only the devs would take notice of these changes and start working with quinn/monk community on them they could acually get it done.
As a drunken i would have no issues to the drunken side of those changes.I wont speak for the other styles though.

Having played a dragon 1 to 50 i can honestly say the changes would be amazing.  Our current defensive stance sucks and our current offensive stance needs a boost (not much).

Having raided as a drunken for over 3 weeks now and played one for 5 weeks straight i can say the offensive "nerf" is totaly covered with the defensive gain.

Having never really cared for harmonious monk i was hoping for some input on the loss of the crit stance.

After having played a harmonious monk from 15-50, I have to say that harmonious is fine as is.  Things like the withering palm buff would be nice but unnecessary. 

I feel that the endurance penalty on tiger stance isn't as big an issue as people make it out to be.  The fact that because you are always critting means that the majority of  your attacks will be finishers as harmonious which, have a much lower endurance cost then non-finisher type attacks.  I've also soloed almost exclusively in tiger stance and never had any problems ( mobs die faster then I run out of endurance if not 4 dot).  In groups in tiger stance even without cleric or shaman endurance  regen buffs I have an extremely easy time stealing aggro from all but the best tanks.

In conclusion, I think Harm stances and abilities are fine, I don't really want to see the stances changed, but if you want to buff our abilities, I won't complain.

I also play a harmonious monk, and honestly I kind of like the tiger stance.  The endurance penalty is a bit harsh, but eventually as Kiyoka said, you will be critting so much that you are constantly doing finishers, which take less endurance than regular attacks.  I feel that changing the stances in the way that is being suggested is going to take away alot of the uniqueness of the different styles, and in the case of harmonious, fix something that is not broken.  The other styles could use some changes to their stances, I agree, but lets do that in a way that is a little more creative and keeps the stances unique and interesting.

yeah nuff said, i think the defensive stances for all 3 might change, but the offensive will most likely stay the same.

i'll admit it's out of topic but... where's Quinn?

I know you said you'd be working more Q, and time isn't on your side...
But would love to hear a word from ya your still alive and kickin
Hoping to hear your thoughts on some of these subjects too
Hope all's good, Rho

So i talked to some harmonious on test and on xeth, general consensus seemed to be that they liked their crit stance because:
1) Overall dps is quite high (criting about 50-60% of the time is like a perm 1.5 dmg modifier
2) Finishers cost less endurance and as such arent effected as much
3) with high end buffs and aum ti, the endurance penalty isnt bad

So heres the next round of suggestions:
Offensive
Dragon          30% dmg 15% crit 1k proc   10% (avoidance/dodge/parry???) penalty
Harmonious   30% Crit 25 % endurance penalty (15% lower then current)
Drunken        20% dmg 5% crit  5% penalty to (avoidance/dodge/parry???)

Defensive
Dragon          5% dodge/parry,  50% spell rune vs 2/6 elements (fire and ice rune already)
Harmonious  10% dodge/parry,   25% spell rune vs 4/6 elements + 100 pt ds
Drunken       15% dodge/parry , 25% spell rune vs 6/6  elements+ 100 pt ds and hate gain

Dragon gets the dps boost they need, drunkens lose a bit of raw dps (gain some crit to help with finishers) harmonious keep their crit stance but lose some of the penalty.  Even with aum ti, it would still be a 5% end cost penalty which i think is way more reasonable.

As far as defensive stances go, dragons would just trade their 800 ac for 5% dodge/parry, they already have fire/ice rune to 50%.  Harmonious would gain 3% dodge/parry, and elemtal runes for 4/6 spell types, as well as a 100 pt ds.  Lastly drunken monk gets the much needed tanking stance they deserve, 25% less dmg to all spell types, hate gain, and  a stance that is 100% better then the other two monks.

That is my primary concern of the monk class styles.

-My personal thoughts on the drunken defensive stance, remove the +damage sheild, replace it with +hate gain.  Make it +9%dodge/mitigation.  This makes drunken a FAR FAR more viable tank/offtank...which I should think would be the purpose of their most defensive stance.  

MAYBE consider boosting to +10%dodge/mitigation.  But I'd say try it with the first adjsustment and see if it is honestly needed to further define and balance.

-Make the medium drunken stance simply be 10% refresh timer + small DS.  (a good choice for soloing and generalist/utility)

-Make the offensive stance +22%damage +5%endcost redux -5mitigation%

-staggering fist if used right takes advantage of an exploit chain and is a potential interrupt.  Maybe lowering it as far as 15-17?  10 is a bit excessive.

-You are proposing 3 changes to slap hands in addition to boosting raw aggro gaining ability of your defensive stance...sounds a bit overboard to me.  You want it to be cheaper, do more damage AND boost more hate.  I would humbly suggest to either:

(my preference)Add a flat amount of hate generation, make the damage about 5% less, and boost its durration out to 2min.  Making it more functional for holding aggro and less micromanagement, plus it helps justify the cost.  This would also help be useful if you are trying to hold aggro but don't neccesarrily need max defense from defensive stance.

or

Boost the damage about 25-35%ish and make it reliable/consistant and add a small hate component but keep the cost/durration the same.  (useful as a meaning ful damage/aggo gaining burst at the start of fights and periodically in the middle etc.)

-Magnificent drunken swagger/find the center...I do not understand the need to make it cost 10end instead of 2jin, to me its a somewhat trivial difference either way.  In regards to boosting swagger to match center...if a drunk monk is using their 10%ability haste their swagger comes back up 30seconds earlier allowing them to use it more often.  Still not a perfect match up and would need their durration bumped to about 18seconds from 15 to match near perfectly.  So that might be more reasonable.  Tanking requires holding aggro, and a drunk will do that better, period.  Harmonious having a slightly longer invuln means there is more time for someone to pull aggro off them, making them "in theory" better pullers, though I feel you are splitting hairs at this point and in reality 15seconds is plenty for most pulls but the dunk has the advantage of getting it to pop quicker along with reed in the wind and other defensive abilities etc.

-Fully agree with lowering the endurance penalty on tiger, its a bit silly high, esp at lower levels.

-Balanced harmony stance could use a small boost to its jin regen in general.  1/10sec is a bit low.  Doesn't need much drastic and I'm not sure if it would need to scale much with level if it was boosted to about 1/8sec from the start...my guess is most people will be pretty happy with that.

-I would also push to make the harmony finisher extension to the kick line add 2 jin instead of one.  Its piss weak as far as finisher extentions go but would give it some value and utility.  

-Sun dragon corona add INT and a small fire damage component proc (triggered by melee OR spells) beyond the damage sheild, stackable with secret of fire.

-Dragon offensive stance 30%dam 10%crit 1kproc seems about right for dragon.  That's going to be a rather large boost in practice as it is.  Loading up crit to 15% and 30%dam is a bit overboard to me.  I would stick with mit penalty.

Those are my thoughts anyway.  Excessively homoginizing the stances leaves an ill taste in my mouth.


I do suspect however if all these changes make it through, dragon and drunk with both out dps harmonious (possibly significantly)...which would cause most people to ditch it.  But its A LOT of changes and would have to be tested to make any real conclusions either way.


imo balanced would be:
Dragon = highest DPS (particularly aoe) but lowest defense util.
Harmonious = DPS slightly higher than drunk (seems to be pretty close to that now), utility in debuffing mobs.
Drunk = DPS slightly lower than harmonious, slightly better personal defense, utility in holding aggro.

Not sure things will end up quite like that if things went in the way you propose fujitsu.  But like I said its a lot of changes.

Death to AOE!

That's all i have at moment, but seems the perfect start to fix The Dragon
DPS yes
AOE no

If you take that line of adjusting things there would virtually never be cause for a dragon monk to use their defensive stance.  The idea behind stances is to allow flexability of options.  So if you make dragon have half the defense of harmonious it must give something else dragon oriented in addition to be balanced and useful.


I think the point of AOE is to be the "utility" aspect of dragon monks.  The problem is that in its current implementation its simply not that functional.  Blaming a dragon monk's poor single target dps on their aoe abilities is probably not the right route.  Instead focus on what needs to be done to give dragon a true edge.  Ideally dragon should be the highest dps, weakest defensively with AOE damage for utility.  Giving up that utility is highly unlikely to further increase your single target dps.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. A mitigation penalty for an offensive stance (no matter what the class) doesn't make sense. In this game, mitigation is a derivative of your AC, which means your armor gets worse in offensive stance. The only way a mitigation loss would make sense, is by not getting a mitigation bonus that a defensive stance would offer - in the literal sense making it mitigation loss, but not in a way inherent to the stance. Focusing on the offense reduces your defense, making you take more hits, not stronger hits - try and spar with a RL friend and see if your leather jacket suddenly becomes a set of PJs when you focus on hitting them more.
Let me therefor stress again that the mitigation penalty on the Dragon offensive stance needs to go.

I agree with Fujitsu's suggestions for stances.
My other thoughts for Dragon:
- Add a passive self buff (like Diamond Body) that boosts spell damage by X% - probably around 10-15%, starting at level 30 like Diamond Body does. Call it something like "Dragon Fury".
- Remove the BS DS from Sun Dragon's Corona
- Change the AE line (Typhoon/Avalanche/Tsunami) to an AE stun dealing no damage. Step one: 2 secs. Step two: 4 secs. Tsunami: 8 secs.
- Remove Dragon Rakes its Claw (conal AE) and Dragon Sweeps its Tail (reactive AE stun).
- Add a fire resistance debuff to Six Dragon Strike, scaling to be 150 or so at 50, lasting 20 secs.

Personally i think all 3 classes need a passive lvl 30 buff, that can be toggled off.

Harmonious - ac + physical/mental cures
Dragon - dmg %  + fire/ice cures    ( i personally would trade sun dragons corona for this)
Drunken -   agro % +spiritual/arcane cures


I agree with most of what you say, sundragons corona needs to be changed into a dps buff (non ae) end of story

The ae finisher line would be fine if they made the delay 15 seconds instead of 30.  then add a 2 second stun to each part.  For those that dont get why the need for a stun, go ae 5-10 raid mobs and see how your hp does.

I dont know if dragon rakes its claw needs to be removed, it would be a good replacement if it were 100% ae, the id drop whirling from my bar.  Its more dmg and less endurance already.

Well in my experience being recklessly offensive does in fact lead to getting hit harder.  Even in a completely hard combatitive style or boxing for that matter.  Focusing too much on offense means you aren't trying to roll with attacks and flex target spots with the right timing to shrug off and mitigate punishment.  Taking a kick to the gut without swaying and/or tensing at the right time is a night and day difference.  Yeah you still got hit but its a world of difference.  Overextending yourself and being too aggressive causes stuff like that.  One of my blackbelt kungfu friends in a tourney accidently gave an opponent a crunched nose because she was overly agressive and leaned into an attack.  Had she been more cautious it would have still connected but only very lightly, as was intended.

I once saw videos of a martial arts master taking blows to the neck and shrugging them off, the slowed down camera showed the neck muscles tensing perfectly in harmony with the incoming blows and absorbing the shock almost completely.

So yeah, it actually makes a lot of sense.  There's a damn big difference between a blade going in an 1/8th of an inch verses a half inch because you're fighting more recklessly.  Even though you still got succesfully cut both times.


I really like the idea of reducing the cooldown on the AE finishers and adding a 2sec stun component...however I'm not sure the devs would go for it, primarily because it would essentially allow 3 dragon monks to nearly permenantly chain stun all mobs in an AOE raidus, heck even 4 normal monks would be able to.

Its a damn fun concept but it could get out of hand, not sure of the best way to moderate that.


I also like the toggled level 30 passive buffs.

most raid bosses arent stunable, just their adds

I still feel it would end up being abusive in a bunch of scenarios.  I do think its a fun idea, but I doubt it would get implemented as the game stands currently.

Perhaps a potential variant would be to make dragon sweeps its tail an 8sec AOE stun on a 5min cooldown.  Still a very powerful ability but not able to perma stunlock...though I can imagine it would still have to be tuned differently for PVP.  As many classes can get killed easily within 8-10seconds or less.

~edited to come off as less of a prick.  ;)

vicus u have 2 adds to deal with, 4 if your sloppy and slow. As is i 30 sec mez them with a 15 sec recast, so no a total of 6 seconds of stun wouldnt trivialize it. 

Jagunds adds can be blocked completely and never spawn if you counter spell.  So no an ae stun wouldnt trivialize mobs a caster can block 100%

I do think outside apw, and frankly the odds of 4 level 50 dragon monks grouping are about 1 in 100.  Think about the other side though, whats the point of haveing 7 ae (dragon have 7) if using all 7 in a row does less then 12k ae dmg, WHEN is that useful. 

The only time would be IF you had max refresh haste (need ot be drunken, not dragon) and full raid buffs you might get it down from 30 sec recast to 15.  (or from 15 to 7.5, which leaves at LEAST 1 second before you could even crit to get off the next ae finisher, meanwhile all of the ae mobs are agro on you.)  Thing is, it would take 3-4 dragon monks in a raid for it to trivialize anything, and i dont see that happening ever. 

Realistically ae's blow and arent worth using ever, we die on raids if use them, we die out of raids if we use them.  The only way to fix that is to up the damage A LOT ( add an additional 2k dmg for each additional mob in ae radius) or add a stun so that when i do my piddly 3x finisher chain for a whopping 10-12k ae full raid buffed, the spiders with 100k hp dont bum rush me.

This doesnt even count the raid mobs that have ds they throw up when adds spawn (sili and librarian , senator demetrius at certain times) where using an ae at all would kill you.  Or that if they didnt want certain raids/ group encounters to be stunable all they have to do is add a stun immunity to mobs, TONs of mobs already have something similar so it wouldnt be to hard.

Yes with a solid raid who knows what they are doing all raid enounters are beatable... but that's not really the point.

The notion is that a raid force or group in group content that shouldn't be able to win with 3 dragon monks could via alternate means if they can virtually permastunlock AOE.

Having three monks on a raid is not unheard of at all.  If that became a usable mechanism nothing's stopping them from flipping to dragon.  Doesn't really matter how likely it is, point is that its abusable.


Consider in a normal group with ONE dragon monk who can stun any mobs the group is fighting potentially 6 out of 15 seconds.  Two makes it potentially 12 out of 15 seconds.  That would be a major glaring difference in the flow of a lot of fights.  The annoying part is it would be a really great and fair tool to a soloing dragon monk.  But it could get out of hand I feel way to easily.

I agree that for a style that is supposed to "specialize" in AOE they are far far too weak, especially for the cost.  In general dragon dps needs to be adjusted, we all know it.

You're argument of "well just make more mobs immune to stun" I disagree with for a lot of reasons, one of which that it would completely invalidate having an option to stun for any class so you'd essentially be trivializing  the ability in general much like how sneak is in APW etc.

~Edited to be more objective

edited to avoid drama

I've done kickboxing for two very intesive years, and never did I amplify anyone's hits by going on the offensive. The examples you cite only prove that going on the DEFENSIVE can BOOST your mitigation. If you're NOT focusing on the defensive, you DON'T BOOST your mitigation. Again, only in a literal sense do you lose mitigation, not in a way inherent to the style itself. If there was such a thing as losing mitigation when you were on the offensive, you'd need to be purposely throwing yourself on the opponent's sword all the time - because from a Physics perspective, that is the only thing that would amplify the damage.
In this game, mitigation is directly related to armor. And there's no reason your armor should get worse when you focus on the offense. Again, your leather jacket doesn't suddenly become a cloth undergarment. And there sure as hell isn't a reason to take harder hits than what a sorcerer takes. We're fighters, they're not.
There are two other reasons we shouldn't get a mitigation penalty, regardless of real world physics. One: we don't have any utility as Dragon Monks (our aggro shifting is at least 5x as bad as Rogues'), yet we deal worse damage than Sorcerers and Rogues (who do have utility) in non-raid situations. In raid situations, we deal about the same, with still no utility. We should therefor get more damage than them as it is, or more survivability.
The second other reason we shouldn't be sitting at a Sorcerer's mitigation level, is because a Sorcerer can keep a safe distance at all times. They have the tools for it, too. We HAVE to be within melee range - and a dead DPS deals 0 DPS.

Aside from the fact that you're trying to confuse yourself into being right, what are you trying to accomplish by insisting Dragons keep a mitigation penalty?
 

Personally im 100% for dragons keeping the mitigation penalty if we litterally got about 10x more dps.  Then we would top rogues/sorcs on parses.  Currently buged weakness exploits and fist of celerity give us a hugely inflated sense of dps which isnt even close to accurate. 

Since i dont see that happening id agree that the penalty is long over due to be removed.

Ae's are far to weak to be viable and should just be removed and replaced with actual utility/dps skills. 

Sundragons - lvl 30 passive dps buff
dragon breath - lvl 46 single target fire debuff and melee dmg
dragon sweeps its tail (defensive) - just make it a big dmg atk
dragon rakes its claws - mit debuff for target dps/crit buff for us + minor dmg
ae finisher line - single target big dmg (bigger then thousand fist line) with 3rd hit being huge

thats just me personally... i hate aes

kop.

The examples I cite are when someone gets too agressive aka goes offensive (vs. balanced or defensive) that's what I said.  And going offensive tends to result in getting hit harder.

(edited unnesseary physics explanation)

Why keep it mitigation?  Simple, its more risky.  I feel going more offensive to hit as hard as you can should be more risky.  The more heavy the advantages of any given stance the more that needs to be traded off for it.  Otherwise you would simply stay in one stance 99% of the time because the others would be trivialized.  ;)

Each stance for dragon should be valid and useful, currently they are all lacking...and so are many of the dragon style abilities.

A balanced approach should leave all three stances as attractive options.  If you feel 10% mit penalty would keep you from ever using the offensive stance then its too much.  But you would also have to reduce the damage/crit bonus to be fair.  Part of this is severly scewed by the point that dragon style abilities in practice are not overly functional.  I feel it would be better to look at the stances assuming that things will get fixed and brought in line.  Otherwise it will simply need to get readjusted yet again once dragon style abilities are tuned appropriately.  AKA I worry that making your offensive stance too excessive will only serve as a bandaid and have your ability sets stay mediocre because people will look at your max damage output with an overpowered stance and crap abilities and say "its OK".

Much like harmonious offensive stance is poorly balanced.  The major endurance penalty makes it almost worthless in a large chunk of the game and overpowered when you are raid buffed with endurance coming out of your ears.  If the endurance is lowered to a more reasonable cost the crit bonus should as well. 

Offensive
Dragon          27% dmg 10% crit 1k proc   5%dodge 5%mitigation penalty
Harmonious   25% Crit 25 % endurance penalty
Drunken        20% dmg 5% crit  5%avoidance penalty 5%endurance penalty

Balanced
Dragon          5%hp regen/6sec  10%dmg
Harmonious   1jin/8sec
Drunken        10%ability haste + DS

Defensive
Dragon          10%melee mitigation,  35% spell mitigation 15%slow
Harmonious  8% dodge/parry,   -20%damage  +25%endurance cost reduction
Drunken       9%parry/mitigation and hate gain


The idea being that Balanced stances are particularly useful solo but provide utility regardless.  The defensive ones are functionally useful when getting hit (and partiularly tanking for drunk, and taking AOE damage for dragon) and the offensive stances are particularly good for burning through easy targets or going pure dps mode in groups/raid.


Pretend for arguments sake when looking at these that without their stances factored in dragon's dps is just slightly ahead of harmonious which is just slightly ahead of drunk.

With this setup, and slap hands fixed and tuned, drunk's dps would easily outpace the other's in defensive stances and hold aggro well and hit for full damage on frequent counters.  Dragon would pull further ahead in dps when in offensive.  And harmonious would typically be floating somewhere in the middle.  Granted ability fixes and tunes need to take place but assuming they are done right I feel this would do a good job balancing things without killing the flavor and uniqueness.

Dragon's and utility...

OK so assuming they ditch AOE completely.

Having them go the same path as harmonious with mitigation debuffs seems a bit redundant.

If I had a personal fun second choice for a direction to take them (aside from being the highest dps) I'd make them more elemental focused than the other two (just because the idea of going with the theme dragons of different elements etc. appeals to me and it would be markedly different from the other styles...yes I played too much D&D).

AKA dragon style would do net physical dps on par with harmonious and drunken but could boost their elemental damage well beyond the other two for a notable net higher total dps.  That combined with a strong %damage boosting stance which would further boost their elemental damage output would put them clearly ahead of other monks in damage when going offensive.

Their utility would come in the form of elemental oriented buffs/debuff and perhaps an int boost etc.  This would ditch the AOE theme completely, no monk would have any aoe attacks beyond the basics. 

Of course in order to fully take advantage of it they would have to spec more points into int at the potential expense of dex/con, but it would in theory be a worthwhile trade off, and people go dragon for dps in the first place so it would only make sense.

That said I STILL think the dragon monk should have an 8sec AOE stun on a 5min cooldown as they have nothing along the lines of the drunk/harmonious invulns on 5min cooldown.


Anyway something that sounded fun to me that I thought I'd throw in real quick.

I dont appreciate you mocking me.  If you think your so great, why have i never seen you on test raid testing or doing class balance? 

"edit- that said you mentioned that you were going to group and talk with devs...by all mean propose your thoughts and see what they think.  Wink"

"Sorry the devs didn't feel like chatting with you on AE's.  I'm sure when they look at them you'll get another chance to levy some input.  "

Read your PM.

I totaly agree with Ronmaru.

I have no fanatical devotion to a style or another.
It seems Harmony is the most usefull style today, i'll change it tomorow if dragon gets all the upgrades you're asking for, even if i know it would mean a huge nerf later on.
What's all that trouble around Dragon Monks ? if you dont like the style go drunken or harmo.
If you want to stay dragon then make reasonable claims (not a claim asking for 10 times more DPS for exemple) and wait.
Please dont ask for a nerf of the class as a whole because you want to satisfy your wishes regarding your view on the class.

The main problem essentially comes down to "false advertising"

When people went dragon they were led to believe that they would be sacrificing a degree of utility and survivability for higher damage.  In practice they are the lowest damage (esp on raids) and have no notable utiltiy in practice beyond the basic core monk toolset (their aoe abilities don't add much to what monks get automatically) and lower survivability.  That and two of their three stances suffer horridly from diminishing returns comparatively at higher levels.

It sucks to be told one thing and get a sense of expectation and then be let down and effectively screwed over.  That tends to make people upset/bitter and want some kind of compensation in addition to balance.

The question now when taking a fresh look is, "What is the target dps?" and "what direction do you want the utility to go in?" and "what is a reasonable  trade off?".

On a personal level I would add "how do we do this and maintain uniqueness of flavor".  I couldn't stand how bland EQ2 was at launch in the name of balance.  A troll paladin played scarcely different from a halfling warrior...it was silly and redundant.  So I'm a pretty big opponent to any proposition that involves homogenizing and killng uniqueness...it just kills a lot of the fun for me.  (granted playing a gimped class/style isn't fun either).

Hmm, yeah Ronmaru I really like the idea of making dragon monks the elemental specialists.  You could give them as their dragon abilities a couple elemental attacks, or maybe an upgrade to ice and fire secrets, since a small boost to those skills over the course of a fight would add up to a good increase in DPS.  Best of all it would retain some uniqueness between the styles.

Defensive
Dragon          10%melee mitigation,  35% spell mitigation 15%slow
Harmonious  8% dodge/parry,   -20%damage  +25%endurance cost reduction
Drunken       9%dodge/mitigation and hate gain


As a Drunken monk if that setup ever went thru i would consider it the ultimate slap in the face to  drunken monks
Why you ask? well keeping in mind harmonious already get a perma +30 ac buff and removing 9pct of our parry would put us leaps and bounds UNDER harmonious as defensive abilities.
Personally i could care less about dps..thats why i rolled drunken back on release..i want Defensive to mean something and the above proposed "Defensive" setup is a Big slap..id rather keep it the way it is that take that setup..if i need to lower my damage on a pull or something ill pop iron skin and when that runs out ill pop ignore pain for the damage reduction and with aum kor up and psi buffs i can get those timers basically halved on refresh use..9 pct mit is meaningless on a medium class.
Again this is how i see it on the DRUNKEN side and the Defense stance side.

Flame if ya like..couldnt care less

The big issue with dragons being elemental monks is the same as giving mobs spefic resists to ae stun.  they would have to go back and recode every mob in the game atm to a weakness which they dont.  Besides apw very few mobs anywhere have elemental weakness so it would require a lot of work.

if soe had the man power and the time i would be all for it but they dont so something like that is pretty out of the question unless you dont mind waiting another year.

Our target dps is as defined by silius was to be the best "any time" dps.  Which again leads to a flase representation, because any class in the game is more dps then a rogue who cant back stab or a sorc who cant cast.  Unless they made an expansion of amorphious blobs that were immune to back stabs and spells monks would never take the top spot.

Our original niche was supposed to be for weakness/exploits, which worked okay in the sense that Drunken get 2 self exploits, dragons get 1, and harmonious got none.  But the weakeness system was never fully fleshed out and as such our niche got droped late in beta. 

I think ultimately what you will see is the removing of 2-3 of dragon monks ae and replacing them with either high dmg attacks or utility skills.  Dragons are the only monk without a 100% dodge buff which puts them at a disadvantage on pulls, so i wouldnt be suprised if all 3 flavors got their own version finally.   

The original title for dragons still states "large dmg attacks at a high cost".  I think a neat buff would be a buff that adds dmg at the cost of our own hp.  Like a perm dot in exchange for more dps.

As far as defensive stances id find those changes to be a huge slap in the face myself. 

1) Dragons currently have 50% rune to fire/ice, so decreasing that is a slap in the fast
2) going from 10 % slow to 15% slow, again another nerf to a stance
3) both of those nerfs for 10% mitigation? doesnt seem even close to worth the trade off

1) harmonious lose dmg (ok but that means at low lvls it would be -30-40% which is to much)
2) and uping the avoidance and endurance reduction doesnt sit well for me, not on the currently most over powered class

1) Parry is huge for dragons, if youve never played one , try it, quivering palm becomes a high source of dps and survivablity, take parry away and drunkens are down a notch
2) mitigation and hate gain are nice so no complaints there

I think you took it differently than I intended Fuj.  I'm looking at it as the dragon monk creating the elemental weakness via melee attacks/thrown attacks etc. that add debuffs.  So no need to program in anything on a mob by mob basis.  Granted mobs that have predefined weaknesses will be able to be more heavily exploited by a dragon monk, and elemental casters/attackers (sorcer/ranger etc.) will also be able to capitolize on the elemental weaknesses/debuffs a dragon monk creates in groups/on raids thus the utility aspect, but damage oriented utility.

In addition to the dragon monk being able to buff his/her own elemental damage output one way or another.

In the long run I don't think it would be that tricky, but then again I've never had to program for this game and it would involve making new abilities instead of adjusting old ones.  But I don't really see a way around that.  If dragon is ditching AOE, then new abilities are going to have to come into play.  I'd prefer they were unique instead of copy cats of other abilities.  But you may be right in thinking that's hoping for too much.  Hard to say.



I like the idea of a dragon hps saccing damage boost, that's a neat concept and would hopefully capitolize on their balanced stance hp regen very well.



In regards to the adjustments to dragon defense.
The trade off was made with APW in mind more than anything else, 35% spell resistance vs. all is a pretty damn powerful thing in practice.  50% fire and ice is great, but also more than what you actually need in most scenarios.  35% spell mit vs. all is useful in a larger range of scenarios and still very very functional.  I would prefer 35% all instead of 50%cold/heat in a heartbeat.  Also goes with the theme of being an elemental master.

And 5% more slow is a drop in the hat in practice.  Considering how little of our damage comes from auto attack, especially if you have any kind of endurance regen running, the difference might be too small to show beyond regular error and variance even on good parses.

But 10% physcial mit is pretty darn good and fits with the theme of a stone dragon well.  Very resistant to the elements and more durrable to physical blows.  Perhaps could add a touch of parry but realistically 15% slow is a pretty trivial penalty (just like 15% melee haste is a pretty pathetic boost in practice).  You'd have to make it much worse or figure on a different additional pentalty to go much further imo. 


I guess in my mind the harmonious damage redux wouldn't change from level to level.  Just be a flat 20% from 15 on.  It keeps them from stepping on drunken toes for tanking as their reactive damage will never compare when going all out defense, and while they will have similar overall defense when in defensive stance, drunk will still be higher, more reliable and hold aggro much better.  I don't feel based on playing that 25% end redux cost will fully compensate for the damage reduction, nor do I think it should...it is afterall a defensive stance and harmonious are not supposed to be the tanking style.  But I certainly could be wrong about the endurance cost reduction being too high it wouldn't be the first time.  ;)

Yeah I think you're right about parry for drunk defense > dodge.  I was thinking dodge initially in terms of higher damage output = better aggro holding, but taking less damage = requiring less heals = less healer aggro so that definitely works too.  Went back and adjusted the bonus.

Anyway its what I would want from stances in the different styles.  But I'm only one person.  :)

Sorry in advance for the longish responce, just trying to explain where I'm coming from in my thoughts.   :D

So while parusing i came across a suggestion.  Doesnt have to be for dragon monks only, could be for monks in general.

1) Increase our damage the closer we get to a mob (think "one inch punch") http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_inch_punch
kinda like the opposite of rangers and casters who get benifits the farther away they are.  With a minimum distance of 5, and us doing normal dmg  from 10m (typical hitbox)

2) Increase off hand dps to eventually be equal to main hand.  This is based on the concept that off hand dmg is 50% of its maximum... Aka put a weapon in main hand, see its dmg, then put it in off hand and see its dmg, its usually about half.  This skill would reduce the off hand penalty until it was identical (or close) to main hand.   Allowing monks (or just dragons) to get way more out weapons without just giving more +dps gain


If 2 was for dragons it would be their offensive stance otherwise a three rank buff with one at 30, one at 40, and the last at 50.
rank 1 -  +15% off hand dmg (bring it to 100% main hand 65% off hand)
rank 2 -  +30% off hand dmg (brings it to 100% main hand 80% off hand)
rank 3 -  +45% off hand dmg (brings it to 100% main 95% off hand, with room to grow)

Maybe a dropped superior skill with 100% off hand dps from raid mobs.

Neat concepts.  I particularly like the offhand scaling damage idea.  Fun stuff there.  :)

My only concern with the mob position thing is that mob position is kind of glitchy in game periodically and while it LOOKS like you're standing x distance behind a mob according to the server you are facing the wrong way etc. etc.  So it could be frustrating to capitolize on it in practice.

Same here, the dual wield bonus would be nice, but beware of side effects :
If there are such bonuses, what about 2 handers ? they would become obsolete with such an upgrade of dual wielding.
That would mean even less options for weapons for monks.
Before looking at such potential changes, it would be nice to see how they deal with weapon speed as promised for a future patch : it would change a lot the mechanism of dual wielding and two handers.
Would the procs scale according to weapon speed ? same for the special attacks, woudl their damage scale according to it ?
That would mean a major change in weapon balance, and so asking for such an upgrade could either mean : minimum effect or a too big buff to dps.

I personaly never use dual wielding, as i dont understand how to compare their damage with my two handers.

For an offensive stance for Dragons, I would go with either:
- higher proc damage
- replace +damage with a significant amount of +haste
- off-hand bonus as described by Fujitsu
with an evasion penalty instead of a mitigation penalty.

i wouldnt trade dmg for haste until they finish their system.

currently we dont know what the haste cap will be, or how big of an effect it will have.  I think on live its 20% item 20% spell for a max 40% haste which is okay except theres also currently a minimum delay where weapons can be faster then 1.7 (i think)

While i wouldnt mind a 40% self haste buff, it would depend A LOT on how haste ends up.  which might work out since haste is gu5, maybe we can get our changes at the same time....


As for the server lag and mob positions.  yeah it would be tedious to maximize but at the same time i feel it would be worth the extra work.  But then again it might not be, i guess it would require a ton of parsing to get the numbers in.

QFT


In regards to the damage vs. distance bit I have visions of a tank shifting position causing the mob to move and the monks REAMING him for it.  "Could you hold the friggin mobs still?!  We were in PERFECT position!!"

Like some crazy artists telling their subject "Don't move an inch!  Just hold that position..."

You're right though, it could very well be worth it, especially on long fights where the mob doesn't shift much (doesn't knock around the tank, stays in one place and just summons, etc. etc.).  Of course, using shadowstep we'd (in theory) be at pretty much the right spot too so we'd prolly end up using that a ton more.  :)

I just love it when the server tells me "you have no line of sight" and I'm like "but...but....the mobs right there!  He's right in front of me!"

*shift around and adjust position some more*

"you have no line of sight"

/cry

Yeah, I was operating under the assumption that the Monk class takes a backburner as usual - which would make our changes coincide with GU5 or come after it.

Why does everyone seem to think Harmonious offensive stance is so great?  It is the worst offensive stance in game.  With a 40% crit cap, it is absolutely useless.  There is so much crit gear in the game, any lvl50 can max their crit chance.  However, there is no where near enough +dmg gear for a player to max his melee dmg except for maybe a dragon monk who gets +25% or whatever melee dmg.  I would take dmg over crit any day of the week.  Sure, harmonious is probably the best monk for solo and leveling.  But there is no way we can match the dmg of a drunken or dragon monk, especially in raids.  We just can not make up for the dmg bonuses that those styles receive in offensive stance.  And that doesn't even include the endurance penalty we get for this useless stance.  So go ahead and reduce my crit chance and up my dmg bonus, would make me extremely happy.  For those that think Tiger stance is the best offensive stance at 50, I would really love to see that argument.  Show me some numbers and make me a believer.

I dont know lead, in my guild we have me (drunken atm) and my fellow monk (harmnious) and i can say without a shadow of a doubt he out dpses me 99% of the time. 

A high crit rate means on average 50% of your attacks do 1.5x dmg.  Which averages out again to 25% gain per attack.  Thats just regular crit rate also, if you count legendary and epic crits, the harmonious is closer to an extra 30-35% per hit.

Not to mention as a drunken i sit on long periods of time without crits, and lurching feint (garunteed crit opener) doesnt seem to work 90% of the time on raids.  So harmonious again has the advantage of being able to use finishers whenever they choose.

What kind of accuracy bonus do you have?

I too think the harmo offensive stance is pretty unbalanced and excessive, but that said I wouldn't call it the weakest.  Even with a crap finisher extension on the kick line in practice harmo has quite good dps and is pretty consistant with it.

You have to consider, it not only makes your regular skills likely to crit and trigger finishers...it also makes your finishers likely to crit regularly as well.  Aaaaand since you really don't need the crit bonus from dex you can spec hard into str/int. 

You're right that there isn't much in the way of +damage% gear, not even crafted.  Only can boost crit on armor.  Can boost damage on crafted rings and weapons.  But there is still a fair amount of things you can do to capitolize.  Of course chances are you will have excessive %crit anyway.

Maybe a good rebalance would be 17%crit, 8%damage  25% endurance cost increase.  That way a harmo monk wouldn't feel shafted on getting APW gear, swamp gear and loading up with crit they can't even use etc.?

Fujitsu,

You posted the crit cap to be 40%.  Are you telling me that with your gear and dex you are not capped?  Your crit chance and my crit chance are both capped at 40%.  The difference is you have +22% or so damage to my self buff of +10%.  Plus you have an extra thousand fists finisher.  If the crit cap is truly 40%, harmonious should lose every time with equal gear.  If we are both capped at 40%, how do I crit more often?

I am no where near the crit cap as a drunken monk.

1) I use a martial staff so no+7% there  (MIGHT be +5% dont remember off hand)
2) I put 0 points into dex (at 10% there)
3) I dont have crit gear on at raids, i just wear my hp gear i have the molds for 7 pieces of armor but havent gotten the ore yet so no + crit on my armor

Im probably at a good 13-15% crit rate as a drunken, no where near 40%

Fujitsu's 13-15% is higher then mine also {but notraid buffed]. looking at 11.7 with bladed stave that is macro'd in for finishers. otherwise using a martial sword as I like to parry for the quivering palm buff on mobs.

you should recall reading in here by kivik he would gladly give up a bit of a drunkens dps % in there offensive stance for more durability. That is why those who went drunken for the most part did.

the only crit jewelry I use yet, lucent hero earrings and face, My neck and rings are superior quality type hp con  items. cloak is the admirals.

while I know dragon needs much improvement for dps and stances harmonious imo is just needing a tweak or two and drunken a few more tweaks and we should be done

thus you do inddeed crit much more often then me and Fuji for sure

on a didfferent matter, would really like to get back a ae taunt of fool hardy swagger we lost due to reconfiguring it.

non transferable self only thing

Yeah from what my rogue friend and i can tell, hate transfer arent working at all.  We feed a sorc hate for the first 4 min of a fight, and both him and me ended up peeling and not the sorc. 

I did talk to silius about looking into foolhardy swager, but chances are its an overall hate issue and not a simple fix.  Fool hardy swager SHOULD give an increased 14% hate to the defensive target (including self).  Which is the best ae taunt in the game hands down. Its a shame it doesnt work

So you want to compare damage based on how you molded your character?  If you get your armor made, and put your attribute points into dex and used fists/knuckles or what not, then you would sit at max crit% and would easily out-damage a harmonious monk.  However you have chosen to wear defensive gear and then wonder why you can't outdamage a harmonious monk.  The drunken and dragon styles have much greater potential for DPS than a harmonious monk with the way the gear is in this game.  If +melee damage gear was as easy to come by and prevalent in this game as crit% gear then we would have a discussion.  You can get a crafted bp with like 7% crit chance on it or something crazy like that, but no crafted gear exists with that kind of damage modifier.

Out of curiosity, why wear hp/defensive gear but put no points into dex?  If you are so worried about dying, it would make sense to add points to dex.

Well lead, the harmonious and i have pretty much the exact same gear and stat build, only im an orc and hes a raki so his natural str and dex are far worse then mine.  We both use the same martial staff on raids and for parse purposes i had him use his last night, ill work on getting the 20+ fights averaged and posted tonight.

And no i dont think id be near the crit cap with full apw gear and all my points in dex.  Id be a hella lot closer, but you cant make a comparison saying harmonious do less dps if everyone had max crit gear.  I could turn around and say if all 3monks had the same + dmg rating, then harmonious would be the most dps because they have the additional crit.

If you want to really compare... go naked for all 3 monks, same race, same stat build, then use offensive stances to compare.  Otherwise it will always be biased.   Pre apw, its bias against harmonious, post apw most gear has + melee dmg meaning harmonious benefit a ton.   


As far as hp gear and dex..... i sit at 660 raid buffed dex with 0 points in it... All of our gear adds dex.  The avoidance added by dex is really small in comparison to the dmg added by int.  I need hp to live through ae's which to this day ive never seen a spell based ae thats dodge able. 

not to rain on your parade, but honestly buffing class's should do less dps then others. and what I am drving at is that Harm's are a buff / debuff style, thus they honestly should do less dps the the other two styles. Harm is practically a Disc but with out heals and more dps.

Maybe that's the answer, make Harmonious a buff/debuff oriented disciple ;p

Im perfect happy with the idea that harmonious monks are SUPPOSED to be middle dps.  It is technically what they signed up for, but dragons also signed up to be top dps of the monks and drunkens signed up to be the tank alternative....lets see how that turned out

Harmonious is a better tank then drunken
Harmonious is a better dps then dragon 95% of the time

I hate calling for nerfs, id much rather fix their offensive stance (reduce endurance cost), then balance dragon dps off harmonious as a bass line and same for drunken tanking. 

Harmonious is pretty golden, and theres not much to change on them minus possibly making whitering palm a 5 min buff. 

I must really be an idiot because I have played a harmonious monk for more than a year and I have yet to find our buffs.  I have never once buffed another player.  Maybe I forgot to train those skills or something.  Someone please tell me where to find all these buffs that Meiyo is referring to.  As for debuffs, they are better than the other 2 styles debuffs but suck in comparison to rogue debuffs who do a hell of a lot more damage than a harmonious monk.

As for DPS, the drunken monk in my guild does more dps often times than the dragon monk.  And they both do more dps than I do.  Maybe I need to switch to a 2-hander or something.

Whether you buff other players' strikethrough DPS or whether you debuff a mob's mitigation is a semantic difference - in essence it's the same. That would be your "buff" in a way, whereas steal the wind, break the trunk, etc are debuffs. If you take buff in the literal, adding icons kind of a way then no, you don't have buffs.

Don't forget that while Rogue debuffs are amazing, most of them can only be applied when they're out of combat (their escape is on a ten minute timer at least, I forgot the exact time) and last about 5 minutes. They also require a material component, gathered from pickpocketing mobs. The best have a low drop rate.

As to DPS - I honestly couldn't say for raids or groups. All of the three Monks in my guild are and will probably remain Dragon. Being the puller and having no dependable fire resist buffers, I tried Harmonious for three days and then had to switch back because I couldn't hack it without Sun Dragon's Corona. I don't parse, either - so the best I can do to compare the two is check how fast I killed a three dot solo when Harmonious versus when Dragon - with identical gear. All I can say is: Harmonious FEELS like it does more DPS, and the health bar on the mob goes down quicker. I'm sure a mitigation debuff has a lot to do with it.
Besides, the Bard is the single highest DPS class in the game on raids - that is, if you count in the DPS they add to others as their own. Seen from that light, the Harmonious Monk is definitely the highest DPS of the three styles on raids.

Well so far i've played a monk to lev 38 and I am a dragon monk.  I am not very disappointed with the class as some make it out to be on these boards.

The thing is, a lot of people want dragons monks AE skills removed for single target skills... This in my opinion is not  a problem.  Anyway someone has to do AE skills, and we should do just as much single target dps as the other monks (if not 5 to 10% more being the DPS spec).  This is looking at while being in group/raid.  While it would be nice to say all classes are equal solo, that will never happen. 

 Eventually there are going to be encounters that need AE DPS and you will kick yourself if you have the devs remove your ae skills.  Plus the AE skills are quite useful in small groups.  I'd like an increase on the damage of the claw rakes the dragon skill.  The other AE skills that hits targets all around has terribly low damage on it (although i think monks of all varieties get this one). 

Personally I would like to see just the stances looked at.  For 24% extra dps compared to 22% for drunken with a way harsher penalty. Lets face it 10% mitigation at lv 50, when our mitigation isnt that high to begin with is pretty rough.  Drop it down to 5% to 7% mitigation and up the increased DPS to about 28% would be nice.  For the neutral stance it should give us 10% increased DPS with no penalty, and for the def stance, have the armour increase based on a % of current armour, so it will scale as we gear up and level up.

Plus fix the bugs that you mention would be great.  From what I can tell i do a LOT of dps, and can even tank for my group quite efficiently if there is CC.  Quivering palm lowers the mobs DPS so much that in offensive stance I can easily hold aggro and not spike too hard for my healer. 

I doubt there will be ae encounters soon.  Dread knights got a new fancy ae taunt... +600 ae taunt every 30 seconds.   So we tried ae'ing adds in Zaraax fight again last night....

2 dead sorc, 1 dead monk, 1 dead druid..... mobs at 40%.

We still beat the encounter but yeah until theres realistic ae agro control or an ae stun, ae's are not feasible.  Even in shylosia when i ae to try to get the weak adds down, i end up having to pop invuln.  which works great for 1 set of adds.... the remaining 3-6 spawns on the other hand are out of my control now. 

I would love to be the ae king, in a game where ae's mattered, but dragon monks dont even get an invun to protect themselves

What would be cool is if we had a skill like fist of celerity but instead of increasing DPS it can redirect aggro to your defensive target for the next 20 seconds. 

semi unrelated:

LOTs of forms of agro sharing are bugged.

goading slap doesnt add hate to the defensive target (if it does, its definatly not the 2400 it claims)
Fool hardy swagger doesnt give any hate to the defensive target
Rogues hate transfer doesnt work
rogues -70% agro potion agros the rogue
sorcs new -15% total agro does nothing atm (no reduction)

I liked how eq2 did it, where i think it was monks, had a 14% hate transfer.  All they did was target the tank, buff him, boom, monk has 14% less agro and it goes straight to the tank.  (now that i think this might have been rog or swash)

yeah id like to see those issues fixed asap!