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Kaji are we allowed to swear here?

BS.  You do not outdps rangers and bards your level, unless they are the complete suck.  I play with a ranger all the time.  We are both about lvl 38.  No matter what I try to do, he will outdps me everytime.  His average crit is 7k.  My average crit is 1.5k.

I would like to add to this conversation.

I play a DE Dragon style Monk, i'm currently lvl 19 so that should give you a base of reference of what my experience is.

I think the monk class has a lot of potential and the devs did a good job with the initial implementation of the class, key word being Initial.  The three subclasses of Monk shows some depth and creativity that is just touching the surface of what the martial arts world has to offer.

The devs need to regroup and and look at the monk as being the MASTER of the MARTIAL ARTS world, this includes their brethren the disciples - though the dicsiples are focused more on the healing arts and monks on destructive arts.

The three subclasses of the monk should be able to produce the same dps, be it from out right damage - ie. my fist smashes nose technique - or a combination of weakness + exploit attack - ie. I evade your attack apply sweeping leg technique which breaks your balance and your stunned for a few secs so my weaker fist attacks can land unanswered. Same DPS just achieved differently.  These differences can also give variation, like harmonius can stun more as the need too so they can get off their dps attacks exploit, this is an advantage in group play as other players in the group can take advantage of this.  IN END GAME - their should really be no difference between the 3 subclasses when it comes to DPS, they may approach DPS differently but the end result will be the same.

Let me give an example: A Tae Kwon Do master engages a duel with an Akido master.  Both equal level on all accounts.  The situation can play out as such - Tae Kwon Do master does jump spinning kick with a twist to the head technique, Akido master is to slow and gets slammed in the head and drops - end of duel.
Same scenario - Tae Kwon Do master does jump spinning kick with a twist to the head technique, Akido master pulls off an evade and then applies a redirection throw slamming the Tae Kwon Do master on his head - end of duel.
As you can see - both masters of completely different styles have the potential to apply same dps - ie. a busted head.  They just approach it differently.

Weapons vs. Empty Hand : OK - this is a tough cookie to crack in game mechanics.  Monks can be devastating with both empty hand and with weapons. 
A possible solution is to make monks empty hand dps equivalent to like level weapons.  I think that is supposed to be the case now, not sure if we are there.
What will make weapons attractive to monks is the additional stat bonuses that monks will gain from using weapons.  If my empty hand is the same dps as my knuckles but my knuckles give + to crit and +10 strength then my knuckles actually out dps my hands.  Clearly my knuckles are the weapon of choice, but lets say I die and didn’t bind my knuckles at least my empty hands can fill the bill until I reclaim my corpse.  Other classes don’t have this advantage, Woot for Monks, a + for us, unless you’re a caster then the dps debate really doesn’t matter.
Something nice is to maybe give monks who want to stay empty hand a little love, like giving 1 Jin generation for every other autoattack (white dmg) hit.  Now the monk has options, empty hand is nice in dps and Jin generation, but these knuckles give great crit and additional stats – the Monk now has the FREEDOM to make a choice and not feel totally gimped either way.  It’s about the Freedom Baby, Yeah!

Another suggestion – stances should have more meaning and become more powerful as one levels.

Stances should also give weapon bonuses to particular weapons, ie. Dragon stances give + bonuses for using knuckles and claws, Harm gets bonuses for using marital swords, Drunken gets bonuses for using hand wraps, etc… These should be listed in the description of the stances with a forward view of what’s to come.

I will post additional suggestions as I get time and review responses.

First .. believe it my best game friend plays a ranger.  Ive grouped with him everyday since 9th level.  We are now lvl 25(me) lvl 26(him)  he regularly crits for 4k+ at lvl 26 so at lvl 38 i believe he would easily avg crit for 7.5k.  Hell at lvl 20 the ranger was criting for 2.5K+ all the time. so believe it ... there crits are insane dmg.

Secondly where do you get the information that harm monks have a 50% crit rate?  The stance only adds 20% critrate for a 50% end cost increase.

Ops, missed this part.

~15% from dex with buffs. 25% from Tiger (upgraded like all other stances at 30). 7.5% from fists. +3% (+4% if I want) from items. So slightly more than 50% actually.

Uh, the vast majority of dexterity crit chance is innate, and unless you've neglected that, you should have at least 10% regardless of what race you picked as Monk. I'm virtually always grouped, which includes dexterity buffs putting me at ~15% (sometimes less, sometimes more) - while ok, it's maybe 12.5%-13% unbuffed (haven't checked in a while, to be fair). A monk not yet 30 will still have a respectable near 40% (some more, some less, pending dexterity and +crit gear) critrate - the argumentation was a 30+ monk vs a 30+ ranger however, not sub-30; hence the ~50% comment. As for endurance, in Tiger stance you have Eagle Claw costing 22, Cresent Kick costs 22, Ashen Hand costs 0, Flying Kick 15 and Kick of Heavens 15 - the two first increase jin and proc up finishers, Ashen Hand procs up finishers (and is endurance free, even though it freeze endurance regen of some reason) and flying and heaven kicks deals really nice damage for their endurance cost, not to mention the speed you get them off at. Harmonious is very kind on endurance in general. +Endurance Regen (and item based, before you imply something such as buffs) helps aswell.

Like I stated, in group, add ranger buff (5%) and then the bard ac debuff, which actually increase crit rate against a mob with nearly 25-30% (suspected number only, can't confirm, however it's huge numbers - entire group notices when it's on and off), you end up at maybe 80-85% critrate in (Magnificent) Tiger stance, this means that I in certain 10 second areas (hence the 2-5 2k crits - the 5 does additionally require a disciple to soulwrack my Ashen Hand though, so it dosen't work if he's not tagging along) do crit everything - I even go entire fights against 4 dots where everything is a crit with my standard group. I'm outdpsed by the Ranger (he benefits even more from the bard debuff if anything) but we both bring roughly the same DPS to the group (as the harmonious mitigation debuff really boosts a melee group). On top of that, he brings buffs, I bring utility.
Is the monk finished? No, we're the most unfinished of all DPS classes now (by quite far) - but we can still stand on our own legs and everything isn't as miserable as some would like to make it out to be.

Yeah.. it's tough to say that we are ok dps because you are generating a ton more damage by grouping with a bard and you are a harm monk.  I'd ask politely if you could go self buffed and fight a few even con 2-dots for a lttle bit and tell us how much dps you do in comparison and how many crits you get off in a fight.

I really didn't take into consideration the harmonious monks ability to jack up their crit rate that high. IMO, this is a huge advantage and would definitely put a harm monk well past dragon monk dps.  I would also worry that this is the type of thing that gets the nerf going because harms aren't' suppose to be outdamaging dragon monks.  (however, it may be the case that the dev's are fine with it as long as it's only when playing with a bard).

People are just trying to get down to the bottom of what the heck is going on.  Why is it that 100 monks claim our dps stinks and the recent poll of who is the least desirable class has monks in the lead.. yet some monks come  on here claiming to do insane amounts of damage.  It's not that we don't believe you, but maybe need enlightened.  Maybe you have the silver chalice of monkly uberness equipped that is doing something we aren't anticipating. who knows.

 

Less damage (as it should be), critrate is pretty much 50%. Because of RNG, I win some fights with 80% health, others with 20. My flying/heaven kicks are well over 1k solo, and 1k6 roughly on crits (which evidently occurs often).


Much of harmonious DPS (in group) is indirect. 15% mitiagion debuff really increases a groups DPS, nearly as much as a bard DPS song (combination is deadly). Our strikes are rather weak (no weapon damage, at all, so everything is fixed). I think (currently) that harmonious is able to perform more direct damage than dragon, mostly to the debuff (otherwise it be pretty fair race) - but I could be wrong, I'm not to keen on how to effectivly play a dragon. I really wouldn't be to surprised if the critrate is lowered on Tiger - it's nasty currently. On the other hand, a revamp where we can use weapon damage could put Dragon back on the right track as the top dog of direct monk damage.


Probably because they try to compare a class which has most skills still intact from Beta 3 with other DPS classes which are lately polished, and that we're indeed supposed to do less damage than some of them. Our damage leaves something to be wished for; mostly it leaves options to be wished for (such as the ability to use weapons other than fists effectivly); but we're not helplessly crawling behind. We can do respectable amout of damage, we can do good utility in a group - but we definitly need to be updated to the combat system that is used in launch. Remember the cries about rogues? The few groups I had with them (in beta 3.5 when I started) they were unquestionable the main dps of any group and had a wonderful ability to recover corpses on wipes (I was bard) - yet the cries were that the class was completly broken - and while they certainly needed some love (which they finally got) they were fully operational. We're pretty much the same at the moment, the most out to date class.