First of all harmonious monk is not a high dps monk.  Sorry, you may get +30% crit rate at 50, but dragon and drunken both get minimum of +22% dmg which is far more useful.  That 22% dmg difference is HUGE.  Take PEH for example It makes a 3k hit do 3.66k, which can then crit for 1.5 *3.66= 5.5k where a harmonious monk would just crit for 1.5*3k = 4.5k max damage.

Crits are amazing dont get me wrong all my armor has crits, but if was a dps monk i would be dragon/drunken for the offensive stance then get + crit gear to get you to the cap (i think its 40% atm from gear and 20% from dex) Add on the extra 5% for fistwraps, and pretty much any monk will be at 65% crit rate, and harmonious at 95%.

As for "prying my self away from the lvl 50 side.  I leveled the same as everyone else, and im well aware of the unballance and lack of gear at lower levels.  Bows and quivers are rediculous and sub 45, rangers are over powered because of them.  If fistwraps were inline with bows, people would whine that monk dps is to high. 

As far as utility.... if you only want to count non-main stream utility, then only count FD.   Over 50% of the classes in the game get rez, mez, pacify (lull), agro modifiers/transfers/dumps, charms.  There is almost no single spell/ability in the game that atleast 2-3 other classes dont get. 


Monk
- Probably somewhere between rogues and bards most levels, with rangers at the top of the DPS tree.  mostly due to bows and how unbalanced they are, take away bows and rangers <<<<monks/rogues.
- A mez that is consumed on a miss, lasts 30 seconds (lowest of all the mezzes), can only be used out of combat and cannot be recast on the same mob once it gets broken. Hence: novelty, not at all reliable. Hardly a novelty, i use my mez just about as often as a bard uses theirs
- No group buffs- perhaps your forgeting the fact we get the most self buffs, 4 secrets, iron hand, + 2-5 more depending on the form u use with harmonious getting the second most and drunken the most
- Very unreliable pulling that is not time efficient and often leads to our own death where we actually use it. It's also limited by the availability of four mobs.  true for now, but soon it will be a high utility that works in all zones


How about using feign to scout?  If something sees invis/sneak then only a monk/disciple/necro can get past it and even then only monk can do it reliably.  Or even to drag a healers tomb to a camp, rez him, then have him call the group?

Ill work on making a chart later comparing the rogue/ranger/monk skills at 50 like i did for the 3 forms of monks, then we can see who really makes out the best.

Sorry dude but you obviously have no concept of balance and i feel bad for you.

Why should monk mez be best in the game?  As is the fact we get a mez is amazing. 

Sorry you dont realize how useful a monk pull is, it really is a shame.   You do realize monk can pull things no other class can?  Try solo pulling warlord or majordomo in RI with any class other then a monk and let me know how it goes.

And no harmonious can easily use about 5-7 debuffs at once.
Deadly Adder Hand V - 32 second debuff, then 700 dmg on finish
Eagle Claw 4 - 239 dmg and minus 15% mitigation of target for 25s
Withering Palm - 75% weapon dmg +220, -10% target dps, + 10% self dps
**North wind slaps the limb 2 - melee+530 dmg , reduces target dmg by 150 for 30 sec
**North Wind breaks the tree trunk - melee+500 dmg, target takes 300 dmg every time it attacks for 30 sec
Steal the wind 3- deals 615 dmg , decrease target speed by 15%, increase self by 15%

In drunken monk i can out dps the top geared rangers, and the self proclaimed top dps sorcs/necros who claim to be gods, so if your getting beaten so easily that sounds like a  personal problem/problem with play style.  If i switch back to dragon i can easily out damage any other class in the game.

Yes our mez is the worst in the game, but we have one.   Yes other classes get pacify to pull, but they cant pull lull immune mobs.  Yes our dps isnt to balanced sub 45, and yes it sucks to have to wait 45 levels, and yes it should be balanced at all levels, but at 50 we really arent as far off as most people claim.

1) Get a full suit of jagged ur armor, with atleast 4-5 end regen
2) get jagged fistwraps of striking, the highest dps weapons in the game (most dmg dual wielders and highest crit mods)
3) Make sure your unbuffed stats are atleast 550 str/450 dex (at 50), in an average group if your not hitting 900 str/dex your gear is lacking.
4)if your not criting enough to knock out all finishers in under 30 sec your doing something wrong.  with aum kor thousand fist is 45 sec (30 if your drunken or grouped with a psi) and as suck you should be able to easily knock out all finishers.  Even PEH becomes 2.5 min and can be used 1x a fight easily. 

"monk - harmonious body form is now working as intended"

So uh i wasnt aware the harmonious body wasnt working as intended.  As is its 1 jin / 10 sec which may be a little low, but anything more then 4 jin/ 10 sec seems over powered to me.  Anyone on test mind letting me know what it does now?

Maybe it cancels out the jin loss (1/15sec) inorder to maximize jin gain?

yeah i didnt mean that as a flame to dsciples so thanks for not taking it that way, im well aware that dsciples HAVE to melee to heal.

Id bet 50$ the wont work by the time apw goes live.

Quit with the whining about losing rez stones please, go play wow if you want to zerg content.
Bottom line is this,
1) if your raid group has 3-4 healers, that means 3-4 people can die incombat over a 10 min period and be rezed in combat
2) rez stones only work on healers, so if your losing healers, tell the bm to stop nukeing and the disciples to get out of ae range/melee range
3) IF more then 3-4 people are dieing in a single fight that lasts over 10 minutes, you may want to reconsider your strategy
4) Fights are short, if you cant wait 10-20sec then you probably are gonna fail on the content anyways

I played a dragon monk for 50 level thanks.  Their dps is the highest for the average play style.   Lets face it, their regular attacks are the most dmg, their offensive stance is the best bang for the buck.

The only monk that can do something the others cant is drunken, and thats taunt.  O wait, dragon get invis and levitate, and almost complete immunity to fire and partial immunity to ice (50%). 

Dragon may be the worst soloer in the game, but they are easily one of the top dps for melee.  For a drunken/harmonious to out dps a dragon, they need hella crit mods and lvl 50 for aum kor. 

Like others have said, all monks can bring more utility to the table then just "incase we wipe". 

Its quotes like this that really make me wonder how well other people play a monk.  Rez is not "probably the only" utility.

All monks can mez.
All monks can pull (atm pull 4 then fd, your garunteed to get 1 stuck to you.
Drunken monks can hold agro over any defensive tank.
Harmonious monks can use about 5-7 different debuffs at once.

DPS wise, ive been playing a drunken atm, and i can honestly say at 50 druken > dragon for dps.  Aum kor + Drunken master stance = 30 sec refresh on thousand fist line and thousand fists becomes a 4 hit finisher.

However, at 50 all 3 classes of monks are top notch dps.  I can easily crank out more then respectable dps numbers, give me a bard, and i have all the casters drooling.

Granted at low levels this isnt the case, and it wasnt till 45+ that our dps became nice.  I think one of the biggest holds was lack of ur gear (no ur hides for a long time) and how uneven our dmg skill distribution is.  All i know is at 50, anyone whos grouped with me would do it again because my dps and utility is more then just "get a monk incase we wipe"

2 new builds on the test this week, and none contain the new feign death changes.  Any chance you could get an eta of when its gonna be on test qtm?

Mcslappy is right.  Only 2 monks skills are "weapond dmg*x" skills.  The rest use melee dmg.

HOWEVER weapon dmg or melee dmg is errelivant. 
(Multiplier * weapon dmg)  +1.2*str bonus  ...........for 2 hander
(multiplier * weapon + 0.5multiplier * off hand ) + 1.5*str bonus .... for dual wielders.

EG  140 dmg dual weidler or 280 dmg 2 hander.

250% weapon dmg + 200 dmg (close to ashen hand 7 iirc)
2.5 * (280 + 200) + 1.2*str bonus
2.5* (140+200  +  70 + 100) + 1.5 str bonus

Hm well i was only harmonious for about 40 minutes.  Long enough to try out some 40 4 dots. 

I know both spells could be on at the same time but i dont remember geting an addition reduction to endurance cost, not really in the mood to switch back to harmonious so ill take your word.

Maybe im missing something, but my ability to rez mid fight has never been a factor that made groups want me.  It was my moderate to high dps that  i could sustain with fd.  Infact more often then not the group whipes and im left fd with no stones.

Personally i was under the impression that all they were changing was the rez stones so they would no longer be usable in combat, which is fine.  An easier way to say it would be "Resurrect if no player in the group has an npc agro on them" 

I promise there will be feign death immune mobs, or at least mobs where feign death has a success rate of next to 0.   Theres already mobs in stirhad that are immune to feign, 10+ successful feigns in a row and they will still sit there and attack the entire time.                           

1) yes the middle stance for drunken adds agro, doesnt say how much though.  Atm i prefer offensive stance for the 22% dmg, aum kor for refresh haste, and then just whailing with thousand fist x4
2) no whirling storm never decreases in end cost and it is always less then dragon rakes it claws.  (wanna say its 30 vs 38) but i cant be sure since im drunken now

3) any drunkens out there give me some tips on errant stirke?  does it not give an icon when cast, can the defensive target not be yourself?  ive used it twice while tanking 3-4 mobs at once expecting for it to ae them but i didnt even get a buff icon.

4) rare bug and i havent been able to reproduce it yet, but i some how got slap hands to counter myself and it went into a vicious cycle of me countering me, which led to me countering me, which ultimately led to me dieing due to me countering myself 20+ times in under a second.  "combat log said you counter fujitsu's  attack, you hit fujitsu for 340" "fujitsu hits you for 340 but you counter his attack and hit for 340" x20..... anyone else ever get that

No commands in a macro go from the top of the list straight down to the bottom.  What you are thinking of is that macros instantly go through each line without a pause.

Ala - a 12 line macro executes in <1 sec.  However, to test that it truely goes from top to bottom make a harvest target macro

/target mithril
/target true silver
/target adamantine

Run around pressing the button and you notice it only targets mithril.  The second an adamantine pops though it will be the only thing you can target even if there are 12 mithrils right infront of you.

Just gonna make a few last comments.

1) Assassin's swords are primary hand only (longsword) So you can only have one not two.
2) Their delay is 2.75, and currently weapons average the delay between main hand and off hand meaning that a ranger with longsword in their primary hand would need 1.15 delay off hander just to get the average delay to 1.95s.
3) It adds 113 ranged crit.  Which is 5% ish at 50.  Only a very few items besides bow can add ranged crit.

So no, rangers dont swing more then monks
No, its impossible to dual wield 2 long swords
A monk who agros to much is a monk who doesnt know how to fd and stand up

The reason rangers agro less is they have more active agro management then monks.  Most monks dont have an evade hotkey.

/cast "Feign Death III"
/stand
/autoattack

Use it well, use it often, costs you the time to cast 1 attack spell

Hm I'll probably get boo'ed  but the the way i understood it it was as follows.

They want to remove the ability for people (disciple/necro/monk) to leave combat and use alternative forms of rez. 

Problem:
1) All 3 classes can fd and then use a rez stone
2) Necro / Disciple can fd then CAST a rez spell

There were two posts on the offical forums about this weeks ago....

Heres the link about disciple/necro rezing:
http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m?start=90&topic_id=16437&#172366

Heres the link where they talk about monks: http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m?start=105&topic_id=16437&#174899

As far as i knew the changes they had planed werent to remove our ability to exit combat directly, they were just looking for a way to insure zerg rezing wasnt an option.

However with the changes to fd mentioned earlier.... http://www.vanguardmonks.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,27/topic,828.0/  would make it impossible for feign to remove us from agro
The way fd works as far as healer rezing is about to change drastically anyways i would think.  With the current raid system you stay on the mobs agro list.  Say a raid 12 mob for example: can only have 12 people max on him.  The way it works is like this:

2 groups join up and form a raid. (check social tab) when ANYONE in those 2 groups engages a raid mob it is considered sol property of that raid.  That mob will not attack anyone else, and no one else can heal/buff/rez the targets of the mob.  Likewise, the mob can not be attacked by other groups.   So feigning death should only drop your agro while still considering you 'in combat'  since your one of the 12 people listed on the raid mobs list.


This is all fine with me, if i was forced to sit there and rez the whole time i would feel that the healers arent doing their job, or the melee arent doing thiers.  (healing or jousting if need be)  I signed up as a dps class, not a raid rezer.