think its on the right track honestly. as a drunken loosing 2% dps will still keep me in the top 5 with-in the raid. I am positive of that.  the improvements to def are huge and needed.
best of all the 3 styles are working together instead of calling for nerfs to each other. nice to see and be part of in this commuinity honstly.

Having played a dragon 1 to 50 i can honestly say the changes would be amazing.  Our current defensive stance sucks and our current offensive stance needs a boost (not much).

Having raided as a drunken for over 3 weeks now and played one for 5 weeks straight i can say the offensive "nerf" is totaly covered with the defensive gain.

Having never really cared for harmonious monk i was hoping for some input on the loss of the crit stance.

I also play a harmonious monk, and honestly I kind of like the tiger stance.  The endurance penalty is a bit harsh, but eventually as Kiyoka said, you will be critting so much that you are constantly doing finishers, which take less endurance than regular attacks.  I feel that changing the stances in the way that is being suggested is going to take away alot of the uniqueness of the different styles, and in the case of harmonious, fix something that is not broken.  The other styles could use some changes to their stances, I agree, but lets do that in a way that is a little more creative and keeps the stances unique and interesting.

i'll admit it's out of topic but... where's Quinn?

I know you said you'd be working more Q, and time isn't on your side...
But would love to hear a word from ya your still alive and kickin
Hoping to hear your thoughts on some of these subjects too
Hope all's good, Rho

That is my primary concern of the monk class styles.

-My personal thoughts on the drunken defensive stance, remove the +damage sheild, replace it with +hate gain.  Make it +9%dodge/mitigation.  This makes drunken a FAR FAR more viable tank/offtank...which I should think would be the purpose of their most defensive stance.  

MAYBE consider boosting to +10%dodge/mitigation.  But I'd say try it with the first adjsustment and see if it is honestly needed to further define and balance.

-Make the medium drunken stance simply be 10% refresh timer + small DS.  (a good choice for soloing and generalist/utility)

-Make the offensive stance +22%damage +5%endcost redux -5mitigation%

-staggering fist if used right takes advantage of an exploit chain and is a potential interrupt.  Maybe lowering it as far as 15-17?  10 is a bit excessive.

-You are proposing 3 changes to slap hands in addition to boosting raw aggro gaining ability of your defensive stance...sounds a bit overboard to me.  You want it to be cheaper, do more damage AND boost more hate.  I would humbly suggest to either:

(my preference)Add a flat amount of hate generation, make the damage about 5% less, and boost its durration out to 2min.  Making it more functional for holding aggro and less micromanagement, plus it helps justify the cost.  This would also help be useful if you are trying to hold aggro but don't neccesarrily need max defense from defensive stance.

or

Boost the damage about 25-35%ish and make it reliable/consistant and add a small hate component but keep the cost/durration the same.  (useful as a meaning ful damage/aggo gaining burst at the start of fights and periodically in the middle etc.)

-Magnificent drunken swagger/find the center...I do not understand the need to make it cost 10end instead of 2jin, to me its a somewhat trivial difference either way.  In regards to boosting swagger to match center...if a drunk monk is using their 10%ability haste their swagger comes back up 30seconds earlier allowing them to use it more often.  Still not a perfect match up and would need their durration bumped to about 18seconds from 15 to match near perfectly.  So that might be more reasonable.  Tanking requires holding aggro, and a drunk will do that better, period.  Harmonious having a slightly longer invuln means there is more time for someone to pull aggro off them, making them "in theory" better pullers, though I feel you are splitting hairs at this point and in reality 15seconds is plenty for most pulls but the dunk has the advantage of getting it to pop quicker along with reed in the wind and other defensive abilities etc.

-Fully agree with lowering the endurance penalty on tiger, its a bit silly high, esp at lower levels.

-Balanced harmony stance could use a small boost to its jin regen in general.  1/10sec is a bit low.  Doesn't need much drastic and I'm not sure if it would need to scale much with level if it was boosted to about 1/8sec from the start...my guess is most people will be pretty happy with that.

-I would also push to make the harmony finisher extension to the kick line add 2 jin instead of one.  Its piss weak as far as finisher extentions go but would give it some value and utility.  

-Sun dragon corona add INT and a small fire damage component proc (triggered by melee OR spells) beyond the damage sheild, stackable with secret of fire.

-Dragon offensive stance 30%dam 10%crit 1kproc seems about right for dragon.  That's going to be a rather large boost in practice as it is.  Loading up crit to 15% and 30%dam is a bit overboard to me.  I would stick with mit penalty.

Those are my thoughts anyway.  Excessively homoginizing the stances leaves an ill taste in my mouth.


I do suspect however if all these changes make it through, dragon and drunk with both out dps harmonious (possibly significantly)...which would cause most people to ditch it.  But its A LOT of changes and would have to be tested to make any real conclusions either way.


imo balanced would be:
Dragon = highest DPS (particularly aoe) but lowest defense util.
Harmonious = DPS slightly higher than drunk (seems to be pretty close to that now), utility in debuffing mobs.
Drunk = DPS slightly lower than harmonious, slightly better personal defense, utility in holding aggro.

Not sure things will end up quite like that if things went in the way you propose fujitsu.  But like I said its a lot of changes.

If you take that line of adjusting things there would virtually never be cause for a dragon monk to use their defensive stance.  The idea behind stances is to allow flexability of options.  So if you make dragon have half the defense of harmonious it must give something else dragon oriented in addition to be balanced and useful.


I think the point of AOE is to be the "utility" aspect of dragon monks.  The problem is that in its current implementation its simply not that functional.  Blaming a dragon monk's poor single target dps on their aoe abilities is probably not the right route.  Instead focus on what needs to be done to give dragon a true edge.  Ideally dragon should be the highest dps, weakest defensively with AOE damage for utility.  Giving up that utility is highly unlikely to further increase your single target dps.

Personally i think all 3 classes need a passive lvl 30 buff, that can be toggled off.

Harmonious - ac + physical/mental cures
Dragon - dmg %  + fire/ice cures    ( i personally would trade sun dragons corona for this)
Drunken -   agro % +spiritual/arcane cures


I agree with most of what you say, sundragons corona needs to be changed into a dps buff (non ae) end of story

The ae finisher line would be fine if they made the delay 15 seconds instead of 30.  then add a 2 second stun to each part.  For those that dont get why the need for a stun, go ae 5-10 raid mobs and see how your hp does.

I dont know if dragon rakes its claw needs to be removed, it would be a good replacement if it were 100% ae, the id drop whirling from my bar.  Its more dmg and less endurance already.