The Monk Temple Reborn

[Best-MNK-NA]

I ask about clipping because it was a gray area I always wanted to explore more and with NIN it stopped being as relevant to maximizing class dps (due to the restrictive combo system) so my attention focused on other things. Basically it just seems to me that doing DK > TS > Demo > Boot > True > Snap > DK > TS > Snap > Boot > True> Demo > DK > TS > Snap > Boot > True > Snap as your rotation - or in other words alternating DK > TS > Snap and Boot > True > Snap with demo every third combo ends up clipping DK and TS at the ~5s mark a lot of the time - and I wonder if it's better to let them drop momentarily as well in the same way the opener does it. That would in effect make your basic rotation something along the lines of DK > TS > Demo > Boot > True > Snap > Boot > True > (DK falls) > Snap (TS falls) > repeat. That would make your Snap lose out on ~20 potency, then your next DK miss out on either ~33 potency or ~17 potency depending on if it applies its own buff to itself, and then the next Twin would miss out on either 14 or 0 potency with the same stipulations. So worst case scenario that loses you 67 potency to gain 92 (fully buffed boot over DK) + 61 (True > twin) = 153 potency... for a net gain of 87 potency every 18s. Of course, that's ignoring Touch of Death - putting that up at some point could cause your extra True to not get DK (so a bonus of only 38) and your Snap to lose another ~20 potency. In which case you gain 130 potency at the cost of 97 potency for a net gain of only 33 potency. 33 potency seems to be still a significant chunk to aim for. And if DK and TS do apply to their own hit, then that means you'd actually gain 63 potency when applying ToD in a rotation and 117 potency when not.

Anwyay, I haven't done any testing to confirm these theoreticals, but it seems to me that rotation (DK > TS > Demo > [Boot > True > Snap]x2 > repeat) should be, in theory, better than alternating DK > TS > Snap and Boot > True > Snap with demo every third combo. Unless there's something I'm missing about our basic maintenance combo post opener.

Without Fracture and doing the basic rotation and not the different one I was just talking about, I'm pulling about 570-580 with party buff, food, and a pot in the opener with this as my gear http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/PEU1 (i123 overall) and it seems like it's a little lower possibly than it should be? Or am I right about on track? Fracture puts it in the 585-590 range but then I run out of TP long before my second invigorate with my skillspeed and I'm sure in a real situation the damage lost from all that extra paeon would be too great.

[SunnyHirose]

On revision of my model*, it looks like the three combo rotation is slightly better (~0.6%) if Twin Snakes / DK only fall off for one GCD, and significantly worse (~1.2%) if they fall off for two. The primary issue is the loss of buffs on auto-attacks, because if you just look at weaponskill potencies, it's indeed a gain.

How much skill speed does it take to get to one GCD dropoff? Well, I did some field testing and 459 ain't enough! So it's possible, I think, but I wouldn't want to try.

* Did some testing today with Disembowel to settle an unresolved matter about whether "-10% piercing resistance" meant 10% or (10/.9)% damage increase. It's definitely 10%. Pending further testing, I'm going to assume the same of Dragon Kick.

[Ricdeau]

If I recall correctly I believe it's over 550. It has been some time since I did my test though.

Edit - Yeah, I just loaded up 529 SS with what I had on me, and it was still a two GCD loss at 529.

[ClaireAbigail]

If I recall correctly I believe it's over 550. It has been some time since I did my test though.

Edit - Yeah, I just loaded up 529 SS with what I had on me, and it was still a two GCD loss at 529.

How about having a sch friend putting Selene out? Do you think with that much sks and Selene, would it cut it down to one gcd?

[Ricdeau]

How about having a sch friend putting Selene out? Do you think with that much sks and Selene, would it cut it down to one gcd?

I can probably test that this weekend, and grab a couple other pieces to get more SS if you guys really want to see. Having around 550 I think will be enough to get one GCD loss, but this doesn't take into account ToD. Thinking back I'm actually thinking it was going to be around 750+ SS in order to not drop DK/Twin with double BS/True rotations between, but that's not accounting for ToD either. I might be able to get it down to just one lost GCD though, but I don't think it'll be a realistic build for raiding unless Goad is only being used on you, and have Paeon. If I had known people were going to be interested in this I would have kept the logs and some napkin math I did at the time.

[Best-MNK-NA]

I knew I was missing something in the math and it was the autoattacks. I finally got to test last night and did about 20 dps less doing my proposed priority system over the standard. I figured it might be GCD related since my model was based on 2s gcd and I was at 2.02 with my dread claws, so I switched to the HA (which puts me at 1.98) and still noticed a 10-15 dps loss. Autoattacks explain that perfectly.

With renewed practice and tightening up my opener I seem to be pulling 580 with my current gear without Fracture - http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/PEU1 (i123 overall) - which seems a little more acceptable than the 570 before. Still unsure how it stacks up with what I should be doing but I don't really see any thing else I can tigthen up.

[SunnyHirose]

Strongest opener I've found to date is the one I've seen Lucrezia's monks using:

(PB) Snap (PPP) Snap (BfB) Demolish Twin (STR pot) DK (IR) Touch...

If you do it right, you get BfB + potion + IR on the second Demolish, and you get that ToD with all the buffs, and you don't clip the first Demolish, which itself has GL2 + BfB. With lower skill speeds, use the cooldowns a bit late in the GCD.

[Kuroyasha]

Strongest opener I've found to date is the one I've seen Lucrezia's monks using:

(PB) Snap (PPP) Snap (BfB) Demolish Twin (STR pot) DK (IR) Touch...

If you do it right, you get BfB + potion + IR on the second Demolish, and you get that ToD with all the buffs, and you don't clip the first Demolish, which itself has GL2 + BfB. With lower skill speeds, use the cooldowns a bit late in the GCD.

How much DPS do they output using this opener? Want to see how Ossum's opener compares to it.

[KaisaaVonFaust]

Strongest opener I've found to date is the one I've seen Lucrezia's monks using:

(PB) Snap (PPP) Snap (BfB) Demolish Twin (STR pot) DK (IR) Touch...

If you do it right, you get BfB + potion + IR on the second Demolish, and you get that ToD with all the buffs, and you don't clip the first Demolish, which itself has GL2 + BfB. With lower skill speeds, use the cooldowns a bit late in the GCD.

What exactly is (PPP) abbreviated for if you don't mind me asking? One other question.. with this opener wouldn't it be a bit more difficult to pull off a Double boot shine combo before the Twin falls off for the second Demo? Appreciate the respond in advance :P

[SunnyHirose]

Well, their dragon kicker did 404 on their i110 T13 challenge, but I guess that doesn't give much of an idea of anything.

It's almost the same opener, really. What you sacrifice is a few seconds of IR uptime, but what you gain is having it stack with GL3 + BfB + Potion and applied to a GL3 Demolish instead of applied to to a GL2 Demolish. How much stronger is it out the gate? I estimate about 50 averaged-out potency ahead if you skip the potion, but then I'm hesitant to share my notes. How much stronger is it in the end? Haha, well, that depends on when you stop the clock; you can certainly come out ahead if using IR earlier gets you another IR usage.

(AFAIK 50 potency should be <126 damage in reasonable and current endgame gear, calculate DPS accordingly?)