Best Melee-Tank?

[Tsuko_Asura]

Considering leveling a job that's well suited for killing things in small groups, usually consisting of something along the lines of <sole melee> and a mage here and there. I generally hear about MNK/NIN and NIN/WAR excelling at that sort of thing, but I also hear good things about competent SAM/WAR. As for targets, I'm thinking along the lines of Limbus, to flat out anything that can be tanked solely through melee damage. My initial thought was Monk, what with it being more commonplace these days to have them at the lead of things like low-man JoF, multiple Temenos and Apollyon zones, etc.

Any and all comments/suggestions appreciated. My only actual experience in the matter was doing various easier things dualboxing a friend's Monk, so I'm fairly uneducated in the subject.

Thanks.

[fishstix]

Yeah, I would go with mnk/nin, in the lowman limbus thread, several zones have been duo'd with a monk and brd or rdm. tbh, sam is extremely easy to level and shares some of the same gearset, so I would level monk and then sam both. I almost won the SW apollyon zone in a 2box duo attempt, mnk + rdm. I made a costly mistake on the tree floor, the monk died at 1% to poison... I was on the 3rd elemental @ 16% when I timed out.

[Minnich]

MNK/NIN is extremely good at keeping up damage while being able to tank. It's definitely a good option for low manning stuff where you're likely to be the only melee. Loved tanking as MNK and wish I was able to use it more before I quit.

I see NIN/WAR more as a job meant for bigger/longer fights. Their damage isn't nearly as good as a MNKs so any fight would take considerably longer. I haven't used my NIN in ages, and would prefer MNK in almost every situation.

SAM/WAR, if done correctly, can be an extremely good tank, too. Sort of relies on luck with Third Eye though. If our tanks ever died I'd try to back-up tank as SAM and usually did well enough. I'd still prefer MNK over SAM though.

With each of these jobs, you really need a good set up with a variety of gear to get the best out of each job.

[Darkmoon]

Honestly anything can "tank" lowman stuff.

(Any DD)/nin - only requirement is ability to do enough damage to keep mobb off healer/support. And as much Haste gear as possible.

(2h DD/SAM) - These can tank pretty well, but sometimes hate can be an issue, and seigan + 3rd eye can get unlucky at times.

(SAM/WAR) - Just like above + Voke.

(NIN/DNC) - this can hold a ton of hate in a low man setup and with good haste set will very likly not get hit often.

So imo Id look less at what spicific job, and more at what gear you hav avail, and what gear you can get.

If you have Byakkos, if you have Homam, if you have Black Belt, if you have to use AH for dusk gear. This will play a bigger factor in your tanking then which job.

A full Homam DRG/NIN will keep up shadows much much better then a WAR with no Dusk or Byakkos.

A Brown Belt MNK without Byakkos or Usukane, and nothing but AH gear wont tank nearly as well as you would want.


So again job is important, but for lowman stuff, you got to be properly geared also to pull a lot of stuff off.

[The Stig]

I keep hearing PLD with Atonement is all the rage now. Perhaps that can be considered?

[KSDI]

MNK will do you fine, I've duo farmed many limbus zones with a rdm friend while on mnk and have found it to be easier than with my nin. But yes a good amount of melee jobs can do it if played correctly.

[Cream Soda]

I have mnk and I have sam. I definitely prefer mnk

[isladar]

SAM with damage reduction gear is a good co- or back up-tank, but as people mentioned you're entirely at the mercy of Third Eye not going to take a poop right right after you use it.

[Reapz]

MNK is my only real melee job but yeh tanks great, god bless counterstance

[Starr]

MNK

[Sanjiyan]

MNK and SAM are pretty equal, and as a MNK myself I actually put SAM over MNK in these kind of situations, especially a good SAM. Funny thing is, I was just thinking about this exact same issue today.

Generally MNK is great at keeping shadows up due to counterstance. SAM depends on third eye which has more luck involved, but third eye stripping TP/AoE moves aside, even if third eye fails, SAM has the ability to throw on some "oh shit" gear and take hits like a pro without the lowered defense penalty associated with counterstance, for that 10-15 seconds until third eye is up again.

That's something that MNK can't do as well due to how counterstance works. They can put on "oh shit" gear too, but they will still take quite a hefty amount of damage. In that respect, a bad luck with a TP move while putting on new shadows will at best drain MP, and at worse one-shot the MNK.

SAM has more reliability in those situations.

Other comparisons/contrasts include MNK's subtle blow vs SAM's TP gain + self SC + WS (which is good damage with low TP given to the mob), both having decent evasion, and both can counter for more damage. SAM also gets more DD ability depending on it's sub, MNK gets nothing on the DD side from /NIN.



MNK can use a boost, not on the DD side, but defensively. Guard improvements anyone?

[Tsuko_Asura]

Pretty much confirmed what I thought, thanks everyone.

[Cream Soda]

That's something that MNK can't do as well due to how counterstance works. They can put on "oh shit" gear too, but they will still take quite a hefty amount of damage. In that respect, a bad luck with a TP move while putting on new shadows will at best drain MP, and at worse one-shot the MNK.

SAM has more reliability in those situations.

I can see this applying to some situations, but not nearly all of them. Counterstance is great, but not required. I generally don't use it unless its something that attacks fast enough while both slowed and elegy'd to still be able to hit before my ichi can go off and in these situations, mnk has a beter oshit set up than sam thanks to the extra 5% on black belt.

[Meat]

apoc drk

[Thorny]

Nobody mentioning war? For something like that, WAR has the best damage output and still has access to utsusemi. While MNK has guard, counterstance, dodge, arhats+1 etc.. it becomes mostly irrelevant for something as weak as limbus, due to RDM being able to stick full potency debuffs. For something tougher(you mentioned JoF), ninja has a higher evasion cap and parrying available, as well as provoke allowing them to maintain hate in a duo situation while wearing evasion gear. This stomps all over MNK's JAs.. I would recommend NIN if you want to be able to do tougher things like duo/trio JoF or JoT, it requires much less support than MNK. However, if you're only aiming for weaker things(full party JoF, limbus zones, farming random crap).. WAR will get you the best mileage while being the most in-demand merit job and good for damn near everything.

[Sanjiyan]

I can see this applying to some situations, but not nearly all of them. Counterstance is great, but not required. I generally don't use it unless its something that attacks fast enough while both slowed and elegy'd to still be able to hit before my ichi can go off and in these situations, mnk has a beter oshit set up than sam thanks to the extra 5% on black belt.

I guess it depends on play style then, because I almost always use counterstance and sometimes I love it when it works like 5 times in a roll while trying to get ichi up, and sometimes I hate it when I get interrupted trying to get ichi up three times and counter refuses to work and I die.

A working counterstance is what makes MNK/NIN so awesome though, and adds to the damage when a MNK is DD tanking. Sure, a MNK without using counterstance can still counter, but no more than a SAM counters with seigan/third eye (like 15%?).

It's really a double-edged sword, while jobs like SAM doesn't have to face that kind of decision at all.

That's why I want a guard change so MNKs can use counterstance more in bad situations without being a huge MP sponge it is now. It'll also let MNKs use DD subs in merit without depending on /NIN. That's not a huge thing to ask for seeing 2-hand jobs has already surpassed the damage a MNK/NIN can produce by a big margin.

[SephYuyX]

BST

[Cream Soda]

Nobody mentioning war? For something like that, WAR has the best damage output and still has access to utsusemi. While MNK has guard, counterstance, dodge, arhats+1 etc.. it becomes mostly irrelevant for something as weak as limbus, due to RDM being able to stick full potency debuffs. For something tougher(you mentioned JoF), ninja has a higher evasion cap and parrying available, as well as provoke allowing them to maintain hate in a duo situation while wearing evasion gear. This stomps all over MNK's JAs.. I would recommend NIN if you want to be able to do tougher things like duo/trio JoF or JoT, it requires much less support than MNK. However, if you're only aiming for weaker things(full party JoF, limbus zones, farming random crap).. WAR will get you the best mileage while being the most in-demand merit job and good for damn near everything.

I've seen some war/sams put out some great dmg, but I've always personally seen war/nin's bar ridill (which I've always outparsed on mnk) as rather lacking.

[Sanjiyan]

They say a g.axe WAR/NIN is comparable to a ridill DW WAR/NIN these days, but I'm still skeptical about that statement. It could be because WAR/SAM rocks so hard it's hard to imagine subbing /NIN (and that really reflects the weakness of /NIN as a whole if not using DW+suppa), other is just that, /NIN offers nothing to a 2-hander (or MNK).

I've gone g.axe WAR/NIN all of twice since the 2-hander update. If I find I can't WAR/SAM, I usually just play MNK/NIN instead, even though I believe g.axe WAR/NIN and MNK/NIN suffer from the same reduced DD output, and a good g.axe WAR/NIN supposedly compares to MNK/NIN (if we take that ridill WAR/NIN prepatch = MNK/NIN).

[Neosutra]

BB/well equiped merited Mnk/nin is a god among men when it comes to damage mitigation versus damage dealt.