gear to aim for, minus the insulting each other

[Almalexia]

This is incorrect. The Ifrit base attack is 131 with 39.69 DPS. Storm Sergeants, even without sanction, are 132 with a 40.00 DPS. While the difference is small, the hooks still superior to the Ifrit claws.

Also, I wouldn't say the GC gear is superior to Garuda claws, at all. The Garuda claws may have a lower base attack, but since most MNK damage comes from your weapon skills, that 41.07 DPS is more important. Along with having the ACC boost. You really shouldn't even need to put INT on your weapon, anyways.

You are overestimating the value of DPS in WS calculation. DPS is used to improve WS damage so that lower delay/lower damage weapons like Garuda remain competitive against weapons with higher DMG/higher delay, not mop the floor with them. While it's true most MNKs will see 60 WS:40 AA damage in an ordinary fight and 70:30 in an extraordinary fight, this doesn't mean a weapon should be reduced to its DPS stat. There are other ways to increase WS damage--things the community has quantified.

40 INT is enough to send any MNK in AF head to the known INT cap. I understand you don't need INT from your weapon, but this is a transitional weapon until OP obtains INT from other sources.

Which is best for OP right now? That depends on the rest of his gear. If OP were to plop one of the two into his weapon slot as he is geared now, I would say Garuda is better for the sake of ACC. However, for overall damage, he would get the most improvement from sanctified GC hooks and ACC in one of the accessory slots. If Sanction is lost, he can fall back on Garuda or hooks as they are (I suppose it's too bold to claim Ifrit is better than unsanctioned hooks, or vice-versa, in any practical sense; for the sake of inventory space, lose Ifrit once you get hooks.)

[charlemagne]

Now is a pretty good time to be gearing your mnk. There is a lot of quick easy gil to be made farming mats for hamlet defence items or the class weapons which can easily make you plenty of gil to go after those double and triple melds. If you have no high level DoL/DoH then you can still make a fortune each day from raptorskin at the moment.

From your current build the first thing I'd do would be to have a friendly crafter start blowing things up for you in an attempt to get more STR on those gloves and trousers. The Storm Sergeants Tabard is a lovely piece for monk. Without the ridiculously rare darklight corselet it'll be bis for you until you can cap out STR from other sources. Once you can get that STR from melds on your gloves/pants I'd suggest replacing it with a gryphonskin tunic which you can have double melded with critt att power. If you buy the mats yourself and get lucky with the meld you can have one made for about 360k on my server. Head and feet slots are pretty much af until you can get DL, I wouldn't spend any gil trying to improve on af in those slots. Other than that I'd just replace that earring with the veterans earring and try to get +1 versions of your jewelry as and when you can afford to.

[charlemagne]

One quick addition. I see a lot of monks making up a few points with food. I do it myself. If you can try to be in the position where you are making up the INT from food rather than the STR. Eft steaks for INT come with more +ATT than the smoked raptor for STR. Obviously the two stats are more important than the ATT until you reach cap but if you can reach the same totals using either food then the extra ATT will help.

[Chardrizard]

Ppl use smoked raptor bc its cheap
I also only use expensive food in important fight or when i am trying to get epeen number, but smoked raptor is what everyone would probably use in general.

[AmandaHuggenkiss]

Smoked raptor is always best unless you have capped strength.
Only then, do you want the eft steak.

[charlemagne]

Smoked raptor is always best unless you have capped strength.
Only then, do you want the eft steak.

Yeah I thought it was clear in my post but reading it back it wasn't. I didn't mean to use eft steak to increas INT at the cost of reaching the STR cap but rather that it was better to reach the STR cap through gear rather than relying on food if possible and then to use eft steak. If a player cannot reach the STR cap through gear then smoked raptor is better.