Monks The Ultimate Tanks?

[jezer]

Been pondering my classo cause it's pretty bad. Its my first sloth character and I had no idea. At the moment my skills are pretty limited to gripping and then recalling if nothing works out. I don't have winds and bolts to finish a mob after a grip.

I was thinking though, what kind of role will suit me in avatarhood. We have seen Nab as the monk damage machine... But I was wondering what would happen if someone played monk defensively?

Warriors are pretty much tanks, because of parry and high hp's. But could monk's do a better job? Monks have counter attack and dodge to make up for parry. They also have damage reduction and blindfight. Has anyone gone heavily into damage reduction on there character? How effective is high damage reduction? At 5x40 is there a cap in how many damage reduction points you can buy?

More importanly is damage reduction Monk prime? Otherwise I guess any warrior/monk is just as good.

Be interested to hear your thoughts on this.

[Gnu]

Even a hen can fly, but look at eagles and u will see what is a real Flight

You can find your place in this MUD with any classo, if u cant solo, if u are useless follower in groups, then become a leader! Are you bored with leading? Become a cheater! Got wiped? Start a new character !

[12345]

My character was designed to maximize damage reduction. Zukt's also, since he basically has my same classo with Necro instead of Cleric. With druid quad though, I'll have to become a fairly high avatar before I see the full effects. Damage reduction saves me a few heals and has probably saved my life once or twice, but it's tough to see a difference.

As far as counterattack. I've nearly gotten killed many many times because I solo with counterattack for the added damage and then forget to switch to parry for groups. Parry is a lot better at keeping me alive. Hands down.

My character still needs a lot of work, but from what I've seen monk is much more damage oriented than warrior... and give thieves a run for their money. Warrior is much more defensive.

[Teron]

Hello, Jezer

As a wa/mo, I think I get about +3 dam reduction naturally at 2x40.

I also have two dam reduction items, which makes it to about +5 dam reduction.

Now about the effectiveness. I do notice the difference. Since the dam reduction is, basically, a hp saved per hit (it cant be more than a hp per dam reduction, right?), you can save about 10-30hps per round of combat. This is pretty good as it is.

If anyone doubts whether dam reduction helps, get a 1x40 monk or 2x40 xx/mo to -9ac, solo a bit, then try soloing same mobs w/ the same ac on any other classo. You should notice a difference.

As 12345 noticed, one can use counter and dodge in groups, but its pretty incoherent while tanking (have to watch out not to mess w/ a whiner, and watch for the messages, etc). Becides, lately parry worked far better than counterattack (Ive only seen counterattack work once or twice during the duration, while parry used to work almost every round..now parry works worse, but is still better than typing counter every 8-10 rounds).

If you want to go defensive, sure, go for it. Everyone has to find his unique playing style and classo and stick with it.

If you do not get fun playing Jezer, you may, indeed, try creating a character with the classo you will thoroughly enjoy playing (mo/wa/cl/ma, maybe?)

That being said, I do think monks can tank, and be an efficient tank too, but only when there is no warrior around with same or better ac. (there may be exceptions too, though).