As it seems clear that Sigil are moving drunken monks down the light tank path (the planned agro tools we are supposedly getting in the future), I just thought I'd raise our current state of keeping agro with the reasonably new stance changes.

Back when Drunken Fist was both our agro and DPS stance, it was very rare that someone was able to get agro off me.  It would normally take some chain nuking mage or a big string of crits from a ranger or rogue for me to lose it.  When our stances changed, Drunken Fist had it's +aggression removed (not to mention its' +damage nerfed) and became our pure DPS stance.  Drunken Mastery had aggression added to it - in what amounts we cannot tell, because there is no tooltip telling us - and became our agro stance.

I noted at the time of the change that I had to work very hard to keep agro after this alteration, and that the DPS stance was about as good for keeping agro.  The mitigation penalty doesn't really make using Fist feasible for tanking anything approaching tough though, so that leaves Drunken Mastery.

Now, not only do I struggle to hold agro off the likes of rangers and necros over the course of a fight, but clerics and disciples now also find themselves getting agro off me.  This is compounded if I happen to miss with the Thousand Fists chain.  Doing damage through this crit chain is so crucial to me tanking that if I miss Thousand or Thundering, I know I am pretty much going to be chain using Jeering Kick pretty soon in an attempt to keep the mobs' attention.  Even with Aum Ti up and the Renewal buff, you're going to run out of endurance fast and the mob will be beating on someone squishier than you.

Worse, if you happen to be tanking somewhere like Razh Inkur, so many mobs there uses stuns that break crit chains (Shock of Ice, Pummel, Pound, Shield Bash) that destroy our DPS and leave no hope of keeping agro.

I'm level 48, and the people who I regularly group with are my level or 1-2 levels lower - and I have tanked my way up from about 25.  I generally use the Greystone Staff or Tranquility, and the people I group with are using weapons of similar power.  Are other drunken monks seeing this same problem?  Do you think a stun immunity, additional aggression or increased accuracy when in Drunken Mastery stance would be a benefit?  Are there any techniques others are using to get around this?

Getting back on topic,

I havent had the same issues, I am not saying they aren't there just in my expirience that most of the time I dont even need the aggro stance (Although the refresh haste is nice, now if only it would stack with Aum Kor  like they said it would ) Stuns are the suck for tanking though *meh*

What's your "normal" mode of keeping aggro?

~QTM

So basically you were enjoying playing a drunken monk tank, and you could hold aggro well, even though your class needed some work.

Then Sigil stepped in to "fix" some stuff and make it better for you

Now you are less effective than you were before, another step backwards?

I'm reminded of a great paula abdul song....

"two steps forward, take two steps back"

As far as the proc's go I havent seen any combat spam saying that I have resisted a stun type proc. Since drunks get several CoS type attacks. ( I normally have 3 available thanks to the bloodmage buff)  I tend to use mine one at a time for when I need to pile on that little bit of extra damage / hate to get / keep the mobs attention.

The hate generated by the Drunken Mastery stance  I was told by Talisker is greater than that of the old drunken fist skill. (meaning the total amount of hate generated by the old drunken fist stance) however due to how this vaule was being stored it could not be inserted into the tool tp.  If this is still an issue it should not be a problem getting the hate tweaked further upwards. I'd like a little bit more of a consensus on this though.

Here is some info regarding the aggro management tools that I have made a brief mention about before. This has not been pushed to test yet and have not been 100% set in stone so take from it what you will;

We wil be able to direct addtional hate tword a defensive target (Kind of like a goading slap on steroids that is always active)  via a bond like ability.

Take some of the hate generated from a defensive target to give to yourself. (Think of it as a "hate" tap) via a bond like ability.

I feel with these additional tools the drunk monk can be quite good at aggro control. (even when not tanking)

~QTM

edit: typing w/o morning coffee is bad.

The initial idea behind the bonds is to NOT have monks tank.  Period.  Not at all, never, end of discussion.  Monks are horrible tanks end game, and will be even worse in raiding.  With the evasion nerfs within the first 2 weeks of live, we cannot tank at all.  Evasion is far less dependable and far less powerful as mitigation.  Yes we may be able to evade 100% of melee attacks, depending on what endurance regen buffs we have, and depending on how fast the mob attacks, but it is impossible to hold aggro from even a bard slightly dpsing this way.  The whole idea behind the new drunken bonds is to have it as an aggro-management utility class, the initial idea submitted to QTM actually had the aggro-generating bond unable to work on self as defensive target, and have all of the rescues etc taken away.  However, if they do put it in, how it will work is entirely up to the Developers, and not the initial idea. 

My point is that we should not be tanking, nor have utilities to do so.  The idea with bonds was not to help us tank better, but to help a real tank, tank better.  Or allow a sorcerer for instance nuke their little heart out without getting aggro.