Greetings folks.

I decided to do some looking around as the popularity of classes played today, and though I'd share my results with you.  All results come from Vanguardsoh.com/fansite.php

What I did was did a search for all characters level 25 - 50 for the world, not servers by class.  These numbers may of course be incorrect due to people leveling etc.. but the reason I chose that criteria was due to my thinking that most people have chosen a character as their "main" at level 25.  Might be earlier than that in some people's books, but this is my search so pbbt. 

So, here it goes.. as broken down by class.. highest to lowest.

Cleric:  2916
Ranger:  2182
Shaman:  2103
Sorceror:  1911
Bard:  1814
Dread Knight:  1651
Warrior:  1604
Psionicist:  1491
Necromancer:  1454
Paladin:  1409
Blood Mage:  1193
Druid:  1185
Disciple:  891
Rogue:  826
Monk:  819

So.. now the question is.. what do these numbers represent?  To be honest.. absolutely nothing concrete.  Each person will draw his or her own conclusions from them.  Is the reason the monks all the way at the bottom because the class is still underbalanced, or is it just a style of play that a majority of people do not enjoy playing?  To each thier own.

Keep in mind also that these numbers are always in flux.  They change daily as people level or fail to level so again not concrete.

Why post this?  Because I love my class and in my own opinion I feel that classes that are at the bottom of the rung should be recieving attention a little more unless the numbers are averaged out against other classes.  I.E. if monks were the lowest with 500 and the highest played class had 600.. then move on.  But with a disparity of over 2000 active accounts between the most played and least played.. I think that shows something might be a little off.

I love my monk.. I don't plan to stop playing him.. but I would love a little TLC sometime.  This class has the potential to attract a great many people if some of the more serious bugs were addressed.

Rixen Bladebane
The Knights who say Ni!

The funny thing for me was I have a monk, rogue and blood mage. Three of the bottom five.

I tried a cleric, but that was too easy. You almost have to work to die. While I like to watch TV while I play sometimes, I like to have a bit of a challenge occassionally. In EQ Clerics were easy to play, but you really had to watch aggro and know when to pop the Divine and when to save it. There was also a whole deal with maintaining efficiency so the group wasn't slowed down. In Vanguard Clerics don't have to worry about aggro nearly so much, they can solo very well and they're wanted in groups. They have it all.

The surprise on the list for me is the Shaman. I've never played with a Shaman in a group so I figured they'd be low.  I'm kind of surprised there's no Tank that stands out as superior.

Well im happy to see that there are at least 800 others out there that love the calss as much as i do. I still have high hopes that we will become the monks that most of us dream of. I am frustrated with our dps and pvp abilities, but i normally pve with a group and am happy with my role there, would like to see some more group utilities added to us but hey, i am just learning to use what i have to the utmost. I am a Dragon right now in case your wondering.

Some guildies of mine have started disc and are having a blast in pvp but I've talked to one higher level disc in game who told me they weren't that good.

Bad news is the lower population monks get the less "customer-happiness-efficiency" it is for devs to spend time on us. Fix a ranger bug 10 pppl are happy, fix a monk bug 1 ppl is happy kind of thing. I seriously doubt sigil has as a goal to spread ppl out totally even between classes, they wouldn't have made so many classes if so. 

As a lvl 40 harm monk i am easily pacing rogues of equal and higher lvl with better weapons than i have.  Tonight in graystone i was easily critting for 10k damage over and over with thousand fists on a critical hit (not epic or legendary) and when i did epic it was for like 15k damage.  My special attacks stayed between 700 to 2000 damage and on average the kick finishers were doing 2000-5000 (once i even kicked for 13000 on a legendary) and thousand fists stayed between about 7000-10000 easily.  I had 3 Rogues in my group and occasionlly they would hit as hard as i was, though most of the time they weren't getting the consistent 10k shots i was.  Sometiems it was every fight forawhile, sometimes every other fight, but i saw it very often and i was uber happy about it, lol.  I was using a 2handed bladestaff with 41DPS.  Tomorrwo i will be using a 71DPS bladestaff, i'll let you know how much i pwn with that one =D. 

oh =(

"Blunt" damage does double damage on skeletons - which is quite likely intended.
Autoattack fists, staves etc will deal double damage.
Flying Kick, Kick of Heavens, Thousand Fists, Counter-attack Slap and a few select others deal blunt damage regardless of what weapon you are using. Thundering Fists, for example, does not.
Intended or not, I'm not sure, but it's not very consistant. ~