Yeah both monks and bards that spec hard dex/int can put out some very respectable ranged damage.  Still not on par with their melee but respectable non the less. 

Rangers however are intended to be able to spec heavily enough into ranged to do equivalant damage to their melee.  Since I never played on past level 16 and haven't had many discussions with anyone who's tried I have no clue if anyone's accomplished this or if its remotely possible.

I'd partially agree with fuj on this one.  No real sense in putting a monk sword in apw as a monk is EXTREMELY unlikely to be tanking.  But...it might give an extra edge on pulling, (pun intended) esp for dragon monks.

Fuj have you tried playing around with crafted spell mitigation gear?

Yes its nothing close to 50% but something worth considering imo for specialty swap out peices.

Anyone that plays harmo style and claims that they suck solo only feels so because the monk is not a strong solo class at its core compared to some other classes.

But between styles harmo monk is easily the most effective soloer.  Their debuffs effectively make them the most efficient tank and their dps is very consistant and reliable.

If you are having a hard time soloing as a harmo monk, there is a 90% chance you'll have a more difficult time as one of the other styles.

In terms of continental style for APW I strongly recommend thestran.  The heal procs from qualian are handy for grouping/soloing outside of it.  But the raw accuracy bonus of thestran armor makes a pretty significant different in APW fighting level 53's all the time, where as the qualian heal procs are pretty darn trivial in pretty much every situation in APW.  Getting your accuracy maxed out first for fighting level 53's ups your dps more than almost anything else.  And with thestran continental style you get a pretty solid boost towards that.

What kind of accuracy bonus do you have?

I too think the harmo offensive stance is pretty unbalanced and excessive, but that said I wouldn't call it the weakest.  Even with a crap finisher extension on the kick line in practice harmo has quite good dps and is pretty consistant with it.

You have to consider, it not only makes your regular skills likely to crit and trigger finishers...it also makes your finishers likely to crit regularly as well.  Aaaaand since you really don't need the crit bonus from dex you can spec hard into str/int. 

You're right that there isn't much in the way of +damage% gear, not even crafted.  Only can boost crit on armor.  Can boost damage on crafted rings and weapons.  But there is still a fair amount of things you can do to capitolize.  Of course chances are you will have excessive %crit anyway.

Maybe a good rebalance would be 17%crit, 8%damage  25% endurance cost increase.  That way a harmo monk wouldn't feel shafted on getting APW gear, swamp gear and loading up with crit they can't even use etc.?

I

Would LOVE....if they did give us pause.  (granted so long as it doesn't open up a plethora of uncontrolled botting/exploits etc.)

Its the one thing I miss horridly from my eq macro options.

Its also possible (has happened quite a few times) that someone simply got their wires crossed.

I know just the other day my wife petitioned that her vetran rewards were not showing up and the GM told her it was a "glitch that they were showing up for anyone yet as it is ment to launch with GU4"  ... never mind the minor detail that its a front page artical on vgplayers. 

Left hand doesn't always talk well with the right foot.  But your suggestion Fuj is just as likely to be true imo. 

In any case not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things.  To me anyway.

Do you know what the reason was for the change fug?

I guess I don't get the cause for it.  Kind of a trivial difference for the most part either way to me.  Maybe I'm missing something important though?

Will be ironic WAAAAY down the road when they start working on mounted combat...and then you can do practically everything from a mount... 

Of course...maybe its only ironic to me.   

That's a damn good idea.  I've been simply resorting to getting reports from people watching their damageoutput to get a "true" indicator of when stance is down and up.

Prolly suggest to those on disenchant duty to build the same maccro in for that too. 

*narrows eyes at shuang*
What do you mean "look like"?



On a more serious note they REALLY should have made the belt the brickred tone instead of tan.  Kinda leaves the whole midsection looking rather "meh".

QFT


In regards to the damage vs. distance bit I have visions of a tank shifting position causing the mob to move and the monks REAMING him for it.  "Could you hold the friggin mobs still?!  We were in PERFECT position!!"

Like some crazy artists telling their subject "Don't move an inch!  Just hold that position..."

You're right though, it could very well be worth it, especially on long fights where the mob doesn't shift much (doesn't knock around the tank, stays in one place and just summons, etc. etc.).  Of course, using shadowstep we'd (in theory) be at pretty much the right spot too so we'd prolly end up using that a ton more. 

I just love it when the server tells me "you have no line of sight" and I'm like "but...but....the mobs right there!  He's right in front of me!"

*shift around and adjust position some more*

"you have no line of sight"

/cry

Disciple update is slated for GU6

They still have a few broken skills, some worthless ones, desire a healing stance, and sorely sorely need reduced micromanagement...theres more to it than that but that's my nutshell version. 

Both monk and disc need the FD glitches to stop though...sooo annoying.

Neat concepts.  I particularly like the offhand scaling damage idea.  Fun stuff there. 

My only concern with the mob position thing is that mob position is kind of glitchy in game periodically and while it LOOKS like you're standing x distance behind a mob according to the server you are facing the wrong way etc. etc.  So it could be frustrating to capitolize on it in practice.

The idea is not so much the damage imo but how many stats it provides, esp for classes that can equip no ranged items of any kind.  AKA bows tend to have and amount of stats associated with that of 2h weapons.

But the devs are looking into this area so it will be interesting to see what they come up with.