Which DPS is the Tankiest?

[SpeckledBurd]

If we talk for a tankbuster, NIN have the same def than MNK but they have a 20% max HP shield, it's better than 10% reducted damage since the more % reduc you have, the less they give no ?

Yes and no. HP% shields are stronger the weaker the attack is. A savage tank buster - designed to be threatening to an actual tank - is something else entirely. Assuming 60k HP at level 90 (for easy math) a 20% HP shield is 12k. In order for RoE to beat out a 20% HP shield, you just need an attack of at least 121k damage. Most tank busters are at least that much damage unmitigated so the 10% reduction you get from RoE ends up going a long way, even if stacked with other defensives, due to the fact that MNK doesn't have any innate DR% like a tank does. The bigger the tank buster the better RoE becomes relative to NIN's shield, although there's a certain maximum amount of damage you can reasonably expect a MNK to be able to tank without the healers and tanks kitchen-sinking them with their CD's. Right now, something up to 150kish damage would be realistically survivable without blowing every single defensive CD available to keep the MNK alive, but anything more than that and you're simply dumping too many CD's into a single mechanic.

Riddle of Earth isn't 10%, it's a 20% reduction so the difference between Shade Shift and Riddle of Earth for taking a buster is even more Monk's favor in terms of the amount of damage it can mitigate. When you factor in that Monk gets 3 charges of it, that it lasts for 4/5 seconds up to 10 seconds if you don't attack and prioritize surviving and it regenerates on a 30 second cooldown then you start to realize that it's comparable to untraited Sheltron or Heart of Stone before they got their Endwalker giga traits.

The 10% number is what it was at the end of Shadowbringers, but in that case the defense percent scaled with the number of remaining Riddle of Earth stacks you had. Immediately after popping it Monk had a 30% defensive modifier meaning it actually used to be even stronger.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Riddle of Earth isn't 10%, it's a 20% reduction so the difference between Shade Shift and Riddle of Earth for taking a buster is even more Monk's favor in terms of the amount of damage it can mitigate. When you factor in that Monk gets 3 charges of it, that it lasts for 4/5 seconds up to 10 seconds if you don't attack and prioritize surviving and it regenerates on a 30 second cooldown then you start to realize that it's comparable to untraited Sheltron or Heart of Stone before they got their Endwalker giga traits.

The 10% number is what it was at the end of Shadowbringers, but in that case the defense percent scaled with the number of remaining Riddle of Earth stacks you had. Immediately after popping it Monk had a 30% defensive modifier meaning it actually used to be even stronger.

Forgive me going "akchually", but actually:

Pre-5.4 it was granting a 30s duration buff if you got hit, nullifying all direction requirements and granting -10% dmg taken for 30s.

5.4 it had the following changes:

The effects of this action have been revamped. Riddle of Earth now functions as follows:

• Reduces damage taken by 10% and nullifies all action direction requirements.
• Duration: 6s
• Maximum Charges: 3
• Recast time has been reduced from 60 to 30 seconds.

This was a duration-based effect, so nothing difficult to understand here.

5.5 saw another revision of the action:

The effects of this action have been completely revamped. Riddle of Earth now functions as follows:

• Grants 3 stacks of Riddle of Earth, each stack reducing damage taken by 10% and nullifying all action direction requirements.
• Duration: 10s
• Maximum Charges: 3
• Effect ends when time expires or upon execution of three weaponskills.

The difference is that the action now let you do 3 weaponskills without positional requirements based on stacks rather than duration. This allowed for some leeway for movement while retaining stacks, but also leeway regarding how long the mitigation lasts.

Individual stacks did not increase the mitigation however, it was consistent at 10%. It simply expired after three weaponskills. The final revision was moving the 10% mitigation to 20%, which is a consolidation of the Fist Stances (Fists of Earth in this case).

[Silhart]

Individual stacks did not increase the mitigation however, it was consistent at 10%. It simply expired after three weaponskills.

Riddle of Earth was indeed 30% mitigation at full stacks. Here's a screenshot from The Balance server taken on the day of patch 5.5's release:

The numbers here are consistent with what you'd expect from a 30% reduction in damage

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Riddle of Earth was indeed 30% mitigation at full stacks. Here's a screenshot from The Balance server taken on the day of patch 5.5's release:

The numbers here are consistent with what you'd expect from a 30% reduction in damage

What the f***...? Okay that is surprising, but... does this apply to the current system? I mean from what I could tell it is essentially the same stack system, or am I seeing something wrong?

"Grants 3 stacks of Riddle of Earth, each stack reducing damage taken by 20%.
Duration: 10s
Maximum Charges: 3
Effect ends when time expires or upon execution of three weaponskills."

Does this actually do the same as 5.5 RoE and actually is 3 x -20% dmg taken?
(which would be (0.8 x 0.8 x 0.8) - 1, resulting in -48.8% dmg taken, but that sounds ludicrous!)

[SpeckledBurd]

Forgive me going "akchually", but actually:

Pre-5.4 it was granting a 30s duration buff if you got hit, nullifying all direction requirements and granting -10% dmg taken for 30s.

5.4 it had the following changes:

This was a duration-based effect, so nothing difficult to understand here.

5.5 saw another revision of the action:

The difference is that the action now let you do 3 weaponskills without positional requirements based on stacks rather than duration. This allowed for some leeway for movement while retaining stacks, but also leeway regarding how long the mitigation lasts.

Individual stacks did not increase the mitigation however, it was consistent at 10%. It simply expired after three weaponskills. The final revision was moving the 10% mitigation to 20%, which is a consolidation of the Fist Stances (Fists of Earth in this case).

I know the history, I was there and I've written (read: complained) about literally every iteration of Monk at length at this point so I know how it worked at literally every step and when I said "end of Shadowbringers" I meant "end of Shadowbringers", obviously not any of the other points in the patch cycle.

Here's a demonstration of the mitigation you got from Riddle of Earth that I did immediately after the patch dropped in 5.5. As you can see it scaled in that period per stack.

End of Shadowbringers Monk just had an off brand Sentinel/Shadow Wall, it was goofy as hell.

What the f***...? Okay that is surprising, but... does this apply to the current system? I mean from what I could tell it is essentially the same stack system, or am I seeing something wrong?

"Grants 3 stacks of Riddle of Earth, each stack reducing damage taken by 20%.
Duration: 10s
Maximum Charges: 3
Effect ends when time expires or upon execution of three weaponskills."

Does this actually do the same as 5.5 RoE and actually is 3 x -20% dmg taken?
(which would be (0.8 x 0.8 x 0.8) - 1, resulting in -48.8% dmg taken, but that sounds ludicrous!)

Current Riddle of Earth doesn't scale like that, it's just a flat 20% at any number of stacks. That isn't having three stacks of Sentinel crazy like it used to be, but it's still the best defensive action on a DPS in terms of both defensive power and the sheer amount of uptime you have with it in the game at the moment.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I know the history, I was there and I've written (read: complained) about literally every iteration of Monk at length at this point so I know how it worked at literally every step and when I said "end of Shadowbringers" I meant "end of Shadowbringers", obviously not any of the other points in the patch cycle.

Here's a demonstration of the mitigation you got from Riddle of Earth that I did immediately after the patch dropped in 5.5. As you can see it scaled in that period per stack.

End of Shadowbringers Monk just had an off brand Sentinel/Shadow Wall, it was goofy as hell.

Current Riddle of Earth doesn't scale like that, it's just a flat 20% at any number of stacks. That isn't having three stacks of Sentinel crazy like it used to be, but it's still the best defensive action on a DPS in terms of both defensive power and the sheer amount of uptime you have with it in the game at the moment.

Honestly Im really thankful for this info. Im sorry if I sounded a bit high-on-a-horse earlier. This is some cool info.