IiPunch - Monk Guide

Yes, Mpaca is even better tho generally.

Have been wondering between Ryuo Tekko +1 and Mpaca's Gloves for Victory Smite (both impetus up and down build). They have both the same crit. rate bonus, but Ryou have crit. dmg bonus and double attack while Mpaca triple attack bonus and more str. Worth mentioning that there my Mpaca's Set is still not augmented.

Ryuo path A, not D. Then Ryuo has +4STR, +5%crit damage vs Mpaca +3%TA and +56attack. In this case Ryuo will significantly win for attack capped and marginally lose for attack uncapped.

Thank you.

If you ask me, at least with Impetus Up, I'd go for Ryuo A regardless of being att capped or not. Wouldn't you, Simon?

Well yeah, thats what I meant. The gain when attack is uncapped is super marginal on Mpaca, while gain on attack capped is significant on Ryuo, so its better to Ryuo. You can toggle Mpaca for uncapped attack set if you have such toggle, but the difference is really marginal.

How do you guys even know when attack is capped or not without some crazy equation? Just look at buffs and assume?

Yeah just experience. If you see your capped numbers several times, you can recognize when you are capped again.

Simon just answered you.

Personally it doesn't matter much to me. I have several toggles in my lua but I don't have one for capped/uncapped att.
So most of the time I calculate my sets judging what would be the best piece in a situation where I have a good amount of att but not at cap.

It's of course a compromise, it's not the best, but we all have to draw a line somewhere, especially if you have multiple geared jobs and multiple luas to mantain updated.



I have a couple of exceptions here and there of course, like stuff I know I'm gona use only or mostly when I'm capped/overcapped and stuff like that.

if you have mastery, moonbelt+1,Niq ring, sherida earring you dont need any more subtle blow II

What's general consensus these days on when to use which WS with Godhands?

I'm down to my last few HELMs before finishing them, but that means it's time for me to wrap my head around how to best use them (and maybe not just mindlessly spam Victory Smite, lol). Gear-wise I pretty much have everything relevant in 2021, except no augments on my Nyame set yet.

godhands are really strong with Howlng fist, tornado kick, and dragon kick.

Appreciate the reply, but I'm kinda looking for what situations to use what WS with Godhands. Like, some specific Qs:

- Is Howling your default damage WS in a 'neutral' situation?

- I get that Tornado Kick is strong with Footwork up, but do you ever use it without Footwork? In what kinds of situations might you want to use DK over TK?

- What about Raging Fists, where does it fit these days?

- How, if at all, do your WS choices change when you have Impetus up/down? Or when you are/aren't attack capped?

Not-Godhands makes stuff a little easier, since "spam Victory Smite" is pretty much always a winner. GH are a bit trickier to me ;)

Good questions!


Howling fist is my default ws for 4/5 minutes(we'll get to that) in most situations where it's just ws spam. If I am skill chaining I do the 4 or 5 step light but this is mostly just kei fights.

Tornado kick + footwork is the highest damage you will see, I regularly do 80k-capped dmg in wave 3 with brd/cor buffs. I generally pop all my ***at once and use tornado kick for the first minute then move to howling until it's time to do it again.

Only time I ever use raging fists on mnk is hitting the 30K ws in omen, its the most consistent for that.

I will say I might be missing things, Even with impetus up I still never use victory smite, just howling all day long.

hopefully this helps, I'm no expert I just play the job.

Just rolled a fresh new superior race on Asura. Did they fix MNK (Last time I played on retail was 2017)

Interesting that you managed to get into asura...

Did they "fix" it? Every(most) h2h ws is stronger than it was.

Personally I think mnk is tied with drg as the highest dps output.

MNK was actually good when everyone was bitching about it. Lower DPS, but amazing defensives.

Now, it's pretty much just a worse DRK since Sakpata gives DRK and WAR the best of both worlds.

MNK rulz

pfft "fix monk" i had vere built in 2011, hmps and all that jazz invested, if you love a class you love. Meta don't matter.

say that all you want but it's not going to get you invited to things. I love mnk but I would never take one on an odyssey C farm.

Yes, they fixed monk. For a stretch (10 months? a year?) IMO it was the best or most well-rounded overall melee dps, with very high damage under Impetus, good damage outside of Impeteus, and great defenses.

However, this year's Odyssey T3/T4 content changed desirability due to needing different damage types in certain fights and for segment farm, plus Bumba being a boring Savage Blade spam fight. WAR and DRK caught up defensively, too. Monk is still great for other content but it's just not as sought after for Odyssey.

NGL when odyssey first opened my first group was a low man with a monk and we did as well as we could, monk has a lot of sustain and since we had trust heals we did the best we could. It was by no means optimized and we had to skip some groups because of blunt resist, it wasn't "Super Effective" but doing odyssey without optimization is still better than not doing the content at all. Particularly for farming.

100% you do what you can, but it doesn't change what the ideal strategy/meta is and you can't blame people for taking the optimal route. I highly doubt my group would be pulling 900k+ runs each time if we took a mnk instead of sam/war/drg we have been. I really don't see mnk having all that more survivability compared to a sam or war either so that argument isn't going to sway my opinion. When a sam can tank a fetter and kill each mob in 2-3 ws it really makes 0 sense to bring a subpar dd. With limited access as well if you have the option you're going to take the best jobs for the task. Mnk is fantastic for dyna and who doesn't love 1 minute vini kills lol.

In a nutshell it's this: MNK is among the top DDs in the game, but it's subpar in today's most popular content, Odyssey (except for blunt specific bosses). As a 4 year returnee though, that means you'll probably still be doing stuff like Omen, Ambuscade, Dynamis, UNM, etc... which you'd do great bringing MNK to any of those.

I'm a firm believer in people who play DD jobs should be able to cover all damage types; blunt, slashing, piercing, or magic. So if you build MNK, also build a WAR or SAM for starters so you'll have something useful for every event. Don't be that guy who can only come on the same job to every event.

This is well put, I agree with your opinion on dds to a degree, I would prefer someone with a dd, gear a support or tank job before another dd then work on expanding their damage options. I have next to 0 interest in players with just dd jobs no matter how well geared they are.

Also if you have a well geared mnk gearing sam is super easy. The longest part is waiting for the body clears from dynamis D otherwise get a doji and some of the jse then just kenda/mpaca/tate will cary the you through most of the gearing up of sam. I think it was 15 to 20 pieces of gear I needed for sam after gearing up mnk.

MNK isn't just weak because of blunt being underrepresented in Odyssey. MNK's greatest strength was their balance of defensives and damage, largely fueled by Kendatsuba and Malignance providing amazing defensives alongside competitive to best in slot offensives.

Now that Sakpata is available, DRK and WAR are in the same situation. Both have access to 65 SB with dagon, while still having significantly higher DPS than MNK. DRK has drain 3, which is much more potent than mantra on anything it lands on. Dread spikes is comparable to counter. Absorb-TP and soul enslavement have found their way into hybrid zerg+tp limit strategies. Stun and weapon bash are undeniably very powerful defensive abilities on monsters they land on. If you really need sustain, you have the option of apocalypse.

DRK was always intended to be a glass cannon DPS, but these days it's the most defensive DPS there is. It's a better MNK than MNK is. The only time where MNK is going to be the higher utility job is if TP is insanely threatening to the point that you absolutely have to have penance. Ironically, the only fight that comes to mind for that is Mboze, which has to be done with slashing damage anyway. So, MNK is relegated to fictional scenarios and blunt bonus.

I play pretty much all the DD's and I still prefer MNK in Ody.

Its just the most rounded, has the lowest volume of gear requirements, and requires the least babysitting.

I like WAR, DRK, SAM, NIN and all can put out more e-peen numbers, but to be honest I find them varyingly more fiddly or monotonous to farm with.

What makes XI unique is the fact that certain jobs excel for certain encounters. If we had perfect balance across the board it would be more like modern mmos. And they are stale.