How about their asses, like most class envy inspired ideas?

In my opinion, we should get bonuses on weapons that are worth it (high +damage, +STR, a unique proc, etc), but otherwise deal just slightly less damage with bare hands. Otherwise, there would be no incentive to get items.

Note that I never said Psionicists don't need attention... I've never said Rogues shouldn't be dealing more DPS, either, but there needs to be a degree of balance, though.

The Dragon style has nothing to offer - it's not highest DPS, it doesn't have unique utility. It doesn't have survivability. It has no unique DPS specials - and Drunken and Harmonious do have unique defensive specials. Stone Dragon is only useful in very limited situations - such as when you're tanking in a group or when raiding. Those limited situations should not be what a class style is based on.

I really don't get why devs think the Monk class is finished - the only finished style is Harmonious. And Fuji, if Dragon wasn't horrible, you'd be playing it.

On the Bard, I wasn't kidding. At least then, I'll offer something substantial to a raid force.

EDIT to add: frack it, I reckon I'll just quit providing SOE with my money if they refuse to invest in their product (no planned expansions, Monk class finished, no new dungeons until two months into the future, etc, etc)

This is really depressing news for Dragon Monks... the changes we've had (in no particular order) were:
- Much needed upgrade of DoT damage to nowhere near spectacular
- Improving of Storm Dragon with a large mitigation penalty.
- Lessening the mitigation penalty on Storm Dragon
- Re-increasing the mitigation penalty on Storm Dragon
- Improving AE damage from pathetic to feeble
- Improving AE endurance cost from over the top to less so.
- "Improvement" of Spirit Dragon from a possible ten minutes, guaranteed one minute to 30 secs with drained Endurance.

What we never got:
- Balanced stances
- Proper aggro values for AEs... think about it. One AE deals about as much damage as 1 or 2 auto-attacks per mob. Yet, after 3 AEs, you'll most certainly have aggro on multiple mobs. Something doesn't make sense, there.

We still solo pathetically for a melee DPS class. We have equal survivability to a Sorcerer with nowhere near the DPS in groups, slightly more survivability for slightly more DPS on raids. We still have no real utility to speak of (with Goading Slap being broken, Jin Surge adding just 350 damage and Nerve Strike all but useless) and no flexibility. To me, that means we should be dealing the highest DPS of any class in the game, using FD to get rid of aggro. Yet, we aren't.

I think I'm just gonna roll a Bard instead then... I don't see the point in sticking with a class that's on that much of a backburner for the devs that it's almost cryogenic.

Whether you buff other players' strikethrough DPS or whether you debuff a mob's mitigation is a semantic difference - in essence it's the same. That would be your "buff" in a way, whereas steal the wind, break the trunk, etc are debuffs. If you take buff in the literal, adding icons kind of a way then no, you don't have buffs.

Don't forget that while Rogue debuffs are amazing, most of them can only be applied when they're out of combat (their escape is on a ten minute timer at least, I forgot the exact time) and last about 5 minutes. They also require a material component, gathered from pickpocketing mobs. The best have a low drop rate.

As to DPS - I honestly couldn't say for raids or groups. All of the three Monks in my guild are and will probably remain Dragon. Being the puller and having no dependable fire resist buffers, I tried Harmonious for three days and then had to switch back because I couldn't hack it without Sun Dragon's Corona. I don't parse, either - so the best I can do to compare the two is check how fast I killed a three dot solo when Harmonious versus when Dragon - with identical gear. All I can say is: Harmonious FEELS like it does more DPS, and the health bar on the mob goes down quicker. I'm sure a mitigation debuff has a lot to do with it.
Besides, the Bard is the single highest DPS class in the game on raids - that is, if you count in the DPS they add to others as their own. Seen from that light, the Harmonious Monk is definitely the highest DPS of the three styles on raids.

That doesn't look right, though. Should the reward of a T4/early T5 quest line really be better than a T5 UR crafted item costing upwards of 1p at the cheapest?

The thing about the ranged stuff is as such - if Rangers are to do more damage, it will come from their abilities, not auto-attack damage. And ranged "auto-attack" is all we have. In essence, there is no reason the base damage on the item should be lower for us, just like there's no reason for Monks to have less stats on their weapons than Rogues - their damage advantage should come from Stalk VI and their bloodlust ability, not from the base damage of the weapons (after all, we're using fists and they're poking mobs with toothpicks  )

I've personally made a macro to resolve the lag... as such:

/targetoffensive clear
/assist %td

If you hit this after every two attempts (or after every single one if you have a lot of rangers/monks/disciples in the raid), you can cut down stance times and wasted DPS by a lot.

Naw, he means "back" as in "180° away from the raidforce"

Yeah, I was operating under the assumption that the Monk class takes a backburner as usual - which would make our changes coincide with GU5 or come after it.

For an offensive stance for Dragons, I would go with either:
- higher proc damage
- replace +damage with a significant amount of +haste
- off-hand bonus as described by Fujitsu
with an evasion penalty instead of a mitigation penalty.

I've done kickboxing for two very intesive years, and never did I amplify anyone's hits by going on the offensive. The examples you cite only prove that going on the DEFENSIVE can BOOST your mitigation. If you're NOT focusing on the defensive, you DON'T BOOST your mitigation. Again, only in a literal sense do you lose mitigation, not in a way inherent to the style itself. If there was such a thing as losing mitigation when you were on the offensive, you'd need to be purposely throwing yourself on the opponent's sword all the time - because from a Physics perspective, that is the only thing that would amplify the damage.
In this game, mitigation is directly related to armor. And there's no reason your armor should get worse when you focus on the offense. Again, your leather jacket doesn't suddenly become a cloth undergarment. And there sure as hell isn't a reason to take harder hits than what a sorcerer takes. We're fighters, they're not.
There are two other reasons we shouldn't get a mitigation penalty, regardless of real world physics. One: we don't have any utility as Dragon Monks (our aggro shifting is at least 5x as bad as Rogues'), yet we deal worse damage than Sorcerers and Rogues (who do have utility) in non-raid situations. In raid situations, we deal about the same, with still no utility. We should therefor get more damage than them as it is, or more survivability.
The second other reason we shouldn't be sitting at a Sorcerer's mitigation level, is because a Sorcerer can keep a safe distance at all times. They have the tools for it, too. We HAVE to be within melee range - and a dead DPS deals 0 DPS.

Aside from the fact that you're trying to confuse yourself into being right, what are you trying to accomplish by insisting Dragons keep a mitigation penalty?
 

Meh, still worthless. What would it take for the devs to do something that helps Monks, instead of just f*cking with us on every single update?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. A mitigation penalty for an offensive stance (no matter what the class) doesn't make sense. In this game, mitigation is a derivative of your AC, which means your armor gets worse in offensive stance. The only way a mitigation loss would make sense, is by not getting a mitigation bonus that a defensive stance would offer - in the literal sense making it mitigation loss, but not in a way inherent to the stance. Focusing on the offense reduces your defense, making you take more hits, not stronger hits - try and spar with a RL friend and see if your leather jacket suddenly becomes a set of PJs when you focus on hitting them more.
Let me therefor stress again that the mitigation penalty on the Dragon offensive stance needs to go.

I agree with Fujitsu's suggestions for stances.
My other thoughts for Dragon:
- Add a passive self buff (like Diamond Body) that boosts spell damage by X% - probably around 10-15%, starting at level 30 like Diamond Body does. Call it something like "Dragon Fury".
- Remove the BS DS from Sun Dragon's Corona
- Change the AE line (Typhoon/Avalanche/Tsunami) to an AE stun dealing no damage. Step one: 2 secs. Step two: 4 secs. Tsunami: 8 secs.
- Remove Dragon Rakes its Claw (conal AE) and Dragon Sweeps its Tail (reactive AE stun).
- Add a fire resistance debuff to Six Dragon Strike, scaling to be 150 or so at 50, lasting 20 secs.