IiPunch - Monk Guide

Victory smite is pretty terrible and I wouldn't recommend spamming it. I'm not certain about solo with trusts since I don't do that at all, but when buffed up, MNK can do much better with long skillchains. Even for WS spamming, WS like howling fist, raging fists, and kick WS like dragon and tornado kick will significantly outperform victory smite.

Smite is OK under impetus with decent stacks, but even then it's really not the strongest WS most of the time.

That said, in terms of weapons I'd say get Karambit to start, then ideally you'd get Godhands. Since you said it's not possible (might be, try networking and/or forming a group yourself), I'd get Verethragna. They're very strong and can still perform very well, offering a significant boost over Karambit.

Finally, regarding Varga: I've never owned them, but from what I've heard they're quite strong, both with Maru Kala and also with smite or other WS. The triple damage procs and PDL, plus the new SC options, make them very interesting and competitive DPS-wise. Though, and this is not to be underestimated: getting a stage 4 (or 5) prime weapons takes A LONG TIME. Especially as someone who isn't established and doesn't have a static group...it's frankly not realistic. I wouldn't put your eggs in that basket until much later in your ffxi career/adventure/experience. Focus on the here-and-now first.

This is correct. Even with stage 5 Varga and capped impetus stacks I don't spam exclusively smite. I've found the most effective way to use it is to self skillchain 3 and 4 step comboes with our best weaponskills. With capped impetus stacks in limbus for example, I usually kill most mobs before getting to the second smite into double light step of the first skillchain.



I think Varga and godhands are both in contention for BiS weapon. Monk has very high white damage compared to other jobs, and that's one of varga's strengths. But if you're a newer player without the resources to get a stage 4 prime quickly, I'd look to getting godhands and using that for a while. Godhands is pretty easy to build if you can find a group to run the NM gauntlet, and it's extremely powerful. The longest part is just getting the 50k points to buy your key item from spamming domain invasion for hours.

Debating if I should make a stage4 if im only using MNK for sortie. Maru kala would be nice for BF

I made it just for Sortie and it works great in general. Maru can hit 99999 which was a nice surprise. You could easily full time it the entire run, but GH+Ampulla+Footwork is hard to beat for EGH.

Does anyone have an updated TP set with Duty gear? I think Duty Crown beats Adhemar Bonnet +1 at full augments, at least for a TP set.

...You think? I don't even need a spreadsheet or a calculator to tell.

Duty - da5 (w/Hoxne it's a wash) ta4 acc 72 att42 stp 7 str36 dex39 crit rate +8% subtle blow +5

Adhemar +1 - ta4 acc0(20 Path A) att36(56 Path B) str19(31 Path B) dex21(33 Path A) crit damage+6% (set bonus with hands=+4% crit rate)

What are you looking at? Duty set blows Adhemar +1 out of the way completely, and I haven't even gone into defensive properties. It loses everywhere except 6% crit damage/14 attack, it's not even close. A better question would be, which is better, R30 Duty Crown or R30 Mpaca's Cap. Even still, it would be Duty because it wins offensively and defensively, unless for some reason you value 7 MDB.

Adhemar is pretty much trash tier/dated gear at this point. MNK can get away with it due to it's high HP stat, but it's not really something to be compared with modern pieces anymore, unless it's specifically a mob they isn't fighting you back (kite strat), or something similar (Corse Ambuscade)

Adhemar head +1 is best because sim said so.

If I'm very optimistic maybe I'll do enough limbus to finish a set in 2 years, no way I'm doing 10 runs a week consistantly.

I have two other sets higher priority than the mnk set so Adhemar doesn't get relegated to trash tier for me for at least 5-6 years from now.

I don't literally mean it's trash. I just mean it's not in any of the modern defensive/offensive ilvl spread of stats on gear. Same as Tatenashi, Samnuha tights, Ryuo feet/mask etc. Monk can get away with it because of the HP pool, I just don't see a reason to compare gear from two different eras unless you're specifically not caring about defense. I have questionable pieces in some random sets I use for adhoc purposes, but I wouldn't compare them to modern options because they're not alike.

Ninja can also get away with gear from that era due to shadow protection. RUN too depending on what you're fighting because you can abuse defensive abilities in the interim. It is hard to part with Adhemar Wrists +1/Samnuha tights as options, because STP/TA on the same piece is huge and rare to find for many jobs, and the effort required to get it's replacement is a grind.

"What a *** idiot, obsessing over some single piece of gear. In the end, the party is what decides it anyway. It doesn't *** matter if you have +1 or whatever. Wake the *** up, morons – what actually matters is teamwork."

Valid crash-out.

From reading the previous posts and doing some research, these are the gearsets I've come up with for Sortie with Hoxne:

https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/User:Zarvlad#Monk-Sortie

Am I horribly wrong here? What would you tweak or comepletely change?

When using Godhands, which earring would you sub out for the Mache (between Sherida Earring and Schere Earring)? Mostly asking because I don't know how desired Subtle Blow II as a consideration. Just got started on MNK. :) Thanks!

I suppose it depends, but I'm just not willing to replace either of them for 40% of combat.

Why use Mache at all? Isn't Martial Arts a DPS loss?

Godhands is 12 or 13 MA short of reaching delay cap so I only use it for that weapon unless I'm TPing in Bhikku body with Impetus up, in which case I'll take Mache off to avoid the overcapping of MA. I figure reaching delay cap is the most important aspect for TP builds, but I haven't mathed my sets for DPS in years so I could be mistaken in this instance. Answer can also potentially change based on whether you have Ampulla up or not.

Not a math everything player, but I think the argument is that with God Hands and its higher delay, Mnk will not reach delay cap without some martial arts+, like Sterk said.

This is not the case for Vere with its lower delay or other lower than GodHands delay fisticuffs.

So the recommended sets for God Hands use/used mache earring to reach delay cap.

IMO if you're dropping a really good earring with other useful stats just for martial arts+ just to reach delay cap, you are doing more damage than the potential dps increase might potentially give you.

Dropping sherida means you lose out on DA5, STP5 and SB2 5.

Dropping Schere means you lose out on DA6, Attack15, Accuracy15, STP5 and SB3. Ignoring the enmity loss.

Idc what the sims or maths say, neither of those are good swaps even if you are using ampula and don't need the DA+.

IMO, fight me, idc.

BG says minimum delay for H2H is 96. Mastered MNK gets 250 delay from Martial Arts+Job Points. Godhands is +138= 388 Delay.
388*0.2(haste cap)=77.6
388*0.2125(no haste samba)=82.45

What am I missing

Edit: JP gives -40*, so it's even less.

MNK doesn't get MA Job Points. Those are for PUP. MNK's only MA delay reduction is from the 100 and 1200 gifts.

Ah ok, still 270+138=408*0.2=81.6?

Personally I almost never have Haste Samba in party play so I never account for it.
Sheol C: People on different mobs (plus MNK sucks there)
Gaol: Can't bring both DNC and MNK to the same fight with damage immunities and SJ restrictions.
Sortie: Maybe if you bring DNC as your 6th I guess, but we don't. COR and BRD are /DRK for our runs.

Fair, I've only been doing 8boss with cor and brd /dnc and a WAR for 6th. Footwork Warcry is fun. I'll pick up a Mache +1 for when I start Aminon.

Edit: oh ***I missed it's only 5% from /dnc. so its actually 270+138=408*.2675=109, so my situation isn't even capped. That being said, every boss dies in like 40-120(120 if Aita is being a total *** ***) seconds, so AF3+3 body is on 100% of fights that matter.

Actually, is the white damage from AF3+3 body worth STP loss with Hoxne?

Yeah, I pretty much only have Mache on when doing objectives. Otherwise Impetus tends to be up so Emp body handles MA needs most of the time.

The argument for Mache predated the existence of masterlevels. Once you have 10-15 MLs, you don't need mache anymore to hit the Martial Arts break points.

I'm sorry, I'm an idiot, for some reason I was thinking that skill affected MA and that mache had skill on it, not MA. Carry on.

Yes. Unequivocably yes.

I'm with you in this. I don't see how attacking less then 1% faster is going to lead to better performance then 2 very good earrings. And even if it is, you still benefit from SB1/2. And end up with 1 less inventory spot. Game has too much backed in delay on JAs and WSes for me to care.

I still use godhands from time to time and I use s here and Sherida when I do. There’s no good reason to use mache imo. The upsides of a little more attack speed are lost to the downsides of mache not having other relevant stats. You get tp faster with schere/sherida, and in the end that’s what we care about the most.

That on its own is as good a reason as any to not bother with mache earring.

I used to have a toggle for "Godhands mode" with Mache Earring+1 when impetus was down, but after I jackpot'd into getting an almost capped Bhikku earring+2 I decided to axe the Mache setup and just use Sherida + Bhikku now fulltime.