Common Monk Weapons Parsing - DPS and Damage Taken

[Ennewi]

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.