Real curious how others would feel about a revamp on The Dragon

Many times in the past i've thought, i'd gladly exchange what i felt were useless AoE attacks for some nice DoT attacks.  As Dragon is supposed to be the heavy hitter of the Monks, and as Monks are for the most part strictly DPS, with minimal utility... i'm always confused why the Dragon is more of a damage monster in combat.  But at least we get all these cool AoE attacks.  Oh wait, those aren't very welcome are they... what's that you said? Crowd control?  Oh ok, so you'd prefer i not use these?  I guess i do see your points...
  Seriously, the truth to date is the Dragon doesn't offer anything to a group other than dps, it's what we do, it's all we do.  Let's do it better.  Rather than having combat abilities that go unused, give us something to Kick out the Jams!  Toss out those AoE attacks, i dont like them, i don't feel the need to use them.  They're useless to me.  Oh sure, if i'm blowing through a few greys i'd consider it, but why would i bother?  Im sure we're not being encouraged to farm gear from lower lvl mobs are we?  Toss them, give me some DoT attacks.  Let me put some damage in there that keeps coming, wounds that won't stop throbbing, hurting, bleeding... i'm not smacking your face, im busting you up, bruised outside, cracked ribs, internal bleeding.  You are in pain!.  Give Dragons the ability to damage over time, and throw in some extra weaknesses, this is dps... this is why we're here.

  How bout an offensive form that has a nice add to damage generated.  +20%.  But wait, there's more.  Endurance regen (Something i'll notice).  I dont want damage in short bursts, i want sustained ouput.  I want to be able to fight a bit more tirelessly overwhelming my opponents with a steady stream of damage, not just a little puff of output now and then.  You want a cost to t his?  Sure, np.  I'll take a penalty to dodge/parry.  I'm throwing everything i got at you, I'm disregarding my own safety, counting on a strong offense to take you down before me.  You are the prey, I am the Dragon.
  Defensive stance:  If im using this, i'm either alone, or things are real bad.  For the most part i think this ones nicely done, though i think a parry/dodge bonus wouldn't be unbalancing, and would fit into the idea very well.  Maybe the ac bonus should be % based instead of a flat rate, though i'd prefer it if it just scaled a bit better through the lvls.  Same for the resist adds.  Overall among all the classes, alot of the adds given need to be set to scale better through the lvls.  What starts out a nice addition quickly becomes dated, and ultimately forgotten.
  Neutral stance:  The heal of course on this needs to be adjusted to scale better through the lvls.  It's a nice timesink reducer when you first gain it, but it doesn't live up to it's purpose as the lvls outgrow it.  But i don't think that's enough, it needs a little something.  Jin regen.  Will allow us to buff up faster, get back in the action faster, and prepare more for upcoming battles.  Handy little Jin regen.  Meditate is nice, but why should monk be only class in game that needs to sit on it's butt to be ready for combat.  I'd revamp meditate some, leave the Jin regen, but add some other benefits to make it useful and used more. 

  I've got some ideas i'd like to toss out, and would love to hear some from others.  I know we've tried this before, but i think we're losing sight on what The Dragon needs to be playable, and fun.  Some extra food for thought ideas, that's all this is, and maybe a way to get us moving The Dragon forward again.  We can't wait for a fix if no one has an idea of what we want/need.  Take a good look at the bard, the ranger, the rogue... look at their abilities.  What do we need to be the DPS without all of their utility?  Someone, somewhere is waiting for us to solvel this.  Let's not keep them waiting.

Sorry bout the bad numbers, my memory stinks and i've been off monk a bit.  But agree, the damage add needs to be straight across, spells and melee, not just the melee.  It's our wack em stance.  The extra melee haste would be great if /when they ever get it fixed.  I'm sure a few suggestions i had aren't current enough with some of our big issues.  But i'm trying to recall problems i was having throughout the game, not just at 50.  I think that's how we need to approach things.  You can't be broken for 49 lvls and then just suddenly work.  Aum Ti is gained when? 40+?  Im just recalling alot of time spent OOendurance, hoping for a counter to pop.

Like the idea for meditate, but 5 minutes for 15% lost when your hit?  seems costly.

Seems alot could be fixed by swapping those aoe's for some straight out damage, some more weaknesses to exploit, and better scaling of abilities.  I'll be honest, im more interested in seeing this approached more by others than what i might suggest.  I'm stubbornly refusing to swap styles, though i do plan to have 1 of each time monk,  and wanting some work moving again on Dragon sooner rather than later. 

Good post, I'll comment more once I get home.

Sorry, was a bit of a Drunken Monk irl yesterday when I got home - maybe tonight 

I am all for dragon monks getting revamped but I believe your suggestions are a little over the top.  I do believe Dragon should out-dps the other 2 types of monks, but the stance changes you have listed would make all 3 of your stances far superior to Harmonious stances for sure.

Storm Dragon is a very powerful stance as is.  I would much rather have a mitigation penalty than a 40% endurance cost as Tiger does.  Not to mention the cost of doing the massive dps that dragons should do should also come at a risk which would be death if you get aggro due to mitigation penalty.

Neutral - Full regen of HP in 40 seconds?  Hmm would you rather have that or regen 1 jin every 6 seconds or whatever it is?  I would much rather have any hp regen over jin regen especially since we are pullers and lay fd alot.

Defensive - 25% damage reduction + 50% resistance to fire and ice?  Are you kidding me?  Hmm compared to 8% evasion and dodge and what 30% increase in armor?   I will take the 25% dmg reduction and the resists.

Dragon monk offensive stance should make the dragon monk deadly and therefore provide higher dps than the other two monk classes.  However, as stated above, it should come at a risk.  The defensive stance of a dragon monk should be far weaker than the defensive stance of the harmonious and drunken monks, and especially drunken.  Drunken should have the best defensive stance as they are meant to be offtanks, and add aggro control.

I really hate to say it, but when it comes to dragon monks "Harmonious monks should be denied input" because frankly thats what got us in this whole predicament.  I said diamond skin was over powered and shouldnt go to harmonious monks, it didnt make sense, it wasnt fair to the other 2 forms of monks etc etc.  And ultimately i was told to shut my dragon monk and move on.  Then again when deadly adder went from 700 dmg to 6k dmg, didnt seem fair to me, but harmonious wanted it so they got it.  (I know 6k over 30s isnt a lot, but when its > dragons its infuriating) Now its our turn to return the favor to the most ridiculously over powered form of monk. 

I agree 100% with khana on the offensive stance
I agree 70% with khana on the defensive stance, while the stance already has a 50% fire/ice rune, i think 25% mitigation rune would be over powered.  I would much rather just 50% rune to all elements.
I agree 100% on the middle stance, it should offer >150 hp regen a tic IN COMBAT and over 2 to 3 times that out of combat cause frankly i sit at 10k hp and 72 hp a tic while fd means well over 10 minutes of waiting.

1) You can cancel out an endurance penalty with a few buffs, infact in raids and most high end groups (add a shm) and your never going out of endurance.  Dragons however can get a few buffs and get our mitigation back up to 10% (still less then a buffed caster) while our dps sits below theirs.
2) Drunken and harmonious BOTH get a 20s invuln and a short duration HIGH dmg ds.  Dragons get an invis (cause that helps with pulls) and a 10 min ds thats about 70 a hit (vs 300-700 of harm/drunken)
3) The only way  a mitigation penalty on storm dragon stance would make sense, would be if the dmg on it scaled like drunken (ala 20/28/36 % dmg increase,....instead of 20/22/24).... i believe drunkens went (8/14/20). 

Frankly i bust balls at the moment to get my dps in the top 10 and i do it consistently.  Mostly because i have a good comp that doesnt lag and lets me go all out.  However a rogue/sorc just needs to press a few buttons, not try very hard, and boom they have 2x our dps. 

Ill be happy when my dragon HAS to FD because hes doing so much dmg he pulls agro (ala sorc/rogues), currently that means doing over 2x my currently max dps and thats a bit of an increase.

With full shaman buffs (bear shm) you can have a buff that stacks with aum ti AS WELL as additional endurace regen.  Litterally my endurance cost/regen as a dragon is identical to a harmonious with max buffs.  So yes you can cancle it out.

We know its 30% ac weve known it for ever and ever. 

Haste isnt useless in this game, with game update 4, haste is huge, especially for monks since we have fast weapons.  And its usable 100% of the time, melee from in front of a mob for 2-3 hits every 1 min you've got your haste and mob rebuffed. 

I know its not a true invuln, neither is drunkens, but you realize dragons dont get ANYTHING close to that, and 2/3 of the monks do? 

A 400-700 ds is higher then dragons 75 ds.  And your right ds dont matter, but if 2/3 of monks will have large dmg shields, its kind of a slap in the face to give dragons a tiny one.

Last i checked as a dragon monk, i have no group buffs or utlity (sorc and rog both do) i have the LOWEST mitigation in the game (remember even you said mitigation is more important then ac, and we have ZERO).... Ever played a dragon monk, cause they solo about as well as a rogue. 

Look at it like this:
Rogues of tons of utility (group buffs, evaks, mez darts, mez spell, tons of debuffs, and insanely high dmg)
Sorc have moderate to high utility (less group buffs/debuffs/etc, have evak, and again insanely high dmg)
Dragon monks have no energy, get hit the hardest in the game, no debuffs, no group utility (other then feign) and less dmg/survivablity then drunken and harmonious.

So which seems like a red headed step child?

1) I have leveled a rogue 1 to 40 and yes i can say a dragon monk has the same solo potential as a rogue, regardless of stance.
2) Rogues dont have an offensive stance, unless you are refering to stalk, which is only required for 2 attacks.  The majority of attacks require being behind the mob.  AND YES the rogue can back stabd and use 80% of its finishers (guess which oen they cant...pick pocket) just by using a skill that allows them to back stab from the front for 6 seconds.
3) Rogues can also stun and teleport behind a mob for more back stabs.
4) Id bet my left knuck steal the wind can be keept on, just keep reed in the wind on and your almost garunted to dodge 1 hit in a 20 second period
5)Aum kor is great but most fights dont get me wrong, but i use aum ti for a number of reasons...%5 dodge, more endurance to use more attacks... cause lets face it you could put PEH on a 30 sec timer and if you have no endurance to cast it what good does it do you?  I prefer to have endurance for any attack at any time, specially on fights where im pushing stances.
6) With shm buffs + aum ti and a cleric end buff you should never be low on endurance.  Ive never seen a single person in raid be ooe unless they are tanking and being taped.  Sucks for grouping but group with a shm and use aum ti and youll be fine. 
7) So in your infinite wisdom please explain to me how using a debuff that dmgs the mob costs you dps.  Ive been a harmonioius and i can honestly say i never looked at an attack and said "dang that 300 dmg attack just isnt worth pressing, even though its a debuff"  Northwind is a debuff and does rediculous dmg.  Steal the wind is a debuff and doesnt encur global cool down. Deadly adder is a debuff that only has to be cast every 30 sec and does 6k dmg (big loss in dps by pressing that one).  So the only attack i can think of is either whitering palm (costs jin but increases your dmg by 10% for a min and debuffs the mob) or eagle strike (low dmg with a str debuff).