New Job: Pugilist Tank

[Versiroth]

You could always give the Pugilist tank a flat block rate to make up for those times times when the evasion fails. Is it really so far fetched that a martial artist would be blocking attacks? Give their tanking stance a set % for evasion and parry (and give them procs based on successful evades and parries) and then give them a flat block rate with affects all incoming damage. Or, you could give flat block rates based off greased lightning stacks. Which would add the mechanic of them trying to keep up Greased Lightning before big hits in case evade and parry fail them.

[Exstal]

Sigh I don't even think you are listening to what you are saying. If you give a tank 20% dodge + the ability to survive any hit without dodging, just think about it.

You keep talking like there is some magical solution to this but the burden of proof at this point is on you. You can't just fold your arms and say it will work but no one has thought of a way to do it yet.

PLD 20% DR
Berserker 20% evasion

Hit 1
PLD - 800 damage
BSK - 1000 damage

Hit 2
PLD - 800 damage
BSK - 1000 damage

Hit 3
PLD - 800 damage
BSK - 0 damage

Hit 4
PLD - 800 damage
BSK - 1000 damage

Hit 5
PLD - 800 damage
BSK - 1000 damage

Total damage taken
PLD 4000
BSK 4000

BSK could get lucky and get more chances to receive 0 damage. But could be unlucky and receive full damage whereas PLD would receive reduced. Then there's Warrior who would also receive full damage (unless parry).

[Zplinter]

When I still played Anarchy Online (AO), one of the professions was Martial Artist (MA). They were primarily a DPS role (as pugilist/monk is) but when we were in a pinch and didn't have a Soldier or Enforcer to tank, we could rely on an MA to use. The main difference is that it was not a tank so we had to let them build aggro for a bit.

If built properly, MA's had high evasion could help with tanking but they were prone to spike damage simply because their damage mitigation wasn't that high or had high HP. There were also concerns with them failing evade checks a few times in a row and it wouldbe a flat MA.

*edit* I hate the posting limitation, it's rediculous.

MA tanks were/are okay for RK missions if the table did/does not get in the way of my healing(inside AO reference). The problem with them as Raid tank was/is they were too "squishy", non-traditional tanks (i.e. some one in heavy armor) need to have a set of skills/moves/spells that can make up for that difference.
I love the concept of a non-traditional tank but the mechanics have to work in a way that is not situational they have to be able to MT 90% of the content in a raid/dungeon. At the same time I would like to see SE avoid Blizzard "favorite tank of the Xpac" syndrome.

Curse you char limit!!!!

[Acala]

Only read a few pages but from the sounds of things people countering evasion tank is broken want a warrior but instead of +healing gets +dodge...

They wont even give us a dodge stat do you really think they are going to add a tank that relies on dodge? I mean don't get me wrong i would like a third tanking dynamic but its not going to happen until the devs come up with different end game mechanics than one huge hit ever so often with debuffs to force tank swaps. I mean the reason they do it is to force there 2/2/4 group dynamic but god its gets boring.

[AmyNeudaiz]

First off, it's not that evasion *shouldn't* work against stuff like EX Mountain Buster and EX Incinerate; it's that it *doesn't* work on those attacks.

Replying to older post in this thread but I just wanted to point out that apparently from what I've heard you can actually dodge incinerate now >.>
I haven't seen it myself but I've heard from a few people that they have

[Exstal]

Oh, I would also like to add Paladin NOR Warrior can survive an unmitigated Death Sentence. Ask your healer not to stone skin you, and you don't use any CDs. See if you survive.

[PlayerEx]

I can see the concerns raised here about evasion tanks either being to strong or too weak, however I am also able to see that a similar system is in use that could flatten any tank using similar numbers. Critical hits form bosses would cause the same problem as an evasion tank not evading three hits in a row. Running numbers purely on one side would allow this scenario to play out the same as the PGL taking three hits in a row.

The Fists of Earth ability is also important as it adds more damage mitigation to PGL already. This would allow them to survive the few big attacks they take.

In the end this is all about risk and reward, if you want to stick with damage reduction with no chance of failure or great success that is your choice, but there is no reason to downplay another job that has more chance to it. So long as on average they both come out with similar levels of HP and number of heals taken I do not see the issue.

[PlayerEx]

Another fair point to mention would be that PLD use blocking which is based on chance. While blocking will not nulify an attack it does stack with damage reduction from armor, and the armor functions even when the block doe snot occur. If a evasion based tank can go through a dungeon taking similar overall damage as a HP or armor based tank I do not see the issue. The only issue would be the opponents that can dish out huge hits and threaten to flatten the tank if he fails to evade, but with cross class skills and current PGL abilities stacked with new gear with slightly higher armor/VIT I can see the tank being fairly successful even in the case he fails to evade often. The healer may have to work a little harder during that fight, but on the other hand in the last fight the healer may have never healed at all, meaning that they can assist in damage or make sure DPS are healed.

[Kitru]

Replying to older post in this thread but I just wanted to point out that apparently from what I've heard you can actually dodge incinerate now >.>
I haven't seen it myself but I've heard from a few people that they have

You can't. You can, however, fully soak it with Adloq, Stoneskin, and DR CDs active. I've done it more than a few times with an Adloq crit on a tank using a DR CD. If you fully soak it, you don't get the debuff. It's really fun when you fully soak it and end up having your stacks fall off before you even reach 3 (and confuses the hell out of tanks that only look at Suppuration stacks).

[Garra]

This doesn't really fit in 100% with this idea of an evasion tank but another good tank mechanism that would avoid all of this RNG that everyone is so worried about, is to give an on command ability to produce a shield similar to how stoneskin/aloq works now. The amount would obviously have to be tweaked so that it fits in terms of mitigation with the other tanks, but then you would have a brand new mechanic that allows PLD and WAR to remain in their own niches (PLD flat mitigation, WAR hp/heals).

This shield type mechanic could for example be a magic tank where they put up small shields on themselves built into their tanking stance. This shields could on regular attacks mitigate a flat damage percent for each shield. To keep this fair, the shields could stack up to a maximum of 5 and only allow 1 shield be used at a time for normal attacks. Then as a greater mitigation mechanism (like hallowed ground/holm) the character could expend all of their shields at once to create one large shield that absorbs for the total of all of the shields x 2 on a large cooldown.

Implementing a tank that uses these shields would require some management of skills and cooldowns similar to how WAR plays, however it could be very easily balanced.

These are just very rough ideas, but I think it would be a neat, active way to include a new tank without making anything overpowered/underpowered.