He made a point of saying that monks would still compete for top DPS, and said nothing about how sorc should be the highest dps.

I will have to test it out for myself once the changes are released as I'm an english major not a math major.  The impact on fists of celerity and errant strikes are what worries me the most, right now this is such a huge factor in determining my dps as a drunken monk.  A lot of how I plan my abilities revolves around these two, and I am wondering with the change if I can still justify drunken over dragon.

Overall just looking at it, it doesn't look that bad to me.  Other than rogues I often triple the dps of other classes, while I feel that monks and rogues should still top DPS after GU6 (by a significant number in order to justify using melee in most fights) I have never denied that the gap is too large.

I also see nothing about the rumor that refresh reduction are no longer going to stack, for example coda of alacrity and the PSI buff, I worry that that change along with this change to dmg modifiers would hurt monks specifically because of our number of 5 min abilities we rely on.  Any word on this?

Clerics I believe have a raid class lead as well, glad to see we have any class lead.

As long as you are not in Sung's pocket 

Well gee maybe they should name a new class lead and then they might have some answers.

But no I'm sure cel and the sorc lead have just as much insight it must be a bug!  Or some other serious game flaw, monks actually wanted in raids other than fifteen seconds for a pull, what is this injustice??  This is Everquest after all isn't it!!?

Oh wait...

1.  Got any tips for getting Pain's parser to work?  I tried re downloading IE7 and .net, I can tell you that two other very good parsers are xanadu's and mmosite's

2. There is an exploit, however I hope that the dev's are aware what the exploit is and can fix it without having ANY end buffs stack, because without tuurgin buffs we are back in end hell.

3.  I disagree monk/rogue damage I feel is fine in groups, and right where it should be.  Solo wise we are a melee class, I never expected to be top tier solo.  We solo alright in many instances, the fact that is much harder than other classes I don't think is imbalance I think it is working as intended.

4.  Spike dps is the exact reason why nerfing our FD would kill our class, monk's damage is at least 50-70% spike and without a full aggro wipe we wouldn't even compete.  Casters do not need this full aggro wipe, all they need is a raid buff that reduces spell hate similiarly to melee hate and for a few of their broken deaggro's (if you consider ranged rangers a "caster")

5.  Exactly and when I tried to explain this to cenn he just ignored me, every class not gearing the same way/ having the same playstyle does not equal imbalance.  I have a caster char, and do not think they need to change INT at all other than fix the bug where going over makes it like you have 1 INT.

Other than the sorc and bard lead whining, have you actually talked to any dev Fujitsu that hinted there might be changes?

I would be all for celerity and errant not stacking, it would reduce drunken's dps enough I think that I don't think anything else needs to be done.  I think refresh haste should still stack, it does not just benefit us.

I don't think they should reduce our damage at all, they should just boost some caster dps and add some hp onto raid mobs to counteract the change in overall dps.

I played pulling classes before in other MMO's, and I do not think it is acceptable to be pigeon holed to that one job, I also disagree that our solo ability would be considered a class defining aspect.  At 50, and before then with good gear it can be a definite advantage (as well as FD's usefulness) but I think other classes can do it as good or better.  Melee need top damage right now to be viable to raids.  If you are going to take that away take away stance removal from disciples and rangers, and make our hate transfer more relevant because without those I would much rather have a caster and not have to deal with ae effects.

I am still looking forward to testing out the haste changes, if it is decent don't forget the extra secret procs as well.

I also hope that it will help make a bigger difference between dragon monks and harm/drunken (due to their proc), as well as hand to hand monks vs. two handed weapon monks.  Maybe even to the point where a hand to hand monk would invest more into haste, making us slightly less burst dps (which is how I would describe all current monks at max level now) and more sustained DPS (which is how I pictured Dragon monks, with their additional large damage end attack, and decent dot and proc to keep their damage high throughout the fight)

There are lots of environmental/ mob quirks that make solo pulling possible, but it will never be as fast as a coordinated and experienced pulling team.

A lot of this is answered here:

http://www.vanguardmonks.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,27/topic,1048.0/

I generally activate quickening jolt with my exploding heart macro and it lasts through the 4 thousand fists.

I haven't had problems with errant strike not working here, however I have had all sorts of problems if I have it up and my defensive target is not the tank.  Such as chains not popping when they are suppose to.

On another weird note about errant strikes and the patch, my counter abilities will occassionaly activate when my defensive target dodges or parries I hope this gets fixed soon as it makes monks go from now debuffs, to basically king of all debuffs with quivering palm activating several times a minute on me fighting trash and Brok the biomancer in Marina the other night.

Dalkain's rings (I have 2) seem to give me a rather large bonus to my FD chances.  However due to the difficulty of changing equipment sometimes once you have engaged a mob in APW, I only use them when dragging a healer's corpse or something.

As for holding spell casters, if you have a sorc to cast reflective runes on you I find that helps, and failing that a reflection granite carving does the trick pretty well.  I generally do that if there is not some corner/pillar to hide behind while the mob is inbound.

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.

Part of the address changed last night as we changed the content management format or something..., sorry should work now.

Legion of Legends has an opening for a couple raiding Monks in PST time zone, or able to raid starting around 9-10 EST + (our Pacific Time Zone raids generally start from 9-11p.m EST, and then go until 3-5 a.m. EST) to join our guild.  We also have at least one raid a week starting earlier and plan to hopefully schedule more EST raids soon for our earlier players.

We are looking for people ready to jump in and raid as soon as possible, however if you feel like you would be a dedicated raider and are 40+ we may be willing to help you get to that point. If you are interested and want more information please contact an officer in game, or visit us on our website at

vglol.com

We generally raid 5-7 nights a week, raids are not mandatory but we are looking for monks who are interested in raiding several times a week. We do not do DKP, our raiding and loot policies are given in detail on our website.  The guild is made up mostly of old EQ1 players, and our officers/leadership have years of experience leading raiding guilds there and in other games (I personally came from FFXI).  We have a fun and relaxed atmosphere, but are serious about raiding and giving our members the opportunity to experience end game to the fullest.

*shrug* I do great damage as drunken, have tried harmonious, and I still say I did more damage as Dragon.  Dragon also  has the best chains by far with enraged, no one cares about drunken's and harm's solo chains in raids. I switched due to needing a perfect dodge ability for corpse dragging, getting to summoning room as dragon is a pain  .

I wouldn't mind having a dragon monk in my raid again, and if our monks would just stop taking "breaks from the game" I could have one maybe.

We aren't as good at rezzing in raids.  We cant do it during combat like we can outside APW.

Drunken has a 15 second immunity as opposed to find the center which has 20 seconds, dragon has no immunity however is by far the best puller for entry wing due to sun dragon's carona and their defensive stance (when I was dragon I could easily tank fire elementals).

Drunken also gives you a shorter cooldown on certain abilities if you switch to your neutral stance for them (for example 3:15 when stacked with aum kor for magnificent drunken swagger, the drunken immunity buff), and I think has the best stance for pulling past entry wing.  Just FD'ing around APW, I usually stick to neutral stance just because I don't trust slaps not to knock me out of FD like damage shields currently do.

They are all good damage, I personally think at least with my gear that dragon is still the highest dps, followed by drunken, and harmonious (harmonious however makes up for the slightly less dps with their buffs/debuff).

But hey people can argue that all day long, and not get anywhere.  All the styles do good damage, I like mixing it up in our guild and having a variety.

If I had a full set of Tiraslee's I might consider swapping to harmonious, but I'm still mostly in crafted gear.