We've got quite a few 80's on the Wiccana server around 40'ish active members. Working on the tier 2 guild hall and plan to launch of first raid within the next week or two. I'm currently playing a dark templar, enjoying the game a great deal so far. Not sure it will have the same raid feel as VG though. Really wish there was more content to dabble with in VG, so much potential.

BoW as of now still plans to return to VG with the release of a fair bit of new raid content.

I am spending most of my free time in AoC, I still talk to the developers on a regular basis though. If the community wishes me to step down I have no problem doing so, but unless I read otherwise here I plan on making for some pushes for the monk class soon as they give me the opportunity.

I'm still around

BoW plans on returning to VG after next content patch, I'm still unsure whether I'll be looking for a new home in VG, waiting for BoW to return, or hanging up my wraps. As of right now, I'll still be around VG.

That is a good question hehe, I'll keep you posted when I know more.

If we were to put Drunken as the normal melee DPS monk, Dragon would gain both elemental (more than just fire / ice) and the DoT DPS. I'd also like to see some aspects attached to the DoT's aside from just the damage. Such as reducing the monks hate or increasing the monks damage of a certain type while the debuff of that DoT is active.

So as we all know the "tanking" monk cannot function as a tank in the high end game. My question to you is what role would you like to see them play. With the upcoming class balancing I feel that this path may become the least popular because it really doesn't offer too much now aside from DPS. I can't promise that this is a possible change yet, but it is something I would like to push for if there is enough demand.

Don't touch them - If you like how the discipline functions currently

Hate Transferring Monk - Instead of tanking themselves this option would allow them to provide a tank with large amounts of hate or reduce another allies hate by a decent amount. This would provide a utility aspect to raiding that would help the raid deal more damage overall with less fear of aggro bouncing around.

High Melee DPS - My thoughts on Dragon monks will be to add a bit more elemental damage to their arsenal (such as making Corona add a flat % to secret damage etc.), figured maybe we could make Drunken Monks the masters of normal combat damage since they already have Errant Strikes and the advanced 1k fist chain.

Salvage some Raid Tanking - Give Drunken Monks the ability to tank at least trash mobs in raid situations for limited periods of time without being killed in a single swing.

Increase Raid/Group DPS - Give drunken monks more abilities such as Jin Surge that increase the overall DPS of a group or raid in bursts instead of long duration buffs. Allowing us fun and active utility rather than just something passive like a bard song. Although Monk damage will be top 3 in raiding, this would provide an increase to the raids damage providing us with a greater role or desire.

Other - Pitch general ideas such as above (not individual abilities) but new roles that Drunken Monks may fufill. We can go into specific abilities we would like to see once we have a better idea of what to expect in terms of attention.

Also any feedback after you cast your vote is more than appreciated. I want to know what you guys want and why.

I spoke to the developers and they said they would give me an estimate of how many changes I can push for in gu6 after they finish up with gu5 stuff and see how much time they have. Here is a list of the current bugs I have that I'm looking into being fixed. Please add any bugs that I've missed and need looking into. I know there are still many non-bug issues to address as well, but I will make a different thread for those later.

-Throwing items do not pull stacks from ammo cases automatically. ~always~
-Feign Death (fail rate, mob reaction, toggle bugs w/ storm dragon stance, etc.). ~who knows~
-Fists of Celerity failing to trigger. ~rarely~
-Secrets of Flames removing combat animations. ~always~
-Goading Slap (defensive target range and failure when defensive target is out combat). ~always~
-Abilities aren't being affected by Fists of Celerity or Errant Strikes (Three Finger Strike, Hammer Fist, Goading Slap, Superior Goading Slap, Whirling Storm, Stinging Backfist, Quivering Palm, Diving Typhoon, Divine Avalanche). ~always~
Aspect of the Spirit Dragon will cast invisibility on defensive target instead of the monk, graphic will appear on monk and defensive target. ~always~
-0% mitigation in Storm Dragon Stance. ~always~
-Parleys remove Harmonious Body Stance. ~always~
-Errant Strikes is still very fussy regarding defensive target's range. ~when you aren't within 5 meters of the tank or the tank isn't within 5 meters of the mob, or when a mob is visually in a different location~

I've  beaten them a few times hehe.

But the devs haven't sold me any ideas or concepts, I was the one who sought them out and explained to them what was happening with our abilities that was allowing me to solo mobs I shouldn't be able to and produce hits harder than they are supposed to. They aren't touching this aspect until the patch that pertains to class balancing anyway. So whether it gets changed or not, our damage is going to be where they want it in the end.

I made the post and submitted it to Talisker who altered it and asked if it could be made an official post with recognition given to me for working on it. I just wanted people to be aware of the bug, whether it gets fixed or not doesn't effect us other than they will have more control over our DPS changes in the future. Our damage was going to be reduced regardless, but instead of hot fixes every time new content is added, monks and rogues will now be adjusted properly. If anything I think this being fixed prior to class balancing benefits the Monk community to prevent all our abilities from getting reduced to compensate for 1k fist and the cool downs.

my problem at this point is fusoya's last comment. that is not how the tooltips read, its not how the abilities work.
[/quote]

All that im saying by that is that the original coders took shortcuts to reach what appeared to be the same goal. The error in this was revealed with the release of raid content.

Regarding Quickblade, ES, FoC they allow you to swing extra giving up a fraction of your damage in exchange for speed. So you swing your weapon twice but do not apply all the other modifications until after both swings occur. You swing twice, not deal double damage.

Normally without cooldowns I'm between 15-25k with any of the Thousand Fist chain abilities.

1- Dual weilding and 2 handers have the same effect in this game. It's not like everquest where abilities just use your main hand weapon, it combines the two into one, which is the same as a 2 handed weapon. The only thing that changes is the off-hand receives a lesser damage bonus (33%) so that when combined with the main hand (66%) its not completely overpowered compared to two handers.

2- Shank
**Talisker may have listed this wrong and the source of the confusion, this is what the ability reads**
A finishing attack that viciously stabs your opponent twice in the back, inflicting massive damage. Must be executed form behind the opponent and while wielding a piercing weapon.

The ability stabs twice (not clicking the ability twice) without Quickblade. Quickblade turns 2 into 4, so the bonus damage is applied 4 times.

3- The picture screen shotted on Kotasoth is an epic crit, but pictures such as my Fengrot one earlier in this post is a normal critical hit. The Kotasoth one was simply the first one since I started working on the post that I screen shotted.

4- It's added before the critical hit is factored in. Critical hit will always amount to 1/3 of the total damage of an attack. As the formula is 150% damage. Epic is 400% and Legendary is on a dice roll of how many times it can be multiplied.

5- That's an example of the bug. Errant Strikes is factored in first, then FoC is working off of the modified damage gained by Errant Strikes generating in average a fairly larger number.

6- Boundless fist only uses 1 'effect' because it's 1 swing in 1 attack. Thundering Fist uses 3 'effects' because it is 3 swings that total to 1 attack.

7- I have no clue how high it can get in the perfect scenarios honestly. But, if you saw the screenshot of my attack rating it was over 6250 without max Str and missing a few other buffs.

I was asked to not go into depth of how it is reproduced until the issue has been addressed. I will say there is no big huge secret on how to do it. I've been able to solo certain APW mobs buffed in 4-5 since the 2nd or 3rd month of APW so it's not purely a gear based thing. Although now it can be done self buffed because of my gear. Also we do not reproduce 200k hits every minute or two, those are still a rarity, but the fact is it's possible. Most of my cool downs run around 90-120k depending on the mob.

The +dmg stacking issue is just being altered before class balancing is done, so that developers can more accurately adjust different classes damage without getting funky effects such as well geared / buffed monks hitting for over 5x what they should be. It's simplifying the game mechanics to allow more accurate tuning. Even if the fix reduced all of our damage to 10 hp a swing, it's going to get adjusted to where they want us exactly before it's sent to live servers. The changes will be tested with buffs, without buffs, with no gear, with crafted gear, with group'able gear, with raid gear, with the best gear available. They aren't just saying Monks are overpowered, nerf. They're simplifying game mechanics to allow more predictable results.

Here's some stuff I put together real quick. Don't have too many screenshots, but here's a couple.

http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm151/iamatoaster08/dmg.jpg
The top scenario (Dynamo x-92) is my damage rating without max str and missing a few buffs, but still over 6250 between main and off hand.
The Fengrot screenshot is the most recent.
And the Vicus one isn't the best but still fun.

http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm151/iamatoaster08/parsedmg-1.jpg
This is my damage parse on a Kotasoth kill.  Not sure if you can see it clearly but the top damages are...
- Yellow - Fusoya - 5,094,909
- Green - #1 Rogue - 3,616,877
- Pink - Harmonious Monk - 3,345,852

http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm151/iamatoaster08/parsedps.jpg
This is the DPS charts for the Kotasoth kill from the damage parse above.
- Yellow - Fusoya - 6931
- Green - #1 Rogue - 4920
- Pink - Harmonious Monk - 4552

Forwarded the Ashen Hand in Chath bug to the dev's this morning they assured me it will be taken care of. As Fujitsu stated there are ways to avoid fighting the pet until the fix is patched in, but still a bug non-the-less.

Chath event is bugged for monks currently, our ashen hand ability actually heals the pet at the end, as well as a few of the trash mobs.

Will keep you updated when I hear when a fix is coming.