Vanguard Monks

Someone should step forth and make a thread to let us know bugs/issues/etc this path holds. I am sure there are plenty of young Drunken Monks out there wondering about them.

I was Drunken Mastery from 15 to 29. Two days ago I switched to Dragon. My only advice to any drunken monk is to switch out asap, lol. The warrior that i usually duo with even noticed the substantial increase in dps coming from my side. Where when i was drunken, the "utility" or lack of it on this path does not compare to the amount of dmg that can be done with dragon.

Drunken monks get the same "force crit" jin based attack as dragons, though the dragons ability does more dmg.... why?

The Jeering Kick 2 round taunt is nice.... but you can do that with a few ashen hands and FD.

The only one that i saw at 29 that was usefull was the AOE 5 round taunt. That saved some people, but usually got me killed, so I never really did it in pugs, lol.

The end doesn't justify the means when compareing Drunken Mastery with the other paths. I can see a use for the Dragon stances, the add dmg stance without taking a penalty, the increased health regen for out of combat, makes you solo faster, less down time, and the stone skin form, great for soloing, with at least descent rewards to the 20% slower attacks.

They try to lower the drunkens dmg output to increase is utility in the group, but his only utility is the ability to take a hit, when atm he can't. Thats my biggest gripe on the drunken, with the evasion hit, the drunken style monk can't perform his "job" as the "off tank" which if givin taunts you become a tank or a variation of one.

I know Jojo was high 40s dont know if she switched styles though. Me playing a level 50 Drunk monk on test is good for testing solo tactics exploits and such, but due to sparse population its really hard to get a group there to test certain mechanics.

Calling Jojo....

=P

~QTM

edited for gender confusion =P

Quite honestly, I don't know why anyone would want to be a higher level drunken monk.  In it's current form the Drunken Style offers absolutely no benefit and very little to differentiate this style from the others.  As a matter of fact, from a broad perspective this style offers less than the other two.

There are two factors that make the Styles what they are: Stances and Mastery Abilities.  Since drunken monks share all other abilities, they also share all of the general monk bugs, issues, and concerns.

Drunken Style Stances

This was beat to death in another thread and hardly warrants any further discussion as far as I'm concerned.  All of the Drunken Style stances are largely worthless, offering very little if any benefit.  Most drunken monks fight from their mastery stance (or fist stance if solo), simply because it provides the least amount of penalty for being in a stance.

Drunken Mastery Abilities

Drunken monks are masters of...whatever...somebody pour me another drink.

I pulled this list from an SV post by Jojo.  You'd think that drunken mastery abilities would be a mixed bag of agro management, defensive tricks, and a few wild attacks.  Instead we earn these:

15 -
Jeering Kick I - small damage, taunt for 2 attacks
Staggering Punch I - small damage, applies 'stagger' weakness

18 -
Spinning Fists I - small damage, autocrit

22 -
Staggering Punch II

26 -
Foolhardy Swagger - ae taunt for 5 hits
Jeering Kick II

30 -
Staggering Punch III
Clumsy Whirl I - dodge counter ability - weapon + ae

32 -
Spinning Fists II

34 -
Lurching Feint I - costs jin, makes the mob not attack for 2(?) seconds and gives next shot some percentage to crit. I haven't really noticed the stop attacking bit.

36 -
Foolhardy Swagger II
Jeering Kick III

38 -
Clumsy WhirlII
Errant Strikes - useless, gives you a buff for 1 minute that will apply all attacks to both your target and your defensive target's target. REUSE- one HOUR, and sometimes does absolutely nothing, not applying the buff.
Staggering Punch IV
Impossible Drunken Palm I - chain finisher, does less than Thousand Fists, maybe more than Flying Kick

42 -
Lurching Feint II
Drunken Arms of the Cyclone - adv chain finisher after Impossible Drunken Palm, does less damage than it.

46 -
Magnificent Drunken Stagger (our equivalent to Dragon Monk's invis/lev) Dodge all attacks for 15 seconds, REUSE- 30 MINUTES.
Legedary Fists I - Third finisher after Thousand Fists/Thundering Fists
Foolhardy Swagger III
Clumsy Whirl III
Jeering Kick IV
Staggering Punch V

I would like to see a mastery ability added that when pressed makes us vomit while shouting, "Whoopty friggin' ding dong!"
--------------

My biggest concern for Drunken Monks is that there will be no clear benefit to being one.  We currently are not the best at anything compared to the other styles (or classes for what it's worth).  There is nothing that a drunken monk can offer that another style or class can't do better.  Neither our stances nor mastery abilities reflect our evasive nature or path of "deception and unseen" power we are supposedly travelling on.

If light fighter off-tanking is not a viable option, then there is very little point to this style.  Our lack of evasion and agro management would make harmonious monks better suited to that task anyway.  If melee damage is to be our role and priority, we are again outshined by the other two styles.

Given that monks are already paper tigers, I can not see anything that the drunken style brings to the table worth swallowing.

You know looking at the stances:

Drunken (using pre-30 stats):
10% damage, 25% more aggro
10% haste, 5% dodge
10% dodge, -5% accuracy (yeah this one sucks - drunken are supposed to dodge and counterattack, not dodge and miss)

I'm always in the first (I tank for a duo/trio and offtank in my guild groups)
I only use the second when I don't want aggro in groups.
I've only used the third in conjuction with a windblade and reed in the wind when things get really bad (not often).

Considering the lack of good taunts a monk gets, why is the first stance so bad? IF you do off tank (which I do, and I tank for myduo/ trio) it helps a TON in holding aggro for me (vs harmonius in tiger or dragon in storm). More evasion + more aggro would not be better as this would be harder to hold aggro.

I think evasion may be hard to balance for monks to be honest.. how much is too much? You have all the +parry jewerly you can wear, and a windblade gives a nice buff, if you then give drunken monks say 20-30% base more avoidance then they can reach a really high number.

I'd like to see some ideas that aren't just "OMG add more evasion kthx!"

Maybe Drunken needs to center more around dehibiliating counter attacks (or normal attacks) that ALLOW you or others to tank more effectivley. The problem is this infringes some on harmonius. Maybe some ideas like:

(I don't think these are that great, but I'd like some ideas tossed out)

Alcohol Spit - Attack - You spit your drink in your opponents eyes causing their accuracy to be lowered by X%. (SODA POPENSKI!)

Nerve gouge (stun) - Counter Attack - you dodge and strike at opponents pressure point, causing them to lose control for Xs (stun)

Liver shot - Counter attack - you hit the opponents liver makign it harder for him to defends himself allowing incoming attacks to do more damage.

Limb Fracture - Attack - You target an  oponnents limbs lowering damage by X (stacks with quivering palm)

Give drunken monks the ability to counter spells like a melee - counterspell? That would be huge.

Like I said, not great ideas but throw out some innovative stuff, not please dump more evasion!

Sorry I'm rambling lunch break at work and trying to throw ideas out.

I find errant strike very useful its a better celerity.  Make sure you are your own defensive target and go to town adds about 1k per hit (e.g a little under 3k for thousand fists  one strike for each hit/3hits).  Use Ashen Hand and thousand fists.

As to being a drunken monk -- I'm fine with it but I duo with a paladin a lot -- so I pull aggro with jeering kick or the aoe and he rescues me for mega damage.

The level 46 stance is silly though

I was really curious about that one.. I thought it would be insanely nasty if it worked like that.

Jojo is a girl, careful killer!  She's lvl 50 so she should know what's up.  I play on the same server as her, I'll tell her to stop being lazy.

Where's that pesky open mouth and insert foot smiley.... this'll do for now :uglystupid2: I sent her a PM over on the SV site

I'll edit this before she gets here muahahahahahahaha  :angel:

~QTM

I'm pretty sure I remember Jojo saying she thinks Disciples need like 10x more DPS and even MORE medium armor drops and weapons with healer stats because they're so sexy.  Please listen to her devs.

You dont need to PM her by the way, she knows all. 

Dude you can tell drunken monks to swap out, last time i listed the bugs i found for the style i got flamed!  Someone flame him!  No fair!   :knuppel2:

Oh, I agree Perigee! Disciples need more dps and uh everythign else...as long as youre still in my group you can get beefed up to godliness :)

Sorry, I didn't mean to flame you, you didn't list any bugs for the style tho, you just said we were borked and useless and evryone should switch.  I  was first 50 monk on my server, and I love teh style. BUT this is why. I am main tank for my static group. There is nothing glaringly wrong with Drunken Style IF you want to be a defensive offensive fighter. I personally didnt start a monk to be the tank, i wanted to hang back and dps and pull etc. But our static defenisve fighter lagged behind in levels due to school so I stepped up.  I've tanked all the content we've gone thru since level 20. This has included grey 2 dots up to purple 6 dots. I can handle all that we've seen inside Rhaz Inkur (the highest itemized area known in game atm)  and I am having a blast so far doing it.  The reason I havent posted such a long list of bugged Drunken Style is because well....I'm afraid they will take away my taunts lol.  So I suggest to anyone that doesn't plan on tanking/off-tanking, yeah Drunken Style prolly isn't for you. But I've been able to keep aggro consistantly off of a Chaos Volley Spamming Sorcerer, an ae pulling cleric, a training shaman, and a dps psi. It takes a while for healers to learn how to heal an avoidance tank, but mine have mastered it and it's been so fun that I'd rather be in game playing than here posting a long list. :)  However I guess I should soon, so I'll take some time tonight to do it :)

edit: here it is: http://www.vanguardmonks.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,27/topic,612.0/

I have to second what Jojo's experiencing.  I run mainly with my brother and sister-in-law, who play a warrior and a boodmage, respectively.  Usually, we pick up three random group-fillers, and go off adventuring.  I've found my Drunken style monk to be very effective at 28-29th as a backup tank and emergency distractor.  Occasionally, the bloodmage, a necro, or a sorceror will grab agro while the warrior is busy dealing with adds, and I'm able, via the Jeering Kick and Foolhardy Swagger abilities, to pull the mobs off of them long enough for the warrior to reestablish agro.  Also, the mez is a wonderful tool for add and multiple pull management (but I *think* all monks get Nerve Strike, right?).  Also, FD allows me to shake the mobs off of me once the Warrior has control of them. 

So, I do look at myself as having a bag of tricks that include agro management, defensive tricks, etc. 

I did, about 4 levels backs, consider switching to Harmonious (for the crit chance stance), but gave up on that idea when I found out the quest involved going to Tanvu AND Cai'Brael, both of which are not very fond of Orcs.  The idea of spending a while leveling of faction didn't sound appealing at the time.

To Irah
I also am an orc who switched from dragon style to harm style.  You can do the harm style quest without faction adjusting IF you're careful.  There is only one part where faction will play a part, just make sure you can run fast, because FD won't work.  I don't know who the hell thought it was a good idea to make the cael brael wood elf area like the only place with lvl 50 6 dot guards, because thats really stupid and lame and if they catch up to you when you're running hte quest you're toast. 

To Jojo
Yeah again im sorry about dissing the drunken style without giving it a chance.  honestly i think it has lots of potential and great taunting abilities, but lacks the defensive ability to really make it stand out and the DPS is kinda low.  If they gave you guys a boosted defense bonus i would definately take a serious look at switching to drunken style.  I actually wanted to play it because i think drunken fighting is the coolest martial art ever, but i can't stand getting beat down fast which is what my experience has been tanking.  I can do it ok as a harm style, but i can't keep aggro due to crap DPS (even in tiger stance its tough) and i have to go balls to the wall str debuff to keep from dying in 3 hits, and i've got like 1500-1600 armor unbuffed and easily over 4k hp unbuffed (i think).  I really really wish the devs would get on the ball and fix our class and all the styles so we can spend more time playing and less time on the boards trying to get fixes.  What irks me is the offensive stance the +dam and +hate doesn't have any defensive bonus.  That has to be the stupidest idea ever.  I want to slap silly whoever thought that was a good idea.  Are they trying to "balance" the defesnive style by making all of his stances either half defense half offense and the "defensive" stance only has what 13% dodge?  WTF!  it should have 20% dodge 20% parry and 25% hate generation, offensive should be just 15% damage bonus (maybe an increased end cost, MAYBE) and i dont even remember what the middle one does.  All drunken attacks should get a damage increase moderate to high across the board IMO.  Bleh, im getting so tired of proposing fixes, i just wish they would sit down and fix everything already.

Jojo and Irah, I'm very happy to see you enjoying your monks and I'm glad you're here to share your experiences!  However,  as an tanking/off-tanking veteran of MMO's myself, I don't believe drunken monks are near where they need to be in order to fullfil their roles within the balance of classes that exist.  As the game progresses I believe this will become even more evident unless changes are made.

What exactly makes a drunken monk more defensive than the other styles of monks?

I am simply not comfortable with our entire style being defined by two low level, low damage taunts.  As useful as they are, do they really set drunken monks apart from the other styles?  Are they alone worth the burst dps, AoE damage, or debuffs of the other styles?  I really don't think so.

Take away these two taunts and any other monk would "tank" very similar or better.  I would say that is what is glaringly wrong with this style.  To me, those two abilities alone are not enough to really define the role of off-tank, especially considering the dps and debuffs we trade for them.  Although very important, there is more to off-tanking than agro management even within the light fighter archetype.

Defensive fighters will always be the preffered main tank under the current combat mechanics and this is a good thing.  I actually applaud the changes to evasion that Sigil has made.  Being avoidance based and severely restricted mitigation-wise, light fighters are terribly inefficient and unpredictable as a main tank.  Not that monks can't assume that role as Jojo has related; it is however, still not the best solution.  This will become more evident as the game matures.

What concerns me most is the very viable and expected role of off-tank that the drunken style has claim to.  Again, if we are to say that our two taunts are the only things defining this style, then I would argue that is not enough.  The drunken style needs to stand on it's own in equal proportion to the other style's strengths and weaknesses.  I believe that currently it clearly does not.

You say trains, I say highy sophisticated strategic pulls.

Heheh!  Spoken like a true training shaman!  ;D

You are right on the dot with this. If I had known I was going to be main tank for my static group I wouldn't have rolled a Drunken Monk, I would have gone Dread Knight or Pally. I wouldn't be lurking the monk boards, my disciple friend wouldn't be coming here to tell everyone he's sexy, and my shaman wouldn't come here trying to convince me that he doesn't train us he just tries to pull.

But, I played monk in eq1 and I love the class and thats what I wanted to play. Being able to tank to 50 was cool but not really where I want to see the monk class or drunken style headed as a whole.  If we were to have aggro management abilities maybe instead of just flat taunts, it would be 10x better IMO. I'm an offensive fighter, but I sure as hell don't feel like one atm.  How should Sigil fix this? I really don't know, and its not really my job to know, its their deal.  I honestly would have made a Drunken Style post months ago if I thought it would make a difference, but the way the monk community has been treated in beta and in release, I really don't know if anything will make a difference at this point.

Well said.

<-- Lv50 Drunken Monk.  Played it since 21.

I felt it needed to be said. 

On a more serious note, I think we kind of got away with not needing a pure Defensive tank to 50 but I'm fairly sure that wont be the case as the game goes forward either.  I played a monk in Beta and if it were me, I'd like to see the Drunken become an offensive fighter first,  and tough off-tank / puller second.  But again that'd be what I'd like, not sure how you all feel.

My thoughts are really along these lines as well Perigee.  The experiences you guys have brought to these boards shows you have a very good understanding of current group dynamics and the monk's role in groups.  Congrats on your successes as well.

I agree too that the expected role of monks should be one of an offensive fighter first.  And in the case of the drunken style monks, to be known as a really tough off-tank/puller as well - just as dragon monks are known for their tough AoE, DoTs, and high damage attacks.  Honestly, I think that can be achieved without changing too aweful much.

We've thrown around some ideas here, but I guess it's up to the devs to actually deliver.  Things like agro re-direction and creative agro management abilities are fantastic ideas, extremely useful and role defining, and something I've been a big proponent of.  Adjustments to our stances would go a long way towards helping to define our role as well.

I was an EQ1 monk as well Jojo, and share the same love for the class.  The lack of communication and meaningful attention from the dev team since beta has been a large source of frustration for me as well.  Honestly, I don't know if any of this will make a difference either...and that saddens me.  Time will tell I suppose, hopefully we'll be pleasantly suprised at some point.

Apoco,I wasnt trying to snub you I just knew that jojo was in the high 40s. More than 1 take on this "is a good thing".   8) I am sure others share that opinion

~QTM

Yup, by all means Apoco, share your thoughts as well. Like I posted in my long winded thread, I don't really feel that I can speak for the majority of drunken monks because of how I've played the class. The more input the better.

Hard to argue with that, but our stances are clearly not working as stated either, so it's also hard to tell what it would be like if stances actually delivered what they are said to deliver. I wouldn't mind more strong counters and aggro tools(not just for ourselves, able to redirect as well) for drunken and most of all more ways to confuse/stagger/stun the mob, which i think would be in line with the style.

I can't speak from a drunken monk's perspective, but here is what i think about some of the ideas so far:

Some stated they didn't think a drunken monk should be able to tank as well as he actually does, and that his first job should be offensive fighter instead of offtank. 

Well, I tried to percieve the logical conclusion one would have to come to if Sigil took this perception of the Drunken monk.  Isn't that how all styles really are?  All of them have some sort of defensive stance that allows them to kind of tank, but that might not even be the monks fault.  The healers are obviously overpowered, maybe the reason you tank so well isn't because you tank well, its because healers heal too well?  DKs right now can solo anything within their ability to hit it.  As in i sat and watched a dreadknight lvl 44 in my guild solo lvl 47 4 dot mobs and never drop below 80%.  He told me he could even take 5 and 6 dots.  Any mob that he can potentially hit he can defeat solo.  No monk can ever achieve these feats.  No class probably should, but the monk probably has one of the worst chances of getting anywhere in a fight like this.  Therefore monks, drunken or otherwise are not tanks right now nor anywhere close to being what the current definition of how a well played tank is.  I could be wrong, but i would percieve the only reason you are getting to "tank" is because you can hold aggro, and do low to moderate DPS.  That's about it.  The group simply needs someone to keep aggro, doesn't matter who.  If you can hold aggro you can potentially tank because healers are so powerful (if well played) they can basically keep anyone up.  Hell even healers can tank.

 If you make the drunken style not an offtanking style, then there is no point in making styles in the first place.  If you don't want the drunken style to be a potential evasion tanking style, and you want him to be more offensive, then you basically have a dragon monk.  Dragon monks are suposed to do damage, but they too have a defensive stance so they can kind of tank.  Harmonious monks are suppsoed to debuff i think?  but they're main focus is also offensive because well the monk is kind of an offensive fighter (but with the low DPS you wouldn't know it). 

Now think about this, our DPS is behind the other light fighters and a fair amount (sometimes) above heavy fighters.  Instead of making the drunken do more damage, give him a significant tanking ability boost.  The devs could leave his DPS where it stands because its not threatening the majority of the other DPS classes, and he'll never be able to tank like tanks do now, so all they really need to do is boost his ability enough so that its better than all other light fighters without a doubt, and since the tanking abilities between light fighters and heavy fighters are MILES apart they could get away with a SIGNIFICANT boost to the drunken styles tanking abilities.

Now the other version is they make him more offensive and he's basically simply the worst DPS class in the game and he can't even offtank well enough to off set it.  Unless you are talking about a significant DPS boost to put him where he should be (which imo is around rangers or above them even, i can explain my thoughts on that one for you if you'd like) and then there would be no need to adjust his tanking abilities, but then you just have a cookie cutter DPS class where you're style isn't really important to anyone because they jsut percieve you as a monk which means DPS and they simplly don't care what style you are.  Wouldn't it be cool to see "group needs a tank or a drunken monk to fill last spot"? That would be really cool.  I mean as far as grouping goes now if you have a DK and a psi you don't even need a healer really.  You can't pull aggro off a good DK and he ain't gonna die, you dont' need a healer, lol. 

So i guess my whole point is that if you think all 3 styles should be focused mainly on offensive fighting, then whats the point in having the styles?  I think it would be cool to have drunken be defensive fighting and be like i described above with really great evasion capabilities and even boosted mitigation.  The harm monk could have many more debuffs and weaknesses.  His attacks coudl cause multiple weaknesses that all other classes can exploit to boost their damage.  The dragon would be PURE DPS and therefore should be the highest melee DPS in the game hands down because he does nothing but DPS.  I believe this is the most creative and effective way to do the monk class and keep the styles dinstinctly different from each other.  Now this isn't to say that a drunken monk can't DPS for crap, he should still be a head above heavy fighters and healers, but a lot lower than dragon and a bit lower than harmonious. 

Or we could do away with styles and just have the monks have 3 different stances, or HELL why not just have the monks able to learn ALL THREE STYLES?  i mean why not?  if you do the quests you can learn each style of fighting why can't you be able to switch between them at say lvl 50?  At lvl 15 you choose your first style, at lvl 30 you can quest to gain a second style of your choice to choose, and at lvl 50 you can choose the third style and from there you can switch to a different stle mebbe once an hour?  There are so many ways you can go with the monk and the three styles to make it work.  You could combine all three styles and turn each into its own stance.  dragon stance gets +30%damage +lightning attack damage -melee evasion.  Harm stance gets +15% damage -25% end costs.  Drunken gets  +25% hate +30%evasion +40% mitigation.  See, its not so hard =D

recent forum post bump FTW!

Apologies in advance for the long post: I've been putting some thought into this - solutions to the direction drunken monks should be headed in - and so much depends on the role Sigil intends for us.  If the light tank role is where they see us, then I think that our stances are what need further tweaking to fulfil that role in terms of mitigation and avoidance (both melee and spell, don't forget spell!), not abilities.  Tweaks there should add enough to make us the standout light tank over the other offensive fighter classes in terms of healing requirements.  However, that isn't the only thing a tank needs, and it's here where we could develop a real niche even when not tanking.  Our abilities should instead focus on agro control.  This would give us a role in the game besides just a squishy off-tank - we could lock agro down on ourselves, or boost the hate on a defensive tank so that chain-nuking mage doesn't go splat.  To be honest even a decent damage attack that does an improved Goading Slap would be a help in this, but I've got some thoughts on our abilities below - let me know what you think.

Jeering Kick - upgrades to this ability don't really do anything siginificant.  You're never using it for the damage anyway, you're using it to get the mob's attention - how much you hit for is relatively incidental.  So in addition to the minimal damage upgrade, why not make each upgrade get the attention of the mob for an extra attack?  Or if that is too overpowering, add hate for the monk (or even the defensive target) when it hits.

Staggering Punch - this ability just needs to do more damage, straight up.  Right now it's of dubious value because the weakness it applies is taken advantage of by Crescent Kick, a low damage attack (but doesn't trigger the global cooldown).  The combo doesn't really do enough damage to justify using it.  Upgrades should of course do significantly more damage, unlike now where they are identical.  I see changes are in the works already for this, we'll see if they go far enough.

Spinning Fists - the reuse time on this combined with the low damage makes it useless once you get Lurching Feint.  As is, the only way I'd say it was worth keeping was if it hit every time, and guaranteed at least your next attack would too.  I'd go further and say give it a short-term high accuracy boost (maybe 8 seconds), allowing you a good chance to unload your finishers for high DPS - you could do it early in a fight to get a solid agro lock, or use it purely for DPS.

Foolhardy Swagger - I have zero problems with this ability as it stands, it's great.  Only improvement I can think of is if it worked on your defensive target, but that might be a bit much.

Lurching Feint - as mentioned above, this ability basically usurps the role of Spinning Fists.  The stun duration often seems shorter than 3 seconds, but the basic premise is fine.

Clumsy Whirl - AE counterattack, same plusses and minuses as other counterattacks.  I'd like to see either the time counters are up for increased a bit, or have them bindable to a separate key to finishers - but that's a general issue rather than a monk specific one.

Errant Strikes - this is fine when it works, but the timer is way too long.  I see changes are in the works on this one too.

Impossible Drunken Palm - right now a crit that's only better than Flying Kick because of the auto-crit buff effect it applies.  It needs to be upped in damage regardless because of it's timer (even after it gets adjusted) but rather than just auto-crit, I'd propose a change that makes the hate generated from this attack and the next one (a crit assuming it lands) go to the defensive target.  If +hate for defensive target is too overpowering, instead make it a hate transfer from the monk to the defensive target - that way if the monk has itself as it's defensive target, no additional hate is generated, and it only transfers hate to another player if they are the defensive target.  This is something that would help a defensive tank lock up agro for those key fights.

Drunken Arms of the Cyclone - again, damage is to low on this.  See comments above for Impossible Drunken Palm.

Magnificent Drunken Stagger - haven't hit 46 yet so can't comment, but to be honest it sounds highly craptacular given what Reed in the Wind does on a much much shorter refresh (even with the impending nerf).

These thoughts are dependent on us heading down the light tank path.  If there is another role in mind for us, then I (and I am sure many others) would have another heap of suggestions.