Vanguard Monks

(http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/8897/screenshot00021dn6.jpg)
By nickeaston (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/nickeaston) at 2008-03-18

Something New for us Monks, this drops from Sage Shorul as part of the Griffon Quest...

Very nice 1h weapon!!

Mind showing us the graphical prospective ;P   How it looks on ur fists ;()

Here ya go

(http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/4051/screenshot00026hr0.th.jpg) (http://img257.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00026hr0.jpg)

There not 9" long sadly but smoke and glow a bit

Thank you kindly ;)

PS : I hope no one bans the image :P   (Goldseller Adds)

Shame that the cant make monk weapons like that in apw (legendary of course) 

Overall id give it a C-  , the fact its worse then hand wraps of striking and has no proc (most the griffon weapons do) is kinda upsetting.   

Gratz either way.

not that good i know,  due to the % damage  it offers a little more damage to main and off hand than hand wrap of striking, but without the vendetta proc.

The more i see other class weapons the more sad i get.

Dk weapon -- procs hell hound pet
shm hammer - same proc as our apw fabled cafted wraps (heal/energy/edurance)
rng bow - mob debuff and adds self acc/energy regen/and dmg
pal/cleric combo - (shield + hammer) big buff to crit,accur, dmg, mit
brd/rng/rog/war - set of dual wielders that debuff the mob and add debuffs to to wielder
caster focus - chance to proc 50% energy reduction , also adds energy regen

Time to pm avair !

I Agree ^^

With QTM away we don't seem to be getting much Love

Damn, looks like we got the low end of the stick.  Harmony and Tranquility were made for discs :(  I was really hoping for a staff too.

(http://vanguard.xanadu-community.com/images/items/491.jpg)(http://vanguard.xanadu-community.com/images/items/490.jpg)

Yeah those are the one i saw when i talked to the devs.  utter rubbish imho.  Horrible dmg, stats for disciples. 

The proc was decent but i mean wtf.  i wouldnt use those even if i wasnt a raiding monk

man we are def getting the short end of the stick here.

we dont use energy or healing, wisdom  or vitality ,

no endruance regen, which would be much more useful than energy regen.

DPS is way to low for the difficulty in attaining these.
As fujitsu said i wouldnt use these either.  esp since it requoires both to be used for the effect.

the DPS needs to be upped by at least 10-15   

make Harmony   highere str dex based,
tranquildy could use int   and dex 

the ratings are meager for the level and difficulty to attain, puttign them 100+ so about 2-3% vs 50 would be feasible.

the effect aint so bad but again to use it we loose huge on dps from both crafted and even lower level quested gear
IE Stormslam at 30 is 80pds i belive.

Give us a break Devs....


I think Fujitsu would make a good monk lead if quinn is truely MIA

I agree.

And i also just like to say..../vomit at those handwraps
...and discs would prefer str/dex over wisdom 99% of the time anyway.
Weak, very weak from the devs.

I'm doing the griffin quest-line on my cleric instead of monk, basically because nothing i have seen is remotely useful for monk (except the griffin) however the cleric rewards are very nice.

What a shame, monks get screwed over first in most quest rewards throughout the lower lvls, then in Apw, and now the girffin quest...thanks a bunch devs

Its because No other dps Based class is forced to share their weapon with a healer type class.Devs take the cheap way out buy just making a generic set for monk/dsc instead of making 2 sets one for healer and one for dps.

Most discs I feel prefer vit/str ideally in terms of core stats from gear.

And does anyone else think its a little silly for weapons notably weaker than APW weapons to drop from flying mount quests when by many reports the quests have parts that are more difficult than a large chunk of APW content?

I wholly agree, this has to change, we have not Monk lead, and seems were getting burned as a result.

If Fujitsu wants to step up to lead even as a temporary measure think 99% of the people here would have not problem in backing you.

Sadly as i have told a few people in PM, even if it was temporary it would still have to be officially recognized by SoE.  Which requires Quinn to either post or the developers to acknowledge the needed for it.    Since monks are NOT on the table for game update 5, the need to talk to a monk class lead is relatively small. 

The best anyone can do (and i do suggest that everyone do this) is download msn live messenger.  Then find and message silius with major bugs you find.  Be polite and civil, and understand hes working a lot and has very little free time to actually chat.

EG.
"If i use tam thai's gift (drop from x99) to summon emerald throwing stars, they go into my fabled diplomacy bag (jansens bag) and not into my quiver."      ((((this is actually an issue im having atm)))))

Sometimes he responds, sometimes he doesn't, but overall hes been pretty helpful at nailing stuff down for me.  However, this does mean that the list of needed changes for dragons(most promised by quinn and stated to be working on), and overall stance balance of all forms (again also promised) is on the back burner indefinitely.  Maybe 2 months from now when gu5 is finished, galeions are live, trial isle is live, and the 5-6 classes getting balanced this go around....there might be time. 

Personal Aside
If i seem a little sarcastic, i apologize, but i have no delusions of whats left in this game.   The development team is ridiculously tiny and under funded, much needed updates are taking 2+ months to get out and are unfinished and buggy, classes are still changing drastically (although its needed), classes like ours that were promised more fixes are now told it wont happen unless its a bug,  its next to impossible to find groups because theres sub 1-2k people per server at peak hours (pretty similar to before the server merge).   Honestly, my guild will probably finish apw long before the next raid dungeon comes out (gu 6 or 7), the small group of us actually working on the griffin will be done. 

And judging by the loot of the overland mobs, Nerksawl and Dresla (and most likely fengrott) theres no real reason to raid them more then a month.  Both have sub apw quality loot and are relatively easy.  Dont get me wrong thers a few items per mob (2 out of 6-7) that might be worth it.
/rant off

Just curious. I'd love to help out with this. Where can I find Silius's MSN address?

I'm always finding bugs everywhere and I think it'd be great to be able to relay them directly (cause as many times as I /bug something it never seems to get to their ears)

Thanks Fuji. I do hope you manage to get in touch with Quinn sometime.

just click his name in the offical forums. it lists msn, yahooh, aim, email etc

Must be missing something swang, i just got the shorul claws and they do less dmg main hand and off hand then fistwraps of striking.  My other weapon is a legion choking grasp. 

Have you checked to make sure your Ulak and Claws skill is maxed... if not this would explain your loss in damage... Shorul's Claws are actually quiet nice for pre-raid gear. They are less dps than aluuls claws and handwarps of the torchbearer from RI but the added 10 str, 77 crit bonus and 100 damage bonus makes up for this.

Yup i have bladed staff, and the 3 fist styles maxed, with martial staff at half max.

really wish they would consolidate our 3 styles into 2 (fistwraps, knuckles, claws and ulaks) since knuckles and claws are so rare.   would maxing our primary dps weapons so much easier

Any news on the rumor of a 2hb now dropping in apw? Ive been looking around but couldnt find info on it..
Probably healfocus and vita on it anyway.... :P

I have not heared or seen anything about a 2HB dropping in APW... I have heared that a 2hand weapon of some kind was put in the game most likly off a contested mob... Assuming one of the 2 new contested mobs put in recently one of which has yet to be killed...

Guess we wont truely know untill it actually drops.

hija i got a 2hb wep in apw from a mini named it is nothing great tho name shadowdrinker 186-279 82.85dps
36str 141 evasion rating martal staff

vabtoo
halgar

Yeah its useful as a decon....

My raid felt it was pretty stupid for a mini in APW to drop a 2h weapon that is considerably worse than 2h weapons gotten outside of APW.  Especially so after a bunch of the weapons outside APW got major upgrades.

My real question is this.   The developers have said that the griffon quest isnt ment to introduce the best non rading gear in the game.  Which is kinda counter obvious to me.

Fungal abomination, Pharoh, The 6 knights in old targ.... Everyone one of these encounters on its own is more difficult then any other named mobs or quests up till now (for groups).  The fact you have to go through multiple quests like this TO ME says that youve done the hardest quest and killed the hardest non raid mobs, you SHOULD get the best non raid gear there is.  I mean isnt that a given?

The point of all other content would be to gear you up for griffon.  Then griffon should gear you up for raids. 

I dont understand why they put + evasion on weapons like that.. first of all any + evasion gear i have does not actually increase my evasion at all. Secondly a level 10 martial sword would provide better melee evasion than any + evasion they can put on a weapon.

As far as the griffon quest line goes... Most of the quest rewards are pretty bad I dont disagree there BUT alot of the named you mentioned drop some very nice gear. One of the best non raid monk weapons drops in OT... I know of quite a few equipment drops in Old Targ that some classes would prefer using over APW raid gear.

I do not think the purpose of this quest line was to "gear you up for raids" persay... The point of the quest line is to get people who dont necessarily raid a flying mount.  The flaw in that is alot of the encounters for the quest line are far from tuned correctly. Most encounters you need a reletivly perfect group make up inorder to successfully kill the quest encounter... This typically means having 3 or 4 people in a group that dont even need the quest inorder to get 1 or 2 people a quest update at a time. Some encounters almost require the use of 2 tanks / healers and a bard.. without that make up the encounter's difficulty is amplified by 10x. This leaves room for 1 person to get an update ( This is of course assuming you dont have an endless supply of tanks and healers that need a quest update.)

The tuning is horrible.  Im sorry but i dont think a non apw geared group (even if only lightly apw geared) could get past the first part of the quest (pharoh/fungal abomination).  They should have tested it with groups wearing full suits of swamp armor, not apw armor.

Not to mention i seriously doubt anyone without raid gear could TANK akande the butcher.  Or any of the boss mobs after Old targ.  I mean they "say" this quest is for non raiders, but i strongly disagree.  For raiders its doable but for non raids you needs full suits of swamp/lucent gear and a TON of luck to just pass old targ, and minus the mini games, youll never get much farther, and i doubt youd ever get the griffon.

If your refeering to shoruls claws....they are worse then fist wraps of striking for me, even with them maxed they do about 10-20 less dmg.

Primary Hand: Legions Choking grasp 963-992
Off Hand Shoruls Claw`s 403-409
Total = 1366-1401

Primary Hand: Legions Choking grasp 944-970
Off Hand Flawless Cavaliers Hand wrap of Striking 401-410
Total = 1345-1380

Aside from this, I can confirm that you wont see any flocks of griffon's any time soon.

We got server 1st Griffons over 1 week ago now from a joint co-operation with Xanadu, basically stuck together dream teams for every part of the quest, and pooled from non raid days members when we needed to.

Angnus (Xanadu`s Leader) is properly the Best Equipt/Skilled Tank on Halgar!  Fully kitted with APW gear, even so on more than one occasion when Boss was 1 or 2% he Died. In Fact we are all APW decked out, I cant tell you how Hard this quest is in its current form!

It is not for the feint Hearted and yes the only decent reward is the griffin, the quested amour and weapons sucks.

Hats off to Bots for getting this done so fast.

Keep in mind that dmg rating is a %, and this % is applied AFTER all buffs.
I mean that something is worse solo, can scale up to in fact be better with raid buffs.

Simonson:  True, but even raid buffed shoruls claw is weaker for me.  I tried 7 or so different combos.

(left is main hand right is off hand)
Legions + T5
Legions + shorul
Shorul + t5
Shorul + legion
t5 + legion
t5 + shorul
t5 + t5
 
Legions + t5 was better dps and dmg by a bit, well over 10%.  I have all fist styles at cap, i lowered blade staff to half cap, and left martial at cap.  So im not sure how people are seeing it as more dmg.  I am mostly apw geared now and sit on about 20% dmg from gear and 22% from stance, maybe its that im close to the cap?