Vanguard Monks

I read somewhere there are 7 types of weapon skills and that you can only max 5, or maybe 4.

Could someone list the 7 types for me? I don't seem to be able to find a list. I'm sorry if I missed it somewhere. I'm at work or I'd just look on my character.

I haven't actually started my Monk yet. I was in a few groups recently and had 3 different monks in my group. One of them was spectacular, splits and pulls were spot on. We had one mob being killed and one mob waiting almost all the time. At the same time the monk did a lot of damage and set up just the right conditions on the mob at the start of each fight.

He was the lowest level of the three monks I grouped with so it was a clear example of how much difference personal skill mattered in the class. Now I want to give it a go so I'm trying to plan a path.

Ulak & Claws, Knuckles, Handwarps, Martial Staff, Martial Sword, Bladed Staff, and Shuriken.

Thank you Ninbei.

The skills posted by Ninbei are Weapon Specialisation skills, which max relatively easily. Another thing to take into consideration are the bonuses each weapon type generally has:
- Martial Staff, Bladed Staff: Double critical damage
- Ulaks/Claws, Knuckles, Handwraps: 5% extra critical chance
- Martial Sword: parry bonus
- Shuriken: it's ranged and that's basically it.

So, IMO:
-  it's no use to max more than 1 of the Staff skills
-  it's no use maxing Martial Sword (since the damage will be lower due to them granting a parry bonus)
-  it's no use maxing Shuriken, since I don't tend to throwa lot of them, even when designated puller.

Then for Weapon Skills themselves (determining whether you hit the mob), there's the following. In parentheses you'll find the weapons that use them.
- Two-hand Piercing (Bladed Staffs)
- Two-hand Slashing (Martial Swords)
- Two-hand Blunt (Martial Staffs)
- Thrown (Shuriken)
- Hand-to-Hand (Ulaks, Claws, Knuckles and Handwraps)

Max Martial swords, great for soloing or tanking in tight spots.  20% to parry with our 50% attk debuff counter is quite nice.

I agree with Dythan.  Max martial sword.  Tranquility from the arena is a great weapon and is extremely useful if you end up being the tank for the group or if you are soloing.

Then it just depends on what you use.  Fortunately it's not that hard to get those weapon skills up so if you get a new one that's better just raise those skills.