So at level 15 I get to choose one of three, however I'm wondering on what others feel of their usefulness to leveling and endgame? Which do you think is better for grouping, soloing etc? Can they be changed later and where?
"Monk" trainer in big cities, Khal I know for sure will give you a quest to go to tent guy. There are only 2 you have to choose between, everyone get Harmonious style, just not Harm stances.
Yeah I went drunken for now, to get the slight bonus to survivability while soloing. Would like to hear how both drunken and dragon perform later on in the game though
For me personally, I kind of preferred to play as a dragon monk before level 50 / tier 3 pota completed. The reason I chose this was mainly the fact that for the majority of the time i was solo exping. The great part of being a dragon is that the defensive stance gives a gigantic amount of regeneration that allows you to have little downtime between kills, I think it gives between 30 and 50 hp per second depending on what tier of stance you have. The offense stance in dragon is also superior in every way to that of a drunken monks, more damage and also a 5% crit chance that stacks with everything, plus a small proc. Dragon monks also get a more efficient and higher damage ae ability in dragon rakes its claws. The slight downside to this is that it is a frontal cone instead of an area around you like whirling storm. The major upside of it though aside from higher damage and lower endurance cost is that you can use the ability Fists of Celerity (grants you double attacks on most abilities for 20 seconds) to double hit with dragon rakes its claws, whereas whirling storm is unaffected by this ability. Also the ability to take 50% less damage from fire and ice based abilities can be extremely strong situationally, as is granted by the dragon defensive stance. At level 34 drunken monks get an additional ability called Errant Strikes, which basically is the same thing as Fists of Celerity with the caveat that you need your defensive target to be the person with agro for it to work. When i played, this ability did not stack with FoC until you gained your pota tier 3 set bonus at which time it did. This is one reason I felt lower level drunken monks were not quite as powerful. Whether or not this is true in today's current game I can't be certain. At the highest level of play with the highest amount of gear I personally prefer being a drunken monk. The ability to do triple attacks with FoC and Errant Strikes on top of your highest damage attacks gives great burst damage. Dragon monks get a much better finisher than drunken monks do in Sundering Dragon Claw. The problem to me though is that the cooldowns don't really line up for an efficient burst of big damage like the drunken monk has. Drunken monks also get an ability (at lvl 46? maybe 50) that grants 100% dodge for 15 seconds while dragons do not. Drunken monks can also dodge and mitigate more physical damage with their stance than a dragon making them respectable at tanking melee damage creatures, as well as a threat mod to help them do so. Over a long period of time in a long fight it is possible that a Dragon monk could do more damage than a drunken monk, though I personally cannot seem to make that happen and have tried multiple times. Part of it is I am just bad at micromanaging the sundering claw with my other abilities and often end up holding onto it waiting for FoC to pop or I hold FoC waiting for it to pop. In the end of the day it just comes down to player preference, one is not clearly better than the other at the high end as both have their up and downsides which is one reason I think monk is such a great class. It is one of the few really well balanced and thought out classes that have great benefits from both sub classes. That's my two cents as a monk main character.
I agree, Dragon all the way til 55. The HP regen along with the counter that reduces mob's damage in half will let you solo some tough situations.
Neither spec makes the Cyclops in cragwind any easier :/ Soloing 2 dots is faster though as dragon, I don't have to sit down to eat after every 10 kills, everything else though is the same.
Also I don't think Six Dragon's Strike (which should boost my melee damage) does anything. No buff no nothing :/
