Brewing Rani without smiting blow?

[Babekeke]

Any suggestions on the best way to brew rani as mnk if you don't have the luxury of Victory Smite?

For THFs and NINs, everyone swears by using ele WS, and if you use regular ws during spellcasting, never let it SC or the SC will cure her, but every MNK testimonial I see is Smiting Blow > Smiting Blow = light, repeat and she's dead.
I'm confused.com ><

Edit changed name from Smiting Blow since it was pointed out that's an atma not mnk ws

[Rorrick]

Unless I'm missing something, (Atma of the) Smiting Blow is an atma. People use elemental skills for brewing because of the way damage is calculated. MNK's best brewing skill is Cataclysm, which is awful for Rani (and Shinryu) because it's dark based. The next best thing I can think of would be Flash Nova. People use Atma of the Smiting Blow (as well as Ultimate and Beyond, I think) when brewing with Cataclysm because it gives a 100% TP bonus.

I assume the weapon skill you're actually talking about is Victory Smite. I guess that works if you haven't skilled up Club or Staff, but an elemental weaponskill will always do more damage. I've only done Rani once since coming back so I'm not sure how the healing mechanic works, but I assume you only heal it with a skillchain if you do it while it's casting a spell.

[Gokku]

Staff Cataclysm / retribution spam works on almost all NM's you need to brew.

[Greatguardian]

Cataclysm does not work on Rani. She resists the hell out of dark damage =/. Also, yes, you do heal it if you do a Smite > Smite Skillchain while she is casting magic.

If you don't have Victory Smite, I'd just shoot for Flash Nova or Earth Crusher with the appropriate atmas and such. Don't try to brew it with RR/GH/Apoc if you're using a Magic WS (duh). Or just use Ascetic's Fury with RR/GH/Apoc. Pretty much any WS will do as long as you Atma for it correctly and avoid healing her.

[Raksha]

Cataclysm does not work on Rani. She resists the hell out of dark damage =/. Also, yes, you do heal it if you do a Smite > Smite Skillchain while she is casting magic.

If you don't have Victory Smite, I'd just shoot for Flash Nova or Earth Crusher with the appropriate atmas and such. Don't try to brew it with RR/GH/Apoc if you're using a Magic WS (duh). Or just use Ascetic's Fury with RR/GH/Apoc. Pretty much any WS will do as long as you Atma for it correctly and avoid healing her.

Flash nova is good because it has a higher ftp than earth crusher, and also because when you use atma of the beyond (for the 30% light affinity) you get a bonus 30 MAB to go with it.

Smiting blow wont make a difference since flash nova is 3.0 at all tp levels, so choose a 3rd MAB atma (or if you wanna use RR for phys WS you could do that)

[Babekeke]

Unless I'm missing something, (Atma of the) Smiting Blow is an atma.

I assume the weapon skill you're actually talking about is Victory Smite.

Ooops, yeah >.>
But you can get off phys ws > phys ws = SC as long as she's not using tp or magic? that's good to know. Thanks for the responses.
I don't actually have mnk myself, but figured that if I trio with friends, the best combo is me on thf, them on mnk and whm to cover all the blunt blue procs, and we take it in turns to brew.

[Martinius]

Flash nova is good because it has a higher ftp than earth crusher, and also because when you use atma of the beyond (for the 30% light affinity) you get a bonus 30 MAB to go with it.

flash nova also self-chains fragmentation, and skillchain damage can do huge numbers. we did a couple ranis today and a friend 2-shotted rani from 90% b/c cloudsplitter > cloudsplitter > darkness did over 100k dmg total.

you'll want to use (as raksha said) beyond, as well as ultimate. atma of the holy mountain gives light macc if you're worried about resists (with a brew you shouldn't be), but you're better off using another MAB atma. hell's guardian is best (from beating pandemonium warden, MAB +50), followed by baying moon (MAB +30, red !! from lugarhoo).

[Greatguardian]

Just a heads up, Brews give something like +900 or +999 MAB so if you have the option of using an Elemental Attack+ or a WS Dmg+ atma, I'd definitely use that over Ultimate or Hell's Guardian.

[Raksha]

Just a heads up, Brews give something like +900 or +999 MAB so if you have the option of using an Elemental Attack+ or a WS Dmg+ atma, I'd definitely use that over Ultimate or Hell's Guardian.

Griffon's claw and crushing cudgel only work on 2handed weapons. And for flash nova, there's only 1 light affinity atma.

[Greatguardian]

Griffon's claw and crushing cudgel only work on 2handed weapons. And for flash nova, there's only 1 light affinity atma.

That's why I left the statement in the general tense =P. For Flash Nova, there aren't really any better options so Ultimate/HG are solid. For something like Blade: Yu? Even a +10 water atma would beat +50 MAB, I believe. It's just a general heads up.