Monk Post 2.2 Gear Progression Thread

[Donjo]

2 major things here:

1. Your skill speed is too low. I know everyone and their mother says to avoid it, but it only becomes an issue with extremely high numbers among players who don't know how to use Invigorate properly. At the very minimum, you want to hover around 400. This gives you 5 actions during Perfect Balance instead of 4.

2. Accuracy is your biggest bottleneck. The Cap for Turn 6 is allegedly 490 for melee, and it only goes up from there. I'd recommend gearing up such that you reach any required accuracy caps without food. That way, you can eat something like Buttons in a Blanket for maximum damage.

With these particular things in mind, I'd say that your first "gearing" task should be to go get the Wave Patas from Leviathan Extreme. I know you worked hard for that Allagan weapon, but it is honestly a stupidly bad weapon almost entirely because it completely lacks Accuracy. The Wave Patas are a superior i95 weapon for going into the Second Coil, with extra bonuses if you can get a Mirror to bump it to 100. Once you get into Coil, hope for the items necessary to obtain and upgrade the Glanzfaust, because that is the Monk's best weapon for Turn 9. You'll need a very Accuracy optimized gearset if you want to handle the High Allagan Baghnakhs, but that particular set thankfully gives an okay stat distribution.

Regarding Soldiery, the Chest, Legs, and Belt are likely to be indisputable BiS, but the chest makes you lose too much Accuracy right now. Buy Belt, then Pants, and Chest last when you can safely ditch the Accuracy. Leave the boots alone for now; their stats might be bugged because the Weathered and non-Weathered versions are registering as having different stats. Hopefully there is a patch to normalize them, and very hopefully to make the non weathered give Det, as that would become BiS. The Ring is always safe because High Allagan is the only other option, so you'll need both anyway. Farming Thornmarch Extreme and getting the Ribbon of Slaying is an excellent thing to do while you wait for the High Allagan Choker to drop.

[enil]

snip

You can get 5 actions in PB under 400SkS if you use the first 3 actions to build up GLx3, which you should be doing anyway.
Accuracy cap for T6 is only 490 attacking from the front, you don't attack from the front enough to make it worth capping. You only need 472~ to cap from side/flank. With smart positioning those stats are better off spent towards more DPS options.

Also - T8 is 12 minutes of pretty much nonstop DPS. If you skill towards SkS too much you are going to have major problems even with perfect invigorate usage. The BRD can sing TP song but ideally you want to minimise this.

[Donjo]

snip.

Well, yes, the entire point of Perfect Balance is to get to GL 3 in three actions. If you don't do that, something is wrong

Either way, a too low skill speed requires you to start Perfect Balance in GL 1 in order to get 5 actions, which kind of defeats the point of getting to 3 quickly and then getting a free two max power attacks.

On other notes, there is definitive proof that all monsters have different Acc caps based on attack location? I wonder when we'll get a number for Turn 9 flank/back...

[enil]

Well, yes, the entire point of Perfect Balance is to get to GL 3 in three actions. If you don't do that, something is wrong

Either way, a too low skill speed requires you to start Perfect Balance in GL 1 in order to get 5 actions, which kind of defeats the point of getting to 3 quickly and then getting a free two max power attacks.

On other notes, there is definitive proof that all monsters have different Acc caps based on attack location? I wonder when we'll get a number for Turn 9 flank/back...

You definately do not over 400 to get 5 PB skills, I'm currently running 377 and still can do it. You might have issues if you use macros and are unable to queue abilities and I believe you can still do it with even less SkS. There is defintive proof, I believe testing was done with characters under level 50 vs target dummies. They were able to get 100% hit rate from the back over 1000s of attacks while missing from front/flank.