Question for Frodlin (dragging out the dead horse)

[Gargen]

I have one simple question fo you. If you can answer it, without doging the question by stating your opinion but not actually addressing the question (or any other such dodging), I will forever run through the hills proclaiming that monks should enver get their mitigation back. Just one simple question...


If warriors with more AC/HP than knights couldn't get groups over knights because of poor aggro, what will make a monk with restored mitigation, although less HP/AC than knights and worse aggro than pre-aggro disc warriors, any threat to warriors?




EDIT: adding my further comments so they can be addressed in one quote and to hopefully avoid people saying what I'll freely admit instead of the part I don't understand.


My point is that "warriors, pre aggro disc" > monsters too, but "warriors, pre aggro disc" aggro < dps aggro or debuff aggro which slowed the killing down and made them undesirable as tanks. I realize that monks would be able to stand up to monsters better, probably even as well as knights (although we'd still have less HP), but warriors themselves proved last year that standing up to the mobs isn't enough.




Point taken, but by the time monk AC has that much of an advantage over monster atk, healing either of them isn't a problem and the issue of aggro becomes even bigger. If an Anguish equipped monks takes less damage over time than a Anguish equipped warrior in BoT (or even PoFire), but the group kills slower because the Anguish equipped dps has to hold back... who's going to tank?

I've been in groups where rangers with less AC/HP than me that everyone in the group would have admitted would take more damage than me were the tnak because they held better aggro and the healer was fully capable of healing them. Same thing with knights and warriors for that matter.




First... tanks have never been picked based on aggro? Then what was all that warrior whining for 10 months last year over?

On the subject of DPS, warriors have strikethrough AAs that help to both increase DPS and reduce damage taken while attacking from the front. Os that enough to counter the bettr ratios that monks get? I'm not sure, but it would certainly cut in to the 20% advantage that monks have. Since I don't have any parses that show how much difference those AAs make, avoid assuming the worst... but what you probably didn't realize is that before Time gear, monks can't have dps weapons and aggro weapons at the same time. In fact I'm positive, without even parsing, a pre Time monk using stun proc weapons would have worse dps than a pre Time warrior, maybe even when not tanking. We do start getting goood dps+aggro weapons in time, but that's when warriors start to recieve a whole new level of aggro weapons (such as DBotWL). It also doesn't address the fact that we don't get any snap aggro or aggro on demand and would need to rely completely on luck. I'm sure if I was inclined to do it, I could find 20 posts from warriors buried in the back of this board that talk about how how inadequate relying on proc aggro is... and this is from warriros that had better options for aggro weapons then than monks have now.




I said *before* Time gear... as in I was admitting that Staff of Trancendance (which is just as tough to come by as DBotWL) and the GoD weapons Ronnan has are good aggro, or are realative to warriors 2-4 expansions behind (depending on how you count it), but complaining about that is as rediculous as a monk saying that warriors shouldn't out dps monk 2-4 expansions behind. We still don't have any reliable initla aggro either. As for the other stuff...

Tactical Mastery lets you strike through an opponents defensive, but in the case of riposte the riposte still hits through.

Less ripostes = less damage taken, but even if it doens't affect damage taken it still counts towards the next part...

To do so, though, you are forced to do what every warrior has had to always do: sacrifice your dps for aggro. Boo hoo?

First off, I personally don't really plan or even want to be a tank, but I'm not so niave as to think that if it won't happen. Becasue of that, I'm also not only fine with loss of dps to gain aggro, I would actually advocate it to keep monks off warriors and knights toes. The reason why loss of DPS to gain aggro matters is because it discredits this:

If Monk gets enougth mitigation to match our power than we loose our role because of Monk's superior DPS.

A tanking monk won't have superior dps. Even if they don't need to swap in worse weapons, they don't have the Tactical Mastery AAs. At most it will be a neglible difference.

Originally Posted by Haass

Dude, come the fuck on.

Nothing has changed from when Monks were tanking and warriors were useless except your mitigation.

Except:
Removal of the AC hardcap
Itemization changes so Monks have signifcantly less AC relative to warriors
Incite line of discs
Increase in Mob DPS/PC HP ratio for all new content
Increase in mobs that can 1 or 2 round a PC
AE Taunt
Tactical Mastery
Heck all AAs
Warrior only Aggro augs from LDoN
Much more readily available aggro weapons (I think the best warrior in my guild was mainhanding a frostbringer for aggro when the nerf happened.)
Min/Max play style (isn't really new, but certainly MUCH bigger than pre-PoP)
Pulling being trivialized in all non raid content

(And don't even try to pull some "But that's crappy DPS" bullshit on a class who's best non raid aggro weapons are 13/20 and 12/19)

can easily be respoded to by this bit from my last post

I'm also not only fine with loss of dps to gain aggro, I would actually advocate it to keep monks off warriors and knights toes.

Fuckin face it. You needed a nerf. You got one, there's nothing you can do about it, so stop crying about it. It's been almost 2 fuckin years for christs sakes.

I will fuckin face it that we needed a nerf. I'd have told you that back when it happened. I've argued it against other monks. I'd argue it still today. You need to fuckin face it that we don't need it any more.

That is exactly the kind of post I was hoping to avoid needing to respond to.

Since when did leather have the same ac as plate armor?
Leather isn't as strong as plate so you should take more damage, but it enables you to maneouver faster, than plate classes, so you should be able to avoid damage better. But when you get hit, it *should* hurt.

Basically it comes down to three things:

1. All armor in EQ is magic anyway so from a "realistic" point of view the magic is already making the armor stronger. Of course trying to interject realism in to anything with magic is kinda silly, but I accept that magic plate should be stronger than magic leather
2. A monk and warrior both wearing a Phase Spider Carapace (plate) or an Ancient Wyvernhide Tunic (leather) still wouldn't have the same defense. Despite what you're claiming, it has nothing to do with what type of armor we wear.
3. Leather armor *IS* weaker than plate armor as shown by the fact that leather armor always has lower AC on it (from PoP on at least). We have lower AC to reflect our typically leather armor. The 5th highest monk AC on EQRankings is 2059. The 5th highest Warrior AC is 2878 (took 5th to avoid the fakes that are usually on top).

However, monks are NOT tanks, and SHOULD NOT take the same average damage per round as one, period... they come almost too close as it is.

Monks are not tanks, why do you need the mitigation if your not going to tank?

You've got to be dreaming mate. Seriously, monks aren't tanks.

Cor, monks are not tanks

Can't argue with the the statement that monks aren't tanks. We're not. I could pull up quote from myself earlier in this very thread that basically says that already, however, I don't see how that translates in to us needing to have poor mitigation. The people I quoted just said "you aren't tnaks so you shouldn't get it" but didn't fill in the logic between those two. I can fully understand the logic of "You aren't a tank so you shouldn't be taking tanking jobs", but we wouldn't take the jobs due to our lack of aggro.

It boils back down to what I was trying to get at with my original question. If we aren't a threat to warriors with more mitigation, then why are you so opposed to it? Is it a "I have it and you don't" pride thing? Still bitter over the pre-nerf situation? Afraid that we may get tanking jobs in easy content when kill rate isn't important and there aren't any knights or warriors around? I garuntee you that if a knight or warrior is available while somebody is looking for a tank, even for easy content, they will get the job over a monk. What is it?


To answer the question of "what will it do for monks?"
- First, it would help with pulling. Yes there are other thigns that would help too, but that doesn't make mitigation any less helpful.
- It would help us on AE rampage mobs. On a lot of AE rampage mobs you can avoid it at max melee, but some have a rampage area wider than that and there are the occasional hits
- It would help us with soloing. It wouldn't make us solo gods, we'd still be way behind most classes, but it would probably be enough to make it so monk soloing wasn't a joke. I realize that warriors can't solo, but at least you guys are desired in groups, and if they were going to give warriros the ability to solo just a little bit, I'd support it (even for Pumilio and Apolyon)
- I personally would hope it would give groups a reason to at least consider me over a rogue or wizard when looking for DPS because I have emergency offtanking ability. It's not good enough tanking ability to be the main tank, but it's good enough if the MT goes down or an add comes around. We can do it now as any class that can survive a couple rounds can, but we certainly aren't good enough at it to have anybody consider it when filling groups.

In short, it would help us just a little bit in almost everything we did.

If monks getting better mitigation would help a class that I hope even the folks here would admit really needs some love, and it would do so without taking anybodies job away, then I ask you this. Why shouldn't we get it?

[Gerick]

I'll answer for him but I'm sure he can handle this, I am also sure your question is a turd because its wording is unfair.

Why not just ask, how can monks be a problem for warriors with increased mitigation?

The answer is you do not need to match, or exceed another class to be a threat you only need to exceed the monster, because of this a monk could be a better tank than a warrior on the same monster because they get hit less (no damage) while still mitigating

I'm sure you will shoot holes thru this, but Frod probibly has a less fractured all inclusive version to shut ya up

[Gargen]

Originally Posted by Gerick

I'll answer for him but I'm sure he can handle this, I am also sure your question is a turd because its wording is unfair.

Why not just ask, how can monks be a problem for warriors with increased mitigation?

The answer is you do not need to match, or exceed another class to be a threat you only need to exceed the monster, because of this a monk could be a better tank than a warrior on the same monster because they get hit less (no damage) while still mitigating

I'm sure you will shoot holes thru this, but Frod probibly has a less fractured all inclusive version to shut ya up

My point is that "warriors, pre aggro disc" > monsters too, but "warriors, pre aggro disc" aggro < dps aggro or debuff aggro which slowed the killing down and made them undesirable as tanks. I realize that monks would be able to stand up to monsters better, probably even as well as knights (although we'd still have less HP), but warriors themselves proved last year that standing up to the mobs isn't enough.

[Gerick]

Once any class gets to a certain point AC(mitigation) no longer effects incoming damage, this is mostly seen in grouping content.

In otherwords, since mitigation and avoidance are differnt you can end up being a better tank than a warrior, which should never happen... then again this is because sony likes to monkey with mob attack rates so it works this way :/

basically I can have 1700 ac and the monk may only have 1500, but the monster has an effective attack of 1400.. meaning that we I may take 3 or 4 less damage then you do, while avoidance does not suffer diminishing returns, infact it gets better the lower the attack rate is of the monster (not sure about this, dont grill me if I am wrong)

so you can be tank+avoidance while we remain tank+nothing

[Gargen]

Point taken, but by the time monk AC has that much of an advantage over monster atk, healing either of them isn't a problem and the issue of aggro becomes even bigger. If an Anguish equipped monks takes less damage over time than a Anguish equipped warrior in BoT (or even PoFire), but the group kills slower because the Anguish equipped dps has to hold back... who's going to tank?

I've been in groups where rangers with less AC/HP than me that everyone in the group would have admitted would take more damage than me were the tnak because they held better aggro and the healer was fully capable of healing them. Same thing with knights and warriors for that matter.

[Gerick]

Its not that the AC alone is so great, but the nice duo that AC and avoidance create.

As for aggro? there is a wide range of stun weapons that monks may use, while you may not be the best DPS thats just one of the tradeoffs for being a tank.

I am not trying to be an ass, but the only people to consider monks a tanking class in everquest was monk players themselves, I do not know where this idea comes from for sure but I think it mutated from a wish to get mitigation nerf reperation to the current wish to mitigate at a tanking level.

[Brutul]

Sheesh, people stinking up the outhouse with class balance posts

[NinjaBurger]

3 more posts, and your postcount will look yay!

[Yoda]

1. tanking power
Tanking is being able to reduce mob DPS to survive its repeated blows. Warrior is, up to now, defined as the best tank.
If Monk gets enougth mitigation to match our power than we loose our role because of Monk's superior DPS. if they match knights power they will kick them out of their group-tank role because of Monk's superior DPS. If they get subpart tanking role from knights (or better up to whatever you want), Monks will greatly increase their soloability and SoE don't like solo meleer.

2. on aggro power for a tank
yes the more aggro tanks generate, the better is fight ends. but Tanks have NEVER been choosed by their aggro power but their ability to survive best. I mean that are ordered by their HP/AC not by their hability to ease DPS class. Knights are generally better than us on locking aggro but they aren't choosed to MT often because we have a better survability.
Thus if Monks get strong tanking tool they WILL be a threat for the existing tanks (us, but not only us). Monks already have strong DPS and better swing hate generation than knights, thus they can get high on the aggro list if they really want to (WA5+5 x stun procs).

3. personnal notes
I think that a tanking monk with its mend ability will out tank everyother tank, and will be an ultimate solo class and I don't want it to happen. Moreover I think it's nonesense to say that a silk armor can mitigate naerly as well as a plate armor. just by this specification monks have to mitigate like a deep shit and get smashed whenever they get three hits straight. Sure they are specialized in avoiding blows, I would mind to see them avoiding 95% of a lvl80 Mob, but if they get hit more than two or three times by this given mob they must fall down in pulpe.

[Ronaan]

tanking for xp groups wasn't a problem up until kod taz.
can't tell you what it's like in oow, cause i quit playing like a month ago.

[apolyon]

Nice aggro setup Ronaan ... stun + debuff hehe

From the looks of your magelo you'd be a pretty formidable tank with all the new aas pretty much everywhere except maybe the hardest of the hard.

[Gargen]

Originally Posted by Yoda

2. on aggro power for a tank
yes the more aggro tanks generate, the better is fight ends. but Tanks have NEVER been choosed by their aggro power but their ability to survive best. I mean that are ordered by their HP/AC not by their hability to ease DPS class. Knights are generally better than us on locking aggro but they aren't choosed to MT often because we have a better survability.
Thus if Monks get strong tanking tool they WILL be a threat for the existing tanks (us, but not only us). Monks already have strong DPS and better swing hate generation than knights, thus they can get high on the aggro list if they really want to (WA5+5 x stun procs).

First... tanks have never been picked based on aggro? Then what was all that warrior whining for 10 months last year over?

On the subject of DPS, warriors have strikethrough AAs that help to both increase DPS and reduce damage taken while attacking from the front. Os that enough to counter the bettr ratios that monks get? I'm not sure, but it would certainly cut in to the 20% advantage that monks have. Since I don't have any parses that show how much difference those AAs make, avoid assuming the worst... but what you probably didn't realize is that before Time gear, monks can't have dps weapons and aggro weapons at the same time. In fact I'm positive, without even parsing, a pre Time monk using stun proc weapons would have worse dps than a pre Time warrior, maybe even when not tanking. We do start getting goood dps+aggro weapons in time, but that's when warriors start to recieve a whole new level of aggro weapons (such as DBotWL). It also doesn't address the fact that we don't get any snap aggro or aggro on demand and would need to rely completely on luck. I'm sure if I was inclined to do it, I could find 20 posts from warriors buried in the back of this board that talk about how how inadequate relying on proc aggro is... and this is from warriros that had better options for aggro weapons then than monks have now.

[apolyon]

Originally Posted by Gargen

On the subject of DPS, warriors have strikethrough AAs that help to both increase DPS and reduce damage taken while attacking from the front..

First part right second part wrong. Tactical Mastery lets you strike through an opponents defensive, but in the case of riposte the riposte still hits through. It's an offensive aa only. We have other aa's that help us avoid in defensive ways (slippery attacks etc).

Originally Posted by Gargen

Time gear, monks can't have dps weapons and aggro weapons at the same time

Umm ...
http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profil...92&resize=true

The other monk has stun. JoS = very good aggro and would work wonderfully in the offhand paired with this. If i'm not mistaken the staff of tranc. from Time is also a stun proc weapon with an amazing ratio. Can we say BoWar 1.5 for monks? VDD is also decent aggro, and i know monks with it.

Is your aggro as strong as an endgame warrior? I hope not. Is your aggro as strong as an endgame paladin if you want it to be? Immediately no, but over time it's probably stronger.

If you want aggro you can go out of your way to get it and still maintain strong dps. Duel stun augs + innate stun and debuff + WA5 = lots of aggro. Unless a warrior is lucky enough to get a DBoTWL or a BBoB, i'd dare say you could match him almost toe to toe in aggro generation minus incite and taunt.

Prior to time you could buy 2 SoD's with yak augs or a CHoS + yak aug .. there are a few different weapons you can have with decent aggro on them. To do so, though, you are forced to do what every warrior has had to always do: sacrifice your dps for aggro. Boo hoo? If you want to tank you have to pay the price.

The end.

[Gargen]

Nice of you to selectively quote my post so it would say the opposite of what I really said.

I said *before* Time gear... as in I was admitting that Staff of Trancendance (which is just as tough to come by as DBotWL) and the GoD weapons Ronnan has are good aggro, or are realative to warriors 2-4 expansions behind (depending on how you count it), but complaining about that is as rediculous as a monk saying that warriors shouldn't out dps monk 2-4 expansions behind. We still don't have any reliable initla aggro either. As for the other stuff...

Tactical Mastery lets you strike through an opponents defensive, but in the case of riposte the riposte still hits through.

Less ripostes = less damage taken, but even if it doens't affect damage taken it still counts towards the next part...

To do so, though, you are forced to do what every warrior has had to always do: sacrifice your dps for aggro. Boo hoo?

First off, I personally don't really plan or even want to be a tank, but I'm not so niave as to think that if it won't happen. Becasue of that, I'm also not only fine with loss of dps to gain aggro, I would actually advocate it to keep monks off warriors and knights toes. The reason why loss of DPS to gain aggro matters is because it discredits this:

If Monk gets enougth mitigation to match our power than we loose our role because of Monk's superior DPS.

A tanking monk won't have superior dps. Even if they don't need to swap in worse weapons, they don't have the Tactical Mastery AAs. At most it will be a neglible difference.

[Gargen]

I'm just going to state now that I'm not responding to anythign else Apolyon says. The reason why I singled out Frodlin is because I actually respect his opinion. Agree or disagree, he always backs his stuff up, doesn't completely ignore certain things when it works against him only to bring them up when they work for him, and hopefully wouldn't ignore half of what I already said because it already discredits his rebuttle to the other half. Apolyon on the other hand is a perfect example of somebody who doesn't meet any of that and I don't feel like arguing in circles with him.