Six-Sided Tornado Star - The 5.0 Monk TK Rotation

[Oxdarock]

Hey there, Roxanne Stoner here!

So I've been playing lvl 80 monk for a while and it did not disappoint! It got some major buffs to it's old moves and it's newer ones make the TK rotation even better! That said, a majority of the community seems to not understand how to make the most of the post 70 moves, so I made a guide on how I go about the 5.0 monk TK rotation.

Six-Sided Tornado Star - the 5.0 Monk Rotation

Admittedly, given how much of the community believes the TK rotation is dead religiously, I expect a lot of backlash for this rotation/openers. At the very least, please give it a read to see the method to my madness before calling me crazy. I'd rather people read it and shoot me down afterwards than ignore it outright. Plus, some of the tips I include benefit even a non-TK rotation.

Hope this helps!

[Oxdarock]

After talking with someone on the specific numbers of the non-TK rotation, along with gaining a better understanding of how damage buffs stack and TK's true potency (it's actually 430 as it does more damage than 6SS at GL3), I've edited the guide and adjusted the openers/rotations.

The short version is that the 5.0 TK rotation is a lot more of a high risk, high reward rotation due to potency buffs of all the GCDs (particularly Leaden Bootshine, which is guaranteed to crit most of the time), and the lack of the 10% debuff from DK (granted I still loved its current effect a lot more).

In the end, whichever play style you go with is simply a matter of preference.

[Oxdarock]

After thinking on a bit more, I've come up with a priority list on when to use RoF/BH in the rotation depending on certain circumstances (PB or Anatman are up at the end of RoF duration, LF is up as RoF comes off CD, and both). I've also included a 6th usage of 6SS, along with more grammar tweaks to other parts of the guide, as well as better organization of the ToC.

[Amomomo]

Hello, I have no idea why your thread is being submerged by people complaining about monk. I for one very much appreciate the effort you put into your guide. I'm trying to use it now ! Thanks!

[Sora_Oathkeeper]

After reading through I was curious to see your actual dps numbers with it, so checked your fflogs. And I'll be honest, after seeing them I would advise against this kind of rotation and wouldn't recommend it to players as it's just a huge loss of dps from the standard rotation of not using TK or 6SS except when necessary. I don't want to go over your logs and I appreciate the effort you put into making the rotation, but despite the guide, the DPS it puts out is within thousands lower than what should be expected in a fight from a MNK.

To give a comparison however, in your deathless Titania ex fight, you did roughly 9.1k using your rotation, whereas Monk in full i430 gear should have been able to do around 10.5k~ So while you may think it's high risk high reward, it comes across as high risk and no reward.

[Oxdarock]

After reading through I was curious to see your actual dps numbers with it, so checked your fflogs. And I'll be honest, after seeing them I would advise against this kind of rotation and wouldn't recommend it to players as it's just a huge loss of dps from the standard rotation of not using TK or 6SS except when necessary. I don't want to go over your logs and I appreciate the effort you put into making the rotation, but despite the guide, the DPS it puts out is within thousands lower than what should be expected in a fight from a MNK.

To give a comparison however, in your deathless Titania ex fight, you did roughly 9.1k using your rotation, whereas Monk in full i430 gear should have been able to do around 10.5k~ So while you may think it's high risk high reward, it comes across as high risk and no reward.

Funny story, I was at first going to include my logs, but then decided against it because I felt it'd hurt my credibility. Thing is, I hadn't actually perfected the rotation and were using those runs to do so. The first edits of the guide were after someone had given me numbers on a simulation, one that removed all variables like crit and dh (excluding bootshine) and after tweaking it slightly during the conversation, listing what all the GCDs would be up until the first 4m and 20secs, the fall-off damage became the same with the main difference being the opener, which is why I concluded that it was high risk, high reward rotation. Even after that, I managed to tweak it even further to squeeze out every bit of damage possible, which resulted in discovering the new All-Rounder opener (and replacing the old opener I used when listing GCDs in the simulation).

In the end, however, I won't deny that until I go back into Titania and Innocence using the rotation I've written down, or unless more people with high parses pop up who actually try it out themselves, it does lack the credibility to make people take it seriously. All I can say is to try it at your leisure if spamming the usual 1-2-3 rotation starts to get dull.

[Sora_Oathkeeper]

Snip.

I appreciate the response and the effort you've put in nonetheless. If the post tells me anything it's that we all wish we could use TK and 6SS more often and I commend you for trying to do just that.

[Wahou]

Same response as Sora. I appreciate your efforts and your write up !
I had to change of main to healer, otherwise I would have tried it.

[Oxdarock]

Just updated sections 3.3 regarding the Perfect Balance rotation, as well as the Openers section.

Essentially, whichever opener and Perfect Balance rotation you decide to use comes down to whether you have a NIN in the group or not (and if your group decides to use 4th/5th GCD openers or 7th/8th GCD openers depending on the fight/preference). If you do, go for the rotation that gets out more LF crit-Boots back to back as you should at least get both of those in at minimum under the TA window. If not, go for the TK rotations (if you're so inclined), as every other raid buff in the game lasts at least 15 seconds, so you'll be able to fit almost everything in those windows.

For the opener section, I've readjusted the Shoe-Shiner opener and have removed the Balance opener (the opener floating around the Balance discord and everywhere else), and all other references to the Balance Discord and "The Art of Not TK-ing" guide entirely (unless you count the change log in the beginning). When I first wrote this, I made mentions of them in general as an "if all else fails, go with this opener which I got from here" option, but I honestly don't think that opener is good solely due to the Anatman usage in the beginning (which is the only major difference from the Shoe-Shiner opener, along with Pot and oGCD timings, plus 6SS at the end). I've seen people mention using an ACT trigger to time it properly (which does nothing for PS4 users like myself) but think it's completely unnecessary so long as you use Anatman following 6SS at the beginning. You'll always get at least 1 stack of GL no matter what (unless you use Anatman too late), all without clipping the next DK (on one rare instance I actually manage to get two GL stacks before the CD ended).

SE made the skill gap a lot smaller with Leaden Fist Bootshine, which I don't mind but at the very least I'd like them to implement the change to Meditation I mention in this thread in 5.5. It will give 6SS more obvious usage and bump up the optimality of the TK rotation solely because you're likely to get more chakra stacks with all the 6SS uses (at least that's my prediction).

[Oxdarock]

Just updated the 5.0 TK Rotation guide again. Made some adjustments to the openers and edited several sections. Here are the main changes:

1. Only use the 6SS+TK combo at the end of RoF or when under at least 3 raid buffs.
2. In the 6SS+Anatman combo, only use it to gain one GL stack (standing still hurts)
3. Always have a Shoulder Tackle charge available. If RoF has less than 10 seconds left on its CD, then hold ST, even if it caps at 2 charges.
4. PB has two rotation: GL stack recovery and Double Boot. For the latter, always keep three things in mind:
-You should at least get 2 LF crit-boots before and/or after you pop PB.
-You always need to use a GL refresh (Snap/Demo).
-You should end the PB window with DK somewhere so that the next Boot gets the LF buff.

That's pretty much it for this series of edits. Definitely expecting to make more if monk goes through any changes when patch 5.05 drops. Until then I guess.