Monks - The second best tank in the game?

[Spyder73]

Didnt read through thread so this may have been discussed, but Monks are pretty sh!t tanks until geared out at higher levels and fighting things they are higher level than. Can a monk tank? Under the right circumstances, sure. Are they better than warrior/pal/sK? Short answer is no. if a monk is a viable tank in a situation, chances are so would a Bards/Sk/Pal/War/Rng/Rog of similar gear levels

[xKoopa]

Yes

Im pretty sure my 54 human monk tanked better than my velious geared sk(assuming the raw hp isnt needed to survive)

[Jimjam]

Originally Posted by Spyder73 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Didnt read through thread so this may have been discussed, but Monks are pretty sh!t tanks until geared out at higher levels and fighting things they are higher level than. Can a monk tank? Under the right circumstances, sure. Are they better than warrior/pal/sK? Short answer is no. if a monk is a viable tank in a situation, chances are so would a Bards/Sk/Pal/War/Rng/Rog of similar gear levels

Mid levels there are tonnes of low weight decent AC items for monks in vanilla (cloak of shadow, azure sleeves, fine silk turban, Syylvaak hide vest and so on), some decent enough ones from kunark too (targin's bone mask springs to mind).

Seeing monks have similar/better melee skills to warriors and AC caps below the 50s are pretty low, I struggle to see how a contentiously geared monk would struggle to tank in these levels. Warriors can solo blues up to and beyond 40 in raw hide.


Monks also have access to better ratio weapons, which combined with their high melee skills and group-mates casting root should make aggro manageable.

Based on these factors, I don't understand why you suggest they are lacklustre tanks mid levels. Is it just most people don't spec for tanking?

[Twochain]

My monk, using T-Staff, can tank pretty much anything that's slowable. Hell, i've also tanked Prot/TolA in seb without slow landing. I also usually don't have problems with agro unless Proc isn't going off, or the rogues are doing insane damage and not evading. I'm also assuming I would have ZERO problems with agro if I used a Bio Orb.

I also usually end up with agro in PUGs if there is a traditional tank in group. Last raid, i think i finished.. 7th? 6th? on the dps chart using fist + SoS. And i'm by no means BiS. I have ONE piece of ToV gear.

So, yeah. If you're looking to say, have a min/max group for farming in sebilis, you want a monk to tank. If you're level 30 in a GY group in MM, it's probably better to have a Knight for snap agro.

[Raev]

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.

[Tenlaar]

Originally Posted by astuce999 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

----Well, technically again, the best tanking class in a group setting is a bard. Luckily, most bards are mediocre and would never attempt this.

This is the correct answer, and bard tanking is the most fun EQ thing to do.

P.S. Put your starting points in stamina.

[Kelor]

Originally Posted by Tenlaar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This is the correct answer, and bard tanking is the most fun EQ thing to do.

P.S. Put your starting points in stamina.

How can this be with there defensive skill caps all being so low?

[Tenlaar]

Because they have still enough HP while being able to lull, mez, charm DPS, slow/pre-slow, best agro in the game, the hp and mana regen to counteract higher healing mana usage, so on and so forth.

[AzzarTheGod]

Originally Posted by notColgate [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

warriors precision in berserk mode for #1 dps in the game

intredasting... any blue fellows have any numbers on this? Or is it not common practice on your server.

[Detoxx]

Originally Posted by nyclin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Dumping clickies is going to be more reliable than Taunt would ever be in a situation where it really mattered. Otherwise, 1 root net click -> stand on top of mob.

Taunt used correctly is very efficient. It puts you 1 point ahead of everyone else on the hate list so long as you do not have aggro on the mob. The Warriors that mash taunt do it wrong, but if you are a heads up warrior, you wait for classes to do something like cast Malo or Tash and Slow and right after it lands, you taunt.

Works like a charm.