Pugilist: Arm of the Destroyer

[dragonseth07]

Hello! I leveled Pugilist some, and I have a question about Arm of the Destroyer (AoE in no form or third form) usage. Naturally, use it with enough mobs that I'm not losing potency. Okay, easy. My question is more about the forms. Until this point, I've been constantly cycling forms like a good Pugilist, but this ability gave me pause. In big AoE situations, would I be better off just spamming this at the cost of Greased Lightning? With the chance to use it in a large group, I felt as though I was losing a lot of damage keeping up my GL. So, what's the reality here?

[Claymore022]

So, what's the reality here?

So I'm gonna assume you don't have rockbreaker. Not sure what level arm of the destroyer is unlocked but if you can get to at least greased lightning 2 then you definitely want to maintain your stacks. GL is a stacking 10% damage buff so you're doing 20% more damage at gl2 and its definitely worth it. Arm of the destroyer is a very weak aoe and shouldn't be prioritized over keeping GL stacks, only prioritize it over bootshine if there are enough enemies. That's the short of it

[Claymore022]

Arm of the Destroyer should not be used very often outside of PvP or if you need to Silence. Arm of the Destroyer consumes too much TP (especially for the potency) and you will run out of TP quickly.

Monk AoE rotation is just 1-2-Rockbreaker with Elixir Field and Howling Fist on cooldown. You can Dragon Kick multiple mobs and maintain Twin Snakes while doing this. For small amounts of mobs 2-3 and depending how long the mobs live, you may apply Demolish on multiple mobs while doing single target rotation.

I pretty much disagree with everything you just said. Arm of the destroyer has A LOT of uses. Literally every dungeon at max level has a lot of places for it. And it will even see some use in the raids (A12S is a great example). As for tp, we have invigorate and purification, that's 700tp for one use of each, which should be more than enough to get you through mobs in dungeons and that's not even factoring in the tp support of other jobs.

For large mobs you should be doing arm of the destroyer, maintaining twin snakes, then rockbreaker and then taking out arm of the destroyer if they're staying alive too long. For anything less than 5 you absolutely want demolish up on at least two. Demo should take priority over RB in smaller groups unless they have really low hp

[Shurrikhan]

You're getting a relative 225 potency out of Bootshine vs. 50 per enemy on AotD. It'd take 4+ enemies for AotD to be dps-viable, and some 8+ for it to be equal in terms of damage dealt per TP spent.

Demolish will also deal as much damage as a 3-hit Rockbreaker if the full DoT can be used, at half the TP cost. If you want to maximize both your DoT durations and your AoE potential, AA what you haven't DoTed, and swap off lower health targets. If both your tank and healer are capable of using reduced damage taken to deal higher personal dps, however, then it may be better to just finish off enemies as you go — maximize your dps still, but don't refuse to finish off targets just because DoTs or AoE would have eventually done the trick anyways (since that portion less damage taken can increase tank and healer dps).

[LilLemay]

I wont claim to be any monk master, so I'm sure someone will dispute this, but generally I just alternate between putting demolish on everything in the pull and using rockbreaker, then using just the rockbreaker combo once everything has demolish

[Claymore022]

Demolish will also deal as much damage as a 3-hit Rockbreaker if the full DoT can be used.

Demo is 420 while a 3 hit RB is 390. So you need 4 enemies to beat a single demo in potency. But that's also not the correct way to look at it. It takes 21sec for demo to hit 420p. In that time you could use 3 rockbreakers, so you consider that when deciding if you should put demo up. I did the math a while ago back at the start of Midas and if I remember correctly, you need at least 5 enemies before a rockbreaker can take priority over demo. So basically you should have at least one demo going at anything less than 5. But once you hit 5 the rotation changes to AoTD, maintain twin snakes, rockbreaker, with no demolish.

[Shurrikhan]

Demo is 420 while a 3 hit RB is 390. So you need 4 enemies to beat a single demo in potency. But that's also not the correct way to look at it. It takes 21sec for demo to hit 420p. In that time you could use 3 rockbreakers, so you consider that when deciding if you should put demo up. I did the math a while ago back at the start of Midas and if I remember correctly, you need at least 5 enemies before a rockbreaker can take priority over demo. So basically you should have at least one demo going at anything less than 5. But once you hit 5 the rotation changes to AoTD, maintain twin snakes, rockbreaker, with no demolish.

The issue with that is that assuming all allies are AoEing, the one with the most non-AoE damage taken as well will certainly die first. You can shuffle your own damage among the remaining with DK/BS/Twin/True on a different enemy for 15s at a time, but you can't control the party. The first to reach sub-20% HP among a physical-dps party, especially, loses that last 20% a fair bit more quickly due to finisher abilities. Almost every AoE scenario tends to be trash, and trash relatively short-lived. That's why I tend to round down. As with Doton, you're quite likely to lose out on ticks. You can't loose out on Rockbreaker damage except by not using it as many times as possible while the highest number of enemies were up. That is why I tend to round down DoT damage in AoE comparisons. If I know the damage flow of my party, then I'll absolutely max Demo; but chances are if they're a party that has all that down that well that I can predict a mob's death down to the second, that death will also come sooner, again costing me ticks.

[Claymore022]

Idk... I've never had a hard time deciding if I should use demo or not. I usually just dot the first one I hit and then decide if I should dot another when I get around to it based on hp. And even with good dps, unless there's only like 2 low hp enemies, demo with reach its full duration more often than not. If demo is my third gcd instead of my first then that's usually plenty of time to tell if they're dying too fast. If the one I'm on is losing hp too fast then I'll switch last second. In fact, I'd say counting on hitting all enemies with rockbreaker while doing positionals and the tank dodging aoes is far more fluky than demo getting all of its ticks. Rockbreaker's positioning is so important that I count it as a positional

[Victorixvii]

Honestly arm of the destroyer has its few points where is viable mostly in dungeons big pulls but as12 adds is prime example of it doing pure work and no tp doesnt become an issue even without having a nin goad infact i take it to another level when they are all in 10-15% do a double Arm of destroyer if you want pure speed run and the group can have the mobs at all same ish hp levels then its nothing but a good thing i mean in as12 having to kill of stragglers is one single target move at a time is just terrible i mean how does 3700-4000 dps + sound by end of adds monks aoe is one of the best in the game make all you can off it

[RyuDragnier]

AotD overall I don't suggest using unless there's something that needs to be silenced and the enemy can't be stunned (or you don't want to waste a precious stun on it). Overall I rarely touch the move, just like One-Ilm Punch. Wait until you turn into a MNK and get Rockbreaker before you try to help with AoE damage. Because Rockbreaker is amazing AoE damage when compared to AotD. Not to mention once you hit level 50, Perfect Balance -> Rockbreaker spam is life.