Ragnarok Online 2 Tank Class Skills Analysis by Ibelndal

Alright so I've been doing a bit of research for a friend of mine that I've known and played MMOs with for a LONG time. He was planning on making a tank of some sort in OBT, and asked me to look into the different nuances of the tank classes and do a bit of theorycrafting for him (mostly because the large part of the joy I get out of MMOs is just that, making charts, spreadsheets etc to maximize DPS, threat generation, healing efficiency, boss strats, that sort of thing). I'll start with initial information that can be gathered simply from the RO2 skill simulator.



Key:DR = Damage reductionCD = Cooldowns = seconds

BeastMaster: Grizzly form (Max HP +65% aggro +300%)Feral Defense (DR +50% for 10s) cannot move or use skills (120s CD)Survival: (Max HP and recov +25% for 15s) (60s CD)

Knight: aura armor (damage reduction 5%, max hp 20%, aggro 300%) aura shield (20% DR for 10s) (60s CD)shield fortress (50% DR for 10s) cannot move or use skills during (120s CD)Aura Heal (Healed for 6% of Damage you do) (20s CD)

Monk: Flee (+20% Evasion for 10s) (60s CD)Protection Ki (50% DR for 10s) (120s CD)stone skin (max hp +35% defense +200% aggro 300%)Iron Palm (Defense +50%)

Warrior: aura armor (damage reduction 5%, max hp 20%, aggro 300%)Parrying (Block rate +40% for 10s) (60s CD)Endure (DR +40% for 10s) 120s CDDefender (Defense +39%, Evasion +30%, Block +30% Attack -10%) (not sure if there's a duration or not)Tension Relax (+60% HP recovery over 20s) (120s CD)

Now, a couple of things:- Initially upon looking at just the skills the "tank" classes get, it's VERY clear that Beastmaster is meant more for an offtank role or simply as a safety net in case one of your tanks gets dropped so you can buy time to res them. Now since I haven't played this class at all I'm not sure how stats effect their survivability (someone that's been playing kRO2 would be awesome to chime in here).- If I'm being honest, Knight looks overall fairly underwhelming as far as tanks go. Their big "oh crap" skill completely immobilizes them, and the only sort of survival skills they get are flat damage reduction, and for the most part in my experience evasion is always better then just reduction.- Monk seems like it has a pretty solid kit overall, has some decent evasion, as well as a 50% DR skill for when things get dicey. Not to mention the passive +50% defense is pretty awesome looking.- At first glance Warrior actually looks like it has the best tanking kit out of all of them. They get a block steroid, a DR buff, then a buff that increases ALL their defensive stats at the cost of a measely 10% attack. Not to mention a rather beefy Heal over time to lessen the strain on your healers.

As I've said I haven't gotten a chance to play these classes personally (partly because I almost exclusively play healers), and because I can't get on kRO2 and got into CBT fairly late. As I said I'm trying to gather more information on these classes for some further theorycrafting, so anyone with experience with these classes being able to chime in on stuff would be amazing.

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