The Monk Temple

[Kerikeron]

The simple reason is placing your buffs and off-GCD skills into cooldown at the earliest reasonable opportunity is what makes it optimal. Once you reach GL3 after the 2nd Snap Punch in the opener you've also applied BfB and IR by then. It stands to reason that instead of leaving slots between GCD skills empty until PB is down, you can slot in Steel Peak and Howling Fist.

Isn't the idea to output more global DPS to push HP bars faster? In which case your opening is not the highest possible damage output. Yes, you may get more off-GCD's in if it's a dummyisque fight and the end of it just happens to fall in that 6 second time frame where your off-GCD's recharged where someone else's wouldn't. But you've effectively lost 100+ potency by using all of that before having TS up.

Mind you, it's a great rotation for hiding Monk's ramp-up damage, but I feel like outside of dummy training, and maybe 2 or 3 fights, it's not the best startup.

Something I cannot find in this thread is an "opener" (for lack of a better term) for when either PB isn't up or your GL3 has dropped (i.e. during Leviathan dives or so). I'd imagine it would go like this: ToD > BfB> BS > IR > TwS > HF > Demo > SteelP > DK > TwS > SP > BS > TrueS > SP > etc.

I usually go to headside when he slams since tail takes longer to come up and use Bootshine > TS > Demo then Shoulder Tackle to tail and DK > TS > ToD > Demo. I've only done Levi EX like 3 times on monk though, so there's no doubt a better rotation for max damage. But in general I think the key lies with hitting head first on slams and then the tail.