What were devs thinking when they made Monks?
 

First, let me say that I have a 60 Monk and he's among my favorite characters I've ever played. That being said, they kinda baffle me. I have a 60 Warrior and a 60 Monk, and I recently made a Paladin of whom is level 53 at the moment. I can honestly say, short of burning evasive on my Warrior, the Monk can tank as well or better than either of my tank classes. I got a little curious just to see how different their defensive skill caps are and am just a little amazed by how much better they are defensively than the other tank classes. Granted they don't have quite as much AC, but that doesn't really even matter.

I know they are technically not the most OP class in the game, and to be fair I sort of wondered what the devs were thinking when they made classes like Shaman as well, but it's a little less weird than the Monk scenario.

Monks Warrior. Paladin

Defense (252). (252) (252)
Dodge (230). (175). (155)
Parry. (---). (230). (200)
Block. (225). (---). (---)
Riposte. (225). (225). (200)

Basically Monks trade Parry for Block, and then have a much higher Dodge skill cap than Warriors. While from a roleplay perspective, this makes sense, from a game mechanic perspective it sort of doesn't. The slight AC difference just doesn't seem to make up for the fact that Monks have higher defensive skill caps and a 30% mana free, fairly short cooldown self heal. To me it just seems crazy that during live they would have made a class that was so tanky while still being pretty damn good DPS. I'm also a little drunk and bored so this post may just be a product of that. Either way.....Classic EQ is a mysterious game sometimes.

Monks had really terrible equipment options in vanilla, this was basically their point of balance to offset their awesome skills.

Come Kunark they had lots of amazing weapon options, then on top of that by velious they could even hit worn AC cap.

Good thing we don't get AA's on this server. Iksar + Monk + Fungi + TStaff + AA's = god mode at level 60.

While this isn't my area of expertise (and I mostly agree with you), obviously Warriors and knights have a very real advantage when tanking harder (eg. raid) mobs.

As for Shaman, my theory is that they overcompensated for the fact that Shaman can't rez (even though they're the Barbarian/Ogre/Troll equivalent of a Cleric), and to make up for it they gave Shaman too much other stuff. Either that or the devs were creating the world's first game of it's kind and just weren't able to balance 14 classes perfectly ... but I like to think it's because they wanted us to kick ass :D

Well like I said, I'm not counting disciplines. Obviously only a Warrior can really tank the big stuff. I'm more referring to the normal 6 man group scenarios, since, especially on live that's the majority of what people did. I'd say in six man or raids though Paladin and Sk were just sort of meh

My mistake, I missed that part.

I don't really think balance was very high on the list of priorities. They more wanted to create cohesive archetypes initially and as expansions came out the design philosophy shifted.

They decided they needed a primary buffing class. Then went through and looked at all the stats and various buffs they had in game. Can't really not give your primary buffer hp/AC buffs, even if other classes have em, same with stat buffs. Then, since you have a primary healer, you can't give them CH, so they gave them slows and debuffs, with debuffs and shaman lore, come poisons and cures/heals.

What I'm really wondering is wtf they were thinking with beastlord. All the joys of a shaman, with a legitimately tanky pet....

Pretty sure their goal was a well rounded, more self sufficient fighter but pays for it by having to abide by a more narrow gear selection and a weight limit (or incur armor class penalty).

Both of these inconviences where made very easy and pretty negligible come later expansions.

Kunark and Velious and later expansions made gear selection for monk a breeze

Even by just Velious a lot of raid gear has 0.1 wt or even less making their weight limit really easy to achieve with just a couple 100% weight reduction bags

In the end, yes Classic EQ and some of their "balance" or... well lack there of balance decisions are a curious beast. I like the idea of monks having to focus on light weight gear and having the high (avoidance), I think they just turned their back on the whole "Penalties" idea with gearing as the game progressed

Monks were OP in dungeons and dragons.
No shocker that it was op in Everquest.

They had the same save tables as a thief.
Hense the amazing defensive skill caps in EQ.

They got additional attack for martial arts.
Hense the amazing offensive skill caps in EQ.

They had limitations on weight with food/coin.
Hense the weight limits in EQ.

The list goes on and on.