Dev favoritism towards the monk class wasn't all that bad for the game IMO. They weren't wrong for wanting to do it. The class plays really well and becomes all the more fun with upgrades. But it would have gone a long way if some of that favor had been placed elsewhere more broadly.

Giving old Vulak's loot table a once-over, there are two monk-only drops and a third that is shared with necromancers. Though the headband gets pooh-poohed for falling short of 100hp BiS, all three drops overshadow much of what else is there. And no other class has that many Vulak drops available to it exclusively. Meanwhile, there is precisely one instrument in the entire zone for bards, one of two items only for bards but that's including the underwhelming flurry loot drop which doesn't measure up to any of the other flurry loot drops, much less the monk's.

Rewinding back to the Kunark expansion, as with pure casters, monks weren't provided with any fancy armor set, nothing akin to Deepwater and Tolan's. However, again there was an exception, as the class did receive Robe of the Whistling Fists which included a clicky that, unlike the Trakanon breastplates, was instant and clickable at 30 instead of 45. Similar case with their epic as well. All other melee epics are weapons that depend on procs.

As if to underscore this more lax approach, where before the class had only one race available to it (yet another unique limitation), Kunark added a race with innate AC and regen, two features that, together, benefitted monks more than any other class with necromancers being a close second, if not tied for first. Coin weight a nagging issue for one particular class? The next expansion introduces a very large coin purse. Limited supply of bandages? The same expansion introduces a small manisi plant.

Granted, very few players got ahold of these items during the classic timeline but still, every step of the way a restriction tied to class identity was eased if the player went above and beyond for those items. Most, if not all, of these items fall under rule of cool IMO, but there needed to be more elsewhere for other classes to level out the playing field.

100% agree but if someone wants to use 1h because reasons, it isn't a major disadvantage for that content, at least not as much as some think. AC + BoRS/SOS is probably shines a bit more when you're stuck tanking or dealing with casters...

But yeah, peacebringer is nice, staff of battle is 250pp if you're on a budget or want something 28% lighter and wu's QS like 75pp. Monk has so many good cheap 2hb options at this point, especially for leveling pre 40s, it would be crazy to pass them up. Just carry a wu stick to keep 1hb leveled and then at 60 you can broaden your horizons if you feel like testing stuff.

Most of that stuff is already figured out but your circumstances may vary. "Trust but verify" doesn't hurt especially when all those weapons are sub 5kpp.

An interesting perspective, I agree the drive to get those those rule of cool items that remove your limitations and make you more independent is a strong aspect of the game. On the bard side, getting prime hand instruments so you can cast+melee is one of those things. But it is weird that the only Velious bis instrument is from SG instead of raid content; the ToV horn is worse than the sky horn.

Another example—rangers not having the ability to port despite borrowing from the druid's spell list. With enough plat or the right guild tag, a unique self-port becomes unlocked with a click of Tolan's Breastplate. Sure, it takes three times longer to cast than self-only ports do for druids, but with no mana cost and no spell slot required.

The devs coulda shoulda added in an element of risk though, sending rangers to Kithicor Forest instead of Lesser Faydark. Then, depending on the hour, there would be the potential for an embarrassing death, not all that different for wizards porting into Skyfire. Granted, lfay is arguably more dangerous than Kithicor, what with all of the brownies running around and a months-long change involving Cazic Thule minions, but the actual port-in loc is safe.

Yeah its value lies mostly in the primary slot convenience, especially since Velious added a pair of weapons with group-wide procs. That it also boasts very high AC, similar to the flurry drop for bards, indicates the devs were still mindful of song aggro. Hard to make sense of the 22 mod though. Guessing the same dev had to be responsible for Lute of the Howler as well, since same mod and also primary. In the case of the horn, 22 is acceptable if not in with the tank group. One mod lower than Kunark secondary horn and two lower than Sky primary. So the devs must have expected players to continue revisiting those old zones and finishing the Plane of Sky quests, even though there would be no 2.0 treatment for Sky as was the case with Fear and Hate.

As for Drums of the Beast, AFAIK the whole of SG was more or less considered raid content back then, at least until the zonewide nerf that made CCing less of a crapshoot.

The fact that bards were the most hybrid of hybrids meant that they didn't have a specific parent class for quick reference, to compare and contrast or piggyback off of, so that may have contributed to them receiving less dev attention overall. Using rangers as an example again, druids receive wolf form? Okay, well let's give rangers the same spells at higher levels with the exception of a rare weapon that procs the best version of the spell earlier. Insert the Lupine Dagger here.

Even though the game plays very differently depending on what you choose at character select (although at early levels every class is basically the same, weak melee), eventually the black and white absolutes begin to gray, with there being more than one exception to most any given rule, available to the player of each class if dedicated enough.

That said, who tf knows what the devs were thinking with Scimitar of the Mistwalker. Yes, there is some overlap between the druid/ranger and shaman. All three get spirit of wolf at various levels, plus both shaman and druid can charm animals, but little more than an affinity for nature seems to connect them. Maybe, initially, druids were going to receive wolf pets as well? But that idea got scrapped because class identity required more contrast, so druids were eventually given the bear pet instead as a consolation. Either that or the devs floated the idea of a beastmaster class at some point during alpha/beta, but it didn't materialize since they already had too many classes to get into the game by launch. It also could just be another case of the BFG, where a dev went rogue and added something they wanted just because, only for it to be removed later.

Mistwalker got nerfed.
BFG planks dried up.

It’s almost like OG dev’s were afraid of rangers…

OP, what was your dexterity when you ran the original parses?

Does anything beat nexona staff besides abashis?

To answer my own question I see on the graphic that dex was 108

no but facesmasher and shovel aren't bad if you can get on the cheap