IiPunch - Monk Guide

I prefer R25 mpaca's boots over herc boots myself. The stats are just so much better overall. There's no quad attack sure, but the extra strength and crit rate should offset that just fine. And Mpaca's has notably higher defense, more hp, better magic eva, some killer effects, more magic defense, higher attack, higher accuracy... etc. Personally I think the only things worth chasing after from oboro nowadays are the extra phalanx potency augs from DM campaigns and some of the unique stat effects like aspir/drain potency and occult acumen. Resinjima gear has been power crept pretty hard by oddy and empy gear and apart from the specific stats I just mentioned I've phased it out of my gear sets entirely at this point.

If I'm not skillchaining and am using Godhands, what WS should I spam?

Raging/Howling Fist when footwork is down, and Tornado Kick when footwork is up.

I’ve been gone awhile but isn’t Godhands VSmite still really good when Impetus is up? It used to be more buff specific with Raging/Howling winning when you had fewer buffs or is that all out the window now?

Edit: I just realized the question might have meant they deliberately do not want to SC so my question might be pointless

Assuming Moonshade/Godhands/Mpacahead it doesn't seems to matter for DPS when you gonna use it, as long as it's below 2050 (There is slight DPS loss if you wait, but its around 2% or less). It slightly depends on your TP set too though.

Howling fists, raging fists, victory smite, tornado kick, and dragon kick all have replicating fTP values across many hits. Because of that you want to wait until you have closer to 2000-2500 TP to weaponskill. Monk also has the highest white damage so it's worth it to spend more time punching away, because every time we weaponskill that white damage gets interrupted by the weaponskill animation in the same way dancers dps slows down whenever they spam job abilities because of the 1 second JA delay.

There is a natural flow of battle that lends itself very well to monks playstyle that both godhands and karambit follow.

--Use impetus then for the next 3 minutes
TP in empyrean +3 body, weaponskill with raging fists at around 2K-2500 TP if attack/defense ratio is high, or weaponskill with howling fists at around 2k-2500 TP instead if attack/defense ratio is low (because howling fist has a 1.5 attack modifier). Then, once impetus stacks are built up you can also start throwing 1K victory smites around if you feel like it. Obviously make sure you're wearing the empyrean +3 body for it, since it massively impacts victory smites performance with high impetus stacks.

---Once impetus wears off throw up footwork and for the next one minute
TP in your standard non-impetus body. I prefer R25 Mpaca's for this phase myself. Then weaponskill with either tornado kick or dragon kick at around 2K-2500 TP. Be sure to include artifact +3 feet in your tornado and dragon macroes during this phase.

--Once footwork wears off there is a one minute period of reduced DPS where you have neither of your main DD abilities active, so you just TP in your standard non-impetus body and go back to weaponskilling at around 2k-2500 TP with raging fists or howling fists. Then when Impetus timer re-ups return to step one and rinse/repeat ad-nauseum.

This is only true if you mean effective TP, which is by default at almost 2000 with 950TP bonus (assuming Godhands). You don't need to wait at all with Godhands.

Yeah, I went back in and edited that a bit because I caught several mistakes. You posted that while I was still editing so I'll just respond here and say that yes, I meant effective tp. Godhands users will go off a bit sooner than karambit because they get 950 TP bonus whereas karambit only gets 450. The general flow of battle though is what I laid out.

Are people actually getting away with TPing in the Empyrean +3 body in more difficult content (mainly Odyssey at this point)?

I understand the bonus to damage is significant, but the middling defensive stats had me wondering if it can be used in harder content still. You can work around the lack of DT fine, but you lose magic defense over Malignance and physical over Mpaca, although it does kinda middle of the road some stats between those:

vs Malignance : -30 meva, +12 def, +21hp
vs Mpaca : -19def, +23 meva, -6 mdb, -10pdt, +5hp

It is enough of an improvement over the +1 to make it more viable when defensive stats are an issue, but curious how people are getting along with it vs mobs like Ngai and Gigalorum when Impetus is up.

If dying is a problem you simply tp in your defensive setup fulltime. That shouldn't be hard to grasp. What I posted was a generalized summary of combat flow on monk, and that's going to involve the empyrean body. It wasn't specific to any content. I've posted tp sets for several classes in their respective threads. If content demands fulltime defense you just swap pieces as needed. This applies to every job. Situational things are situational ..... yadda yadda yadda. This is nothing new.


To provide a straightforward answer, yes it's possible to TP in empyrean +3 on some of the mobs, especially if they have a dedicated tank and you aren't holding main hate. Mpaca's head, hands, legs and feet alone provide -30 PDT. You can still hit -49 PDT without needing the body slot just adding your cape, moonbow belt +1, and odnowa earring +1 to that. Moonbow belt +1 and odnowa earring +1 are already -11 MdT, so there's plenty of room to alter accessories to cap MDT too. Between defending ring, the option to just go -5 dt on your cape, gelatanus ring +1, Yacuruna Ring +1 etc etc etc.. there are tons of ways to build around the empyrean body on most fights. I haven't actually seen Ngai on v25 yet so I'm not confident in saying much on him, but the t1's and t2's it shouldn't be a problem to make work.

sets.engaged.Defense = {
ammo="Ginsen",
head="Bhikku Crown +2",
body="Bhikku Cyclas +3",
hands={ name="Tatena. Gote +1", augments={'Path: A',}},
feet="Bhikku Gaiters +2",
legs="Bhikku Hose +2",
neck="Monk's Nodowa +1",
waist="Moonbow Belt +1",
left_ear="Sherida Earring",
right_ear="Telos Earring",
right_ring="Epona's Ring",
left_ring="Defending Ring",
back={ name="Segomo's Mantle", augments={'DEX+20','Accuracy+20 Attack+20','DEX+10','"Dbl.Atk."+10','Damage taken-5%',}},}

This is the defensive set I roll with for TP. It's overcapped on DT- but still provides a fair amount of TA/DA and Store TP. I'm currently climbing in Ody to reach the harder bosses though so I imagine I'll replace it with Mpaca where I can once that's available to me.

Staunch tathlum + 1 is another option to add -dt in your hybrids. Monk gets so many extremely effecient -dt options that tweaking accessories to fit the empyrean body into the impetus window shouldn’t be a major problem regardless of content. I used the +1 body in a hybrid against ngai back in veng 20. With the enhanced overall stats the +3 version has I see no reason it can’t fit into a hybrid against v25 as well.

Edit: here’s my basic impetus setup. I have -5 dt on the cape. This over caps PDT and leaves me with 49 MDT. I could add staunch tathlum +1 to fully cap magic if it was ever an issue, but this is the kind of baseline you wanna use. Malignance in place of Mpaca when magic Eva matters more.

ItemSet 389266

It's almost universally vere, but situations are situational.

According to sheet:
Footwork down, Impetus down: Godhands wins by a lot (more than 20%)
Footwork down, Impetus up: Veret wins, by (less than 10%)
Footwork up, Impetus down: Godhands wins by slightly less than 10%

From all 3 options above, 3rd is the highest DPS, but thats not counting self SC from Vsmite, which would push Vsmite setup much much higher. On the other hand TK>TK>TK is also self SC, just weaker and from various elements, so more chance for one to be resisted, but it's 4xSC with 6WSs, while Vsmite is 3xSC with 6WSs.

Also I was thinking quite a lot about most balanced MNK tp set lately and can't really find one.


That's only 24% haste, which is not a problem for Veret, but it might be for Karambit. I would also never use Odnowa over Sherida. You want to have 25%SBII as MNK.

It's really a main problem of Empy+3 legs, they are only 7% haste.

There is few ways to compensate that to at least 25%.
- Adhemar head +1, but its terrible defensively
- Bhikku +3 feet, hands or head, but only hands are a dps gain when you overcap attack. I like head option too, because it caps SBI (matters without WHM) with Schere earring and has plenty of DT. Head is slight dps loss despite capping haste for Karambit, but it's slight dps gain for Godhands
- AF+3 feet, also glassy af

am3 for h2h is crap

That's even more true now than ever with possibility of up to 100% Kick Attack rate with AF+3 feet and even set proc being significant part of the white damage (especially during Footwork).

For people how still don't know. AM3 on Veret can only proc on 1st hand punch of one hand (I forgot if it's right or left hand, but that's whatever). It's only good with Boosted auto-attack, where it can triple whole damage of that single hit, which leads to some really funny numbers, but using Boost like that is dps loss in the first place, unless in some really niche situation like when you are forced to stop damage for several seconds anyway.

Could also net 1% haste from the blue wyvern cheer no? Then you'd be comfortable not changing anything, other than the Sherida that I agree with, plus swapping the -DT to -PDT aug on the cape considering how easy it is to have shell up

I went through my sets the other day after I upgraded my schere earring and just slotted it into the build without too much afterthought. I agree with the SB II on sherida. I put it back in. Swap the cape to -10 PDT and you still get a total -49 MDT with just the belt, empy +3 legs and shell. I'm not sure on the final % of haste though. It didn't even occur to me it was short a bit.

I might still have to wake up, but isn't that set ~12 Subtle Blow off from being capped?
Which you could easily solve with Bhikku+3 head.
Head also brings:
1) Capped haste regardless of weapon
2) Lotsa acc/att
3) -11 DT

You lose on crit/ta, which at that point you can partially compensate by using Kendatsuba+1 Feet, which also give more Meva, but less MDB and less attack.


Btw out of curiosity how are you guys handling Schere Earring on MNK? Atm I simply put it there in my TP sets but I'm slightly unsatisfied.
There might be situations where I don't want to lose my enmity.
Can't find of an efficient solution other than creating a specific trigger Schere on/off though.

ItemSet 388987

This is the set I found to work best on V25 NMs Gog/Hen/Gig/Ngai. DPS will be lowered but we still managed to kill NMs with ~5 mins to spare. Key factors:

1. Capped Subtle Blow 1 & 2.
(With Double Tank and Rdm strategies auspice is not always available)
2. Capped MDT with Shell V.
3. Capped PDT.
4. -Enmity, Schere, -5 Enmity merits.
(Although the -enmity is small it is very noticeable)

I also used Schere and relic head in WS set. Sometimes the best offense is a good balanced defense.

Cool idea, but Green Wyvern cheer is magic haste, not gear haste.

I dont really like this set tbh.
You trade so much for enmity -8 and you will have SV Dirge in those fights anyway, which alone caps your enmity. You can cap Subtle Blow in more efficient ways.

I think this set is the best if you want both Subtle blow cap and DT:
ItemSet 389269
Mpaca can also be Nyame if you want more meva and can drop some more dps.

If you don't care for capped PDT/MDT(withShell) or you have Auspice (btw Auspice from sub is enough to cap MNK SBI), then there is lots of combinations really and it's even more if you want to optimize dps and you care for attack capped and uncapped.

Simon's set is the best imho and if I'm not wrong it was already discussed some pages ago.
The only limit I see in that set is the amount of time/effort required to get the 3x Empy+3 pieces.
You can't magically snap your fingers and make them appear in your inventory, what if someone wants to be using MNK on V25 fights and still doesn't have those pieces?

Arguably +2 could be considered, but of course the stats (while overall still pretty good) are inferior to other older options in the same slots that someone might already own.
Only exception to that being the body because, well, it's obvious lol

If it were me I'd just use the set Simon posted even with with +2 pieces rather than +3

I agree. I've updated mine to match accordingly.

Aye, Simons's set is better for a small DPS boost. The set posted is specifically for Ody V25 NMs with the intention of capping both DT and mDT while also intentionally lowering DPS via trial and error just enough to not have NM turn on the DD. The major issues in these fights is not DPS output as much as they are enmity control, TP control and capping both both DT and mDT as you generally do not have dedicated healer nor do you have sub jobs.

As stated in previous post, cleared these NMs with ~5 mins to spare, DPS was not the issue noticed to cause failure points.

Assuming Simon's set is 10 pDT on Cape leaving you with 44 pDT and 49 mDT. Not huge, but can create added stress for an already busy Rdm.

The only true end game content for long time players are V25 T3-T4 and a couple Sortie basement NMs. Everything else is trivial.

When considering sets vs this content:
1. Did you clear the content on Mnk?
2. How many attempts and what adjustments were made to lead you to current gear set choices?
3. Was the clear a luck based clear not easily replicated to be a high win rate strategy?
4. Can this strategy be easily replicated and shown to others?
5. Was the clear with a static who primarily have all gear at their disposal and are ML 40+ on their jobs, which may not be the case for many players.
6. Was it a comfortable clear, lots of time on the clock, no deaths, and no enmity control issues?

I tend to look at gear & strategy with the above mindset. Have a wonderful New years everyone. :)