Monks CAN TANK! (hear me out)

[modnar]

Before you destroy me, please hear out my argument. This argument is based on speculation, true, but its an argument worth bringing up. I don't think people thought of it this way...

Here goes.

Monk can tank. Monk can take the hits for the entire battle, and NOT be a burden on the healer of the group (White Mage or other). Let me explain how by explaining an over looked characteristic of the monk.

Unlike a Warrior, which bases his tanking ability on his DEF statistic, the Monk has a combination of statistics the work to the same effect: Evade, Parry, and Guard. Evade to simply avoid the hit, parry to knock the hit away, and gaurd to cut the hit damage in HALF if it lands.

Now the problem with most monks (me included) is that only EVASION is capped at any level. Parry and Gaurd are usualy low... maybe in the 20's at most, and nowhere near their cap at least. And therefore are not accounted for in a battle; monks are not fully trained.

Parry and Gaurd are difficult to improve, and that is why most Monks (if not all) need to take the extra time and TRAIN and bring those skills up.

Once those skills are up, a monk would be able to tank. He will be: Counter attacking, and if not, he will be evading, and if not, he will be parrying, and if not, he will be defending, and if not, he will be gaurding, and THEN if not he will take the hit!!!

While a Warrior plays a pure defence game, the monk is playing a probablity rollet, and only by training can the monk bring the odds to his favour.

Monks!!! GO TRAIN!!

Please repond to comments and thoughts...

(Did I make it clear enough at least?)

[Redlimit]

Yes, MNK "can" tank, but this is never the ideal situation.

Due to a lack of PLD/WAR, WAR/X, and NIN/WAR over level 45 on Ragnarok, I have been forced to tank quite a lot recently (currently a 48 MNK / 24 WAR).

I have a capped Evade, and a Guard of 79.

I find that I can only really tank when there are either:
a) 2 WHM
b) WHM, RDM, BRD
c) WHM, RDM, RDM

As you can see, all of those are not really good setups to begin with. I'm not saying that parties like these will absolutely suck, but don't expect to be getting 3000+ EXP per hour.

MNK can actually keep hate quite well. Start off a battle with a Boosted Chi Blast + Provoke. If you are tanking as a MNK, just go solo on your WS so you can build hate with them. Use them as soon as you get to 100%. Keep provoking every 30 seconds and the enemy shouldn't look at anyone else but you (espeically when you Raging Fist them 2 times in a fight).

For tougher enemies, Dodge will save your life. I have been tanking Exorays for 3 days now (not fun , espeically for MNK)...and every time I get hit for 500+ damage I am wishing I had the DEF of a PLD.

In short, yes MNK can tank, but it is almost never an ideal situation when one does. Make sure your party knows what they are getting into and you should be ok.

[Cali]

PLD/WAR and NIN/WAR are the best tanks w/o a doubt...

But for mithra, MNK/WAR surely tanks better than WAR/MNK, or WAR/THF... But depend on the situation, you usually will have a PLD/WAR in party to tank... so MNK/WAR tank is less wanted... but when party has a MNK/WAR and WAR/---, I'd choose MNK to tank, even at higher lvl, MNK still tank better than most WAR... yes low def, but MNK dodge better than WAR, and counter count as a dodge as well...

(All tested by myself)

[modnar]

What about the actual argument presented in the original post? Is the argument valid? Are there flaws in the argument? Do you see that monks need to train in order to be at the SAME tanking level as a WAR?

My thoughts are that the monk is put down as a tank simply because most monks have not reached their full potential: they require training in order to be a tank character EQUAL to the WAR....

[Lone Dragon]

I'll be damned if I have to tank.
It's a show of ignorance and disrespect to ask a non-tanking melee to tank.
If the defensive Skills were reliable, then THIEVES would be tanks.

We are damage dealers,
that is the begining and the end of the whole thing.
We have no higher use beyond this, we will never be altered to be more of a tanking class.

You should be worrying about that fact that we're put down as Damage Dealers (our role) until we're SIXTY-FIVE.

Defense = Tank (I know you're thinking Ninjas, but iirc, Blink is 100%, very much unlike every defensive skill),
know your place.

[dragoon]

i have to agree with lone dragon monks don't have 5 hit combo to be a tank

[Saurian]

lone-dragon i have so say your wrong on many points.

idont feel like pointing them out, maybe someone else can.

[TMPikachu]

Originally posted by dragoon
i have to agree with lone dragon monks don't have 5 hit combo to be a tank

Do Paladin's have savage blade to be a tank?

Do Paladin's have exclusive greatswords to be a tank?

Do warriors have an A+ in great axes to be a tank?

Nope, they got those to deal a bit of damage along the way.



True, a monk will not out tank a Paladin, but a warrior won't out tank a paladin either, doesn't make warriors completely useless.

maybe at low to mid levels, a monk with dodge, and maxed evasion+guard will be a pretty decent tank.

[Aneyeisuponyou]

I have tanked before, I don't really enjoy it that much, but we make ok tanks. Today I was in the citadel killing beetles with a rdm that didn't have dispel so it was very hard to keep agro since I couldn't hit it when it used rhino guard. As a side note, since when do monks Parry ?

[Cali]

If you were a tank-monk from start, then tanking wouldn't be a problem, if you are a attacker-monk, then tanking at late level will be a problem, unless your team is willing to wait for you to get from 30 ish evasion to 100 evasion

And to those that say MNK can never tank...
I have played a MNK, and I have seen countless of MNK tanking even at high level, they are 3rd in tanking with WAR... 1st is PLD, 2nd is NIN(reason being it costs), and 3rd being MNK or WAR.... It doesn't matter if you wear a thin piece of cloth, a MNK can dodge good, much better in evasion than WAR... yes.. MNK shouldn't try to claim tanking role when there is PLD or NIN in party, but MNK is never a bad tank.
If you need real life example, I have been tanking as MNK/WAR since level 20, and I tested with my friend, both Mithra, she had better equipment and is WAR/THF, she has about 50 more DEF than me, I was using level 12 Power Gi til level 30, but I tanked better than her. Why? I dodged more than her, despite her higher def, shes like a sandbag, and I dodge a lot even without using the skill 'Dodge'...
But I'm not sure about the low AGI race, but I am sure Hume MNK can tank well as well, since I have seen one in a level 40 party, and he had to tank because we couldn't find a PLD.

[Lone Dragon]

First of all, if you’re going to say someone's wrong,
don't be smug and at least try to look like you're backing it up.

Monks are not tanks, any PT where you are the main tank is a shit PT.
We get hit about as bad as DRKs and the extra HP just makes it take a bit longer.
Paladin and Warrior are better tanks and there are enough of them that no one should ever come to you to tank...ever.
Even in the 20's when their equip's def is close to that of wars, it's kinda stupid.

Why?

1: If you're a good DD, you go for items that boost melee related stats.
Generally, these do not have the highest def.
You will not be prepared to do something that you shouldn't be doing anyway.

2: No matter what you say, Defensive Skills are about as reliable as the lottery.
H2H has a LOW parry rate (which is why we have Guard),
Guard is nice when it works (like finding $1 on the street),
but if you're doing your job and not TRYING to be a tank, it should be very low.
On TWs, Counter works about once every 10 fights,
how often do you think it’ll work on an IT? Gunna risk Counterstance?
Evasion? The skill raises more than it actually works.
Dodge works ok, but it only lasts for 2 minutes and has a 5 minute cooldown,
it’s not going to save you (I haven’t used it since Qufim, the argo it generates isn’t worth the small chance of the monster missing.)
Thieves have the highest evasion in the game, do you see them trying to make themselves tanks (Thieves even have slightly better armor, but that isn't that point, is it?)

3: The other Classes are better at KEEPING argo than Monk.
War Cry is surprising how well it works and Flash is almost like 2 provokes. ._.

Taking argo for a while/having a war sub does not make you a tank.
I've taken argo first a few times to set up yokodama, and I'm ok with that,
but expecting a monk to be a main tank is asinine.
The person basically shows that he doesn’t know one of two things:
a) How Monks work.
b) How the game works.

Why would you WANT to be a tank anyway?
I know I didn’t pick this job to take damage for more than a few seconds.

And yes Saurian, we are not respected until we get Dragon Kick.
I've heard Monks note that their invites took a sharp up-turn at that point.
Raging Fists is nice and Howling Fist > Dancing Edge is a great combo,
but used by themselves, they aren’t one half of a lvl 3 skillchain (and a powerful one at that.)


If we were meant to be tanks, we wouldn’t be damage dealers.
Deal with it and get on with the game.

[Klumps]

Before I forget to mention it, parry works with non-HTH weapons, guard works with HTH weapons. The two are mutually exclusive; the only way to raise your parry with a monk main is to use clubs or staves.

I'm fine with tanking for 1-2 rounds for the thf to set up fuidama on the actual tank. But be a main tank at level 38? No way in hell will I do this.

Why? First of all, an appropriately geared paladin should have at LEAST 50 more base defense than me (I have 143 defense currently). Second of all, they have sentinel and defender; I have neither. Combined with protect 2 and a fish mithkabob (which it would be rather idiotic for a monk to use, our primary purpose is dealing damage, not taking it), a paladin *should* have, at my level, 275ish defense or so, without using defender or sentinel.

Meanwhile, I'm at 168 defense with protect 2, and I have...um...dodge? Please, I'll take 64% higher defense any day of the week and twice on Sundays over having a minuscule advantage in evasion. I cap my evasion every level (well, ok, currently it's at 109 still because I just leveled to 38), and do you know what that gives me? *4* higher evasion (112 vs. 108) than a pld or warrior, which is much more than negated by the gear I wear. For reference, my guard skill is 70 (2 points from being capped for level 23, for those of you who are counting). I try to solo a little bit when I can to raise it up some, in fact I'm considering soloing mandragoras in Yhoator for a while, slow xp as it may be, simply to raise my guard skill.

Currently using at 38 (with stats relevant to melee ability):

Mythril Knuckles +1 (10/+91 +3 ACC)
Mercenary Captain's Headgear (10 DEF +1 STR +1 DEX)
Spike Necklace (+3 STR +3 DEX)
Beetle Earring +1 (+3 ATK -2 EVA)
Beetle Earring +1 (+3 ATK -2 EVA)
Savage Separates (18 DEF +32 HP +1 STR)
Ochiudo's Kote (8 DEF +20 ATK -5 EVA)
Courage Ring (+2 STR)
Courage Ring (+2 STR)
Wolf Mantle +1 (5 DEF)
Purple Belt (2 DEF +3 STR 4% Haste)
Jujitsu Sitabaki (18 DEF +1 DEX +1 VIT)
Savage Gaiters (5 DEF +16 HP +3 STR)

I have a jujitsu gi in the mog safe to use at level 40, that will give me +9 DEF -32 HP -1 STR +4 ACC vs. my current chest piece, allowing me to finally surpass the 150 defense unbuffed barrier. ^^ I still haven't decided whether I would be better off upgrading to brown belt from purple belt, or to fuma kyahan vs. savage gaiters. I can't afford both; it would seem to me that it would be better to gain 1 def 2 str 4% haste going to brown belt than to gain 2 def 3% haste and LOSE 3 str going to the fuma kyahan.

Anyway, my gear gives me +48 HP +26 ATK -9 EVA +3 ACC +15 STR +5 DEX +1 VIT. I have 178 ATK without using kabobs or berserk. Most IT check as low evasion / low defense to me, even before I use kabobs/berserk/focus.

This is, I feel, appropriate gear for a monk my level, as it enhances the strengths of my class (doing damage). Sure, I could probably easily up my defense by 20 points or more by changing to different gear, but at a HUGE loss of damage-dealing prowess. We're monks; we shouldn't be getting invited to groups to tank, people. I have actually turned down a group invite where they wanted me to tank, and I second the notion that any group that wants to invite you to be the tank is a group you'd be better off not joining, past level 21 or so, at which point you should be sacrificing your defense abilities to increase your offense (beetle earrings, +str rings, etc.).

Furthermore, my evasion will be decreasing further at 45 (new +atk -eva earrings), and my defense at 48 (life belt vs. purple/brown belt). After jujitsu gi at level 40, I really don't see my defense going UP until I start to get AF gear. Although, there's some really sweet (and obscenely expensive) level 72 mnk/sam/nin armor gear in the AH, rantetsu or ransetsu, something like that, that could somewhat restore a tanking role (24 defense boots...40 defense legs...etc.) to monk.

[laicram]

Mnk/War can tank - at certain lvls, certain situations. You WANT to tank at these times - otherwise your defensive skills will never mature. It's all about the armor/items/timing.

Let's start at Lvl 10 when you get Voke.
10-16 Harness. You can tank.
17 Lizard. Wars are better.
18-20 Cotton Gi. You can match Lizard.
21-23 Beetle. You can tank.
24-28 Chainmail. No tank.
29 Soil Gi. You can match Chain Mail.
30-34 Centurion. No tank.
35 Padded Harness. You can match Centurion.
36-up Silver Mail. No tank.

Other noteable Equip:
Leather Ring (def +1)
Vit+2 Rings
Bomb Ring (def +2, hp +15)
War Belt +1 (Vit +3)
Legionaire Subligar (Vit +1)
Tiger Stole

First you gear up for tanking. Then in your PT, you ask the melee "what's your defense?" I've done this with my Mithra Mnk/War, and I end up with 10 OR MORE Def then the other melee. You can't argue with the numbers.

You can tank when the other melee's armor/items are compareable, or not up to date. This is extremely prevalant with all the new players (broke) running around. Take advantage of it and train those defense skills!

Another important thing to note: The gear mentioned above is considerabley CHEAPER than if you equipped yourself as a Damage Dealer. For example:

Federation Tekko (40k)
Federation Kyahan (40k)
Republic Sub (40k)
Balance Rings ($$)
Emperor Pin ($$$)
etc.

It's cheaper to tank (when you can), and it benefits your character alot more skill-wise.

Mnk have high Vit, high HP, blah blah blah. But after lvl 40, Mnk/War as main tank doesn't make any sense, IMO.

[Griffy]

Klumps, mind if I ask how you afforded the Kote? I'm at lvl 36 and would love a set of those but it'd take me weeks to farm it up at that price and the NM is massively camped.

[FeralisCallidus]

PLD/WAR and NIN/WAR are the best tanks w/o a doubt...

Lv74, War/Nin

Utsusemi: Ichi and Ni

Defender

Great Axe Breaks (Shield, Armor, Full)