The description is accurate in that you'll outdamage a bard, an unstealthed rogue who isn't behind a target, but you won't outdamage a Ranger or a Rogue who's taking advantage of his talents.

The Monk was never intended to be a pure DPS class. He isn't a pure DPS class. And he never will be, because those roles are already filled and making the Monk a pure DPS class would be redundant.

I'm not opposed to giving each route comparable DPS by different means to achieve it and different tactics, but it doesn't solve the fundamental problems with the monk single focus form system.
1. You get one third the amount of abilities as other classes would.
2.  You're still never going to be the king of DPS, as those spots are already taken, so you'll have to turn to other utility or abilities to make yourself useful and relevant to groups.
3. Pidgeon holing yourself into one form is always going to leave you inferior to other classes who specialize in just what you're trying to do. So you end up being a jack of one trade who does nothing especially good. The only way to salvage the monk forms is to allow monks to switch between them on the fly.

It's also a pipe dream to believe that Monks would ever rival sorcerers for AOEs, or Druid/Psionisists for DoTs - Those are the respective things they specialize in, and the Monk will never take their place.

The Monk is destined to be top tier and flexible DPS, but never the top of the tier. In order to be relevant, unique, and useful, the monk must augment his DPS with one of three forms:
1. Extra damage, buffs, and AoEs/DoTs.
2. Superior defense and aggro control.
3. Team utility.

But you see the problem with one having access to one of those is that you end up having a single focus and not even being the best at what you're focusing on.
If you go route 1, Dragon, you are still going to be out DPSed by Rogues, Sorcerers, and probably Rangers - And you won't have any extra defense or utility to show for it.
If you go route 2, Drunken, again you've got a single focus with no extra utility or damage and you probably should have just rolled a warrior.
If you go route 3, Harmonious, you're just about on par with the team utility of a Ranger, and far inferior to a Bard.

No one path alone lends itself to a whole monk, due to limited abilities and the fact that other classes will always be better than the monk in their given form.
The only thing the monk would have going for him is the ability to switch on the fly, to do many things well based on what the situation calls for.

Harmonious monk basically is 3 things... barely better avoidance which doesnt mean much.  However that stance is also used to cut endurence cost down(crane).. meaning those high costing abilities got a little better.  Or if I know its going to be a long fight i use it over tiger simply because I can utilize more skills for damage rather then hoping for a crit in the other stance(tiger) which also doubles my endurance cost.  The other thing with harmonious is the mitigation debuff.  Anything else in this path is hardly worth mentioning.

So how do you figure this is a jack of all trades mode path that I hate?  All either of the stances basically adds up to is getting better DPS in different circumstances.

ah dude forget it.  i am not arguing this anymore because you wont get it through your thick head that noone but you wants this and it isnt going to happen.  Please for the love of god stop posting about it.  There are already 50 threads of just you saying ... "we need the flexability to change on the fly"  I am tired of reading about it and it being flooded in every thread made.  You made your point of what YOU want for the monk.  No one else wants it now please stop pushing it.

Why would a rogue play unstealthed and attack from the front? Why would a ranger and a rogue not use their skills?? You are saying a monk should be able to out DPS a ranger and rogue when they are just to lazy to try?

I didn't say that - The devs did. And I agree with thier placement of monk damage.

The Rogue doesn't always have the luxury of setting up a stealthed backstab, if the mob aggros on him or he gets jumped - So that's a factor in their DPS.

Real Tanks should be better.

  To be able to do all these things you might as  well just put a god mode button on your hotbar.  Now after saying that.  Which is it... because you are quite contradictory.... In your god mode would we be the best dps in dragon or only about equal to rangers and rogues.  in drunken would we be the best off tank or be equal to bards.  in harmonious would we be equal to bards in utility dps and tanking or would we be better at all 3?  See the thing is you say in one sentence that we will never be the best in any area and thats the problem with only having one.  In another sentence you say if we had all 3 in one that we would be the best in every area only one at a time but being able to switch "on the fly". 

So saying that ... if we were the best at all three stances then there is no reason that we wouldnt be the best in the one we chose... which flaws your arguement because its contradictory.  If we had all the styles in one but were not the best in any stance but only adequate to the other classes it also flaws your arguement because ...

A. Currently this is the way we already are  just above a bard but far below a ranger / rogue... about average
B. Because saying that way would be the same thing as saying jack of all trades... because each one is equal to another class...... using your argurement go reroll into a bard because thats what this would be. 

Look your are obviously above average skilled in internet argumentation (good or bad thing? I don't know), that doesn't give you the right to bully other people and claim your oppinion is worth more. I think you also realize that he's just simply saying he doesn't want the same thing as you do, that's not something you can argument and prove a point about. He does not have to convince you that his opinion is valid.



Ok, let's bring everything down to the basics. All defensiv figthers should be equally good at tanking, they just do it diffrently, same goes for every other job. As it is right now, the Ranger, Rouge and the Bard appear to be pretty balanced at their primary objective, dealing damage. They all do it with diffrent flavor, just as intended. Due to the fact that the Monk is in the same group as those classes, the Monk is obviously intended to be equally good at dealing damage, just in another way. Let's say each class is basicly 80% the same as the other classes sharing the same job, 15% are flavor towards that goal, and the remaining 5% giving them something else besides their main objective. Those 5% is ranged damage for the Ranger, part of the buffs for Bards (as in the healing) and being stealthy for the Rogue. The Monk is probably intended to basicly be 5% thougher than the other 3. You could even go as far as saying that the Monk is the off/def, the Ranger is the off/caster, the Rouge is the off/off and the Bard the off/healer. That's pretty much the same for every job. Cleric is healer/tank, Disciple is healer/off, Blood Mage is healer/caster and the Shaman is well... I don't really know.

The point being that the monk is clearly intended to be an offensiv figther(!) and everything that comes along with being one, which is having an balanced overall damage output compared to the other classes sharing the same job. I also think it's safe to assume that the "extra 5%" is supposed to be towards tanking, I think it is intended that we are tougher than a Ranger even though we are not at the moment. When it comes to the diffrentI stances i  belive we should/are going to keep somewhere between 5-10% of the primary flavor, and all of the last 5% job-unrelated flavor. Making each stance diffrent while still keeping their role compared to the other offensiv fighters.

That's were I see our role, that's exactly where I would want to be and I both hope and think I'm right.