Can Pugilists/Monks Tank

[Kiote]

Hi Kiote,

What makes PGL a better tank than lets say MRD? What is unique about PGL that makes them better? Many of the skills you listed are available to all.

Just looking for more info!

I did not ever say they were better. Unlike most of the closed minded people on these forums, I prefer find all the ways to make all my class effective in as many ways as possible. Truthfully, if you build your PGL correctly, they will take less damage than a MRD and Especially a GLA right now. They have a naturally higher evasion and First of Earth raises their defense to more than compensate for the lack of armour. If geared correctly, they can use their evasion and parry to do a constant stream of Reactive damage, while avoiding damage entirely and have the ability to repeatedly stun the enemy mitigating a large amount of DMG.

I can't definitively say PGL are better tanks than GLA and MRD, but I can definitively say that GLA and MRD are not better tanks than PGL.

I supose MRD has the advantage over GLA and PGL because it take little skill to play as tank where as GLA takes moderate skill and PGL takes quite a bit.

[Sigmakan]

I apologize if my post came off as an attack. I'm just looking for more info.

I can see FoE being very useful for reducing damage, but doesnt that also limit hate generation via damage?

Also, in terms of evasion, dont you need to stack a ton of it to dodge high level monsters and bosses?

I had consider doing a MNK tank build when FoW was originally going to give +evasion, but I cooled on the idea when it was changed.

[Kiote]

I have not even started Monk yet, so i cant speak to Monk builds.

On my PGL, it doesn't really require all to much Evasion Bonuses to dodge high level Bosses. I do use evasion and parry Materia, but I havent even really started trying for double melds.

The real key to the eva portion of the Role is the timing on Featherfoot, Forsight and Decoy. Sometimes I dont even use decoy because ranged and magical attacks arent so common anymore. But, if you time Foresight and Featherfoot right you can mitigate a good thirty percent of the incoming attacks prior to your natural parry and evade.

As far as the loss of hate from Fists of Earth, it really isn't all that significant. It basically takes your DMG output down to that of a GLA. still a little higher IMHO. Sentinel > Provoke > Flash > Rampart pretty much secures your hate and Taunt pretty much forced the enemy to attack you, at least briefly.

[Meleena]

I dont consider myself closed minded but really if I am going to play Monk/Pug like Mar/War or Gld/Pld in order to Tank then I will play Mar/War or Gld/Pld...

From my experience Evasion doesn't work that well on bosses (or at all Ifrit) and our Stuns cant be used to give us time to reposition for combos.
Also a Tank is expected to stay mostly stationary keeing the back of the Boss exposed to others, but Monk doesn't have any straight frontal combos...

What Kiote said might be possible and even good, but it's not my idea for how to play Monk, even as a tank.

[SafeOnBlock]

I think his idea of tanking is spot on and he has obviously put time and effort into knowing his class. I have seen things in the Fighting game community make people loose their mind when a character is used the opposite of/or out of context but works great. I think that his points are backed by facts and his argument is sound. He has compared and contrasted all of the tanking options that are considered viable giving an un-baised opinion. Well said Kiote and thanks for the information. I will try my hardest to spread the gloopy gospel of the tanking monk =)

[Meleena]

I play Fighting games on a competitive level as well and this has nothing to do with fighting games seriously :P
In the end it all comes down on how do you want to play your character.
Most monk users dont want to play the Monk like a Warrior or a Paladin because they don't consider fun trying to mimic other classes.
Now if Monk could tank differently by using his evasion or some of his other exclusive talents then yes I would try to tank as Monk.

[Vackashken]

Its sad to me that people are so closed minded and quick to dismiss options like that. I come from the competitive fighting game community and after 10+ years of Marvel vs Capcom and 20 years of Street Fighter II people still find out new technology.

Ive been playing those games longer then you and share THEIR mentality. It isn't possible to tank realistically at all with mnk. It isn't a coincidence our best attacks are from the back.

[Estellios]

If you want to tank it would definitely have to be on PGL, MNK doesn't get as many hate generating/self-preservation abilities and still has access to fists of Earth. It is possible, but that being said you will really have to stretch yourself out to fit into the role and you are in an even worse situation than Paladin currently is. Against High level targets your Evasion won't do a thing and your HP/Defense is a lot lower than PLD/WAR. If you really do want to tank just level a tanking Job. It's not about being close-minded, it's being reasonable.

If you have a good group of friends that are willing to experiment and tailor their playstyle to it then great, do that, but for the most part the whole point of Jobs is to fill you into a specific role and MNK's is not tanking. People are playing the jobs the way they are designed and expect you to do the same. PGL has a bit more wiggle room in this matter but, like i said, will take a lot more work both in gear/materia and getting it to work in a group setting.

All this applies to Boss-type enemies. In normal XP/Spiritbond regular enemy settings PGL/MNK can tank perfectly fine especially if you gear up for evasion and/or HP.

[SafeOnBlock]

@ meleena it was an analogy and yes you can compare both ideas because they are both comparing the same idea of using a tool out of context. Look at strider doom technology and the rock assist that was never used until Clockwork found out the technology. Look at CVS2 the A groove was considered garbage until they found out about roll cancelling. My point being is that you cant be closed minded about options in games or you limit possibilities. I am not saying those ideas always come to fruition but if you dont try ( and obviously pugilists have some abilities that are tank like) then how can you ever know?

As far as Vackashken what have you been playing longer than me? How would you even derive a time line of what you are even referring to? I think that when you focus on the back attacks you must understand that I went and looked at the abilities of the pugilist and found they had a taunt, self heal, defensive stance, evasion boosts, and stunning attacks. That is what is being considered as a tank. The damage output is not a factor unless you loose hate but as stated above damage isnt necessary when tanking when you have other tools to raise hate.

The major point of my original post was to find out if it is possible for pugilists or monks to tank. The only person to give a very logical explanation and information to back their claim was Kiote. Kiote was very unbiased and even stated it even had its flaws when being compared to other tank builds. Kiote compared and contrasted all of the current tanking options to the pugilist tanking options.

[syntaxlies]

the problem is monks should be an evasion tank if they were gonna tank, but evasion is broke. I saw a vid of a thm tanking ifrit so really anything can "tank" i think what you mean is, can monk be an optimal tank and the answer is no.