FIX GARUDA!!!

[fusional]

What should be considered, however, is monk has Aura Pulse (which, I know, is a weak argument for monks area of effect prowess)

Actually, MNK has access to Leg Sweep, too, so that makes 2 AOE abilities, that are quite spammable... vs DRG's 3, one of which is on a 15 min timer, so can be neglected in the long run. I'm not sure DRG has access to PGL's aura pulse? Never saw someone use it.

What makes MNK harder to play is their range, otherwise it's not inferior to other choices, certainly not in DPS.

between melee, range is irrelevant in this fight.

aura pulse is almost useless as AOE because it has to turn off fists of fire before every pulse to make sure it actually damages the plumes, then turn them back on for garuda or risk losing quite a lot of dps. if your monk can handle that, great. monk does have access to leg sweep, but as i mentioned before- aura pulse doesn't count unless you're gaming your fists of fire. without fists of fire on, your damage on garuda sucks. with fists of fire on, you do no damage to plumes.

dragoon's dragonfire dive shouldn't be considered not because it has a 15min cd, but because it's magic based damage- also making it irrelevant on plumes. the time to use dragonfire is when garuda summons her clones, as it does good damage on garuda and chirada both.

dragoon does not have access to aura pulse, but leg sweep is on a 30sec cooldown and ring of talons is on a 60 second cooldown. keen flurry is also quite a lot more powerful for dragoon than for monk, because the instant reduction of recast gives you more flexibility with your aoe, and makes it much easier to make absolutely certain you have at least one (usually 2) aoe up for next plumes. (but if everyone is doing their job, you should be able to use KF on doomspike or chaos thrust to help burn garuda down faster)

monk can help out a bit with aoe on plumes, but that isn't what you're bringing it for if you're trying to get the most out of every job. you bring monk along to replace blm as single-target magic-based dps.