IiPunch - Monk Guide

Possibly. Or they could just crowbar the new storyline, relics, and "new relics" together for an excuse to "fix" the weapons. "hey we were gonna do this all along, we just needed to release the story for it".

When augmenting Herc feet for VS what's more impactful the STR augment or the Crit hit damage augment?

Which pieces of +2/3 AF/Relic are worth getting for MNK? I've got deed vouchers to burn and am trying to split them between RUN and MNK to save myself some card farming.

MNK can use all the relic and AF.

Edit: AF hands are really only good for Final heaven (Only piece of AF/Relic I don't carry around)

When do you use Af3?
(Curious As i don’t use any atm)

Bhikku Cyclas +1 is used when Impetus is up.

The artifact feet are must for kicking WS. Relic set for asuran fists. The rest of artifact are basically macro pieces.

Feet: Some TP sets and Kick WS
Body: Chakra
Legs: Counter
Head: Focus and High Acc VS
Could defiantly skip them if you wanted

Edit: To make it clear this is AF+3

What does AF3 mean? Is that AF+3 Or Empyrean? People use that acronym different ways, never know what they're referring to

Confusion in real time. Original comment left out af3(empyrean)

Taint asked "but why do you carry empyrean" (even though comment said af1 and af2)

Answers about af1 not af3

(context matters! "AF" has two meanings)

Meant AF+3....lol

Great responses. Can’t say I’ve ever heard AF3=Emp maybe I’ve been oblivious.

They used to call artifact af1 and relic af2, so by extension, af3 was Empyrean. Evidenced by the fact that Julio responded in kind with an Empyrean piece right after your question.

Always called empyrean af3 it's the third set of "special armor"

AF(1) just assumes Artifact+3
relic +3 being AF2 (typically not af quest #2 but sometimes!)
emp 119+1 being AF3 (until +3 then that's "AF3"

What Buukki said. Also, for the macro pieces the +2/+3 versions are a pretty minor improvement (if any) over the base 119 gear - so it's not really vital to have them fully upgraded for macro purposes.


Since you're comparing MNK to RUN to know which of each specific piece might be a better use of things like Deeds tokens... My take on the piece-by-piece comparison:

AF
Head: RUN
Runeist head is pretty nice for Fast Cast (14%) if you don't have Carmine +1 D head (same FC+14%), and probably the more useful piece. MNK is Focus macro (slight duration increase each upgrade from the 109 version). Either is fine, neither is amazing.

Body: RUN
RUN AF body is the star of the set, AF+3 is a default tanking body choice. Definitely go for that over the niche use of MNK AF (mostly a Chakra macro piece).

Hands: RUN
Runeist hands have Gambit duration increase, which can be important for reducing a mob's defense against a particular element. A couple more seconds of stronger damage window can be pretty relevant here when doing something like a SMN zerg. Go for that over MNK's deceptive looking WSD+10% hands (like Bippin says, mostly a Final Heaven piece only).

Legs: MNK I guess, but neither are impressive
Neither RUN nor MNK are that great. A lot of people inexplicably tend to like RUN legs for resist sets even though they're worse than Turms for Meva and worse than Erilaz +1 for combo Meva/DT-. MNK is super niche though, main use is if you really want to mess with MNK counter sets (like, maybe you have a Spharai).

Feet: MNK
Clear choice here, MNK feet are phenomenal for all things kick (including WS). RUN feet do have some use for Pflug potency increase, I just think MNK are better.

Relic
Set-wide note that especially if you're using Karambit, MNK relic gets some bonus points across the board since 5/5 pieces are great for Asuran Fists.

Head: RUN
Easy call, RUN head is incredible. A staple tanking headpiece with PDT-6%, Phalanx +7 is wonderful, and enhances Battuta is vital for a key JA (though the enhancement is the same from lv90 on up). MNK head is a Chi Blast/Penance macro piece, and a niche WD+10% (Final Heaven) piece.

Body: RUN
Another no-brainer, RUN body has DT-9%/Regen+5 and is a great idle or tanking option, and you need to at least have the lv90+ piece for Elemental Sforzo and Liement macro. MNK body is super-niche, basically Formless Strikes duration macro gear and lv90+ is fine for that purpose (if you even have FS merited any more).

Hands: MNK
Neither are amazing, but Chakra macro gear (stronger healing, remove more effects) is nice - I pretty much just use AF body/Relic hands for Chakras that refill all HP. RUN hands are rather weak, they don't really have any niche.

Legs: MNK? (but this is a close one and YMMV)
Unlike AF legs being a toss-up because neither are terribly useful, this one is a close call because both have solid uses. RUN has enhancing magic duration+ and is a great precast enhancing magic piece. MNK is great for kick sets and it's a must to get at least the lv90 version for Hundred Fists duration.

Feet: MNK
Hesychast feet have fairly limited niche use: counter sets, Asuran Fists, and Mantra macro (lv90+). But Futhark feet are really just a Rayke macro piece and don't require +2/+3 version to do that.

Just my 2 cents, if you like playing RUN you should have no issue getting your RUN cards. Tank is always the slot mising (and healer) it is much more difficult to get MNK cards. MNK contributes nothing to a "card shout" So I would burn AF on mnk.

The relic ones I would pick the piece that is more expensive to make like mnk legs are still ~30m vs run legs @ ~12m that should make the choice pretty straight forward

MNK is really solid for solo farming cards. I did most of my DPS jobs solo which I consider to be way more efficient than typical card groups.

No wait time. Reduced objectives. Zero drama. Zero scrubs extending the run time and messing up objectives.

It was more in the vein of efficacy. Assuming you wanted to solo for money then it wouldn't matter either way.

Would still probably want to opt for mnk freebies and run runs and save all the farming for thf (if all things are optimal/equal)

This is right around the time it started getting really confusing. You had players who qualified for vanilla dynamis who were farming "af2", and at the same time there were people asking about getting help with their "af2"/"af3", which they meant by the #2 & #3 quests. We never established a clear identifier to what we were talking about, so empyrean just made it more of a mess to understand. So now we have 3 sets of armor and people referring/understanding it as the old school version. lol

This is why "+" is important. Af3 != AF+3

AF feet. The JA ones can be left at NQ or +1. AF hands and relic head if you have Spharai. Bhikku hose are more DPS than relic legs if you aren't taking advantage of the extra acc on relic.
AF legs + relic body if you need a counter set.

That's a great point. My analysis was strictly on utility of the gear, but didn't consider cost of voids/shards if buying those for Relic upgrades. So compare those on your server!

Most likely, RUN headshards/voids will be a lot more expensive than MNK.

For legs, for some odd reason on my server RUN legshards are actually like twice the price of MNK legshards, making RUN legs a significantly more expensive piece to buy. But if you're on Asura that's the total opposite, and MNK is more costly there by a longshot.

This was really helpful, thanks a lot. And thanks to everyone else, as well.

Personally I try to +2/3 everything, so I can keep it in 2 slips instead of more. Inventory management is my the ultimate challenge in FFXI (;_;)

I think the entire af2/3 nomenclature should be completely scrapped. Its more confusing now than ever before and it was ALWAYS a stupid Convention.

Its Artifact, Relic and Empyrean.

I don't disagree but sounds like he's using the deeds for them. And going from +1 to +2 is like two acc increase on focus

hello everyone, what's the best victory smite build. i see some good stuff out there but not sure what to go with.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Community_Monk_Guide

Impetus UP
Impetus DOWN

thank you

Recently hit 99 monk as my first job. What weaponskill should I prioritize my gearing efforts on for low content level stuff (e.g. merits/jobpoints/VE ambu/etc.)? I've been using Raging Fists for lack of knowing any better. Is Victory Smite still the go-to? Or is something else just leaps and bounds better and don't bother with it?

smite will perform well with impetus up at 1000 tp.

howling and raging fist both do well at 1750~ tp. howling has attack bonus so useful with low buffs.

shijin without godhands is mostly just once to apply plague.

Howling has a built in attack bonus so great when you have low buffs in particular plus it turns you into one punch man so that automatically makes it the best. Works well with standard tp gear (multi attack), just make sure to use it closer to the 2k tp mark as it scales quite well with tp.