(Sorry for the length! I tend to get on a role.)
My single and only wish, and truly I don't even care how it is accomplished is this: To be a class that brings the best of something, or has a unique ability that is needed to a group, even if only in special circumstances.
I like all the current skills and abilities, I think some are very fun and it's why I've always played a monk. Unfortunately, these skills are only fun and amusing to ME. These do not transcend into being useful to a group. If we were able to solo, I would say monks were perfect. But fact is monks cannot really do much without a group. So we need something that makes us a viable addition to a group, that people WANT. Plain and simple we have to offer something to a group besides second rate DPS or slow second rate pulling.
Now I don't envision the need to be best DPS, or best off tank, or even the best puller. Just something unique that would make people want us in a group. There is just simply no reason all other offensive fighters have something to bring best to the table. Even aside from major roles other classes have pick pocket, tracking or group bonuses. Bards give so much group benefit AND pull the best. Leave something for us poor monks, lol.
So I apologize for the babbling, but here are my feeble suggestions (and I realize some sound over powering, these are just meant to be thought provokers’):
1. Make the monk FD stand out.
- Make it work on higher level mobs then disciples, necromancers or bard lull. This lets us get a niche of helping pull or just plain pulling named bosses or better yet raid content.
- Random but, PvP Feign Death would rock if you lost target and couldn’t get back, only got Name’s Corpse, and had to AoE or some such thing to break.
- Remove level limit so that we can use it to travel in dangerous areas. Might take us a while to flop thru but would be nice! If it’s not meant to pull then why have level cap, make it useful.
- Make one that will FD the group. Stuns for 1 minute or such but saves everyone!
- Make it not tether mobs!
2. Specialization!!! You NEED a rogue to picklock, you NEED a ranger to track, you NEED a bard to pull, you need Monks for nothing except random DPS you can get anywhere.
- We are martial artists, let us do more damage to humanoids, I don’t know how to Kung Fu a bear.
- Feign Death specialization – Bards pull faster, monks pull the tougher stuff.
3. Make us the defensive version of bards.
- Extend certain Harmonious or Drunken ablities to group members. Possibly make Dragon a bard lite of sorts, seeing as how we are light or super light versions of everything else we do. Would even out seeing as how bards with their group damage increase probably do more damage then us if you factor in the extra damage group members do, and that we are aren’t near Rogues for damage.
4. Make us be able to add focus to caster spells. Bards focus mellee attacks, Monks use their inner power to increase healing spells and increase damage done for sorcerers.
5. Definitely agree with making Mend % based for pure fact of scalability. Gonna become useless once gears starts getting better.
6. Just give in and increase our DPS to pretty much a rogues’, or increase our off tanking ability to a Rangers’. No way being so currently low on tanking will we be doing it.
7. Just say screw it and make us a class that can solo. If we are only ones on agro list increase our damage or something.
Oh and one other request, and clearly the most important... give Drunken Monks a super high alcohol tolerance
