PUG/MNK Optimization

[Allyrion]

That's not what he said at all, you should reread it. he just said that he made this thread for the purpose of learning new stuff like this and that he would like to know what the actual numbers are. I don't know how in the hell you interpreted his post as calling someone unproductive and shouldn't contribute.

He said "Go be unproductive somewhere else". You can see it in the quote, he just edited it out.
That quote is from a second edit. The original post was simply that statement.

[DrakonMacar]

Sadly that was a horrible mix-up between entirely separate threads and games and websites and an embarrassing one at that. The reality here is that I just want raw data and insights to other player rations to minmax my pugilist/monk builds.

I stand by the hypotheses that with proper tuning, a HQ Gryphonskin setup may out perform AF2 and Allagan combinations. While each HQ armor piece lacks 3 points of defense and varies in stat bonuses and sets, the over all build would look something like:
10 Strength
10 Dexterity
10 Accuracy
10 Critical Rate
10 Determination
10 Vitality

Each of these would be built around varying bonuses but maximizing most stat potentials. I tend to favor Keen Flurry over Foresight in most situations as the parry rate increase for higher DEX may also help offset this builds absence of defense. I'll also mention that the "break the game" comment was a joke. For now I am having my way with stats and attributes to see what I can and can not do with them.

[Zigkid3]

I'm sorry but HQ gryphonskin with overmelding will not outperform allagan/myth gear.
It will out perform darklight gear, since they're the same ilevel and you can meld it. but allagan/myth gear are a good 20 ilevels about HQ gryphonskin, even with melding they won't catch up. the main stats alone are far to great to begin with anyways.

the stats you listed, the way you listed them looks like you think each stats is equally important to us. they are not. vitality adds no dps, dex is worthless, ss is almost worthless, accuracy is worth it up to a certain checkpoint, and then you max determination and crit as much as you can. they have different weights on their importance on how much of a dps increase they each give.

STR is our best stat > det/crit >>>>>>>>>>ss>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>dex/vit
(after capping accuracy)

[DrakonMacar]

Fair enough, thank you all. I'll still continue with my experiments of course and let you all know the results.

[Bossmoney]

I have a Monk alt with relic but not +1, one allagan earring from my DRG main, one peltest belt (saving up philo to get crafted belt), aside from that, everything else is crafted overmelded gear in every other slot ('cept chest isn't done overmelding because I'm attempting a savage might IV meld in the third slot, so only buying them when they're cheaper). It helped that my main is a DRG and I crafted accessories for that toon a while ago, so when I leveled up MNK, it was just doing the armor pieces, which is cheaper to make at only 9 pieces of philo items instead of 18 (cept head and belt).

Now granted, I didn't get a chance to get +1 on my MNK's weapon yet, nor get crafted belt yet (should get it in a couple days after speed runs) but I can tell you right now, you're not gonna set the world on fire. Don't get me wrong, you'll do good dps. But you will not surpass someone with more ilvl 90 gear. I know this for a fact because the Coil group I run with has a MNK with a bunch of Myth and Allagan drops, and he parses higher in actual fights than I can on a dummy (I don't bring my MNK to Coil so this is my only point of comparison). Yeah yeah, parses can be unreliable, but we've done it enough times that any aberrations would've shown up as such.

Now it's in the same ballpark, and considering the I don't have my +1 weapon yet, it's pretty good considering I invested nothing but gil and WP speed runs to get all my pieces for an alt, so as soon as I turned 50, did my relic quest, boom, busting out high end DPS. But anything approaching game breaking? Nah, just a regular ole DPS, that's all. I've done stat weight calculations on all the crafted overmelded pieces versus myth/allagan pieces. There are a couple pieces here and there that maybe could be better in a pure DPS sense. For instance a fully melded Gryphonskin Trousers (need Savage Might IV and 1 Quickarm IV though to make this work) does technically have more DPS stat weight than the Mythology piece. However it's REALLY close and the Mythology piece also has like way more Vit and Accuracy.

So in the end, there's really no crafted piece that you would never replace with a myth/allagan piece if you could. The only reason I went the path I did is because MNK is my alt, DRG is my main, so I'll still be spending all my myth tomes on my DRG first. Still need 2 more weeks to get my chest, THEN 3 weeks after that I can get +1 for MNK, then after that I'm gonna buy Myth accessories for my DRG, which can also be used for MNK, but that also means it'll be a LONG time till I ever spend a single myth tome on a dedicated MNK piece and since my MNK doesn't go Coil, but the group I'm in has a MNK, very unlikely I'll get Allagan drops anytime soon. So yeah, for me, I made ilvl 70 overmelded gear because it'll be the best gear I can get for probably a couple months or longer, depending on how the gear from Crystal Palace turns out. If you're in the same boat, hey go for it. Or if you have a TON of extra money, and won't be bummed out by getting myth/allagan gear soon after dropping 300-500k each piece to overmeld it, hey go for it. But if MNK is gonna be your main and you're gonna devote Myth to it and you're looking to join a Coil group, I'd say eh, Darklight is good enough to tide you till then honestly. If you're still set on doing this, I'd recommend doing accessories first. Why? Because you can wear them on any class, so if you ever level up a DRG, you could use those (like how I did, except in reverse) or a BRD, because it has both STR and DEX on the pieces, or hell, you could even use those accessories for a tank, at least for beginner endgame content like WP or AK, DPS accessories will be good enough for both tanks.

[DrakonMacar]

There are a couple pieces here and there that maybe could be better in a pure DPS sense. For instance a fully melded Gryphonskin Trousers (need Savage Might IV and 1 Quickarm IV though to make this work) does technically have more DPS stat weight than the Mythology piece. However it's REALLY close and the Mythology piece also has like way more Vit and Accuracy.

Well first off thanks for all the other advice and insight from the rest of your post but it is the above quote that I am looking towards more. Monks in any game will have a glass jaw and that's a fact I came to accept years and years ago. All of the cross stat dependencies for Monks (In any game) are what tend to get us killed since we are neglecting all possible defensive options in favor of our dps focus.

[DrakonMacar]

My current dungeon crawl rotation does allow for a monk with high dexterity (Highest set up was 450) to pair up with Keen Flurry and sometimes I'll trade out Fracture for Foresight (Depending on bosses) to up survivability. Taking all my old DDO and D&D Tabletop knowledge and trying to find similarities and likenesses in a vastly different system has been hard but I can not help but feel that I am onto something here.


The idea here is to see how the damage varies between sets. I have a few friends running tests with me a couple night each each to see what our various DPS builds will do on dummies and then we run a test through WP for the flavor of the week monk/pug.

By out performance I do in fact mean dps and not survivability. I understand what's going to kill me and I have the reaction time to avoid the majority of AoE's that I am faced with so for most runs, I am eager to make the trade off of hitting like a bus for maintaining a glass jaw.

[Allyrion]

Snip

Are you getting all your position bonuses? Sounds like you're tanking.

[DrakonMacar]

Depending on fight I'm using the either the ol' greased lightning stacker (Perfect Balance Snap Punch x2 [Insert Dot] Dragon Kick Twin Snakes [Insert Dots] Snap Punch) or focusing on basic rotations, with positioning to maximize dps of course.

I have the play style down well enough and most of my fights are (with dots) 270-290 dps during uninterrupted rotation. My main is slightly less than this (240-260 with dots) and both test and main have +1 Sphairi equipped for these tests.

[Riot55]

I get, in theory, what you are trying to do with other stats.... but if we are playing theory, you should never ever be taking the brunt of the damage in the first place, thus rendering Dex useless, and Vit marginally useful. If you play with any half-decent Tank and know how to manage agro synergistically with what he's doing, you should never be taking anything more than the occasional mechanics-necessary damage (something like little aoe effects, or Fireball from Twintania for instance). Foresight should be pretty useless since it's for when you know you're going to take big damage, and you should be avoiding any aoe or broadcasted directional abilities in the first place. There is no reason with the way the game works currently to stack anything but pure STR. I also find it hard to believe you are pushing 290 DPS with an un-melded Gryphonskin, mostly Darklight, and a couple AK pieces =X

Not trying to be mean, but I think you have some misguided ideas stuck in your mind about the realities of how a Monk should be played.