Truth to be told, I'm against light melee as tanking specalist (it'll all just boil down to being a 2nd class tank and a 2nd class DPS - where most solutions would be better (such as normal CC)).
That said, if that's the aim of the style is to offtank, I agree with you that the stances of the Drunken Styles are funny (in the bad meaning) right now. They lack the more obvious focus that for example Harmonious has (although, the neutral stane of Drunken is perhaps the better of all neutrals) and both the offensive and defensive stance seems to be meshed up in a headacheish form.
If instead a defensive stance would be +dodge, +agro, -damage, it would be very similar to Crane Stance (although, I wouldn't mind Crane being redone, perhaps with spell avoidance/mitigation as focus instead of melee damage) which I think the developers are trying to avoid.

I believe the damage shield idea was for the Stone Dragon stance and not the Storm Dragon.  It would be kinda useless in Storm Dragon since we'd likely use that stance when grouped and if we were to offtank, we'd switch into Stone Dragon.

Also, does the proc in Storm only work when using AOE's?  If so, is there a reason why it shouldn't apply to single target attacks as well?  I think this would help boost overall damage, especially after the bug with the inability to stack with secrets is removed, and I think that it should only have a chance to be resisted (not missed) and should proc on all targets hit by an AOE.  As for boosting overall damage, perhaps leaving the crit rate increase to Harmonious would be a good way to differentiate the monks, however, I think it may be cool to have the crit range on Dragon's increased so that when we crit, we crit big.  It would kind of give Dragon's something to look forward to, to see a random large number pop up on the screen every now and then (and really make pushing the envelope on managing aggro in groups interesting).

Harmonious would be critting more often, but at a normal crit range, so that their damage would be more evenly sustained and 'zen-like' with their judicious balancing of damage, endurance and jin.  Dragon's would be more like a rampaging bull in a china shop, with noticable damage from the getgo, but having to manage the damage at the onset of a fight until it was time to go all out.

Drunken should do less damage in offsensive, but have a significant aggro boost from damage so that they can take aggro quickly if needed, and then switch to a high counter attack defensive posture to stay alive and do damage through costless counter attacks to help conserve endurance.  Giving Drunken's a health regen proc or a finisher lifetap when in that stance would potentially make things interesting so that healers would be more willing to have them offtank.

I'd really like to see a bonus on Storm Dragon stance (or hell, whatever stance in Dragon Style, make a new one!  ) give an additional 15-20% damage on crits.  I don't think this would be too extreme.....

A 1000 damage crit normally would only be boosted to about 1200 damage.  That would help DPS over the course of a battle and not be significantly overpowering or anything.  Hell even 30% I don't think would be too overpowering, as Dragon monks need DPS, because that's what we're specced to do.

What do other people think? 

That would be cool to have a +dmg % to crits on the storm dragon stance as well as the proc.  They could scale it as we get new levels of the stances to make the +% more in line with what we will see at various levels.  This would allow them to give us appropriate level damage without having to play the Buff Bat then Nerf Bat scenario.

Personally I think the stance upgrades are too spread apart and is a missed opportunity for the Devs to take advantage of an in game mechanic that they could use to buff/nerf monks at various level ranges were necessary.

Another suggestion specific to Storm Stance is to allow both the Proc and the Secrets a damage increase if we pop Jin Surge, actually you could apply that to all monk styles concerning the secrets aspect.

A little off-topic but still concerning stances is our animations when we are in our various stances.
I see other classes have little swirling things and other animations - not sure on the specifics but i do see them.

Suggestions:
Storm Dragon: we could have little flashs of lightening crackling around our hands and like swirls of electrical charges around our toon, doesn’t have to be anything over the top but noticeable to party members.

Dragon Stance: a slight golden glow, kinda like the DragonBall Z power up, doesn’t have to be obnoxious but again noticeable.

Stone Dragon: we take on an overall grey appearance kinda like the effigy guys at Lord Tsangs.

Harmonious – I don’t play so will let the harmony monks chime in.

Drunken – I don’t play but would be cool if all drunk monks got a wine gourd on their gaining of the stance.  A lot could be done with the gourd mechanic, ie. a regening health pot, a power up for their high evasion stance, etc..  Also they need to move like drunks, those are just my suggestion I will leave it to the players of those style to elaborate.

I'd like to see Drunken Monks boost Evasion (at cost of accuracy or something) by actually consuming alchohol!!  Like, for 10cp you can gain 10% extra dodge and 10% extra hate at cost of 5% accuracy, for 10 minutes.

I'm going dragon, but if the Drunken animation ever goes in, I'd be all in even if I didn't plan on ever offtanking.  Stumbling around while fighting, hell even stubling while walking would just be too good to pass up.  Imagine hitting numlock to run from point A to point B and having to 'steer' your character every now and then to adjust his course.  How hilarious would that be? 

edit - Those are great animation suggestions btw.

You can't ditch a whole form.
And evasion didn't use to be useless or inefficient. The issue here is not the concept but the execution. Drunken's evasion capabilities needs to be returned to where it was.


It was. The idea was to make stone stance give more protection on top of aiding your damage dealing, which is fitting for the Dragon Monk.


I got to thinking later that another big reason not to include +aggro in the defensive stance is because you won't always WANT to keep aggro. You're not a tank, you don't want to hold aggro permanently. So you use offensive stance to peel aggro, but then use defensive stance to survive while you temporarily hold it.

The Drunken monk isn't just about holding aggro, but managing aggro. Meaning he can shift it around to other players, drop it from himself, or gain it if need be.
So having aggro generation in both offensive and defensive stances could be a burden and interferes with your capability to manage aggro.for the benefit of the whole team.


I think most here are trying to make storm stance more complex than it really needs to be.
The concept is fine as is, it just needs a huge boost in proc damage and several bugs fixed.


1. Monks are about base DPS. They are suppose to do more than a Rogue who is not stealthed/behind/stalking a target, and more than a Ranger who has not spent time studying his target in prolonged battles. So while DPS is important, it's not the only thing the monk cares about or the only thing he's suppose to bring to the table.

2. Each form has a different focus. Drunken is suppose to be the best off tank outside of a real tank, combining light tanking with good DPS.
Now if you don't want that capability then don't go with that form. Simple. If all your care about is DPS then you've got a form for that too - Dragon. And if you want to be all around good there's Harmonious.

3. For those who like the concept of the Drunken monk and want to play it; A class that combines high DPS with good offtanking, as Drunken use to, is not "second rate". Taking any component by itself would be second rate, but like any class in this game that brings many things together the final class is greater than the sum of it's parts. A Drunken monk, once fixed, would be the only class that combines high DPS with unmatched light tanking and aggro management tools, making him a valuable addition to any team.

Not a Drunken monk. Their evasive stance was never as overpowering as the +75% of the Harmonious Crane.

Restoring Drunken to the 30% it was before would not make a Monk equal to a real tank, but it would make offtanking something that is consistently effective and viable.