I did not play EQ1 and was not in beta for EQ2, so I have no point of reference to this question. I was thinking about trying out the Monk class but I'm not sure if they are a viable tank. I am interested in a damage dealing tank class so I'm wondering if Monks fit that bill. I was also looking at the Guardian class but again I don't know enough about the types of tanks out there. Can a Monk character with previous experience please let me know. Thank you in advance. Level 9 Fighter Ospri Permafrost server
Monks are not ideal tanks. They aren't horrible. If you decide to do it, you are going to want to focus on Agi. not Str. At lvl 18, still only app II skills, i dont get hit TOO often with my buffs on. But if none-melee mobs come into play, i need a really good healer. When my normal group isn't online, i normally end up tanking in whatever group im in. Again, its doable. Not the most ideal thing in the world tho.
lvl 21 monk here... at lvl 18 your not going to be able to tank as well as other fighters. However, once you hit monk, your deflection skill gets a MASSIVE increase putting it far beyong your skill cap (i believe its by about 39 points...) I was hunting with an Ogre paladin with 2 healers and they were having a bit of trouble (reminder, we are all lvl 20 and 21) keeping up on his heals, sometimes running out of mana. However, the pally left and was replaced by a scout, so naturally i became the new tank. At first, the group was worried that we didnt have a tank. Knowing my character i scoffed at them and said "Watch this" and began attacking some yellow con group mobs. To their astonishment, i hardly took any damage due to the massive amount of deflection (which goes even higher when you use your own buffs on you, over 150 i believe). IMHO, monks make BETTER tanks, because the healers end up using much LESS power, rather then spamming healing on a tank. And yes, Agility is very important for this to work, however thats the monks main function is to evade and deal damage. On a side note i have 3 abilities dealing over 100 damage now, so damage really isnt a problem, and i often found myself pulling the agro off the tank due to the excessive amount of damage i was doing. I was not using any of our taunting abilities as well, whilst the pally was. I'm glad at how the monk class is turning out.
Nice post man. This is exactly how I was hoping the Monk class would be. High damage and high defense with less mitigation. The only thing I am a bit leary about is what happens vs. truly high-end content when the mobs virtually never miss due to very high attack values. It sounds like level 20ish is where the monks start to shine, but I am guessing that as we all get higher level, the warrior and crusader subclasses are going to do a better job of taking and holding aggro as well as mitigating damage. What good is deflection if the attacker never misses? At that point mitigation is all that matters. Still, 5 stars for you!
Also, a very good stratedgy for monks is if you are with another tank, normally of the warrior or crusader bunch, to have them INTERVIENE you so then when there is a chance of an attack actually being able to hit you, it goes to them, those of which have higher HP and less chance to die. I cannot stress how valuable Interviene is. It has shined through in a lot of my situations and has became a valuable ability. Also, I can garuntee we can hold Aggro just fine, seeing i pull it off them to begin with, and monks get many many taunting and AoE attacks. In fact I'm getting my lightning kick AoE very soon Message Edited by ArchZinno on 11-19-2004 10:28 AM
Also I would like to add that I am a DARK ELF monk, thus my str is fairly low to begin with. So just image what it would be like for a race who is actually designed to be a good monk, such as a Kerra or Isktar
Yep I ArchZinno is right. I dinged 20 monk last night and my deflection is at 139/100 unbuffed and 149/100 with brawlers stance active. I havent fought anything yet, but we have almost a 50% increase in deflection. Pretty awesome! Also, was grouped with my usual shaman and a paladin last night (that was level 20 and i was 19). The shaman asked me to tank as she was spending way too much mana trying to heal him, where as me with her wards on was very dependable. Sweet! Exactly how the monk should be.
Last night we were grouped in Stormhold trying to go around. We had constant down times due to healers being out of power. For some reason, our 19 warrior thought he should main tank. So finally I attacked a yellow 2+ mob first and taunted it... astonishly enough, the healers used WAY less mana, and only one of them had to keep me healed. They said I should tank from then on, and I used about 1/3 of their power compared to when they were healing him. HOWEVER, one thing to make sure of is to keep mobs in FRONT of you! Parrying and blocking and riposting DO NOT work when something is attacking you from behind. I dropped like a rock a few times when things would sneak up behind me.
tsk tsk Stick meet dead horse (sorry for the comment but this is getting old) Okay, so I am just gonna be blunt and tell it how it is. Can monks tank? Yes. Can they be main Tanks? You bet. Are they the best tanks? Depends. Depends on what? Your tactics, and group. For all your heavy armor tank nay sayers, yes monks can tank equally as good as a guardian. Well, guardians take more mana to heal. Yeah duh, they have more HPs, so when you fully heal them it takes more mana. Mitigation Vs Avoidance - stupid debate don't even think about it. What makes a good tank a good tank? Well, for one its not the subclass of tank. Its how you play it. If a guardian or a monk suck at tanking, its totally pilot error. Let me explain. I have a 23 monk on kithicor. My guildmate is a 24 guardian. We group a lot and we both tank. Here is where tactics come into play. I can be main tank or he can. Whoever is main tank taunts, however is not does not taunt. There is no sense in trying to out taunt each other. I see so many tanks that have this problem in groups. If I am puller and main assist, I will be taunting. There is no need for the other fighters to waste power with their taunts, unless a peel is needed. Which is something that I have always been able to handle. Now, when I main tank the guardian will cast intervine on me, giving me mitigation from him intervining on some incoming damage. Now my monk has mitigation. Add in the high avoidance, and it makes a real ideal main tank. In a raid situation if a guardian and a paladin both use their intervine skills on a monk the monk could easily make a great main tank against a boss mob in end game content. DPS - well monks out DPS all other fighters, infact sometimes I can DPS to almot a scout level. Now the monk is not replacing the heavy armor tank. So, all you other HA tanks please take a chill pill. Stop crying. All you monks stop crying too. Monks can tank, I have been doing it since day one, and I did it in beta no problem. A tanks role is to hold aggro and take damage. So, always keep your defensive skills up and use your power and skills wisely. When I am in a pick up group and I see 2 tanks competing for the aggro I tell them to stop. Its not a contest, its a team play game. Its all means to an end, killing the mob, getting quest credit, and getting loot. So, even when tactics can make the monk an awesome tank it still requires the help of the heavy armor tanks. Think about it, you are called a guardian, you are suppose to protect everyone, including monks. So, when a guardian intervines on me, I make a really good tank. Good against ++ higher level mobs. Now, the roles however cannot be switched. The monk is horrible and intervine. I got dropped like a bad habbit in storm hold trying to intervine on the MT when we got a bugged pull with adds. I must've died in about 8 seconds. Monks are not built to intervine, thats a heavy armor tanks job. I monks job is to hold aggro, and do damage. Which they can do very effectively. In a sense monks are designed to be meat shields but only through avoidance. So, to answer your question, all tanks can tank. You must learn how to use your skills wisely, change tactics according to group configurations, and keep an open mind. This is not EQ1, this is a new game. Monks are tanks and will be tanks for here on in. Deal with it, and learn how to use them. Also, equipment. Equipment is such a must to upgrade. Get rid of your old stuff when it turns green or blue and go buy orange armor. Almost at all times all my armor cons me yellow or higher. I do have a few evens and a few blues. I definately have no greens and no greys. I have done 5 out of the 6 quest armor pieces for lvl 20+ Every tank class has to do this. I still see lvl 18+ monks on my server with their lvl 10 brawler BP. Get rid of that thing and get some AC man. Stats are not as important as AC is. -Wong 23 Monk on Kithicor Message Edited by GangsterFist on 11-19-2004 10:11 AM
Here goes a link to my character's current equipment. I suggest most other monks try for the same stuff to keep your AC and stats and resists up. http://eq2players.station.sony.com/...Id=108896106&sessionServerID=iP571o5wZootXNpw
GangsterFirst, Interesting post, lots of good information, but a bit too condescending. This is getting old? For whom? The game has only been out for a little over a week and most people are only halfway to their subclass. I know that I divide my time between crafting and fighting, so I am advancing maybe a bit slower than some. Most of this information is new to me, being a SWG player and never having played EQL. Thanks for the great tips anyway, I am sure you meant well. :smileyvery-happy:
Sorry if you think that. Its an old and busted debate from beta, been going on for months. You should have seen some of the debates on some of the previous forums. Go over to the guardian forum and hear them complain about how monks are too good. I said I was gonna be blunt hehehe. It was not my intention to start a flame, or to start an argument, or to make myself look like an **ZOMG**. I am just tired of hearing people complain about how the grass is greener on the other side. Look up vesar and compare his stats to mine. He is a guardian and has Waaaaaaay more HPs and AC than I do. The monk and heavy armor tank both tank differently. Message Edited by GangsterFist on 11-19-2004 11:14 AM
Luckily(?) many of us never were in beta so we didn't have to suffer through this debate until just a week ago. :smileyvery-happy: This is good information though about how a monk works. My question is - what if a monk is the only tank in a group? Will that only work if the healers stay on their toes? I am the only tank in my guild and I'm level 9 so I need to make the decision which way to go very soon....
My monkly experience is limited, but from what I've been reading it seems that the answer is yes. A monk can do well as teh only tank in most circumstances. You just have to remember to keep the enemies in front of you. Also, if there are a lot of caster mobs then you may have problems too.
Yeah, don't sweat it man. Monks can make good tanks in that kind of situation. The very first time I ever did stormhold with my monk I was only tank. It was me (human monk), 2 scouts, 2 priests, 1 chanter. We did very well and killed lots of stuff and got a lot of stuff done in SH in one day of adventuring. Remember its tactics. If you want my opinion on it your scouts should be 1 bard and 1 rogue. The bard for power regen and haste and attack buffs for melee. The rogue for smuggle and DPS. I can't begin to tell you how important smuggle is, and how effective it is, and how helpful it is for a group crawling through a dungeon. For the priests I recomend whatever + a shaman. Shamans can slow, buff, debuff, and ward. They can slow and debuff the creatures you are fighting. Which means you get attacked less. The buffs and wards help you deal and absorb damage. The other priest can be a shaman, a cleric, or a druid. All priests do heal equally, and I have never ran into a problem where one priest is better than the other, for healin purposes. The chanter is nice for crowd control. If you only have to fight one mob at a time, a scout could probably tank it, hahaha. Well, a scout could come close. So, if you have crowd control then it makes fighitng easy. Just remember you use your AoE taunts when a chanter is mezzing. Taunts do not break mez, so you can taunt all day. If mez breaks you want the mob attacking you, and not the mage. Mages have absolutely no defensive skills and well, pretty much get instantly owned in melee combat. That configuration is pretty much what I used all through beta, and for the most part used since the game has gone live. Only problem is we only have one enchanter in our guild and he can't play all the time because he is playing half-life 2 right now lol. So, again I have had to change my tactics with out a chanter. As long as you are fighting ++ yellows or lower at 1 or 2 at a time then you should have no trouble. You will just have to be careful when you do not have an enchanter. Make sure as a monk you always have a marble, feather, or whatever they call it, to res a dead priest. If things do go amuck you can always feign death, let everyone die, get up, res the priest, and then let the priest res everyone else and you can try again. Dieing is part of the game, and yes you will die when you try new things its the risk you take. So, even if you die, don't give up and don't get too frusturated. The best of us have to deal with things using trial and error in this game.
Monks are awesome! They are by far the best "looking" fighters in the game. I like them because i love martial arts. Don't worry about being the best, worry about what you like to play. If you like the heavy armor fighters play a guardian or berzerker. If you like to roleplay play a paladin, and be annoying with your lawfully good antics (jest kiddin), and if you like to do high damage and look like a kung fu master, then play a monk.
I hate tanking, so I just dps/secondary @ lvl 23. I have 4 of the 6 peices of armor, should have pants today. Too bad they are obselete @ 30
I tank fine with my little gnome monk at 21 the biggest problem is trying to get other people to relise how good we are at tanking everyone has there other mmorpg heads on (EQ, FFXI) and think monks are just poor dps class so when u suggest hey maybe i can tank better then this pld with poor equipment they just laugh and say no way u just do your dps, then the tank goes ld or afk and i pull a mob and they have used 2 heals all fight and the mob is dead they say just luck do it again and again, I tend to find tho some figths are pure luck for instances yesterday in stormhold i tanked a yellow ++ and got healed 1 time the whole fight mob missed almost every swing, then the next mob hit me every swing and power was drained. Monks biggest downful is when u fighting mobs that are alot higher so when it comes to raids etc i cannot see us becoming main tanks, Also monks get hurt ad when we are hit by mobs speical attakcs for 400+ damage it hurts that whould hit a guardian for 200. Overall imo yes we can tank but i prefer my groups to have guardian tanks pld, sk tanks espcialy when it comes to higher lvls (this is coming from playing to lvl 31 in beta)
People want a tank that will perform consistently. Not one that, every 20 minutes, gets hammered and gives everyone a heart attack. Sure you may survive, but having that happen over and over isn't fun for the group; that's why people avoid it. Streakiness is built into avoidance-based tanking, just like you say. The system could be adjusted to reduce streakiness. Example, each time you're hit, increase the odds of dodging the next attack. There's lots of possibilities. Whether SoE decides to implement something like that ... well, we'll have to wait and see. There's also long-term things to consider with avoidance; like; when an expansion comes out and gear improves. Suppose deflection doesn't improve with AC like in EQ1, then deflection tanks get would little improvement from expansion gear, but mitigation tanks would get big benefits. (If you hadn't noticed, I just disagreed with Gangsta :smileywink: mitigation vs avoidance is very complex and worth discussing). So, BIG question, does deflection improve with AC?? I think the worst problem facing monks is the same as in EQ1: the very small but vocal group of plate tanks that don't want monks tanking at all, and crusade the message boards. In EQ1, they managed to convince SoE and a lot of players. Then I watched most of the monks I knew quit over a six month period, it was really sad. By the time I quit EQ1, there was only a couple left. :smileysad: Whether SoE listens to those message board crusaders in EQ2 ... well again we'll have to wait and see.
