[Lmnop]

I haven't read most of this thread yet. Forgive me or diaf.

Originally Posted by Armando

/DNC doesn't count, because while you could tank through healing, you surrender all your damage and at that point might as well be PLD or NIN.

Not sure how much I side with this. If level 50+ monk/nins keep up with war/nins in damage, I don't see how mnk/not-war is gonna do much worse than a mnk/war who can't use berserk at any level. As of level 40 (and you probably shouldn't use this combo in a party 'til 40), you have a weak provoke that's nice for starting the fight, Steps to lower opponent's evasion, and an accuracy bonus trait. This allows for a build with lower acc requirements, so you can often maintain damage output whilst gaining some decent defense boosts. Though i'd still have a max acc gear set to swap to for landing said Steps.

And of course, Sambas. Though I'd use Waltzes sparingly if I were in this situation.

---------- Post added at 08:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:27 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Armando

But like I said, if the DRG has /WHM or /BLU or even /RDM, with Tab Refresh he should be able to shoulder most of the healing and let the party chain without downtime as long as you steer clear from mobs like Pugils and Spiders (which you really wouldn't want to fight either way.)

This is incredibly smart.

[Takelli]

Originally Posted by Armando

It COULD be done, but it wouldn't be pretty. A PLD or NIN would fare better, for sure. A trio is a whole different ball game though.

I'd imagine it wouldnt be, but it could still be done if they tried it and where skilled.

but this game needs 1 more "true" tank. Rather than the ninja who is now both a tank and a DD. (While every still wants nin to tank as there arent enough tanks as is.)

[Dyft]

I'm not saying your wrong or anything like that, but honestly I have no clue how a MNK/NIN is going to come anywhere close to a MNK/WAR in dmg 50+ and at 51+ cant kick attacks proc a double attack as well?

Also, yes my NIN does nuke for 80ish DMG, however if you think im about to use that for soloing your crazy.... 1 set of tools (99 cycles) costs about 120k, 99 cycles would last roughly 40 mobs by my estimates..... 40 EMs would net you 4k xp.... 120k per 4k xp... no thanks ill pass lol...

[Celeal]

A properly geared MNK/WAR (or Physical melee DD/WAR in general) damage output is strong if the player is able to use Berserk most of the time without taking too much hit. However, a MNK/WAR survival would strongly depend on the skill of party's tank and healer, which was the common approach in the old days.

As for DRG/mage, before AF hat the 1/3 HP trigger and the slow time for executing Healing Breath is harsh in my opinion. (under the assumption which you are not fighting with mobs that can KO the pet very easily)

BTW, for small parties, I found that PUP is way more interesting to mess with

[Armando]

As for DRG/mage, before AF hat the 1/3 HP trigger and the slow time for executing Healing Breath is harsh in my opinion. (under the assumption which you are not fighting with mobs that can KO the pet very easily)

DRGs solo Ts like this. I don't see why a trio couldn't do the same thing. The SCH can provide enfeebles which give the tank a bigger margin of error than a solo DRG thanks to Blind and Paralyze, and if things get ugly the SCH can still cure normally.

[Lmnop]

Originally Posted by Dyft

I'm not saying your wrong or anything like that, but honestly I have no clue how a MNK/NIN is going to come anywhere close to a MNK/WAR in dmg 50+ and at 51+ cant kick attacks proc a double attack as well?

If that's in response to me, the big point to remember is "while tanking". mnk/war tanking gets a flat +10% damage dealt (double attack). That takes you from 22% of the party's damage as prophesied by the parser to like 24%. wahoo. Berserk is the rest, and you're not tanking with that. But more to the point, mnk/war simply isnt acceptable anymore. Monks keep up with 2 handed DDs and that says a lot about monks. mnk/wars DIE.

So my point: if mnk/nin is acceptable DD, mnk/dnc will actually deal more damage.

Also, Double attack cannot proc with kick attacks. however, between the 2, monks are awesome. It's one of those "with both of these things happening, I AM AWESOME!" things.

[Karinya]

Originally Posted by Armando

/DNC doesn't count, because while you could tank through healing, you surrender all your damage and at that point might as well be PLD or NIN.

I disagree. A monk's damage does not rely on his tp, let alone on things like berserk. Monks do a lot of damage just by standing there and punching things. So much that they commonly DD with subs that don't contribute to damage because they do lots of damage even without a sub that contributes to damage and so they need a sub that contributes to survivability instead. And that's on high VTs-ITs.

As long as the monk has a decent weapon, he's going to do respectable damage to a T-low VT mob regardless of his gear and food, let alone subjob or TP use. It's just a matter of how much of the space between "respectable" and "awesome" you're willing to trade for more survivability.

If you're relying on Healing Breath, you're going to want to choose your gear and food for good defense regardless of what your subjob is (since 1/3 your hp has to be enough to survive until HB goes off, even though a mob TP move might come during that time), which is going to have some impact on your damage regardless of what your subjob is.

However if your friend is DRG and has /WHM or /BLU and you avoid mobs like Spiders you could probably fight indefinitely by exploiting Healing Breath.

That's probably true (although it is riskier before 60).

One piece of good news I haven't seen mentioned yet: anyone with A skill is not going to need a lot of +acc to hit a T. That frees you up to prioritize other stats more than someone who's trying to deal damage to ITs. This is especially nice since some of the most expensive DD gear is acc gear (PCC in particular).


Most people, including most if not all of this thread, haven't really even tried what you're suggesting and are going mostly on theory. Try it both ways and see how it works for you - maybe start out on some EM or very low T mobs, and see if you are taking an amount of damage that is difficult to handle without a healing SJ, or having difficulty holding hate, or are doing fine on both of those fronts but just want to kill faster.

Finally, if you don't already know, you're probably better off sticking to Signet areas because of the better exp multipliers for small groups with Signet. (Not that you really have a choice at low levels, but keep it in mind when/if you get to 60ish.) FoV could be helpful if the monster types and levels are right for your party (once the SCH reaches 35, he/she will need to remember that FoV refresh doesn't stack with Sublimation and actually prevents you from using it while the refresh is on, but until then it's better than nothing)

[Armando]

@Karinya: Have been putting off a formal reply because numbers take time. As usual, hyperbole bites me in the ass.

I disagree. A monk's damage does not rely on his tp, let alone on things like berserk. Monks do a lot of damage just by standing there and punching things. So much that they commonly DD with subs that don't contribute to damage because they do lots of damage even without a sub that contributes to damage and so they need a sub that contributes to survivability instead. And that's on high VTs-ITs.

Let me clarify: Dyft apparently doesn't consider a PLD's damage output to be decent. If a MNK/DNC's damage falls low enough to be in the same ballpark as a PLD/WAR's, then it follows that the MNK/DNC's damage output isn't decent enough for Dyft's standards OR PLD is better than Dyft thinks.

At Lv.35 with Lynx Baghnakhs (the best DPS weapon for that level) a MNK's DPS is 6.15. If we assume capped hit rate then Counter improves that DPS by 9.5%, and Purple Belt by another 4%, resulting in a DPS of 7. Curing Waltz costs 20 TP. Curing Waltz is going to heal for approximately 70 HP (I checked.) That's about 612 enmity in total. Besides damage, the MNK's only source of hate is Boost, which provides 300 VE every 15 secs. As for Defense, Silver Chainmail is available at Lv.36 so let's go with that. With its natural VIT, Protect II, and a full set of Silver Chainmail, the MNK is looking at around 125 Defense.

Now take a Lv.35 PLD. With FoV Refresh, the PLD can afford to expend 40 MP a minute and not lose any MP - about 160 HP in Cures right now, or a Cure II and a Flash in 2 levels. The MNK's going to have to do 2-3 Curing Waltzes in the same time span to match the PLD's Cures alone, and he'll STILL lose the hate race because the PLD has Provoke (and when Flash comes around, Flash generates more hate than a Cure II anyways.) Let's not forget that the idea of Box Step was brought up - that's another 10% TP loss. WS's are simply out of the question for the MNK at that point.

The PLD's Hunting Sword has a DPS of 6.14. Assuming they have equal attack, the MNK/DNC is beating his DoT by 14%. On the other hand the PLD has 30 Defense more than the MNK with his Kite Shield and Defense Bonus II - which is 24% more than the MNK has right now. So the PLD has the same defense the MNK would if the MNK is eating Defense food - which means the PLD is free to eat meat and will still break even with the MNK's Defense (never mind the fact that the PLD has 25% damage reduction from his Size 3 shield, which trumps Counter and will likely still beat Counter and Guard combined.) With Attack food the PLD's going to bridge the gap in DPS and he still gets to WS. He not only gets to WS, he can open a Skillchain for the DRG. If the party Skillchains, the MNK is not only missing out on the SC's extra damage but also the extra 33% damage from an MB. It gets worse. At Lv.41 MNK gets Raging Fists, which is like opening a can of whoop-ass on the mob 20 levels earlier than most jobs get to. But the MNK/DNC won't be using it with any sort of regularity if at all.

The costs of /DNC are too high. I would bet that even MNK/WHM would be better than MNK/DNC at that level, simply because FoV Refresh lets MNK/WHM get away with a Cure II per minute and the MNK can still Combo things, which not only results in more damage but also more hate.

Granted, the MNK's DPS will continue to improve naturally thanks to Martial Arts and Kick traits. But a PLD's weapon selection goes very much uphill starting at 50, with swords that put axes to shame. There's also the Double Attack trait the MNK/DNC won't be using, another tier of Shield Mastery, even more Defense, and eventually a WS that can actually put dents in mobs (while the MNK/DNC won't be WS'ing at all...)

[Dyft]

I only sub dnc for soloing(personally) the sch will be main heal. I will probably be subbing war for voke. The drg will be a dd. At least that's the current plan. Also, couldent you theoretically pop dodge and be able to berserk in an evasion setup? Sorry about the lackluster post. On my iPhone lol.

[Armando]

Dodge is only +20 Evasion, +20 Evasion is only +10% chance to evade. That's not enough to offset the Defense penalty, and it only lasts 2 minutes instead of 3 anyways.

[Celeal]

Conclusion: MNK tanking for trio exp. parties ---- "Probably stupid idea" (as stated in thread's title) ... kk.. i am just joking

Instead of focusing on tanking in the traditional sense, which actively seek hate from the mob, I would say focus on max. damage output while min. damage taken (on both you and your DRG friend).

[Dyft]

Originally Posted by Armando

Dodge is only +20 Evasion, +20 Evasion is only +10% chance to evade. That's not enough to offset the Defense penalty, and it only lasts 2 minutes instead of 3 anyways.

You can always cancel berserk after dodge wears off.... no one said you had to run it for the full 3 minutes. Also Berserk is -defence not -evasion which is why I *FEEL* it *COULD* work..

I have no numbers to back this up but I would think that 10% evade chance (15% with AF) (going off armando's numbers ) would be BETTER then 15% Def. Lets take 300 Def, 10% would put you at 345 def, how much dmg would be negated by 45 def? This then ties into the when should you stop using a EMP Band discussions (as emp band is +10 evasion 0 def) speaking of which was there ever a difinitive answer that stated how much DEF would be needed to balance out to the 10 eva the Hairpin offers?

Also, Does anyone know what the cap for evasion is? is it something like 80% (probally not obtainable) or is it something like 20% where it is obtainable and can be overstacked to where you start getting little to no benifit for +evasion.

Also as nin has shown us, not getting hit is an effective form of tanking heh. (not that i would ever expect to get utsusemi like results out of evasion ever)

But what would keep a mnk with a terra staff maxed guard evasion and counter in counterstance from taking in an exp party? If it lets a MNK solo Genbu (or however you spell his name) why wouldent it work on xp mobs? now granted youd loose on DPS with a terra staff but we also arnt talking about needing god quality tanking abilities.

[Armando]

You can always cancel berserk after dodge wears off.... no one said you had to run it for the full 3 minutes. Also Berserk is -defence not -evasion which is why I *FEEL* it *COULD* work..

-25% Defence means +33.33% higher Attack/Defense ratio for the mob. Unless you're already evading more often than you get hit - which shouldn't be the case against a T mob you're trying to tank - you're going to be getting hit harder than what your improved Evasion is compensating for.

I have no numbers to back this up but I would think that 10% evade chance (15% with AF) (going off armando's numbers ) would be BETTER then 15% Def

Certainly.

Also, Does anyone know what the cap for evasion is?

80%.

Also as nin has shown us, not getting hit is an effective form of tanking heh. (not that i would ever expect to get utsusemi like results out of evasion ever)

This is true, but the EXP mechanics of the past 2 years have shown us that being defensive is good, but being offensive is better. A NIN that focuses on maximizing damage kills the mob faster and holds hate better than one with mediocre offense and better evasion. The same goes for PLD.

But what would keep a mnk with a terra staff maxed guard evasion and counter in counterstance from taking in an exp party?

He would have no damage output and thus no hate.

As for the Emp Hairpin question it's impossible to give a concrete answer because the formulas for how mobs damage us haven't been pinned down.