I play on varking and about to ding 15 and was wondering which path would be better since new patch.  Harm would be good with always having some jin to do storm stride to get close.  But would dragon be better since new patch. Anyway, just looking for some advice for a newbie monk.

Hi Aillin,

We have several PVP oriented posters that play on Tharridon. I am sure someone will see this thread and help you out.
I wish I could help but I am more PVE than PVP. I burned out on PVP being a jedi pre CU+NGE in SW:G Perhaps I may start up again after a while. /boggle

~QTM

While the last patch definitely helps us Dragon monks, we are still pretty bad in PVP.  This is because we don't have a snare or real ranged abilities, or any heals (well, any good ones).  If we get snared we are in trouble... Storm Stride is okay but if you get jumped with 0 jin you're done for.  If we can get up in people's faces and keep them there we are okay, but when nearly every class in the game has some kind of slowing/stun ability and we have no good way to break it or counter it with our own slow, we get kited easily.

But yes Dragon is good for PvE, and really all the styles are getting better and about where they should be.  Pick one that you think you'll like, not whichever one is the current best, because odds are in a few months everything will be good.  Anyways, there are tons of posts all over the place here about styles and stuff, so just read everything you'll learn a lot.

I think one thing the dragon stance has over the others is at lvl 30 (?) they get a stun.  I believe dragon stance gets 2 or 3 different stuns, one is a straight up hit them and stun, other is counterattack stun.  Stun is a powerful force, especially when used with correct timing against casters/healers.  You will probably never beat an even con tank, as our DPS is still a bit low and their DPS a bit high and their defensive ability is ridiculous.  You'd have to use secret of celerity, pray they dont have a shield (or you might as well just run) and hope you crit and thousand fists doesn't miss.  At lvl 42 i dueled a 44 DK and he beat, he still had 100% health.  He had ful wardship armor, the red wardship shield, and the graystone sword, and i simply could not hit him.  There was nothing i could do, and if i did land an attack (keep in mind i have over 400 str and a 71 DPS 2hander) it hardly did any damage.  But i hit him so few and far between it really didn't matter.  He could heal himself with his life tap thingy.  Now their word of doom is on 5 minute timer, and at lvl 46 it hits for 3k, so they can bascially one shot any nontank and noncleric in the game every 5 minutes. 

Yeah unless monks get a significant damage boost, they are pretty screwed far as pvp goes.

heya guys I play on varking as a 40 raki monk with great gear and i do fine in pvp. I'm a dragon monk and i have 2-3 shots tanks before with crits. I think all the styles can be good in pvp its all about player skill. Yes monks still need help but someone whos got skill can do good. peace

Hey Kysu  

Also on Varking here as a Dragon Monk.  I hope you have a decent computer for playing PvP because since all of our attacks (except shuriken) are melee ranged, you will end up doing a lot of running around and dancing trying to hit people.  Make a jin surge macro + whatever for sure.  As a monk, its all about trying to kill the other guy as fast as possible.  As for Dragon Monk stuns, we have a 5 min CD that always crits and causes the opponent to "stop" for 1 second.  We also have an AoE stun, but it is a counterattack.  I am not sure what levels we get these though.  As for the other forms, Drunken doesnt have much till much higher levels and Harm is more about PvE debuffing and such.  Dragon did suck until the last patch so I cant wait to go pound some Order with the new Storm Dragon stance.