SK/Pal vs. Monk

[SirAlvarex]

Originally Posted by Grozmok

Is the nerf comes with Luclin, then I think it's safe to say that rolling a monk is sound advice for those looking to play a fairly broken class.

I don't mind, as I enjoy my SK for other reasons anyway.

Originally Posted by Crimson Death [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So what your saying is:

Monk >

Unless you're MTing some raid level mob?

Pretty much. The nerf I mentioned before, which according to the patch notes on October 16th, 2002, was a nerf to the monks ability to mitigate damage. That is well past our timeline.

[Kope]

While Monks will be able to mitigate damage that well, SKs will have an up on them when it comes to generating aggro. Well, at least until the disease cloud nerf.

[Schortt]

At DMG/Swing yes, monks are better, but it's not like that's the only consideration when tanking. If you do the math, even tanking normal mobs, warriors are still the most efficient CH targets, followed by monks/paladins/SKs being generally tied for 2nd, and then Rangers and everyone else.

Warriors Paladins and SKs are also "safer" CH targets in the sense that when the random number generator goes into asshole mode and lets the mob rip off a bunch of max damage hits, they have a larger safety net. A monk can try to save mend or stonestance for such occasions, but unless the cleric knows you have an OHSHIT button ready they will likely panic, abort CH, and go fast heals for a bit which hurts their mana and can sometimes result in an OOM cleric and dead groupmates (when I tank Emp, for instance, this has happened with bad clerics even when they were forewarned not to abort CHs). Too few HP for safe CHs can be especially problematic for lower level monks or monks who don't focus on HP gear.

On the other hand, if you have a druid or shaman (or even paladin) healing you, or if you have a cleric using CE instead of CH, monks are going to be able to take more hits per heal than Pal/SKs. This is one of the many reasons that Monk/Shm is such a powerful duo.

The real strength of Pal/SK as a tank is their ability to lock down initial aggro and especially to get aggro before breaking mez. Monks have to wait for mem blur or root before engaging a mezzed mob, all which is more work for the casters in a group. I personally love grouping with Pal/SKs because even if I (or another monk or warrior) might be tanking slightly better or adding more damage, the hybrid is going to be able to peel pulls off me quickly and safely without mobs running around and smacking other group members. They also tend to hold aggro better than most monks/warriors (assuming repeated application of aggro spells) which lets me stand behind mobs and add my DPS without getting 30%+ of my attacks dodged/blocked/parried/riposted, having to chase mobs around to debuffing or nuking classes who pull aggro, or having to constantly FD/Sneak to ditch aggro.

Finally, both hybrid plate classes bring some good utility. SKs have a few pulling tricks involving DoT/FD/Hide/CoH that monks can only duplicate with either a lot of clickies or a lot of work (useful for solo pulling all the named spots in Seb to wherever, for instance). Paladins can pull quite well with lull, and have great backup heals, stuns, and rez. When your cleric goes down deep in a dungeon and is bound far away, having that rez can keep your night from being wasted on a long CR.

In Velious, monk tanking is going to get even better by comparison if anything, mostly because monks will have access to more comparable amounts of AC/HP/STA on their gear - partly because of all the amazing all/all items and partly because of some insane monk only stuff (compare Flayed Barb Legs to the legs available now for an extreme case). I'm still not sure how the AC softcaps/hardcaps are working on this server, but (Iksar) monks did have the highest AC hardcap on live, though it was very difficult to reach even with lots of best in slot Velious gear.