thoughts and experiences with an unconventional tank

[supertimmy]

i play warrior with assorted other toons based on my mood and needs.

friend just retired and asked me to keep his monk warm while he waits to see if the next next (not cotf) expansion has a level cap increase.

t4 raid geared monk. all the goodies. nice toon.

looking to try a new team based on monk as tank. i've used berserkers for dps in the past, but also a lot of casters because they are easy and it doesn't look like i'm cheating so much.

i guess i'm just dipping my foot in the water looking for any sage advice and experience on using the monk as my tank. will i have aggro issues with real toons? wizards maybe? what about mercs?

i'm thinking maybe monk/cle/bard. have dru and shm to use if required. with monk pull ability, i'm not worried about crowd control. that being said, i'll probably move a lot more without a real tank, plowing instead of pulling, so maybe i should go with some mercs for dps?

looking to have fun killing, farming augs mostly. i understand most missions will be out of the question.

i appreciate any feedback from those with experience or opinions.

 

[Ccomp5950]

Monks have no real means of gaining agro except through DPS, that said a wizard merc in burn mode will wind up tanking more than the monk.

Well geared and AA'ed monks can tank well, namers might be a problem but for trash monks can easily get the job done.

My current setup is mnk/shm/brd

I've got a homegrown mac I use for the bard to mez and keep up auras and song of sustenance, shaman I use shambot.mac and monk either runs bot from here if I'm afking the guys or I pull and kill. Two cleric mercs means I don't have to worry about dropping below 50% hitpoints anywhere (mend set to go off at 45% or less), one cleric merc and it gets touchy in the harder fights and I have to use mend more often, if I drop below 50% and mend is still down I can use a defensive disc that pops back up in 2 minutes (I can't remember the name of it right now for some reason).

 

[Rooster]

cler/brd/monk+3 wiz merc

Monk in raid gear will be fine, just don't use mercs on burn 100% (especially on engage)

Rip it up.

 

[Quackanator]

seen monk/bard duo work really well with without any mercs. Ping pong aggro all over the shop but bard had defensive stun song up and monk was pure dps the entire time.
Shite against namers though, they popped merc tank/cleric then.

 

[aCunningGnome]

I know you are doing this without a tank, but I have to say--SK epic makes me damn near invincible on my monk. When we get in trouble sometimes, we'll go into full burn and my monk will take a couple mobs.

As for combinations, shaman wild growth really helps, since in 'oh shit' moments you can get that and monk epic /w mend giving you a good chunk of HP.Couple it with shaded step and you really have an edge on surviving.

Monks hit a lot, so they get lots of aggro. As they said, burn mode wizards and the like will get aggro from you.