How to Monk (50 onry)

[Zakard]

I worry that making a rotation so complex, and hitting more than one dps point, flank, behind, in the same rotation, could lead to getting killed by aoe. mine isn't really that complicated.

I do touch of death, dragon kick, twin snakes, demolish.. and here's the scandalous part.. dragon kick again, true strike, snap punch. that's the first rotation.. they all start with dragon kick.. well besides the original touch of death.

second rotation, is dragon kick, twin snakes, snap punch, dragon kick, true strike demolish, fracture. and that's basically it. keeping gs3 up and reapplying the 3 dots when they're about to go down. keeping demolish and fracture right after each other is nice I've found, because they both have around the same dot time and touch of death drops right after i apply the first fracture, and usually every two demolish, fracture reapplies.

I like simplicity. i may at some point try and add some behind stuff, but meh, i prefer it simple.

you should really take advantage of some back skill like BS/true strike/ID.BS is a 100% crit chance so its a really good skill to use as much as you can.you should use DK rotation,then BS then DK,like that your DK debuff is always up and you can use BS that always crit.you say you use true strike,why use true strike on flank?you gain a 5% crit chance from the back so take advantage of it.ID is a really hight potency skill,even if it dont crit,it do pretty good dmg.

its not hard to use both position.DK-twin-snap(all flank) then mouve back (BS-true strike(or ID-ID) mouve to flank and snap,go back to flank rotation with DK-twin-snap(between those are just an exemple of 3 skill rotation of back/flank combo.i didnt mention DOT since there no position bonus.).overall you are 80% of the time on flank and go behind for BS/true strike/ID only.you will have a way better dps if you take advantage of those back position skill and its not hard at all.for being more dangerous to get hit by aoe its not at all, exept for some boss that do aoe from behind or demon wall in AK but that the only exeption where you should use flank only.

simple rotation from flank can work but your far from max potential of your class.

[Allyrion]

Why is it that most monks go Crit > Det rather than Det > Crit? I see a lot of talk about it but no back up. I get better returns with Det according to http://valk.dancing-mad.com/?page_id=260. So shouldn't it be Det > Crit?

I've seen a google doc that had crit having better returns in "The Monk Temple" thread. I'll try to find it later for you. Honestly though, unless we're talking about the Gryphonskin crafted set, there's not that much choice anyway. Gear progression is pretty linear.

I worry that making a rotation so complex, and hitting more than one dps point, flank, behind, in the same rotation, could lead to getting killed by aoe. mine isn't really that complicated.

I do touch of death, dragon kick, twin snakes, demolish.. and here's the scandalous part.. dragon kick again, true strike, snap punch. that's the first rotation.. they all start with dragon kick.. well besides the original touch of death.

second rotation, is dragon kick, twin snakes, snap punch, dragon kick, true strike demolish, fracture. and that's basically it. keeping gs3 up and reapplying the 3 dots when they're about to go down. keeping demolish and fracture right after each other is nice I've found, because they both have around the same dot time and touch of death drops right after i apply the first fracture, and usually every two demolish, fracture reapplies.

I like simplicity. i may at some point try and add some behind stuff, but meh, i prefer it simple.

You should do what you're comfortable with, but adding in bootshine every other rotation probably won't mess you up too much.

Monk rotations have to adjust on the fly. With the boss turning and aoe popping, you might not be sure you can get the position right. Any hesitation outside of the 2 second GCD is a dps loss. That's why Dragon Kick ---> Twin snakes--->Snap Punch/Demolish is always your go-to cycle if you're ever in doubt.

Bootshine every other rotation when you're comfortable about the fight, and as you learn it more it'll be much easier. I don't use ID so other than bootshine, we use the same rotation. If you do ever add in ID then you can stop using True Strike, which may help balance the complexity.

[ChaozK]

I am not convinced about impulse drive tbh. It has lower dmg than bootshine due to the crit and it has the same dmg as Snap punch but doesnt keep up your GL, costs more TP and has lower potency on failed positioning. I would argue that its better to go for more BS>TS>SP combos in terms of dps if you have the extra time. Thoughts?

Edit: I could see it being useful if you have a very high crit rate though, making the additional crit chance of BS and True Strike somewhat obsolete.

[EasymodeX]

Starting out with Perfect Balance:
1.(PB) Dragon Kick (Blunt+10%) > Snap Punch x4(GL+DMG)
2.Dragon Kick(Blunt+10%) > Twin Snakes (DMG+10% buff) > Snap Punch (DMG)
3. Impulse Drive (DMG) > Bootshine (DMG) > True Strike (DMG) Snap Punch (DMG)
4. repeat 2
5. Dragon Kick > Twin Snakes > >Blood for Blood or Internal release> Bloodbath >Demolish

I'm counting 16 GCDs before you Demolish. Lulz. That's a TD as well.

[Sapphidia]

The funny thing is that a lot of monks would see a noticeable increase in personal DPS just by standing at the flank and using Dragon Kick->Twin Snakes->Snap punch, with occasional TODs and Demolishes (well, and a perfect balance opener). You do more dps on paper by alternating to the rear and using bootshine->TrueStrike and slipping in an Impulse drive, but the positional lag, and the chance of the Twin Snake and Dragon Kick buff/debuffs dropping off if you fiddle too much can simply mean that you're barely getting any dps increase for all the effort.

Compare Twin Snakes and True Strike. The duration of the Twin Snakes debuff is 12 seconds, and 6 global cooldowns takes exactly 12 seconds if there's no lag and you have full GL up. The Twin Snake buff will be falling off as your next twin snake lands. Making the second rotation a Twin Snake instead of a True Strike loses you 10 potency and possibly 5% crit off the move, but can potentially gain you 14 potency by having the twin snake buff up for the third rotation's mid point in the event that you don't get things lining up perfectly.

Impulse Drive is high potency but 20 TP more than equivalent attacks and slipping in an extra GCD here will potentially lead to other attacks landing without some of the buffs.

I'm no Monk myself (though I play with one in my static) and in a lot of cases a much simpler rotation at the flank can equate to higher dps in practise. You have to be lag free and utterly on point with every single positioning and keypress to make a Flank-to-back rotation deal more dps.

I'm not advocating always ignoring the super complex rotation in favor of easymode 3-4 buttons, but you need to know the limitations of each encounter to know when to swap into the massively optimal but far less robust stuff.

[Rapiso]

I am not convinced about impulse drive tbh. It has lower dmg than bootshine due to the crit and it has the same dmg as Snap punch but doesnt keep up your GL, costs more TP and has lower potency on failed positioning. I would argue that its better to go for more BS>TS>SP combos in terms of dps if you have the extra time. Thoughts?

Edit: I could see it being useful if you have a very high crit rate though, making the additional crit chance of BS and True Strike somewhat obsolete.

SK/TS/SP/ID/ID/ID is still the best rotation

[ChaozK]

SK/TS/SP/ID/ID/ID is still the best rotation

Can you elaborate on that a bit?

ID+ID+ID = 180+180+180
compare that to
BS+true+SP

BS>ID in terms of dps due to the guaranteed crit
SP=ID both are 180

So it boils down to the question can the 30 extra potency from ID>TrueS compensate for the dmg loss on BS and the 5% lower crit chance? I think this should be really close. Honest question.

[Allyrion]

Can you elaborate on that a bit?

ID+ID+ID = 180+180+180
compare that to
BS+true+SP

BS>ID in terms of dps due to the guaranteed crit
SP=ID both are 180

So it boils down to the question can the 30 extra potency from ID>TrueS compensate for the dmg loss on BS and the 5% lower crit chance? I think this should be really close. Honest question.

I tested this on a dummy. You are right. It's considerably close. My avg hits for Bootshine are 310-325, my avg hits for True strike are 275 to 290, and snap punch goes 300-315 (same for ID).

The ID rotation pulls ahead if you don't really count True's 5% crit (which is really unreliable to count on anyway since it's just one attack). It is very close and since attacks have variable damage, some of it is RNG.

The ID rotation is not TP efficient. True Strike is 10 TP less than Twin Snakes. ID-ID-ID costs 50 TP more than BS-True-SP.

So make your decision on that. Almalexia posts a great comparison a while back as well which favored BS-True-SP.

EDIT:

Here's is Almalexia's comparison, for reference.

Well, you got me interested enough in ID to test it with a parser. I went toe-to-straw with some training dummies and here's what I found:

Conditions -
1) No DoTs; the parser does not read them accurately (no crits, Fracture is 30s cross-class, author-made algorithm)
2) No off-GCD skills or buffs except Invigorate
3) Always locked on; no cutting from back to flank
4) Open with Dragon Kick from the flank as the timer starts
5) GL3 buildup counts
6) 3 minutes, no survivors

ID+MNK rotation
DK > Twin > Snap (x3 to start for GL) > ID > ID > ID > repeat

At 2.05 GCD, I was able to maintain GL3 within a hairs breadth of it wearing off. This approach certainly is easier: 3 hits from the flank, 3 from the rear and repeat. There is no room for error here though - if you don't mash those keys, you will lose GL.

What ended up getting me around the 1:40 mark was TP--I ran out. After I used Invigorate, I ran out of TP again somewhere around 2:20. GL was lost and I had to rebuild GL from scratch. This impacted DPS, but as you will see, it wasn't as big a gap as it could have been:

MNK rotation only
DK > Twin > Snap > Boot > True > Snap > repeat, or alternate DK and Twin as desired

I will admit I goofed on this and misused DK/Twin once or twice. There is a ~2000 point difference between an ID rotation and strict MNK rotation; disregarding the discrepancy in auto-attacks, the difference is only about 1600.

I also ran out of TP on this rotation as well, around 2:00, but Invigorate saw me through to the end of 3 minutes. GL went uninterrupted.

I would love to compare these again when we can accurately measure DoTs, but the off-GCD abilities alone would be a fraction of a second I wouldn't risk on a tight, 6-step ID rotation. Nevertheless:

ID pros:
Simple rotation: easy to manage all buffs
Simple attack pattern: 3 from the flank, 3 from the rear

ID cons:
Unforgiving rotation: getting back to GL at 2s GCD is a close call every time
Stresses TP: not even Invigorate can get you far past 2:20 of solid punching
Specific positioning: missing a rear attack of ID will set you back in potency without advancing MNK forms

MNK pros:
Always advancing: sticking to MNK skills will always move forms forward, so it is safer to manage GL
Positional variety: MNK can use a different skill on demand to maximize DPS if the mob position suddenly changes

MNK cons:
Inconsistent rotation: you will have to bounce between different skills constantly
On-the-run: You will have to constantly move from flank to side in the middle of a rotation in order to maximize DPS

Source: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...NK-class/page4

[Mishaela]

ID's damage is not bad but you will get TP starved in something like Coil fights where you don't have time to breath for TP and fights last for several minutes. I don't use ID because of that (fracture, though, yes). Plus, with the amount of movement--or potential movement (t2)--it's not worth risking losing GL by working in another non-form skill.

[Rapiso]

Can you elaborate on that a bit?

ID+ID+ID = 180+180+180
compare that to
BS+true+SP

BS>ID in terms of dps due to the guaranteed crit
SP=ID both are 180

So it boils down to the question can the 30 extra potency from ID>TrueS compensate for the dmg loss on BS and the 5% lower crit chance? I think this should be really close. Honest question.

Assuming you have 12% crit chance



So ID rotation is slightly better, but cost way more TP.
The BS/TrS roation is more TP efficient, but you lack of windows to refresh ToD/Fracture.

Almalexia posts a great comparison

Please ...