IiPunch - Monk Guide

All this talk about MNK being total trash. I'm soloing (w/ trusts) Q in about 20min! >.>;

What is Q?

Quetzcalaotltotal in Reisen

It is total trash sadly.

PUP outparses it when you factor in the Automaton.

Infuriating when the fix is so so so simple.

I do Ou and Gin as MNK/DNC with a Masa v3 SAM/WAR friend sometimes. Wr both have good gear but are obviously still working on AF+3. He outparses me for sure, but it is more like beating me by 1/3 than beating me by 100%. If I was /WAR and we were using something other than Miser's roll, the gap would shrink a bit but I would probably still be behind.

If I go with a larger group / less attentive players, it is not unusual for me to parse at or near the top, but 37:50% ratios are probably more realistic between MNK and comparably geared/played DDs.


I am going to finish my MNK body+3 this month and make a decision about the head before moving on to THF.

So if I were to make a choice as a DD, using aeonic, which would be more preferable: NIN or MNK? Deciding which to go next, but not sure if its worth putting the effort into MNK if its just ordinarily last place.

NIN has some niche uses at which it excels. MNK has none.

I took it up because I thought it might be fun to make the best, worst DD available. It has been kind of fun. But, NIN would be far more useful.

Just in case some ask, I'm thinking NIN is awesome for Glazemane, some low man Omen bosses and some low man farming vulcanite ores in Zitah, for example. Also, it isn't bad at doing HTBF if you want to change things up a bit.

Noted & thx.

Damage-wise, does MNK > NIN though?

This is FFXI.

It depends.

To an extent, but honestly, that's an "it depends" that favors NIN in the vast majority of normal melee DD situations when compared to a similar quality gear/player MNK.

NIN has several SIGNIFICANT DD advantages over MNK:
- Much better WS damage from Ten (particularly with Aeonic) and Shun, and Metsu (for relic users, the other of the top 2 mainhand katanas) and Hi (especially for SC purposes) have their place and do solid damage.

- Much better SC utility than MNK, with good darkness AND light options. This is one of the less frequently cited things that particularly bugs me about MNK, it's a real one trick pony when it comes to "HEY GUYS WHAT SC CAN WE DO?" (and that stings even more when realizing the fellow H2H user has a lot less issue here since Stringing Pummel adds significantly more SC flexibility)

- NIN isn't as completely reliant on outside attack speed buffs as MNK, if for whatever reason you lose a buff or need to try to fit into a less than ideal party setup. I can self-cap delay on my NIN with zero magical haste by popping into an appropriate DW set. MNK essentially needs to get all of its haste from other people's magic, since there really isn't any top tier Martial Arts gear (i.e. nothing that doesn't cause a much more steep dropoff in DPS potential), and selection is still pretty limited.

- Realistically with the current gear options, offhand weapon gives NIN a significant additional stat buff over MNK (e.g. I can add dozens of Acc with an offhand katana, and have flexibility to adapt a different offhand to a situation). Most of the other standard DD gear choices are quite similar, as MNK and NIN are usually on the same gear.

NIN also has has several significant non-DD advantages over MNK:
- Main job Utsusemi, which isn't quite the powerhouse it once was but it still helps defensively on a lot of content where you might be able to soak up an AoE or something. Even enables more realistic tanking on certain content (though to be clear, I barely consider NIN a tank any more... but it has its weird moments, or ability to jump in and emergency tank better than most DDs if the main tank goes down)

- Solid enfeebles, particularly now that NIN has a ton of really good new Macc gear just since 2017 (e.g. AF+3 head/feet, Mummu gear)

- Some level of enmity control with Innin/Yonin Yain/Gekka (and also playing into the tankiness).

- Migawari can be a real life-saver. I can't count the number of times some big move killed multiple DDs in my groups but my NIN is still slashing away at full health (and sometimes becoming an impromptu tank at the same time...)

MNK DD advantages over NIN:
- Um... sometimes on very specific content (but generally not on 2017 content), Formless Strikes can be useful?
- If you Boost a bunch of times, then you can Chi Bla... eh, sorry. Never mind.

MNK non-DD advantages:
- Mantra is pretty cool


If you're actually picking for which job can usually DD better, and contribute in other ways, NIN's kind of a no brainer over MNK unless you're just doing it for fun or for the hope that one day the job gets fixed (I figure it has to at least get some decent DD buffs before too long... right??)

I actually find mnk and nin dps is very similar, nin does have a small edge, but neither will impress you from a dps standpoint. Ten 'can' be good, if your high buffed, but solo its crap for me normally and my ten set is very good.

Both nin and mnk suffer from the same issue, not very exploitable ws's. If shun had crit rate like CDC nin would all of a sudden be very good dd, not top but not at the bottom end like it is now. Nin gets a little lucky that Ten can be a decent ws over mnks best choices in high buff situations. Its not uncommon to spam for 20k Ten with aeonic, whereas your HF/Raging/VS will probably be for the same tp amount doing 16k~ under same conditions. Huge difference? Not really but it adds up and I normally find the 2 jobs dps potential to be 10% in favor of nin more or less.

Shun is very good in low buff situations. Moonshade + Heishi give it attack +75% (although you will end up with more because of overflow) and makes Light with itself. Ten is a solid weaponskill too. I did Onychophora with just NIN for DPS (NIN WHM BRD GEO) although I feel that's not a very good benchmark for anything. It can be used to clear 2017 content though.

In which universe? :P
NIN has decent WSs, not awesome but decent to say the least.
NIN also has decent white damage as well, arguably faster TP gain than MNK.
It lacks DD cooldown (other than Sange) but when you can exploit Innin that's another good amount of Crit Rate and Accuracy you can count on.
Not to forget the huge benefit NIN has in situations where you don't want to get hate in zerg situtions.

Also in terms of given TP to the target MNK is probably in a slightly better position but I'm confident NIN is not too far behind.

NIN solo is so much better, you can count on DW gear to cap or get close to the attack delay, which you can't realistically do on MNK.
Also Shun works pretty pretty nice in low buffs situations.
Also let's not forget NIN has the benefit of wielding 2 weapons and having 99% acc cap for the main one.



I'm not saying NIN couldn't use a buff, but it's nowhere near the same situation as MNK.

One good Magic burst from Ninja with capped MAB on a good SC is going to blow MNK's dmg out of the water.

Not even really sure why I was thinking about this but I have a hard time believing that the dps on monk is still so horrible with the addition of the SU3 gear.
I don't have the gear nor the time anymore to actually figure this out but this set HAS TO DO DECENT...... Doesn't it? I get that WS damage is still not amazing but the Crit hits, dmg and AM3 with TA etc has to perform well.

ItemSet 352102

The sets in the OP are better, and yes, MNK is really that bad. Their white damage is good but their WS are just absolutely pitiful compared to all other jobs. Kendatsuba +1 isn't even a massive gain over prior pieces, the problem is that their white damage is not enough to compensate for their absolutely pitiful WS damage. Even jobs like WAR who can pump out 4k+ crits using Ukon still have a noticeable bias in DPS towards WS dmg over melee dmg, and MNK doesn't do anything near that.

And Vereth doesn't work the way it probably should (one hand without multiattacks vs. all hands with multiattacks).

Give MNK 4 arms. Problem solved.

1. make relic/mythic/empyrean traits proc on offhand
2. change Victory smite
3. Get rid of *** Martial arts traits all together. *** it just lose it, drop it from the damn game.

let mnk dual wield h2h and add dmg, might be an easy fix.

Martial Arts would be okay if they made overflowing not reduce your TP/swing despite not reducing your delay. I think H2H WS in general need an overhaul.

Also RME only proc on a single hit on the mainhand too, so that also needs fixing given that other jobs can do TA 3x procs Q_Q

Whats the current state of overcapping -delay with all the Martial Arts Gifts?

Total MA is -210 from trait (MA7 = -200 delay) and gifts (-5 each at 100/1200 gifts). What that means is that for any currently viable H2H weapon (delay ranging from +49 to +96), you will be slightly overcapped if you have capped magical haste (448/1024) and equipment haste (256/1024). Exact amount depends on your weapon delay:

• For a +96 weapon (e.g. Glanzfaust, Denouements), you actually don't hit capped delay reduction until you have approx. -208 delay from MA. Meaning you are actually still uncapped (barely) until you have 1200 gift, and even at 1200 you're so slightly overcapped that the impact is effectively little more than a rounding error.

• For the lower delay weapons like Godhands (+60), Condemners (+54), Vereth (+51), Comeuppances+1 (+49)... you're already slightly over cap with just the MA7 -200 trait and capped haste. The two gifts just add -5 more unnecessary MA each, and no benefit except in situations where you're lacking full haste buffs.

Honestly though... overcapped delay via MA is still a pretty tiny TP/hit reduction, and one you can't realistically avoid. So while it is a minor annoyance, I just accept it and don't think it's really THAT big of a deal. You might as well just factor the slight TP/hit reduction into the weapon itself (i.e. if it makes you feel better, just pretend Godhands have an invisible Store TP-1).

The real takeaway is just to avoid using additional MA gear if you're haste capped. That isn't very difficult, since the potentially worthwhile MA options are minimal at best (arguably Bhikku Cyclas+1 has some use, but even that is debatable/situational).

Really, the only MA item in the game where it becomes a legitimate problem is for PUP with Kenkonken (MA-50). That's such a substantial chunk that it's enough to make for a real penalty if you're getting capped haste (and kinda annoying to gear for even if you intentionally limit yourself to Haste II only and need to make up ~40 more MA through the rather limited selection of decent MA gear; it's doable, but a hassle). Can be very much worth dealing with for the benefit of OA2-3x on master AND puppet, but it's irritating for sure.

I guess it would be cool if one day S-E decided to change MNK's 100/1200 gifts though, so they at least always provide some benefit instead of ZERO gain (and actually a slight detriment) in frequent scenarios. Something like crit dmg, crit rate, KA rate would all be preferable. But I don't see that happening... FOR BALANCE, we must not take away the benefit to the unbuffed MNKs who really want that extra h2h delay reduction!

Vere is delay-capped with a single march from a buffed bard and haste. Spharai needs moonbow whitle+1 though but it nearly capped whith +2. Also vere's aftermath not procing on main hands is not big deal. SE has made the weapons this way so that godhands-spharai-vere give nearly the same damage output (vere still slightly outperforms spharai which still outperforms godhands though). Besides double-attack sucks compared crit+ this days.

This gear is good, but currently nothing seems to surpass full kendatsuba+1, I'm not sure why people want those abjurations, except maybe the ryu tekko +1 and that would be only for victorysmite.

Another thing to remember is that AM3's "Occasionally deals triple damage" will only proc on first hit. While you might swing 4-6 hits a round, only 1 will be subject to triple damage. I'll have to wait to try it out for myself as I'm currently building through the 95 stage on my Vere. I was just as curious as you to the same notion after AG'ing Caladbolg on DRK and seeing the massive damage AM3 has done over the past 2 years.

games to easy now, must mnk everything!

If you want things to be harder, use DRKs and WARs. Monks make things slower but easier.

The thought behind those pieces was the crit dmg increase and increase crit rate to help counter balance the lack of ws power. Clearly from what others have been mentioning, it still isnt enough but that was the original thought behind the +1 abj gear. I would have also made the cape crit hit as opposed to the da.

I'm not sure anything here is actually true.