IiPunch - Monk Guide

It's like. I've been saying that already. For years. Hmm.

The sheer amount of straight *** the top end spout, that the low end follow like the *** gospel of altana is staggering

If you aren't in a VERY small subsection of players, every DD is identical. Thinking that your lolgroup can't win if you pick a DRG instead of a SAM or a MNK instead of a WAR is HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE. And all everyone on here does is perpetuate that ***. 5 nosubjob Monks are going to clear Normal Ambuscade just as fast as 2 shoutsams with cor brd and geo.

Seemed kind of related, in a way.

The reason I like you is because you say that and ALSO participate in the thread XD


That's not really fair, since there are legitimate reasons people might end up meleeing a counter mob from the front... People can still pull hate, you might be TPing with a RUN tank or something, fighting adds/pulling single mobs off a Divergence tank, etc.

These examples are all still consistent with Saevel's point that usually when players get killed and the WHM truly has no real chance to save them, it's because of random weird stuff. NOT that they are dying because that darn NM just TPs too fast since we aren't using enough Subtle Blow...


You're also hitting on another of my problems with this idea that MNK is the "SAFE" and "RELIABLE" choice and that's somehow a unique niche. I disagree. If people are really concerned about safety and DDs getting rocked by TP moves, why wouldn't you use ranged setups over MNKs? MNK setup is actually harder to heal, since there are more people in range getting hit. On a ranged strat, only the tank is in range. When the healer ONLY has to take care of the tank, then it's easy enough to heal to the point where it's irrelevant whether the mob TPs slightly faster because your RNG COR are feeding it more TP than a MNK would.

Not only is ranged very safe (I'd argue it's even SAFER than using MNKs), but RNG COR also have the significant advantages of putting out more DPS than MNK, have strong physical OR magical WS options, and have better SC flexibility. So tell me again how MNK is somehow the best choice for this "safe DD" niche?

Personally, I do a lot of content with a group that's good enough to clear most endgame stuff fine (beyond the top tier Escha NMs and Divergence T2 boss+). But we aren't mega-elite and sometimes we do have to carry some people, deal with less than ideal WHMs, etc. That's fine, I'd rather play the game with what we've got than wait for perfection. And we use RNG COR setups a lot, precisely because it's a much safer fight than just pointing the SAM/WAR/BLU/THF/whatevers at the mob and potentially winning a little faster (at the cost of much greater risk of failure). Working with setups that ease the burden on your support is helpful sometimes, I get it! But if that's your situation, why not use rangers instead of monks?

Again, I'm not saying people can't win - and even EASILY win - content with MNKs. If you want to do it that way, great. But don't act like you're unlocking the secret of MNK's super-awesome niche, when they (a) don't even do that "safe damage" job role better than other DDs, and (b) you probably don't even need it over other melees in most situations if your healer isn't terrible.

The groups trying these MNK setups tend to be groups that have already won the same content with "heavy DDs" and are trying something new anyway, proving that they don't NEED monks. I don't really see people saying they just couldn't clear a certain piece of content until they changed their setup to MNKs, and that's what put them over the top.

I GET IT that sometimes people just wanna use MNK anyway, knowing it's not "optimal". That's totally fine! But if that's what you want to do, just say that. I totally respect that, much more than making tenuous arguments that MNK is somehow actually BETTER than other choices in scenarios where you're dealing with X, Y, and Z, and your healer is a llama with poor reaction time, and the mob uses super deadly attacks that are causing your party to wipe...

Because if you dont emphasis the additional benefit, then its counter productive to job balance.....

There are 9 pure melee DD in game, one of them has to have highest dps ceiling, then whoever isnt on top will need a different advantage to balance the fact that they cant keep up.

The problem is that top tier groups could ignore every other additional benefit and go for highest dps and still win. Or people who main/liked their jobs want to win parse on their favorite jobs.

So how can you balance the game then?

Remove the additional benefit from low dps ceiling job and give them higher dps ceiling? That makes every DD clone of each other.

Make the additional benefit more of a necessity rather than additional benefit? Suddenly those jobs will be the only job people ever use in content.

Give mnk identical dps to war isnt solving the issue, people will just mnk all things AND get high hp/less tp moves then make their RUN be the full break *** instead. On the same time complain NIN and BLU being behind on dps.

Monk doesnt get anything special, thats why it shouldnt be last place.

There is nothing monk can do that every other job cant. That's why it should be stronger. It has NOTHING to offer but dps.

Even if chiblast 100% prevented ALL tp moves for the entire duration it STILL wouldn't get used because tp moves aren't dangerous enough, only mildly annoying (*to capable groups)

Besides blu for aoe burning in dyna and thf stealing sp, none of the dd do anything special in endgame either. And even then stealing sp isnt required in endgame, just convenience.

I agree that it will be nice to have a few fights actually benefit mnk.

This is the (only) fight that mnk being the best choice as a DD.
https://youtu.be/4P2_Lodklzc

If there are more mechanics like this, mnk would have higher demand, while still different from heavy zerg jobs.

Is it really much of an "additional benefit" when other jobs (like RNG COR) fill the same "safe DD" role better than MNK? Or when using stronger melees still results in comfortable wins in less time that it takes to kill with MNKs?

What's the "benefit", other than increasing the time between TP moves that weren't going to cause your party to lose anyway even when the mob uses the moves at a greater frequency? I mean, yeah, the mob TPs slower... but who the hell cares unless that's actually the difference between you winning and losing (and everyone here knows that's very, very rarely the case with a decently attentive healer)?

If safety is someone's argument for MNK, why not just advocate for other DD jobs TPing in heavy DT- sets all the time to knowingly gimp their damage a bit but provide more defensive cushion (and still have much stronger WS)? That's obviously not necessary. Just swap into DT sets when necessary, and don't gimp your damage 100% of the time (like you are when you're swapping out a stronger DD for a MNK).


That fight WAS glorious times for MNK and PUP, for that one month! I had fun!

It doesnt matter if it's needed or just cool, monk gets neither anything cool, convenient, necessary, fun or special.

It's a pretty simple concept for someone that understands balance.

Monk can literally only punch things in the face. Poorly.

A job capable of self healing (more than once every 3 minutes), self haste, mitigate damage with shadows, have nearly equal subtle blow, better weaponskills, better skillchain abilities, burst potential, party buffs, under no circumstances can be allowed to be stronger physically.

It is an impossibility.

I mean look. Start fixing some basic level ***. 2hand acc cap, with single hand equipment. Choose one. Give grips or 99% acc. Make subtle blow matter, it's not strong enough for monk only. Give more things h2h weaknesses. improve the damn weaponskills. No magic ws at all? dodge focus and boost /ugh

Proof of rng being a stronger DD than mnk? Im not yet convinced, personally. Although Im open to parse result or sim says otherwise.

Stronger =/= better, necessarily. Though ranger is stronger, too.

Before this derails further into the imaginary world of highest theoretical DMG done by pixels, you must understand that most of people just want to have fun/connected regardless of their skill/rank.

Being good/bad has nothing to do with paying subscription to a 15 year old game!

Some people just want to chill/talk and clear stuff up without drama, others are hooked on speed (literally) and want to smash everything under 30s to get high.. that’s all good but won’t change the fact that:

NA players build their meta on individuality and obsession with DPS [so of course all other jobs that don’t hit the DMG ceiling are going to suck and branded useless, and definitely support jobs will do a very mediocre “support” because it’s not needed to cover other aspects or help out their WHM due to How short their fights are]

Japanese players build their meta on group collaboration and not overwhelming each other. [hence SB, Shadows, support jobs that help in healing or w/e so they sub accordingly, not to mention DPS jobs subbing DNC to help out if needed]

Ask yourself this question: do you wish to enjoy this game on your own or with others? The first scenario will definitely give your ego a boost (pun intended) but on the expense of others.

The second scenario will give you a sense of community and collective achievement since everyone connected and did their best equally.

Right now there is no denying that MNK needs help, but definitely shouldn’t be discarded because a random meta said so.

It’s still used and will remain used for various reasons by the player base wether you like it or not.

I basically agree with everything you said except one thing:


Japanese players do VD speed clears like NA, and they do record their clear speed then posts their clear time on YouTube video title as way for ego boost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdFSgaVi4hY

In this 3:20 VD clear video from a top end JP group, the title says 3:20 sec clear as a way to advertise their clear speed to the public. And obviously they used 2h DD as primary dps.

If you ever encounter a jp group that sub dnc on dd, they are probably not top end group. Just players dont care or undergeared for the content that they do so they have to.

Ego boost is basically what separates from serious groups and "I don't care" groups. If it isnt for the purpose of ego boost then nobody would min max anything, may as well dont discuss mechanics on forums, don't attempt hard content, don't try speed clears and don't have fun with ffxi. So there's nothing wrong with that.

But if someone else cant have fun as a result of people min maxing, then there's something wrong with the community.

If someone really enjoy mnk and want to play it, just let them.

That’s all great but:
Using Ambuscade isn’t indicative to the behavioral patterns of player base.
It’s intended to be cleared as fast as possible to make queuing easier for the rest and/or cash out quickly.

In top tier scenarios and based on server and/or personal participanttion with them; they do operate drastically differently than NA players.

We’ve had this discussion before and the purpose here was to shed more light or get others out of the current box for a second.

I’m more than positive that SE is currently working on MNK and if I remember correctly few pages back a player posted that they sent in “Japanese” their suggested fixes for MNK which I thought was great, heck I even did the same back in June for DNC in the hopes they read/listen.
People need to try harder imo and things should turn out ok.

Or you can invest in a job that doesn't suck and get a much better return.

S-E has been petrified since the complaints rolled in non-stop in the Abyssea era and I just don't think they have enough of a team left to go back and keep adjusting Monk until they get it right. Monk will still always be my favorite job though.

It has since received 13 "Thumbs Up" and over 1k views on the JP side (only 250~ views/3 Thumbs up on NA side), using Google Translate feature (so people must be able to understand it to some extent). I still feel like the job needs more cooperation in a party setting, and not just raw damage. Otherwise, if you buff just Monk damage, you still have the question as to "why would you pick Monk vs Warrior/Dark Knight/Samurai?". Hopefully SE looks at it or the JP community shares it with them, or at least a few of the ideas.

JP thread Here

NA thread Here

Small update.

These are the test parameters I'm going with for this comparison. I'm going to be using the same support setup for both instances, only swapping the MNK out for a SAM/DRK/WAR. I'm also considering swapping out the NIN for a RUN or PLD so it better resembles the dominant meta.

NIN/MNK/WHM/GEO/BRD/COR GEO
RUN/DD/WHM/GEO/BRD/COR GEO

The support are going to have the same level of strength for both tests. Idris GEO, Regal COR, 4-Song REMA BRD and a side-GEO for Geo-Fade so the DD can go ham. No SPs will be used from the supports, again to keep things even.

I already have the footage for the NIN and MNK battle... it's going to take something special to beat. I'll need to make sure I get a top tier heavy DD... any takers on the Asura server want to step forward for this weekend?

Send me a tell in-game.

Just need like 10,000 more likes and monk will be great again.

Everyone show how much you like monk. By taking 18 monks to Omen. Surely that will get SE attention.

Also to those that say monk is not great then how is this possible:

back in the day, you'd find people breaking the confinds of meta and taking their job to another level.



this guys openly adds his wipe to show how difficult it was, I remember trying to gear my sam to beable to do the same, but required alot of skill and higher end gear so i failed alot. I don't think i got it even once before the cap was risen.

Altho I do like seeing spicyryan and ruaumoko along with others breaking the modern limits, just shows it doesn't matter the generation, people will break those limits and take w/e job you have to the next level

Take my ddbrd! I will outdps any mnk out there!!!


(I'm kidding off course lol)

Here we go.

Turns out... Monk won.

Same degree of support was provided for both setups.
Idris GEO, Regal COR, 4-Song REMA BRD.
Only the two melee jobs were engaged, the COR stepped back.

are you sure saevel is ok with you posting this

MONK IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

nicely done!

Closing comments "Monk's major problem isn't in the job itself, but in the current meta". Well said.

Inb4 Psuedoscience Saevel: this doesn't prove anything

You mean, exactly what I said 8 months ago, 6 months ago, 3 months ago, and every other time this came up? Yea.

The real question is if having someone Saevel seemingly respects take the same stance will make him question it, or he'll just stick to his hard line.

I've been one of the players who have agreed with those statements that Monk isn't as horrible as people tend to say. This is moreso an issue with a stubborn player community that value "killing as fast as possible" over anything else. No hard numbers, no facts. Just "Monk ws suck".

What does it take to "gear Monk"? You mean su3 equipment and a rema?