IiPunch - Monk Guide

This may be a stupid question to some, but being new to MNK, I have to ask. I know THF can self-SC really well with Rudra's Storm > Evisceration = Darkness > Rudra's Storm > Double Darkness.

Does MNK have anything similar? Can they self-SC Tier 3 SC's also? Light or Darkness.

VS VS

SS VS VS

I think the build that benefited the most from mpaca is actually Godhands spamming either Howling Fist or Tornado Kick since they scale strongly with tp, the now 950 bonus tp total is pretty big and the rest of the mpaca set is great for those ws's too.

When Impetus is up I expect Vere and VS spam to still be better but when impetus is down or for those who haven't done chloris buds yet this should be a very solid build. Howling Fist also comes with a large attack bonus making it much more effective when you aren't otherwise attack capped, Tornado Kick of course shines when footwork is up.

As far as gearing VS I replaced the places I was using Kenda+1 with Mpaca which seems slightly better. Adhem Head and Ryuo hands though I keep for the crit damage, the tp bonus on mpaca head doesn't do that much for VS compared to the crit damage on adhem head.

For TP my sets haven't changed much since Mpaca has much worse mag eva than Kenda+1, mostly just my counter dt set which uses the mpaca body to have both capped counter and capped dt without the use of counterstance.

Also, just as a general rule of thumb how much Martial Arts does a MNK need in gear to hit the haste cap?

with magic haste capped
spharai: 4.56
glanz: 8.16
vere: -8.04
godhands: 12.48
saggita: 6.36

Would it be possible to have a new overview of recommended gear sets? I feel that the OPs sets are somewhat outdated and I'm not sure if the BGwiki community guide is a better alternative.

Perhaps we can provide gear sets for:
Idle
Low accuracy TP
Medium accuracy TP
High accuracy TP
Hybrid TP
(Counter) tanking TP
Victory Smite
Shijin Spiral
Howling Fist
Raging Fists
Asuran Fists
Tornado Kick
Final Heaven

Honesty, I would start such a thread myself, if could get your feedback on the sets created.

The BG Wiki guide looks pretty up-to-date with the only exception being Mpaca isn't listed on any of the sets.

Someone with some math can back it up but based on gut feeling:

Mpaca Head -> Every WS except VS and Final Heaven
Mpaca Pants -> Every WS except Final Heaven(?)
Mpaca Body -> Hybrid TP set w/ Impetus Down, Any Counter set.

Thank you for letting me know the BGwiki guide is pretty up-to-date. I'll wait for more knowledgeable players to update it to reflect Mpaca's position in this.

Anyone have here have r15 glanzfaust? Is it still dog ***even then?

I do. It's very situational.

Need some testing but I would probably not use Mpaca head for Shijin Spiral as the DEX drop is quite substantial compared to Kendatsuba +1 head.

Mpaca hands with aug give a big boost to white dmg. Someone should figure out at what rank these should replace adhemar +1 hands.

On a similar note, Mpaca's Doublet gets 5 stp and 20 attack at rank 20. Is there ever a point where that's enough to surpass kenda samue +1? You only lose 2% each of triple attack and crit rate, but gain 5 sTP, 6 strength and 71 more total attack.

Even without augments and capped attack, it's pretty comparable to ken +1.

You lose a good chunk of Meva though, so its really situation dependant.

Things only matter when they matter. And don't when they don't.

What’s the ideal rotation for abilities? I’ve been using Berserk+Impetus and then popping Aggressor into focus > warcry > footwork.was some disagreement in my LS on proper rotation.

Bonus question, I should have my vere finished soon. Do you build up to 3k first to get am3 in conjunction with impetus or is it better to just spam VS at 1250 TP?

I'm not sure what magnitude of difference you expect from changing the order of JAs, you might be disappointed by the outcome.

Regardless this is what I prefer to do, which might not be the best but usually provided the best results for me.

A--------------------B-------------C
A: Starting point, 0:00
B: Impetus is over, 3:00
C: End of the cycle, 5:00

I use Impetus and Focus on A.
Focus is for two reasons:
1) The acc is gonna help build stacks faster
2) The Crit from Focus is gonna help compensate for the fact that my Crit+ Impetus stack will be low at start (they build up with each hit after all)

First point most of the time doesn't matter because I tend to cap my acc on targets regardless of my JAs. In some circumstances it's useful I guess.

When I get to B I use Berserk (often with Warcry too) and usually I go with Footwork as well.
I use Tornado somewhere around 1500 TP until Footwork is over, then I use Vsmite or Howling according to my buffs and the target until I get to C.

C is the end of a cycle and the beginning of another one. From the second cycle onwards I'm gonna be at A with ~1 min left of Berserk. This is gonna help with Impetus because for the first seconds my attack bonus from Impetus will be low (that too builds up with stacks)




Now to be completely honest I can't really make use of this cycle everytime, it depends on the content. Sometimes you're gonna have to spend time waiting for targets, for buffs, moving and whatever else. When this happens it can create hiccups in the cycle of course.
But in other circumstances it works well and so far it's what has provided the best results for me in terms of DPS output.
Small differences though.

If I'm going for sustained damage..

Impetus + Aggressor/Focus > impetus wears off > berserk/warcry/footwork

I feel like I benefit more from the attack there if it's needed at all, but you may want to front-load it if you need to burn something down faster. If you have a WAR in group it clears up the overlapping issue pretty nicely as well.


Do I think my tank can get/keep aggro after I open with 3k VS to the chin?

You're building impetus while you're building to 3k so it's not a loss to wait, especially if it means less stress for your tank and healer. If you can push it though, well... isn't that why we MNK?

since vere aftermath is main hand first attacks only, it is less important to maintain am3 than other jobs. it's still free damage though, so any time you can prep tp before the fight, go for it.

I feel like Berserk would be better used after Footwork since you have no active attack bonuses at that time.

If you did something like
A---B-C--A

Where A is Focus + Impetus, B is Footwork and C Berserk you would most likely maintain some form of attack bonus throughout your whole rotation.

I think this is better because it always gives you more attack during the first minute of impetus.

My argument against it during footwork is because footwork applies an attack bonus to kick attacks, as do AF+3 boots so if you didn't need berserk during Impetus's +140 Attack bonus, then you most likely don't need it during Footwork.

This argument goes out the door if you need berserk to hit pdif during Impetus though.

Edit: I'd also recommend using Focus / Aggressor Before you click Impetus, you really don't want to waste time with JA Delay.

Question, other than WSD head and hands for final heaven, are they really lack luster for other Weapons skills, especially ones like Howling Fist and Tornado kick? With the tp scaling on HF, made sense for WSD to shine here, or is it more so for the multi hit attck chance for either first during the WS?

you basically choose between high spikes (multi hit) or lower cosistency (wsd).

for any WS with ftp replication (or 1 ftp on all hits) and >=2 hits, DA is approximately 2x as strong as WSD, and TA is approximately 2x as strong as DA

All % increases are based on the base damage, so should be true no matter how much DA (until you cap) or WSD you have. 5% base dmg on an unmodified WS results in 105% dmg output, 5% base dmg on a WS with +50% base dmg output already results in 155% dmg output (remember this is only a ~3.3% marginal increase).

compare adding 10 DA vs 10 WSD

the first 2 hits can proc DA. 1 extra hit adds 50% dmg, so the expected value of 10 DA per proc check is 5%. There are 2 checks so the expected value is 10%.

10 WSD increases the damage of the first hit by 10%, so an expected value of 5%.


Greater than 2 hit WS devalue DA and WSD.
For a 3 hit WS 1 extra hit adds ~33.3% dmg, so 10 DA has an expected value per proc check of ~3.3%. There are still only 2 checks so the expected value is ~6.6%. 10 WSD has an expected value of 3.3%.
For a 4 hit WS 1 extra hit adds 25% dmg, so 10 DA has an expected value per proc check of 2.5%. There are still only 2 checks so the expected value is 5%. 10 WSD has an expected value of 2.5%.
For a 5 hit WS 1 extra hit adds 20% dmg, so 10 DA has an expected value per proc check of 2%. There are still only 2 checks so the expected value is 4%. 10 WSD has an expected value of 2%.
etc.

TA is obviously more valuable than DA.
For a 2 hit WS 2 extra hits adds 100% dmg, so 10 TA has an expected value per proc check of 10%. There are 2 checks so the expected value is 20%.
For a 3 hit WS 2 extra hits adds ~66% dmg, so 10 TA has an expected value per proc check of ~6.6%. There are 2 checks so the expected value is ~13.2%.
For a 4 hit WS 2 extra hits adds 50% dmg, so 10 TA has an expected value per proc check of 5%. There are 2 checks so the expected value is 10%.
For a 5 hit WS 2 extra hits adds 40% dmg, so 10 TA has an expected value per proc check of 4%. There are 2 checks so the expected value is 8%. (actually a little less since you can only get 8 hits total)
etc.

Its the only thing that isnt true.
Just take your own numbers.

If you have 2hit WS and you have 50%DA, adding 10%DA will result in avg 3.2 hits instead of 3.0, so it will increase damage by 6.6% instead of 10%, that first 10%DA gives if you have none.
Same for WSD. If you already have like 30%WSD on 2 hit WS and add another 10%WSD, you will go from 2.3 to 2.4, so ~4.347% instead of 5%, that you get from 10%WSD without diminishing returns.

you misunderstood my statement. The stated % increases are based on the base dmg, not what you step up from. Adding 10% DA to 50%DA is an increase of 10% of the base dmg (2 hits). Likewise for WSD. Your calculations are marginal increase percentages.

Since DA and WSD don't interact multiplicatively, you don't need to think about marginal values when determining which is better. DA is always 2x as valuable as an equal quantity of WSD until you reach 100%.

Wait something doesn't make sense. Unless I got it wrong. Can you proc DA twice in a 2-hit H2H WS? Or does it have to be 2 different types of multi-attack?

If DA is 10%, the WS has 2 hits and you can only proc DA once per WS then the probability of having DA to proc on the WS is 10%+9%=19%. A single DA proc will increase the number of hits in the WS to 3, making it a 50% increase in damage. Since this only happens 19% of the time it should be roughly 10% increase in damage.

Given you already have 50% DA, the probability of obtaining 3 hits in a 2-hit WS is 50+25=75% of the time. A 37.5% increase compare to base (0 DA). Adding another 10% DA on top of the 50% DA will result in a 60+20=80% of getting 3-hit. A 40% increase compare to base.

yes

I think I know what you mean, but its not entirely true, because of how priority in Multi-attack proc works. QA and TA will diminish value of DA, but wont diminish value of WSD. For example 3%QA and 30%TA will diminish that 2:1 ratio of DA to WSD to like 1.33:1 if Im not mistaken in my napkin math.

You can proc a multi-attack on each hit of the weaponskill.