The Monk Temple Reborn

[Ricdeau]

Thank you for your reply!! Oh, I didn't know about buttons...thanks for the tip

550 crit and 340 det are the points at which you will be able to get the increase from Black Truffle. If you ever need to check quickly on the food side of things and you're feeling too lazy to math it up just drop your set into http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/ and you can just select which food is in question.

Hello! I switch to Monk on Turn 8 so that we run solo Tank, and as that seems to be a good discussion point at the moment, I thought I'd ask a few questions.

My best DPS was 431 last night on Turn 8. I'm i107 currently and (not sure if I logged out on Monk for you to be able to check my gear on the Lodestone) have the following gear:

Glanzfaust
HA Headgear of Striking
Gloam Tabard
Gloam Gauntlets
HA Belt of Striking (waiting on Sands to restore my Weathered Gloam Belt)
Gloam Brais
Gloam Boots
Ruby Choker (Det IV, Acc IV, Vit IV, Vit IV, Det III)
Gloam Earrings
Weathered Gloam Bracelets
Gloam Ring
Judgement Ring of Slaying
HQ Buttons in a Blanket

I use Perfect Balance at the start, and I tend to sit on my first Internal Release, Blood for Blood and weave-ins for the first Dread, then use both buffs between the first and second, which means I sit on Internal Release again for a little bit before the second spawns. Blood for Blood comes off cooldown just as it spawns, so I have both buffs for both the first two, and our DRG LB3's the third one killing it outright, so I just stay on Avatar.

I always make sure to pop my buffs when in my final combo before the Dreads spawn, and apply buffed Demolish and Touch of Death (sometimes clipping them a fair bit) before switching. I've been experimenting and using Fracture on Avatar before switching as well, but not sure if this is making much difference. I also tried using Potent Poisoning Potions last night, but we wiped a few times before killing it, and I'd exhausted my supply of them when we finally did.

I also tend to use Rockbreaker at the end of both combos (as I normally deal the final blow with the second one) and then switch back to Avatar, and reapply Dragon Kick, Demolish and Touch of Death. I use my first X-Potion of Strength during the first Dread when I have all of my buffs up and before using my weave-ins, and then a second one as soon as it's off cooldown, normally trying to sync it with Blood for Blood or Internal Release, depending on which one is closest to coming back off.

Besides this I manage to keep the basics - Demolish every third combo and I clip Touch of Death by about two seconds after every fourth combo (I know you don't have to wait until you finish the combo, but it's easier for me to keep track of it).

I don't do Landmines, but I do Towers and also am first in line for dealing with Ballistic Missile as I'm pretty quick to react to what we need to do.

We have two Bards as well, so TP is not normally an issue.

Any tips or advice on how to push it a bit more would be greatly appreciated

You have two bards, and they are having you do missles? That's a bit silly since bards are the most optimal class to move and DPS with little to no impact. There's no reason for one of them to not be doing missles to be honest. Also how frequently are you dealing with towers?

So it sounds like you are running dragoon, 2x bar, monk (you), and a black mage/summoner. Who is doing towers, and is anyone not doing towers? Each additional mechanic you have to do in that fight is going to impact your DPS. So bare that in mind. Unless they decide to let you skip pretty much all mechanics except doing something in a pinch you're probably not too far off from where you going to be with your gear.

Skip Fracture completely for the time being. Once you are extremely comfortable with everything and you're running off instinct you can try squeezing it in eek that last bit of DPS, but your optimization for other aspects of what you are doing already need to be well in place. Try to time yourself so that you are getting Demo/ToD up on Dreads ASAP when they spawn, and then switch back to what you are already doing.

The biggest advice I can give to any monk for a dummy fight like T8 is to actually practice on a dummy to tighten and fine tune your base skills. The less you have to think about timing of moves and you know the timers the better. Also less mechanics = more DPS plain and simple. If your group is going to have you doing mechanics Don't expect to exceed ~450 or so by too much unless you're just flat out amazing, but regardless of your skill level just about any major movement outside of what you need to do for your skills is going to start reducing your DPS by some degree. It sounds like you got a good base, and you just need to keep tightening up on timing.

[LukeyP666]

You have two bards, and they are having you do missles? SNIP

I don't mean Homing Missiles with the tether, I mean Ballistic Missiles with the circular bits on the ground. One of the Bards does the Homing Missiles. I'm just the quickest at... Thinking quickly I guess, so got nominated to do the Ballistics.

I'll skip Fracture for now then in that case. Was just something I thought I'd try but I had a few gear upgrades this week so the DPS was probably more contributed to that.

Yeah, we have Paladin, White Mage, Scholar, Monk (me), Dragoon, Black Mage, Bard, Bard.

And regarding Towers, I do first, third, fourth and sixth sets, but have Shoulder Tackle for getting straight back in on all of them. All of our DPS are on Tower duty, and it's only the Healers that don't do them.

[Ricdeau]

I don't mean Homing Missiles with the tether, I mean Ballistic Missiles with the circular bits on the ground. One of the Bards does the Homing Missiles. I'm just the quickest at... Thinking quickly I guess, so got nominated to do the Ballistics.

I'll skip Fracture for now then in that case. Was just something I thought I'd try but I had a few gear upgrades this week so the DPS was probably more contributed to that.

Yeah, we have Paladin, White Mage, Scholar, Monk (me), Dragoon, Black Mage, Bard, Bard.

And regarding Towers, I do first, third, fourth and sixth sets, but have Shoulder Tackle for getting straight back in on all of them. All of our DPS are on Tower duty, and it's only the Healers that don't do them.

Ah yes, I completely forgot those were missiles too since we never really refer to them as such while raiding, and when missiles are mentioned we are referring to Homing Missiles. Well that's fine then as long as you are in range to keep attacking. Positional loss like that should be very minimal. Any reason they don't include the healers in tower duty? Just not comfortable with the movement? We have our scholar hitting towers, and he does it with great ease. I want to get our black mage off doing towers too so he can just nuke constantly, but I haven't gotten a good setup for it. That and we don't have any issues with T8 with how we do it currently so I don't want to rock the boat too much. Not everyone on my raid team plays as the same level a few of us do, so I usually leave things alone once we have the fight down pretty well.

[LukeyP666]

SNIP.

It's the movement mainly I think. That and, like you, we don't have too many issues with it now, so why rock the boat just so I can be top DPS? XD

Thanks for the tips. I've upgraded my Ruby Choker to the Gloam Choker this week for the increased strength, and saving the Ruby Choker for my Warrior on Turn 9, so hopefully I might see another increase in my DPS this week again

[Aiyza]

So...I just want some advice if my rotation is good. Here is how I usually start a fight if a boss is not going to disappear early on (eg. Titan):

ToD>Perfect Balance>Demolish>Snap Punch>Snap Punch>Twin Snakes>Dragon Kick>Internal Release>Bootshine>Blood for Blood>True Strike>X-pot of strength>Demolish>Howling Fist>Dragon Kick>Steel Peak>Twin Snakes>Snap Punch

From here on out...I use internal release and blood for blood whenever the are off cooldown, demolish after every 2 rotations using snap punch, ToD refresh if it's <3sec., howling fist and steel peak when they are off cooldown. Obviously many factors play into the fight that can alter my rotation, but I'm just asking about standard...like on a dummy.

For my aoe rotation, I just use ToD, arm of the destroyer, twin snakes, rockbreaker and my cooldowns.

If a boss is going to disappear early on in the fight I go:

ToD>Dragon Kick>Twin Snakes>Snap Punch>Dragon Kick>True Strike>Demolish>Bootshine>Twin Snakes>Snap Punch>Internal Release>Dragon Kick>Blood for Blood>True Strike>X-pot strength>Snap Punch

Then on out, same thing as before, where I refresh ToD <3sec, cooldowns when they are up, and demolish after 2 rotations of snap punch. Also, for both perfect balance open and w/o it, I like to use my internal release, blood for blood, and x-pot only when I'm in GLx3

[Victorixvii]

Snip

Looks pretty good besides the opener try this one >> (Perfect Balance) - Demolish - Snap - snap - Bfb - Twin snakes - IR - dragon kick (Perfect Balance ends) - howling fist - touch of death - steel peak - boot shine - true strike - demolish X Str pot - dragon kick - twin snakes - snap
One thing to note putting touch of death in after howling fist you will likely lose you greased lightning just before demolish comes up so make sure you practice it alot once you are super confident with it you wont lose GL i promise and you should be be hitting 500+ dps well at ilvl107 with Glanzfaust i do 500- 540 then level around 480-490 mark doing my full rotation.

[Aiyza]

In my opinion, I don't think it would be smart to use touch of death after you use perfect balance because you have wasted so much time where the debuff could have been up. From guides I have read and youtube videos, you should always put touch of death at the start of a fight. Obviously there are circumstances that can affect you putting touch of death up like trying to refresh your GL at the last minute...but yeah....waiting to do touch of death all the way after howling fist is a loss of dps imo. Plus you add in the risk of loosing your GL3..I don't think it's worth it. Also with perfect balance, I'm already trying to squeeze in those 5 skills, so to try and add buffs in while perfect balance is going...especially at times where there are fights where it's circumstantial that I might have to move away from the boss at the begining (eg. voice in t7), I think it would just make it more complicated. Imo, I just wait until I get my 5 skills off with PB then add my buffs. Even if the buffs aren't on GCD. I maintain around 440 dps ilvl106 without selene in my raid group, doing mines, and dealing with two towers last phase. Use just that x-pot in the beginning and whenever it gets back up and buttons food or truffles, whatever I have. Bard also plays tp song when needed. I'm not full BiS yet but I'm getting there!!

Can anyone tell me what the accuracy cap should be for t9 for monk? Thank you!!

[ziddyt]

Starting with ToD murders your burst dps. I used to start with ToD as well until I actually compared the two rotations.
And seriously, use your buffs. They won't eat into more than half your GCD, you had more than enough time to pop both your buffs in between attacks in PB, especially the first two during which your GCD is much higher.

The only exception is STR pots, the ridiculous animation time may eat into your gcd and screw up your opener.
You could/should be doing about 30 more dps, which is significant enough to me that I'd at least look into straying from an easier and more familiar rotation to see those returns.

Also: 515 acc unless your group is perfect with thunders and you trust them with your life (literally) so that you can still be attack from the flank/rear during most of the last phase. In which case you can get away with 491.

[Sleigh]

In my opinion, I don't think it would be smart to use touch of death after you use perfect balance because you have wasted so much time where the debuff could have been up. From guides I have read and youtube videos, you should always put touch of death at the start of a fight. Obviously there are circumstances that can affect you putting touch of death up like trying to refresh your GL at the last minute...but yeah....waiting to do touch of death all the way after howling fist is a loss of dps imo. Plus you add in the risk of loosing your GL3..I don't think it's worth it. Also with perfect balance, I'm already trying to squeeze in those 5 skills, so to try and add buffs in while perfect balance is going...especially at times where there are fights where it's circumstantial that I might have to move away from the boss at the begining (eg. voice in t7), I think it would just make it more complicated. Imo, I just wait until I get my 5 skills off with PB then add my buffs. Even if the buffs aren't on GCD. I maintain around 440 dps ilvl106 without selene in my raid group, doing mines, and dealing with two towers last phase. Use just that x-pot in the beginning and whenever it gets back up and buttons food or truffles, whatever I have. Bard also plays tp song when needed. I'm not full BiS yet but I'm getting there!!

Can anyone tell me what the accuracy cap should be for t9 for monk? Thank you!!

I'm not so sure about that. If you wait to do ToD after PB is done, it will do approximately 1.5X the damage (Twin Snakes, B4B, IR, GL3) than using it at the start, with only losing 1/3 of its duration, so it should by itself be worth more to throttle it. Also, using ToD initially delays GL3 by another 2.5s, which affects all your damage, especially AAs. In exchange for these benefits you do have to do a raw PB, roughly .5s of doing no damage after your Shoulder Tackle.

I haven't done extensive testing on starting with ToD vs starting without but I favor delayed ToD after the opener myself. With a little bit of SS you can keep GL3 without refreshing after the 2nd Snap Punch 100% of the time unless you are supposed to dodge within 15s (Like Xande in ST, or breaking a bind in T6).

[Aiyza]

oooo I was wrong!! Thanks for the tips guys. Well I guess I shall try this rotation tomorrow for raid group. Should I do:

PB>Demolish>Snap>Snap>Twin Snakes>IR>DK>(PB Ends)>Bfb>ToD>Bootshine
or
PB>Demolish>Snap>Snap>IR>Twin Snakes>Bfb>DK>(PB Ends)>ToD>Bootshine

or does it matter??? Also should I add in the howling fist and steel peak as soon as I come out of PB with my first bootshine>true strike>demolish or the rotation after? Not sure if I would or would not have time to weave in those skills right after I come out of PB or if it would be a dps loss if I don't. Also the x-pot of strength too.