Quote Originally Posted by MauvaisOeil View Post
Maybe the fists were more interesting during 1.0, as I heard, they were temporary buffs draining MP for specific effects.
They worked out to more overall variety in 1.x because Fists of Wind had rotational benefits (it reduced the recast times of damaging abilities used under its effect), and the elemental wheel was still used, meaning that just by switching to Earth on an Earth-weak mob you could be doing up to triple damage. Until Yoshida took over, the incapacitation/break-off system was also still used, which required x strikes and potentially y effects active to, say, knock a skeleton's head off or a buffalo's horn off, sabotaging it and/or offering unique loot. Iirc, Fists of Earth was required for at least one of these.