Monk gear questions

[Cream Soda]

In my case, we usually have 2 monks. 5/5 penance and 4/5 penance is enough to keep it up full time and since they don't overlap (You have to wait for one to wear off for the other to take effect) its not like u can just go early to make sure it never drops. I personally do a lot more solo and ballista though, which is what my Invig is for. In party situations where I have a healer, they usually toss regen 1 over it and overwrite it anyways >.>

[Kohan]

maybe I'm wrong, but I was trying to say that the first merit in formless is a noticeable boost, moreso than 20s of penance in most cases.

I was mostly making a general statement about the usefulness of Penance, since the person you'd initially responded to said Penance is only good against a Salvage boss, which isn't true.

I definitely agree that investing more than one merit into Penance is worthwhile if you're going to use it fairly regularly, but I also would say -- if you aren't -- that unlocking Formless Strikes first would be better.

[Lahina]

A quick rundown of merits and second/third-class gear from the perspective of a Monk who like to do some.. less typical things with it (soloing NMʂ, farming, tanking in Campaign, &c), who is also rather extremely broke.

Formless Strikes: nice but not fabulous. I use it for taking down Pally NMs, soloing crap like those damn alternating magic/phys resistant statues in Pso'Xja, and Blunt-resistant mobs like Slimes and Eles. I had it merited to 2 for a little while, but it was frankly a massive waste of XP. I dropped it and am working on my fourth level of...

Penance: If you're farming and soloing on Monk as I do, Penance is invaluable - it'll often push an NM's WS to the last ~15-20% of their hitpoints (and I only have 3 merits in it so far). For other soloing and tanking Campaign mobs, it's also a treat; having a Yag go from 1 WS every 10-15 seconds to less than half that makes even enemy nins and mnks reasonably easy to tank.

In parties, Invigorate is rarely useful; in Dynamis, Salvage and other MP-sensitive events, it's a literal lifesaver. Just talk with your friendly neighborhood healer about your Regen requirements (or rather, lack thereof) and let them know when you DO need healing, and it'll help conserve a lot of MP in the long run.

Mantra: I'm sure it's useful for something. Probably BW/SE zerging. Frankly, I've never had a situation where my party members have gone "Damn, 3% extra HP would be SOOOOO useful right now"...

Gear:
There's a few overlooked pieces out there, that are actually quite decent - stuff you can grab at a reasonable price/time investment now while you wait for the good shit.

For tanking moderate level mobs and soloing, an Arakan Samue is a fine purchase; same Def as a kosode, subtle blow, 4 Agi, and 10 evasion - all for around 65k on Phoenix. For something that compares favorably to a 3.5 or so million piece of gear, that's a hell of a bargain.

Wagh Baghs. Excellent toys in merit parties; 5 acc and 14 attack is nothing to sneeze at, and if your dex is shit (see; no Byakko's) the crit up on Destroyers is a more marginal update than you might think. The only problem with these is that pdif is calculated as a 14 damage weapon, even though they're 18 dam during WS. And.. Well, they aren't Destroyers, Hades, Faiths, or Spharai. Still, for ~20k? delicious. I still use these a lot, even with my Hades. Incidentally, I swear these bastards have a hidden +enm stat, given how fast I usually pull it with them on...

Melee Gloves. Good for tanking, especially with Hades and Arakan - stacking SB on top of Penance, you can hold WS damage down to a minimum. Very important if you're subbing thf or dnc instead of nin. They're only a slight decrease in Attack from bandos and ochi's - and since any sane Monk carries them for Chakra anyway, why not try them out?

If you don't see any increase in your parse from Fuma's, Cobra and Pahlu feet are both (relatively) free, giving a few (4 on Cobra, 4.5 on Pahlu) acc and some supporting stats that aren't gamebreaking, but still nice.

With these items and a few others, I'm actually outperforming a lot of "better-geared" monks in solo and tanking situations. In parties? I rock the ACC and as much haste as I can afford, and eat cheap meat or (against lizards) expensive pizza. I do respectably, but I'm rarely pulling hate from a well-geared AND well-played monk for too long. Anyway, enough rambling from the gimp, following this thread with some interest.

[Cream Soda]

In any solo situation where your acc is uncapped, SH(+1) is a better choice than Arakan. While Waghs aren't anything to laugh at, your dex argument is totally backwards. Crit has decreasing returns. When your crit rate is lower destroyers will up your damage more than if your crit rate was higher.

[Shinryuu]

Crit has constant returns, getting more crit depends solely on the tradeoff and not on your current critical hitrate.

DEX has increasing returns in regards to critical hit rate; 1 DEX = 1% crit in case of being 48 DEX - mob AGI but way less when 22 DEX - mob AGI.

[Valyana]

Well, it depends on what number you're looking at.

Say you do 100 damage with a normal hit and 200 with a crit.
At 0% crit, over 100 hits you do 10000 damage.
At 10% crit you do 11000 damage, 10% more.
At 20% crit you do 12000 damage, 20% more than at 0%, but only 9% more than at 10%.

The point increase in damage done from adding 10% crit is the same regardless of your previous crit rate. But the percentage increase is lower, and that's the relevant number for comparing to other options. What the other options are isn't important; the percentage change in DPS is something you can compare to any other option that also affects DPS.

If you want to deal only in points of damage, then you have to bring in all the other factors: accuracy, attack, DA, etc. Dealing in percentages allows you to express the effect of one factor independent of the others.

[Kroot]

Can we not get into the stupid decrease/constant argument again

[FailureMidgard]

Can we not get into the stupid decrease/constant argument again

lol, I kinda agree...go back a few pages in that other thread if you want to see how it works. It is linear in a vacuum, and its relative value to other stats goes down the more you have.

However, past that, crit also gets worse as your attack gets higher (which is unlike most other stats...acc gets better as attack gets higher, attack gets better as acc gets higher, etc), since a crit ups pDIF by a constant, not percent value.

[Gtype954]

Acc built for damage purpose is pretty much only limited to Einherjar+Merits, including lolbird. But them eating your food totally destroys the fun. In the end this concerns like 10% of what you do on your mnk.




1500 AF is only possible with decent stats unlock in salvage. And on higher floor you don't exceed 1k (typically gears). But of course you eat meat. People need to parse themselves occionally if they are the primary or secondary tank in salvage, you cap accuracy on floors 123 typically w/o full usu. 4rth floor is generally more evasive, but full usu caps you.

Nyzul is a real joke, of course meat, I mean, mobs are decent challenge.

Anyway full usu is not only the best set for damage on uncapped accuracy, it's also a tanking set. More eva (a lot actually), counter, haste than other good sets etc. You don't always auto-attack a wall on monk, you pull hate. When you do salvage/nyzul/dynamis, casting shadows less always means more damage etc because with this gear you keep the attention of the mob.




No. Just no. With this set you get 400+ acc, you don't need more. Sushi/pizza would cap you on most mobs, wasting some potential damage. The only good food would be Rabbit pie, or red curry if you got a cor. Cuchulain's mantle is a big joke, I use charger, and it always did better, then I sold it.





/no. If you tank you use full usu, no other options if you have it. Eyeballing, you only lose 20 attack and gain 1% haste, 40+ eva, some str..


.... sucks.




That's not how you use asuran fists. You need a mix of acc & attack, not acc only. Look :

togi+b kotes+charger = +77 attack, -25 accuracy compared to your set (eyeballing).






Howling fist is your second best ws. Ascetic F, DK etc are crap.



Man only being able to use a ws after 11 boosts must suck. Might as well come as another job.

-Not if your other jobs consists of cor blm rdm whm nin and they have enough healers and if the mob is magic resistant. Also, the 11x boost is just to break 2k, you can do 2-3 boost and break 1k, which probably might do more DoT, but I like to show off big numbers.

-footwork and Dune boots and 1 boost, my dragonkicks do more DMG then my howling fists, they break 1000 on weaker mobs while my howling fists is better for high eva, high def, or high lvl mobs like Aura Statues, Qiqirn thfs, Adamantoise mobs etc.
An of course, asuran is just a weird WS that we mostly use even on high eva mobs just cause the WS looks cool even though it might not do more dmg.

-My attack build wasn't for tanking purposes, it was a build that I sub war on, but I shouldn't have written salvage on the lists of events, since I tank on that and sub nin of course. But when i wrote salvage, I meant the lower floors.

-Also the acc build, I agree with the rabbit pie, just didn't put it there because it is expensive as hell, only put rabbit on my WS set, cause it was referring to mobs where you boost and WS and dont melee at all.
I was going to put sushi on acc build and meat(mithrabob) as attack build since they are cheap. Obviously there is more expensive meats out there which I don't know about since I don't use them which are also better but didn't include those even if I did know their stats.

-1500 asuran fists was just on the qutrub in arrapago since they take more WS dmg then usual lol, or in bhaflau remnants with the rampart mobs on floor 1 and 2. BTW my skillchains do 4000 dmg lolol, I haven't been in bhaflau in about 4 months, I heard they changed the dmg on the super skillchains .

Good post from you though.

[Thorny]

oh god, gtype vs pchan, it's like that timmy + jimmy fight in south park except text
BRB POPCORN

[Lahina]

In any solo situation where your acc is uncapped, SH(+1) is a better choice than Arakan.

I find those situations are few and far between - and when they do come up, it has the same evasion, SB, and slightly better Def, which compounds well with food and other gear. Don't get me wrong, I love my SH +1, but the Arakan is staying in my inventory until I get a Kosode.

While Waghs aren't anything to laugh at, your dex argument is totally backwards. Crit has decreasing returns. When your crit rate is lower destroyers will up your damage more than if your crit rate was higher.

Hmm.. will have to do some more testing with one of my buddies. I've also been rather thoroughly testing the crit rate + on the Pahluwan body. Now I'm getting weird results from WS testing, which means I actually have to get a reasonable sample size on crit and noncrit WS >< Wheeeeeeee.

[FailureMidgard]

-1500 asuran fists was just on the qutrub in arrapago since they take more WS dmg then usual lol, or in bhaflau remnants with the rampart mobs on floor 1 and 2. BTW my skillchains do 4000 dmg lolol, I haven't been in bhaflau in about 4 months, I heard they changed the dmg on the super skillchains .

Wait, how do you skillchain on rampart mobs...I've never seen a weaponskill hit for under like 2500...they die way too fast to skillchain. Then again, I don't go with monks usually I guess.

[Cream Soda]

I find those situations are few and far between - and when they do come up, it has the same evasion, SB, and slightly better Def, which compounds well with food and other gear. Don't get me wrong, I love my SH +1, but the Arakan is staying in my inventory until I get a Kosode.


Hmm.. will have to do some more testing with one of my buddies. I've also been rather thoroughly testing the crit rate + on the Pahluwan body. Now I'm getting weird results from WS testing, which means I actually have to get a reasonable sample size on crit and noncrit WS >< Wheeeeeeee.

The thing is, if ur acc isn't capped, the mob is going to live longer with Arakan and if you get hit at all, then chances, increase that by 6% (the amount ur hitrate is lowered and how much longer the mob will live) and no only will it take you longer but you'll still get hit with the same amount if not more WS moves than before since it was alive longer to do them, unless u don't get hit at all and it just lives longer.

[Silenka]

Laying it down truthfully, I pretty much suck at melee, since I'm a mage main. However my first job was MNK and I do have that at 75 and have been trying to get less...shoddy gear XD

I have not been able to get an osode or shura togi but I have an enkidu harness, is that an acceptable fulltime alternative to the two for most people? (Certainly I've not seen anyone complain to me about it, but it might be because they're fairly rare atm).

Currently just ruby rings swapped in for asuran, str is a 10% mod on asuran, and I'm a mithra... XD; I can't afford the flame rings atm sadly, and I don't have rajas/ulatham =( No triumph earrings either, but brutal and (depending on time of day) fenrir/spike. Is this good or are there better accessories I could be using (for tp or ws) that don't cost a super fortune?

There's a big fight over melee hose/dunes with full kick merits vs haidate/fumas for haste, currently I use the former, it seems to be personal preference since I've heard they parse about the same. I guess it would be redundant to ask for thoughts about it, though I've been considering switching to fumas/haidate if I have enough haste to make it worthwhile (brownbelt,walmart turban). Think I would miss duuuunes too much though...

Ah melee, you are not as simple as you seem... >.>

[Raen Ryong]

I'll give my opinion paragraph by paragraph, bearing in mind I am not a mnk.

1. Enkidu Harness is perfectly fine if you can tolerate the looks.
2. Just stick with acc rings on Asuran Fists; 10% STR mod is nothing even combined with fSTR. Your best bet to increase raw offensive power is Attack, and you can't find any kind of high magnitude of that in ring slots, so devote those to accuracy.
Fenrir/Brutal or Spike/Brutal or Merman's/Brutal or Minuet/Brutal are all good, swap out the Brutal for WS (8 hits is capped, so DA CANNOT proc).
3. I'd definitely go for the latter on MNK since you will always have decent haste values from equipment alone even if you are getting no magic haste. At the very least, I would always use Byakko's over Melee Hose. Fumas vs Dune's is less clear cut to me.

Take what I say with a pinch of salt since again, I am not punchy

[Silenka]

Thanks. I can tolerate the looks of enkidu because I .dat swap a lot... the question is can others around me tolerate it... XD

I think melee hose is good with dunes and merits because of the kick+5, but yeah that's a super iffy part.

I will try taking the str rings out of my macro, thanks. I'll see if it helps. Currently I have a shitton of acc in my ws macro (PCC, o.hat, enkidu has acc, etc) but more can't hurt I suppose unless I'm hitting some kind of cap, and while I know a good deal about magic caps I know next to nothing about melee stat caps. Would the str rings then be worth it in an ascetic's fury build (supposedly 50% str mod)?

[Raen Ryong]

Yeah, they would be pretty significant then especially since it's singlehit (though since you're MNK, it's gonna be 2hit in reality). Asuran's just a bitch because because even at capped accuracy, you're only gonna land all 8 hits about 66% of the time.

On Ascetic's Fury, the chance of landing both hits is 90%~ so much nicer for consistency and you don't need to ensure you hit 95% -as much-.

[Shinryuu]

Assuming Ascetic's doesn't have an innate accuracy bonus (like single hit weaponskills often do), saying Asuran Fists needs more WS ACC than Ascetic's is flawed logic. Actually, Asuran has ACC as a TP mod, but I'm unsure if you get accuracy at 100 TP already. Let's assume this is not the case.

Ceteris paribus, say Ascetic's first hit does 600 damage, and the second hit does 200. Say every Asuran hit does 100. Say you have 50% hitrate. The expected value of both weaponskills is 400 damage, though the distribution is different. Asuran will be normally distributed around 400 damage, and Ascetic's will peak at both 200 and 600 damage, and will occasionally do 0 and 800.

Now, the only way this changes is if you can prove Ascetic's has innate accuracy. Keep in mind, however, that this example is only to show the flawed logic of what Raen said; in reality, Asuran is plain and simply going to win over Ascetic's in situations where your PDIF isn't utter crap. Use Ascetic's to paint mobs black and keep it at that.

To be more on topic: don't WS in STR rings on MNK.

[Silenka]

I can't follow those p-equations at all. I'm terrible at math ; ;

I feel gimp for wsing in str rings on mnk now >.>