Hard time getting into groups because allot of bad monk pIlayers and they lack aoe tanking, and of course getting into raids, so much for getting my epic if all this is true, I love the monk but I love grouping and want to be useful endgame as well.
I must admit when I first read this I was going to give a glowing report on how we now have 15% ae auto attack by red adorns and of course the recent addition of a further 20%. Doing that though would have assumed you were a raider and it isn't always as simple as that so at least you will get the 20%. Are we the greatest tank at ae? Not really but nor are we in a bad place. I would say we are in a decent state at this moment in time. Not OP but played well we can tank anything. I am not in a guild that is clearing all raid instances but we do ok for the time we spend and I have been MT on our recent kills. Sorry I do not know what gear level or aa you currently have but we are extremely competent tanks. With reasonable gear and nicely placed aa we can have quite alot of ae aggro toys at our disposal. The only thing I miss from any other tank is the opportunity of a blue ae with a hate position addition. Monks are a great class, enjoy it. To be honest I like proving people wrong and providing them with the odd surprise. There are naive people out there that think monks cannot tank but this isn't the case. To be fair to such people it is usually that they have had a bad experience with one and it sticks in their mind. We certainly do not have aggro control as easy as most other tanks but that doesn't make us bad more a challenge.
We're still a bit behind the other plate tanks, but we're definitely a valuable class now. The days of TSO are gone--we're clearly fully functional tanks now, we're just not as overpowered as some of the other classes.
Monks, and brawlers in general, have had class identity issues for years now, with the two sides of "Tank vs. DPS" stringing each-other along like some kind of massive tug-of-war. I don't think the devs even really know what they want brawlers to do. This has the unfortunate effect of causing many people who try the class to have no real clue how to play it properly, which also unfortunately leads to a lot of really bad brawler players. A lot of folks see these poor players, and read about the numerous issues brawlers face--and worst of all--see the bickering between many of us and general lack of consensus on how to approach these issues, and just assume that the class sucks. The truth is, brawlers are entirely capable of tanking competently as long as the character is built and played properly. The main issue is that if you ask five people what the proper way to gear and play a monk is, you'll get ten different answers. Take my word for it, I have played a brawler since the day the servers opened, and we're actually in one of the best situations, mechanically, as we've seen in a long while. Monk is a very fun and rewarding class, as long as you don't mind thinking of yourself as the underdog. You may have to prove your value a couple of times, but when you do, people will respect you all the more.
I love my monk, it's very versatile. Exelent soloist with lots of survivability tools. Can main tank all heroic content, and if playing with another tank in group will also dps very good. A monk is far from an underdog. Aoe tanking isn't as bad as one might think, we just lack a blue aoe snap agro but play well and you wont ever need one anyways.
Dear monk brothers and sisters, After returning to EQ I stumble across these post of monks not requied etc, etc etc. Then some more of "who is better monk or bruiser?". As a veteran player of mmo's all I can say is ...Play what you like!!!. The friends and company you play with it's what really makes the game more enjoyable. So, if some people dont want you in the team ...make one and try to keep good friends on the game. Finally, good maners in game goes a long way , be friendly and control your gamerage when things go wrong. May the winds of wisdom embrace you all !!
