...is actually quite good.

There are issues, granted. And I can admit that I haven't experience post level 34. But up until now the monk is pretty ok.

I do feel I add a good chunk of dps, can crow control one mob very reliably and has saved many many wipes. Light fighters appears to be more reliant on buffs to enhance their dps than casters, but I'm ok with that. There's usually at least one good buffer in all groups.

For soloing I can do at least equal level 3dots unless I'm really unlucky with crits. If I am I can always fd and start over. If the mobs are tough I pop a secret since my downtime is always enough for me to have Jin and one of them refreshed each fight. Celerity for the really hard fights, Ice for the healers.

My guild and regular group
Warrior (27), DK (27), BM (30), Ranger (32), Rogue (34) and me (34).

A lot of times it's just me, ranger and rogue messing around. Not the best setups, we just kill stuff fast and hope none get banged up. I feel we all add fairly equal to the damage.

For the passed week our tanks has been away and someone needs to tank the mobs. For a while I thought it was me... But in my experience (and our healer agrees) the ranger takes less damage tanking than I do. Eventhough our defence looks the same what with mitigation and evasion and all and he's two levels lower. Been pondering switching from harmo to drunken for these but I'm deciding against it as the drunken monk doesn't seem to mitigate or evade damage any better. If I pull I can keep agro just fine anyways.

In conclusion monks seem a bit weaker than the ranger but stronger than rogue.
Ranger: Appears to mitigate damage better, has ranged attacks, can heal just a little and the desirable Stalker's Grace buff. Equal or slightly better dps (just my "feeling").
Rogue: Needs a group to dps (as he needs to be stealthed and in the rear), sneak only works well on mobs equal or lower level. Equal dps but a bit bursty. Good agro reduction though.

My wish list

• Some means to reduce downtime soloing. Either with health regen when meditating, or lower refresh or even better a jin cost without refresh on Ignore Pain.
• Slightly better tanking mitigation/evasion. Not on par with def fighters but at least with rangers, maybe better.
• Slight damage buff. Not by much but at least a little. (as a sidenote, the rogue needs a big buff)

Tanking sidenot
No, we're not tanks. But I feel the monks should a choice when there's no defensive fighters around.
I have yet to try a martial sword, this might be a good option to nudge my monk in the right direction. But another nice technique seems to be Swaying Step -> Stinging Backfist. It lets me tank at least one mob, dealing damage to hold agro yet not taking any damage. Until endurance run out ofcourse.

Enough of the rant for now, might add something later. This might even turn out to be a blog of sorts 

As a drunken monk who often groups with other medium armour classes, our group cleric prefers to be healing me over rangers and bards.  Partly because of better agro control (I have some hope of getting it back if I lose it) and much better evasion.  Aum Ti and Tranquility give a fairly big bonus to parry, and panic buttons are available for a string of nasty hits.  Not much you can do about spell evsaion however.

Although if the cleric had more HP, he'd definitely prefer to tank and heal himself...