Quetzalcoatl.Khrnos said:
»Ok, so with merits you would only need the bruiser in addition to faith and af3+2 gloves to get +2. Correct?
Correct
Quetzalcoatl.Khrnos said:
»If you don't have merits then you would need the new ring in addition to the other three pieces as well to get +2. Correct?
With no merits, a 95 naked monk is at 396 skill. Thats a base damage of 46. Next base increase is:
400 +1
410 +2
419 +3
You only need +14 in skill for both base damage increases. You can get +1 from any of the following 1 piece, hands+2,ring, or faith torque. Additionally if you used hands+2, youd only need either faith alone or ring/ear to obtain the next base tier.
Quetzalcoatl.Khrnos said:
»And you think that there's a better ring/earring combo than the two new pieces if you don't have merits? or does that apply to having merits too?
1 base damage increase is the same as having an fstr increase of one. You have to weigh out your other options in rings, for instance rajas/Epona combo. Theres a new ring with 8attack +4stp which could replace rajas for monk offensively depending on how potent 1stp is for monk. The str serves little for this day in age monk since you have +15str on vere,+12 on body, +7 on black belt, +2-4 in ammo and +8 in feet, youll probably easily be capped on fstr on a monk that the str on rajas isnt doing anything. Subtle blow could be a defensive arguement, along with if the dex is doing anything for you in crits or acc.
Theres also mars ring that offers you 8acc/8att when acc is needed. The earring is decent, offering you 2-3acc and 3 attack. At the current moment you have 7att or 4acc/1att available to you.
I havent yet ran numbers to make an actual 100% answer to that, but at the current moment you're only getting a small reward for having both those in combination. I generally dont like be restricted to gear for bonus, meaning if you dismantle it you lose any reason for having them in combination in the first place and thus lose the actual gain.(see pre-95 5-hit sam, needed acc, remove one or 2 pieces out for acc and you lose the whole hit build)
This game has to many -situational- moments and those moments require you to piece apart your builds making combination gears that offer bonus when in combination limited to situations(much like every gear piece in this game....).