Vanguard Monks

I made a new Dragon Monk issue list with the updated and changed skills and issues.
Thanks to Chunli for starting this (I copy and pasted most of his/her list and added/changed a few things to have the current state. I merely redid this thread so we can keep it updated after Chunli "resigned".

[ Reference threads ]

• Monk Bugs/Issues thread (http://www.vanguardmonks.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,27/topic,383.0/)
• Monk Wish List thread (http://www.vanguardmonks.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,27/topic,407.0/)
• Stances discussion thread (http://www.vanguardmonks.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,27/topic,532.0/)
• Dragon Monk skills at 50 thread[/url(will update this asap)] (http://www.vanguardmonks.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,27/topic,585.0/)
• Wow..either slap in the face or bugged storm dragon stance.. (http://www.vanguardmonks.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,27/topic,747.0/)
• Dragon Issues (http://www.vanguardmonks.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,27/topic,575.0/)

[ Dragon Monk Skills at lvl 50 ]
Thanks again to  Chunli for starting this. The skills with more prominent yellow titles have either had the tooltip changed or changes in values in general.

• Attacks (http://www.tascha.ch/artwork/attacks.jpg)
• Finishers (http://www.tascha.ch/artwork/finishers.jpg)
• Buffs and Misc (http://www.tascha.ch/artwork/buffs.jpg)
• Aums (http://www.tascha.ch/artwork/aums.jpg)
• Stances (http://www.tascha.ch/artwork/stances.jpg)
• Counters (http://www.tascha.ch/artwork/counters.jpg)

[ Stances ]

• Storm still does not proc on multiple targets if using an AE and it procs.
• Dragon icon does not go away when you change out of the stance.
• Lowest Storm Dragon Stance seems to be bugged and not proc for what it is supposed to (can't verify  this myself)
• Need clarification about storm dragon mitigation penalty and how it is supposed to be calculated
• Seeing that clerics get titles with their affinities - why not give us monks titles linked to level and stance?

[ Area Effects ]
Our Divine AE Finishers have been slightly adjusted and are better after the changes. However lets break down the AEs which are supposed to be the Dragon's Strength:

• Divine finisher chain
  (1) Divine Typhoon 4 = melee damage + 492 (10 END, 1 min refresh)
  (2) Divine Avalanche 3 = melee damage + 516 / 540 (10 END, 1 min refresh)
  (3) Divine Tsunami 1 = melee damage + 618 ( 5 END , 1 min refresh)
• END using AEs
  Whirling Storm 5 = melee + 143 (34 END)
  Dragon Rakes Its Claw 3 = melee +  292, frontal only  (40 END)
• Jin using AE
  Dragon Breath 1 = 1030 - 1086 dmg, frontal only (8 Jin, 10 min refresh)

SO we have a 3 part AE chain, a normal AE, and 2 frontal AE attacks. Refresh times have been adjusted to our ae finishers (down to 1minute) but low damage and high end costs on Dragon Rakes Its Claws still hurts a lot.  Even though the timers were adjusted to 1 minute the AE finishers are still nowhere where they could be with the current damage. Chunli suggested 400% and I agree that this would by no means be overpowered.

Another Problem is that AE in groups is hardly ever an option. In my opinion we only have one finisher that is unique to Dragon Monks that is really always usable. What we need is at least another finisher that can be used in any situation.

Dragon Rake's it's Claw is way too costly with 40 End. Without Aum Ti you can get it off for 3 times before totally rendering yourself useless and having to wait for a crit to do more ae damage.

Dragon Breath Damage has been increased for some nice damage but honestly 8 Jin and a 10 minute refresh – meh. And it's frontal cone only.

[ Additional Skill Breakdown ]

• Dragon's Rage does pitiful damage for a 5 minute refresh/4 Jin cost. (353 -376 damage, always crits) and does NOT CRIT IF YOU MISS. Reduce the refresh greatly and it could be worth using. As it stands right now – it's a button to click to get a crit (if you are lucky).
• Cloud Dragon's Ruse is now at 2 minute refresh opposed to the old 5 minute/6 Jin attack. (melee + 350, , and always opens a finisher) which makes it a bit more worth using. The 1 second stun is still totally useless seeing the 2 second GC and only H2H weapons being viable to be beyond the 2 second cool down for auto attack.
• Three Finger Strike and Hammer Fist have had their damage adjusted slightly. Palm Explodes the Heart is still not worth to be a lvl 50 finisher. The chain we get like every other monk still does more damage in two hits then PEH in three. As it stands now Three Finger Strike and Hammer fist together do about the same damage as Thousend Fists or Thundering Fists alone (if it goes well..) and most of the time do more damage then PEH.  Why do we get so much hard coded damage as opposed to %?
• Lets have Thousand Fists chain have a chance of hitting 3 times, ala Windsong. Make it use weapon % mod rather than melee dmg + . Would also be nice to have a 3rd chain in this series.
• Gouging/Sundering Dragon Claw - Make them use weapon % mod, not melee damage + .

[ Aums ]

• Aum Liat should have the negative effect of having all attacks cost 25% more END removed, then it would be worth using
• Aum Ti should have the dodge component put back into it, but at the moment it is the Aum that Monks use once they have it
• Aum Kor needs to have more than 10% melee haste. Actually melee haste is basically useless with fists IMO. The ones you get at higher levels are all less than 2 delay. So anything that gives you haste is useless since using a skill resets your autoattack timer. And with less than a 2 delay, you will always get a swing in before your global cool down is up. Would be nice to see specials NOT reset your auto attack swings, therefore making haste beneficial to all classes, not just the ones that use a 2 hander, or really slow 1 hander.
• Idea for Aums/Secrets - lets have each style of Monk have a Secret/Aum unique to them. Also, you could probably make it so that Aums affect the group

[ Buff and Fluffs ]

• Jin Surge should not be consumed on a miss, on a buff, or on an autoattack. The buff should only be consumed on the next special attack. Jin surge should also not cancel out your finisher chain when you use it. Or better yet make it for the next 10 seconds type of buff.
• Aspect of the Spirit Dragon I do like the levitation aspect but for the jin cost and the chance of how fast invis breaks (including levitation), it's just insanely stupid. Make levi stay up even if invis breaks and lower the jin cost drastically. I also don't see any reason for this to be such a high level skill.
• FD needs after the stealth changes from the 11th May Patch some more testing. Some mobs take too long to wander back to their spots which makes FD pulling more of a pain then a reliable tool..
• Storm Stride still does not always teleport you to the target. Mainly seems bugged if you are moving or if the mob is partially behind an obstacle (low rock or stone). On top, using normal skills after Storm Stride doesn't apply the weaknesses it should.
  
  To make it not only a fluff spell: Why not add a little stun to the pve version? After all we are suprising the mob but even though we attack them from behind they even get in some hits before we do our attacks.
  
  For the PvP version make the same but probably adjust the recast (would need testing to not have it overpowered. It would at least add some kind of means for the monk to keep victims from running away.
• Iron Hands still has stacking issues. Sometimes it adds damage, sometimes it subtracts damage.
• Secrets currently use int again for base numbers.
• Heals currently use vitality again for base numbers.

[ Meditation ]
It would be nice to have some kind of effect so groups know that we are not just sitting around. Requested to restore the animation when learning an ability in meditation to what it was in beta - the same cloud rings, but you rising gently off the ground. What would also be easy to do, is adding a levitation / buoyancy effect to meditation all of the time, perhaps with a pulsing icon similar to the ones you see when you change stances.

Also, while meditating for new Dragon Skills, upon learning and switching back to meditation the chain icons get messed up. Some vanish and only relogging resets the bar to what it should be. This happens every time.

[ Weaknesses ]
For supposedly being the masters of opening up weaknesses there is much room for improvement. Even though most groups don't even look at this feature..

We open up

• Enraged
• Shaken (x2)
• Vulnerable

We exploit

• Enraged
• Dazed
• Staggered
• Soul Wracked

Maybe add in some vulnerability add/exploits to some more of our attacks, even if it means our finisher chain attacks, to really make us the masters of opening vulnerabilities. Don't need to exploit more of our own, just add in more options since that was one of the things we were told we could do well.

[ Conclusion ]
As it stands right now, every class in Vanguard can dish out dps. It seems that Sigil doesn't really know where the monk should chime in. We are supposed to be (together with rogues) the DPS classes of this game, however we are about the same as most other melee classe if not behind in damage output without having anywhere near the variety of skills other classes have and can contribute to groups.

Our Base Damage needs to be looked at again and not to mention that itemization still hurts specially pre-50. Most weapons are usable by Disciple too and most of them have vit/energyhealing stats.

[ Off topic ]

• WTB class specific armor at higher levels. Rahz Inkur looks like a pretty good spot to do this in. Could even have some of the stuff come from Nusibe. Make it start in Afrit, and gather armor drops from Rahz/Nusibe, as well as catalysts for the armor. Lets even toss in a new quest line that maybe takes us through all of the 45+ areas for another series of weapons. Graystone is nice and all, but lets see new stuff that will keep people playing and occupied when they hit 50.
• Animations have been adjusted a bit but could still be a bit less repetitive. Specially while using secrets most of the animations get replaced by a plain punching move

It is our understanding, well maybe interpretation, that by picking Dragon Style we give up group utility and evasion in favor of damage. Should we not stand head and shoulders above the other monks in damage? Also we should be pretty damn close to Rogues that are sneaking/behind/etc. (they have great utility in their darts/flechettes now, whereas before they had none to speak of). Rangers can have their edge in longer fights as they study the target or whatever. Groups should have a tough time deciding which melee DPS they want. A  Monk should be one of those choices.

Any additional input you have, let me know and I update the list accordingly.

Amazing post. Mad props !  :coolsmiley:

I would like to add the request to restore the animation when learning an ability in meditation to what it was in beta - the same cloud rings, but you rising gently off the ground. What would also be easy to do, is adding a levitation / buoyancy effect to meditation all of the time, perhaps with a pulsing icon similar to the ones you see when you change stances.

^
That's a nice idea, I'll add it to the list.
I am currently reworking Chunli's Overview of our lvl 50 skills and copy and pasting them into images. I'll post them as soon as Photoshop stops acting up on me.

Updated

I'm Just wondering why our secerts use int? I mean I never have never will put any points in int as it is useless to me I rather put them in str, dex, vit, so wouldn't it make more sense to go off our dex or str as a base vaule for the secerts?

It's an old bug that has been reintroduced with the latest patch (both secrets and our heal are supposed to be hardcoded and shouldn't take any stats into consideration)

Hmm, it's been like this forever no?
Ignore Pain (at 50) does for me 1373 (which is roughly a 25% heal, while decent enough, isn't all that with it's 5 minute reuse) with no vitaility adjusments (either from adventuring points or gear) and scales up with vitality buffs (which it always has). So far, I've not seen any mentions that it's supposed to be hardcoded (more than from players), and the same about secrets - the only changes I've seen in notes are the invisible dps upgrade on secrets, and the actually visible heal upgrade on Ignore Pain.
Dosen't mean I agree with it thought, but there's a diffrence between stated (I could be wrong here and have missed something though!) and what player base wishes. I wouldn't be willing to bet that the developers are even aware that it's based from vitality, the rather high base heal might be the level they think the monk self-heal is at currently; same with secrets.

Hmmm. now that you mention it - I am not 100% sure either.

However I think I recall QTM stating that it shouldn't be affected by stats.
Could we have an official statement on this Quinn?

The heal was always quite weak but I don't think they intended to give as a really good heal anyway. One of the reason I chose Kojani Monk is the second racial heal I get on top of the one we have as monks.
I don't have it in the list per se because I don't think the heal as it is now is a real issue. It certainly belongs in the "nice to have" list if we were asking for a better heal.

Either way, an official statement on the issue would be nice.

Those skills were not supposed to be modded by int / vit.. I posted something to that that effect on the SV boards.

~QTM

(http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/8278/screenshot00010tm6.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
(http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/7921/screenshot00012df6.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
(http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/7917/screenshot00011ky8.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
(http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/5003/screenshot00014wa8.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
(http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/7362/secretfireme3.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
(http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/8873/screenshot00013cm9.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)

quin u wrong
i m sure to 100% all the secret use intelligence as primary stat
Ignore pain use vitality as primary stat

^
huh?

he said they are not SUPPOSED to be affected. That means currently they are but shouldn't be..

I switched from Harmo to Dragon to test it out... By comparing our offensive stances I was kinda expecting to do at least equal damage, maybe more but draining my endurance a bit less.

I was very dissapointed. Because I get less crits, I relied more on regular attacks and Boundless fists+6th dragon strike specificaly. And those are very expensive. Are we ok with the costs?

Dragon Stance and Stone Dragon stance are both jokes. The regen from dragon stance is pitiful at best, and the mitigation of the stone dragon even worse. While I could possibly accept that the dragon stance with it's regen is supposed to be a neutral stance with minor bonus, the stone dragon do need a good buff. I didn't feel like a "stone" at all.

Another thing I felt I lost was my dodge counter. I traded "Steal the Wind" which is a decent well balansed counter, for an AoE stun and damage. As you have stated AoE is situational and it really isn't ever used in a group. If this counter was a stun without a damage portion, it would be great to have. As it is... well... I soon forgot about it.

Pretty much spot on.

I wish they would forget about the AE - it's really only a fluff thing and to be honest at lvl 50 I can kill 2 green 2dots but even then I have troubles with end using your aes..it's quite stupid really.

I use the thousand fist finishers mostly. It's the one that has the best accuracy and damage. If I only miss once on PEH I am SOL.


I don't have much troubles with crits but I agree that the endurance specially on 6th dragon strike feels high.

I want to say thank you and appreciate the hard work and effort put into this topic.  Very good work Kyomi. 
   Let me state that I play on Shidreth pve server and am a half elf dragon monk lvl50.
Dragon Monks are pretty much fubar'ed atm in this game.  Some serious changes for the better need to be done.  We are a joke for being beneficial to groups,  except for the fact that we do damage and not even very good damage.  Not many groups will choose our class over the other light fighter classes mainly because we only do dmg.  No group buffs is lame.  Jin Surge is garbage.  The high lvl weapons are a joke for the monk class being that there are only about a handful of good weapons to use. How is it when using the graystone bladestaff of purification vs. the alul's claws and hand of the god king on my offhand I notice very little difference in effectiveness.  So many issues to be addressed and changes to be made to this class and why am I and others paying monthly to pay for the game at the same time explaining bugs and problems which need to be corrected. 
edit for spelling 

On stances:

IMO, the first issue that needs to be corrected for Dragons is Storm Dragon leading to 0.00% mitigation. That is in no way justified because it's way too harsh a penalty for a stance you need to be in to deal okay damage. When considering dread knights get just an endurance penalty for theirs and clerics get a healing penalty, why are we getting shafted into glass bee bee gun status? Plus, dread knights can still attack and clerics can still heal in their respective offensive stances. We, however, cannot mitigate at all. I've even tried wearing as much physical resistance gear possible, and it doesn't get me above the 0.00%.
Second: either the lower attack speed needs to go on Stone Dragon, or the mitigation bonus needs to be increased. Preferably both.
And for Dragon stance: shouldn't all stances be worth keeping up in groups? Double or triple the healing value, and you still won't make us overpowered... as a 37 Orc monk, I have roughly 3.8k HP unbuffed. 51/2 seconds is hardly enough to heal even scratches. When considering mobs hits for 250 at least, 150 healing every 2 seconds would actually be a moderately useful thing to have. Another thing to consider is adding 'focus' items to the game that enhance this stance's healing (Fungi tunic, anyone?).

Repost to emphasize the harsh penalties on Storm Dragon Stance. Quinn, do you have any idea why they changed it for the worse a while back? How do they explain having worse mitigation than a cloth wearer while doing our main job?

As someone else mentioned regarding our mitigation... when you rush in blind your still wearing the same amount of armor... additionally, when your adrenaline is juiced up, the body tends to not lose blood as fast, not feel pain as well.. in that context, lowered mitigation makes no sense and never has.  I'd much rather see them apply a penalty to dodge/parry as an alternative.  If your going in focused on causing damage, your going to leave yourself more exposed to taking hits (not how easily your injured), it's an alternative that makes sense.  My 2 copper anyways

As much as we're all enjoying the greatly appreciated GU 3.3 changes... am still very curious how we're comparing to other monk classes.  Be real interested to hear how we're comparing, and whether or not there may be some Dragon monk specific enhancements coming Quinn...

Would be nice if dragon monks got a "find the center" type ability, both drunken and harm get one - dragon monks get...? invis? that everything anywhere you would actually need it see's thru?

oh, and i know this has probably been touched on 100 times already but 3rd chain aoe finisher? bleh? i mean its great if i want to....slay 30 greys at once, maybe instead of a 3rd aoe finisher, throw one on top of our dragon mastery finishers, or both!

I have been a dragon monk since launch.  After tryin to consistantly solo mobs, and failing, I finally broke down and went harm.  There is 0 reason to be a dragon monk right now.  I soloed a 47 4dot (ich) without taking a single point of damage.  He didn't hit me once.  I do much better as a harm.

Our find the center is sun dragons corona I guess, which is one of the worst abilities ever...  Angry!

Huh, i don't feel i have too much problem solo'ing mobs granted i don't think i've ever taken a 4 dot mob.. is that possible? are you drunken and harmo monks able to solo a 4dot of blue or even con? heck even lblue ?

sun dragons corona is semi useless and ifs being compared to find the center then we are truely jipped. its partially useful for apw where some mobs ae fire, but definately no where even in the ball park of what i'd trade to have find the center.

I'm resaonabilty happy with dragon, tho i do admit i don't find myself using many of the abilities - i do the usual chain of cresent kick, finishers, maybe a boundless fist or 2, jin surge and feet of fire kick (gets decent with a crits, have had a few 4-5k dots, usually 1.5-2k) i use aspect of spirit dragon for SNARFs and giggles only really, and the frontal ae is great!....well great for building jin with no mobs around, or slaughering that group of grey lvl 8 mobs you just ran thru...


oh - had an idea how bout give dragon monks an extra fist of fire and fist of ice? would increase dps, easy to implement and would kinda be in line of what everyone else has, just a step up.

I've never been a drunken monk.  But as a dragon monk I could solo 4 dot level 47s about 50% of the time.  As a harm I can solo them about 95% of the time (I failed once due to tons of unusual misses).

There are just no skills at all as a dragon.  Dragon breath is meh.  Aspect is useless and only good if you are going to invis your defensive target as the invis put on you is terrible, but defensive invis is perfect.  Feet is a good skill when used with jin surge.  The AoE finisher is useless. 

The main thing with dragon is the steep penalties for stances, which make no sense.  In offensive you have 0% mitigation.  In defensive your dps is even worse due to slower skills.  HP regen is terrible.

Jin regen with harm is awesome.  30% crit if you are using aum ti is amazing.  Parry + Dodge 8% is awesome with lowered end costs.  Nothing is really being penalized.  Not to mention I do more dps over a longer period of time due to armor/damage debuffs.  If you don't kill something quick with a dragon monk, you can't go the full 10 rounds.

Still angry, but love harm since its so overpowered.  :)

Uh if youve never played a harmonious your seriously missing out on monk potential.  Like mbchrono said, you can solo blue and light blue 4 dot mobs relatively easily.  Ive been telling people for a while that harmonious is the way to go, becase at the moment they are ridiculously over powered in comparison to dragon. 

the only time ive solo 'ed a 4 dot as a dragon is at 50 fighitng lvl 36 grey 4 dots. 

Sun dragons corona is a total joke of an ability in comparison to find the center/magnificent drunken swagger.  It needs to be an offensive buff.  That being said im done ranting, im just getting tired of dragons being so far worse, and how i feel like i beg to get changes for dragons when harmonious constantly get buffs and upgrades when they really didnt need them before hand. 


i do agree with mbchrono again though, dragons penalties are way to steep, coronoa and aspect and dragon breath are worthless,  the 3rd ae to the finisher chain is ncie dmg but again worthless for 90% of dmg situations.  Hp regen would be better if they scaled it to your max hp.  maybe 5% per 5 seconds. 

I wouldnt mind dragon having such harsh penalties if we had enough dps to kill the same mobs harmonious can take out 95% of the time, just much faster

I played with dragon a little before going harmonious. I would say the 20% melee slow on dragon defense stance is better than the 20% dps drop in harmonious, but other than that Harmonious wins out (even in defense stance). The melee slow doesn't affect abilities where as the -20% dmg did. Even still, i could hold agro in small groups when I needed to in harmonious defense stance.

Now granted, I'm only 29, but take the 3 dot Skrillien mobs near UDG. They hit me for about 180-220 (I have around 8-9% mitigation). Deadly Adder Hand 2 drops this to 120-160ish, that alone is worth more than the AC from dragon in *any* stance. Add a few lucky quivering palms (since Crane increases parry) and the mobs hit softer than most yellows at that level.
As far as 4 dots go, most of the greens ones i can solo no problem. Blues take quite a bit of luck still.

Does anyone know on average how much the 15% mitigation debuff,  eagle claw,  adds to dmg? In a full group, at least leveling up, I would have to say the benefits of harmonious (both in self buffs and group utility), blow dragon out of the water.

 Uh if youve never played a harmonious your seriously missing out on monk potential.  Like mbchrono said, you can solo blue and light blue 4 dot mobs relatively easily.  Ive been telling people for a while that harmonious is the way to go, becase at the moment they are ridiculously over powered in comparison to dragon. 

the only time ive solo 'ed a 4 dot as a dragon is at 50 fighitng lvl 36 grey 4 dots. 

Sun dragons corona is a total joke of an ability in comparison to find the center/magnificent drunken swagger.  It needs to be an offensive buff.  That being said im done ranting, im just getting tired of dragons being so far worse, and how i feel like i beg to get changes for dragons when harmonious constantly get buffs and upgrades when they really didnt need them before hand. 


i do agree with mbchrono again though, dragons penalties are way to steep, coronoa and aspect and dragon breath are worthless,  the 3rd ae to the finisher chain is ncie dmg but again worthless for 90% of dmg situations.  Hp regen would be better if they scaled it to your max hp.  maybe 5% per 5 seconds. 

I wouldnt mind dragon having such harsh penalties if we had enough dps to kill the same mobs harmonious can take out 95% of the time, just much faster

:embarassed:

i was under the impression that anything over 2 dots was un soloable now i know dk can solo god if he was in game thats a no brainer.

but seriously harm n drunk monks can solo 4 dot blues??..man my dragon monk is my main i played him full time to get where he's at sounds like other styles played there part time. and got there monks redy in half the time :o

now dont get me wrong you harm monks n drunk monks go for it man i have no beef with  urs styles at all i just made a wrong choice to what i belived would be the most fun for me to play   but im pretty much convinced  as far as apw my style of monk is a washout  .

there no way i can re roll another monk n get it rdy for the guild in a month to raid. :'(

these forums has great info n peeps but there to damn depressing to me lol

You don't need to reroll. You can easily switch to another mastery.

All you do is talk to the guy who described the three styles (the one your trainer sent you to). He has you talk to the monks of the other two styles. Then you just start a mastery quest from the beginning.

Remaster before Jan 3rd (Thats when Randolph goes away) so its much easier.  You can switch in about an hour if you can fly.

Like I said though, why would anybody want a dragon monk in their group when they get can a str debuff, 2 damage debuffs,  melee haste debuff, and a mitigation debuff.  Not to mention if by some small chance a raid mob agros a harm monk he can dodge 100% for 20 seconds.  If a raid mob agros a dragon monk in storm stance, he is goin down in 1 - 2 hits. 

I tried to solo TWO 4 dots (level 56 and 57 in ich tunnels) today, and succeded with nerve strike.  I quickly dps the first guy while the second is stunned.  Use Celerity + Jin Surge + PeH and destroy the first one fast.  You should be able to take him down before the back guy is unstunned.  Then finish off the back guy with basic quivering palm/RitW.  Though I am a quali human I can also avoid all damage for 10 seconds..  Might not be able to solo 2 4dots 100% of the time. But it IS possible to do this.

Well, actually that s how pulling works in APW ... one monk uses his melee immunity skill to tank the bunch of mobs and the other monk pulls one off and FDs in the camp.

without melee immunity the Dragon monk has sad options when it comes to APW split pulling.

And nope, unless you bug the mobs in walls or exploit the fact that they return home if you run farther than 100m from their homepoint, there s no other way to split pull there.

Reed in the Wind and Iron skin both are pretty nice, but way too unreliable that it makes sense to get em out of the spellbook .. one increases melee mitigation, the other melee evasion, but just not enough, even if you use them both at the same time

Hi colleagues,

I've just re-subbed to VG and wondered about a few classic Dragon issues:

- Anything scheduled for Dragon's Breath?
- Will Sun Dragon's Corona ever be changed to just an innate fire + ice mitigation bonus - say 30%, plus perhaps a fire and ice DoT purge every few seconds, similar to the new Diamond Body?
- Will the horrendous penalty on Storm Dragon stance ever be reverted, much less abolished ?
- Would it be possible to add a fire resistance debuff to Feet of the Fire Dragon to allow us to increase our own DPS? Along those lines, how about an ice debuff added to the last step of the Divine line? Then we might be able to get a dmg bonus from the Dragon abilities called Secret of Fire and Ice...

I'd like to hear about this, if at all possible.

1) yes dragon breath is scheduled to have its dmg uped, it was supposed to be uped before xmas but didnt make it in, still not on test.  It really needs to be way up there dmg wise cause atm its worthless
2) there are plans to change sun dragons corona, but not any time soon, the general consensus is we want something to increase dps (without giving an ae proc)
3) Supposedly all monks stances are being balanced now, since harmonious has grown way to powerful and is atm overshadowing the other two, shame it took this to happen for drunken/dragon to get attention
4) Dragons still need a lot of work and are probably less dps then harmonious now. changes are slow, almost to slow for me and i grow very tired and upset with how long well have to wait before dragosn are balanced (probably march imho)

Huge ditto... monks in general waited way too long to receive any sort of attention, and still accept for Harmonious, alot of work lays ahead.  While monks are at least playable now, and always have been very enjoyable to play even when totally Fubar'ed... I think we've been more than patient, and respectfully I'm asking for more immediate attention.

Ok, i don't play harmonious, i don't play drunken, while i occasionally read about them, i don't comment.  I dont want to tell them what they do/don't want for their class.  So to The Dragons...

What are we looking for in this class?

Yes i know it has to be in balance with other character classes... but for us that's a good thing, as we're pretty sadly behind the other monk types, and especially behind the other dps classes.  I personally still disagree with our 'utility', our usefullness to a group setting being brought through AoE attacks.  Groups i join just scream at me when i do this ;p
It's bad for the group, bad for me.  It takes utility away from crowd control based character classes.  It's not a win for anyone.

So what do we really need?  And we need to look at the whole experience, not just top end.

As usual im at work and didn't get to finish my thoughts.

If you look back to games like EQ, you'll see where classes were imbalanced, in many cases not very functional in groups, and the solution to this was to fix it after you began getting AA's.  End game fixes aren't the answer to any problem.  There needs to be balance throughout the leveling experience as well to make it worth reaching.  Too often in games i've seen where there's classes or abilities (Vg Monk has alot of the ability issues) that weren't where they needed to be until end content and lvls were reached.  Suddenly carrying around this baggage for 30+ lvls was worth it.  Suddenly there was purpose, utility, and everyone was happy.  It's thinking like that which has caused so many games to lockout new players, or force them to be carried along by friends/guilds til they reached the point when they became a viable, playable class.  I can recall an experience in one beta run i was doing where... my character had a spell to buff pets, but had to wait 4 more levels to have one to cast it on.  Abilities in Vg like Pushing Hands, Sun Dragons Carona, Many of the aoe attacks monks receive.. need to be useful, in solo and group play, usable, and desirable... having an ability that doesn't suit the concept of the class/archtype is just wasted filler... give them something they can/ will use.  Not another button just to sit on the bar... or be removed because we'd never touch it. 

That's as bad as giving us 3 weapons that are exactly the same;p