The biggest issue with monk defense is the retarded itemization in Velious: NTOV geared Monks have access to way too many items with very high AC. So an NTOV geared Monk has 80% as many HP as similar Warrior, but also evades about 10% more attacks completely due to Block and has similar or greater AC due to the monk bonus and generally tanks about the same until the Warrior hits the god-mode defensive discipline button. Raev has tanked Fjokar Frozenshard without too many issues for example (quad for 400 and flurry, slowable).
Normal XP geared or even Coldain/Dragon geared monks will be weaker than equivalent Warriors defensively, but not massively so. But who cares? XP mobs hit for pitiful amounts of damage and are easy to slow, and if you don't have at least one of Cleric/Shaman/Enchanter your group will suck anyway. The only things that matter are damage and pulling . . . which happen to be a monk's specialties.
So yeah: if you put the time in to get a Primal and NTOV gear and learn the zones well, your monk will be a better tank than a normal HOT geared warrior, better DPS than a normal HOT/Epic rogue, and the best all-around pulling class in the game. There is a reason 110% of the server rolled Iksar Monk.
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