I have both to 50 now w/ full darklight + zenith on my Drg and a normal relic on my Monk, and the Monk puts the Drg to shame. The monk is honestly harder to play well than the dragoon, as the rotations are trickier, and there are more buffs/debuffs to juggle. It pays off though in damage. If you like a ton of positional attacks, decent raid utility through mantra when you know a healing heavy portion of a fight is coming, and a more chaotic play style, go Monk. If you want something slightly more relaxed, Drg is an awesome job. The quicker animations on their jumps really did help the class out alot. Both are a ton of fun. Melee in this game requires you to really be on your toes when it comes to positioning just for aoe's... so neither will be a bore. Monk just requires you to plan your positioning ahead that much farther than it does w/ dragoon. Once you get used to full GL stacks though, playing any other class in this game will just feel so slow.