Vanguard Monks

Like the title says

As a harmonious monk ( I think I am a dying breed) I stay in tiger 99% of the time for the upped crit rate. I use crescent kick and Ashenhand quite a bit as well as the endurance costs are lower.

Most of the time my routine is this (I almost always start a fight at full jin)

Tiger Claw (-15% mitigation) -> Change to Crane stance (Lower endurance costs for the win!) -> Use Deadly Adder Hand for the debuff -> Use Secret of Flames / Ice AND Iron Hands  (macro) -> Back into Tiger Stance -> Crescent Kick -> Ashenhand.


I always break this cycle for: Flying Kick -or- Quivering Palm (50% melee debuff )

Being in tiger stance I think I dps O.K. Although I would like to compare notes against a similar equiped ranger / rogue / bard.

What little tricks have you 'discovered' to help you out.

~QTM

I've tried similar tactics, swapping between stances with mixed results. Ideally, it would be nice to have a parser to determine how much of a difference it's actually making (or even if one at all) but I don't know of any. Conceptually though, I have to wonder if it was their intention to have monks micro-manage the stances this way. While part of me likes the idea, I think it's a little too cumbersome, even when setting up macros to do all the switching.

I take a completely opposite approach, I stay in Crane stance 95% of the time and macro switch to Tiger when I use low endurance cost moves and finishers for the increased crit rate (ie Eagle Claw, Crescent Kick, Flying Kick n Kick of the Heavens), and immediately switch back to Crane.  This way although my autoattack is doing 20% less but i dont sacrifice my dps when using finishers.

But now that I think about it..... autoattacking in Tiger probably does on average 40% more dmg than autoattacking in Crane:
Crane does 20% less than normal dps
Tiger adds 20% crit chance -> 20% more chance of doing 100% more dmg = 20% more dmg long term

Hmm maybe sacrificing 40% of autoattack dps is not worth the feeble 13% evade bonus...  :o

Ninbei,

That seems like a pretty sweet set up if you are soloing or tanking for your group. You could even macro in switching to a windblade to get the extra parry if you think its worth it, or a Martial staff for offensive moves.

Just food for thought

~QTM

That is a great idea, QTM!

But alot of weapons have +HP bonus, don't know if switching them on-the-fly would negate those HP bonus.  We'll see when I set it up.

Harmonious monk here as well.  My tactics are pretty similar to Quinn except when I'm in a group, I use Jin Burst (or whatever its called) to increase group dps whenever it's available.  I haven't used crane stance since the adjustment was made.  I just don't find the loss of dps worth it.  When I solo, I use the jin regenerating stance or tiger.

19 Dragon syle here

I start off always with iron hand buff on.  Then i use crescent kick then 6 dragon strike (great damage!) and then 6 dragon strike again to get to 4 jin then use ashen hand.  I crit pretty often so i use finishers EVERY time they pop up, and if i'm feeling kinky i'll use my newest dragon attack that crits every time just for kicks.  My damage seems great, i see 200 to 800 pretty regularly, every other attack at least it seems.  900-1000 is uncommon but still happens often enough to keep me happy!  I also have lowend weapons, (check my other post under equipment to see what im using).  all in all im very happy with dragonstyle, though i've been curious to test harmonious i'd rather not give up 6 dragon strike.  It regularly hits as hard as my finishers do, hehe!

instead of starting with crescent kick, try boundless fist. boundless fist causes the mob to be "enraged". six dragon strike exploits it. it'll add a few hundred more dmg to it for a little more endurance cost. and if you really do start with that much jin each fight, then try timing it right with boundless fist -> jin surge -> six dragon strike. on crits, you should be able to break 2k easily. for other classes, 2k isnt much but for a monk, thats quite a bit. also when using jin surge, try to time it so your auto attack doesnt consume that jin surge. that gets annoying.

if this thread was labeled "how are you creating EXP for your groups", i would have said logging off  :'(

Hey, thanks for info Daniel!  i forgot about weaknesses!  i rarely use jin surge because it seems like it cost a lot of jin for little good.  usually i'd use ashen hand for 400 damage as opposed to only +100 or 200 to another attack, but i'll mess around with it a little more, if for no other reason than big numbers.

Ding 21!

Dragon Monk- 31
If i have Jin before the fight... i begin with iron hand followed by jin surge and then use feet of the fire dragon dot (as i mentioned previously this makes the dot do more damage than it probably should)

I never leave magnificant storm dragon stance..
I use skills in this order as jin/end becomes available for them

Flying Kick/Kick of the Heavens -- (hits for around 500-700 ish non crits for both, with around 1k-1300 ish on crit)
Crescent Kick (seems to have highest crit rate) -- (crits most of the time for around 400-600)
Ashen Hand (seems a high crit rate) -- (hits anywhere between 400 - 700 non crit, with crits around 900-1200 ish)
Six Dragon Strike (if enraged vuln is on target) -- (hits between 350-650 ish, with crits upto 1k) (higher if i use zank bladestaff, but that lowers my critrate)
Boundless Fist (if no enraged vuln on target) -- (hits between 200-400, with crits upto 600 ish)

My current gear setup has me at...
179 str, and 320 dex, my critrate seems extreamly high with this gear (so high that when i switched to harmony tiger stance didnt seem to make any difference to me)

Just just made me think of a good Macro for Jin Surge.  Turn auto attack off then Jin Surge then use whatever ability you prefer.  It's easy enough to turn auto attack back on afterwards.  Too bad we can't program pauses into macros.

Thanks!

i have a question as to how to make a macro...

i cant seem to add a pause into the macro to take into account the ability cooldowns.

for instance i have:
/cast "Iron Hand III"
/cast "deadly adder hand I"

but when i use it, it casts iron hand but says "that ability is not ready yet when it tries to cast deadly adder hands.

well since you guys were getting into the whole jin surge thing, just use boundless fist, then have a macro for
/cast "jin surge X"
/cast "six dragon strike X"
as long as you have jin, you could use jin surge with whatever attack and it prevents auto attacks from taking over that jin surge. you could throw that with any other abilities if you like. just sucks when you miss that ability hit, and jin surge still goes to your auto attack. a macro with jin surge to feet of the fire dragon or whatever isn't too bad at all.

Ghastone: that macro would be ok if you don't use deadly adder hand much. each time you hit that key, your jin is consumed to iron hand. it probably would be better to just get yourself used to manually using iron hand once every minute or before each fight? maybe try changing it to
/cast "secret of flames X"
/cast "deadly adder hand X"

secrets have refresh time of 40 seconds so that'll prevent you from using it before the buff even wears off.

Hmm... just thought of something (Dragon monk). How about creating a macro that casts Jin Surge and then an AE ability? Might make them worth your Endurance spent.

I was thinking about this today, and not sure if we should or if quinn has maybe thought or if it is posted somewherem but I was thinking of maybe we should try and get like a combo system of for the diffrent styles like a few mentioned in here, that would really help.

Like for example - " boundless fist -> jin surge -> six dragon strike"

if we can compile a list and have in a FAQ or have it stickied that would rule since there are combo finshers and stuff out there. And like i said somewhere in another post I had no idea that you could do certin combos lol I was just mashing the buttons together last night to get out DPS.

It seems like I always enter fights with 0, or 2-4 jin which I always end up burning on Ashen Hand spams.  I don't use Jin for that much else, besides re-applying Iron Hand alllllllllllllllll the time.  I've always kind of avoided Jin Surge because it seems like kind of a waste, and I'm hesitant of a lot of these new skills we're getting costing like 6-8 jin.  I always keep my jin low because Ashen Hand deals pretty decent damage and I feel like I should do as much damage as I can and not hold back.  I guess I need to hold my jin a little longer.

My normal battle is:

Boundless
Six Dragon
(fist finishers if available, or kicking finishers if not)
Crescent Kick
Ashen Hand

Repeat.  I never use our DoT because it slaps a whopping 60-80 damage over a few seconds, and I could get more damage just doing a regular attack.  Maybe I'll try it with jin surge and stuff, but it still seems way too expensive at 5.  Maybe I would be more inclined to use it if I wasn't trying to keep Iron Hand on at all times (seriously 60 seconds is getting kind of annoying)

In group and fighting, I'm 100% Tiger Stance, with the exception of when it fades (fortunally easy to spot as critrate drops back to nothing ;p).

Eagle Claw < always start with it. If there's two other AC debuffers (15% removes nearly all mitigation of virtually all mobs, a second AC debuff clears of all) in the group, I'm not really bothering - I only use it as a Jin supply when nothing else is availible.
Cresent Kick < Use whenever up. The critrate of Kicks along with Tiger stance makes it a stellar Finisher provoker. Since it's currently out of the global cooldown, it dosen't stop endurance regen nor stop autoattack.
Ashen Hand < Spam whenever sufficent endurance. With two-hander, it outperforms flying kick in all ways (except on skeletons).
Iron Hands < Use when fights are exciting enough to pay attention. The one minute duration makes it easy to slip up on when it starts going into a grind.
Secret of Flames/Ice < Like Iron Hands. Even with the upped effect rate, I'm not really noticing anything on Ice III (proced stun 4 times in total when using it - but it appears others are having better luck with it) and Fire V (never proced the DoT at all) - presumably the chance got upped by 8% or something.

At any time a counter pops (due to agro) I activate it (since dealing weapon damage, they actually deal an impressive amout of damage with a 2hander and trigger from G pressing aswell, very neat!) - if a finisher chain goes off I go for it. If I'm currently blank (cooldowns, lack of Jin) I'll just use Eagle Claw due to it's low endurance to refresh the AC debuff which usually results in having Ashen Hand up or provoking a finisher (which resupplies Jin nicely).
If there's a bear-shaman/cleric in group, it's a virtual non-stop ability spam, if not, it does require some timing to get most effect from it.

If fights aren't to snoozy, I'll use Jin Surge. Hmm, even if they are snoozy, I'll use them if nothing else to let the psionist die some.

i haven't really logged onto my monk in awhile (to do anything that is) but i don't think i read a patch note about monk's dot doing less. last i remember, sundering dragon claw did 1k+ per tick for 3-4 ticks and feet of the fire dragon (with jin surge) would sometimes crit and tick for 1.5k. can't say how efficient it is to do these now with the changes. i'm sure playstyle for monks have changed.

I still always use the jin surge / feet of the fire dragon combo. Specially against 3dots even mobs it's a great addition.
At lvl 31 (with ok- not uber stats and gear) I hit around 300 average and 774 being the mix so far).