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  1. #1
    Player Urthdigger's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Bastok
    Posts
    313
    Character
    Urthdigger
    World
    Fenrir
    Main Class
    MNK Lv 99

    Advice on building up a MNK?

    So, I'm starting to hit the point where I'm no longer as useless as I once was. I'm ilvl 119 across the board, got 901 acc before any buffs and food, and I'm a little unsure of where to go from here, what I should be building towards aside from pumping acc even higher for my TP set because you can never have enough.

    I see other jobs regularly tossing out attacks for 10-20k damage pop, while my weaponskills are more around 3-5k if I'm lucky. I don't know what I could do to even approach that, would searching for appropriate WS mods even make a difference of that magnitude? And assuming I did, wouldn't I then proceed to completely whiff my WS? Heck, I'm not even sure what WS is the right one to focus on, some days it feels like Asuran Fists is doing the best, others I get the feeling it should be shijin spiral or ascetic's fury... and I'm still working on unlocking Victory Smite.

    I've also begun thinking if perhaps I might be taking the wrong approach, that I should be thinking of MNK as a tank instead of a DD. Sure, it was a DD back in the 75 cap days, but it was an astounding tank in the abyssea days (Oh, the times when a MNK and a WHM could conquer the world). Mostly though, all the gifts we get from JP seem to be tanking focused. Oh sure, we get the occasional attack or accuracy boost, and get a WHOPPING reduction in base h2h delay from 280 to 270, but everything else that's MNK exclusive is all bonuses to guarding or countering. No wonder I feel so underwhelmed about the prospect of grinding CP when I look at MNK from a DD standpoint.

    But... if I did do MNK as a tank, there's two things I'm unsure how I'd deal with. The first is monster TP moves, which I can guard against (as noted by the ability to skill up on them, even AoE ones), but cannot counter against. Meaning on those enemies that auto-attack exclusively with TP moves I'd lose a large part of my defenses! The second is magic attacks. Neither of my native defenses help against magic, and between a defending ring, vocane ring, and twilight torque I'd only be pushing a mere -20% damage taken overall (or 13% if I put on a shadow ring and pray for procs). I could get another -6% magic damage taken over my earrings and back that I know of, still leaving me at 19-26 -mdt% at most, and given how absolutely vital an aegis is for a tank that just doesn't seem feasible. That said, maybe there's some pieces I don't know about that could fix this.
    (1)
    Last edited by Urthdigger; 02-03-2016 at 05:53 AM.
    He once sold his soul to Promathia for a rare drop. He later won it back in a drinking contest, before beating up the twilight god for good measure.
    He's won dance-off trophies from the Republic of Bastok, the Duchy of Jeuno, and the Yagudo Theomilitary.
    He's won entire arguments with a single leer.
    He is the most interesting galka in the world.

  2. #2
    Player Olor's Avatar
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    Mar 2011
    Posts
    2,134
    Don't even imagine yourself as a tank as a monk for group content - for real content it's going to be PLD or RUN only. As you noted you just don't have the defensive capabilities. Of course in lower tier/lowman content go for it, do what you want but I don't ever see folks looking for monk tanks anymore.

    I can't help you much with the gear but I will say folks on here generally are interested in knowing what you're rocking before they offer advice.

    Definitely you're going to need more accuracy though - and for the WS you'll probably want to make the Weaponskill gorget and the weaponskill belt if you don't have them... I mean I am no expert but they are definitely decent for a lot weaponskills: https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Fotia_Belt & https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Fotia_Gorget ... there are better specific things for specific weaponskills but those are pretty reasonable to make and are worth having regardless.

    Wish I knew more about monk or even about current gear (I feel so out of the loop)... good luck, post your TP and WS sets and I imagine someone much more knowledgeable than me will help you out.
    (0)
    Last edited by Olor; 02-03-2016 at 06:31 AM.
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  3. #3
    Player Kensagaku's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Posts
    652
    Character
    Zeich
    World
    Asura
    Main Class
    BST Lv 99
    Check the Merits: Accuracy thread, I made several suggestions for how to move your gear forward and improve on your overall accuracy so that you can move towards Reisenjima and its Herculean gear. Check this post here for information on ways to move forward with your gear. You're going to want to tackle pieces one at a time.

    As for WS, I don't know where you're seeing "constant" 10-20ks, but for comparison using my PUP, my Stringing Pummels range from 4-7k depending on crits, and my Shijin Spirals range from 3-5k. Have yet to unlock VS, and I'm sure that one can do better. Gearing for WS mods is a big deal; it's not just attack and go. For example, for CDC, I stack a combination of DEX, Crit Rate, and Crit damage with Acc/Attack as secondary slots. For SP I stack a combination of STR/VIT gear (leaning more towards STR because it'll boost attack as a side benefit) and crit rate/damage gear because it uses crits. VS you'd probably stack STR with crit gear like Rancorous Mantle and, later on, Crit augments on Herc gear, since it too crits. Shijin, on the other hand, you'd focus on your DEX > Attack > Acc, since it can't crit. Make sure you consider TP bonus gear depending on the WS; some of them are really potent if bumped up with TP.
    (0)
    [Kensagaku - formerly of Kujata] - http://www.ffxiah.com/player/Valefor/Kensagaku

  4. #4
    Player Urthdigger's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Bastok
    Posts
    313
    Character
    Urthdigger
    World
    Fenrir
    Main Class
    MNK Lv 99
    I already saw the suggestions made in that thread, and have been making efforts to obtain those pieces (was actually working on delve stuff earlier today as it seems most of my decent acc come from there).

    My main concerns were what sort of stats I should be looking for in terms of damage. Sure, I'll be able to hit things more often, but I feel my damage is quite lacking. Plus there's content I'm still working on where I feel my acc is fine but I just do not put out the damage to do them as easily as others can. While I know the later escha gear is generally better than what comes before, the earlier items do have certain stats that are higher here and there, so I don't believe it's quite as cut and dry as "Toss out all the naga/rawhide and replace with herculean and use that fulltime for TP and WS." Granted, if that IS the case it certainly makes things much easier.

    Lastly, I know BST can regularly push out 10-20k damage per pet move and spam that about every 5 seconds. BLM I'm not quite sure on, but I have seem them put out ridiculous damage, even across multiple targets and without the benefit of buffs or magic bursts. Lastly I know thf's weaponskills put 20k at a friggin MINIMUM, at least in party settings where they can SA or TA.
    (0)
    He once sold his soul to Promathia for a rare drop. He later won it back in a drinking contest, before beating up the twilight god for good measure.
    He's won dance-off trophies from the Republic of Bastok, the Duchy of Jeuno, and the Yagudo Theomilitary.
    He's won entire arguments with a single leer.
    He is the most interesting galka in the world.

  5. #5
    Player Kensagaku's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Posts
    652
    Character
    Zeich
    World
    Asura
    Main Class
    BST Lv 99
    Two things: one, BST can only push out "10-20k per pet move" because they have an exceptional amount of Pet: Attack and Pet: DA gear, not to mention TP bonus, etc. The BST pet paradigm is not the same for all jobs, and generally you're seeing that much frequently from the use of JAs such as Spur, Unleash, and Familiar when bolstered by JPs that further boost damage. THF WS do not hit 20k on average with SATA up on current content, either; you'd see maybe 9-10k on a GOOD spike, generally something along the lines of 7-8k. Plus that's once every 4-5 WS, as opposed to every WS. Maybe that 20k minimum is on lower-level content or with some super uber-THF, as I've not played with the latter, but I can assure you that's not "minimums." Don't believe everything everyone says.

    A good BLM can do moderately good damage, yes. You'd see 7-8k on their T6 nukes, and probably more on Death, but the latter eats up all of their MP. A fantastic one can probably do more, but again you're comparing top-tier (and current in-season strategy due to the Magic Burst changes, even though you're not couting them here) against average or above-average.

    But those aside, let's get a bit more realistic. Yes, a lot of your Herculean gear is probably better for TP, though you probably won't fulltime it for either WS or TP. You also have to consider the augments you need to get for them. Depending on the job you're going to want to consider other things too; NIN wants some racc and STP, the former for more TP from Daken and the latter to counteract TP loss from Dual Wield. BLU I aim for a combination of STP, TA, and DW up until I reach my delay cap. A lot of jobs in general want more STP; even if it only nudges you down from 10 hits to 9 hits for a WS, it's still one less hit you have to land to do more damage.

    Odds are, you're going to need multiples of Herc pieces (some for TP, some for WS), and since bodies are T3s and are considered "hard" content currently, you're going to want to consider other options in that slot too. This can be Rawhide Vest, Bhikku's Cyclas+1, Taeon with a good Acc/Atk and TA aug, etc.
    (1)
    [Kensagaku - formerly of Kujata] - http://www.ffxiah.com/player/Valefor/Kensagaku