Vanguard Monks

First off I want to make sure the tone for this post is positive. I'm looking for POSITIVE feedback from people who have played monks to higher levels in beta and into the 20's or better in the release version.

Here's my story. I started a shaman during pre-release and he is lvl 17 now. I wanted to play a healer so that I'd always get a group. Well, I simply miss hitting things way too much and the 'healing class' is not taking off for me. I'm heading back to my roots of the 'light fighter' class. The ranger is way too overplayed and I didn't want to go down that road so I started a monk. I'm currently lvl 11 and I really dig it so far. I'm having a blast watching my fists fly and the animations of the kick.

However, It doesn't seem that the monks have much that sets them apart. So I'm wanting to know what a higher level monk can do that another light fighter cannot give. For example: The ranger has stealth, speed buff, healing spell, snare, ranged attacks, and DPS.

We have DPS and a heal that requires a 5 minute reuse timer. ??
No stealth? No speed? What do we have that sets us apart?

Do we ever get the ability to levitate the way the Master Monks of Tanvu do?
Do we ever get to use the sai's and martial weapons that the monks of the stronghold use?

Thanks in advance for anyone who takes time to encourage me about my abilities in the upper levels !

The beauty of the monk lies in the fact that it is not a gear dependant class.  For a class that wears medium armor and largely fights bare-handed, we can do an extreme amount of damage.  Along with our high crit rates, high dodge rates and just overall coolness, a monk definitely fills a niche that no other class fills.

For martial weapons, there are many that you can use right from level 1, including staves, swords, knuckles, claws, etc.  I am almost L20 (I've spent a significant portion of time exploring, harvesting and crafting) and I can tell you that I am more happy with my monk today then the day I started, and on the day I started I was instantly in love.  Monks jest mesh.  You notice how we don't get many changes during updates?  Because we rock just as we are :)

To be completely serious for a moment though, while asking for opinions on what other people think, utlimately the decision about whether you like monk or not is up to you, and none of our experiences and feelings should have any relevance.  You've got to try it for yourself and see how you like it :)

Hey Xusia,

I strongly suggest checking out this thread http://www.vanguardmonks.com/Monk_Abilities/Skills/ (http://www.vanguardmonks.com/Monk_Abilities/Skills/).  It gives a list of all the monk abilities and what they do.

For example, as you can see at level 30, 40, and 50 we get a new skill called an Aum.  These are our own personal self buffs which give amazing bonuses to speed, evasion, and damage.  Aum Liat, at level 30, grants 50% increased movement and 20% dodge for 1 hour.  You'll be racing past all those rangers and shaman with SoW ;)

Look through all those skills and you will see what makes us so unique from the other light fighters out there. 

Oh, and did I forget, we get feign death!! :)

Holy crap, I forgot to mention Feign Death :P

The high crit rate was prior to the 2/7 patch, so you can remove that from your list.

Yeah. I heard it is brutal. I will find out after work.

Super Jump

It is nice having a self heal, and I as a Kojani monk get a second heal in my racial.
We get stealth, and speed. We also have many things that set us apart.
Yes
Yes, but you'll find that your fists alone are amazing weapons.