Just wondering what types of weapons monks can expect right now for Level 30+.  I'm at 31 right now and was lucky enough to get Zank (46dps - took me two days to skill up so I could use it).  I imagine that will last me into my mid-thirties or so, but what can I look forward to after that?  What are some of the high 30s and 40s weapons monks should keep an eye out for?  Which weapon skills are we most likely to find good weapons for at the higher levels?

I went to Southwatch after CiS and did a bunch of missives.  The xp is okay and there is a bunch of knotted trees, pyrite and mythril nearby if you harvest those.  Yesterday I went to Pantheon, there are a bunch of quests but the rewards weren't that great if you have some infineum equipment.  For example, knuckles that are 22ish dps, armor that is much lower than infineum armor.  Both Southwatch and Pantheon have a bunch of quests that are soloable, but getting a group isn't hard as both of these areas are pretty popular. 

I'll take any increase to our dps.  At least we are still moving in the right direction.  I will miss pulling with Storm Stride though.  Getting the food working again should help lessen our down time as well.  Not a revolutionary patch for monks, but it appears to at least be some improvement.

Pantheon of the Ancients is one I've heard that has a CiS like chain questline.  I believe you can start it in your early 30s. 

Nerve strike is a weird ability, but very useful once you know how to use it.  If there is a mezzer in the group (which is most, but not all of the time) I rarely am called on to use nerve strike.  If my group doesn't have a mezzer, the following examples cover how I use nerve strike 99% of the time: 

Instance 1:  Those times where I am asked to pull, this is what happens: There is a group of 2-3 mobs standing together, I run up to them and FD at their feet, wait until FD refreshes, I then target one of the mobs and hit nerve strike, the targeted mob is stunned and the other mobs aggro me, I lead them back to my group where they are slaughtered.  If the fight is not over before the mob I stunned comes after me, as soon as I see the mob run towards my group, I FD in front of him and reapply nerve strike.  I sometimes wonder what my group thinks when I am flopping on the ground in the middle of a fight.  Having to FD just to use nerve strike seems stupid to me, but once you get used to it it's no big deal.

Instance 2:  Someone else pulls and he brings back 2-3 mobs instead of 1.  I can usually target one of the adds and nerve strike him as he runs by.  I usually don't have to FD first. 

Most groups seem surprised to learn that monks have nerve strike.  I suspect it's because many monks don't use the ability because they weren't sure how to use it properly.  It is definately a useful tactic and I recommend monks begin practicing with this ability as soon as they get it.  Nothing worse than being in a group and having the leader call on you to use nerve strike and you're not sure how.....

Sounds like the Lord Tsang's Tomb questline.  The monk weapon is still borked.  I had another monk pst yesterday asking about this.  He had just received the sword but could not equip it.  This has been a known problem for a while know.  I'm kind of surprised it hasn't been fixed yet. 

This is a post by Nino on the FOH website (http://www.fohguild.org/forums/mmorpg-general-discussion/27495-vanguard-patch-notes-update-1-a-4.html).  For those who don't know, Nino is a dev that posts pretty frequently on that forum.  Not sure how I feel about this yet:

General Update

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as a quick general update:

As with all things on message boards, much of the percevied issues are hyperbole or exaggerations. There are several concerns raised and they are being addressed as we speak and an 'official' post will be made on the affiliate sites.

We actually have a very strong ethical policy of being very upfront with our patch notes, and this time around a few notes were accidentally left off. They were not purposefully excluded with the intention to deceive. Changes get sent via email and compiled by a single person. As this patch contains changes over the course of almost an entire month, he missed a few. They will be immediately posted and I will personally find a way that it does not happen again. It isn't the end of the world, just slightly aggravating.

The primary change affecting people was made to 'direct damage' abilities. A list of those abilities by class is being drafted and will get posted. Nobody was nerfed 50%, likewise, nobody was bumped 50% either; these are gross exaggerations and speculative hyperbole. This issue has gone unfixed for a solid month now, and waiting this long to finally get it addressed is understandably aggravating. Don't quote me exactly, but these abilities were doing almost 2x the damage they should have because they were adding in auto-attack damage when they weren't supposed to. Some classes have several of these direct damage abilties, other classes have only one. Either way, it is a perceived 'nerf' but it was done under the auspice of maintaining the balance of the game.

Anyway, the things I have verified so far:
1. Several art packages did not get pushed properly. Themnwar's Shield - the giant dam outside of Bordinar's Cleft is gone. So are many hand held items and apparently the new spell effects. These will get patched in once we track down what went wrong.

2. Direct damage abilities had part of their damage commponent reduced. We will clarify this later in the afternoon to help players better understand what changed.

3. A quest went in prematurely that did not have proper preconditions which allowed a handful of people to exploit a good deal of experience that is getting removed from these players. The quest NPC has been eliminated, or the quest made inactive for now.

4. There was a problem with a diplomacy quest that allowed players to obtain tier 3 equipment that they should not have access to yet. This has been hot fixed.

If I find more I will let you know, until then take a deep breath and relax.

Any downward adjustment to monk's overall dps is insulting.  Let me guess, next week we will see a slight improvement in our dps which will bring us back to where we were pre-patch and Sigil will say, "see we buffed you."  Whatever.

Leishiu, what level are you?  The reason I ask is that at my level I don't do that much damage on eagle claw, flying kick or ashen hand.  I'm just wondering at what level monks hit for that much damage.

As you can see from my posts, I completely agree that monks need reworking.  Some things don't work at all, aren't working as intended or are never used because they provide no benefit.  Even taking all of this into account, I like my monk, don't plan on rerolling and, most importantly, I know I contribute when grouped. 

Your FD example is a situation I have faced.  I am sure I have suffered more than one death because mobs continued to aggro after I succesfully FD and I wasn't able to succesfully re-FD to break their aggro.  For me, this just doesn't happen often to call it a huge problem.  It is certainly something I want them to fix, but I can play around it for now and would much rather have the Devs fix some bigger issues.  I die much more because of CTD's than I do because FD isn't working right.  As for the utility we provide, no I cannot execute a debuff that will cripple a mob or result in his death in 2 hits.  When I reduce mob damage mitigation, that means the entire party is doing more damage.  I agree it is not noticeable for any single hit, but an entire group doing more damage on each hit for the entire fight?  That is certainly noticeable.         

The thing that bothers me is when people that don't play a monk see the posts where it's one complaint after another about monks, their impression of the class is what is contained in those posts.  I think these types of posts also lead some lower level monks to regret rolling a monk and to give up on the class when there is no need to.  The complaints raised by many are valid, I just don't agree that it's as bad as some describe and that there is little good to be found about monks.  I look forward to the fixes and improvements I am sure will be coming, it will make my class that much better.  Until then, yes, monks have issues that need to be addressed, but we are still a viable class that (I find) brings benefits to groups.

With regards to grouping, I have never encountered a problem in finding a group because I am a monk.  In fact, I usually encounter the exact opposite.  Groups love us because of FD.  Does it work every single time?  No, it does not.  What FD does is give groups a chance to avoid a total wipe.  I succeed at this a lot more than I fail.  Easily 90%+ success rate.  (side note: against the higher level multidot mobs I find myself fighting with groups, I don't wait until everyone is dead before I FD, I'll step back from combat early enough that I can get in 2-3 tries.  This almost always works.  When the healer(s) go down, the time to start FD'ing is usually not far off).  Everyone knows that FD is not automatic, but I find that it works much more often than not if you give yourself enough time to retry if it doesn't work the first time. 

As for utility, we provide some, but certainly not as much as other clases.  As a Harm monk, I'm pretty sure most people I group with are not even aware of the utility I provide.  Lowering mob damage mitigation by 15%, reducing mob damage by 50% for 8 seconds, pushing mobs out of stances, jin surging to improve group dps - these are all things I do.  Other clases when they add a buff, you see that icon for the next few hours, it's always there, everyone sees the benefit provided by the class that gave them that buff.  Monk buffs/debuffs occur in the middle of fights, people don't usually take the time to scroll over little icons that appear for a few seconds while fighting.  Am I the best puller? No, but I am very capable of pulling.  Am I the best mezzer?  No, but I have a mez.  On top of all of this, I am able to do decent damage (I agree it should be higher, but it is not insubstantial).     

You know a class has problems when there are abilities that never get used or don't work as intended.  The monk class certainly has its share of those.  But to say we are the least desired class or lack utility, that has just not been my experience.  This is exactly the kind of thing I worried about when I was in my mid-teens.  I was afraid that monks would be ineffective and I would have trouble finding groups because of it.  That's just not been the case for me.     

I'm with Teno.  Went from 24 to 28 (Harm) this weekend and I am just not experiencing the problems described by the OP.  Sure, my FD didn't work once against a lvl 32 4 or 5 dot, but I really didn't expect it to.  I may not be outdamaging the rangers or well-equiped warriors/dk's, but I don't feel that my damage is inconsequential.  I've been hearing these same criticisms for a long time.  When I was level 15, I was nervous about what I would find in my mid 20s based upon some of the postings I had seen.  Now that I'm here, I just didn't experience what some people complained about.  Maybe they had much higher expectations that weren't being met, but I just didn't see that the class was broken beyond playability. Are we deserving of some positive tweaking?  Absolutely.  Can Sigil nerf the monk into unplayability?  Of course they can, I just don't think they have yet and I don't see it happening with the changes in the test notes. 

I know some people aren't happy with the class and there are things that Sigil needs to fix about monks (broken stances, dps, counters, etc.).  I just wanted people looking at this post to see that there are others enjoying the class and do not feel that the monk is so gimped that it's not worth playing.  Knowing what I know now I still would have rolled a monk. I do not regret my choice at all.

This is the post I would want the devs to see about how the monk class can be improved. 

If this 'technique' was working as intended, why did Sigil change things when what was happening was brought to their attention? 

Dalrock - I'm pretty quick at clicking on corpses for the loot but sometimes I run into people that I knew had to have some kind of macro because they beat me every single time.  Now I know.  Thanks.

Harmonious monk here as well.  My tactics are pretty similar to Quinn except when I'm in a group, I use Jin Burst (or whatever its called) to increase group dps whenever it's available.  I haven't used crane stance since the adjustment was made.  I just don't find the loss of dps worth it.  When I solo, I use the jin regenerating stance or tiger.