SK/Pal vs. Monk

[Kope]

Seems like the correct comparison would be SK vs Monk because of similar abilities. Any thoughts?

Basically just made this for a fun discussion hopefully to give SKs more hope :) or give monks an ego boost? haha.

[Grozmok]

You want to compare damage mitigation vs. damage output? I'm confused.

[Kope]

You want to compare damage mitigation vs. damage output? I'm confused.

Lets say across the board

SK dmg Vs. Monk Dmg

SK mitigation Vs. Monk Mitigation

SK aggro Vs. Monk aggro

[CBG]

What usually happens is that I pull mobs, get the shit beat of of me, feign behind Groz, then proceed to out dps him until the mob is dead, and I've taken more damage on the pull than he has tanking it.

[Claax]

Yeah I'm not sure what the question is, what is the more powerful class? Hard to say, especially since we all have our own ideas about what makes a class powerful. I don't think monks can tank nearly as well as SK's can and I don't think SK's can do nearly the damage monks can. I will say though that at lvl 60, a well geared SK can do some crazy stuff solo.

[Grozmok]

What usually happens is that I pull mobs, get the shit beat of me, feign behind Groz, then proceed to out dps him until the mob is dead, and I've taken more damage on the pull than he has tanking it.

:D

I have to spam cast Disease Cloud over and over just to keep the mob taunted.

I don't think monks can tank nearly as well as SK's can and I don't think SK's can do nearly the damage monks can.

I would love to try this, actually. Ceebeegee and I should take turns pulling and tanking/spanking the same mob to see how we do. His high agi and mend vs my high AC and lifetap line could make this interesting.

What I think will happen is that he'll come out having taken less damage overall, where I'll have gotten most of it back via lifetapping.

So I think it might be a wash.

[Claax]

Groz, it's so level dependent. The two of you at 30 are gonna be a lot different than the two of you at 60 IMO. I think we gotta look at this from an end game perspective. I've seen lvl 60 monks duel lvl 60 SK's. It was pretty cool, not sure about how their gear matched up which plays a big part in it. Of course, dueling is only one way of measuring power. I think a lot of these kinds of comparisons are ridiculous, but for me, I find this one most interesting. Two of my favorite classes and two of the most interesting classes for me. I'd like to see a 60 monk and 60 SK with their epics and comparative gear go toe to toe a few times. Anyone have direct experience with this?

SK's with their lifetapping abilities and AC, monks with their defensive and offensive abilities, pretty interesting.

[Grozmok]

I guess I was mostly looking at PvE, but PvP would be pretty interesting as well.

I guess it's really hard to have a level playing field, really.

[mwatt]

Apple/Orange vs. Banana

[Grozmok]

Agreed.

However, you cannot deny that Monks are extremely powerful, enough so that they've been able to tank in groups at certain level ranges. So much so, that a tank is not 100% necessary.

I believe that was the point of the OP?

[Claax]

I remember a time on live, I can't remember exactly what they changed, but during that time monks could tank as well as warriors I think. Those times are gone unless you're lower level with a fungi or something. There are a TON of monk twinks on this server. While I do think monks are kind of over powered(or maybe just monk weaps), the abundance of monk twinks and over camped monk items make it seem like we're more OP than we actually are IMO.

[Scavrefamn]

Apple/Orange vs. Banana

This is a good example of something people say when they have no valid argument to present.

[Kope]

Agreed.

However, you cannot deny that Monks are extremely powerful, enough so that they've been able to tank in groups at certain level ranges. So much so, that a tank is not 100% necessary.

I believe that was the point of the OP?

This was Not really meant as a "monks are OP" post, but I've seen many people have questions of the differences between the classes since they fill generally the same roles, with slight variations.

Monks are looked on as DPS, and an offtank if needed, but the best pullers.

SKs are looked on as tanks, and the 2nd best pullers, but not their utility outside of that.

Are those stereotypes correct? How does monk tanking actually compare to SK tanking? What about SK dps to Monk, is it that big of a difference?

General discussion questions, not meant as a troll or to say OMG OP, just a discussion for fun :).

[Grozmok]

Monks are looked on as DPS, and an offtank if needed, but the best pullers.

SKs are looked on as tanks, and the 2nd best pullers, but not their utility outside of that.
I'm not the p99 Shadow Knight spokesperson (if there even needs to be one) but IIRC, your first two statements are correct in accordance with my knowledge of the game between Kunark and Planes of Power.
How does monk tanking actually compare to SK tanking? What about SK dps to Monk, is it that big of a difference
It think this is an avoidance (AGI) vs damage mitigation (AC) issue when talking about tanking with both classes (or any Monk vs. Plate wearer IMO). Without a hardcore mechanics person here to work out the math, I cannot tell you which is more viable. There are so many factors that alter the balance/outcome. Gear, HP per level per class, any other inherent AC tables that skew mitigation per class/level.

As far as pulling, I would say yes, Monk is the best in the game hands down. At 30 SKs get FD, which allows them to pull quite well, but not on the level of a Monk. SK FD is a spell, which requires casting, can be interrupted and is mana dependent (I died quite a bit overpulling Velk's lab on my 55 SK way back in the day due to that very issue, sliding ice notwithstanding).

PREFACE: I have no data to back-up these claims, this is purely anecdotal so take this information how you will and feel free to parse your own shit:

At just about every level Monk DPS wins.

An SK working all of his spells/abilities with a CoF + Noct Blade or Inny's Curse will not out DPS a Monk. That's just not what Verant originally intended, it wasn't part of the "Vision" of the game. Along these same lines, Monks being able to off-tank as good as a Hybrid wasn't their original 'job' per se and part of the "Vision" either.

I would bet dollars to donuts that it's more than likely an artifact of Verant trying to figure out what the hell they were doing and then tweaking shit as they went.

:rolleyes:

[SirAlvarex]

Monks are, to my knowledge, on par tanking wise strictly due to having similar defensive skill caps. What *really* puts Monks over the top in Velious is all of the near weightless, high AC armor that drops from raid mobs.

It was sooo bad that Monks got hit with a mega nerf around Luclin's release. I want to say it coincided with the removal of class XP penalties, but I can't remember.

This is all conjecture, as I have no stats to back up my statements.

[Grozmok]

Is the nerf comes with Luclin, then I think it's safe to say that rolling a monk is sound advice for those looking to play a fairly broken class. :D

I don't mind, as I enjoy my SK for other reasons anyway.

[Schortt]

At 51+, assuming relatively similarly geared people, monks take less damage per swing than any class but a warrior using defensive/evasive. Stonestance is an amazing tanking tool and mend is handy as well, but the biggest reason for the dmg/swing disparity is that block is 2-3x better than parry - that's just how the skill is coded. This is offset by having a lower hp pool than any of the plate tank classes (CH efficiency is roughly the same for monks and SK/Pal and better for warriors) and also fewer options for aggro (though DPS+flying kick additional threat makes it pretty easy to tank).

Here's some data for you:

This comparison to some hybrids is with almost no discipline usage.
http://i.imgur.com/uFAob.png

This comparison is with me at 60 vs some 60 warriors (Joroz being an Iksar). I'm not sure what all the relevant stats are here, but I had ~3800 hp and not quite 1100 AC and Anthrax had ~5250 hp and I'm guessing in the neighborhood of 1200 AC. Joroz has significantly lower stats than Anthrax due to crappy gear availability for Iksar warriors but he was in evasive for most of the parse in which he's included (check out the number of misses). I was spamming stonestance pretty much every time I took aggro and it was available (note my much lower avg dmg per hit), while Anthrax was being a fat lazy ogre and not using anything (probably saving his disc's for island bosses).
http://i.imgur.com/IN3lC.png

I have some parses comparing me and Talenos (60 ogre warrior) tanking General V'Ghera where he's in evasive and his numbers are just waaaay better than mine. If I get a chance I'll post them sometime.

Regarding damage, monks will outdamage all of the plate tank classes to a large degree excepting zerking warriors, who, when appropriately geared with large base dmg weapons, will outdamage all other melee classes including rogues. In Kunark this is largely due to the quality of weapons available. Wu's Fist of Mastery (16/22 1HB), Monk Epic fists (9/16 H2H), and Tranquil Staff/Ton Po's/Trorsmang (29/30, 45/40, 42/35 2HB) are just plain better than anything any other melee class has access to in Kunark. Flying kick damage is just icing on the cake. I regularly do 70-100 melee DPS on raid bosses using epic/Wu's (typically sharing top spot with other epic monks and rogues) while epic SKs are lucky to break 40 with a pet up (this is self reported DPS including spell damage). Paladins are worse off than SKs in the DPS department. Warriors tend to fare better but still rarely break 55DPS unless zerking.

[Kope]

Wow, that's some pretty incredible information. Thank you very much!

[Grozmok]

Wow, that's a shit load of information to digest. I wish I was a systems guy sometimes.

LOL

[Crimson Death]

So what your saying is:

Monk >

Unless you're MTing some raid level mob?

[SirAlvarex]

Is the nerf comes with Luclin, then I think it's safe to say that rolling a monk is sound advice for those looking to play a fairly broken class.

I don't mind, as I enjoy my SK for other reasons anyway.

So what your saying is:

Monk >

Unless you're MTing some raid level mob?

Pretty much. The nerf I mentioned before, which according to the patch notes on October 16th, 2002 (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/history/patches-2002-2.html), was a nerf to the monks ability to mitigate damage. That is well past our timeline.

[Kope]

While Monks will be able to mitigate damage that well, SKs will have an up on them when it comes to generating aggro. Well, at least until the disease cloud nerf.

[Schortt]

At DMG/Swing yes, monks are better, but it's not like that's the only consideration when tanking. If you do the math, even tanking normal mobs, warriors are still the most efficient CH targets, followed by monks/paladins/SKs being generally tied for 2nd, and then Rangers and everyone else.

Warriors Paladins and SKs are also "safer" CH targets in the sense that when the random number generator goes into asshole mode and lets the mob rip off a bunch of max damage hits, they have a larger safety net. A monk can try to save mend or stonestance for such occasions, but unless the cleric knows you have an OHSHIT button ready they will likely panic, abort CH, and go fast heals for a bit which hurts their mana and can sometimes result in an OOM cleric and dead groupmates (when I tank Emp, for instance, this has happened with bad clerics even when they were forewarned not to abort CHs). Too few HP for safe CHs can be especially problematic for lower level monks or monks who don't focus on HP gear.

On the other hand, if you have a druid or shaman (or even paladin) healing you, or if you have a cleric using CE instead of CH, monks are going to be able to take more hits per heal than Pal/SKs. This is one of the many reasons that Monk/Shm is such a powerful duo.

The real strength of Pal/SK as a tank is their ability to lock down initial aggro and especially to get aggro before breaking mez. Monks have to wait for mem blur or root before engaging a mezzed mob, all which is more work for the casters in a group. I personally love grouping with Pal/SKs because even if I (or another monk or warrior) might be tanking slightly better or adding more damage, the hybrid is going to be able to peel pulls off me quickly and safely without mobs running around and smacking other group members. They also tend to hold aggro better than most monks/warriors (assuming repeated application of aggro spells) which lets me stand behind mobs and add my DPS without getting 30%+ of my attacks dodged/blocked/parried/riposted, having to chase mobs around to debuffing or nuking classes who pull aggro, or having to constantly FD/Sneak to ditch aggro.

Finally, both hybrid plate classes bring some good utility. SKs have a few pulling tricks involving DoT/FD/Hide/CoH that monks can only duplicate with either a lot of clickies or a lot of work (useful for solo pulling all the named spots in Seb to wherever, for instance). Paladins can pull quite well with lull, and have great backup heals, stuns, and rez. When your cleric goes down deep in a dungeon and is bound far away, having that rez can keep your night from being wasted on a long CR.

In Velious, monk tanking is going to get even better by comparison if anything, mostly because monks will have access to more comparable amounts of AC/HP/STA on their gear - partly because of all the amazing all/all items and partly because of some insane monk only stuff (compare Flayed Barb Legs (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=8941) to the legs available now (http://wiki.project1999.org/index.php/Special:ClassSlotEquip/Monk/Legs) for an extreme case). I'm still not sure how the AC softcaps/hardcaps are working on this server, but (Iksar) monks did have the highest AC hardcap on live, though it was very difficult to reach even with lots of best in slot Velious gear.