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Man... what's the deal with these main forum people? LoL I go on Monk Forum (ok so not technically main) to get some info to try to better myself, and I get gang jumped by people that want to say nothing but I'm wrong by imperical knowledge. Hmmmm...

I think I'll stick to my soap opera, "As Cerberus Turns". LoL

Oh.. opinion.. if you were a 42MNK would you start telling a 65MNK what he should and shouldn't be using? That's like me telling Fuertes, Ozzy, Meign, or any of those other 75MNKs that their gear sux. LoL. Some people. >.>

Leet, i'm a ranger. Low level at that. But I do have something to say.


Your gear sucks! ^^

DD forums is all about macho for big numbers ;p

White Mage and Bard forums are actually very civil and nice, and people like talk about the game and how people tourment white mages x.x

Ok About "Main" Forum, there you get jumped on or rated down if you:

1) Trying to show not all inflation are caused by gil sellers/buyers.
2) Trying to show most JPs do not invite non-JPs are not related to racism.
3) Be funny (in a subtle manner)
4) Trying to be sarcastic; (3) and (4) are related because people take words by face meaning.
5) Trying to show Dragoons are good.

( wink wink ;) )

But anyway I gave up in the main forum, it does not worth to post usually... There are exceptions of course.



Monks imo are one of the cheaper DD jobs in the game. Unless you want to be ultra umber (Cross Counters, Scorpian Harness, etc), it is not that expensive to level. You can use AF till 75 (like White Mage, Paladin, Red Mage) (Yes PLD does not "need" Adamn unlike what some people claim, and Adamn is quite ugly especially the head -.-;) I am all about style ;p

The Monk forum is really pretty civil most of the time.

I read most of the posts(going back to read the rest now) and most seemed decent enough.

You got bashed for useing Shiva's Claws, but hey, to each his own.


In EVERY groud there are a few black sheep that think they are better than everyone else, regardless of level, play time, and the truth.

Sorry about, your Monk Forum Experiences Leet, I hope that doesn't discourage you.

Free rate-ups for everyone!

I noticed that in the monk forum too...

You mention a sub job other then /war and they crucify you. You mention DEX gear having a factor on the game and they jump on you just as quick. But if you post yet another thread praising sole sushi (the 472nd one doing so) you will be rated up. ^^

There is sort of a hive mind mentality in that forum of what is right and what is wrong. This may be due to the fact that monks have a very linear progression through the game becuase our options are a lot more limited then most other jobs.

So 90% of the time the monks there are dead on with their comments. They just arn't very supportive of of people doing "fun and different" things.

Eventually you will be able to get some more diverse gear for situations. Chi blast gear set for HNM, tanking gear set (outside of XP parties I tank a lot), maybe go for insane amount of haste and kicking boots, or overload on +40 str gear and sub thf for scary big SATA dragon kick.. its all good ^^

I think the only time a monk gets to express themself is 65+ sadly, and the forum does seem to respect this. Before then the subjob and gear choices are too limited to do much but assimilate. Very depressing ; ;

Well, for me personally, I also prefer the lower delay weapons.

I have nothing against CCs or Spartans, since total delay STILL is not as high as most two handed weapons (and we hit two to five times in a round with /war).

It's why I think the TM +2s I finally snagged are a god send.

Shiva's Claws? I don't really see the justification, even with the added acc, but I plan on getting them if just to mess around with them. I'm a pretty firm believer that if you can't hit a mob you either have no +acc gear or you're not high enough level wise for what you are fighting.

There are countless posts as to why Fuma Kyahan aren't worth the price tag for monks (I <3 my sig). I generally agree with this statement since 3% haste turns out to be like 8 delay or something close. If you have a lower delay, lower damage weapon, I think any pair of boots that increase STR or Attack would be more beneficial to offset the stats you're missing. I would think haste would benefit a higher delay weapon more.


I hope that wasn't preachy, and my post is on no personal experience of my own, and I know that I'm a lower level ><!

I couldnt handle thf sub either... The dragon kick got some big numbers in XP party the few times I tried, but it came with too high a cost.

Now as for those shiva claws, there is a definate use for them in XP parties. If you get dragged along on an IT++ fight and theres a BLM in the party, your goal is no longer DoT but is instead to feed him SC for magicbursts.

If you are with a Rng or Sam you may lag slightly in TP so using a high acc low delay weapon makes sense for the good of the party. Sadly many monks are too proud to let their WS damage drop at all, and so they stick to their +19 or +20 weapon with 100+ delay.

So a solution is to carry both types of weapons and adapt. On the VT-IT transition the heavier hitting weapons are very rewarding, but on the IT++ fights we mnk are really just a SC component and we should do what we can to keep feeding the mages something to work with. Often on IT++ our acc and dmg are shot anyway. It's expensive and ties up inventory, but it can pay off.

Gobbie bags are kind of important to monks... I have 2-3 pieces of gear for most slots and use equip macros like mad. I have a few macros that incrmentally switch between full acc gear and full str gear, so I kind of "tune" my performance for each mob by +5 acc increments. A lot of monks read what "the best gear" is for their given level and have it equipped 24/7. But this game isnt quite that cut and dry. I once had a amcro to switch between pallas > kotes > AF gloves as the situation demanded. (Thats a bit excessive though lol)

So back to the monk forums, the common threads are always "X gear vs. Y Gear" and my answer is usually "both"... Until I see for myself what works in a mix of situations, I kind of reserve judgement. If both have a use and are affordable, I will keep both and macro, and if not one goes back on the AH. In my slightly extreme "kotes + pallas macro" I ended up selling the kotes in the end after a few parties on mixed mobs.

All in all I dont think any of this gear is worth beating yourself up over. Difference between an amemit and amemit +1 wont even show up in a parser, but I kept it anyway. The only overpriced item I have that really made a difference was my pallas, since I am a mithra and +9 str is a significant increase to what I had at the time.

<edit spelling. More to come I'm sure>

Edited, Wed Jun 8 16:18:11 2005 by Thornn

No escape from sushi addiction, I'm sorry to say.

As a mithra I use sushi... race has so little to do with it. At most by L75 I think I only have 12 or so more dex then an elvaan. At best, by endgame a mithra monk has "built in" spectacles with a slightly higher critical rate.

It doesnt compare to the 15% acc bonus of any sushi. Apparently this caps at (depending who you ask) as low as +20acc and as high as +39 according to one report. Sole +1 caps even higher.

The optical hat and a scorp harness will cut back on suchi dependace if you're lucky, but those together only put you at +15 acc more then standard old mnk AF, and that accounts for maybe half of the acc bonus sushi gives. I was partying with Aireiya, a L75 mnk the other night and she still uses sushi just to get the most out of asuran fist.

If sushi really gives +39acc, it takes almost all the gear in the game that a monk can use just to equal it, and that is sacrificing a lot of melee attack and str slots (namely the belt slot). So it is often better to give up and eat sushi and load up on attack and str gear. It is a necessary evil ; ;

I still get to use meat now and then if I'm with a bard or summoner, or if we are fighting VT stuff in high volume. But people have come to expect melees to hit at 90% acc now and you get sushi withdrawl the moment you try going without it.

You are absolutly right about the constructive criticism.

I used Windurstian Kyahan before I got my AF boots. I immediatly switched to AF when I hit 52 because hey, I just got to wear my first peice of AF. I didn't miss the 3 or 4 attack, hardly new it was gone. The DEX on the AF however, I did appreciate. And I OFTEN find times that I use Dodge in exp PTs, so having it "Enhanced" sounds pretty good to me.

I don't kick enough to spend money on Kung Fu or Wu Long shoes. If I were to camp the Cactar that drops them with my LS, yeah I suppose I would wear them over AF, like you would with Fumas.


And I only met Thornn once, but was immediatly impressed.

We had a nice convorsation in Ordelle Caves, and even tho she totaly beat my *** to claim Morbolger, (I was typing at the time, and felt pretty dumb for doing so afterwards) I left the caves with a smile on my face and a gift of 50k.


As for my gear and what I switch, I have an Aikido Gi for tanking and soloing or anything where I'm getting hit, and a Jujitsu Gi for DD. I carry both dual Sun rings and a Sniper's ring and a Venerer ring (hopefully soon to be dual Sniper's).
I never really thought that two weapons would be needed, but Thornn is absolutly right about the skillchain in the IT++ party.





OMGWTFFERZZZ. My Karma on Allakhazam is 3.83!!! I'm so happy and 1337!! Everyone will love me because my name is red and not yellow!!!


I'm sorry for that, I was just trying to make a point. Does anyone accualy take their rating to heart? Like....at all? Because for me, you could go find every single one of my posts and rate it down and I could care less.

If I can put a smile on someones face by pressing a few buttons? I'm going to go ahead and do just that.

I've had my Cyclas for 4 levels now, its the damn Garliage Coffer that I can't find......Im crownless and sad.

I just posted on the BladeSingers website, and thank you for the concideration. I spent three days behind gate number 3, and then ran out of oils and left ><. I regret it much.

Leet, I think I just read the posting in mnk forum that started this. From your comments I figured you had been trolled bigtime, but from what I read there were simply a few comments from some people that wern't even sure themselves what they were talking about. I've seen people in that forum get burned before, far worse over far more trivial discussions ^^

The only comment that was made that wasnt very polite was the "I suggest you read how H2H delay works" one. I'm not even sure he was trying to be rude... he just didnt express himself very tactfully.

I think he simply miss-interpreted your comment on spratans/CCs having twice the delay. You were obviously refering to the delay penalty of the weapon, and he was thinking "total delay".

For non-monks who are wondering why weapon delay was brought up as a topic for debate, all monk weapons lists damage bonuses and delay penalties, and not the true attack power or delay like all other weapons in the game.

A weapon of 50 delay isnt twice as fast as a 100 delay weapon. Those numbers are added to your base delay (300 for this example) so really you are comparing a 350 to a 400 delay weapon. The base delay is affected by the mnk martial arts trait. The end result is that it could be around 15% quicker rather then twice as fast.

Leet knew this, all monks know this. The guy making the comment just didnt express himself too well nor back up his statement.

As you get to a higher level, your weapon delay becomes a larger percentage of your total delay because your base delay drops. This is the reason why slow weapons get worse the higher your level gets, with respect to lower delay weapons. It's the reason that monks go wild for wahgs, destoryers, etc at 75 when their final martial art trait is learned. Vishnu cesti and shiva claws also remain solid choices for DoT.

One far less debated factor with weapon delay is of course TP return per hit. If your delay drops below a certain value, you may start to lose 1 tp per punch due to how the math gets rounded down. If your goal is to feed the blm some skillchains, you dont want to go this low. It's possible that dropping delay that extra few percent may in fact hinder your TP gain due to the rounding error. But typically this isnt worth worrying about.

There is a chart on a japanese website I had bookmarked that listed the damamge/delay ratio of the popular weapons at every level, and included the tp return per hit and the true delay.
I'm not at home, but lets see if I can dig it up later.

Anyhow, kind of went off a a tangent there on the delay. The point was that they didnt really drag you through the mud as much as I expected for mentioning a "non leet" approach ^^ There is still solid info in the monk forum and a few good people who really know their stuff and they will back it all up with numbers, parsers, forumulas... whatever you need ^^

But best of all is to see for yourself what does an does not work, and dont take their comments for gospel no matter their rating ^^