IiPunch - Monk Guide

Everyone brings their own brd cor and geo so they're always capped and thus require no toggle

PDL is like the only (general) toggle left. Theres no acc toggles theres no turtle toggles. it's just hybrid everything and ws with and without max PDL

Hybrid everything except for the folk that insist on escha and UNM gear for those truly elite deeps.

I still have turtle toggles but on some jobs it hardly makes sense anymore.
For the Acc you're kinda right. I guess still useful in a couple of situations for some jobs, but I can't remember the last time I had to reliably swap to acc sets on the majority of my jobs, indeed.


For PDL the only thing that seemed reliable to me was a Toggle.
I simply didn't want to add yet another toggle, yet another plethora of sets variations that I need to mantain and update each time a new item is released, it's way too much work.
But I could simply remove other toggles/sets that make not much sense anymore these days, see above.

He is being sarcastic, but this is actually my approach. I'm too lazy to make glassy and hybrid TP sets, I just use what other would call hybrid as my main tp set. I don't have accuracy toggle, because those sets are usually naturally high accuracy too and if I'm missing it's the situation where madrigal/distract is needed, not the accuracy toggle.

As for PDL, I used to have toggle for that, but now I just play around things I do. For example I plan to start serious Sortie farming soon and Im probably gonna use DRK for that, so I plan to have WS set that will work best for basement bosses. I will check few PDL levels and just make my main WS set around that event.

The only scenario where I could see myself doing low attack sets is when I will do some solo stuff for fun and personal challenge.

Now there are few other special TP/WS sets that I might do for very specific scenario. Like 75 subtle blow WS/TP sets for MNK for Aminon, maybe super high meva tp set for DRK if I find it working against something specific and important. I also do white damage sets for fun, simply because I like them a lot.|

tl;dr I don't really like pdl toggle, because lots of scenarios would require different PDL levels, so I simply build around event I do frequently on that job.

Lot of new talk about the prime ws which is great, sorry to hear it is not as impressive as the others.

Since limbus has been the primary content for most now..
How does the stage 5 white damage perform in 135 limbus with Cor and brd buffs?

I am curious in the comparison of time to kill of the stage 5 vs godhands

With the loss of the potential ws dmg increase for more white damage, how different is kill speed?

Also happy to hear vs preforms decently with the prime
VS numbers with gh always disappoints me compared to vere

I've been going by experience rather than just purely mathing the prime out (and I've brought monk to limbus a LOT lately). I have both godhands and varga and I've played with each. There isn't any noticeable kill speed difference between either of them. Simon will probably argue that godhands is simply better than vargas if maru kala ends up being 30% weaker than disaster as I've both claimed and shown, and maybe that's right, but I don't notice any drop off in kill speed, nor do my numbers average out to be much different either compared to my own performance over time or side by side with my peers using either weapon. I run limbus with the same people I've been farming prime weapons with in sortie, and everyone is well geared and their performance on their jobs is pretty consistent over time too. I'll share a few observations I've made with the prime.

With varga I have roughly a 65% weaponskill damage to 35% white damage spread. I do notice the 15% crit rate on varga too. Victory smites with impetus up are very comparable to vere, as we've already mathed out. In practice I'm finding that holding tp to the effective 2500-2800 range with varga isn't affecting kill speed at all. I still need the same number of weaponskills to finish off a mob and the kill speed isn't notably different either. I'm not sure how impactful varga's aftermath is, but I use maru kala to keep AM3 up and I'm pretty sure that 12 PDL is doing something for me. Varga does have higher white damage than godhands. Does it make up for godhand's 500 tp bonus? I can't really say. I'm sure on paper the maths favor godhands, but that napkin math doesn't always translate fluidly to in game experiences.

The important question here is what I bolded in the quote does godhands 500 TP bonus allow you to farm trash mobs faster than Varga does with its specific benefits , and the answer I'm leaning toward is no. In my experiences Godhands and varga both need the same number of weaponskills to drop a mob, and while godhands can go off at 1500 for the same effect as varga's 2000, I would have you ask yourself how much of a difference that really is. It's very common to go from 1000 to 1800 in a single attack round, and monk attacks VERY fast. Weaponskill animation delay is 2 seconds, and in the time I'm holding tp I'm also throwing up really strong white damage numbers. Our run speed is very consistent at roughly 35 to 40 minutes to clear a set of towers no matter which weapon I use.

In the end, I find it's a wash. I'd still use Godhands on say... Ngai. I have little doubt that extended NM fights where you're going to be engaged to the same mob for 5 to 10 minutes at a time will favor Godhands. But if your farming trash mobs where each mob dies in the span of a few weaponskills, and the majority of the run is spent re targeting a new mob because everything is dying left and right.... I think varga is actually just as good as and possibly better than godhands. It's definitely not worse. Kill speed wise... I see no difference.

Separate post to keep the wall-o-text from becoming wall-o-china (sorry). I'm going to follow up with some maru kala numbers for analysis like I said I would, but I won't have anything for another week. I'm gonna have to do domain invasion to pick up an ask sash for it. I probably should already own one, but I've never had a situation where I brought monk to an event where having the regain out of combat was terribly relevant. I get why having 3k TP out the gate is good, I just didn't justify a gear spot in my inventory just for that. It was always more a novelty piece to me. But for throwing out tons of weaponskills and building tp to 2 and 3k values neatly I'm gonna want it. Unless someone else beats me to it, I'll give you guys some real maru data to analyze and hopefully we can pin down the actual stat mods when I've collected some better numbers sometime after next Saturday.

Please forgive me for another separate post, but we’re having some very good discussion here and I think this topic warrants its own sub discussion, as its an extension of my previous weapon post. That being how valuable tp bonus is in the modern meta relative to previous metas. I’ll start off with a few simple numbers, and if anyone disagrees with my logic then feel free to point out the flaws

• If it takes you 10 seconds to go from 0 to 1000 tp, then tp bonus +1000 is worth 10 seconds of melee time

• If it takes you 5 seconds to go from 0 to 1000 tp then tp bonus +1000 is worth 5 seconds if melee time

• If it takes you 1 second to go from 0 to 1000 tp then tp bonus is worth just 1 second of melee time

This is why I feel like in a limbus-esque scenario where you’re constantly swapping mobs and mobs die in two weapon skills in practice varga is on par with godhands. The value of tp bonus is a relative factor to the rate of your to gain. In an extreme example if it were theoretically possible to always go from 0 to 3000 tp in a single attack round then tp bonus would have no value at all. Obviously we’ll never reach that point, but over time our to gain has increased dramatically. Se continues feeding us stronger and stronger tp gear, the latest of which is the duty set. We’ve already covered how strong the duty set is for tp. It’s good. Monk wants the head, feet, and body for impetus down. Probably the hands too tbh.

Specific gear examples aside, there comes a point where the value of alternative stats grows in relation to the value of tp bonus. I actually question how good moonshade earring is in relation to a mastery rank 9 Hoxne earring. Yes I know there are two earring slots so you’d just use Hoxne alongside moonshade, but if in theory we could wear two hoxne earrings then what? At what point does raw stats out value tp bonus. Hoxne earring is + 25 to all stats which is absurd for a single accessory slot. And I think if we had to pick either that or moonshade there would be certain situations where moonshade loses.

Godhands is a monster and I love using mine too. And in an extended fight like ngai yeah, no contest. Hands down I’d use godhands. I’m not making this post to slight it, just giving some further supporting reasoning to back up my argument that Varga is performing at the same level as godhands in limbus. It’s also a big factor in why I firmly believe that holding up to effective 2500 range is at worst dps neutral (as stated last page). Gear creep is real and it’s changed how we play over time. We have more store tp, multi attack, and haste options than ever before. As tp speed keeps increasing its worth keeping that in mind with how we gear snd play.

I actually take that back.
Varga is generally bis during zerg (so in scenario where you can use impetus, footwork and all the available PDL, Hoxne), by spamming Victory Smite. Using anything else, it will lose to Godhands.
Veret loses significantly in that scenario.

This changes only if target has DT and you get Warcry from Warrior. then Godhands with Tornado just go brrr and nothing is even close.

Varga also slightly win without Hoxne. It's generally a stronger Veret during Impetus.

Now without Impetus, when Vsmite damage drops a lot, Varga starts loosing significantly. Even more if you are undercapped with attack and Howling Fist is the way to go.

So yeah, if you want bis zerg weapon for MNK, Varga is that weapon. Just remember Godhands is still very powerful zerg weapon too, so you are not gaining that much.

Also if you want to use just Varga in casual events like Limbus, dps during impetus and outside of impetus is very different and it might feel weird, almost like playing at 60fps for 3min and drop to 30fps for 2 min.

realistically you are not starting from 0. You are starting from 200-300+. So going to 2000 is longer than going to 1000.
Mobs in Limbus don't die from 2 WSs (at least 135 level ones), unless you are using like Prime WS 2500+ TP and you self SC.

Demons in apollyon have 141k HP for example. Meaning you would need to make 280k damage to them before 50%DT. Even assuming you are super buffed and do like 90k Disasters without holding a lot of TP, which are reduced to 45k, you are not really dropping those mobs in 2WS+SC that easily, because that SC damage is reduced too. If you hold TP a little aand have some luck with crits, then you can probably kill it with combination of white damage, 2WS and SC, but it's not common. I guess superbuffed DRG could drop them regularly with 2x Diarmuid, if second one is like 2500TP one after soul jump, doing like 70-80k+SC

Edit: Yeah, this was a tangent. I see where I wrote what you quoted. It’s possible for prime dds and probably some other dds with best buffs and gear to take out a limbus mob in two weapondkills and some white damage hits in between. Definately not the norm for most people in most groups. Doesn’t mean it can’t be done. I’m used to grouping with high end people. And I admit Monk usually takes 3, barring tornado kick going silly. This is true for both godhands and varga. You quoted the least important snippet in the post.

Oh sure, but that is a stretch. If you hold TP to 2500 on WAR to kill in 2 WS, you could kill as fast using 3WS at 1000TP. With that logic I could say I kill those mobs with one WS with Ukonvasara, I just swing at them for 15 sec with AM3 up, before I do that WS XD

Doesn't matter. The principal I was stating was that if it takes X seconds to gain Y tp, then a TP bonus equivalent to Y is worth X seconds of melee time. As tp sets grow stronger and the rate of tp gain increases, the value of X grows smaller, and as the value of X grows smaller the impact of TP bonus diminishes along with it.

I'm not saying tp bonus isn't still important. I'm saying that as our tp sets grow stronger and stronger it starts to do less for us because we can natively gain that tp faster on our own.

Sure but that also mean you can get TP to WS at 1000TP faster too.

I would need to think about it more, but logically (mind that it's 1am and I was doing overhours in work), if you took 7sec to get 700TP, 700TP was worth 7 sec, but it also took you 7sec to get from 300 to 1000. Meaning if you wanted to WS at 1700 without TP bonus, it took you 14sec, so 700TP was worth 50% of your TP time.

If you get 700tp now in 2 sec. You will TP from 1700 after 4 sec without 700TP bonus, but 700TP bonus is still worth 50% of your TP time.

The more I play with varga the more I agree with this. I just ran a temenos run and it was by far the fastest and cleanest/most effecient use of my monk that I've seen yet. It was as simple as using Varga when impetus is up and throwing out a 3k maru kala to get up aftermath 3 then sticking mainly to victory smite, and when impetus drops swapping into godhands and popping footwork and spamming tornado kick. Varga is absolutely in its prime (pun intended?) when impetus is up, and I do notice the falloff when it drops.

Impetus Up -- Varga/AM3/Smite
Impetus Down - Godhands/raging/howling/tornado/dragon

Feels like it summs up the best way to use the prime

I'm gonna throw this here for reference. I've been trying out several different skillchain combos with Varga and depending on how good your buffs are there are five skillchains that I've come up with that have strong results. The light skillchain makes fusion into double light, and the four step darkness chains make detonation into gravitation into darkness. Triple maru is just grav into darkness.

Double Light

Maru --> Shijin --> Smite --> Smite


Darkness

Maru --> Maru --> Maru
Raging --> Maru --> Maru --> Maru
Raging --> Tornado --> Maru --> Maru
Howling --> Tornado --> Maru --> Maru

I also did a lot of maru testing and the results we came up with are approximated as

40% str/40% dex
1000 - 3.0
2000 - 7.0
3000 - 11.5


Varga is a lot better when you're heavily buffed, and maru fills some holes that let you do skillchains with our best weaponskills. Maru's stat mods are fine tbh. Swapping between varga and godhands for impetus up and down, or alternating between light with impetus and the darkness otherwise can both have good results.

I pulled the trigger on the stage 4 because of your recent posts
And I like it so much that I think it's going to be my first stage 5. (I started a bunch)

I am really impressed with the white damage from this thing visibley churning through 135 limbus
I thought the weaponskill would be something I only use sometimes but the skill chain bonus with it is also working really well that

I find myself comfortably using it at 1550 (2k)
I notice sometimes that a 1k ws will do fairly close to the 2k value
I suspect this is a multi attack proc, although I think testing said there is no replication across hits. Would a regular addition attack swing da/ta show up like this?

Maru Kala would be broken as hell if It replicated ftp across hits. It doesn’t. Different mobs have different stats and sometimes you do get a multi proc with nyame which will add a small amount of damage. But your probably just seeing some variance. I see it with disaster, rudras, ruthless, and even sarv. Sometimes you just hit a little harder.

And yea, I really notice Vargas white damage too. I kinda forgot H2H damage boost in my original statement about the difference between godhands and varga, but you do still have more base damage, and the crit rate on the weapon along with PDL aftermath adds up. If your properly buffed you see it. Varga has the highest white damage of all our Remas. And I’m finding the most effective way to play it is with the 5 skillchains I posted above. If you don’t have people interrupting you you can comfortably chew through anything with a series of chains. Marus skillchain properties are very synergistic with our best wesponskills. I have tons of fun with it too. Kill speed wise it’s easily on par with godhands. But I think it’s cooler and way more fun.

I am curious if there is a way to get even more white damage without loosing too much tp gain.
I started looking at unpopular mpaca pieces for its crit rate and high attack.

But in testing it seems that crit rate is already insanely high and adding a lot more does not appear to be as beneficial as I thought.
The high attack also was washed out by brd cor buffs in 135 limbus

Crit hit damage pieces that are available are not ideal outside of some master level exping.

Adhemar bonnet +1 is fine for victory smite but I wouldn't tp in it. The biggest dps improvement is probably just holding out until you can upgrade duty head, hands, and feet (and body for impetus down) and add them into your tp sets.

Less than a month and went down by almost half. I was correct, but it hit 80M faster than I expected. Seems it's going to stay in the ~80M range (Orpheus's tanked).

Should've never been over 100m in the first place.

Went too long with no new AHables, idiots got to stack racks

So after a long, long, long time not using My MNK (ML45) I undusted it a bit yesterday for a 135 Temenos run.
What is the experience of everybody else without Prime?

I was surprised by a couple of >70k damage Howling fist and Tornado Kick, but my AVG WS damage on the full run was, according to parser, ~34k.
Considering I had just 4 songs for most of the run (and no Aria of Passion) I guess that's not too bad? Or is it? I was personally expecting less but maybe my expectations were wrong hey.
I tried R15 Vere for a few rounds, my initial idea was to ride R15 Vere with Impetus up and R15 Godhands when it's down, but the wait between going up > sneakinvi to the end > kill don't sync well with Impetus timers.
In the end I just fulltimed Godhands.

Vsmite did a few over 30k spikes but it was generally solidly around 22k damage.


Well, what can I say? Better than I expected but still noticeably lower than my RDM/DNC just shooting boring Savage Blades, so a bit depressing when you see things that way I guess lol

Maru has been updated in the calculator.
Thanks to Izanami!

Only really notable change from the set that Simon posted on the last page was a fluctuation in the additional pdl with bhikku hands.

Despite playing with berserk and or geo spells
Nyame hands r30 seemed to shine over af+4 and bhikku

But I only really ran it against the bat def and the knight crawler.

Niqmadu and gere are pretty much even swaps but I agree the sbii is worth the 100-1000 dmg
Hoxne at rank 7 is a nice pull ahead but I opted for the Sheridan for the same reason

Relic+4 head hoxne Sherida seems like a great combo for 3000 tp