Well since my last thread was pretty much scrapped and the majority of people thought it was totally balanced to give harmonious monks a 6k dot, i wanted to take some time out and do as fair and unbiased of a comparison of all monk skills specific to different forms.

However dont get me wrong the changes in GU 3.3 that benifit generic monk skills are more I could have expected.  Theres a few small issues i still have that ill bring up, but overall im really happy.

1) Reed in the wind, Its great now compared to before, however i feel it should be a regular skill and not a learned skill.  Rogues have the exact same buff to the nail (elusive mark).  Its identical down to the levels they get it at, the duration, and the reuse timer.  I really felt learned skills should have been something more then a skill other classes get from a trainer.  The skill is useful and i like the changes, i just feel we could have benifited more from other types of skills.  By far monks have the weakest learned skill.

2) Secret of transcendence - its a low dmg proc with a 5% dps mod.  Is it in the realm of possibilities to make this like secret of ice/flame where its on till we turn it off?

Ill start with dragon since its my fourtae and i started off here until game update 3.1 pretty much.
Stance
Defensive stance for dragons is fine in my honest oppinion.  I love the resists, the mitigation is okay, i wish it scaled to add a percent base ac instead of a flat number.  However the sticky issue is with drunken/harmonious.  Drunken is the tank monk, yet their tank stance only adds 1% more parry/dodge when it should add quite a bit more.  Also it would make more sense if the defensive stance for drunken added hate gain. 

Medium stance has its uses, but by and large it is very similar for dragon and harmonious monks medium stance, and is mainly a down time killer.  Drunken however has the most useful medium stance , and its mainly due to the refresh haste.

Offensive stance...well theres a lot to say about it.  First and foremost the mitigation penalty on dragons is crap, everyone acknowledges that, we just need to get something done about it.  Secondly and more importantly is scaling.   The dps on the stance goes from 20% to 22% to 24%, where as drunken starts off at 10%, goes to 16% then to 22% leaving them dangerously close to offensive monk teritory.  I personally feel the dragons offensive stance should scale similarly to drunkens, leaving them at 32% dps mod.  From my experience with gu3.3, harmonious monks offensive stance seems kinda harsh, but at 50 i just pop into defensive stance and use my crit gear and im good as gold again.  Id personally say the penalty is to harsh, and maybe cut it down to 30-35%.

Overall the advantages to all stances are dangerously close.  There is very little distinction  among the offensive stances or among the defensive stances.  Where as the disadvantages to the stances seems to harsh pretty much anywhere they are present (mitigation penalty, endurance cost increase, etc)

Attack skills.
By and large the trend is like this.  Dragon get a skil thats melee dmg + xxx, harmonious get the same thing with just the dmg (+melee removed) and drunken just get a saused down version of that.  There are exceptions across the board but it was an overall good plan.

5 min crit skills - by and large useless, to much jin cost, to high of a reuse timer, and to low of damage.  ashen hand and  crescent kick both have insanely high crit rates and leave this skill worthless for all 3 monks.

2min finisher opener - overall i really like it, the cost is reasonable, dmg is acceptable for a skill that just opens finishers really.  Id suggest taking it off global cool down timer, but thats just a personal prefrence.

Endurance attack
Dragons get 3, cool beans, and now their 3rd one is a respectable ae with nice dmg and a lower cost then the standard monk ae,  Feet of the fire dragon got its damaged upped but it doesnt compete with harmonious monks new 6k dot,  Infact, dragon monks would have to use 3 feets of the fire dragon lasts 48s to match one 30 sec dot.  Even combineing dragons 3 end atks, harmonious's 2 end attacks out dmgs dragon. Overall drunken gets crapped on and has very low dmg attacks.

I agree that the drunken monks avoidance is rather lack-luster.    Not only is our avoidance only marginally better than our monk counterparts, but even compared to mit tanks, clerics or other shield wearing classes we don't stand out.   In my defensive setup I am at 45% avoidance.  Our warrior sits at about 47%. 

edited to correct warriors avoidance.  It is substantially higher than I thought.

for those that dont know these are the disciples stances

Celestial Tiger: The Celestial Tiger stance increases your damage by 20%, critical chance by 10% and increases your mana costs by 50%


Immortal Jade Dragon: The immortal jade dragon stance increases your dodge chance by 15%, spell mitigation by 15%, regenerates 1 jin every 4 seconds, and lowers aggression by 20% on melee attacks.

worked all night but had read this before work and had come upwith very similar changes to the drunken stance

since I dont play dragon or harmonius I wasnt going to make suggestions for them.
 
def :
15% spell mitigation...edit forgot to add
15% parry
12% dodge
keep the minor DS
and include the 25% hate from drunken mastery

offensive:
22% dam
10%crit
minus 15% mitigation

middle:
5% dodge
5% parry
10% refresh timer
7% accuracy

would prefer not  to lose any dam on offensive stance since I still am a dps class and I rarely tank now.

2nd endit ya very tired  and ready for bed 

make RitW a purchased ability and maybe give us the new "learned" ablities. one unique ability for each stance, kind of how shamans have one per stance if I am not mistaken.

Actually the disciple's Tiger stance only adds 5% crit currently, but i hope it gets fixed to 10%.

The stance says 10%, but the effect on the buff bar says 5%, and i think the buff bar is more accurate at the moment, but im hoping it is supposed to be 10%, because for most cases Dragon > Tiger (even though im one of 'those wierd disciples' who almost never leaves Tiger and who deals dps hehe)

How about the Balancing between Diamond Body and the Armor Buff of Dragon's Def Stance ?

Haven't been Harmonious since 3.3, but I read a few times that Diamond Body is now perma on.
Dragon's Defensive Stance is only cool for the Elemental AEs in APW, the Armor Buff seems
kinda week, and Diamond Body gives about the same Amount of Armor (even while in Off Stance,
this means Dragon's Def Stance + Harmonious Off Stance at the same time, except for the AEs,
but other Melees don't have that Fire/Cold Rune either and still survive.)

I'm not sure about this, but someone who knows the values better, should please post about it.
I'm not sure enough to really complain about it right now, but just a thing that came to mind.

A flat 30% means a lot more than just a flat +xx AC. If you are right and it goes after buffs, that's even more ridiculous.

  Then just be glad your not Dragon