New MNK

Set them up properly and range isn't an issue lol.

By the time you set them up properly you could have easily done 2 cata and killed them, and also the chests wont be bunched on top of each other this way. Just my preference.

So vere the tops for h2h? What about the relic? It seems like Victory Smite is just too awesome to pass up.

Relic doesn't benefit from impetus like victory smite does. That's the biggest factor for mnk these days.

From what I understand, Final Heaven sucks majorly and would only be used for AM. Spharai have a defensive advantage because of the high +counter rate, but Vere just is far and away better in offensive situations and you can still pull a high counter rate using them.

As for leveling thf and farming with that, I really don't want to level and gear yet ANOTHER job when War&Mnk are the only two I really want to play (I already leveled bst specifically to aid in farming and Blm on my mule just for yellow procs). With the abundance of thieves in the game I imagine I can find one in zone and pay em 50k to join me for a few seconds to toss a boomerang at the mob to stick it with TH when I'm ready to pop or something.

Edit: btw, changed profile to my char. If you couldnt tell this is Rori from earlier postings.

There's no reason to use Final Heaven once your trials are done. No, not to activate aftermath. No, not to watch the animation. No, not to impress your friends. No, not because you're bored. No reason. Ever.

In other words, once your trials are finished, you shouldn't just consider yourself to be broken up with Final Heaven, you should consider yourself to be Taylor Swift broken up with Final Heaven.

Plus you can watch the animation on the wiki page.

Hmmm.. Just max merit Shijin Spiral and equip more of the new high end
DEX and crit hit gear... simple, right?

Shijin isn't critical based, so no.

A few things:
Verethragna is one of the hardest longest to get from 75 to 85. One of the easiest fastest to get to 90. To get to 95 will run you at least 120 mil depending on the heavy metal plate prices on your server. Getting to 99 will cost an additional 45-60 mil. Trust me. I know what some of you are thinking. This sounds absolutely insurmountable. It did to me at first. But as you learn more about the game and the different ways to make money (especially for you 2-box players) you will realize that 180 mil isn't just a pipe dream. Also, a level 85(90) Verethragna is extremely good and it has one other benefit. Even though good gear =/= good skill, shout group parties are going to prefer an "Empyrean Monk" over any other monk.
As for other weapons... I personally had a STR H2H before Verethragna, mainly because at the time I was noob and thought Empyrean weapons were only for EG LS people. If I had to start a monk from scratch, I'd probably just pick up a Taurine Cesti or something easy/cheap/free to get like that to tie me over until I got Verethragna to 85. (inb4 someone derails with "Taurine Cesti sux blah blah blah blah")

As far as cleaving, who gives a crap whether it's better to FC or Catacleave? Stupid debates are for stupid people. You will do best with what you are most comfortable doing. I personally prefer Charged Whisker so HA! (inb4 CW haters derail)

As for thief... yes, I never do Empyrean mobs without a thief. You may not realize this right now, but versatility is a big deal in FFXI. Take it from someone who was set on only playing MNK and NIN for a long time. Not only do you open up a lot of opportunities for yourself by having access to more jobs, but you also end up having a lot of fun just playing those jobs. Don't ever think "I don't want to level up a job just for this one task." Trust me, you will end up using that job for dozens of other tasks whether you know it or not. I think I originally leveled thief just for farming spells or something like that. I can't remember. But now I've used it for dynamis farming, empyrean farming, sky farming, and so so so much more. (inb4 THF-is-TH-only derail)

On another note, you don't really need thief specifically for Empyrean items. As far as TH goes... there is a big difference between no TH and TH1. Another big difference between TH1 and TH2. However every level of TH after is a very very small difference in comparison. There are multiple ways to get TH2 without gearing out a new job. (inb4 TH debate or "OMGhypocrite" derail)

As for XML's, the one people like the most is the one they wrote themselves. Go to pastebin.com and search for "mnk xml" and check out several of them. From there you can either just copy/paste someone's and edit in your own gear if you want. Personally (and this is something I just did less than 2 weeks ago), I looked at several, got ideas for what I wanted for myself, took the time to learn how to write in XML, and created my own. I copy/pasted a few things here and there, but mostly just to save time. XMLs are always things you can add on to or edit as you go. Trust me, it is a LOT easier to edit your own code than someone else's. (inb4... hrm... can't think of a stupid derail. oh well)

*Edit* INB4 TL;DR!

I've been farming dyna off and on with my bst so cash flow hasn't been too bad. Planning on jamming out sky for my mule so I can start farming that. Maybe do some alex runs through salvage, I need to get some gear from there anyways in preparation for neo-salvage.

So I'm rocking Brawnys (best AH h2h afaik) which help. I could probably level up Thief to 49 on my mule and whm/thf it. If i absolutely HAD to I'd level Thf, I plan on it some day, I'm just tired of having a combined total of 7 jobs that are all just kinda 'ok' and I'm ready to really start gearing a couple of them to be excellent. I do have a shell full of helpful people and I don't feel like it would honestly be too difficult to get someone to come out on a Thf once i'm ready to pop to help me both with the kill & to give me the needed TH. Especially if I do the previously mentioned method of bribing them with free cleave XP.

I guess the obvious queston is this: How did ou go about getting your vere? Is it best to just try and get a couple people and get all the KI from gold chests or what? I've had like zero expeperience working on an empy besides helping some peeps killing the actual NMs.

I know that wasn't directed at me, but, my experience has been that if you're going to gold chest route, the more people you have to hold KIs, the better. On my Verethragna, it seemed to go in waves - we'd get the same KI over and over and over before completing any popsets. If you only have a couple of people there, you may end up wasting a good number of KIs.

But on the other hand, farming those KIs by killing all the nms is a pain in the ***, too. So you're kind of stuck.

A couple things, maybe you can find someone that is working on a great axe at the same time, and you can increase your total number of bodies and trade KIs, or, try to shout for some KIs as well, but with these nms, I think it's less likely someone will have a full set.

The question was directed to anyone who can help lol...sometimes i still feel completely lost in this game

http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/31880/chloris-road-map-printout/

This is how you'd get a chloris pop without KI chest farming.

As you can see, it's rather annoying looking. Cleave farming allows you to build Chloris & Glavoid pops and open up the possibility of teaming up with someone who is farming Glavoid.

Personally my plan is to cleave (since I'm doing a Vere & Ukon at the same time) so I can build pop sets for both, but if I end up 3/4 on Chloris and that last KI i need comes from Chukwa then I'd definitely go and kill it for that last KI. You'll also get gil from the items in the gold chests as you pop them and if you are still in need of merits you'll gain those too. Cleaving is pretty easy and effective and can be done by many different job combinations. An LS mate of mine cleaved his way through CC as a Pld using Aeolean Edge without support from an outside RDM/Scholar, allowing him to level his mule.

Additionally, if you can't find anyone to help you farm in exchange for glavoid you should still be able to merc those pops for 300-400k to people building Ukons/Twash.

Trying to build pop sets from NMs only would probably be a chore, especially if you don't have access to TH since i'm pretty sure the starting NMs arent 100% drops on the pop item for the next NM after them.

Edit:
Cleaving also gets ya Lacovie spawns, so if you or any of your friends still need/want goading...

I worked on the Chloris version by red procing NMs. It took me several weeks of casually going in there in my solo time.
Went in as THF/WAR, farmed up Bloodshot Hecteye, H.Q. Wing and Pincer, Baleful Skull, and Venemous Scorpion Stinger (I always just bought the Bloody Fang and Alkaline Humus b/c they were like 1k).
Warped out and swapped to NIN/DNC
Killed the NMs to upgrade wing, pincer, skull, and humus
Warped out and swapped to NIN/WAR
Red proc'd NMs to get KI for myself.
Then I would go back as THF/WAR and farm up pops again, swapping to NIN/DNC to get the tough pops. I'd mail off full sets of pops to 4-5 of my friends.

This would usually take me a week or so because I was only doing it in my spare time. Once I did that, I'd gather my friends to come in, red proc for KI, and then kill Chloris 5-6 times.

It was a long LONG road for me, but it was easy for my friends. I think they only spent like 4-5 hours total on my 80 Vere.


As for Ulhuadshi, I actually gathered up the majority of my fangs by farming the +2's for various friends. I think by the time all my friends had their +2's, I only needed like 10-15 fangs which was pretty simple.

As for Dragua, I don't believe there's any easier NM for a level 90 Empy. By this time, I had leveled a bard on another account, and one of my friends had leveled a whm on another account. I would usually go in as NIN/WAR with my BRD/WHM mule to get the KI for both of my characters. Then I'd log on his accounts and do the same. When we went to do Dragua together, he would go NIN/WAR on his main and I would go THF/WAR on my main.
Here was our strat:
We'd pop Dragua, pull him back, and then we'd all gather up on one of his legs. As we fought him, we rotated use of Fanatic's Powders. We always killed him before the 3rd Fanatic's Powder wore off. His WHM would just Curaga the damage we took from his aga spells. Terra Wing always hit for 0. His melee attacks always hit for 0. It was really really simple. Every time he dies he always drops a Fanatic's Powder to the entire group so we were able to use them for every fight.

Anyway, we would usually kill Dragua once, then grab another KI, then kill Dragua twice, grab another KI. Rinse repeat until we ran out of KI. Then we'd move on to something else. We finished in less than a week.

This is how I've been doing Dragua as well and it really is super easy and efficient.

I need to stop being lazy and finish my 90 stage.

I had a question regarding the new JAs impetus and perfect counter. I get the utility of perfect counter when casting utsusemi, but is there another GOOD time to pop it? Or should you just ride the timer if you are /WAR or /DNC? What about impetus? That seems like another JA that you just ride the timer on.

Again, thanks for all the feedback...all of this has been enlightening!

I ride impetus (unless I have a specific reason not too, ie: this is the last mob on a floor in limbus). Perfect counter I pretty much only use when I feel I'm in a situation where I want to be sure I won't get hit. Otherwise, the lost DPS from using it isn't worth what I get.

The second tier NMs on that list (Cannered Noz, Halimede, etc.) do have a 100% drop rate. It's the pop items that drop from normal mobs that are painful to get without TH (sometimes even with >.>).

^^
Pretty much after a nasty spell or tp move and you want to give your healer some breathing room. Or for those times you just want to mitigate a few hits. Basically, don't full time it because you want it to be up when you need it.