IiPunch - Monk Guide

tldr; you see what you want to see, and most players are sufficiently comfortable killing most content at this point that there's arguably no need for MNK

it's symptomatic of a bigger problem, gear/coordination is being inflated to unsustainable levels, none of the top players are even remotely challenged by anything currently in the game with any setup and SMNs done damn near the same thing for the lower players

Migawari?

Doesn't save you from multihit, has a long recast, won't save you from a double attack leading into a TP. MNK can natively survive damn near everything.

Wouldn't be surprised if MNK starts to outdamage NIN either, once you factor in the time spent on casting miga every 24 seconds and utsu every 5-10.

Fair enough

Tho you need to also admit that in some 1hit cases with really big numbers, Migawari provides much better survivability than high HP. To not search very far, this month ambuscade, you can probably Migawari through both Lance and/or AoE that follows Miasma (in case you failed to break NM to boiling state). Both of those would probably kill MNK.

We've been here before.

A dead MNK won't out DPS a NIN, even a tanking NIN. If the target isn't dishing out 6k+ damage from gimmicky moves, the NIN won't need to be wasting time casting much.

There are so many assumptions and caveats to your analysis.

If using MNKs or NINs or anything on a target even remotely dangerous, there will be a tank. In which case, Counter means nothing and the target is getting TP from beating on the tank. Shadows will save the NIN from some AOE moves. The MNK is left to... Guard, or /NIN itself for fewer shadows and more cast time.

With a tank, the NIN can attack from behind for greater DPS and enmity reduction, never taking hate--even from a PUP tank.

MNK as a job struggles to justify one spot in a party, let alone two or three. So your calculations are more meaningful when you pair a MNK with another job and look for the best synergy. MNK + WAR... MNK + RUN... MNK + COR... The benefits of MNK's Subtle Blow blows away as you start to add better jobs into the mix. I think there might be a best pairing, and I think finding it might give MNK a niche like BLUx2 has for self-capping Haste (with great survivability, without sucking at DPS), but, to date, that pairing has not been found or proposed.

Lastly, and this is big, your TP/second analysis lacks any consideration of the target's own forced delay from casting spells or weapon skilling.

It is tricky.
In a vacuum, Bhikku Hose +1 offer an additional 20 kicks in 100 attack rounds, +1 STP over Samnuha Tights, and better Accuracy/Attack. But Kick Attacks are weaker than punches without being paired with Kick DMG+ feet.
Samnuha Tights offer 18 additional punches across 100 attack rounds.

Herclean Boots with excellent augments offer 24 additional punches across 100 attack rounds.
Anch. Gaiters +3 offer an additional 10 kicks in 100 attack rounds but ensure every kick made in those 100 attack rounds deals the same damage as a punch.

It's from a purely strategic standpoint. When we're coordinating group composition MNK simply doesn't bring enough to the table for someone to be asked to go on that job instead of something more useful. This age of FFXI is about versatility in job selection, no one is going to be asked to go on MNK if they have DNC, THF, NIN or BLU available.

Also remember monsters TP utilization isn't linear because their AI isn't sitting there waiting on the TP gauge to hit 3000 / 1000. Overwhelming that AI is precisely what a melee zerg does and why Subtle Blow is largely meaningless in fights where people care to consider strategy.

In short, no matter what cheerleaders say, there is a reason why MNK isn't used for anything by the community. It's not perception, otherwise we'd have elite groups of MNK's going around mercing everything while making youtube videos of them doing it.

Also MNK's HP isn't anything special anymore due to stat vommit on iLevel gear. It's nice, just not amazing like it used to be.

This isn't a criticism of MNK, it's me being real about how the greater community views it. We can't change definitions to make ourselves successful. MNK's central issue the horrible total damage it provides. It's on the bottom of the DPS pile.

If we are on this topic. I have 16acc/16att 3% QA Herculean Legs. Would the be better than Samnuha for tp?

If the mob requires Migawari, surely NIN is a better choice. Not sure how you think that's relevant. This is a largely situational game and I never said MNK is universally the best choice, or anything even close to that.


Non-lethal AOE shouldn't be mitigated. Doing so just reduces the return when the WHM has to curaga other targets. Not sure why you're talking about counter, as my numbers didn't factor it in. I said it was an extra bonus, but if you review my post those differences are while assuming NIN blinks every hit and MNK mitigates none.

With a tank, RNG can stand outside range of everything and never pull hate. Not sure why you think this is relevant..?

This is all nonsense. You've shown no objective truth, and compared nothing directly. Using all MNKs gives the healers the largest reaction time available to cure your melee. This is a benefit, because even a near naked WHM has vastly excessive amounts of healing available from buffs and af3 legs. If the healer isn't at risk of running out of MP, and you aren't at risk of timing out, surely the most meaningful metric of survival is time allowed to heal. The extra time between TP moves and extra round worth of HP increase this significantly.

Not really, because the time between WS in each example is much larger than the target's WS delay. The mob will be long since done with the WS before it has TP for the next using even 3 NINs, so that is completely irrelevant. Cast may add an extra 0-6 seconds to each example, but it doesn't change the median or mean amount of extra seconds between TP moves that MNK allots.

Congrats on getting something of consideration from Oseem!

The Multi-attack is about the same, though QA is checked first and therefore better to have. The Accuracy is about the same, favoring Samnuha Tights due to their DEX. Samnuha Tights also have more STP.

I don't think anyone could fault you for using those over Samnuha Tights. The only thing worth testing is whether the STP difference slows down your WS frequency.

If you can survive nonstop TP from overwhelming the mob's AI, it doesn't matter what you bring. You're going to win. MNK is not the job of choice for a player near the top of the curve, and it shouldn't be.


Again, elites don't want MNK. That doesn't mean it doesn't have a place by design.

It's an extra benefit that synergizes with the increased time between TP. If you can survive an extra melee round, and there are an extra 10 seconds between TP moves, your healers have a metric shitton more wiggle room to keep you alive and free of debuffs.

This is drastically influenced by how much of the community sees the game as a joke. For every group that's actually struggling with any content here, there are 10 who need to have 3 characters and netflix open to even be amused while doing it because it's so basic to them.

If nobody is struggling, there is no need for half measures. This is why MNK's best times have always coincided with the release of harder content that wasn't largely accessible. It's been over 2 years since anything raised the difficulty bar, and we've had numerous improvements to the availability and cost of quality gear. The game is too easy, nobody needs half measures.

I would agree with the statement: "No quality player in an established group should be using MNK."

To say it's useless is like saying bayld gear is useless. It kind of is. It fills a middle role that almost everyone has outgrown or will quickly outgrow. That doesn't mean it needs adjustment, we don't remove options from lower end players just because we don't need them any more. Not everything has to be about DPS.

Wait, what? So you are saying an ilvl 117 job doesn't need an adjustment when everything else is ilvl 119? Like, it is okay for one out of all other jobs to be fundamentally weaker than other options?

MNK doesn't take less money to gear. It doesn't require fewer Job Points to Master. It is debated here regularly, when anyone wants to waste the time to post about MNK, whether it aids in winning battles in some weird, indirect way that off sets its low DPS. So why is its ceiling at ilvl 117? I want an ilvl 119 MNK with ilvl 119 JAs and WSs.

Bayld gear helps players who aren't yet established accomplish things.

(Playing) MNK can help similarly, if they didn't have to listen to everyone scream autistically about how it does terrible damage.

More time between TP and more time between damage taken and death results in a higher probability of sustaining the fight. If you are using weaker buffs and equipment and can't destroy everything in 30 seconds, you have to focus on being able to stay alive. MNK accomplishes that easily. In a 2-3 DPS group, running MNKs instead of NINs gives an 10 extra seconds between TP moves. Running them instead of heavier DD gives even longer. That is a gigantic benefit when you are doing content that still challenges you. Thus, running MNKs has drastically increased the chances you can stay alive throughout the fight and clear it successfully.

This isn't useful to a player who sees the game as trivial and wins everything every time. Does that mean it needs to be buffed to do equal damage AND keep it's survivability benefits? That's how BLU got to the absurd position it was in a year and a half ago.

I get it, you will disagree until the end of time and ignore every point I raise because you want to believe MNK's terrible. My opinion is that it's balanced, it's just not a pick in top tier groups. Similar to how Mercy(overwatch) is great for people who can't aim, but falls behind as the average skill of your group increases.

MNK shouldn't be some kind of Playskool My First Job. It should have more depth than that. Because every other job does. This isn't balance.

For groups struggling as you described, they would be better served to use RNGs, again, as you described. Gear better. Get better support. Anything else than investing gil and time building a MNK for the reasons you have described.

Mercy is a 'Playskool My First Job'. They've had a hell of a time balancing her, because when they made her good enough to have a place in high end meta, she became the defining factor in whether low end groups could win. A team with a Mercy would almost always beat a team without a Mercy. Now, she has a minimal and extremely situational role in a high end group, and that role expands as you get into weaker groups until she's likely the best option at mouthbreather levels.

I don't think that's inherently wrong. A role that's more viable for less accomplished players is still a useful role, you can freely job change anytime you want and much of your gear can be resold or used on other jobs.

MNK gets amazing accessories at a relatively low price, and their Su3 set means they also have an affordable and potent tp/ws set. It's much easier to gear than RNG, and potentially more effective depending on target(tank is still eating TP like crazy with a RNG setup). For omen in particular, TP moves are the largest threat on everything in the zones from the trash mobs through the Caturae.

Let's not pretend every job is equal at the highest levels. Half of them can be ruled out for a group only looking to use the best. Obviously it's a sliding scale, why is it wrong for MNK's peak usefulness to be at the lowest end of the scale? Do you honestly believe a beginner group will be better off using WAR or NIN with minimal buffs/coordination?

The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that FFXI is too easy. With all the tools and experience we have(so many players have been around a decade or more), we don't need an option like that. That's a decent argument for buffing MNK, but it's a better argument for buffing the enemies.

Your argument hinges on skipping right over the beginner phase and becoming an advanced player immediately. Sadly, it's pretty close to true for ffxi, but that's not good design and that isn't how it should be. It's likely not what the developers have in mind either, and they're probably disappointed to see their whole progression being skipped over because of how overpowered the players currently are.

With Ambuscade gear? Yes.
If buying SU3 or gear of comparable expense? Still yes.


Gearswap. That said, I'm not going to boohoo for the developers.

This doesn't happen.

I've gone over the enemy AI many times and yet people get amnesia.

1. Starting at 3000 TP (HP > 25%)
2. Readies TP Move -> 1~3 seconds (TP feed is meaningless because it's already 3000TP)
3. Does TP Move, TP is now 0+Return
4. Waits 2s due to lockout
5. Checks TP, less then 3000TP so cast spell instead
6. Starts casting spell 1~5 seconds
7. Finish's casting spell, waits 3 seconds due to lockout
8. Checks TP, if 3000TP then go to 1.

This means one TP move every 8~11 seconds because of all those lockouts and TP given during WS charging time is meaningless along with TP given past 3000 during casting and cast lock. Heavy DD's routinely give several thousand TP yet don't get hit with a TP move every second because the monster is incapable of doing two actions at once and must wait after an action before starting a new one.


Not only that, it's not a choice for a player on the bottom of the curve, nor the middle of the curve, or anywhere on the curve. It's a choice for a player standing in town reminiscing. For newer players BLU is FAR better, it's high floor and flexibility ensures they can complete entry and mid level content to prepare themselves for bigger things. On the many "I just returned what job should I gear first" threads do you hear "gear MNK it'll help you out".

So
Not wanted to high end content
Not wanted in low end content
Not wanted by new players
Not wanted by experienced players

But somehow there isn't a huge *** problem....

Are we doing this again

Okay, so your example is a TP move every 8 seconds, up to 11 if it was casting while it was ready to TP. Many of those are 2000-3000 TP.

With 3 MNKs, the mob doesn't even hit 1000 TP until 17.5 seconds. If casting, that's up to 20.5 seconds.

Are you honestly trying to say that there's no difference when you reduce the TP spam by 50% and the average TP value by 2/3? I don't understand why you keep mentioning this logic as if I don't understand it.

Y'all are ridiculously stubborn and have yet to actually provide any sound logic to support other jobs being more failsafe.

Asura.Saevel

Because of this statement


Every 8~11 seconds isn't non-stop.

Usually it's around 9~10 seconds in practice, can be as low as 8 if it casts a really fast spell like Diaga or Holy, can be 11 or more if it's doing something silly like Firaga III / Flare II. There is a two second after a TP move finish's before it can start again and unlike players monsters TP moves aren't instant actions, animation time also acts as a pause, same with spells and attack round animations. MNK's still feed far less TP but the difference isn't sufficient enough to justify the dramatic drop in DPS. Yes it is that dramatic in a game where damage is dominated by special moves.

And ultimately you know what else reduces the number of TP moves a NM does? Killing it faster. The faster something dies the less time it has to do TP moves, especially in the critical period under 25% HP where it now goes at every 1000TP instead of every 3000TP. Now the benefit of MNK as a utility DD, similar to BLU / NIN / DNC / THF, which are DD's that sacrifice damage from utility, would be realized if it simply did enough damage to be competitive. It doesn't and a group gains nothing from using a MNK over an equally geared / played BLU / NIN / THF / DNC.

This is from someone who's tried to "Make Monk Great Again", which no ***was an actual project I embarked on last year with some friends of mine. We actually tried to shoehorn MNK into various content and it wasn't worth it, they provided nothing of value while doing considerably less damage. Feeding half the TP while taking twice as long to kill something is a net loss.

The thing here is that with H2H WS being the way they are, white damage makes up a higher percentage of MNK's overall DPS than any other job. That gives KA damage some additional importance in the analysis, as opposed to something like NIN's Daken that is really purely an extra TP source for more WS (and which doesn't really require significant other melee/multiattack/STP gear sacrifices in order to gear for Daken, at least not to the extent MNK having to consider swapping legs/feet does).

It's complicated, because to some extent you have to balance what you're DOING with your MNK WS.
* Do you want faster WS because you have a strong desire for SCs (and not necessarily as focused on the WS damage itself)? In that case, you might reasonably care less about how much damage the KA does and instead be more focused on TP generation from KA rate, h2h multiattack, and STP.
* Are you just talking MNK's personal non-SC DPS in a vacuum (i.e. the stuff a spreadsheet is built to analyze)? Well, given the job's damage split toward white damage, KA damage becomes more of a relevant consideration.

I'm kinda inclined to think that in most situations, a MNK gearing like a "normal" light DD (i.e., ignoring KA gear and using stuff like Samnuha/Herculean) leads to better results for practical applications, even if not on spreadsheet.


I'm a little skeptical of saying that - even if it is actually intentional to make MNK the one job out of 22 designed for weaker players to make things a little easier but give it a lower ceiling on damage potential - constitutes acceptable balance.

Realistically though, I think a lot of people are glossing over the fact that our "new content" for 2017-2018 is monthly Ambuscade, and Dynamis-Divergence.

Ambuscade: MNK has actually been rather useful on a lot of Ambuscade fights, which tend to be based on gimmick mechanics. Last month's trick relying less on zerg DPS and more on hitting a lot of crits to drop auras? MNK was a great choice. The Corse one where blunt damage was king? I smoked good "traditional DPS" jobs on MNK. If there's some fight where MNK's significant subtle blow mechanics could come into play to deal with "f you" TP moves, I could see MNK being a reasonable choice.

Dynamis-Divergence: Dyna is Dyna, and with the vast majority of the event being farming, MNK is as fine as any other melee for non-bosses. They could maybe throw MNK a bone on future NMs/bosses by giving them some sort of blunt weaknesses, but otherwise it's not as if not being KING OF DPS on some 10+min ilevel 140+ fight really matters. If melee works, MNK works.

Other still relevant content in 2018 FFXI:

Difficult Aeonic NMs: this is an area where MNK fails in competition with other DDs when considering a melee strat on difficult Aeonic NMs. Whatever, what's designed is designed and I'm not really obsessed with rebalancing MNK around content that was created in 2015.

Omen: To a lesser extent, MNK is arguably less ideal for Omen NMs than other melee DDs if you're using a melee setup in the first place. But it's not as if you can't still do Omen with MNK if you decided to go the melee route.

Anything else people are doing in 2018 is basically trivial content where any job is fine.

Thanks for repeating what everyone already knows for the ~fourth time in two pages, even after a post was made mocking it?

This is not definitive as an argument. If you want to win the fight, and it's something you consider challenging, you aren't that concerned about fighting for 5 minutes or 15. As long as you aren't at risk of timing out, and you won't be, a win is going to be infinitely better than a loss regardless of time spent.

Irrelevant. You don't die because a mob managed to use 100 TP moves over the course of a fight. You die because two of them were close enough together to kill people, or did enough damage that someone died prior to being healed. Ebers Pantaloons make long term sustainability a non-issue.

Meaningless speculation.

Let me try to spell this out again.

If a monster TPs every 11 seconds, your WHM has time to make two casts in between them, maybe 3 if they are single target or -na and the WHM has capped FC. Any other healers get the same, but with weaker spells. This is enough for a competent group in optimal conditions. It may not be enough for every group.

If a monster TPs every 20 seconds, your WHM has time to make 5 casts to clean up the monster's action before the next TP. This is more than enough for ANY group in ANY conditions.

It doesn't matter if the mob TPs 100x or 200x during the fight, if you always have enough time to recover you will live. If you do not, you won't.

If a 2000 TP move puts you at a higher risk of death than a 1000 TP move, which is a logical assumption, that's a further consideration to make.

Probably true. I think, with current gear, the best set is probably Samnuha Tights and Anch. Gaiters +3 simply because Samnuha Tights are barely worse than Bhikku Tights +1 and, although, 10 < 24, that extra damage on the 39 kicks per 100 rounds is substantial.
That said, I haven't made Anch. Gaiters +3. So, although I am saying this, I'm not advocating investing gil or inventory into MNK, at this time.

Even for the instances offered, there were better options. MNK could break the auras, but then it was lacking when it came to zerging down the Boss. It could not survive the Boss like NIN. For the Qutrub, other DDs could do just as well if they used lower base damage, faster swinging weapons. MNK caught up to them because the additional damage other jobs could do was wasted due to the damage multiplier at play. NIN excelled here also due to the higher number of shadows per cast--endeath was a thing and Counter was not reliable on its own.
Nothing wrong with using MNK, but it didn't outshine other jobs. It simply outshined it's typically dim performance.

MNK can't make Darkness skill chains, and Darkness is king for beating NMs in a small group. Try going with BLMs, CORs and BLUs (mostly for their AOE spells, but also for opening skill chains). If zerging a Boss... Yeah, no.

According to my spreadsheet you are wrong !

Comeatmebro... I get where you're coming from on a theoretical perspective.

As a practical matter though, what monsters are we actually talking about where buying your WHM some extra casts in between TP moves is a practical thing that determines survival?

T4 Aeonic NMs? You prob need a better healer (and a more zerg oriented DD team) if you're doing melee style on those mobs, this isn't content that's made for "Playskool My First Jobs". If your group isn't ready for this, honestly they prob aren't ready for any melee setup and would be far better served with SMN/ranged/magic approaches, or gearing up better before attempting to do a melee win.

Really hard D~VD Intense Ambuscade fights? Again, there's no need for a "starter job" - the content already has a range of selectable difficulty levels if you have skill/gear limitations at play. That's a much better approach than balancing a supposed DD job to accommodate those limitations.

Weaker Geas Fete stuff with a melee setup? Honestly, slowing DPS in the name of reducing TP feed isn't the answer - you just need to get better WHMs (or use a non-melee strat) if this is really an issue for you.

Bro monk is dead. You can do all the math and hypotheticals you want no one plays the job.

I'm not talking about specific content, I'm justifying the job in it's current state from a design perspective. It has a very potent ability (neutralizing TP throughout a fight) that counterbalances it's comparatively lower DPS. It's supporting abilities all go along with that type of fight(self heal, passive damage mitigation, innate survivability).

This made it great in Salvage, Delve, non-PD legion, pretty good for ADL farm when those were current events. It was strong in alluvion skirmish, Sinister Reign when they were newer and more threatening. There isn't much content right now that's threatening, which does mean it's fallen to the wayside. I don't think that means the job is poorly balanced, I consider it to mean we need more challenging content. I don't think many high end players can say they are challenged on a regular basis.

If you insist on picking an event, Omen would be the obvious choice. Everything from the trash mobs, midbosses, Caturae themselves, has potent TP moves and counterable melee. The higher HP pool makes it easier to deal with some of the HP% moves, and the time limit is very generous.

The fact you can simplify everything to getting better players or a simpler setup illustrates exactly how overpowered we are. You trivialize all content to the point that if you're not winning, you must be terrible and need to replace people. That's not how a balanced MMO looks. I'm not struggling with anything, I was one of the first to clear almost every piece of content for the last decade. That doesn't mean I can't look at things objectively and view the stats for what they are.

I don't really disagree with your points, but it's not as if using MNK on a lot of these Ambuscade fights is a massive disadvantage - and sometimes it's at least one of the top handful of job choices. I'm OK with it at least being a perfectly viable option on many of these fights, job inclusiveness is all I'm really after.


This is actually a pretty great point about a general MNK issue that bothers me, where a change to a single H2H WS could give MNK significantly more utility. In lowman/lower TP feed situations, I like that NIN gives me the ability to easily use both light and darkness SCs. In addition to their obvious darkness WS, THF DNC have some light tools to work with too, in Exenterator & Mandalic Stab. Even the other H2H user is better off than MNK in this respect, because PUP gets Stringing Pummel and its Gravitation property at least allows some ability to work with Darkness SCs, even if it isn't a Lv3 Darkness WS.

Asuran Fists is also Gravitation. It may be worse than Pummel but you're already bringing up stuff like Exenterator (which is a greater loss to those jobs).