IiPunch - Monk Guide

I'll agree with that.

Ehhhhhhhhh...

Not willing to deny what Ramzus said, but not sure I agree with what you wrote above lol

It's certainly improved prior to the "buff" albeit not by much. I'm having a blast using MNK and finding out goofy strats we can use with it. We started Spinning Attack cleaving trash mobs in Omen down once we finished our objectives since none of us are bringing a BLU to cleave them down any more.

try retaliation fellcleaving, its a lot more fun and efficient.

WAR / DRK / RUN all have access to Fell Cleave which is a very powerful AoE WS. Cataclysm is also up there for WTFBBQ everything-must-die things to use.

It's just trash mobs. Spinning Attack is quite potent if some multi-attacks trigger. Not better than what you described above, but if the goal is to use MNKs, it works.

I remember my first Primeval Brew was used on MNK. I had a set of pops for one of the Caturae.

....I spammed Cataclysm. >.>

You know it's bad when I go on the forums and see a mod is the last comment on the MNK thread and think, "oh jesus *** what happened now?"

psst MNK is good

there was a thing about Cataclysm I wanted to post but I wanted to wait until I actually had numbers

Currently leveling MNK still but it seems pretty fun. I always enjoyed the concept of the class. Now it seems that you have a good bit of JA buffs to manage?

Does the Boost delay feel like forever even at haste cap?

Also what merits are people using these days? Kick Attacks and Formless seem pretty obvious, the others not-so much. I'm guessing Focus CD and Penance?

Is Spharai still a viable option or will Condemners be sufficient enough? (I don't see myself getting Godhands, Verethragna, or Glanzfaust for my MNK).

Verethragna or spharai, Godhands if you are cheap. Vere tends to be better for pure damage while spharai is not far and more defensive. For cat II merit, I do mantra and Formless strike because from time to time you fight random gimp mob weak to magic (like slimes) and it makes life easier. Otherwise you can do penance, but keep in mind that you get free merits for nearly anything you do in game so it's easy to switch between formless and penance.

Monk is actually one of the best cleavers.

psst

ItemSet 354259

before someone comes and jerks off WAR cataclysm for the sake of shitting on MNK, MNK has access to a ton of great MAB gear that other melees with Cata access don't.

War is on or has an equivalent to every single piece in that set... so... I mean yeah, no? Every job has access to the same ***more or less. Just change the herc to valorous/od with mab its identical.

Except the Staff, Raetic

And I'm betting access to Utu grip makes up for a lesser staff.

Not trying to sound like a jerk, but what I said is still true. Those are trash mobs. Spinning Attack is quite potent if some multi-attacks trigger. Spinning Attack isn't better than what was described above (Cataclysm), but if you get off on using MNKs for things, you can make it work.

I wouldn't say that a job without any MAB gifts or traits, with gifts that push H2H and guard, is going to be the superior Cataclysm job. It can use the weapon skill. Great. So can other jobs, and anyone that so desperately wants to use any job will find a way to make it work for any job.
On the topic of WAR, although it is true WAR doesn't get all of those particular pieces of gear, you are using MNKs for reasons and not for superior DPS. So picking on WARs because they might not exceed those numbers on one weapon skill is a bit odd. Especially since I'm sure you could make it happen if you put your heart into it. Also, WAR gets Retaliation and Arke gear, which I think would be helpful to your cleaving.

I also wouldn't jump to the conclusion that MNK is one of the best cleaving jobs. I don't see MNKs running up and down the paths of Reisenjima CPing for AFK people in the trees. That's cleaving. And the title of one of the best cleavers very comfortably rests between BLM and BLU.

That all said, I'm glad you are beating Omen with MNKs and having fun.

Valorous doesn't have MAB, Odyssean only goes up to 30 MAB and has significantly worse base stats.

4/5 Odyssean has 11 less base INT, 10 less MAB. After max MAB augments it's 30 less MAB.

And to that regard, 3/5 Founders is actually better than Odyssean (no legs.)

The MAB on body and hands are matched, but Herculean feet still get 10 more MAB, and all of the pieces can also get up to 10 INT and 4 WSD which Founders can't. I'm not sure what staff WAR uses (I think Staccato/Blurred/something else are basically all the same stat?) which is 12 INT 28 MAB 217 mdmg versus Reikikon's 32 INT 30 MAB 226 mdmg which is still a fairly sizable boost. Utu Grip is probably the same in damage versus Alber Strap since none of the jobs have any base MAB. We tested Novio Earring versus Ishvara Earring and Novio Earring completely dunked on it. The only WSD piece worth using is Knobkierrie, the other high WSD pieces (Ambus +2, AF+3 etc.) didn't come even close to performing similarly to their Herculean counterpart.

@Cherry: DT gear and Retaliation are useless when Cataclysm should be one shotting everything. 28k should be just shy of 50% of a Transcended monster's HP and almost 8k higher than a normal Sweetwater's HP.

You can get MAB(+WSD) on Valorous using regular stones.

I went by BG wiki which didn't have a Magic path listed on its augmentation. I'm sure you can very occasionally get off path augments on Melee but that's just being pedantic and not productive especially given that you can already do it on Odyssean.

It isn't as uncommon as you might think.

Yeah, these things have so little HP, even the NMs benefit from non-ilvl weapons or a SCH to reliably 6-step without over-killing. DT gear could help for the pull/rounding them up, but maybe the MNK isn't performing this role. Arke also adds the benefit of DMG->TP, but I'm seeing Lullaby used, so maybe you are building TP via a COR roll? Or just on one mob? There is more than one way to skin a cat. Or trash mobs, in this case.
With a 12-man alliance, I'm sure you could find more efficient ways of clearing Omen floors. As I said, it is cool you are using MNKs and having fun. I don't see this as MNK's niche. A GEO regardless of subjob or a BLM with the right sub job could Cataclysm better.

Seeing as this is the MNK guide and heaven forbid we discuss how other jobs compare to each other, or buff requirements in general, if you are determined to only use MNK as your DPS, this is a great way to clear floors fast after clearing objectives (or ignoring them).
But building a MNK for this reason would be a bigger waste of time than making a Rhongomiant.

Nothing against MNK and it's a good way to clear floors if you want MNK for bosses, but you can't simultaneously say retaliation doesn't matter because you overkill by 8k and say gear differences do matter. WAR can just as easily one shot everything, and nitpicking gear differences are silly. Warcry is boss too if you're firing under 2750 tp, or just to cut the tp needed.

A lot of posters only come in here to shoot down any positive post about MNK though, and it's getting extremely old. I wish mods would do something about it, why even come into the MNK thread if your only purpose here is to say 'DONT MNK'..?

Huh WTF...

Retaliation is for getting TP after your pull, unless your saying your MNK always has 3000TP instantly whenever you want? Doing over 20K Cata is easy for any job, MNK isn't special here and BLU is by far superior for AoE cleaving.

That being said, Cata is a good WS and MNK having decent gear for it really helps if you decided to use MNK for omen / ect.

I was being a little bit unfair in saying retaliation doesn't entirely matter. However, you can't expect to pull the entire floor on WAR and not get completely dunked (even with defensive buffs.) We personally pull all the mobs into one big group (in 2-3 separate pulls depending on how many monsters are left) and lullaby them all into one big pile. I realize not every group uses BRD or sleep, but the usefulness of Retaliation is diminished immensely if you're only TPing off of 1 awake monster.

I completely agree with everything Thorny says. Mostly I'm just annoyed that I'll show another way in which MNK can be utilized only to have other people be like "lol who cares other jobs can do it too *** MNK it's garbage." but so far I've shown that MNK has:

Good defensive capability (high HP, counter, mantra)

Good TP feed capability (75 SB, 30% mob tp reduction via penance, plague via Shijin Spiral)

Good cleaving capability (Cataclysm with the best non-BLU nuking gear options)

Decent DPS (upwards of 4.5-4.7k across 20 Neaks, comparable to similarly geared BLU and NIN.)

Decent Zerg DPS (13 ftp WS under crystal blessing and warcry)

I'm not really sure what more people want? Sure, it can't heal like BLU or self haste cap like BLU can, but I think MNK brings a lot more to the table than others give credit for. The complete stigma and misinformation campaign against MNK has deterred anyone from ever being able to come MNK to any sort of shout group or LS events because people treat it like it's 2004 post-TP nerf lolDRG. It really isn't, and it isn't fair to people who actually put time into the job and care about it, only to get dunked by people who can't look past MUH DEEPS.

Half ppl here bash mnk, other half present scenarios where it have some use, this aint a guide.
/thread.

Im more a pup than i am mnk but what people want is better ws dmg/sc properties on h2h, thats really it. You can clear anything with mnk, but you can do that with other jobs either faster(war/drk/drg/sam)or similarly fast with better utility(blu/dnc/nin/etc).

Problem is people confuse clearing quicker with clearing at all. Mnks perfectly able to do anything the other jobs do, perhaps even easier if you can limit tp feed. But in terms of speed or offering other things while doing dmg, mnk falls short to other jobs in my opinion.

This isn't why people don't want MNKs in their groups. They don't want MNKs in their groups because they require more work to gear/buff for less gain.
If you are arguing that MNK can be used in any content that is friendly to any other option, that is completely true. Examples of this might include Omen, CP parties (magic burst or multi-step set-ups), Ambuscade (if the gimmicks are kind) and even zergs up to ilvl 140 if the support/NM gimmicks allow. Set for yourself the goal of beating these things with melee WHMs, and I bet you would succeed in all, if not most, scenarios. I'm not saying melee WHM > MNK, but you have the resources.
What I, and I assume many, want, is for MNK to excel at something. We can be any job. We only have the inventory for so many jobs. As such, low performance jobs are going to be losers. So if a group is forming to beat X, and A, B and C jobs are more likely to do better (due to lower gear requirements, better JAs, better WS, more complimentary JAs, SC or in-general job synergy), they aren't going to go out of their way to find job D.
For example, no one is likely to ever say, "Oh, you are going into Omen? I'll bring MNK to AOE-clear the floors for you." This is a solution looking for a problem.
I looooooove research and testing. Even if said research or testing doesn't have much of a point because you never know what you will discover. So, don't let me or anyone discourage you from being you. But what the community is hoping for is a role that MNK can fulfill better than any other job. The community wants a reason to look for a MNK. Not for a reason to simply invite a MNK because, eh, anything would do.

I feel like you agreed with him while sounding like you are disagreeing with him. The ideal is that 2004 Post TP-nerf DRG was actually somewhat viable, just out shone. You could bring it to whatever and be successful but everyone wanted the best (even at EXP parties).

I think you forgot "and the same DPS" after this. And yes, this IS why they don't want MNKs. Your average player has the misconception that MNK is terrible given any circumstance, in regards to doing damage. Most people aren't even going to give you the chance to show that you have it fully geared out and would rather invite an Ayanmo BLU while ignoring you. I've been a BLU main since it came out but I'm so sick of having to play it all the time when I know some other jobs will do the same job and often times better just because the leader has bought into this anti-MNK stigma that has been diffused into the community. This problem doesn't only lie with MNK either, but most other DDs as well.

You're also conveniently forgetting that MNK is "shinning" and fulfilling your starry eye'd MNK fantasies by having comparable damage to your favorite bandwagon DD while staying quite more durable than your other DDs in many situations. Don't forget the merit of denying mobs TP which is actually quite a noticeable difference especially for all this content where its gimmick roots from a TP move. It really makes a difference.

Okay. Let's not even mention the fact that you're ignoring Ramzus's main concern about people thinking MNK isn't acceptable and start talking about wanting MNK to be the best sometimes, but only sometimes because you might think wanting MNK to be best always makes you sound too greedy. MNK is a DD, and like all other jobs that fall initially into this category, it fulfills this role primarily while having unique benefits and traits... Which have already been mentioned. It sounds like you want MNK to have it's own unique role in this game that only it can fill. But I'm just making assumptions about what you're thinking at this point, I already made my case.

First we hit objectives, otherwise I've pulled all the mobs, the BRD sleeps and I Fell Cleave them all dead. Mass pulling is even easier on WAR/DRK due to the sheer amount of -DT / Physical Defense they get as they kinda share defensive gear with PLD.


This is wrong, very very wrong. MNK's central issue is it's total damage output capacity, specifically it's Weapon Skills. There are serious mechanical issues with RF that prevent it from being exploited like other zerg WS's. MNK's have amazing TP reduction ability, provided your only using other Subtle Blow DD's and not too many of them.

This isn't me bashing MNK, this is me telling you the reality of the job and no amount of sunshine is going to fix that. We can all find nifty use's for various jobs, DNC and THF have AE for cleaving, DRK can get 6~9K HP and so forth. If a group absolutely wants to bring a MNK, then clever people will be able to make it work, so claiming "X works" isn't evidence of it's worth in the larger metagame. Among the DD's MNK is near the bottom due their unique abilities not being particularly outstanding and other jobs being able to do everything else better.

This reminds me of the argument in the DRG thread where this one person was trying to come up with all these twisted situations to make Empy Polearm be "better" then Trish. Everyone in the thread told them they were wrong and provided the reasons for it. That person refused to listen and just plugged their ears instead. Ultimately it came down to them wanting to justify using that particular weapon regardless of the larger metagame present making it not the best.

And if anyone thinks BLU is a powerful DD because of MG then they don't know what their talking about.