Vanguard Monks

As requested, here is my take on Drunken Style at level 50.  VERY LONG WINDED.

A few caveats to this list tho:
-I don't solo, I have no idea how Drunken Style plays out for a solo monk because I just don't do it.
-I'm main tank for my static group, so I figured I'd put two comments per skill one for my view of a non tank drunken, and my view of a tanking drunken.
-Because of those two things above, I figure I'm a minority type player of a minority type style...I don't really feel that I can speak for the majority of Drunken Style monks out there, but I can give my own opinion based on how I have played the class. Drunken Style is great if you want to duo or trio with some friends, or if you happen into a main tank situation. I didn't have any illusions that I'd be the best dps as a Drunken Style monk, I switched from being Dragon in beta to Drunken in live purely because of my own group situation.


I'd also like to say that IMO, I _shouldn't_ be able to be tanking the things I do and living the majority of the time. ANY medium armor class and above can be a tank in this game. I don't know about your servers, but mine has a severe lack of defensive fighters and it shows in that the first trio to 50 on my server had a bear shaman tank. The second group (mine) has a monk tank.


Stances (at 50):

Drunken Mastery Stance: Attack Speed +10%, Dodge +5%

Bug- while targeting a mob and switching to and from Drunken Mastery Stance, it gives the mob the buff icon, similar to how bard songs go on nearby mobs. The icon was recently switched to an ugly yellow/black yin yang symbol, but the icon that shows up on the buff list is still the default head with the x thru it.

-This hasn't been upgraded like the other two stances, which makes it have diminishing returns by level 50. Sure it's a neutral stance, no negatives to it, but 1)Attack speed is pointless if your weapon speed is below 2 seconds, 2) dodge is only good if soloing or tanking, and 3) by 50, the other stances have lost their negative side too, leaving this one in the dust.

-I personally only use this stance when I think that I might have lost Drunken Fist stance, as Drunken Fist icon is broken and doesn't put one on the buff list, so I switch to this and back to Drunken Fist to make sure I'm still in the stance I want to be in.  

Legendary Drunken Fist: Damage +20%, Aggression +25%

-Bug: Icon does not show up in buff list. Still.

-The damage bonus to this is overlooked by a lot of monks. 20% is awesome IMO. For example, using weapons that every monk should have, it takes Tranquility from 262 dps, to 314 dps, and takes Zank from 295.25 to 354.5. Now I know that is just autoattack damage, but unless I am mistaken, it also adds percent damage to skills? It makes all the gear with +1% melee damage seem piddly to me.  However, the negative side is the plus aggression if you are not the tank of the group.

-I personally never leave this stance unless I feel I need the extra dodge and will switch to Immortal Drunken Sway.

Immortal Drunken Sway: Dodge +15%

-This makes sense as a stance IF they think that we as monks should be tanking or off tanking, or if you are solo'ing and seem to get hit a lot. But we are offensive fighters right? The theme of giving us +avoidance and an extreme number of dodge/parry counters instead of actual damage stances makes it seem like they want us to tank/off tank? I really don't understand.

-Before 50, this stance has a negative effect of -accuracy% It had always seemed to me that the negative side showed its ugly head more than the positive, so I weened myself off using it for the dodge% and just put more faith in my healers.

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Aum Learned Abilities (at 50):

Jeering Kick IV: 15 end, 197-212 dmg and compels your opponent to target you for 2 attacks. Jin+1

-A great squishee saver. If someone is near death, and this doesn't miss, you can save anyone in your group, including the tank. This can bring utility, but at the cost of damage. It's the first skill Drunken's get. The damage is low, and doesn't add melee damage (most likely because it's one of those utility skills that they had doing double damage until the big update)

-Despite its very low damage I use this a lot, if a mob even looks at someone else, I hit it and by the time he hits me twice, my +aggression will kick in and hes mine again. Used on pulls, it means people can debuff on incoming (every tank's nightmare) with no worry that it will jump to them.


Staggering Punch V: 22 end, 50% weapon damage, staggers your opponent for 8 seconds. Gives 1 Jin.

-Bug? Ranks I thru V all have the same damage and the same effect, carbon copies of each other. What gives?
-To the best of my knowledge, all 3 styles have the ability to exploit one of their own weaknesses, this is Drunken's which we can exploit with Crescent Kick. This sucks because Crescent is the lowest damage attack that all monks get, because it gives 2 jin. This is nothing but a jin builder IMO.

-The weakness system lost its thrill to me around level 30, and while it's a nice little bonus, I no longer go out of my way to exploit a weakness with Crescent Kick. I use these to build up jin for secrets, or chain openers.


Spinning Fists III: costs 4 Jin, deals 363-279 damage but an autocrit, opens chains.

-I honestly had a hard time finding this on my hotbars just now. While its a low cost chain opener, I find myself critting enough, or using Lurching Feint instead.


Foolhardy Swagger III: costs 4 Jin, refresh 30 seconds. Taunts all opponents around you to attack you for 5 attacks.

-While this is great if you WANT to tank, as an offensive fighter it would be cool to be able to transfer this taunt to the tank. Same goes for Jeering Kick.

-Sorcerer's life saver, couple this with a parry sword and dodge stance (and now with reed in the wind) and you will have lots of fun in ae groups. Also very useful with a mezzer, using this makes sure the mobs don't go straight for the mezzer when mez goes down, and since it does no damage, it doesn't break mez. Great for roamer adds not going after squishees right away, you don't even have to change offensive targets, just click ae taunt and worries over till CC or tank steps in.



Clumsy Whirl III: Dodge Counter. Recast 1 minute. A whirling attack that deals 100% weapon damage plus 467-495.

-Decent ae damage, especially after they took the costs away from counters. But for an offensive non tanking fighter, counters pop less often than wanted.

-The timers on counters are waaaay too fast. I seem to miss them so much even when I'm tanking and see them pop up all the time. I finally hotkeyed /reactionautochain and /reactionautocounter into my main attacks. While its cool to have another ae, ae's are pretty situational and I rarely use this over Stinging Backfist unless there are more than 2 mobs in camp unmezzed.


Errant Strikes: costs 6 jin, recast 1 Hour. Allows each of your attacks to strike an opponent that is attackign your defensive target for 1 minute.

-Nice damage boost along the lines of secrets. One hour recast is extreme tho. Any skill that needs to be on an 1 hour recast timer should be so unbelievably awesome that I stare at the key every few minutes to see when I can use it again.


Impossible Drunken Palm II: 10 end, 2 minute recast, Chain Finisher, Weapon + 528 damage. Leaves your opponent open so that your next attack is a critical success. Increases Jin by 1.

-Damage along the lines of Flying Kick, but next attack is auto crit. 2 minute recast was ok before all the casters/healers got their finishers cut down from 5 minutes to 1 minute, but now it seems a little high. How are we expected to do decent damage when most of our damage is finishers on recasts long enough to stop you from doing it more than once a fight, or every 2 fights.


Drunken Arms of the Cyclone II: 10 end, 2 minute recast, Weapon +540 damage. Advanced finisher, after Impossible Drunken Palm. Increases Jin by 1.

-If used after Impossible Drunken Palm, its an autocrit. Has same negatives as Impossible Drunken Palm does, see above.

Magificent Drunken Stagger: costs 4 jin, recast 30 minutes. Dodge all attacks directed at you for 15 seconds.

-This at first seemed cooler than it is, even with the long recast. But it only dodges melee attacks directed at you. Useless to dodge on casters or the big hitting melee abilities. Yet another autododge is nice....IF you are tanking or in trouble, you could just as easily use Reed in the Wind or Swaying Step tho.

Legendary Fists I: 5 endurance, refresh 1 minute. 3 x weapon damage plus 149. Increases Jin by 1. Third finisher in Thousand Fists Line.

-ZOMG a damage ability finally, only took til level 46. It's awesome that Drunken get the 3rd and 4th chain for Thousand Fists, but doesn't really go with the flow of the rest of the class, we have such crap damage that it seems like they threw this in so we had at least one big number attack to look forward to.


Fists of Transcendence: 5 endurance, refresh 1 minute. 3 x weapon damage plus 175. Increases Jin by 1. Fourth finisher in Thousand Fists Line.

-See above.


Lurching Feint III: costs 6 jin. You lurch and weave, confusing your opponent and causing it to stop attacking for 3 seconds. This ability increases the crit chance of your next attack by 30% and always opens finishing attacks.

-One of my favorite Drunken abilities, they actually thought about this one and made it pretty cool. While it seems like those 3 seconds arent always 3 seconds, its still a nice bonus and more reliable than the stun on Secret of Ice. This also an auto opener which is why I rarely use Spinning Fists, I'd rather use the 2 extra jin and get the extra crit rate on next attack, the mob not attacking is a bonus too. Please don't nerf this or take it away from us!


Slap Hands: costs 8 Jin. Lasts 30 seconds. All incoming attacks earn your enemy a slap that deals damage.

Bug?-Like all damage shields, either they don't go off on every attack or they don't display on every trigger. I haven't quite figured out what the deal is with it, if it doesn't stack with secrets, or if the damage just is random on which hits it applies. If it were consistantly every incoming attack like it says in the tooltip, its very nice, as it deals between 200-350 per hit at 50.  

Great post Jojo, many thanks!

Dude i totally want to play a drunken monk now!  lol!  that thousand fists x 4 finisher is some sweet goodness! 

When she told me about that ability, I almost rerolled to drunken that day (we play on the same server).  However I'm so stuck in my dragon ways that I couldn't do it. I didn't get anything cool like that at 46, so I'm hoping I get it at 50.  Now if I could just stop getting convinced to run quests for everyone and their mother, I could go grind out the last 80% I need lol.

This is a very good write up of. I hope you dont mind if i do this for a dragon monk?

MMmm yeah.... it's probably best not to think about that too much. 

Agree about Errant Strike.  Really just a longer lasting Secret of Celerity.  One hour timer is ridiculous.

Drunken sounds pretty nice.  Is it possible to use the 20% dmg bonus stance in a group where you're not tanking?  I imagine you could pre-emptively feigh death to avoid aggro.  Also, i'm guessing that no one -but- drunken gets the 4th thousand fists finisher? 

Oh and to clear up a point, i'm almost positive harmonious never gets to exploit their own weakness, but i'm only 44.  IMO they should look into adding weakness exploiters to a finisher or two...  ;)

/bonk for sticky goodness

~QTM

Since I am a Drunken monk, I should probably follow up with what jojo said from a "tank" point of view, to one where I will normally be just a DPS type monk.

First off, the reason I picked drunken is because my wife plays a cleric, so I thought the extra mitigation would help us in the long run when her and I duo. From about 4:30 - 7:00 her and I will duo. From 7:00 - 11:00, my static group will form. So, I have the luxury of getting a view of both sides. Hopefully this will give me insight. I am close to 50 (48), so hopefully my experience will show from a little different standpoint having seen both sides of the coin.

I am going to respectfully disagree with one thing jojo said. That is that he shouldn't be tanking what he is tanking. In comparison to what a normal tank can tank (in my case, a pally tanks for us), he takes 1/3 the dmg that I do.... if that. While a mob will hit me for 1100, it will only hit him for around 300. That is a big difference in tanking ability and shows that an "off tank" monk is nothing more than someone that might be able to tank for a couple of seconds in a group situation, where you have 4 - 5 dot mobs (sometimes multiple mobs), in the current state, we are no tank... or off tank for that matter.

I'll use the same colors jojo did so there is no confusion. =)

Drunken Mastery Stance: Attack Speed +10%, Dodge +5%

Bug: jojo's concern about the bug has also been seen by myself as well as group members. They'll often comment about how that was a weird ability to have and I have to explain to them it's a bug from one of my stances. The other bug is that icons do not match. The yin yan does not match the one in the buff list.

This skill just doesn't upgrade as jojo mention. From a DPS point of view, I will use this stance when I am not tanking (since my other "DPS" stance has aggression added to it.. and I don't want to be pulling agro).

So, I will probably use it more often than jojo. I would say it's my default stance when not tanking so I don't pull agro. I mean, I have nothing else that will increase DPS without adding aggression... so it's really my only option. While this could use an upgrade, this is a drunken monks only effective stance when not tanking imo.

Legendary Drunken Fist: Damage +20%, Aggression +25%

Bug: No icon makes it very hard to know if you are in this stance or not. It's disappointing when you see Sigil working on stance icons but won't fix fundamental issues with other types of things like this.

I just cannot use this in a group situation where I am not the tank (note: I only tank when a cleric and I are grouped.. it's not effective enough to be done all the time). In this stance, I will pull agro on a regular basis. While the 20% attack is nice, it's coupled with a huge downfall when not tanking making it almost useless in a group situation.

This does increase my BH weapon DPS quite a bit. But, again, it's not usable in a group.

Immortal Drunken Sway: Dodge +15%

I'm in 100% agreement with jojo on this. This stance makes no sense. It's like the devs could not make up their minds on whether we should off tank or not so they threw us a bone with this. It just doesn't work as advertised and it's a stance I've never used (other than trying it out a few times to see if it made a difference).

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Aum Learned Abilities  - I am going to copy and paste the skills from jojo's post so it's uniform. Then I'll put my own perspective on them (from a DPS type monk that sometimes will tank).

Jeering Kick IV: 15 end, 197-212 dmg and compels your opponent to target you for 2 attacks. Jin+1

This skill can be helpful but it's rarely used in a group. I'd say, I almost never use it. When I'm the one tanking, I will use it quite a bit to keep agro on me if the cleric pulls it for some reason.

The usefulness of this skill is diminished in a group situation. I can see how it would be helpful, but in my static group (shaman, pally, cleric, monk, psi), it rarely gets used. The only reason I would use it, is if the tank died and the healers were getting hit. I will use this to pull it off them. So, in that aspect it does give some utility... but it's limited.

Staggering Punch V: 22 end, 50% weapon damage, staggers your opponent for 8 seconds. Gives 1 Jin.

Bug: Agree with jojo here. What is the deal here? The skill doesn't upgrade as you go through the ranks. /boggle

This is another skill that is rarely used at my level. Crescent kick just does not pack the punch to make this worthwhile. If anything, I will use it to build up jin as well. Other than that, I won't touch the thing.

Spinning Fists III: costs 4 Jin, deals 363-279 damage but an autocrit, opens chains.

Rarely is this used as well. Lurching Feint is by far better.

Foolhardy Swagger III: costs 4 Jin, refresh 30 seconds. Taunts all opponents around you to attack you for 5 attacks.

This is a death sentence for a monk in a group. Since groups will normally go after mobs 3+ levels higher than them (and 4 dots to boot), if I were to take all agro from all mobs, I'd be asking for a rez about 2 seconds after. It's just not useful in groups.

On the other side of this, when I have to tank.... this is a great skill to have. For 5 attacks, I keep agro. Combined with Jeering kick, it's touch to pull agro off me when these are used.

Clumsy Whirl III: Dodge Counter. Recast 1 minute. A whirling attack that deals 100% weapon damage plus 467-495.

Fairly decent dmg dealer and it's good for clearing trash. That's pretty much all I have to say about this skill.

Errant Strikes: costs 6 jin, recast 1 Hour. Allows each of your attacks to strike an opponent that is attackign your defensive target for 1 minute.

This is a very very nice skill. However, I agree with jojo... 1 hour refresh? Sheesh. This is the type of thing they could reduce the refresh on and would make some of the "we don't do enough DPS" crap go away. It's a very useful skill to have that can up our DPS.. but not up it so drastically to change our DPS on each and every mob.

Lurching Feint III: costs 6 jin. You lurch and weave, confusing your opponent and causing it to stop attacking for 3 seconds. This ability increases the crit chance of your next attack by 30% and always opens finishing attacks.

Yep, I'm in agreement with jojo. A good ability that can be used to increase DPS a little bit.

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Again, while drunken monks are doing so-so, we are not off tanks at all. I do not expect to tank as well as pallys, DKs, or warriors... but when you choose a stance that specifically says you'll be able to evade incoming attacks... and then it doesn't do as advertised, it's disappointing.

What would make things nice, is if we had skills (or stance) that allowed us to tank effectively but would drain the the energy of healers around us having to heal. Right now, it's difficult for healers to even get heals off if I have to tank with group level mobs because I die fairly quick. This way, we can tank if the main tank goes down.. but it's not an effective way to do groups.

We give up DPS for evasion. Thing is.. they took our DPS when we chose drunken... but also took our evasion for the most part.

From a healer point of view I will have to partially disagree with you.  Defensive Fighters are much better tanks than monks due to their mitigation.  However, as Jojo stated they are not necessary at all in group situations.  A mob will hit you for almost full damage but you can avoid 3/4 his attacks completely.  Avoidance tanking is partially unreliable becuase of a chance of big spike damage, but in Jojo's case she only dies maybe once every few days from a nasty round of bad luck on avoidance. 

Just lastnight Jojo was tanking level 50-53 mobs.  Some pulls were 4dots in groups of 3, some were 5dots in groups of 2(and often getting a roaming add mid fight) She was even able to tank 2 6dot lvl 52s at once.  Note this was also Rahz Inkur where crowd control is disabled.  From my experiences I can say for sure that Monks(Drunken at least?) Are capable of tanking high end mobs for longer than a few seconds.  She has done it for 30 lvls :)

(dont nerf my mUnk pls, but if you do make sure she is doing the damage an offensive fighter should)

Could someone PLEASE explain to me what errant strikes does.  If it does what it says in the description LITERALLY, it does nothing, lol.

Errant Strikes: costs 6 jin, recast 1 Hour. Allows each of your attacks to strike an opponent that is attackign your defensive target for 1 minute.

So does this make you not miss?  i dont understand this at all.  All it bascially says is that whatever hits your defensive target your attacks will hit.  it sounds like a DUH ability to me.  Can't you just target the thing attacking your defensive target and hit it?  LOL!  So what is it that this thing does that makes it so fabulous?  Is it that if you target the attacker as offensive target, and make the thing its attacking your defensive target, you double attack?

Best way that I can describe it, its like a rampage from eq1. All your attacks will put damage on a second mob as well as the one you are targeting, if you have either you or the tank (whoever has aggro on both mobs) as your defenisve target.

Gonna repost something I posted in the other thread for consolidation's sake.

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. 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.

Hi,

I am a drunken lvl 41, a,d at the moment higher level in guild. So I need to solo a lot and use only pick up groups. Anyway I have the weap from DT and Soon graystone one.

In Aggro stance when grouped I do some amazing dps ( around 700ish buffed etc) so we are really needed. Also I am asked to tank. I think it is ok for a short period but it is worrying to keep clic on jeering kick or foolshardy swagger. Aggro isnot easy to managed but doable. For sure you are in dodge stance. Using Aum ti and reed in the wind and I am pretty sure we tank better than a war but with more effort and concentration.

As I said I solo a lot, and I combine magnificent stance, aum ti and reed in the wind. I was able today to solo a lvl 40 3 dots. and first I had to kill 2 dogs with him lvl 40. (in graystone). It is hard but doable. In term of solo I have been able at lvl 40 to do all the quest near graystone in a small outpost. I don't remember the name but they were all small group ones and white cons in the book.

All of that to say that with the levels going up we start to have some really better ability and dps with can make us some good soloer and also some good group member.

On test. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they are 'looking' at stances....but this adds aggro to our formerly neutral stance and its still 5% dodge? And the aggression percent isnt listed? This stance was used by non tanking monks and now might nto be able to be used by them because of the agression added.

The other 2 stances have yet to be updated on test so it's not quite right. On test you have 2 aggro stances.

~QTM

I have tanked a fair bit on my way to 41 as well, and found that our ability to hold agro is actually pretty good, arguably better than some defensive fighters.  The info above is excellent, but just to add a few things:

You can use the Drunken Fist stance when not tanking, but use Goading Slap when you engage and be prepared to flop off damage.  Despite the down time involved with having to FD off agro, as long as you're doing it on mobs likely to believe your FD you're going to still do more damage in Drunken Fist than you would in Drunken Mastery (as they currently are).  Reassess for fighting red cons of course.  Drunken Sway is pretty much reserved for exploring/pulling/kiting - I can reiterate that the accuracy penalty on the lower levels of this always seems very noticeable.

Jeering Kick - along the same lines of letting your pulls be debuffed with impunity, this skill is also gold for kiting, because any mob you Jeering Kick will pretty much chase you indefinitely.  For example, doing the named encounter in the golem pit of Thelaseen, you can kite those two slow 6-dot golems for as long as you like with no fear of having them run over and squash your group if you've Jeering Kicked them.  Foolhardy Swagger would work similarly I would guess, although if you have to get someone to peel a mob off you without flopping, it would be problematic.

Besides the obvious DPS issues, agro management should be where Drunken monks are headed in my opinion.  We shouldn't be able to tank everything, but if we could help defensive targets keep agro better by boosting their hate or transferring our own to them

Seems strange to me too.  I would have thought something more like boosting accuracy would have been more appropriate for that stance.  What possible reason would we need a second agro stance, unless there's mroe adjustments in the works (which also makes me nervous)?

I'd like to see the hate taken off of our +20% dmg stance, and adding the 10% haste refresh to it, as the thousand fist chain is a drunken monks main source of damage.

I also suggested adding a small flat percentage reduction (10'ish)  to our avoidance/hate stance to prevent some of the 1 shotting that mobs have been executing on monk tanks. Or somehow implement a way to give us a % chance of mitigating just the 1 shot killing blows. (mitigates X percent of damage when damage is over 80% of monks total hp etc., not sure how exactly to work that, but it seems they dont want to give us a flat % reduction or mitigation in a stance).

For our third stance, id like to see a pulling stance or accuracy stance. +dodge/parry (as purely dodge has many stacking issues currently), with a % chance of resisting movement impairing affects/stuns/knockbacks/etc. or a dodge/parry with an accuracy bonus to our melee attacks for those mobs with evasion buffs.

I was talking with Talisker and he was surprised it was pushed to live as well. the following will be going out to test some time today

[quote = Talisker]
Monk – Drunken Fist Stance has been altered.  The damage bonus has been slightly increased, 5% parry chance and a mitigation penalty have been added.  The increased hate generation has been removed.
[/quote]

I wanted to double check to see if the hate generated by Drunk Mastery will be significant

The hate component in the Drunken mastery stance should be greater than that in the old drunken fist stance so if you need to do some aggro control switch stance to this one. Alternatively, you could do as Fusoya had thought up and use your aggro abiilities while in defensive stance (Sway) not sure how viable it is.

I'll be looking forward trying this quite a bit on test when the rest of the stances should be there.

~QTM

This is just enough to tease us.. yet again. No offense to you Quinn.... but since he was suprised, obviously it's not "complete". What is the direction this stance is going to take in a future patch? When is the patch? Just sort of getting tired of getting these little tiny bits of info with no substance.


This seem interesting.. but anytime they say "slightly" it means.. like.. 1%. Also, it seems that they are being counter productive here. A 5% parry chance with a mitigation penalty? /boggle

Someone, anyone, please tell us the direction monks are going. We are so far away from what they said we'd be in beta it's unreal. As well as extremely far from what Talisker himself has stated here (and in beta) about the monk class.

Mamoth, the intent was not to tease but to convey that Talsiker as well as myself were surprised that Drunken Mastery got pushed to live. I personally would rather they went out as a complete set. (e.g.  all of the drunken stances at once) and made sure it worked right before it left the test server.

Some people are saying that I dont post enough, now I am teasing....  I'll just have to get a thicker skin as I just can't please everyone. Basicly it comes down to this. I give y'all what information I get and don't necessarily wait the full story. Sometimes it works other times not so much. The point is, your in the loop and you know what I know.

Drunken fist will be your DPS stance meaning more damage with a down side of being squishy
Drunken Sway will be your Evasion stance for when you really don't want to be hit. There is a difference between tanking and going evasive.
Drunken mastery will be your aggro control stance. You will be the center of attention in this stance.

I'm not saying you need to please us as I know you are the middle man... but it sure would be nice to know exactly what is going on. The monk world has been in a black hole for a long time.

So, they push out something that wasn't ready... but don't say if they intend to fix it.. what that fix will be.. etc. That is what is frustrating. We get these little nibbles of information from Talsiker and it's just frustrating. Especially to see what he has said in the past and it has not come to fruition.

Anyway.............. I'm sure it's just as frustrating on your end.

The stance will either get fixed and / or get a nudge in the right direction if its not playing right.

Right now Aum Kor is not stacking with the refresh haste of the drunken mastery stance. = Not good imo

~QTM

And im sure its A LOT more frustrating on the devs end too.  Can't forget that.  I'm sure these fixes and bugs that need to be fixed are coming from all sides. 

Think about this, there are nearly 200k accounts out there right?  Lets assume 200k.  There are 15 classes.  and lets say maybe 5 classes aren't where they're supposed to be.  That means 40k people are gonna be complaining about their classes.  Sigil has maybe 100 devs?  That's 1 dev for 400 people.  So you have one person trying to please 400 people at once (and even if some of the complaints overlap its still a lot of people for one person to please) not to mention thats only CLASS bugs.  You also have world bugs, NPC bugs, grouping bugs, crafting bugs, diplomacy bugs, optimzation issues, server bugs, on pvp servers you have to deal with exploiters and the seperate PVP issues and balance those out.

So while you may be frustrated your class is kinda not in perfect shape right now, you have to realize there is so much going on that the devs are probably just as frustrated and stressed (and probably A LOT MORE) than you are.  Think about it this way, you are stressed over an activity you are doing in your leisure time, you don't have to actuallly play, this is for your entertainment. 

The devs are working on a JOB.  This is what they do ALL day, fixing bugs and issues and sometimes people in he community are absolutely no help at all (not saying you, but we've all seen the flaming posts, im also guilty of a few  :'( )

My point is its ok to be frustrated, everyone has been there and when you're paying money you feel you should have your issues fixed first, and im sure EVERYONE feels that way.  Just remember there is a lot more going on and being worked and fixed that you don't even know about.  People tend to only notice things when they are broken, people rarely acknoledge things that work.  Like hey, the AI generally works.  The horse mounts work, the zones are working, the servers are almost always up so the servers are working, etc.  The game IS playable.  There are plenty of things in the game that flow and work, but we tend to pick on the bugs (doesn't our society suck?  what a bunch of negative nancies we are!  :P )

So everyone who gets a bit frustrated and annoyed... DEEP BREATHS!  Fixes coming, remember you are playing the future best MMO ever  :D

This is kinda the wrong place for this, but I'm am not a monk.  Yet I'm extremely thankful for the hard work you've done in serving as the voice of the players and the voice of the devs.

Currently on live the new Drunken Mastery Stance doesn't list the percentage of additional aggression (unlike Drunken Fist which states 25%) The fact that it isn't displayed anymore screams nerf to me, but I've turned into a pessimist this week.

Fusoya 'thought up' spamming a 200 damage (no weapon damage added) 2 hit rescue alternating with a no damage 5 hit ae rescue so that aggro could be kept while in defensive stance? Is it viable? sure, thats 100 damage a second.


What it basically comes down to is this. Why put aggression on a stance that doesnt let you take/avoid hits better? Why put avoidance/mit on a stance that doesn't let you keep aggro better? If Sigil insists on giving an OFFENSIVE fighter all this aggression/rescue/avoidance stuff, then they need to start doing it in a way that makes sense, or scrap the whole thing and make us an OFFENSIVE fighter FFS.

Agreed, it would be nice for them to make our lives easy for once and just put +aggro in the tank stance, and +dmg in our dps stance. Not too sure why they make us go through obsurb thought processes to allow monks to fill a role.

1)+parry/dodge +hate  -dmg
2)+%dmg +cooldown haste -melee avoidance

Biggest problem i have as a monk tank is spell mitigation where our avoidance has almost 0 impact. It has become a noticable problem in pulling as well. Caster heavy mobs in sets of 3+ can nuke us dead before we even have a chance to attempt to split.

Perhaps we can try to push for a  mob learned ability such as reed in the wind but in regards to spell evasion?
ex. Drunken Rage: As alcohol consumes your mind, you ignore spells and focus on your enemy.
-would provide a greater chance for spells to miss (this would include movement impairing affects) to allow us to better perform as pullers and when tanking caster based mobs
(available to all monks, not just drunken)

Agreed, good idea

Drunken Rage?  no way dude =P

Impaired Judgement:  You are now so intoxicated you don't even realize you are being hit with spells and ignore 50% of them.

I was thinking about this to my obnoxious amusement.....

what if there were Alcohols in the game, they could be a finisher/counterattack.  Each time its activated you can take a drink and gain 5% mitigation and 5% avoidance for 30seconds.  Or the strength of hte alcohol would depend  on the % bonus.  This would be perfect thing for alchemists to craft when they are put in game!  However there is no refresh timer, so you can get drunker and drunker, but the buffs end when you leave combat (ie FD or the fight is over).  This would make for a very funny fight!  In the middle of a fight you see him lean way back and take a shot (like in drunken master!)  I think that would be super duper awesome!  lol!  It could also add like 1000 hate, since you are ignoring the mob and taking a drink, might piss him off, plus you don't lose the damage (and therefore aggro) of the mob.  This would be exclusive to drunken style and be an awesome defensive boost!

haha i like the drinking idea, take that rogue darts!. would be funny tho =P

Unfortunately the game is rated T.  Though yes it would be nice, correct me if I'm wrong, but that makes heavy drinking is a no no.

Lol, well wasn't drunken master rated PG-13?  That is the same a T rated game right?  It should be ok.  Well fine if Titanic is PG-13 and can show boobs, i think we can get away with a gourd in it, (not like you would actually SEE alchohol.)

Well actually I suppose it is doable,  Virtual Fighter is rated Teen and Shun Di uses drunken kung-fu and more he drunk the stronger he got.  Though if drunken style was monkey style instead while it would take some of the "coolness" out of it, it would open up some more possibilities.  And Drunken monkey is a generally accepted variation of monkey style.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_Kung_Fu  Also it's a bit of pun, but the named monkey would flow better with the Dragon and Crane styles. Oh wells, doen't much matter.  Would probably be too much work to rewrite all the abilities and would piss off to many fans for them to change it.

Anyways, sorry for this off topic rambling.

For balancing issues with the other monk disciplines, i dont think it'd be possible, definately a neat idea tho. perhaps if counterparts were made for the diff monk disciplines...

HA!  I love the drinking idea Shengyi.

I am Drunken Monk lvl 36, and although I have a bit of a sheltered opinion (i.e. still need end abilities, haven't tanked lvl 53 5-6 dots and so on), so far it's been fantastic.  I 2-box a Hayatet Shaman, and my static group is BM, Necro and Ranger with room for one more.  I tank 99% of the time when I play, and I got to tell ya so far I don't regret not making a defensive fighter in this MMO.

Now I have 14 lvls to go before I can really form a good solid opinion on the 'tanking' aspect, but so far it hasn't been an issue.  We never feel like we need to get a plate tank to join us, I have been able to do everything up till now (I realize this could change).

Also, my group is pretty ideal; 2 nice dps, 2 healers, and me.  Gets the job done quick.

Lee - Drunken Monk
Brahma - Hayatet Shaman
Arisen on Flamehammer

I've been a dragon monk until lvl 36... Then I decided I'd had enough of my group's constant bitching about me being useless, and since we didn't have a decent tank I decided to switch to drunken... Halfway into the Cragwind weapon quest.

I'm now lvl 37. On the one hand, my usefullness has gone up about 500%. My group suddenly absolutely adores the fact that I'm around, because we now have a stable tank. I can keep aggro by just cycling through mobs, spamming Jeering Kick, and throwing in the occasional Foolhardy Swagger. On the other hand, when doing shrine of the wind quest, at some point I had 5 lvl 35 4-dots bashing away at me, and our sorceror managed to draw aggro... Le't just say that at lvl 37, with people in the group who do a lot more damage than you, it CAN be hard to keep aggro αnd stay alive when faced with more than 3 mobs. You just can't attack them all fast enough, you can't do enough damage to keep aggro that way, nor get healed fast enough. It's not impossible though, if your group knows what it's doing and takes the limitations of a paper tank into account.
Please note that my Cragwind group does not do so, it's really just a disorganised bunch of people who are half the time NOT attacking the same mob, and  run away from me when they draw aggro instead of towards me. Which makes tanking a wee bit harder, and which makes me extra proud of managing to avoid groupwipes in Cragwind. Group consists of:
-Level 37 Ranger
-Level 38 Sorceror
-Level 36 Shaman
-Level 36 Dread Knight (Who SHOULD have been the tank, IMO, but he sucked. Honestly, WTF is the point of being a DK if you couldn't even tank to save your life?)
-Level 32 Cleric (I owe him my life. More than once he just ignored the sorceror when he drew aggro again, realising a dead me would result in a group wipe, whereas a dead sorceror just means a little delay in killing the mobs :P)
-Level 37 Monk (Me. Who did feign death once, during tanking... I mean, what's the point of dying if you can feign? Either way, the aggro WILL go to the rest of the group, and feigning means you can be useful later on in combat, or by pulling all corpses to a safe spot and reviving the cleric... For some reason, my group thought I should've just let myself die...  ::) Your opinions on FD during tanking, please? Is it cowardice, or a sound tactical decision?)

Anyway, I do not regret the switch and will happily stay intoxicated until level 50, I think, when I will reevaluate my skills and position in groups.

Finished the Cragwind Weapon quests now, nice bladed staff for the next few levels... Any thoughts on where to get a decent martial sword? :P

A Fair Point, I would say its a fair call to FD if

1) if your close to death and the Mob is close to death
2) you have more than 1 healer in the group
3) if your seriously out numbered

For a  Monk who's Tanking to FD in a fight can be a respectable tactical decision. Of course training your own group is going a bit to far ;D

Im a lvl 30 Drunken Monk and I often FD during tanking but I usually tell the group to start running or tell the caster to evac about 1 second before I FD.

I see it as a tactical advantage for the paper tank. 

Seems to me this threads a bit out of date, being as it doesn't take into account force-taunt changes, +hate stance changes etc.
Both Harmonious and Dragon have their own improvement threads, I think Drunken could use one as well.

Just wanted to see if any high-level drunken monks might want to pick up that torch. If not I may start a thread myself for such things (but being as I'm only 35 right now. I'd need lots of input anyway. However, I'm rising quickly and a good listener)

Anyway, I'll make up a little list and add it if anyone else starts it, or start it if not :)
Unless there are objections?

just adding some threads here fordrunken befroe they fall to far back


drunken concerns after gu3
http://www.vanguardmonks.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,27/topic,927.15/


monk changes wanted before gu4
http://www.vanguardmonks.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,27/topic,1026.0/