The Monk Temple

[Selsix]

Question from an aspiring PUG/MNK. How viable is going jobless?

Sure, I'll lose things like DK, FoF, OiP, etc...

But I can gain another DoT in the form of Venomous Bite (205 max attack potency potential), 10% more crit with Straight Shot, Raging Strikes and Hawk's Eye for DPS CDs (20% more damage for 20s and 20% ACC for 20s respectively, both on 180s and 90s CDs again, respectively), and Convalescence to stack with Bloodbath for a tad more survivability.

(This is assuming the other 5 skills I am speccing from LNC and MRD are Impulse Drive, Invigorate, Blood for Blood, Bloodbath, and Fracture)

Is there ANY possible merit to this idea? The rotation is looking something like...

Touch of Death > Bootshine > Twin Snakes > Demolish > Straight Shot > Bootshine > True Strike > Snap Punch > Fracture > Bootshine > Twin Snakes > Demolish > Venomous Bite > Impulse Drive > Touch of Death > Bootshine > Twin Snakes > Snap Punch (Refresh GL)

After that, you would fill in the empty GCDs between GL/TS refreshment with refreshing all 4 DoTs as needed, Straight Shot, and Impulse Drive. Thoughts?

[kukurumei]

There is no theory. Do I need to make a video?


I could do this until my TP runs out.

Animation length does not affect the execution of attacks. Demolish and ToD prevent us from using off-GCD abilities for the same amount of time as Bootshine, Snap Punch, or anything else on GCD. Besides, no animation is long enough to tread on 2s GCD--that's full DL MNK--in the first place. Even if animations could prevent the execution of other GCD skills, no one can get the GCD short enough to test it yet.

No mnk who has ever tried to stun an aoe would believe a word of that. Go try it on a fate boss or something.

Trying to stun an AoE at the end of a boot-twin-snap, easy
Trying to stun an AoE at the end of a tod/demolish, harrrrrrddd. Like squished for 1324 damage hard.

The engine seems to relay damage information after the animation, and then relays back to goto next skill, so you're there spamming your off gcd skills with no sucess in a decent combat lag situation.

[Syco]

Whats better for a lvl 30 Monk dps rotation Demolish or Snap punch

[Almalexia]

No mnk who has ever tried to stun an aoe would believe a word of that. Go try it on a fate boss or something.

Trying to stun an AoE at the end of a boot-twin-snap, easy
Trying to stun an AoE at the end of a tod/demolish, harrrrrrddd. Like squished for 1324 damage hard.

The engine seems to relay damage information after the animation, and then relays back to goto next skill, so you're there spamming your off gcd skills with no sucess in a decent combat lag situation.

I know what you are talking about. This is what made stunning Voice of the Ram in the middle of a normal rotation such a headache.

There is short delay between using a GCD skill and using a non-GCD skill, as well as between using a non-GCD skill and a GCD skill. It's about half a second. I acknowledged this already and I hate it too. But, regardless of which skill you use, the delay remains the same. If I use it after Snap, it trims the end off the animation. If I use it after ToD, it cuts a substantial portion of the animation but still fires after the same brief delay. Hell, I can't even use a non-GCD skill right after a non-GCD skill; I have to pause briefly between Internal Release and Blood for Blood to make sure both activate correctly. Surely you've noticed this too.

I am making two points here:
1) ToD/Demolish animations are not so long that they somehow prevent you from maintaining GL
2) ToD/Demolish animations are not so long that they somehow lock you out of off-GCD skills longer than others

Simply put, no animation is holding you back. It's an incredibly annoying, hard-coded delay between all skills.

[ElHeggunte]

Whats better for a lvl 30 Monk dps rotation Demolish or Snap punch

Both, assuming the target would live long enough to get the full duration out of Demolish. You'd simply alternate them or use Demolish every third finisher (so something like Snap > Snap > Demolish).

[Kalamari]

Question from an aspiring PUG/MNK. How viable is going jobless? [snip]... Is there ANY possible merit to this idea?

Edit: Completely forgot about MNK class restriction on end-game gear.. Well there goes that.

Loved the flexibility in cross-skills that I had as PGL too, so I'm really interested in this as well. The arguments against loosing MNK are Dragon Kick debuff, Demolish for AoE, the 5% Fists of Fire buff, Shoulder Tackle as a gap closer, and a teensy bit of Strength. Now assuming a single target boss fight situation, I don't see any way we could make up for the damage loss from loosing Dragon Kick debuff with cross-skills alone.

However, if there is another MNK in the group keeping up Dragon Kick debuff.. then a lvl 50 PGL build might actually work really well. You would loose the 5% Fists of Fire buff, but both Air and Earth are great alternatives. Loosing Shoulder Tackle as a gap closer hurts, but the distance it covers will save you maybe 3-4s of running every 90s with some extra bit of damage, so I don't think it's a huge deal.

Gaining access to a near passive 10% crit from Archer's Double Tap would be huge asset by itself, not to mention Venom Bite as a powerful extra filler attack (these 2 combined could possibly nearly make up for loosing Dragon Kick when no other MNK in group) along with Raging Strikes + Hawks Eye cooldowns, as Selsix mentioned. Not to mention access to many more

Stacking Internal Release, Blood for Blood, Raging Strikes, Hawk's Eye all at the same time would definitely result in some insane numbers while they are up, for dps races like Titan HM's heart this could be an extremely powerful combo.

I'm really curious and hopeful if this could work, hope some theorycrafters can shed more light on whether or not a level 50 PGL build could actually be viable end-game.

[Allyrion]

The arguments against loosing MNK are Dragon Kick debuff, Demolish for AoE, the 5% Fists of Fire buff, Shoulder Tackle as a gap closer, and a teensy bit of Strength. Now assuming a single target boss fight situation, I don't see any way we could make up for the damage loss from loosing Dragon Kick debuff with cross-skills alone.

I'm levelling a monk now, so I'm not able to test this. Is it really a teeny bit of strength?
I have a 50 BLM and the soul gives me 58 int. That's HUGE. Cooldowns usually feel better than they are. If the monk strength is close to the blm's int, there would be little comparison.
Though the argument is pointless since as you mentioned, they job gear really limits end game content either way.

[Kalamari]

I'm levelling a monk now, so I'm not able to test this. Is it really a teeny bit of strength?
I have a 50 BLM and the soul gives me 58 int. That's HUGE. Cooldowns usually feel better than they are. If the monk strength is close to the blm's int, there would be little comparison.
Though the argument is pointless since as you mentioned, they job gear really limits end game content either way.

Had to switch out Darklight pieces for Amdapor Keep gear and artifact weapon for Ifrit weapon, removing soul is barely 20 less strength from MNK, considerable but not nearly 58. It might be different for BLM's.

Interestingly enough all the primal weapons seem to be eligible for PGL, while artifact isn't. Really wish they'd do away with the arbitrary job restriction on gear so we could play around with PGLst cross-class skills. :[

[kukurumei]

Mnks soul are split between str and vit as their main stats. And oddly a bit of mnd, They really are very good tankers just without the def.

In any respect, it's not really worth it, since you loose all the mnk skills, FoF, dragon kick, are big losts so is shoulder tackle for what it's worth.

It's just not good to be pug after you mnk ever. Sure you loose straight shot, raging strike and virus, but that's life. I really loved virus as it's the only dang thing that can range, and straight shot is like pure awesomeness on pug but dragon kick is more obviously.

[JETgroovy]

Hey everyone. I wasn't really digging my monk, but I just started playing it again after leveling BRD for 37 levels, and I forgot how much fun it was. So involved. Anyway, I'm curious what sort of stats we should be aiming for on our gear. Do we need to just stack ludicrous amounts of Skill Speed? Should we avoid certain pieces of armor?

For instance the Darklight Corselet of Striking gives us +13 Determination, but no Skill Speed, where as our AF Temple Cyclas gives us +16 Skill Speed. What's a good number for our Skill Speed to be at? Prior to buffs I have 404 Skill Speed, which brings me to a 2.07 GCD with 3 stacks of Greased Lightning. Just looking for some tips on final gear, jewelry too.