Ok, I so absolutely love being a tank. I love group tanking... I enjoy the group play and mechanics. I used to play a Guardian for years... took a break and came back 2 months ago. Rather than pick him up...I decided to roll a new toon/tank and love the idea of a Monk. Now I'm 100, 342 AA's, still working. Working on gear etc... Last night was the first time I attempted to tank a heroic tier 1 zone with my guildies.. I was destroyed, 1 hit kills not every time but to often to tank. Ill give some stats. but what I'm looking for is...did I waste my time with this Monk. I mean he is a fighter and I have been working on his defense...granted I still need to keep working on my gear... but I couldn't tank at all. I seemed to hold aggro ok, against some guildies that are maxed and amazing dps... but I could not stay up... Do I need to go back to my guard or re roll a pally... or did I just have a bad night and need to continue to put time into this Monk. One of the other tanks in the guild, who really isn't that helpful, said that I should probably start to spec the Monk for DPS and give up on trying to tank..."as Zerks are the best and pretty much the only tank since the new expansion... others are ok and Monk's suck." CRAP! not sure if I believe him Monk 95% abilities at least are at master or higher 7.5 million HP in group Mitigation 11k Avoidance 23K Bock 65% Hate mod at 45% Resolve 170 solo, not sure what it is buffed in a group.
Well, you need to double your mitigation at the least, and probably another 3-5 million HP. Can you link your toon's EQ2U profile? Then we can probably be a little more specific about what will help ya stay alive.
This is my work in progress monk. Tanks fine and takes hits fine, but still needs more potency for aggro control. http://u.eq2wire.com/soe/character_detail/446678223799 Take from that what you will.
Well if you go left side prestige it will beef up your health and make your tank a little more durable but it will come at a loss of crit bonus and dps. Go left side or maybe dual prestige. I would also take Consummate Defender in your shadows tab for an increase in defensive stance. Tag Team at the bottom of your heroic tab is also a very nice temp to have. And of course get 350 AA so you can take the points in your Prestige (Monk) tab. Get some armor with Mitigation on it and upgrade your jewelry to items with higher potency and some mit. Your jewelry has mostly 106 potency, that is too low. Look for items with 400-1000 potency on them. You don't have to have mit on every piece but you do want your mitigation higher than what it is currently. Shoot for a goal of 20k. I am no where near an expert but doing these things should help. Good luck
And by the way, your guildy who told you Monk's are crap and Zerkers are the only tank this expac....yeah they don't know what they are talking about. And unless they were just joking with you, it would be wise not to take advice from this person.
I figured... thanks Simien i really appreciate the direct advise... going to work on it maybe post on here again to keep you updated...
and by the way... how do I put that cool monk box at the bottom people can click on to look me over and help me out
First of all, 50 loyalty tokens would grant u all the power u ever wanted! Embrace the dark side! (Just kidding, monks are fine) It is not strange that u have encountered problems while tanking heroics with ur current set-up, i will try to help u as best i can! First of all, u said u dont have aggro issues, i find this quite hard to believe when i look at ur character, but im not going to call u a liar . That dont mean tho that u cant make it even better. As a brawler u need to smack around ur enemies a lot in order to make them hate u more then that beastlord or necro annoying them from behind. Couple of things: 1. Striketrough! You NEED to keep this at 100% to prevent the mobs from blocking your attacks, when they block, you will not generate hate, ur procs will not proc, and u will not deal any dmg. Huge problem! 2. U have 0% Recovery speed! This must be so annoying? I cant even stand playing with recovery below 80% on any character! Temporary Adornments from ToT gives u 30% Recovery, Casting and Reuse speed. Opens up a lot more Reforging options.Check out the Currency merchant in ToT, they are usually also available on the broker for plat. Then, obviously, higher Pot and CB equals more hate and more dps. Good things! Your AA spec, honestly its not very optimal. Id make a few changes, and the fact that u havent specced Combat Mastery makes me wanna cry =( Brawler Tree: -Not too bad i suppose, not much wasted here, but Crane Flock is severely outdated. Cap AE auto with Reforge and Wild swings warrune and spec out of Craneflock, Altruism is actually very good, i'd go for that instead. Monk Tree looks fine Shadow Tree Is fine Heroic Tree: -Get the additional triggers for Tenacity and Inner focus. Put 8 points in Hostility, its a very good hate proc! Then get Combat mastery and Tag Team. Do this ASAP, grind Oss Contested or Kralet with a dps friend for Tithe and AA. Tithe will help to boost ur HP and ur Pot by a lot! Dragon Tree: -Dont put points into Last Stand, ull need these points for the Heroic tree. As for gear, try and get mitigation and block for ur armor parts, and focus on getting a lot of potency from ur jewelry/cloak/belt. High pot AND mitigation jewelry do exist and is ofc optimal. Get the Ethereal Offhand and the mount from the KA quests. Also once u get ur crafting up there is a very good cloak waiting for u. With all that said, Zerker is not by far the only viable tank. Infact i strongly believe that nothing beats a well played brawler. There is hope my friend, u just got some work to do =) GL to ya!
Tharrakor, Thank you all for the very detailed post. What this is telling me....is the monk absolutely can tank. I just need to work a little harder and fix things that are no correct. I'm totally open to all suggestions. I recently changed my spec to Sounson's spec. But Tharrakor also brought up some good points. I appreciate the type you spend writing all that info down. Know it is being read several times and being put to use. I have gotten both by ability recovery and strike through up to 100%. Not usre what POT( maybe potency?) and CB is.... but I will ask the guild today. Again I know the time it takes to respond to these questions and give a newb returning player like myself the advice. Again, it is not in vain, I have read and reread this and have already began making changes... Thank you so much.
Sounson is a very good monk, ive grped with him so i speak from experience. I do however disagree with speccing for Craneflock over Altruism. To each their own tho i suppose. Or however u say it. Also i would take Tag Team over Stonecold in heroic tree =) (im a tiny bit more selfish then him i suppose). Tag Team can however also be used on an ally if u have fast reactions ;P
So took many of your suggestions as well as other... Already seeing a huge difference.. Posting here and getting everyone's advise has had an immediate impact on my char play.. already tanked two zones and getting better with each attempt... still upgrading gear... so I can only see this toon getting better which is good... because I absolutely love playing him.. So glad monks can actually tank like they are supposed to. Thank you all... and I will repost here in a day or so to give you all and update and you can see my updated specs... again... the strike through and recovery timer seem to make a huge diff already.... Here is to loving the monk!
Click your eq2 button to open the menu, then choose deity. There you can spend tithe points you earn from experience. It caps at 10 points so to earn more you need to spend them
Hey...here is another update... been using my tithe the entire time...just didnt know it was called tithe... uhm tanked a tier 1 zone last night with my guild... the chars I held aggro against are pretty damned beefed up... hand 0 problems with holding aggro against both single pulls and entire room pulls... i would say i lost aggro 3ish times the entire zone and only for a few seconds... no one died.... healer said I was easy to heal amd they believe its time for tier 2. Huge jump from when I first posted and couldn't survive a single trash mob pull....now pulling the entire room of them... Again not sure if this monk will be as good as a plate armor tank....but last night..i impressed myself .. that zone eneded up being a cake walk
Yeah, from what I've heard, tanks seem pretty balanced this xpac, but for crusaders. Paladin is OP right now, SK is UP right now. Other than that, everything is pretty even. Pally and Zerker are AFK tanks, Monk and Bruiser are most difficult but can also be most effective and Guard/SK... can't comment. But congrats on your progression! (Betray to bruiser.)
