IiPunch - Monk Guide

Interesting discussion that I need to really think about, but one point I'd like to raise right away:


I disagree, it's really not THAT small. For instance, using Simon's most recently posted spreadsheet I applied good but reasonable buffs (VM/HM/Minuet x2, Sam/Chaos Rolls, Non-Bolstered Frailty), JAs up (Impetus/Focus/Berserk/Aggressor), and target lv136 Bats. High end but not flawless gear (e.g., all my Mpaca is R0). And before anyone says it, obviously spreadsheets are not perfect - but this is a pretty good use case to get a decent estimate.

Got a set DPS of ~6117 with Godhands R0, which jumps up to ~6475 with Godhands R15. 358 difference in DPS (about 5.85% increase) is absolutely significant. Capped accuracy and not using Shijin Spiral either, so the entire increase is due to the DMG+ augment. For comparison, with same buffs/target/gear, that's almost the exact same difference as going from absolutely nothing in TP set neck slot to JSE Neck +2 (a 368 dps difference using the Godhands R0 set). And we generally accept +2 necks as "worth it", right?

Same ballpark in terms of cost too, if you think of current JSE+2 neck price of ~30M plus ~40M in heroism to upgrade to R25 versus ~60M in detritus. Yes, I know it's not a perfect comparison since you can farm neck points by simply doing Dyna (so the actual cost is lower and it's content you're probably gonna do anyway). But devil's advocate, you can also farm some detritus there and in Omen... In any case, we're talking 10s of millions of gil for these kinds of DPS increases.

So if you're gonna call that augment "truly small", by that logic you shouldn't bother with stuff like JSE+2 neck (versus a dirt cheap NQ), HQ gear like Kendatsuba +1 pieces, Mpaca augments, etc. The jump from R0 to R15 Godhands is certainly bigger than those pieces we often take for granted as "worth it".

EDIT: To be clear, I'm not saying GH gets as much out of augments as some other RMEA weapons, totally agree with that. So maybe a better use of detritus to upgrade something like a Masamune or Armageddon as a greater priority than Godhands if you are considering multiple jobs. But from a cost/performance perspective, GH augments clearly add value that isn't really that out of line versus what we pay for gear upgrades in other slots. For instance, going from NQ Kendatsuba feet to +1 (at a cost difference of ~10-15 mil depending on server) in TP set adding ~65 DPS in the setup I mentioned)

Shameless double post to also note that you don't need to augment GH all the way to R15 to get significant benefit. A single stack of detritus worth ~10mil will take you from base weapon to R7. That will provide more of an increase than most incremental slot upgrades of a similar cost. It's a lot easier to see an argument that spending the nearly 2 stacks of crystals to go from R13 to R15 is a miniscule DPS gain in relation to the cost (but, but... blue numbers).

Perhaps that's more an argument against the augment system being so disproportionately costly for later levels though...

My main knock against GH is the relatively high delay, I much prefer faster fists because that helps to reduce impetus stacking time.

In my opinion the most underrated weapon in our current arsenal are R15 Comeuppances+1, and the speed and accuracy is a big part of that because of how it synergizes so well with impetus stacking.

Much like Mpaca gear, although on the face of it they don't seem especially impressive against their peers, experientially I find them way better than expected due to their well-rounded nature.

Obviously on my main I prefer Vere, but, I have a couple of geared alts (~1k jp-ish) that use them and I'm always shocked by how performant these characters are for such minimal investment.

This is actually one of the selling points for karambit, because it has a really low delay. It's perfectly situated where you cap martial arts without needing to use mache earring, so you get the added benefit of using telos or something similar in its place. And between mpaca's and impetus crit rate, Karambit's store tp +50 on crits works out to be about the same as Godhand's TP bonus. Personally I think Karambit is pretty underrated too.

Karambit are crazy good, but they're not 500m and don't have blue numbers so they're peasant garbage

Karambit are indeed good, they basically perform at the level of an RMEA weapon, and better than Su5. That being said, GH and Vere are clearly MNK's top 2 weapons.

Not really sure why people are acting like Karambit are seriously underrated though. From what I can tell, most people here accept that they are a very respectable endgame-capable option that falls in a little bit below Vere/GH. Which is... entirely accurate. Some great situational utility too for blunt damage on jobs other than MNK PUP.

Just from my personal anecdotal experience... I've used Karambit for the past year+, and typically do serious content with the same people (so I have a very good sense of how I stack up relative to the other DDs I play with). My Karambit MNK could certainly hang as a solid DD, but now that I've done a few events with my new R15 Godhands the improvement is easily noticeable. It's the difference between respectable DPS but definitely falling in behind our high end DRK or WAR, and being right there at the top of the parse. My RL experience is certainly in line with the spreadsheets.

I didn't spend 500m on my GH either. Got around to em on like my 7th round of Aeonics, and tossed ~60m worth of Swarts at them to R15 them. /shrug

Now, seeing how well GH are performing for me and NOT seeing a big spreadsheet difference in favor of Vere (in fact, I see GH winning fairly decisively in most spreadsheet scenarios) does make me a lot less inclined to spend the time/gil on making Vere, which I was seriously considering.[edit: spreadsheet goofiness discussed below] GH and Vere are both in the highest tier of MNK weapons though.

Really?

With Impetus up and Footwork down, Vsmite in sheet look like winning by lot.

I'll try to post shortly (after some work calls!) so people can see for themselves. Maybe down to some differences in buffs/target/gear?

I'm using pretty reasonable/realistic buffs though, and high end gear choices that may not be max DPS but are what I'd actually use in game (e.g., TP build favoring Mpaca over glass cannon pieces)

If you're using reasonable/realistic buffs, thats the disconnect. It's always assumed 1 defense, 5 song, 4 rostam 11 rolls and idris at a minimum. I know you should know that.

LOL, Eiryl gets it.

I did find one significant mistake that I made. Had a non-Impetus WS set loaded up, and forgot to change body to Bhikku+1 in Impetus WS set for Vere/Smite. Oops, that's a major change! It wasn't enough to make radically different conclusions though.

That does not account for some spreadsheet weirdness I'm seeing. I downloaded the sheet Simon posted, using it in offline Excel and everything looks like it's updating fine when changing things. However, the numbers change once I re-upload the sheet to Dropbox or Google Drive. Might indeed be my error, or might be something getting broken in the sheet itself.

If someone else could confirm (and maybe post a link to your sheet showing the comparison?) that may help. Anybody willing to take a look, try starting from Simon's last posted spreadsheet - linked post, and try the following setup for both sets:

General
Mithra
/WAR
Carbonara

Melee/Weaponskill
Set 1 Godhands/Howling, Set 2 Vere/Smite
Empy ODT rate: 50%

Job Buffs
Impetus, Focus, Berserk, Aggressor on.

TP Adjustments
Leave everything at 0, Minimum WS TP at 1000 (despite that being unrealistic in practice, but whatever...)

Other Player Buffs
Everything off except:
BRD - H.March, March 2, Minuet 5, Minuet 4 (SV off)
COR - Chaos Roll, Samurai Roll
GEO - Frailty only (turn off all the (broken?) Bolster/BoG crap, and I'm assuming semi-realistic scenario where maybe the other GEO stuff isn't 100% MNK-focused... e.g, maybe the GEO's using Frailty/Malaise, or in another party so you're getting just the one Geo- spell and no Indi-)

Target
Apex Bat lv136

Gear
Use the following sets. Very similar to Simon's sets from p.341, except (i) I changed Herc WS pieces (2 in GH/HF set, 1 in Vere/VS set) to Tatenashi+1 for a strong alternative with no random augs for consistency's sake, and (ii) swapped Malignance Boots for Ken+1 in TP set. Yes, I know that more glass cannon builds like Adhemar +1 head/hands can put out more DPS - that's not the point here.

TP set (same gear for both sets):
ItemSet 382091
Mpaca R0 (that's what I have, so it's what I used), Segomo DEX/DA

GH/HF set:
ItemSet 382092
GH R15, Mpaca R0, Moonshade Acc/TP Bonus, Segomo STR/DA

Vere/VS set:
ItemSet 382093
Vere R15, Adhemar +1 B, Ryuo +1 A, Segomo STR/DA, Mpaca R0

What's your set DPS and WS Damage for each set? I'm seeing:
GH/HF: Set DPS 6877.569, WS Dmg 34559
Vere/VS: Set DPS 6721.706, WS Dmg 27825

But Vere/VS changes (huge increase, over 2k DPS more) once uploading the sheet. Tried to manually refresh the calculations in offline Excel, and that doesn't cause the same change. Anybody understand what's causing that issue?

Gah, just noticed March was weird too, was preset to song+0 so not capping haste unless Mage Haste was turned on...

Fix that by changing BRD Set values for "H.March" to 4, and "March" to 8 (to reflect what a good player BRD would have, and will cap haste with Marches alone). That changes my DPS numbers a bit (including increased WS Damage for Smite due to higher Impetus stacks), to:

GH/HF: Set DPS 8642.444, WS Dmg 34559
Vere/VS: Set DPS 8271.213, WS Dmg 28088

Maybe you've got something set wrong/odd, possibly the wrong Vere
(In fact I'm pretty sure you set the wrong Vere)

Yeah I ran similar tests on spreadsheet and had Vere winning by a lot when they're both R15, but almost dead even at R0. Make sure the Impetus value is ticked on?

Something definitely off, maybe a Google Sheets/Excel compatibility thing. It was weird... I didn't change a single thing on my locally saved Excel sheet (which was showing GH/Howling and Vere/Smite being really close under impetus, surely incorrectly), but when uploading it to Dropbox or Google Drive the values suddenly updated for Vere. Some cell/formula calculation probably not being applied in my downloaded sheet.

I def had Vere 119 Aug, and Impetus on. Will mess around with it more when I get some free time to make sure mine's working right.

I certainly believe you guys that Vere is winning under Impetus though. What I would have expected, but maybe not by the margin. Appreciate the input.

Capuchin I've had multiple issues when downloading a google spreadsheet file and trying to use it offline with Microsoft Excel or other open source softwares.

Something often breaks in the formulas and I start getting results that sometimes make no sense.

A solution I found through the years is to stop downloading the files and just make copies on my own google drive through the built-in Google function and then juse use Google Sheets online without ever downloading the file.
Since then I've never experienced those issues again.

Yeah, I think there are some formulas unique for google sheet, that simply won't work in MS Excel or at least they are desynced. Just make a copy like Sechs suggested.

Wouldn't surprise me in the least. Google sheets and MS excel may be compatible with one another, but they're still separate software. There's always a small risk of data loss when you import a file from one application to another, even when they both run on the same file format.

Curious why you have Coiste Bodhar and Schere earring here for Victory Smite? I have Odr earring and Aurgelmir Orb +1 winning on spreadsheet.

Show me the first page setup, because small difference s like that usually comes from details, so I need to know the whole picture.

Also here specifically it looks more like some difference between set1 and set2. The gap seems way too big for only ammo and earring swap. Have you tried swapping those in same set instead of compering to other side?

They come out even if I apply the changes to both sides.

Your target selection and da cape instead of crit cape put you in exactly sweet spot of ddex while increasing value of crit at the same time. Coiste and Sherida is at ddex 40, so exactly at point where every next +1dex is +1% crit rate. So in this scenario Odr gives you 10% crit rate total and Aug. Orb gives you another 5%. If you aren't in sweet spot like this crit cape, Sherida and Coiste should be better. Also Sherida is good for keeping 75% Subtle Blow while WSing.

Set Kouryu as the target this time, same buffs as previous page, except I put my current VS set on the left and this one on the right. Difference is even bigger now (checked changing left side too to confirm), same for Warder of Courage.

The only time I've seen set2 win is if I tick Focus on, but wouldn't that be super unrealistic to use a 30 second JA here if it's assumed to last forever? Or does the spreadsheet somehow know this only lasts for 30 out of 120 seconds?

edit: I think there is something wrong with those Herculean Boots(VS). It does not act like they actually have crit damage & STR? Tried with Herculean(3) instead, and now set 2 is winning.

With those same buffs and those targets you have floored accuracy, so not a good way to compere sets :)

If we want to talk about realism that is a total glass cannon set. What content do ppl do anymore where low dt / meva sets are even a good idea? You want to use that on a NM that has breath attacks, spike flail (if it goes off), and enfeebles? You want to use that in odyssey where trash mobs can crit you for 700 dmg in dt sets? I know mpaca, moon belt, and cape offers some protection but is it really worth the gamble? Are you gonna time out or lose a fight because max dps set isn't used? I wouldn't even use that for omen bosses because one amnesia for a few seconds is already gonna cost you more than using a slightly less dps but higher meva set and that's trash content at this point.

It's very niche, but lately I've enjoyed using the glass cannon set for those fights where you zerg the NM before it gets a TP move off with chi blast and whm cureskin, notable examples being frog ambu and VD Lilith. By going full dps, you don't need SP buffs and can chain fights repeatedly instead of having to reset between each fight. But yeah, if enfeebles or high dmg is present, meva/dt set is my goto.

Its WS set tho and none really said anything about specific fight. Tho with hybrid TP set, 27% PDT WS set on MNK isnt exactly a glass cannon approach. That being said Mpaca feet and hands are a really good compromise to almost lose no damage (probably even gain when attack uncapped) and push pdt to 39%.

Meanwhile we're on the subject of ws sets:

I wanted to play around with cata for mnk, although i haven't gotten time to play around with it in dyna d yet. In theory it sounds fun, if anyone has already tried it.

This is what my current cata set looks like:

sets.precast.WS['Cataclysm'] =
{ammo="Pemphredo Tathlum",
head="Pixie Hairpin +1",
neck="Baetyl Pendant",
ear1="Friomisi Earring",
ear2="Moonshade Earring",
body="Nyame Mail",
hands="Nyame Gauntlets",
ring1="Archon Ring",
ring2="Shiva Ring +1",
back=gear.jse_mag_back,
waist="Orpheus's Sash",
legs="Nyame Flanchard",
feet="Nyame Sollerets"}

Am i missing anything of importance here for mnk? Currently messing with Malignance pole, but prob ideal to go back and spam Kirin for his staff.

Only things that come to mind, and may not even be upgrades are ghastly tathlum +1 r15 and metamorph ring+1 r15 in place of shiva +1. And yes malig pole is pretty poor for cata, i think kouryu's staff is still the best, with maxed ambu pole not being too far behind

Oh totally forgot about that ammo.
Thanks!

What the best tp setup gear and trust for doing apex parties