Bare-fisted Monk (for fun and rp)

[Aryalandi]

So~ after watching the Stormblood trailer and thinking about the storyline leading up to Heavensward and what will be happening down the road I have (finally) started fully leveling up pugilist to unlock monk~ going through the entire story with "the emperors new fists" as my glamor of choice~ the reasoning being my warrior of light in her time of introspection over the events she has been through (and especially what happened in Ul'dah) led her to conclude that she had come to rely too fully on a physical object to defend herself from attackers that she could have feasibly defeated otherwise.

Her weapon had become a crutch and without it she became hesitant to act and it cost her and her friends dearly. Thus she had adopted the stance that she mastered a tool, mastered a form of combat, yet neglected to master herself~ and is seeking to mend that.

I will use this to explain why she becomes so much stronger than all of the other monks in the storyline who have been training so much longer than her~ as her lack of a weapon causes her to compensate by more rapidly developing her spiritual growth and mental discipline opening up her chakra more easily than others who (like she used to) put heavy focus on the presence of an external weapon that stunts their internal growth~

I am curious to hear if anyone else was inspired to go the "i need no weapons, i myself am a weapon, these are simply tools" route on their monks~ or if anyone else has started finally leveling it in anticipation of the new expansion~

[Ashur]

Mained monk all the way through from release to heavensward and always begged and pleaded for monks to have a glamour that made them need no weapon. Soon as the emperor's new fists were added i jumped on that chance. IMO bare-fisted monk is the only way to go! Well, that and sophic fists because theyre badass and i like anything steampunk-y

[Aryalandi]

XD hehe~ i will likely try to find a weapon that I really lije eventually but it is going to have to be downright amazing~ and yay for not being alone, i love that they added this option~ best weapon glamor ever~

[Atoli]

I love those weapons, leveled MNK to 50 in 1.x and never touched it again until a few weeks ago when I got the T-Shirt-like glamour gear and wanted to make a proper sport outfit with it.
Of course, that requires fitting emotes and MNKs /warmup and /triumph were just perfect <3 Since it's about sport, not fighting, the Emperor's New Fists were a necessity, ofc.
Despite that not being my original intention, the outfit made me fall in love with MNK and I learned it from the ground up and have been leveling it, now it's nearly 60

I guess that is a bit of a weird reason..^^;
That MNK is the focus for the expansion..well, I don't mind, but I don't really care either..xD

About Ul'dah though:

the story actually expains that you CHOOSE to not fight back because that would make the mess even worse, not because you do not have a weapon/are not strong enough bare-handedly.

[Aryalandi]

XD I remember why the pc chooses not to fight back~ i just liked the thought of adding a spin to it, especially in light of comments made during the dark knight quest chain~

Also all reasons for glamor are good reasons~

[ZhaneX]

I leveled Monk up...sometime or another.

Switched to "Emperor's New Gloves" as my weapon at level 50 and stuck with it for a while.

Also really like how some of the weapons like "Fists of the Sephirot" and "Fists of the Sultan" look. I just wish that they actually featured CLOSED FISTS, rather than the loose ones that look like they're still holding some invisible handle...

[TaranTatsuuchi]

I am another who always wanted a no weapon monk weapon.

So happy we got it eventually...



Now if only we can get rid of paladin shield and the card sheathe off astrologian.....

[Enkidoh]

Unequip the sword then when you're RPing and only equip it in battle? The shield is really PLD's identity (less so GLA) so I have to agree with the development team's stance on that I'm afraid.

Seriously though, the shield is an important part of the class/Job, so it needs to be visible (it's PLD's Job icon after all!). If you want to just swing a sword around without a shield, that's what DRK is for.

[Zojha]

The shield is really PLD's identity [...]

You don't really get that feel when there are a whooping 5 skills locked behind it. Only one of them PLD.

[Jingai]

I am curious to hear if anyone else was inspired to go the "i need no weapons, i myself am a weapon, these are simply tools" route on their monks~ or if anyone else has started finally leveling it in anticipation of the new expansion~

I prefer to think of myself as a "no weapons" MNK. I've been playing MNK nearly exclusively since 2007 when I first picked up the role in FFXI. In all the art I depict of Jing, she never uses weapons, unless I occassionally draw her with a wax wood staff (( hurry up and give me this Squeenix )). Only reason I keep my weapons visual IG is that I wasn't too fond of the animation of "resheathing" my Sphairai even though you couldn't see it. I might go back to keeping it hidden though as I really do feel a MNK themselves ARE the only weapon they should ever need. The "armaments" are just "fluff". ^^