Vanguard Monks

So havent heard anything from you or any developers since a week before christmas, and i was wondering a few things.

1) When are they planing to reevaluate monk stances since currently they are all fubared (dragons offensive and drunkens defensive most notably)
2) Sun dragons corona,,, any word on when its going to be made into something useful? (personally i dont care what as long as its a dps tool and not an ae)
3) Are there plans to increase the non ae dmg of dragons or are we now planed to sit second seat to harmonious monks?
4) Are there any plans to make secret of transendence something like fire/ice where its perma on....if not can we atleast get the jin cost lowered.
5) Can we get the areas for reed in the wind changed to reflect the fact that they are gained at lower levels now
6) Dragons breath is still rediculously useless i know a dmg increase was planed any word on how much and when?  Its a  long timer on a skill that does very low dmg atm.
7)Drunken needs foolhardy swager fixed, i THINK the tank is resisting the hate gain portion atm not 100% but that might explain why they arent receiving the hate
8) Drunken slap hands is currently doing dmg to the drunken monk and not the target.  In fact we take double dmg, once from the hit we are supposed to be blocking, and again for the counter attack that hits us.  Is this skill supposed to completly block attacks?  cause the block message on tanks means the hit does 0 dmg not still hits us.
9) Can errant strike be checked, i have a hard time getting it to fire off if im the defensive target (which was how i used to use it to gain ae agro control) or even changed to just make it so all attacks ae, regardless of who the defensive target is?

Thats all for now....
theres other things like storm stride being buged if the mobs backs on a wall, etc but those are more general bugs

That's not entirely true, I've posted a bit here and there but, nothing of any class relevance. I know that Talsiker was to hit our bug list from the last update., but I have not heard much from the SoE side of the fence in the past week or so.

Anywho, replies in-line

1) When are they planing to reevaluate monk stances since currently they are all fubared (dragons offensive and drunkens defensive most notably) I specificly asked for a inter style balance pass on us with the goal to make the dragon style more viable.
2) Sun dragons corona,,, any word on when its going to be made into something useful? (personally i dont care what as long as its a dps tool and not an ae) Nothing new on this to report at this time
3) Are there plans to increase the non ae dmg of dragons or are we now planed to sit second seat to harmonious monks? See bullet 1
4) Are there any plans to make secret of transendence something like fire/ice where its perma on....if not can we atleast get the jin cost lowered. Its design was still to be listed as a potent short term battle buff. A case could be made however since you get it so late and only get 1 upgrade, Comparable to a Ranger's Talisman..... jotting this down for later.
5) Can we get the areas for reed in the wind changed to reflect the fact that they are gained at lower levels now. Known issue, no new info on this however
6) Dragons breath is still rediculously useless i know a dmg increase was planed any word on how much and when?  Its a  long timer on a skill that does very low dmg atm. I dont think the damage boost for this was applied correctly. I remember we were looking for a tweak in damage for this prior to it going live it never went in.
7)Drunken needs foolhardy swager fixed, i THINK the tank is resisting the hate gain portion atm not 100% but that might explain why they arent receiving the hate. Looking into this.
 Drunken slap hands is currently doing dmg to the drunken monk and not the target.  In fact we take double dmg, once from the hit we are supposed to be blocking, and again for the counter attack that hits us.  Is this skill supposed to completly block attacks?  cause the block message on tanks means the hit does 0 dmg not still hits us. It s dmg shield nothing more / less. There is a bug where you can basicly kill yourself if you have this active. Somewhere in these forums jojo has a screenshot of it.
9) Can errant strike be checked, i have a hard time getting it to fire off if im the defensive target (which was how i used to use it to gain ae agro control) or even changed to just make it so all attacks ae, regardless of who the defensive target is?  Errant Strikes. The desciption states that you gain an extra attack on whomever is attacking your defensive target. If you have aggro target yourself fire E.S. it should work...  Is this how you are using it??? I am not calling you out or anything It's just an odd-ball skill.

~QTM

Im still curious to find out how ppl consider Harmonious as the highest dps of the 3 masteries.
Personally, I think their stances are way too harsh to even be appealing.  The Tiger stance alone is pointless at higher lvls.  The crit rate of a higher monk is already high with the gear + buffs leaving the stance useless.  Crane is mediocre at best(my opinion).  Negative Endurance costs, Negative dmg.  It sorta evens its self out but just making you less dmging.

What makes them the "top" form? What am I missing here besides the debuffs?

As far as errant strike qtm

When solo and trying to take out 2-3 mobs at once *usually 2 or 3 dots* i target myself and try to use errant strike to ae the lot of them.  But sometimes even when im the only one on their agro list i dont get the buff icon for errant strike, it might have something to do with "auto defensive target self" not triggering not 100% ill see about getting some parses in but 5 min reuse is a bugger to parse




as far as harmonious and dps, they now have a 6 k dot that in essence doesnt 2k more dmg then a dragons best dot.  Harmonious has never been far behind dragon and with the northwind line they were usually only a few hundered behind (2,5k vs 2.2k ) now that their dot went from 700 dmg to 6000 its a bit hard to compare.   the offensive stance isnt what makes harmonious great.,,,its the fact they can sit in their defens stance 100% of the time and be a viable option....the minus endurance cost (that now stacks with aum ti) added to the fact they have higher dmg skills and the full benifit of drunkens defensive stance makes them pretty much godly in comparison.

Lets put it this way...drunkens defensive stance is 9% dodge/parry....harmonious is 8% dodge/pary + endurance cost reduction and at 50 the -dmg is so minimal its not even realy a penalty in comparison.

Errant strikes is very fussy. Sometimes it wont do anything, certain mobs it never works (Shylosia). Even after dropping both offensive and defensive targets and re-targeting the appropriate targets it still doesn't trigger. I think if the defensive target switches targets (or gets taunted) it fails. Also the buff rarely shows up on success or fail. Definately worth looking into why its failing as much as it is. Only getting use out of the ability maybe 80% of the time....and never on certain mobs.

ok, I understand all that which sounds good but when you say they can sit in their dps stance(offensive stance im assuming) and their a viable option.  Howso?  Their end cost goes through the roof and the crit rate is not even needed considering gear/lvl/buffs.  and I dont think you mean their defensive stance is their dps stance...

     I have yet to play a Harmonious Monk and do not know what their Northwind line is( could you please enlighten me on that one? ).   When you say they have higher dmg skills, what do you mean? Their regular straight forward attacks?  Or their chains/finishers? I was under the impression that Drunken had the strongest/most dmging chain/finishers no?

Defense stance not dps.

The one with -end cost AND +parry/dodge

THe north wind line basicly make the mob take 300 dmg everytime they attack ANYone (reverse damage shield)

Drunken has the most damage FINISHERS but the weakest regular attacks, but that just means drunken is only viable for dps at lvl 46+.  As far as skills go dragon get a 1800 dmg dot and harmonious get a 6k dot.  harmonious gets melee + dmg attacks and drunken gets a single 75% weapon + x dmg attack

Harmonious defensive stance is not so great lower lvl due to the damage decrease, but at 50 probably much better-until then you are stuck with either losing damage to defend or using the middle stance that gives you nothing.  all the stances need to be looked at.

Harmonious has only one real damage skill and thats the dot (Again Im talkin the lower lvls up to 30) but even at 50, in terms of damaging skills the Harmonoius gets basically that dot and the finishers.  The fact its competing with Dragon is not an error with Harmonious, its that Dragon is simply underpowered-considering the offensive stance gives a 24% boost to damage menas the Dragon overall should be doing much more damage when including his skills, but currently the dragon is screwed with a bunch of crappy ae attacks which are limited use at the best of times and not exactly huge damage, and a lack of decent single target attacks-as a Harmonious monk I like my defensive ability and debuffs, and these should make up for the fact Im not doing as much damage as the Dragon and should be the reason I can still kill 3 dot mobs, but the Dragon lacks these debuffs and it should his raw damage that allows him to defeat 3 dot mobs.

On another note, Deadly Adder Hand...does it definately still debuff str?  Im sure I read it the other day and had no mention of debuffing

Im pretty sure it does still debuff str.  The tool tips might have changed slightly but im pretty sure it does.

Can someone tell me what the dmg loss on lvl 50 deffensive stance is? Cause i cant remember any loss of dmg at the lvl 50 stance.

Endurance Attacks (dragon/harm/drunken)
Melee + 300 (ae) / ----------/---------- -------> Winner: Dragon by default but ae are worthless imho
1.7k dmg per 16 sec / 32 second str debuff, 4dmg over time and 2k on finish  / 230 dmg + forces the target to attack for 2 hits --> winner: harmonious
melee +302 / 239 dmg and minus 15% mitigation of target for 25s/ 75% weapon dmg +150---> winner dragon
Overall Ignoreing the ae since i dont consider it a viable form of dps, Dragon wins one and harmonious wins one, both of which the drunken cant compete, their 230+ force attack is now 30 second reuse and their other one is 75% weapon dmg.   Harmonious dot is 2 times the duration and OVER 2 times the dmg.  The third attack is debatable the + melee dmg gives dragons an edge, but the 15% mitigation debuff adds more dmg to all attacks for the next 25s which is arguable way better.  Overal id call it a tie.

Addition to standard monk finishers
350% (weapon+330) (AE)- follows divine ae line (30s reuse)
melee + 635 dmg - follows flying kick line (instant)
3x (melee +150) ----->3x( melee +177)   (TWO additional attacks to thousand fist one at 46 other at 50)
Overall Clear cut winner is drunken, with max refresh haste they can do it every 30 second.  Dragons doesnt even count because its an ae and 95% of the time aes are a no no.  Harmonious thus comes in second because the over all dmg per reuse time is incredibly nice.  Winner Drunken

Defensive Finishers (Dragon/harm/drunken
330 dmg + 3sec (ae) / 615 dmg, -15% target speed, increase self by 15%/ Melee + 500 (AE)
Winner: Harmonois their defensive finisher is instant reuse and not an ae.  Even if you do count ae, drunkens ae is melee + 500, dragons is just 330 + 3sec stun, both on a 1 min timer.  Winner Harmonious

Finishers- Original:
Melee +527, increase dmg of next atk by 50% ---4> k dmg over 6 sec
melee +530 dmg , reduces target dmg by 150 for 30 sec---->melee + 500 dmg, target takes 300 dmg every time it attacks for 30 sec
melee + 530, next hit garuntes crit-----> weapon dmg + 540
Winner: Tough call with changes to jin surge.  Dragons  melee dot didnt get much of an increase, not like PEH, deadly adder, or feet of the fire dragon, all of which basicly doubled.  overall id say harmonious has the slight edge for dps if the mob isnt being stuned / slowed alot otherwise id give to dragon.  Simply because even if a mob only attacks every 2 seconds for 30 seconds thats 4500 additional dmg and puts harmonious way up there compared to dragon.
Winner: Tie harmonious/dragon, with harmonious winning if the mobs attacking and not being stuned a lot

Conclusions
Endurance attacks: Winner Tie dragon/harmonious
Finishers (additions to current): Drunken> harmonious > dragon
Finishers (defensive): Harmonious
Finishers (unique): Tie dragon/harmonious

Personally it should be
End attacks: Winner Dragon by long shot/ harm second/ drunken 3rd (this categorie wont take to much just slightly upping the dmg on regular attacks)
Finishers (additions to current): Wouldnt touch this, i hate ae's but we are stuck with the divine line as dragons, only suggestion would be to make it a 10 sec reuse line
Finishers (defensive): Drunken --add a plus hate to it and make it 15 or 30 sec reuse.  and reduce dragons reuse timer to about 15/30......theres no way a 3 sec stun + 300 dmg should be 1 min reuse and a 600 dmg 15 slow/haste is instant reuse.
Finishers (original): Dragons needs its dmg uped on the second hit for sure they should be king of this categorie no matter what, harmonious should be a clear second which they would be if dragon was just uped.  6k dot over 5 seconds would seem reasonable at 50 our regular hits are for 2k+ every 2 seconds...

Not even gonna touch the stances, but we all know harmonious defensive stance is the clear winner at 50

In my experience, Errant Strikes does not turn your attacks into AEs  Rather, it is a quirky Fists of Celerity: Special attacks hit an extra time on your offensive target, provided that it is agro on your defensive target. 
I don't recall even in grouped situations it ever actually working as an AE. Of course, it basically went unused until the recent reduction in its refresh. 

I should note that I do not believe that I have had it fail if its use is understood in the above way.

When you guys mention Harm having a 6k dot.. You mean 6k per tick or 6k total dmg? just curious

6k total over 30 seconds (4k dot and 2k at the finish)
dragons is 1800 over 16 sec, so x2 = 3600 over 32 seconds  = 2400 less dmg then harmonious

The issue is not the fact that Harmonious dot is superior, it is after all just one attack.  The problem is, as Fuj has shown, the rest of the Dragons repetoire does not have the damage they should, to the extent that they don't even make up for the one Harmonious attack.  Though Im not sure why the Dragons dot is so weak-1800 over 16 seconds isn't exactly mass damage, in fact 6k in 32 seconds is not exactly all that powerful in the grand scheme of things, so the Dragon dot being so weak is certainly strange

Diagoras nailed it.  A 6k dot over 32 seconds is pretty week.  A sorc can cast a 6k dmg spell every 2 seconds and realisticly, a monk and do 6k dmg in 2-3 attacks at 50.   So yeah a 6k dot in general isnt the problem.  Its the fact this sing 6k dot adds 2k more dmg then the dragons and as such we have no answer to this skill.


1800 dmg over 16 is patheticly weak  all of the finishers with dots (gouging dragon and PeH) do on the order of 4-10k dmg over 4-5 seconds.   In 4-5 seconds feet of the fire dragon does about 450 ( i think it tics every 4).  IN fact the only reason feet of the fire dragon is good at all is jin surge.  Since it adds 350 dmg to each tic, the dot dmg increases by 1400, and thats almost double the dmg.  Add in a crit and the skill finally does the dmg it should. 

I have only tried dragon and drunken so far and after having changed to drunken i cant say i feel the urge to try harmo. I just love drunken monk when pulling APW.
1: they are much more dps on a long fight than dragon due to errant strikes and 4 hits of the thousand fists line
2: the 100% dodge for 15 seconds really makes a huge difference when pulling.

On a sidenote id like to curse SOE from here to eternity for nerfing drunken AE and single force aggro abilities  :tickedoff:

I have spoken with Talikser and we will be doing some inter style dps testing over the course of the next week. He is trying to get through our bug list but, obviously it has not happened yet.

Additionaly, we will be looking at the following of the dragon style:

• DPS, DPS, and DPS across teh board
• Mitigation Penalty
• Sun Dragon's Corona
• More Dragon Breath Changes

Before anyone asked, yes emphasised the fix to SoF / SoI animations fix.

~QTM

awesome QTM. 

i started a new sun dragon thread which im sure youve seen.   The 2 big suggestions where  strike through and int/spdf.

Let me know what he thinks of.

Sundragon 1: +x% strikethrough, +fire resists
Sundragon 2: +Y% strikethrough, +fire resists

vs

Sundragon 1: 100 int, +20% spdf, +fire resists
SUndragon 2: 150 int, +25~30% spdf, +fire resists.

I think overall people liked the more constant and simple nature of the spell dmg buff.  It affects dragon breath, secrets of ice/flame,trans, and offensive stance proc so its a hefty boost across the board.  Im gonna go find a monk item with sdf / sdr on it now to see how well they work

+50 sdf = 1.4% sdmg increase.  (took me from 100 spdmg to 102.
Although i noticed NO increase to secrets dmg with spell dmg focus.

Gonna test out some int again make sure it still works because i see no reason spdf shouldnt.

I really hope something is looked into about how harmonious overall defensive >then drunken overall defensive.
Diamond skin alone makes them a better choice for surviving.No other style gets anything even close to this perma on buff now.Perhaps giving each style a buff of some type based on each styles path.Although i feel this can be fixed with  just changing the benifits from them and adding it to the the styles as i see no reason for a perma on buff with styles .

There are some mobs in APW which are healed by certain types of spell damage.  On the ones healed by frost and fire, I've noticed they take less damage from our secrets with that type of damage, but they are not healed by it. 

My guess is the secrets are treated as melee damage of the appropriate type, not spells.

Most of Harmonious utility may be used when they are tanking (or off-tanking), but they dont have the aggro or rescues a Drunken can get, so they dont make good tanks.
In my opinion, a perma buff like Diamond body for each path would be great.
Something like "Lightning Soul" for the Dragon, giving for exemple 15% melee haste, 4 endu/6 secs and "Iron Mind" for the Drunken, giving 15% spell mitigation, and 5% crit for exemple.
Well something in line with the Diamond Body buff.
While its a very nice buff, it's not usefull at all when not soloing or tanking.

well to be fair drunken doesnt have the agro it used to, and its rescues are every 30 sec. 

Fool hardy swagger is still bugged.... doesnt give hate all the time/correct ammount
Slap hands is bugged ... it deals dmg to the monk instead of the target

Gonna call a big fat bull SNARF that diamond skin offers nothing while soloing/tanking.  Auto removal of specific spells and 30% ac does quite a bit, and i grow tired of harmonious monks trying to underplay their class to avoide the fact that they are over powered.

While i agree if harmonious monks are gonna get diamond skin all 3 styles of monk should have something similar.  Haste is 100% worthless as is 4 end/6 sec.  I reallize it was just a suggestion and thats why im not rip it up. Same goes for drunken...

I worded badly my statement : i was saying that Diamond Body was mainly interesting for soloing or duoing purposes, not for grouping when DPS > all.
The removal of effects is very nice, but is not usefull for every encounter.
Melee haste is probably worthless, then replace it with ability haste ?
Endu regen might not be a big issue when raiding, but would help a lot soloing or even casual grouping.

By fixing Dragon monks, lets just hope it doesnt make Harmo and Druken obsolete.
I play Harmo and havent tried other styles yet, but i play with a blood mage, a disciple, a paladin and a ranger oftenly, and i really dont feel overpowered compared to them (actualy, i feel the ranger and the bloodmage are overpowered. We are level 30 and the ranger has a required level 48 bow since he never removed it since the item level nerf, and overpowers us all. The BMG is just insane in terms of heals and DPS. The disciple has good dps, and heals without end.)

Since the game design was to have classes that are equivalent inside the same role, i always supposed that all monks should have the same basic DPS. Then, the Druken would have been better at tanking, the dragon better a AEing, the harmony at utility.
If one of the styles had a major advantage in terms of single target melee sustained DPS over the others (like it seems the Harmony have) then they would be massively favoured by the monks and other styles would be frawned upon.
The style having the highest sustained dps will always be considered as overpowered by the other two.

This is why i ask for different utility between styles rather than different level of DPS :)

I think they could 5x multiply dragons dps and not make the other 2 obsolete.  Dragons get little to no utility other then a levitate/invis.

There should be a solid 3 choices of monks.

Dragon: High dps, low tanking, low utility
Harmonious: Middle dps, middle tanking, middle/high utility
Drunken: Low dps, high tanking, middle utility (in the form of tanking skills)

Harmonious monks make a great baseline of the average dps a monk should do.   They have tons of debuffs (a few are while tanking only) and a solid defensive stance.  This choice of monk should be for people who dont want to give up all utility and chances of tanking just for dps.

Dragon: This should be a sacrifice choice.  You should lose all the debuffs/self survival buffs harmonious/drunken has in exchange for being the top choice for dps.  ALA your raid has 2 harmonious/drunken monks already, no need for a 3rd so you go dragon to fill the roll of a high dps class.

Drunken: The other side of the sacrifice, you give up dps but gain in tanking and self preservation.  This should be the choice for monks who want to live the longest while pulling and do the best at tanking in small groups (of the 3 monks).


What i would suggest is to use harmonious as a baseline.  Subtract from their dps and add to their tanking and you get a drunken.....Go the opposite, and add to their dps and subtract from their tanking and get dragon.


Its pretty close at the moment dont get me wrong.  It would only take 3-4 bug fixes and 2-3 changes per style and it would be perfect.  As far as perm buffs, i do feel is unfair that harmonious are the only one to get any form.

Drunken:
+ melee/spell mitigation, + x% parry/dodge, add a perm X% block, etc...it should clearly make them stand out as a tank

Dragon:
a perm buff is a hard call but above all else it should increase dps.  refresh haste is nice, endurance regen is nice, but since the change to a 6 sec timer, end regen is virtually worthless unless you get on the order of 20+,  to me it all really depends on what sun dragons corona turns out to be.  Id hate for the 2 to over lap.

Awesome news QtM, thanks.... nothing would please me more than being able to advise new up and coming monks that there's 3 equally appealing choices.  Currently i find myself too often suggesting the Harmonious monk.  I feel the Dragon (which im one) currently has too much going against him, and the Drunken seems watered down now.  I always thought the Monk breakdown was more like :
  Dragon, High DPS, Low Tanking, Low Utility
  Harmonious Low DPS, Middle Tanking, High Utility (Buffs/debuffs)
  Drunken:  Middle DPS, High Tanking, Middle Utility (Aggro control)
Perhaps the current Harmonious is a nice baseline to work from.  But it still seems the Dragon and Drunken need to be adjusted to properly fill their roles.  Would love to see the Dragon emphasis being less based on AoE as well.... in a game where Crowd Control makes or breaks most battles, it always seem misplaced to me.  A few attacks in this area are more than enough.  Too many of the Dragon specials are sitting overripe on my hotbar.  If all we have is DPS, which i more than welcome... can it be in the form of useable attack options.  If DPS is all we get, we should get it in Spades.

I have been actively telling all new monks / monks i group with on alts to respec and go for harmonious.   Many monks dont read these boards and most assume that dragon is the dps choice and just go for it.  After i suggest they try harmonious sooner, rather then later they are 99% of the time upset that dragon is so pathetic in comparison and that they waited so long to play a monk that can do something besides get hit real hard.

I agree with the ae's though. 
We have an ae stun (worthless, low dmg, 1 min timer, 3 sec stun)
Dragon breath (worthless low dmg , moderate jin, long reuse....soon to change i hope)
Divine finisher (i dont think i use it other then farming low level mobs, its nice dmg though, just wish it was an extra attack to PEH :-p instead of an ae)

1 ae is sadly more then enough for dragons.  our style specific endurance cost ae is instant reuse, more dmg then whirlwind, less enduracne cost then whirlwind, by and large no real reason to use anything but it

I could be just me but i dont see dps being a problem for monks. Im more than happy with my dps on raids. Me and the other monk in my guild are the ones taking most aggro from tanks. I have to FD on average 2-3 times during a trashkill to avoid getting splattered all over the walls. More dps and i would have to FD between each hit lol, which in turn would reduce my dps due to the FD time lol. I know vicus is a special case but couple of days ago i had an epic hit on him for 960k, noone else came even close to that. With the APW armor procing fists of celerity every so often i wonder if our dps is really that fubar?

Well once you get out of the raiding mind set. its very obvious that the other 95% of monks do need an adjustment to dps.  Especially at lower levels.  Games should never be based off of what gear at the end game offers.  FFXI made that mistake (among 400 others) and the low levels jsut suffer from it.

On the same note, fd costs almost no dps lost.  0 cast time, can instantly stand back up, and resume atk.  you lose 10 end and the 2 seconds of global cool down which is very minimal and no different then if you had an agro reduction ability other then fd on success removes 100% hate.

Well, I'll chime in on the DPS vs aggro thingie. It's not because you're taking aggro that you're dealing the most DPS. In fact, Rogues get hate reduction when sneaking, so could be dealing more damage for less aggro. Dragons would just need an aggro reduction self buff - because Goading Slap can only be used every thirty secs and having to FD all the time is no one's idea of fun.

Any update on this, was 2 weeks ago :-p QTM

Couple of notes:

1.  Harmonious has the worst penalty imo for an offensive stance.  40% endurance cost is huge especially with the revamp to endurance regen every 6 sec.  Can never use Aum Kor which provides a great advantage for dps.  I would much rather have a mitigation penalty than an endurance penalty. 

2.  I don't agree with AE being useless.  AE is useful for killing down spawned adds in some of the Raid encounters.  I do think dragon AE needs to be much improved.  Their AE benefits suck right now.

3.  I think drunken is too high on the dps ladder for monks,  They should be 3rd in the dps ladder as initially intended.

4.  In order for Harmonious to maintain their high dps they have to give up using their debuffs as they are low damage attacks.  In order for me to maintain my debuffs on a mob, I have to constantly keep using them in a raid encounter.  So in order to do high dps we give up our debuffs.  Of course this gives us options and provides utility. 

I would agree that dragon should have slightly more dps than a harmonious, but there real initial intent was to deal massive AE damage.  They definitely fall short on that.  I am not sure why dragon can't out dps a harmonious monk at this point given their offensive stance.  I do feel that drunken has too much dps in comparison.  They are supposed to have the least dps out of all monks.  However they were given a +22% damage offensive stance and an extra thousand fists finisher.  Does not make sense for a defensive monk.

I disagree on Dragon AEs. Britax Lightningfist (sp?) near Khal never said anything about attacking multiple foes at once. He said hard hitting, high endurance attacks. The only one that comes to mind is Six Dragon Strike.

AE attacks are worthless for Dragon, Period

Why would the most fragile melee class in the game want to draw aggro to themselves from multiple directions?

If i'm remembering right, harmonious isn't supposed to be a high dps class.  From various monks i've spoken with, harmonious seems to be the only one that's currently doing what it's supposed to.  Unless you count the currently bugged rescues keeping Drunken in the running.  Doesn't seem right that to work as intended, they have to be bugged.  Dragon meanwhile is still a flop.  Trying hard to hang in there and not switch to harmonious as most monks have... so far now, i'll just continue to feign death and wait for things to be set right.  Course, if i were patient... i'd not be playing a monk ;p

I'm curious. Would it be possible to remove the +hate from the Drunken's stances and create a toggleable buff instead? I think that would solve a lot of problems. With the changes to the Drunken monks recently, it is a good deal more difficult to hold agro, and it doesn't help having to use one of the less defensive stances in harder situations.

Also, It is of my opinion that while monks may be ballanced at the top of the scale. It may be a good idea to look further down the chain as well. Not saying this isn't being done, but most of the talk I see is of 45+ skills and abilities.

Lastly, I agree on the Dragon monk needed some assistance based on what I've read, but I also believe the drunken's could use a bit more toughness, especially at lower levels. I find it a bit strange that Harmonious has gotten a +30% armor buff that is continually running. The "tough stuff" strikes me as more a drunken thing.

There getting there though.

The changes to force-target taunts came about because, 3 or 4 tanks in APW on test were rescuing each other continuously and so sorcs could spam CV continuously without any fear of pulling aggro.

Now, no drunken monk was gonna be Main-Tanking in APW anyway, am i right?

So why did the force target changes affect drunken monks too, it makes no sense.
It seems like a heat-of-the-moment nerf without any thought for monks. A problem they won't acknowledge, because perhaps they can't fix it.
Maybe they will fix it, but as we all know monk has never been high on their priority list.
Seems like the whole "purpose" of drunken monk is void now.

The change was implimented not only to fix the people exploiting it but also to increase the overall level of difficulty and demand more player agro management. As it was every class could go all out DPS and just have anyone rescue them at any point.

I won't get into all the other reasons it was done and actually had to be  done for APW to work properly, but it was a very good implimentation.

I do understand what needed to be done for APW, however, with the revamp of th drunken monk (as well as all monk) our ability to hold agro has been deminished quite a bit. What with foolhardy swagger being broken (or innefective?) our tools are just not enough to grab agro quickly in an offtanking situation.

I'd also like to point out that prior to the monk revamp. Foolhearty swagger was a force-taunt with 5 attack duration (I beleive) and while I'm sure that this change is a good thing, it has also left us without a long duration force-taunt.

In addition to the suggestions outlined above. I would also recomend that Jeering kick have it's number of forced attacks upped. 2 attacks is roughly roughly 4 seconds (max)... given we aren't really the best tanks, I don't think there is much chance of us exploiting a larger number on this. I would recomend either an increasing number as we level (up to 4) or a flat 4 attacks. This would be enough to give a tank a bit of time to grab agro back, or allow us to build agro enough to help out a squishy.

They really need to give us forcetaunt back. Its partially working as instant force still tho. Last night i was able to chaintaunt a mob, next fight it only worked once....so its a little back and forth. Monks will die in apw forcetaunting so i dont see how this can be exploited. They should give it back to us imo.

Yeah drunken is FAR more dps than dragon with errant strikes and 4x thousand fists. What they should do was giving dragon those abilities and drunken the minor AE that dragon has as drunken has better defense and can take the hits from multiple mobs. (well better than dragon anyway)

As someone who played Dragon monk to 50, and then raided with dragon monk before switching to drunken can I say one thing?

Dragon monk is not THAT bad.  You all blow it way out of proportion, let's see some parser evidence to back up some of your claims of horrid dps.   And don't give me 4x thousands fists becauseyou are talking about 60k+ avg every minute and 45 sec (assuming you have a bard in your group), and ~25k every other 45 seconds or so.   Yes drunken get that, but dragon gets a pretty decent dot. a proc and much more flexibility with the weakness system.   I think without parsers everyone gets too caught up in a few big numbers, and forget about the little ones that add up during a long boss fight which is really how monks play in a lot of other MMO's.  To really max out dragon's damage you have to play it much differently, make sure your dot is always up, obviously still spam explodes the heart, and thousand fist chains as much as possible, but you also need to to make the most of our weaknesses much more than drunken because you aren't constantly firing off chains throughout the whole fight.  The end result is much closer damage wise than you would think, I did not switch from dragon due to the poor DPS and would go back if I wasn't needed for corpse dragging (frankly put, the perfect dodge abilities harm and drunken get are not needed at all for pulling they are just easy buttons).

Dragon does not need a full revamp, AoE IS useful on MANY fights (not to mention that behind exploding heart line, thousand fists, and dragon's own finisher line it is the most powerful finisher vs. one target), and with raid endurance the way it is dragon is by far the best AE'er of the three due to their style specific cone.

I also disagree that it should be as simple as highest dps, middle, lower.  I don't remember that ever being the case, even in beta and at launch all the damages could be pretty close, it is just about different ways to reach those numbers.  All classes should have different things to offer like has been said, harmonious has their utility/debuffs, an awesome dot and what not, drunken has spike damage (for aggro)y, and dragon has AoE, a proc, and the best endurance attack (as it says high endurance cost, high damage Six Dragon Strike along with it's enraged exploit blow any other styles endurance attack out of the water).

I think they should as much as possible try to work within the current parameters of the different styles, when you change things too much that is when you end up creating more imbalances and just end up hurting the entire class.

I like the idea of possibly adding INT or something that further boosts secrets to dragon monks,fix drunken's hate transfer onto defensive target, but I really think very little needs to be done as far as class balancing even if i am in the minority with that opinion.

If none of you are willing to put up numbers, next time my guilds farms entry wing or something I'll try to do some parses with dragon vs. other styles (although Quinn sounded like he was doing this already).

I'm not saying dragon doesn't need some help, but I'm worried they are going to either go overboard and end up getting the whole monk class nerfed, or scaling back the other two styles enough that you have to choose between 0 utility or poor dps, and to be honest if that is the choice I'm parking myself in group 4 and going to alternative strategies for pulling etc.

Ill throw up some numbers...
We did megafluxer (summoned mob in library) 40+ times.
My average dps over 40 fights (drunken)-- 4600 dps ( only 1 legendary weapon, and no 5 piece dmg proc)
Better geared harmonious --- 3200 dps (2 legendary weapons, 5 piece dmg proc)
Rogue average dps was about 4000 but i think thats cause one rogue was doing dkp and the other dies to much.

Nother example:
We did x99 last night, i died at 50% , didnt get rezed till 40 %, got 0 rebuffs, and came out 3rd, above sorcs, druids, necros, and a harm monk.  All of whom were alive the whole time.


With raid buffs, thousand fist is a 25 second cool down.  Thats 8 seconds of doing thousand fist, then 16 of waiting for the next.  That added to the fact a harmonious monk will cap his dps with max raid gear and offensive stance (about 10-20% over the crit cap)  They cant compete with drunken even if they keep withering palm up.

1) Feet of the fire dragon: its not that good, its dmg is actually less then auto attack.  With jin surge and a crit, your stil looking at 1.2k per 4 seconds which is FAR under auto attack.
2) dragons AE are TOO situational with dps, ae are useful for certain cituations, but they are few and far between, and 90% of the time the monk will die if they ae.  they dont need 7 ae.  3 finisher and the one standard are plenty
3) Dragons SHOULD out dps drunken in current raids, i just cant parse them since we have none, they are worthless for pulling without invuln.  My real issue is that their offensive stance needs the penalty removed, and they dont need 7 aes
4) Fluff spells like aspect of the spirit dragon and sun dragons corona need to be made into more usefull spells.
Sun dragons should be a dps buff with fire resist not a worthless dmg shield.....and aspect of the spirit dragon is a joke, granite carvings of invis work 1000x better.  IMHO this skill should be made the dragon invlun for pulls.....and dragon breath PFT totally worthless i never used it ever. 

Im extremly confused about what your intentions are here... First of all you claim to die at 50% on a mob, not get rezzed untill 40%, obtained no buffs after having been rezzed and still came out 3rd on a parse. Then you follow this up with complaints about why your class needs to do better damage?

I am going to let you in on a little secret. Monk's endurance abilities such asy our Feet of the Fire Dragon are primarily there for recovering your jin and opening our crit chains. Id also like to point out that this ability is a DoT... saying it needs to be upgraded because it ticks for less than auto attack is like saying our secrets needs to be increased because they do less than auto attack. Its free damage you click the button once and get 1.2k to 2k ticks every 4 seconds from 1 click.

Id also like to point out that Dragon monks are by no means Usless pullers. You may be a usless puller, but dont categorize the entire class type because your feel you lack the ability or skill to pull without an invuln...  As it currently stands the only thing drunken get that make us differant than a dragon monk is an extra double damage ability and invlun. Saying you want dragons to also have an invlun and also be higher dps than drunken would make drunken monks obsolete.

I do not disagree that dragon monks need less AE's but at the same time most of your ideas for changes are far to focused on just beefing up dragon and making other's usless or atleast less usful..

Regardless of how you twist the words, let's not forget that dragon is the worst style all things considered -
 .group/raid/solo usefulness,
.utility (perhaps they were supposed to trade off utility for dps),
.stances.
.dps - ESPECIALLY dps, 99% of the time, which they are supposed to be highest.

Noone wants to make drunken obsolete, because then it would be what dragon is now!!

Feet of the fire dragon is not terrible, however, Deadly Adder Hand (harmonious) does about 5 times more damage though AND debuffs str by -112, still think it is good? Costs more endurance sure but in raid endurance is infinite.

Certainly not "useless" puller because dragon still gets Fd, but definitely the worst - if you ever tried some of the harder splits in bad environments you'll learn to love & swear by the invul ability. (For example holding a mob away while the raid engage another and both monks fd:
- with dragon they both just die and raid wipes
-with harm/drunk can hold off the mobs for 15-20 sec while raid engages one)

Ever tried soloing with a dragon monk? rogues solo better seriously

There is absolutely no reason to choose dragon style over harm/drunk (unless you rate the self invis/levi),
so yea they are just a waste of space at the moment imo.

He didn't "twist" words any more than most people posting here, but wanted to clarify what he felt were exaggerations leading to ideas that will likley "overfix" dragon monks effectively trading the current imbalance with a new imbalance.

I agree there is a fair amount of bitter dragons that want balance "plus payback" for their comparative suffering.  I have yet to see anyone say "dragons are great as they are and need no adjustements at all" yet if someone posts anything short of a zealous rant going over the top on how much fixing dragon needs they seem to often be criticized as out of touch or biased towards another style etc.

That said I felt the comparison between dragon and drunk was a pretty large over simplification.  I would still rather see dragon get an AOE stun on 5min cooldown instead of invuln for purposes of maintaining diversity among styles, but I also feel I'm probably more concerned about keeping a level of uniqueness to the different styles than most people?

Realistically maintaining 1 SOLID (and more efficient than the core monk) AOE attack plus finisher extension and putting the rest of the abilities towards an elemental dragon master theme to provide alternate damage route (boosting secret damage, int and debuffing mobs to take more damage from elemental sources) would be my chose preference.

That and all styles could use a little fine tuning and definitely some stance adjustment...but there's already a thread going on that.

http://www.vanguardmonks.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,27/topic,1026.0/

your allowed to disagree with me, im fine by that, but i look at things from the stand point of "how many of the skills do i get wil be left in my book because they arent worth pressing" and at the moment dragon wins that with an overwhelming number of skills ill never use.  You want to be unique and keep ae's cool, thats your oppinion.  i differ in that i want equality in all monks.   I want all 3 to have = puling prowess, i want all three to have good dmg and not be limited by stances.  I want really want dragons (who have the least utility and solo ability) to shine the most in groups (like rogues).  Currently they dont shine because ae's arent useful on single target mobs,....wasted dps.   On ae encounters aeing kills us.... dead dps is  no dps.  Not being able to pull for my guild because i cant invuln and hold a mob means they recruit another monk who can and i get group 4..  no invuln hurts a lot, even if it was just a 10 sec one it would be fine.

Im curious other than damage and the ability to invuln what do drunken have that make them unique? in a raid situation why would a monk ever use his force taunt? I honestly cant think of a situation where it would be more benefitial for a monk to force a mob over a tank.

Im also going to say this again. Attacks like Boundless Fist, Cresent Kick, Staggering Punch ( drunken ), Feet of the fire dragon ( dragon ) are not there to be massive damage producers. Their primary purpose is to increase our jin and trigger our finishers... this goes for all monks... also When I said free damage what i meant was not the cost of endurance but rather the fact you only have to click it once every 16 seconds... While it ticks you can throw in other attacks or finishers. I as a drunken monk would gladly trade staggering punch for it. The less I have to click the less auto attack dps I lose due to the delay between abilities hitting and auto attack starting up again.

Correct me if I am wrong but what you are really wanting is all monk types to be completly equal in dps, utility, and pulling ability... The problem i see with that is this defeats the point of having 3 types of monks. Do I disagree that dragon monks could use a small boost in dps? and the answer is no i do not disagree HOWEVER the entire purpose of my post was the point out that alot of your supposed 'fixes' would only continue the unbalanced cycle.

Your both right and wrong.  I want monks to be completely equal in dps, utility, and pulling.  But not in the sense that all 3 have the same dps/utility/pulling.  Ideally dragon > harmonious> drunken in dps.  Then on the flip side drunken>harmonious>dragon at tanking (solo/.group/ raid??).     The sum of all things should make them equal so picking any form of monk doesnt leave you severly lacking.

Dragon have dps but no utility or pulling.  AE isnt a utility, and theres no way a dragon can pull the same things as a harmonious or drunken.  So to avoid mudflating dragons dps WAY up to compensate for their lack of utility/pulling.   It would be far easier to turn useless abilities into abilities that add utility (elemental attacks) or pulling ( a small invuln so they can split, albeit less efficiently then drunken and harmonious)

As far as drunkens utility.  foolhardy swagger alone (if fixed) is enough utility that it almost merits a drunken monk being in every raid just to feed hate to the main tank.  (imagine a tank with 14% more agro, that means a lot ).  As far as force taunts go.... you might want to experiment with them a bit.   They are for 2 attacks... which means the mob has to hit you.   Theres plenty of times when 20seconds of an invuln tank with 100% agro can be handy.  Not to mention other mobs who have unique abilities that you dont want on your main tank... stuff that can be prevented if say a drunken force taunts, takes the debuff, then feigns. 

I also take from your posts that you didnt read the other thread about suggested changes?  Where all 3 classes got (what i think is) fair arguments of suggested fixes/tweaks/balances.   I dont think dragons need a million more dps... i think useless ae's need to be removed (not all of them, just dragon breath, and 2 others, the ae finisher line is fine...even if i havent used it since level 30) and stuff lke a 80 point dmg shield changed into something dragons can benifit from.  With 0 mitigation a 500 point dmg shield would be useless.   It would make more sense to reduce the penalty on the offensive stance and to change the dmg shield into a proactive form of dps (theres over 20+ suggestions out there). 

First id like to correct you in that the dps is supposed to be split like so Dragon > Drunken > Harmonious... . Drunken and Dragon monks are currently very close to each other as far as dps is concerned. The original idea was that dragon monks would be the highest dps... Drunken would be slighlty lower then dragon but would have better pulling utility.. Harmonious was supposed to be the lowest of the dps in exchange for the highest utility ( mitigation debuff and damage debuffs ) I think if balanced correctly this is how it still should be. The only change really needed is Dragon monks need to be stripped of all the usless AE's and given some single target abilities... this alone would be enough to toss them back into the top dps spot for monks... if done right of course.

I do not disagree that foolhardy swagger would be great utility if working... the key word being "If it worked". I still have to disagree about our force taunt. Any smart raid has atleast 2 tanks in it. If there is ever somethething you dont want on your main tank ( i cant only think of 1 or 2 encounters in APW where this is the case ) then the other tank will beable to force it. I would also like to point out that no monks get a 'invuln' per say but rather a 100% dodge / parry buff. The difference between a invlun and what we get is just about ever mob gets a fairly high dmg attack which shoots straight through our 100% dodge / parry ability. Also a high percentage of mobs are casters which 100% dodge and parry is useless against.

As far as dragon monks are concerned... We use a dragon monk alot of the time when split pulling in apw so saying they are useless as a puller is so very incorrect.

That is an opinion not a fact.  There's a difference.  ;)

It can be argued well that having offtank and alternate aggro manuvers IS utility.  It certainly is considered such for turgin shaman and clerics (esp protection affinity).  But like anything else this has different value to different people.  That said claiming harmony has "more utility" than drunken is a very subjective statement.

well dont start correcting me till you have your facts straight ;-p

DPS is SUPPOSED to be DRAGON > HARMONIOUS > DRUNKEN.... Go read the LIVE in game current description of the 3 types of monks.   What it was in beta is not what it is supposed to be now.  Drunken are the tank and have the worst dmg until 50, they have the best defensive buffs. etc 


Theres at least 5 encounters that force taunts are worth it, specially with invuln and fd.  With monks we dont die or lose agro.

Dragon are useless as primary pullers in apw, its 100% true.  With out invuln to "park" a mob a dragon can never be more then 2nd puller. 

OK guys...can both of you kill the exaggerations.

Just because a despription in game suggests something doesn't make it fact by a long shot.  Rakurr description still essentially listed them as getting intensity...which hasn't been in game since...I don't remember how long at this point.  In game description doesn't neccesarily = a trump card that defines exactly what the devs had intended.  I'm pretty sure any of us could find several glitches in texts or descriptions without trying terribly hard.  Any person's given viewpoint on how they feel things should be balanced is just that, a viewpoint.  Until the devs flat out say "this is what we intend to have" everything else is opinion...and even then it would be the devs opinion on how things should be.  Everyone would be entitled to disagree or agree with the dev's opinion.

Its like trying to argue what someone else's favorite color should be as a fact.  Utter waste of time.

And saying that dragon are USELESS as primary pullers in APW is blatently false.  We can and do use disciples as primary pullers sometimes just fine.  And PLENTY of guilds (ours included) use dragon monkies as primary pullers.  The simple point that it does in fact happen invalidates the statement that they are useless in that capacity.

I would strongly suggest for both of you to take a step back before you further degrade your own conversations.

Qalia human monks have 10 sec invul....this is the one i usually use as its a 100% invul.....drunken and harmo defense discs are only partially useful in apw  :)
Doesnt matter if you are drunk, harm or dragon.....u still get that racial invul:)

True but then you have to be an ugly, icky human... and as an orc thats not an option!

In all seriousness whats the reuse timer, 15 min?  Thats a bit long ;-p

Druinken/harmonious monk may only be melee dodge and not a true invuln but the 5 min timer with a longer duration makes it fine.  The only thing to watch for is casters, and Line of sight> invuln for that

Orc FTW
I certainly would like that racial, must be very useful for pulling
Orc's racial (+10%dmg, 100% lifetap ..7sec) isn't particularly good for pulling but great for various other circumstances..
..most notably for healing yourself when there is lots of AoEs going about and for soloing.
And also orcs do the most dps :P :P :P :P

Okay so i looked it up on curses, so mind you these might not be 100% accurate but they give you the picture.   This is a comparison of hp vs protection gear

Head
48 mitigation or 140 hp (1.3%)  ~3hp/1mitigation
Boots
72 mitigation or 152 hp (1.9%) ~2hp/1mitigation
Shoulders
72 mitigation or 152 hp (1.9%) ~2hp/1mitigation
Legs
118 mitigation or 290 hp (3.2%) ~2.5hp/1 mitigation

734 hp given up for 8.3% mitigation (i guessed it pretty much right on)

So if you were 7k raid buffed youd lose 10% hp (6266 hp) but would gain 8.3% mitigation.  AKA the average 5k hit goes to about 4.6k.  Only 400 less dmg taken but you lost 700 hp.   So instead of being at 28% hp your now at  26% hp.   So yes the over all conclusion would be to get atleast 9k hp before you start trading off hp for mitigation. 

I personally never used mitigation gear as a drunken.  Now with full apw gear i have more mitigation just due to the fact i have higher ac on all my armor.  I lost about 1k hp (not as much con or raw hp) but I am still over 9.5k with max raid buffs, and 9k average. 

Ronmaru:
Dragon monks are not, and will never be as effective as drunken or harmonious for primary pulling anything after entrance.    Same for disciples a 1 min fd is just no as viable of an option.  Any guild with 2 monks, 1 dragon and one non dragon knows that any split pull goes 10000x faster if the drunken/harmonious pull the lot of mobs, and the dragon tags one and brings it to guild.   

The fact is the NON dragon is the primary puller with their invuln, even if a dragon is in on every pull, if they cant invlun to hold a group of mobs they are not the primary puller.   Just because a dragon can primary pull non split mobs and entrance mobs 2-3 at a time doesnt mean they can split basement/vault/marina nearlly as effectivly as the other two.  Any guild that uses a dragon as a primary would be at a huge disadvantage in comparison. 


And its not just an ingame description.  Its what the developers have said during class balance, what the class lead told us since the start of the game.  I would say to pm avarem but hes no longer around I think trisalee is the main monk person now even though he doesnt play one.    Dragon - best dmg, drunken- best tank, harmonious - best utility.  In the simplest of terms this was the original intent and i still find it mostly true.  Its more then just an ingame description when you sit down and look at each and every individual skill and ask yourself "is this ment to be a tank / dps/ or utility attack"     .   You can also go look at the table of attacks pre gu 3 and post gu3.  Lost of skills got changed and you and tell from before and after that for any skill... Dragon>harmonious> drunken.   
Forced crit:  Dragon>harmonious>drunken
Finisher opener: Dragon >harmonious>drunken
etc it goes on and on. 

Fuji, there is no primary or secondary puller. There are two pullers, one takes mobs away one pulls to camp. Takes two to split regardless of whatever label you give them.

And seeing that we can kill every mob in APW, and all the overlands in 4 days I would not say we are innafective.

In fact I would say the most effective pulling monk combo you can have is Dragon+Harm/Drunken. But since I never discuss anything even remotely related to stats I will leave the rest of you as to figure out why I feel that way.

Im not saying its impossible. Just that its way harder and takes about twice the time to pull with 2x dragon vs dragon +harm/drunk
Your missing the point draxs, are you telling me that as a dragon monk you pull the group of mobs and hold them while someone else pulls to camp?  I doubt it.  that peson who TAGS FIRST and holds the mobs is the "primary" puller i keep refering to

The primary puller (the term i keep refering too) is the person who tags first and holds all the mobs.  There is a primary puller simply due to the nature that who ever tags first MUSt hold the mobs while the second person MUST tag a different mob and bring it to camp.    Without a primary puller to hold the mobs for 15-20s there is no split.  If the secondary puller tags the same target as the primary, everying goes to the guild.   You dont have to use my terminology, you can call it whatever you want, but the fact of the matter is one person pulls first (primary) and the second puller peels a different mob off the primary.

Its not something you can argue really, dragons are not as effective as drunken/harmonious for primary pulling (on encounters that need to be split).  Its a flat fact.  This doesnt mean a guild with only dragons will take 4x the amount of time, it just means that they could probably shave 30 min/1hr off of vault/marina if they had a invuln monk as a primary tagger...more so with 2 because then you can alternate and effectively split pull non stop without waiting on refresh. 

The best a Dragon can hold is if they use ignore pain, reed in the wind, and iron skin.... but they will still die most of the time because that doesnt block all dmg.  Which is where i get my reasoning in say they arent as effective/efficient.  Because 20s of garunted no melee dmg is slightly different then 10-15s of mostly reduced dmg.  The difference being i can hold 5+ non casters on me for 20s, a dragon cant.

every guild will do it different and every guild will have a prefered method.  Dragon are ncie for their elemental resists, so on pyromancers and entrance they dont get as trashed.  Like you said though, its simple someone tags FIRST and holds and someone else pulls to camp.  The person who tags and holds better be able to live long enough.

 

How you say it is 'supposed to be' and how it currently is, are complete opposites... Im curious from a development standpoint what do you think would be more effective and time efficient... Completly remaking all 3 monks classes in order to make them how you say monks 'should' be, or keeping them how they are and just increase dragons dps by a small amount. This would basically put dragons back on top as the best dps monk, drunken would remain good dps and good pullers, and harmonious would remain the utility class and best puller.

You are focusing far to much on HOW the monks pull rather than the fact they are all able to pull in their own way. Dragon monks make the best Splitter. They pull a mob off the drunken or Harmonious monk.. Typically a spell casting mob and are able to absorb alot of the mobs nukes due to their defensive stance. A drunken monk or harmonious monk splitting off a caster mob have a much higher chance of dying due to spells than a dragon monk. There would be absolutly no point in having 3 monk types if all 3 were equally the same in every way, which is what you seem to want.

All monks currently have a usefullness and purpose why change that? I again do not disagree dragon monks need to have a small dps boost but how you say monks "should" be would involve far more work than is needed. Ive always been a firm believer of not changing a good thing. There are some small changes I think need to be done to all monk types but for the most part monks are a good thing... why change that?

Honestly? I think the only reason drunken is as good as it is, is due to raid buffs.  It totally changes the class when they have infinite endurance and 50% reduction in cast timers.  Classes werent built or designed for those circumstances which is why there is a differenece between how it is and how it should be.

In short, yes, i would like dragons dmg uped a little.  Theres way more to it then that, and i know harmonious monks need some attention too even though we tend to treat them as red headed step children because they got balanced first.  The only reason i focused on pulling was because in raids monks do 2 things....dps and pull.  Dragon is currently under par in both in comparison to drunken, but thats not saying much because both dragon and drunken will do a SNARF ton of dps. 

Im not saying anything needs to change that would alter the usefulness or purpose of any given monk.  A 10sec self invuln for dragons just gives them the option to do what harm/drunken already do.  No where did i say i want dragon to dps less, drunken to lose its agro buffs, or harmonious to lose its debuffs. 

Jakik do me a favor and go read some of QTM's old posts of monks, where they were going and what changes we still had left.  Nothing ive said is new, and the old class lead was already working on most of these before he left.   Stancse, useless skills, dragons dps, more inter form balance, broken taunts.... all of these were things SOE knows about and had been mentioned to them by QTM. 

My thoughts exactly.

And yes Fuji the best combo includes a drunken/harm tagging first and the Dragon pulling off them as Jak described.