Monk 3.0 CHAKRA UNLEASHED

since everyone seems to be focusing a lot on oGCD abilities lately, i figured i would share how to determine what order damage skills are best used in.

you want to loose the least amount of damage possible, so you need to work out how much potential potency is lost from holding each respective skill, and thats rather simple to do
simply divide the potency by the cooldown.

for example, howling fist looses 170/60 potency per second, or 2.83
however, the apparently lesser potency shoulder tackle looses 100/30 per second, or 3.33

since shoulder tackle has the higher value, its actually better to prioritize it over howling fist

I'm not normally a fan of going to these threads early on (especially since I have Monk at 53 right now), but I have a question regarding Form Shift.
What's the best use of it? Go straight for the Greased Lightning buff, or is there any benefit for starting with Twin Snakes? I'll admit I haven't paid much attention to other monks.
Also, if I'm forced into a position (due to ground AoEs and tanks that won't move out of them) what do I use for least dps loss?

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Originally Posted by Ninster

I'm not normally a fan of going to these threads early on (especially since I have Monk at 53 right now), but I have a question regarding Form Shift.
What's the best use of it? Go straight for the Greased Lightning buff, or is there any benefit for starting with Twin Snakes? I'll admit I haven't paid much attention to other monks.
Also, if I'm forced into a position (due to ground AoEs and tanks that won't move out of them) what do I use for least dps loss?

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Vast majority of the time you'll be shifting to Coeurl. It's the best form to open with since Greased Lightning is the best buff AND speeds up the application of all subsequent ones. It's also the safest form to switch to on downtime since naturally it will refresh GL faster which is by far the most important thing to keep up. That said, sometimes it may be unnecessary to skip right to Coeurl. You may have plenty of time to refresh GL inside that window and refresh Twin Snakes beforehand - it's a bit of an advanced technique though as you really need to be sure of the timing.

To start with I would say just shift to Coeurl for a significant amount of downtime, then as you get more comfortable with things look for timing windows where you could reapply Twin Snakes first instead without dropping GL3. It mainly comes down to knowing the fight and exactly how much downtime there actually is. If you'll only be away for a few seconds you can probably forget shifting forms and charge up Chakra which you get at 54.

If you're unprepared for a pull and haven't shifted to Coeurl, I would say just do it once to get to Opo and go Shift -> Tackle -> DK -> Twin -> GL since it's better than starting in no form at all. For important bosses, you can also pop Perfect Balance right away to bypass shifting forms and still get by okay.

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Originally Posted by Ninster

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Also, if I'm forced into a position (due to ground AoEs and tanks that won't move out of them) what do I use for least dps loss?

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i presume by this you mean that you cant access the flank/rear of a target
if this is for some reason the case, even if its only 1 position that you cannot get to, keep going with your rotation as if you could get the positional requirement, the potency loss on skills isnt large enough to justify altering the rotation, however more often than not, you will still be able to hit all positional hits even if a ground aoe is close to the boss, just that the safe area for that positional may be much tighter.

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Originally Posted by Zamii

since everyone seems to be focusing a lot on oGCD abilities lately, i figured i would share how to determine what order damage skills are best used in.

you want to loose the least amount of damage possible, so you need to work out how much potential potency is lost from holding each respective skill, and thats rather simple to do
simply divide the potency by the cooldown.

for example, howling fist looses 170/60 potency per second, or 2.83
however, the apparently lesser potency shoulder tackle looses 100/30 per second, or 3.33

since shoulder tackle has the higher value, its actually better to prioritize it over howling fist

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Hm.. You're right, so the GCD order should be Elixer Drive > Steel Peak > Shoulder Tackle > Howling Fist > Forbidden Chakra.

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Originally Posted by Ossom

Hm.. You're right, so the GCD order should be Elixer Drive > Steel Peak > Shoulder Tackle > Howling Fist > Forbidden Chakra.

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You forgot visuals! Once you've reached the best you can out of a rotation or anything for that matter, it comes down to visual eye pleasure!

Elixer > Shoulder > Forbidden > Howling > Steel

nothing increases dps more than looking good while doing it!

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Originally Posted by Ninster

I'm not normally a fan of going to these threads early on (especially since I have Monk at 53 right now), but I have a question regarding Form Shift.
What's the best use of it? Go straight for the Greased Lightning buff, or is there any benefit for starting with Twin Snakes? I'll admit I haven't paid much attention to other monks.
Also, if I'm forced into a position (due to ground AoEs and tanks that won't move out of them) what do I use for least dps loss?

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If I am about to put up a new touch of death/fracture I use those if I have to miss a positional... usually that is enough but if I don't need to use those I just use the attack anyway. Most bosses you can get your positional attacks in even if they turn once you learn how and when they turn.


For example if you are on the bosses left flank and he starts turning around the other direction then chances are his rear is about to be near the tank so you can move to the tank for those. Same situation but you need flank attack then you move towards what is normally the rear... when he is done turning you should be in the correct place.

VERY important note: the game checks for position when you start the attack... not when the animation finishes. So if you need to switch from flank to rear or rear to flank you should be moving as soon as you attack. If you wait around until the animation is over you are going to miss the position or you are going to delay the ability and reduce your dps.

As has been pointed out Form Shift is situational. Coeurl form should be the goal anytime you will lose GL or if have lots of downtime and need to restack Gl from scratch. Basically its Meditation vs form shift when you disconnect from a boss. I only form shift enough so that i can make it back around and keep my stacks unless I know I am going to lose them and if that is the case I go all the way to Coeurl. Any time not spent form shifting is spent building back up meditation stacks.

Today we will make progress A2S. That is my first try and i dont know anything. Anyone help me to rotation A2S each wave. How can i manage my tp and which rotation is best for me.

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Originally Posted by jellyboom

Today we will make progress A2S. That is my first try and i dont know anything. Anyone help me to rotation A2S each wave. How can i manage my tp and which rotation is best for me.

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each group is different, A2 is one of those turns that is best to learn by trial and error, some tank have cooldowns at certain points, others use them sooner/later, etc, so you want to push past those waves quicker

1391 DPS A3S on the leaderboards in a typical MNK/NIN/BRD/BLM composition. H-How? :eek: Granted the person in question is i208, I'm still having trouble visualizing how he accomplished this and would love to know how other monks of similar skill level optimize here. I suspect it's mostly via maximizing the number of targets your OGCDs hit and perhaps the utilization of AOE abilities, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I've included the situations I'm imagining ordered by likelihood along with my own thoughts below: