You say trains, I say highy sophisticated strategic pulls.

You are right on the dot with this. If I had known I was going to be main tank for my static group I wouldn't have rolled a Drunken Monk, I would have gone Dread Knight or Pally. I wouldn't be lurking the monk boards, my disciple friend wouldn't be coming here to tell everyone he's sexy, and my shaman wouldn't come here trying to convince me that he doesn't train us he just tries to pull.

But, I played monk in eq1 and I love the class and thats what I wanted to play. Being able to tank to 50 was cool but not really where I want to see the monk class or drunken style headed as a whole.  If we were to have aggro management abilities maybe instead of just flat taunts, it would be 10x better IMO. I'm an offensive fighter, but I sure as hell don't feel like one atm.  How should Sigil fix this? I really don't know, and its not really my job to know, its their deal.  I honestly would have made a Drunken Style post months ago if I thought it would make a difference, but the way the monk community has been treated in beta and in release, I really don't know if anything will make a difference at this point.

<-- Lv50 Drunken Monk.  Played it since 21.

My thoughts are really along these lines as well Perigee.  The experiences you guys have brought to these boards shows you have a very good understanding of current group dynamics and the monk's role in groups.  Congrats on your successes as well.

I agree too that the expected role of monks should be one of an offensive fighter first.  And in the case of the drunken style monks, to be known as a really tough off-tank/puller as well - just as dragon monks are known for their tough AoE, DoTs, and high damage attacks.  Honestly, I think that can be achieved without changing too aweful much.

We've thrown around some ideas here, but I guess it's up to the devs to actually deliver.  Things like agro re-direction and creative agro management abilities are fantastic ideas, extremely useful and role defining, and something I've been a big proponent of.  Adjustments to our stances would go a long way towards helping to define our role as well.

I was an EQ1 monk as well Jojo, and share the same love for the class.  The lack of communication and meaningful attention from the dev team since beta has been a large source of frustration for me as well.  Honestly, I don't know if any of this will make a difference either...and that saddens me.  Time will tell I suppose, hopefully we'll be pleasantly suprised at some point.

Yup, by all means Apoco, share your thoughts as well. Like I posted in my long winded thread, I don't really feel that I can speak for the majority of drunken monks because of how I've played the class. The more input the better.

I can't speak from a drunken monk's perspective, but here is what i think about some of the ideas so far:

Some stated they didn't think a drunken monk should be able to tank as well as he actually does, and that his first job should be offensive fighter instead of offtank. 

Well, I tried to percieve the logical conclusion one would have to come to if Sigil took this perception of the Drunken monk.  Isn't that how all styles really are?  All of them have some sort of defensive stance that allows them to kind of tank, but that might not even be the monks fault.  The healers are obviously overpowered, maybe the reason you tank so well isn't because you tank well, its because healers heal too well?  DKs right now can solo anything within their ability to hit it.  As in i sat and watched a dreadknight lvl 44 in my guild solo lvl 47 4 dot mobs and never drop below 80%.  He told me he could even take 5 and 6 dots.  Any mob that he can potentially hit he can defeat solo.  No monk can ever achieve these feats.  No class probably should, but the monk probably has one of the worst chances of getting anywhere in a fight like this.  Therefore monks, drunken or otherwise are not tanks right now nor anywhere close to being what the current definition of how a well played tank is.  I could be wrong, but i would percieve the only reason you are getting to "tank" is because you can hold aggro, and do low to moderate DPS.  That's about it.  The group simply needs someone to keep aggro, doesn't matter who.  If you can hold aggro you can potentially tank because healers are so powerful (if well played) they can basically keep anyone up.  Hell even healers can tank.

 If you make the drunken style not an offtanking style, then there is no point in making styles in the first place.  If you don't want the drunken style to be a potential evasion tanking style, and you want him to be more offensive, then you basically have a dragon monk.  Dragon monks are suposed to do damage, but they too have a defensive stance so they can kind of tank.  Harmonious monks are suppsoed to debuff i think?  but they're main focus is also offensive because well the monk is kind of an offensive fighter (but with the low DPS you wouldn't know it). 

Now think about this, our DPS is behind the other light fighters and a fair amount (sometimes) above heavy fighters.  Instead of making the drunken do more damage, give him a significant tanking ability boost.  The devs could leave his DPS where it stands because its not threatening the majority of the other DPS classes, and he'll never be able to tank like tanks do now, so all they really need to do is boost his ability enough so that its better than all other light fighters without a doubt, and since the tanking abilities between light fighters and heavy fighters are MILES apart they could get away with a SIGNIFICANT boost to the drunken styles tanking abilities.

Now the other version is they make him more offensive and he's basically simply the worst DPS class in the game and he can't even offtank well enough to off set it.  Unless you are talking about a significant DPS boost to put him where he should be (which imo is around rangers or above them even, i can explain my thoughts on that one for you if you'd like) and then there would be no need to adjust his tanking abilities, but then you just have a cookie cutter DPS class where you're style isn't really important to anyone because they jsut percieve you as a monk which means DPS and they simplly don't care what style you are.  Wouldn't it be cool to see "group needs a tank or a drunken monk to fill last spot"? That would be really cool.  I mean as far as grouping goes now if you have a DK and a psi you don't even need a healer really.  You can't pull aggro off a good DK and he ain't gonna die, you dont' need a healer, lol. 

So i guess my whole point is that if you think all 3 styles should be focused mainly on offensive fighting, then whats the point in having the styles?  I think it would be cool to have drunken be defensive fighting and be like i described above with really great evasion capabilities and even boosted mitigation.  The harm monk could have many more debuffs and weaknesses.  His attacks coudl cause multiple weaknesses that all other classes can exploit to boost their damage.  The dragon would be PURE DPS and therefore should be the highest melee DPS in the game hands down because he does nothing but DPS.  I believe this is the most creative and effective way to do the monk class and keep the styles dinstinctly different from each other.  Now this isn't to say that a drunken monk can't DPS for crap, he should still be a head above heavy fighters and healers, but a lot lower than dragon and a bit lower than harmonious. 

Or we could do away with styles and just have the monks have 3 different stances, or HELL why not just have the monks able to learn ALL THREE STYLES?  i mean why not?  if you do the quests you can learn each style of fighting why can't you be able to switch between them at say lvl 50?  At lvl 15 you choose your first style, at lvl 30 you can quest to gain a second style of your choice to choose, and at lvl 50 you can choose the third style and from there you can switch to a different stle mebbe once an hour?  There are so many ways you can go with the monk and the three styles to make it work.  You could combine all three styles and turn each into its own stance.  dragon stance gets +30%damage +lightning attack damage -melee evasion.  Harm stance gets +15% damage -25% end costs.  Drunken gets  +25% hate +30%evasion +40% mitigation.  See, its not so hard =D

Apologies in advance for the long post: I've been putting some thought into this - solutions to the direction drunken monks should be headed in - and so much depends on the role Sigil intends for us.  If the light tank role is where they see us, then I think that our stances are what need further tweaking to fulfil that role in terms of mitigation and avoidance (both melee and spell, don't forget spell!), not abilities.  Tweaks there should add enough to make us the standout light tank over the other offensive fighter classes in terms of healing requirements.  However, that isn't the only thing a tank needs, and it's here where we could develop a real niche even when not tanking.  Our abilities should instead focus on agro control.  This would give us a role in the game besides just a squishy off-tank - we could lock agro down on ourselves, or boost the hate on a defensive tank so that chain-nuking mage doesn't go splat.  To be honest even a decent damage attack that does an improved Goading Slap would be a help in this, but I've got some thoughts on our abilities below - let me know what you think.

Jeering Kick - upgrades to this ability don't really do anything siginificant.  You're never using it for the damage anyway, you're using it to get the mob's attention - how much you hit for is relatively incidental.  So in addition to the minimal damage upgrade, why not make each upgrade get the attention of the mob for an extra attack?  Or if that is too overpowering, add hate for the monk (or even the defensive target) when it hits.

Staggering Punch - this ability just needs to do more damage, straight up.  Right now it's of dubious value because the weakness it applies is taken advantage of by Crescent Kick, a low damage attack (but doesn't trigger the global cooldown).  The combo doesn't really do enough damage to justify using it.  Upgrades should of course do significantly more damage, unlike now where they are identical.  I see changes are in the works already for this, we'll see if they go far enough.

Spinning Fists - the reuse time on this combined with the low damage makes it useless once you get Lurching Feint.  As is, the only way I'd say it was worth keeping was if it hit every time, and guaranteed at least your next attack would too.  I'd go further and say give it a short-term high accuracy boost (maybe 8 seconds), allowing you a good chance to unload your finishers for high DPS - you could do it early in a fight to get a solid agro lock, or use it purely for DPS.

Foolhardy Swagger - I have zero problems with this ability as it stands, it's great.  Only improvement I can think of is if it worked on your defensive target, but that might be a bit much.

Lurching Feint - as mentioned above, this ability basically usurps the role of Spinning Fists.  The stun duration often seems shorter than 3 seconds, but the basic premise is fine.

Clumsy Whirl - AE counterattack, same plusses and minuses as other counterattacks.  I'd like to see either the time counters are up for increased a bit, or have them bindable to a separate key to finishers - but that's a general issue rather than a monk specific one.

Errant Strikes - this is fine when it works, but the timer is way too long.  I see changes are in the works on this one too.

Impossible Drunken Palm - right now a crit that's only better than Flying Kick because of the auto-crit buff effect it applies.  It needs to be upped in damage regardless because of it's timer (even after it gets adjusted) but rather than just auto-crit, I'd propose a change that makes the hate generated from this attack and the next one (a crit assuming it lands) go to the defensive target.  If +hate for defensive target is too overpowering, instead make it a hate transfer from the monk to the defensive target - that way if the monk has itself as it's defensive target, no additional hate is generated, and it only transfers hate to another player if they are the defensive target.  This is something that would help a defensive tank lock up agro for those key fights.

Drunken Arms of the Cyclone - again, damage is to low on this.  See comments above for Impossible Drunken Palm.

Magnificent Drunken Stagger - haven't hit 46 yet so can't comment, but to be honest it sounds highly craptacular given what Reed in the Wind does on a much much shorter refresh (even with the impending nerf).

These thoughts are dependent on us heading down the light tank path.  If there is another role in mind for us, then I (and I am sure many others) would have another heap of suggestions.