IiPunch - Monk Guide

I'm not surprised Mummu+2 being super close to Kenda+1.
I'm surprised them being AHEAD of Kenda+1 Q_Q

But I guess your explanation does make sense indeed, so thank you for that!



I guess this is because I am configuring in the wrong way some aspects of the spreadsheet.
After all there are some fields that I don't know what their purpose is, like "Calc pDif" in the Setup page, which I left to the default value of "1".

I'll be posting some screenshots underneat, so that maybe you can tell what is wrong/different in my spreadsheet.

I can say that with the following setup I'm getting different numbers:

Honor March, Minuet 5, Minuet 4 (no other buffs, food etc)
Target: Apex Crab, -25% def
I'm getting 23123 with Ele Belt, 22796 with Moonbow+1.

Here are the screenshots, please help me understand what I'm doing wrong ;_;
(also make sure you fix the two TP bonus earring, they should give 250 tp bonus, not 25000 lol)

Maybe I missed something. These are the settings I have:


Accidentally forgot to turn off Focus, which made a 1.2k DPS difference and widened the gap between Anchorite+3 vs. Kenda+1, but Anchorite+3 is still ahead regardless.

Edit: Nevermind, I forgot to change the TP values from the default 1900 to 1000. Kenda+1 is winning for me again.

Simon something else strange that I found.

I created two identical sets, same gear, same buffs, but I'm getting very different DPS and WS damage results.
The "data" displays a long series of perfectly identical numbers, except the last few cells that I screenshotted.

I'm puzzled. Either there is a difference between the two sets that is right there in front of my eyes but I can't see it, or there is an error somewhere in the spreadsheet.

Posting three screenshots for reference:

Ok 3 things.

1. I put same sets in linked sheet on googlesheet now and they show the same dps and ws damage for both, so something wrong happened when you was messing with your version I'm afraid. Possibly you did some copy paste from one side to other? I have no idea seriously. I suggest downloading it again (especially because of point 3) and just copy paste the items you created.
2. No idea whats happening whith TP bonus when you download it to Office, but on google sheets everything is ok with moonshade earring. That being said...
3. I found an error with how crit rate bonus from TP was calculated. I'm not gonna go into details, but TP over 1000 was giving slightly too much crit rate, so moonshade earring was stronger than it should. It's fixed now.

Guess I'll try copying it into my google sheets then instead of downloading the file and I'll re-do all my tests.

Once I know I haven't messed up with something and the spreadsheet works, I'll keep testing stuff for WSs with the gear I have available.


P.S.
Did you notice anything strange in my settings? I still don't know what "Calc pDif" is for, left it on the default value of "1".

It's something with fixing kick attack pdif mentioned in sheet updates made by someone who was maintaining this sheet before. If it's set to 0, Kicks doesn't use crit pdif values for crits. Afaik it should be set to 1.


You need to copy paste cells K541 and K8 from "Weaponskill" to apply fix for crits from TP. EDIT: Nvm I misunderstood that you want to copy part of sheet from google sheet to your file in Office

From the first tests (just tested VS att uncapped impetus down) everything seems to be in line with your results AND with my expectations.
FINALLY!

Guess some formula somewhere got broken when I downloaded the file as xlsx. All is well what ends well!

Edit:
Yeah did a lot of tests in all of the 4 scenarios I defined before, everything pretty much working as expected now.
<3 ya Simon

Dropping some bits I noticed while doing tests, they might be useful for people who do not have (yet) BiS gear or have no resources/intention to get all the HQ stuff.


Tornado Kicktl;dr Hiza+2 can be a cheap alternative for some slots if you're just starting out your MNK.

Howling Fist
Raging Fists
Asuran FistsHiza+2 is pretty close to Hesy+3 in most slots. If you already have Hesy+3 fine. If you're making them ON PURPOSE for Asuran Fists (Karambit Users) I suggest to save your money for more important upgrades and use Hiza+2, or Mix & Match of course.

I haven't checked this or anything yet, but interesting thing. I think shijin even with karambit is always better than asuran with the change

Hmmm. I just plugged in expected buffs. march march min mad, frailty/fur and chaos/sam. Which I assume is attack capped.

for raging/tornado:
I'm getting ken body winning, with the NQ ken body being about the same as adhemar +1 and hiz/anchorite being behind by about 1k.

for the hands, adhemar +1 path B seems to be ahead of everything barring near perfect STR/TA augments on herc hands.

For the legs, I do get hizmaru legs being almost the same as Ken +1 and slightly ahead of nq ken legs.

Same goes for the feet.

The +2 neck however seems like a pretty big chunk of damage over the gorget (3-4k in my gear/conditions).

That said, you're right. The hiza set seems incredibly good considering how much cheaper it is than the alternatives. And almost all the top options are close enough that they could change based on minor buffs/target changes or spreadsheet quirks/user errors, so I don't think there are any bad options listed really.

Barring the neck, you can probably go with whatever is most accessible and do about the same as min/maxxing.

EDIT: fwiw on this target (apex bats), chaos roll seems to be doing nothing, so probably way over attack capped and could benefit from fighters or something instead.

So pretty much the stack WSD has become second place? Now it's anything you can put MA on is the best? Kinda sucks if this is the case as I have just finish +3 ancho and hesy. So what's the option if you dont have herc feet and gloves well I have them but unlucky on getting TA on it. Also I know bhiku +1 body is good for when impetus is up, but what's the alternative when it's down? Wont be using VS when imp is down but for situation when FW is up for TK and DK or when using RF and HF?

Also what's a good set to aim for shinjin?

One small trick I can tell you to make 100% sure wether or not your att capped.
In the WS set there is a line called "custom".
Go in that line under the column "attack".
Add a value of "100", or 200, or 500, whatever you want.
If the WS damage number increases it means you were not att capped. If the WS damage number stays the same then yes, you were already att capped for the currently selected target.

For Tornado Kick it's worth to use regardless because of the +20 Kick, which converts to +20 weapon damage.
This only applies when Footwork is up, but then again you're not gonna be using Tornado Kick if Footwork is down, are you?
So I was saying: with Footwork up JSE+2 neck wins regardless over gorget. Barely, but it does.
This difference becomes massive if you can make use of the PDL (i.e. you're way over att cap)
For Howling Fist this should be the case quite often, given Howling Fist has an att multiplier, but... it kinda depends, I guess.
For instance I normally just use Raging Fists. Howling Fist is my WS to go for when I'm very att crippled against the current target. In such a scenario you're unlikely to make use of PDL despite Howling Fist's att multiplier.
If you make the same use of Howling Fist then you should put Gorget in your set, not JSE neck.

Anyway all of these matters become non-issue if you decide to make a toggle that forces JSE+2 neck when turned on, and uses whatever else you have in your sets when turned off.
That way you can simply turn it on when you know for sure you're gonna be way over att cap (at least >9% over att cap is what you need, ~18,5% above att cap to fully cap PDL from traits and neck).
I haven't made such a toggle myself yet but I've been so torn about WS choices lately that I think it's exactely what I'm gonna do in the end.


For people who don't have infinite gil or that have other jobs/priorities and don't already have the key HQ pieces MNK needs, shared from other jobs, stuff like Hizamaru+2 (Mummu+2 too for some WSs and some slots) is surprisingly quite nice.
At least for the STR/VIT based WSs.
Considering it's pretty free and considering how the stats on it are quite meh at first glance, this set performs spectacularly in some slots.

It kinda depends on the slot.
Leaving aside Reisenjima gear (Fern 5% WSD or DM up to 10% WSD) our "regular" WSD options are:
Cape => for most WS in most situations, DA wins over MA
Hands => loses to MA/crit options pretty much always
Head => head wins in a large quantity of situations, thanks to the good stats and huge amount of att. It loses to Kenda+1 at Attcapped situations but even then it's barely behind.
Legs => Harder to define, it's a situation similar to the head one but Hizamaru+2 are tipically worse for the legs slot than Hesy+3 is for the head slot. They still win in multiple situations though.

I oversimplified things but I was trying to give you just a general picture.


For Hands you have Mummu+2, pretty nice. In some situations they can actually be slightly better than Kenda+1.
For the other slots you sort of have... well, Kenda+1? Or Kenda NQ lol? For the legs there's also Samnuha Tights, if you're one of the lucky ones with perf aug on them. Keep in mind they're not ideal for sets where you need a lot of accuracy though.

No.
Bhikku+1 body is not "good" when impetus is up, it's mandatory, period. But that goes only for Victory Smite, which is infact the WS you're likely going to be spamming when Impetus is up.

Depends on the WS, but good alternatives are:
1) Anchorite+3 (for Vsmite)
2) Kenda/Kenda+1 body
3) Hizamaru+2 body
4) Rawhide Body Path A (this is very nice and surprisingly close to Kenda+1, has a bit of Multiattack and some crazy high mods for DEX mainly and STR secondarily)

This list is in random order, not in order of relevance.


Personally I wouldn't bother with DK unless you absolutely need it for SC purposes, just use TK when footwork is up.
RF and HF are your options to use when Impetus and Footwork are both down. Which one to use is... situational.
They have different properties, they're both good, they both produce very high spikes when MA proc.

You need to decide on your goal.
Do you want to maximize damage? ==> go for stuff with multiattack/DEX/attack, Kenda+1 is in general quite good for most slots, otherwise you have Mummu+2 (very high DEX especially with the set bonus). I think Malignance has also pretty high DEX. Neither of these last 2 sets have Multiattack.
The other approach is to maxmize the duration/landing chance of the Plague effect, imbued in Shijin Spiral. For this second approach you want a set with Physical AND Magical accuracy.
You basically have two options: Mummu+2 and Malignance, the latter being the best of the two of course. (up to debate for the Hands slot actually, but we're talking about minor details here)

Ok since MA(multi att) is so good now, how come in any piece that is being mention, barely seeing adhemar+1. I have the head body and gloves. All 3 pieces provides a hefty amount of TA in it, or does the kenda pieces beats them down? Even if it's a small margin.

Yeah so far I only gotten the mummu gloves +2. Need to work on Mag set.

Does our TP set mainly stay the same?

Ver r 15
Ginsen
Adhemar+1
Jse+2
Sherida/thelos
Ken+1
Adhemar+1
Niq/here
Cape I have stp on this one
Moon+1
Hesy+3
Anc+3.

Also been scratching my head on this also. With the jump on MA being BiS, would epona be better due to having TA/DA better than Niq? Also

Did brutal earring just made a comback?

On the spread sheet:

The adhemar +1 head, body and hands (path B) are very good for raging fists and tornado kick. At least at attack cap. They have a fair amount of attack on them too for when you are close to capped but not quite there.

The ken pieces have a bit more acc though, so it's up to buffs, target etc. which is better at any given time.

You're probably not going to notice a huge difference between them unless attack cap or acc comes into play.

Personally, I use the adhemar body and hands and ken head, legs, feet, and then swap to ken body / head in my acc set. Like Sechs said though, there's a few options that are very close to each other for all those slots depending on the situation.

It really depends on your setup, as usual. It seems like various gearing strategies are viable, just gotta pick one you like and optimize for it. I've been building a tool to model tp gain with high levels of multi-attack and store tp, to get a better idea of how different pieces/combinations of gear can affect a given set. A beta is almost done, but thus far I have switched to an Epona's Ring in my max tp set (along with a few other changes to go with it), and it's been pretty impressive. That said, Niqmaddu has a lot more going for it than just the QA.

The thing is you should almost never use RF with Gorget because you should almost always use Howling when you ant use pdl on Raging. Check it out. Howling with capped attack and neck +2 is almost always better than Raging with Gorget.

I've seen it mentioned a lot! Not by me because I have zero Adhemar+1, so you won't see me testing that.
Head+1 for Vsmite is by far the best option, way ahead of anything else.
Hands are nice for multiple things.
I'm sure Body+1 can be nice for some WS as well given the mods and high attack.

I've decided to do some tests, curious about the results with my gear.

Conclusions:
You shouldn't use Raging Fists with gorget. RF should only be used at attack cap, i.e. with JSE+2 neck.
If you're not over att cap, HF (with gorget) will always outperform RF (with gorget)
(is this what you were trying to tell me, Simon?)


The situation is more complex when you're exactely in between.
That is when you're att uncapped for RF, but you're over cap with HF (thanks to HF's att bonus).
In such situations RF (gorget) will beat HF (gorget), that's because you are "wasting" HF's att bonus and you should be using JSE+2 neck, not gorget >__>
Realistically though, it's gonna be very hard to be able to tell when you're in such a situation in advance... So this point is kinda moot.

Out of curiosity I decided to compare that HF set (att uncapped, no Impetus) DPS with Vsmite spam and the result is:

HF => 4082.061
VS => 4397.455

Not even taking into consideration SC damage of course.
Only difference between the two sets is TP set to 1000 for Vsmite set (obviously) and 1900 for HF.
I guess... 1900 maybe is not the optimal value for Vere R15? I seem to recall reading some pages ago that 1900 being the ideal value for HF/TK/RF but maybe I'm wrong here :x

No I was trying to say that Gorget over Neck+2 for RF is only better when you are not capping attack, but you should never use RF when you are not capping attack. You should always use HW when you are not capping attack (with gorget when you are really far from attack cap and with +2 neck when you are closer to attack cap).



Its 2400+Moonshade for Veret



Oh its not. Its exactly opposite. Generally speaking its really hard not to cap attack with HW in group content.

That being said you only need to roughly know your punch damage at various pdif. For example with R15 Veret when you are hitting for around 810 damage with normal hit, you are around 3.0 pdif and you should be using Neck+2 for HW then (make a toggle for Gorget or Neck+2). The more experience you will have, the easier it will be to tell at roughly what pdif you are judging by melee hits.

You just said the same thing I did though D:
I.e. Raging should only be used with JSE+2 simply because in situations where Gorget would win (uncapped attack) you shouldn't be using RF to begin with but HF.
Or am I missing something? °-°


Tried with 2400, the DPS value raised up but it's still behind the Vsmite build.
HF => 4180.897
VS => 4397.455

Spreadsheet seems to suggest that in such a scenario spamming Vsmite at 1000 with R15 Vere is better?
Since I assume this is wrong, what is causing the spreadsheet to suggest it?
My current gear?
The fact buffs are very low?
Something else?

Like?
Maybe it's just me but I play in several situations with uncapped attack :x
Dynamis, Omen bosses, Omen trash too if Frailty isn't down, multiple ambuscade runs (most VD where you don't zerg stuff with SPs, basically).
Uhm... can't think of anything else that matters to me that I do on a weekly basis with my LS.

That still sounds incredibly annoying though, if you ask me.

I mean we have two situations where in theory it's pretty clear to tell what you should do:
1) Att way over cap? Use RF with JSE+2
2) Att way under cap so much that even HF's att bonus won't bring you above cap? => use HF with Gorget

Easy peasy.
Problem is when you are UNDER att cap BUT HF's att multiplier brings you above the att cap.
What should you do in these situations? Supposing you can even tell you're in one.
I think the most common answer is gonna be "Use HF with JSE+2", realistically.
But that won't necessarily apply to ALL the possible situations, it kinda depends on how much HF's 50% att multiplier brings you above the cap for the current target.

I'm sure we can solve all of these matters but it's still annoying.
I prefer to not have this level of depth and simply having a moderate, limited amounts of options and sets, instead of getting a headache lol.

At the end of the day it also kinda makes you wonder how much this level of depth is even gonna make a difference, honestly.

To simplify things I would always use Neck+2.

Simply because HF at optimal TP threshold is around 4.0+fTP (unless you use it for 4step skillchain, but then it's damage is not THAT important anyway), so gorget only adds 2.5% damage top. While Neck+2 potentially adds 10% and on top of that adds a lot of accuracy.


If you have frailty, dia II, chaos and minuet+honor you will cap attack on basically everything with HW (most of the time you will cap atack with NEck+2 even with WS without attack bonus then), unless Geomancy is nerfed like in DynamisD. If its a single enemy you can also use various WS or spells or Angon with -25% def and then you will cap for sure. On single enemy (not multiply trash when applying shell Crusher wouldnt be practical) its really hard to not cap even without frailty. Shell Crusher and Dia II is -40% def. For example it takes down that Apex crab to 786 def, so to cap attack with HW with Neck +2 you need 2200 attack in WS set. Thats like.. Chaos roll only and you are there?

Quick question, was looking through recent forum but either missed it or didn't see it stated.

What is preferred tp cape for monk now? Store TP or Double Attack? Thanks!

Store TP will get you to X tp faster on average but you'll probably do a little less white damage from slightly more frequent WS. Double attack will give a slower but similar TP rate, but you'll get it with more hits for higher white damage, and the distribution of your over-tp numbers will start to shift toward higher values, resulting in slightly stronger WS.

Everything is situational but this is the general trend. If you're self-scing with lower buffs, Store TP will help you more in keeping up with the SC windows. If you're just fighting normally with other DDs, Double Attack will probably net you more damage overall.

Regarding HF, I personally prefer it pretty much to RF not only because of its Attack bonus, but because it's the perfect opener for a multistep SC with Godhands.

HF > Shijin > TK > Shijin > Shijin > Shijin absolutely destroys everything, but Samurai Roll is a must.

Thanks for the input in general Simon.

I don't think that's realistic 100% buffs that I can count on for Divergence, where Frailty isn't gonna be up 100% of the time and it's nerfed anyway, likewise Dia won't be up on every target and so on.
But I'm afraid I'm digressing.

All of this blabbering why?
The purpose was to decide Gorget vs JSE+2 for Howling Fist, since we already agreed this is a non-issue for Raging Fists.
I'm afraid for HF I'm gonna need a toggle of sorts to pick between the two necks, and that's it =/



Any ideas for this? I'm pretty confident I'm doing something wrong on the spreadsheet because these results are imho wrong.
Vsmite spam with impetus down shouldn't be more dps than HF at the optimal TP value.
That's what we've been saying for a lot of pages, no?

In super low pdif values crit weaponskills gets huge advantage because of crit adding static +1.0 pdif. So it's not impossible that Vsmite can't win outside of Impetus in lower pdif scenario. I dont have time to test it myself now tho :P

Super low pdif values, hmmm. Makes sense I guess? Which means if I try to raise the number of buffs/attack then the situation should change, right? I'll try right now.


Edit:
Yes it does make a bit of difference, until past a certain point HF @2400 finally becomes slightly better than VS @1000.

Another thing I just found out is raising the base TP value of Vsmite to 1100. It's extremely unlikely you're going to execute VS every time at exactely 1000 TP, it's more likely you'll end up with some additional TP more often than not.
This puts HF @2400 further ahead of VS, with Impetus down.

Allright, everything works like it should now. Thanks!

So.... is mnk still the glue eater of job classes, or did nin finally graduate to worst class?