Best Puller Class?
 

Is monk the end all be all for high end dungeon / raid pulling?

I've heard Shadow Knights have some tricky moves, and from what I've seen, they seem pretty underrated.

Bards and to a lesser extent Rangers can do some neat stuff outdoors, of course.

I've discovered I like pulling and am trying to plan my next moves...

I'm with you in that I unexpectedly found that i liked pulling
It's really active, you learn the heck out of the zone, and it seems like groups really appreciate a good puller.

Outdoors I feel like my ranger out-pulls most (certainly not all) monks I group with, but indoors definitely not so much :-/ I do think rangers are the ultimate outdoor pullers though, at least in the xp groups I've done (ie, I haven't raided or done high end stuff).

Assuming we’re talking green, go with monk. My main is a 50 ranger. I absolutely LOVED pulling outdoors and indoors (trickier but feasible).

That being said, go with monk because you’ll get a reduced exp penalty and people also won’t shun you from groups because you’re a hybrid.

Grind/farm groups and raids are certainly different. Not being able to lull targets in tougher zones drastically reduces puller options. That said, pulling with a crit fail on a lull works just fine...people just have to be ready for a little chaos. Outdoors harmony is a 100% success rate without a crit fail component. FD is the only way to effectively reset and split unmezzable/non-lullable targets.

There are a number of ways to break a normal 1-group camp with every set of classes. The default is with a monk but using skill and communication it’s not the only one.

Once a room is broken anyone can pull. Generally the tank will stay in-camp for repops and peeling from squishies. If a knight possibly to get a few med ticks.

Tl;Dr - A monk has a great pulling tool kit. They also don’t have to med so there isn’t a trade-off. If you want to pull just communicate that as a preference and play the class you want. Sk’s do have a great ad hoc toolkit as well. At 60 they have two FD’s and three if you have BE greaves.

Yes, let's talk green. 1) because I'm playing on green 2) because this is the default mode of p99 going forward 3) because all the existing discussion assumes multiple years of farmed kunark/velious.

This is getting at the heart of it.

To hone in further:
1) Can bards (and rangers even) pull in the high end outdoor zones of the future? Plane of Growth, etc. Bards/Rangers have been pulling fear/hate just fine in classic.

2) To what extent are sk's and monks interchangeable for high end zones/raids throughout the expansions? Kunark era? Velious era? Right now (classic) they more or less are, as far as I can tell (feel free to disagree). Looking into kunark, aside from BE greaves and CoS, SK's look like they may fall behind in the pulling department slightly. In velious, Death Peace seems like a huge benefit.

Would love to hear from some elite puller Monks/SKs/Bards

SK is an underrated tagger/puller.
Troll is the best race if you plan on being a tagger/puller SK
Ogre is best if you plan to be a tank SK

Monk

I’m not elite but...

1.) yes so long as you don’t drag a mob right through another harmony and snare trivialize outdoor zone pulls. Bard lull is as I understand similar to cleric/pally/ench lull and can crit resist. It’s indoor zone usable as well.

2.) sk’s are fine but won’t make the primary pull team on raids (unless you are band of misfits). Great taggers as mentioned and can prob work if you are short on monks. In a pure min-max perspective front stun immunity for ogres helps get those FD’s off of you have a bunch of mobs on you. It’s not instant though so timing with casters is harder.

Rangers have the advantage of root and snare so can pull several mobs to group with staggered arrival times. You can also root a mob on a pathing node to ‘recruit’ more pulls to the group. Getting clean singles is a great strategy but sometimes that is overkill.

iksar monk > human monk > Troll SK > ogre sk > Bard > Paladin > Ranger / Enchanter