I know I've brought up the idea before, but i would like to bring a new topic into the discussion of why, lore wise at least, my idea seems well grounded:

I think that Dragon monks, and only dragon monks, should get the ability to " turn all melee damage into specific elemental melee damage." This would not alter our secrets, but would change all our melee attacks and dots (including feet of the fire dragon) to which ever element the dragon monk chooses.

Here is my reasoning:

One of the Dragon styles basic attacks is called Six Dragons Strike. That implies that their is a "type" of dragon for every element, we know their is a Sun Dragon, a Storm Dragon, a Cloud Dragon, a Stone Dragon, and a Spirit Dragon, based on abilities and stances, such as Cloud Dragon's ruse, and Sun Dragon's Corona, and Strom and Stone dragon stances, as well as Aspect of the Spirit dragon.

The developers could expand the lore by adding "Claws of the ----- Dragon," that would simply change the melee damage of the monk to that dragon's particular element.

Claws of the Sun Dragon = Fire

"                  Cloud Dragon = Mental (think of an astral projection dragon, "cloud" would be a good fit)

"                 Storm Dragon = Arcane

"                 Stone Dragon = Physical

"                   Spirit Dragon = Spiritual

"                   Frost Dragon = Cold (this is the only one that currently does not have a named mentioned in any ofour abilities, so what ever "cold" related name would suffice)


It would allow Dragon monk's to gain a slight offensive edge over the other two styles by adapting their damage type to match their foe's weakness.


Granted, it wouldnt be a huge advantage, but having some mobs in which all your melee attacks dealt double damage, would be very nice.

Perhaps the developers would need to limit it to only +50% damage?

Elemental damage does deal increased damage on specific mobs in APW, just as the "same" damage type heals a mob.

I've heard this from several people, and ill check my logs to verify if his are landing roughly twice as hard, or healing.

Use Feet of the Fire Dragon on a Flamewarden and see if it is healing it, i dont know if spells and elemental based melee damage are registered the same.

true this works well in APW. 

my issue was that the remaining 95% of the game doesnt work this way.

As far as the rest of the game is concerned, NOTHING should be considered when it comes to group or solo content, considering they are eventually going to be reassessing combat some point in the future.

Any real balancing concerns need to come in the form of raiding as it pertains to APW, because they are going to resign combat on the whole to have more strategic value, based off of things accomplished in APW.

well why you have a point Fujitsu i also think balance on raids is more important atm.

lets face it group content is a joke right now. no one cares if 1 class is a bit weaker then the other in my experience as all get the job easily done.
(the only thing where balance is really broken is solo duo but personally i play this game to group so it doesnt bother me that much)
i really hope for some tougher group content soon to give non raiders something worth playing besides crafting lvling alts and so on.

Wow that was increadibly immature; you are making assumptions left and right.

1.) My monk is not my main, so i have no personal bias towards the raiding monk.

2.) Dragon monks do quite well in any group content i've seen, and generate large amounts of damage, especially with my disciple's 1 jin / 4 seconds buff, and they seem to benefit the most dps wise from reciving that buff. In a raid setting, they are currently worthless. Not as effective at pulling and surviving the pull, they offer almost no debuffs short of a mitigation decreaser, and their damage is not much higher, if higher at all, than the other monks, once a harmonious gets end regen to compensate and is criting constantly with a 2 hander, THEN add in the fact that soon haste will "be important" and their haste-stealing buff is going to further increase their dps, and since two handers swing slower, they will see the most noticable boost from haste.... and it compounds further and further.

This isnt the "only" change needed, but it should be one of the dragon's special things they bring to the table, the ability to exploit a foes elemental weakness.

3.) Im talking about implementing a design that is good for the long haul, and while content wont be "fixed" for a while, this design WOULD be ideal for a "damage advantage" for the class if the content did support this in more areas; how would it not?



Also consider that a monk can switch styles as they please, so if you do infact find that a drunken monk can solo some 4 or 5 dot some where that decimates your Dragon, you are free to swtich at any time you choose, which cannot be said for the shaman or necromancer classes, until future patches they are stuck with their choice.


But yes, group content is by and large so behind the class changes that it is not difficult in a full set of green armor if you know how to play your class and work with your team.

As a disciple, im fully capable of tanking several level 50 content areas, rather well in fact. The fact that A N Y class can solo, with little risk, area bosses, that shows the content is fubar.

A short 10 second Silence, a 30 second 50% snare, a ranged attack, Fear immunity, Endurance drain, or a self heal would make any Named that is currently soloable. I know as a healer that the disciple is the only one who could possibly survive a silence and energy drain, but if you compounded that with an endurance drain, i would be screwed. Also, no mob that is a BOSS should be hitting me weak enough that, in my armor, im able to keep myself alive with only my really gimp melee healing.




That, my friend, is why solo/group "balancing" doesnt mean SNARF at the moment, because the content is already painfully easy for even a novice gamer to tackle. Eq2 is often Gibed about having easy foes, but they are brutal in comparison to how fast mobs drop in NN, TOT, and such.

Righ, aside from all the back and forth on what the focus of balancing should be... can we meditate and have our teas in peace, fellas?

On the topic itself (adding utility to Dragons) though, I do see the option of giving Dragons extra Secrets that deal different damage types and have different effects. Examples:
- Secret of Force (mental): deals moderate damage, somewhere between fire and ice, and debuffs mobs' melee and ranged accuracy.
- Secret of Lightning (arcane): deals high damage, like fire, but has a chance to proc direct damage instead of a DoT
- Secret of Will (spiritual): deals moderate damage, like ice, but slows spellcasting and has a chance to silence for 4 secs.