Can Pugilists/Monks Tank

[SafeOnBlock]

I was looking at all the abilities available for the pugilist/monk class and it seems they have some decent abilities that allow them to possibly tank. Problem is is that I dont have a maxed out character so I wanted to know what end game looks like as a pugilist/monk.

Thanks for your input!

[Raldo]

Can they tank? Sure.
Do people doing endgame ever call for a Monk tank? No.

I'm not going to get into the reasons why or why not to use a Monk tank. That's like opening the whole PLD vs WAR can of worms.

[SafeOnBlock]

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.

[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.

[Vackashken]

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?

Do you not remember your own post? Here, I'll remind you.

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.

I have been playing Street Fighter series since 1988 all the way to Tekken vs SF. Thus, why I said I have been playing longer then you. Not that any of this is relevant in the least.

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.

No, its taunt isn't used for tanking purposes. PGL/MNKs taunt has a short effect time. When you taunt you will supersede the hate list. Meaning you will have top hate no matter what. This effect however is temporary and is meant only to be used to have a chance and active your evasion attack. Again - the effect is temporary. Having a self heal that has such a huge timer on it in comparison to the poor HP and armor choices doesn't make a tank.

I could go on but I can't be bothered to. I have been playing pug since beta. Once upon a time it was a good tank. In fact I loved tanking on it and did so on every mob in the game to Batraal. Then they started to tweak the class and it became clear, much to my dislike, that they were pulling it away from being able to tank. Each time the class has been tweaked they have moved it father and father away from any real way to tank truly effectively.

[SafeOnBlock]

I suppose it is just that the general thoughts are split with the favor in that it cannot tank. Which is fine. I dont know how many of you have actually tried it or tested out different builds and strats so I cant really say much else about it. Again there was only one person that had proof he sat down and figured out a build and has consistently played pugilist as a tank.

I guess I will have to do the same and as I said earlier I think that it should be an option even against bosses and SE should look into either buffing certain abilities or slightly changing them for the sack of just having another tank so that FFXiV doesnt suffer from the Holy trinity syndrom every other MMORPG suffers from.

[Zyph]

Not enough evasion to be an evasive tank, not enough HP to be an HP tank.

[Atoli]

Sure, MNK can tank, but it's by far not the best class for tanking.
Like Zyph said, not enough evasion, not enough HP/def.
For fun runs with friends it's certainly possible, but especially with pick up groups this won't happen.

That being said, in low level exp parties PUG is often the tank if no GLA or MRD joined.
And yesterday at Ifrit our tank dc'd so the MNK took his spot in the middle of the fight and tanked Ifrit..it was awesome
Granted, he lost hate at one point because the healers just had to heal too much with MNK just not being cut out to be a tank, but still...if our real tank made it back faster..

[Kiote]

Granted, he lost hate at one point because the healers just had to heal too much with MNK just not being cut out to be a tank, but still...if our real tank made it back faster..

This does not happen when a PGL is built for tanking. Melee PGLs can't hold hate because they typically only have taunt.

A PGL Tank will have Provoke, Flash and Taunt as well as Rampart and Sentinel to build massive hate.

[Kiote]

http://xivpads.com/?2225422

Select Specs and Pugilist if you want to see my Tanking Build.