IiPunch - Monk Guide

Legs + Feet. NQ abjurations are lacking too much accuracy. This isn't even "higher" accuracy, it's just base stuff needed to smack Apex monsters in Doh gates. HQ abjurations can do some of this, though Adhemar +1 is stupidly expensive. And CL135 isn't even high... That's Reisen T2 NM's, Apex mobs are just level ~130.


I use melee's on anything that can reasonably be melee'd. MNK has all the tools, all the gear and a few exploitable WS's, it should be possible to do good. I looked around and the "Good" MNKs had their gear upside down sideways due to left over Delve era thinking. So it's now my project to see how far I can push it to prove a point.

accuracy doesn't mean anything if you don't have the context of buffs and debuffs applied ! ! !

Ryuo Domaru does not have Critcal Hit Damage on it.

Abnoba Kaftan has STR+25 DEX+38 Acc+22 Att+22 Crit Rate+5% Crit Damage+5%

Less STR than the Ryuo but has far better Crit Rate and more importantly Crit Damage.

Really? I don't agree. Even the "good" pieces you noted are worse than not very difficult to obtain existing options.

Legs:
Hizamaru+1: STR+47 Acc+39 Atk+27 WSD+5%
Mummu+1: STR+33 DEX+7 Acc+39 Crit rate+6%

I can't conceive of many VS situations where DEX+7/crit+6% beats STR+16 Atk+27 WSD+5%. Admittedly, would be closer if you're capping atk.

Feet:
For argument's sake, let's just give Herculean moderate augments of DEX+9 Acc+26 Crit Rate+4% (making the STR DEX Acc Crit exactly the same on both for an easy comparison, even thought what's probably better for Herc would be STR and Crit damage or TA).

Herculean: STR+16 DEX+33 Acc+36 Atk+10 TA+2% Crit Rate +4%
Mummu+1: STR+16 DEX+33 Acc+36 Crit rate +4%


Thanks for catching the mistake! And yeah, Abnoba (or a decently augmented Herculean Vest) still better than the new ambuscade body in most situations.

Hi guys, how relevant is the first page with gear sets etc? Also i read MNK was getting update for H2H. What came of this? Was it anything significant? Is VS still the go to WS or SS the better one to use now?

Returning player looking to get his MNK on

with the exception of last update, it's updated. i might work on it today if work is rly slow again. SS is a pile of hot garbage, only VS, Raging Fists, Howling Fist (and Ascetic's Fury w/ Glanzfaust) matter. The H2H update sucked too, iirc it was an attack and base damage boost?

i didnt see any difference when i was doing the ambusace looked same as always did to me

I can and do. WSD only effects first hit and not all the rest. So STR vs crit and crit wins.

Feet are situational and depends on augments.

But seriously did someone drop you on your head as a child? Ambuscade gear isn't supposed to be best-in-slot, it's functional gear that is easy to obtain and works until someone gets better augments or better aberration gear. The progression is Ambuscade / NQ abjuration -> good augmented reisen -> HQ abjuration / godly augmented reisen.

Mummus is surprisingly good for crit WS's so it lasts a bit longer then things like sulvia / flamma or the mage sets. Eventually it gets replaced but the player isn't gimped using it.

Ignoring the obnoxious and totally uncalled for personal insults...


OK, so you're just wrong then. STR+16 beats Crit+6% clearly for V.Smite in most situations/targets/buffs; some best case for crit situations it gets closer to where it's sidegrade territory. That's not even accounting for Hizamaru+1's Atk+27 (quite a lot, assuming you aren't attack capped) and WSD+5% (which is only on first hit, true, but is more than a zero gain so I don't see why you're just waving it away).

We're also talking about ambuscade gear versus ambuscade gear, same level of difficulty to obtain. Both Ambuscade legs are actually solid V.Smite pieces, which is nice. But if you have access to both (and why wouldn't you with all the chances to get vouchers and older Ambuscade gear even if you missed it the first time around), you should generally choose Hizamaru+1.


This rigid idea of progression and Ambuscade gear being inherently starter-level is just plain wrong. There are plenty of excellent Ambuscade pieces that still retain use even if you have great other gear for the jobs. Even the sets you downplay like Flamma have some BiS pieces (Flamma+1 head is amazing for SAM, and feet are pretty high end too). Inyanga+1 set has a few incredibly good Macc pieces. Tali'ah+1 set has some arguably BiS PUP DD and Macc pieces (depending on how you're using the automaton), etc.

From a MNK perspective, Hizamaru set gets some criticism but has some great pieces. Legs are excellent for WS. Body is a unique BiS (by a huge margin) idle regen piece. Head is really good when you aren't getting capped magical haste thanks the the Martial Arts, potentially BiS.

The entire Mummu+1 set (well, maybe not so much the head) is fantastic for stuff like ranged crit builds for RNG and COR, Macc for Ninjutsu enfeebles, and DEX (not STR) WS with a chance to crit (Jishnu's, unstacked Evisceration, etc.), niche DNC uses like Acc+Macc for Violent Flourish stun accuracy or head's Waltz potency received... It's also generally useful as a super high acc TP set, with some serious sacrifices to multiattack and attack - and that's really the most realistic use for MNK


Problem is that Mummu+1 just doesn't happen to be all that good for STR/Crit WS like V.Smite, as you claim. While it's certainly not awful, it is beaten by gear that is about the same difficulty to obtain (T1 Reisenjima, NQ Abjuration, other Ambuscade gear). You don't need 100mil+ HQ abjurations or dream tier Reisenjima augments to beat this stuff, any player who can grind through Ambuscade should be able to access these better alternatives.

Saev, cut the snark, jeez.

gonna submit a whitehouse petition to topic ban him

I stated this last page


Dude's acting like people are stating Ambuscade is best in slot or something after stating that accuracy doesn't matter.

These didn't need to be said.


Ambuscade gear is really good... some of the pieces for certain things at least. Reisenjima armor with [really] good augments is going to be better for all / most things.

When it's been stated already that ambuscade gear is generally starter or in-between gear that gets replaced eventually and dude goes on about how its easily replaced.. yeah.

I'm not saying Mummu+1 stuff gets EVENTUALLY replaced. I'm saying that even for a MNK of more modest means, there are easy to acquire WS options that are better, from similar difficulty content, and you're misleading people by saying "nah, it's fine cause you'll replace it anyway". No need to wait to wait to replace stuff that's already beaten by other gear that's just as easily acquired - this is not a matter of working up to HQ abjurations or god tier Reisenjima augments.

Saevel, you clearly said that one ambuscade piece (Hizamaru+1 legs) is better for V.Smite than another ambuscade piece (Mummu+1 legs). And that's incorrect. In fact, Hizamaru+1 legs remain pretty top tier stuff even if you have access to everything in the game. They're better than even god tier Herculean, they're arguably/situationally better than Rao+1 (which have no accuracy, like you've said is so important).

You also said Mummu+1 feet were good for Smite, and I really don't like that recommendation either considering the availability of easy to obtain Herculean Boots, which are better with only moderately good augments.

I also disagree with the blanket generalization that ambuscade gear is automatically to be assumed as starter/in-between gear. Some of the pieces are phenomenal, like the aforementioned Hiza+1 legs. It just doesn't happen to be the case that any of the Mummu set is very worthwhile FOR MONK (it's got some great uses for other jobs though - I'm using it on RNG Jishnu/crit, COR ranged/crit and light/dark shots, NIN macc, THF DNC unstacked WS, etc.)

If you're the one trying to educate the ignorant MNK masses so the job gets more use on current high end content (I guess we're all stuck in Delve thinking if we don't feel we always need hundreds more accuracy than is necessary to cap hit rate on the stuff we're using MNKs for...), then you can probably do better than giving bad gear advice to people working their way up.

What you like or feel is immaterial. Mummu +1 legs beat Hiza +1. It's 6% Crit 5 accuracy vs 14 STR and 5% WSD on a four hit WS that doesn't have fTP scaling but does critical. 1% Crit rate is about a 1% increase on crit WS's at capped cRatio, more if your under capped cRatio, exact number depends on how much CAB is present. 14 STR is +11.2 base DMG (+3.5 fSTR also) and +10.5 attack, worthwhile but not as large an increase unless your at very low DMG values.

Now if your using something like TK, DK and RF (at higher TP values) then Hiz +1 are the obvious choice.


Ambuscade gear was purposefully designed to be starter / catch-up gear. It's extremely easy to get, even completely solo if someone is willing to grind it out. Each set is given large amounts of accuracy and some other base stats but also a deliberate weakness associated with the set. Usually something like Haste, Attack, HP/MP or some other stat. SE purposefully designed the sets so that new and returning players could "catch up" on content without being forced to cycle through all the old stuff or merc the Reisen gear. Now it also happens that us min-maxing players can find ways to leverage the stats of ambuscade gear in situations where their weakness isn't relevant.

Do you have quantitative validation for this?

Bryth did the math awhile back between Crit Hit and Crit Hit Damage for Crit WS's. The result was approximately 1% but the exact value varies depending on current cRatio and how much CAB was present. The only other stat comparable to Crit was Multi-Attack, WSD isn't really useful unless your first hit has a much larger portion of fTP then the rest, think Blade: Hi or even Ukko's. VS is 2.25 then adding another 3~4 1.0 hits (averaged one extra hit per WS, could be more). WSD only effects that first hit but Crit effects all the hits and MA adds more hits. WSC raise's base DMG on all hits but the value we're speaking about is comparatively low, unless someone isn't using iLevel gear. Also remember dDEX adds crit rate, something that's frequently forgotten.

If he really wanted to make a case for Hizu over Mummu then he would be discussing the attack value and how it effects cRatio. Lack of attack is Mummu sets weakness and the reason I only use the legs / feet in VS set since I have better in the other slots. What really hurts is the accuracy, I can have epic TP gear but VS is annoying to gear for since almost all my Multi-Hit / Acc / Crit gear is loaded with DEX instead of STR.

It's nice if the pieces for the month happen to be for a job that a returning player is playing/gearing up, but if you missed it you're kind of boned no matter what. Like for me I came back just in time for... Tali'ah set, and sadly I do not play pet jobs. My friend and I have made more progress doing Escha content than doing Ambuscade.

They made Ambuscade coupons that you can trade in for a piece of your choice. They were available for a month after the first round of sets was completed, and they're adding them again permanently soon (I think in next week's update?).

That'll be really nice, thank you for mentioning that!

Yeah like NF just said they made coupons for that cause people mentioned missing pieces. It's pretty obvious that it's just bandaid / catch-up gear with how they built each set. With the exception of situational items they are generally beaten by Abjuration or well augmented Reisen gear. Mumuu's kinda stands out DD wise because it's loaded with so much +crit on each piece, something that normally would only apply to one or two items in a set, guess that is the sets theme stat.

I don't have a MNK spreadsheet, but the gains I get from adding 1% critical hit rate to CDC amount to less than half a percent marginal WS damage gain. So a 3%~ marginal gain from adding 6% critical hit rate in the scenario I created. Ignoring multi strikes gear (non-negligible but I'm not trying to be exact here), adding 5% WSD (assuming you have 0 already) equates to a 2.14%~ marginal damage gain on Smite. 14 STR should easily be enough to close and overcome this gap. H2H also has a higher pDIF caps than 1H (crits are less significant than 1H) and MNK doesn't have any base critical attack bonus. Impetus will add some but also adds critical hit rate (which reduces your marginal gains on adding more critical hit rate).

This analysis is far from rigorous, but it's enough to illustrate the point. You're basically just shooting from the hip, relying on your perceived intuition, instead of something more reliable like a spreadsheet. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Hizamaru +1 came out on top.

I actually did spreadsheet all of this, and Hizamaru+1 legs are consistently ahead of Mummu+1 for all of the variations of buffs/targets that I've tried.

Since it's always annoying to see people talk about a spreadsheet that doesn't exist, I'll try to clean it up a bit more and post it for everyone's use in the next couple days. I'm sure the spreadsheet model isn't perfect (no spreadsheet is), but I'm pretty confident it's a fairly accurate representation. I am aware of a couple shortcomings already: doesn't calculate gifts (so I just inserted mine on "custom" line), likely doesn't correctly calculate Relic/Empy effects since the afterglow update (wasn't quite as relevant to me so I didn't really care), I added Godhands base stats but didn't account for the Shijin Spiral bonus (or lv4 SC properties), etc. But maybe someone else more skilled than me can help clean some of that up further.

One spreadsheet question:
Does anyone have good stats for current higher end mobs? I pulled in Apex Crab stats from Verda's recent RNG sheet updates (lv130, def 1310, eva 1163, vit 350, agi 250). Would love to see if anyone has some fairly confident numbers for other 130+ options. I also did a really quick and dirty "135" mob estimate and buffed some stats that, just from eyeballing, look more or less in line with the rate of increase by level (135: def 1500, eva 1270, vit 350, agi 270), but this is really just an educated guess and I would greatly appreciate any input.

One last Mummu+1 point:
I did notice something as looking at this further (with math, not a hunch). Mummu+1 body does become more appealing for Victory Smite in one situation: when you start fighting very high level targets and struggling to maintain capped accuracy. Abnoba consistently comes out ahead until you're acc deficient, but then fails to keep up with Mummu+1 (and Ryuo A, which is generally a little behind Mummu+1 but still benefits from more Acc than Abnoba). So, that is one use case for MNK from this Ambuscade set - and it's not as "starter gear", it's a very strong option in that particular scenario (only beaten by very strong augments on a Herculean Vest, or HQ Ryuo body).

So, this does relate to Saevel's perfectly valid point that on high difficulty content where you might struggle with accuracy, using high acc pieces for WS is also important. This is one such example. Saevel just overlooked the body when he mentioned that, from the Mummu+1 set, legs and feet were the items to potentially consider for V.Smite (neither of those beats other easy to obtain options - Hiza+1 legs, Herculean or Ryuo feet depending on acc requirements)

Capu, or anybody else really, do you have an updated Howling Fist set? Multiple sets with alternatives apreciated!
Wanna see what I missed, created mine in a big haste, pretty confident I missed a couple of items which I actually already own.

Working on finishing adding the Dec/Jan update items to my spreadsheet and posting it for download in next day or two (depending on how busy I am at work!)

Quick hits from Jan update:

New Moonbow belt basically replaces Windbuffet+1 for MNK PUP, so good stuff there. HQ is obviously even better, but seems likely to be a rare and very expensive synthed piece (think Mache+1, Stikini+1, Staunch Tathlum +1).

The new H2H (Jolt Counter) is... OK. I'm getting it still not beating previous best non-RMEA like Comeuppances/+1 and good augment Condemners. More on par with something like Denouements, I'm getting the new NQ slightly behind and HQ slightly ahead of those. This doesn't consider the benefit to counters, but I'll leave that to you to decide how often you're tanking stuff on MNK.


Well, a bunch of Omen gear is great for it. Knobkierrie, Sherida Earring, Niqmaddu Ring. The new Moonbow Belt is also gonna be BiS by a large margin. May not be perfect, but I'm guessing a good Howling set looks something like:

ItemSet 348911

Howling will benefit a lot from WSD, which honestly is kind of annoying on MNK since those pieces (i.e. WSD Herculean stuff, or Segomo's Mantle) aren't too useful on other MNK WS. I also don't seem to be getting results that typically beat VS/Raging, so I'm not really sold it's worth focusing too much on Howling.

EDIT: Oh, and Anchorite+3 hands will be current BiS too.

Vsmite/Shijin are usually better at 1000 TP, Raging Fists is usually better at high TP with good enough buffs.

There's a small niche where Howling Fist is better than Raging Fists. Motenten created a graph showing the point when Howling is better. It's a small niche, but it has its uses.

Sucks that, just like Raging Fists, it has awful SC properties =/

I'm probably like you in that I tossed together a set and it didn't impress me much, but Howling is still going to be pretty niche. Basically going to want to use it at high TP when your accuracy is bad enough to significantly hurt Raging. Still should be preferable to use V.Smite at 1000 though, if that's feasible.

It's a hassle that Howling uses different augmented gear than other MNK WS, but YMMV if you have Herculean pieces from other jobs that would be good - looking for WSD 4~5% (top priority) + ideally DEX (but STR works) + whatever Acc/Atk you can get. So... like maybe people have those for NIN Blade: Metsu/Ten pieces, some THF DNC Herc augmented WS gear, etc.

Played around a little more, and excluding the Omen stuff, I more or less agree with the current sets on the OP. Downgrades from Omen gear include:

Ammo:
Ear: Moonshade, then Brutal and Ishvara are more or less a toss up (OP lists Moonshade/Ishvara)
Ring: Apate/Epona coming out best for me
Belt: Moonbow > Grunfeld
Hands: should go something roughly like: Anchorite +3 > Adhemar+1 > Herculean (WSD) or Anchorite+2 > Adhemar

Also, I overlooked Caro Necklace for some reason in the above posted set. Updated that.

i went back 4-5 pages and was unable to see it here. I was told it wasnt posted that long ago but was unable to find it.

I am told GS can change your gear on the fly for better accuracy gear should you need it when fighting mobs with higher evasion.

1) is this recommended over the manual toggle, and
2) if its accepted as good practice, does anyone have the script for it?

Finally as a returning MNK (yeah i know mnk is not in a great place now but i really like the job and enjoy playing it), what weapon is advised? I currently have a Tip with accuracy and dex path.


thanks!

Tornado Kick looks like it would be better generally but I haven't progressed deep enough into sets for it to really form a solid opinion. It's 40% STR/VIT instead of HF's 50% DEX / 20% STR but has a second hit with similar fTP growth. Same 50% attack bonus.