Comments from the Devs

[Spider-Dan]

Not really. Like I said, PLD was the best at being a RNG safety valve, since no other job could protect a RNG that had hate (and Flash was actually really useful for getting Ichi back up).

Of course, after RNG nerf, things were different. But as far as tanks go, PLD had a role to fill. Most other "tanks" were completely dead weight.

[Churchill]

A few things:

The number of people who could afford to do the kind of damage Ranger was known for was a very small sub-sect of people. I know this, because I was also one of the first people to be fishing in Rabao. Considering this, and coupled with the fact that I know who the endgame Rangers of the time were and I know which ones actually used good ammo this myth of Ranger burn parties being super prevalent is just that - a myth. This problem persisted for years past 2004/05, so it's not like this is a problem that eventually solved itself. People weren't shooting thousands of gil per arrow/bullet on a massive scale because NAs were poor as fuck. One million gil when this game started costed more that 600USD and that didn't really go down until fishing caught on with more and more people.

We're also forgetting that at the time, people thought Monk sucked because it had low defense and each punch didn't do as much as one Dark Knight swing and Monks weaponskills didn't hit as hard as SA/TA SPINNING SLASHU. Most people thought Monk sucked, so the exposure to most people was probably pretty slim. I remember being asked to come Samurai to Sky and do Spirits Within on Kirin. I know how bad most people were back then, that doesn't change history though.

So.

http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/293521

Swap in Arhats gear, use Melee+2 feet for Counterstance, Fuma Feet for Utsu (and Brown belt if you didn't have BB, I didn't in 2004/05, though some of our Monks did), Optical hat for more accuracy if necessary.

An observation from some shitbird:
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...53&h=50&p=1#44

That being said, I do searches every once in a while of high level players just to see what they're subbing, and on Gilgamesh, there are a lot of 75 mnks with nin subbed. Since you can't dual weild with h2h, the only justification I can think of for this is to use utsusemi for those all too common moments when we draw hate.

This is for tanking HNMs. With Hundred Fists at the start of the fight you should never lose hate for the rest of it. The NIN sub of course is for Utsusemi.

A firsthand account from some other shitbird:
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...708921484659#5

I've actually witnessed a monk on my server tank Behemoth. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. He subbed ninja and was doing so much dmg with his normal attacks and asuran fists were hitting close to 1000. He never lost aggro once during the whole fight. After seeing that monk's are abvoe decent tanks on HNMs

Another referencing World Spawns (btw, you could tank Fafnir and Aspid given your group didn't suck, Aspid is a bitch though):
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...85482931195#10

i've never intentionally tanked as a monk unless it was as a Monk/Nin.

as far as i'm concerned, aside from the god's, and the Dragon's(never tried) there's very little that a monk/nin can't tank. So...anything that a monk can melee fight, a monk/nin can tank, and tank as well as any blink tank can. We have very good evasion, and a lot of evasion gear at our disposal. We have counterstance and countergear to get extra hit's in. We have good Vit and incredibly high HP just in case we take a hit while shadow's are down. And, when has a monk ever had trouble holding hate? Only time i ever lose hate while tanking is when my ranger buddies decide to go Slug Shot >> Barrage >> Slugshot or something insane like that.

I assume that you mean tanking as a mnk/war though, which i have no experience in, so i dont' wanna comment on it like i do.

Serket? I think I mentioned that:
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...95&h=50&p=1#13

Have a MNK/NIN friend that tanked Serket like it was nothing. So easy to do with all the haste gear MNKs get.

Shitbird Aurik (maybe you remember him):
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...750296034480#4

Auriks post is long, not quoting it.


Some theorycrafting about what Monk could do:
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...80&h=50&p=1#19

Also, a 74+ MNK/NIN could be an excellent tank in a one-time battle with an HNM or a BCNM where you would only have to tank one time.

Hundred Fists will be the all time hate-maker. Think about it.

Smartest thing to do?
Depends, if you have a smart party that can really work together. Also AOE cancel out shadows after those dreaded updates.

Will I give as many tries tanking as I can because I'm a crazy {Monk}ey?
Of course.

Going about it wrong via Evasion, but:
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...08921484659#22

Wait till your 75 and stock up on evasion gear and sub Ninja. With Utsesumi - Ni monk's are one of the best jobs to tank many HNM's. We have decent evasion, Dodge helps us during a sticky situation, spamming asuran fists with a low delay weapon helps keep hate and all the HP we have will finally have a good use.

Combined with a good PT, Ive been hadt he joy of tanking most of the AF NM's, Zipacana, Serket, Voivure, Roc, Simurgh & Bune.

More theorycrafting:
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...165164224471#1

Nor this one.


Yep:
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...21&h=50&p=1#15

with mnk/nin i haven been able to tank behe , rock, sim serket,bune counterstance is a lovely thing and with shados is awsome and u have better hate control,, just start with 2 hrs and u wont losse hate..also mnk have a acces to almost all evasion stuff than ninjas have we do more dmg and we got hasted .. im not saying we can tank like a ninja but we do a hell of good job

Nidhogg:
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...232271145206#1

Few days ago when i was camping Fafnir/Nidhogg, our LS leader said "Okay guys, we will try something different today, a MNK will tank the dragon."
And we were like "MNK Tank?!?! WTF?!?" and he just said, "let's try and see."

The mnk had Arhat+1 gears, Darksteel+1, Terra Staff, and other +HP equip, (no Black Belt or Defending Ring yet).

So, Nidhogg pop, we got claim; and the MNK tank side by side with PLD, voke and get hate with Chi Blast, he's a galka MNK with about 1800 HP. Nidhogg hit PLD for 200-250, but it hit MNK for only 180-230!

First time for everything, never thought about MNK tanking HNM but imagine if he have defending ring and black belt O_o

Yes, DPS was important for hate:
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...349293175001#4

As an obvious advocate of MNK/WAR tanking, I'd like to say that it's entirely possible, and that MNKs are well-suited to tanking VTs in quick-chain PTs. While we cannot wear heavy armor, we have high HP, VIT, and Evasion, and that makes up for some of the DEF we can't obtain. Come endgame, the Rasetsu, HNM/God, and Dynamis equipment opens up even more possibilities, and post-74 /NIN is an extremely tempting option.

However, a MNK interested in tanking shouldn't make the mistake of overloading themselves with Evasion gear. Many seasoned NIN tanks will state that too many NINs pile on far more Evasion gear than they need, and significantly decrease their damage output's potential. MNK/WAR and MNK/NIN tanks alike can suffer from the same problem (although a MNK is a superior DD anyway). When you don't have lots of hate-grabbing tools like post-37 PLDs do, your DOT is an extremely important part of your hate-holding and thus, your tanking.

1. Fuck you for making me go to Allakhazham.
2. You can safely assume if the derp at Alla was talking about it, then it was being done months beforehand.
3. History successfully re-written, my boys at Alla edited all those posts in for me.
4. If I'm being trolled, you all got me. If not, bads gon' bad.

[Don Katsu]

1. Fuck you for making me go to Allakhazham.

I wanted to jump in to lol at this statement

LOL

On that note, yes I also recall MNK/NIN tanks but they were mostly the Japanese groups on Alexander server

[Gokulo]

All my wuts

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/blog/post/257

[Stanislaw]

All my wuts

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/blog/post/257

For the lazy:

Rated M for Marvelous
March 19, 2013

Greetings! Fernehalwes here again.

I woke up this morning all ready to unearth a new nugget of developmental gold...but a quick spin around SQEX headquarters turned up a whole lot of nada. I guess that’s what I get for coming in on the vernal equinox.

(You’ve got to love Japan and their seemingly random national holidays. Who would have thought that the tilt of the Earth’s axis would warrant a day at home eating chicken pot pies?)

Anyway, I headed back to my desk to try and come up with something better than my “official dev team restroom tour” idea, and booted up the latest internal version of ARR. But when I headed out into the Twelveswood, I noticed something amiss. Was it the color of the trees? Or maybe the quality of the grass? Maybe it was the BGM? Or...maybe it was that all the NPCs (monsters included) had been transformed into Midlander males sporting naught but their unmentionables. Yeah. That was it.

Wait, wha?

Yesterday: A party of goblin thugs sitting around a campfire trading stories while sprites dance cheerfully around a bubbling brook.

Today: Bow-chicky-bow-bow.
http://rss.finalfantasyxiv.com/jp/bl...20130320_2.jpg

“But officer, his display name distinctly stated he was a level 28 water sprite! Honest!”
http://rss.finalfantasyxiv.com/jp/bl...20130320_1.jpg

What is this I don’t even...
http://rss.finalfantasyxiv.com/jp/bl...20130320_3.jpg

I’m looking forward to all the FFXIV memes this will generate on the Lodestone forums.

Fernehalwes

The text in the third SS (rough trans):

"If you dare come into our land again, we'll take 'appropriate' measures. Take note of that."

...appropriate measures? *shivers*

[Shenrien]

So... This is what they are doing with their development time.

[Nullibicity]

wtf lol

[popsiclestix]

I have been out of FFXI for 6 years or so..What Dan has been saying sounds familiar on the HNM mentality of hate mechanics. We were only discovering hate mechanics at around 2005? But aside from that, in the early pre-CoP days, I remember how little attention MNKs received at all. We were all worried about mob TP. "You want to attack the <t>?? Yeah go to the back and boost for 5 minutes before we let you in!"

Everything was kited with PLDs, unless it was Aeries. Rangers were very bad ass in like 2005. But shit, they had to make their arrows on the spot right? No quivers and shit. They all stacked ACC gear and ate Kabob with Minuet (and if you were a Bard, you hinted to the shitty ones with that single target song).

Oh and what are pizza's. Is this some sort of ATTK ACC food? I remember it was Mithkabob > Sushi > Curry then I left.. so Pizza became the new rage?

Anyways, about this Beta. Its fun. That is all

[Alkar]

Well that's intriguing.

[Mina]

Oh and what are pizza's. Is this some sort of ATTK ACC food? I remember it was Mithkabob > Sushi > Curry then I left.. so Pizza became the new rage?

Pizzas had a long time effect (3 hours? don't quote me on that), had good acc and atk and was basically what all melee were eating. Didn't stack. Hit popularity status 08~09ish and was being eaten by colibris. Prior to that, yeah I'd say curry.

[Gilgameshx]

Last few pages brings back great memories lol. To add my 2 cents from my memory of this game....

I remember war/nin being the primary endgame tank on my server back in the day and one of the first burn parties.... zipacna farming netted a lot of xp with a group of warriors. Pld tanks sucked til people started subbing nin with it but for whatever reason, it was widely accepted to tank as pld/war and get hit for 200+ damage, where as a war/nin could keep equal hate and never get hit. And I never remember pld being used in a rng burn.... Rng burn never needed a tank because the mob would be dead in 3-4 ws.

I also remember mnk/nin tanking when low manning content became popular, but that wasn't until years later.

[Spider-Dan]

A few things:

The number of people who could afford to do the kind of damage Ranger was known for was a very small sub-sect of people.

Doesn't matter, AH RNG with NQ hellfire would stomp out anything but the most elite specialists. Didn't have money for silver bullets? Get an O-bow (which wasn't even seriously camped, unlike Eastern Shadow) and you can steamroll everyone else with cheap ammo, too.

To put this in terms you might understand a little better (because you obviously weren't playing in 2004), remember SAM right after the 2007 2h buff hit? Like that, but more.

Considering this, and coupled with the fact that I know who the endgame Rangers of the time were and I know which ones actually used good ammo this myth of Ranger burn parties being super prevalent is just that - a myth. This problem persisted for years past 2004/05, so it's not like this is a problem that eventually solved itself.

1) it's pretty difficult to fake "good ammo" with a gun
2) even the good xbow ammo was cheap
3) even scorp arrow RNGs were running trains on other DDs

We're also forgetting that at the time, people thought Monk sucked because it had low defense and each punch didn't do as much as one Dark Knight swing and Monks weaponskills didn't hit as hard as SA/TA SPINNING SLASHU. Most people thought Monk sucked, so the exposure to most people was probably pretty slim.

KIND OF HARD TO CLAIM PEOPLE WERE REGULARLY DAMAGE TANKING ON AN UNWANTED, UNLOVED JOB.

Could RDM/NIN and NIN/DRK have been tanking HNM in 2004? Yes. Were they? No.

I don't know why you thought going to page 392 of the Alla MNK forum would somehow win you the day, but let's go ahead and knock these out:

1) MNK can tank... by using its 2hr? Pretty sure people knew how to activate Invincible in 2004
2) "This one time I saw a MNK tank NQ Behemoth"
3) "I can tank but not if we have RNGs" (great example, chief!)
4) "This one time I saw a MNK tank Serket"
5) direct quote: MNKs "will never match up to the XP chaining ability of PLD or NIN. Thus, they aren't the best choice for tank in xp parties"
6) "I think MNK could probably be a good tank!"
7) Even you acknowledge MNK evasion tanking is a joke
8) "I think MNK could probably be a good tank!"
9) direct quote: "im not saying we can tank like a ninja"
10) MNK tanking with Terra Staff. Tell me more!
11) Months after the RNG nerf hit, so of course you can "tank" now

It's not like you're going to catch me and find out that oops, people were secretly tanking with MNKs before the RNG nerf and I'm trying to hide it from you. Back in the days before you were playing seriously (you know, before pizza and sushi existed), this was the way things worked.

[Mina]

5) direct quote: MNKs "will never match up to the XP chaining ability of PLD or NIN. Thus, they aren't the best choice for tank in xp parties"

The best xp party in 03/04 that I remember was my WHM/BLM paired with RNG/SAM RNG/SAM RNG/SAM RNG/SAM RNG/SAM.
I was just there to drop emergency heals.

But we did something similiar... with MNKs in King Ramp's Tomb as well. The whole thing boiled down to the fact of kill it fast before someone needs healing or you were in trouble.

In earlier levels like while at Yuhtunga Jungle or earlier ~yes~ monks were probably a better tank than most other jobs... I am not going to be too confident in that but I've scratched my head the past day or so and remembered we often used monks for those parties as the "preferred" method.

When it came to endgame content I honestly can't remember there being a push for MNK tanking back then but I fondly remember PLDs running around with a Terra's or shadow tanking Ninjas depending on situations. But I also remember that nothing really could "tank" if a RNG wanted to lay down the damage with reckless abandon. Cause as Churchill said deeps > all else. Basically it was up to the RNG if they wanted to die or not.
EDIT: I forgot that PLD's Cover could be used on RNG and that was why they were preferred back then.

But that's all memory speaking and unless someone can find me some old ffxi-mako.com threads for me I'm done with nostalgia. Is there any other FFXIV news or should I just stare at that Hyur image for the rest of the day and imagine the censorship text bar is gone?

All my wuts

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/blog/post/257

:D You like it.

[Churchill]

Okay so I am being trolled, got it. I don't know who sent the mass invite out for everyone to come in here and be retarded but you got me good as I spent some time digging up what proof I could. gg's.

[Mina]

Okay so I am being trolled, got it.

Sorry. My memory just doesn't match up to MNKs tanking shit? I don't know what server you were on but it didn't happen in Garuda.

[Churchill]

Wasn't responding to you, really.

[Spider-Dan]

Mr. "Sushi? I only ate pizza bro" says everyone else is trolling him.

Right.

[Churchill]

I know you feel like you've got a resounding victory here, and that's great. It feels good the first time it happens and kind of validates some past grievances (possibly). It's too bad though.

I'll leave this quote one more time, and we'll see if you can get what I'm inferring correctly.

I can't think of any time I've used sushi on Monk - pizza yeah, sushi never. We would run 2 BRDs in those days and sing Minuets or Madrigals

I'll even help you out, at the risk of this possibly making sense.

I can't think of any time I've used sushi on Monk - pizza yeah, sushi never. We would run 2 BRDs in those days and sing Minuets or Madrigals - in lieu of accuracy food

You can chest thump all day, it doesn't make you and anyone who supported you not a bad.

[miokomioko]

Bads gonna' bad while you played with your Monk's pizzas up in the club?

[Gulkeeva]

I'm not sure which is more disturbing... the 2-3 page debate over ffxi content that is near 8-9 years old about rng, pld and mnk, or a group or naked men sitting around a campfire. Both are equally wtf (yes the discussion is getting to that level of wtf)