Monks - The second best tank in the game?

[pasi]

In terms of sheer damage taken, yes - they are #2. No excuses, you had 16 years to learn that.

You're also comparing one of the stronger classes in the game versus the two weakest classes throughout EQ's history.

Monks were nerfed in Luclin because Warriors complained that with the high AC on all/all gear (mostly on Velious Gear, but wasn't widely available until Luclin) combined with the minimal returns on AC above the softcap meant that monks took in less damage than non-disc'd warriors.

The result was that monk avoidance was buffed and their mitigation got nerfed.

Then you have Brodda Thepp's parses in PoP that showed monks were probably still taking in damage at a lower amount than Knights.

CLS AC SHLD AVD DB DI AVG MIT% ATKS HIT% MISS% BLK% DDG% PRY% RIP% | DMG
WAR 2271 15% 0 87 21 223.3 71.1 2573 48.9 42.2 NA 4.2 5.9 5.3 | 109.2
SK 1861 0% 10 102 22.1 268.4 65.6 2951 48.9 44.2 NA 3.5 5.3 3.8 | 131.2
PAL 2066 0% 0 102 22.1 255.1 68.8 3153 51.1 40.4 NA 4.1 5.5 4.7 | 130.4
CLR 1958 2% 0 100 22.1 270.5 64.6 2775 65.7 33.1 NA 1.8 NA NA | 177.7
RNG 1728 2% 10 100 22.1 292.1 59.5 2359 48.5 43.5 NA 4.2 6.0 4.0 | 141.7
ROG 1952 2% 20 100 22.1 302.9 56.9 3121 47.8 43.6 NA 5.4 5.4 4.4 | 144.8
SHM 1859 0% 10 102 22.1 287.2 61.1 2932 63.9 35.0 NA 1.8 NA NA | 183.5
DRU 1565 0% 40 102 22.1 306.1 56.6 2619 61.1 37.7 NA 1.9 NA NA | 187.0
BST 1432 0% 25 102 22.1 320.0 53.3 2119 47.8 41.9 10.2 3.7 NA 4.0 | 153.0
MNK 1854 2% 60 100 22.1 311.0 55.0 3476 41.1 47.2 12.0 5.4 NA 4.7 | 127.8
*MNK 1635 2% 60 100 22.1 313.2 54.5 2923 42.0 46.8 11.6 4.9 NA 4.7 | 131.5

*MNK This is where I took 35000 copper to remove all monk AC bonus and tanked. It removed 219ac from my monk. Was it mitigation AC or avoidance AC or both? No one knows.

Then I did a set of parses in GoD (RIP TSW/SK.org) comparing a Time Monk versus a Time SK and Time Warrior which showed monks probably still ahead of Knights. A lot of this was attributed to shielding being weak versus avoidance being strong and the relative availability of both.

This is also ignoring important aspects of tanking like aggro which knights are undeniably superior or instant-burst mitigation which knights completely lacked (outside of paladin stuns on lower level mobs).

I think it took until the Shield Block AA in OoW for knights to finally start taking in less damage than monks.

TLDR: knights suck, roll a monk or warrior instead.