[pathwriter]

This is more of a rant than a worthwhile post, but it's really getting under my skin.

Over the past few months, I've been repeatedly told in both overt and oblique ways that Monk is worthless. I've spent days seeking for a merit party on it and have gotten nowhere. Admittedly, I don't list my gear in my seacom, so I guess there's no way to distinguish me from the army of Hachiman-wearing motherfuckers who couldn't out-parse me if I was dead, but surely there must be a reason people have forgotten the capabilities of Monk.

I get into extended arguments with the backseat driver of my Salvage LS who is firmly convinced that having a pair of Monks and a Mandau Thief as our DDs is simply not efficient and we'll never be able to accomplish anything in this manner. She particularly says this with regards to gears since we don't have some jackass with a polearm beating on it and, you know what, no matter how often I look at calculated numbers in regards to TP feed, mobs are always at least twice as manageable with a pair of Monks on it than a Monk and a Samurai. Someone explain that for me because supposedly their TP feed should be nearly identical, with the Monk allegedly giving the mob more TP.

Having just completed A Shantotto Ascension, I was asked to come White Mage instead of Monk for the final battle while we had a (you guessed it) Samurai sporting his Myochin Haidate. He had a Hagun, but I'm of the opinion that he should sell that and buy some Byakko's Haidate while using Onimaru. I like healing, so White Mage isn't an issue, but even suggesting that Monk could bring something to the table gets met with scrambling to force me into any other job.

What on earth has happened? I get it, the cult of Samurai has overblown the job so much that no one can conceive of another job doing well, but it wasn't so long ago that Monks were the job you invited. Is this just a symptom of Alexander or is it more widespread? I know for a fact that the only thing that hinders me on Greater Colibri (beyond the fact that almost all mages suck these days and, thus, couldn't handle me subbing Warrior in a pickup group) is the lack of an impressive piercing weaponskill. The list of pick-up Samurai who pose any kind of threat to me when I actually feel like being serious about merits (meaning I'm spamming food, ignoring Utsusemi, and using Faith Baghnakhs) is very short indeed.

Anyhow, this is just me venting. I keep dreaming that SE will introduce more and better XP camps that don't involve bloody Colibri, but the recent change to Moblin Mazes indicates that they're happy to cater to the lowest common denominator. In the meantime, what, if anything, can be done to remind the sheep that there are more DD jobs than Samurai, Dragoon, and maybe Warrior (if one is feeling generous or badly needs Provoke)?

[azagarth1]

I understand your frustration. Like you now I use to vent and get angry. However I did realize something... it is MUCH easier to become a decent sam then it is a mnk. Mnk just isnt wow w/o black belt (which is 9m on most server now and dont fing argue with me about ks99 it... 9 orbs 0 drops so gtfo, and i know may like this) and good gear that can get you yo high 80% acc, low 90%s which ends up costing as shitload, 2m pcc, 7m on toredors, 5m on cuch. That is more then an avg player will be able to get, and then you have other worries too that amount to millions more. Jobs like sam on the other hand, while they do benefit from it, do not need it as badly, so it becomes easier to gear. 2H job in general dont need the HQ upgrades, they can use snipers and still cap acc relatively easy.

now besides gear it comes down to really xp parties, ill use sam as the prime example here since this is really where the issues lie, though war and drg can do semi the sam effect but differently. At birds if you think a mnk will touch a proper polearm sam you are just wrong and i think its kinda stupid of SE to have it like this. I have many top end mnks i play with, ones with full usu, other with relics, one even with shenlongs. While its cool to see their dmg its not head turning in the least. once your rocking 20% haste gear, hasso, haste, marches the plm will be swinging about as fast as a mnk will be. At birds this means a sam will be able to nearly ws twice as fast as you, and if they are smart timers with mediate it should parse about that. Avg pents are around 1450 with a proper pty using crab sushi, get into 1500s once you get fancy stuff like full usu and able to use meat. Now you may say a mnks dot will make that difference not seem as apparent, but fact is if you ever close watch polearm dot on birds its pretty absurd. easily able to get 200+ a hit avg, with crits being in 300s, and when you think that the delay will be pretty similar between mnk and sam, the mnk will need avg around 200 a round too, which is easily done. But the dot difference alone can not make up the fact the sam will be doing 500~ more on ws's and doing twice as many. Sad truth you can hate it like I did or just realize its the way it is.

Btw path i wont invite random sam, i will take almost any other job over them. The fact is people see that sam can pop off 3k ws's and get draw to the job not realizing that takes skill, gear and lots of merits. You end up getting a plm sam in askar body wondering why he cant break 700 avgs and you just freak out. the jobs so damn easy to play. By no means is my Gear good for example, but i understand how to build a gearset that hits 405 acc with crab sushi, which for me is sufficient for meripo. I am able to hit respective #s, no 3ks yet but never have had the buffs to really do it either, 2800ish i my best to date. However i get good avgs because i build for it. Most dont get this though and just go on sucing ass.

Now with all the said about bird camp i really hope you dont argue that mnk would be worth a sams spot in meripo given they are both geared well and played well. While mnk would be fine for the pty dont think it would be better, you should still keep nearly same xp/hr bc of repops and fact any competent group will kill to fast. For this reason I hate bringing more than 2 DDs nowadays to birds.

Mnk still fairs fine at MMJSP and thats usually where i will merit on mine. It takes so much less dmg which is actually a factor unlike birds, and sam doesnt get +25% bonus here, making the gap smaller but still present. if you do S camp it will consist of many puks which I actually will tend to avg higher on then birds, possibly due to the lv difference or idk (do they too have weakness to piercing?) Last good parsed party I had there the cor was laughing bc my avg was 1700 on puks and 1200 on mmj with polearm. At one point the mandau thf and ridill war just got so mad they couldent help but go on about how broken sam was.... which they are right, i was at 36% dmg in the pty.... the thf had best possible gear you could get (heca set+1 for example and everything else) and the ridill war had respectable gear, ebody, full haste, etc., also had a rocking cor/war who parsed damn near the ridill too, idk what he did that party but he avged 1200 detos and ws hella fast.

I also think there is difference between buffs that 2h and 1h dds will want, and thus mixing them often times can be troublesome. Most people at MMJ will have a brd march/min and the cor will sam+cor if it is a 2h party, where as if you shove a 1h in there the sam roll, while helping is going to be lot less helpful then say war roll which will up dot even more for them. I know i run into this issue sometimes when a war comes and wants to ridill it up, but ends up going to gaxe bc he can do so much more with buffs given.

in the end mnk does do fine and usually if ones lfp they will have decent gear (idk many newbie mnks comming up who dont have good gear yet). The new players w/o any endgame stuff or merits yet will usually be on the 2h jobs and thus end up sucing. With that said however i would take a pimp 2h over pimp 1h because they will do more dmg, can argue about mnks dmg all you want but its not top dog anymore, ever since SE mega buffed 2h. You will do fine dmg and killspeed probably wont change that much, but if you dont know someone would you rather take a gimp mnk or gimp sam is what it comes down to. I personally would take the gimp sam because they will have high acc due to 2h buff and thus atleast be able to hit a bit more, a mnk with 60% acc at mmj isnt going to help worth shit.

sorry if this is long and confusing path, but believe me when I do sympathize with you. I now often lfp on sam and ask if i can go mnk once accepted lol.... almost always results in a no. The few times I do get a yes I get all giddy and go out, then i realize how much more my sam does on those pink little shits and go change >.>p

[Rikkitikkitavi]

Path you just gotta be like those DNC's that refuse to change jobs even on LS events.

Mnk onry.

[bigpapi]

I guess people have forgotten that anything a mnk can punch effectively can easily be Tanked by a mnk. Exchanging a high survivability high damage output for a higher damage out put job is not uncommon now a days. I usually pick what job to be on based on the support available(mostly cor brd healer + 3 DD) and what event we'll be doing. I can easily out tank and out live a top tier 2handed weapon DD but with the way hate works if iI'm punching for decent damage 90% of the time I will have hate.

I'm sure this is not what you wanna hear but level other top tier DDs to balance yourself out.

[Inform-me]

Rikkitikkitavi, on 14 November 2009 - 08:26 AM, said:

Path you just gotta be like those DNC's that refuse to change jobs even on LS events.

Mnk onry.

People wish I would go monk to shit, I go pup! Well, salvage is an exception, because salvage is important and actually has skill and teamwork involved, unlike shit like expansion bosses and sky/dynamis... (Not saying PUP is useless in salvage, just a cell whore due to needing so much key shit to work correctly.)

However I know where you're coming from Path, and you should have just skipped out on that group, considering all 3 expansions can be easily beat with mnk mnk mnk mnk rdm brd (subbing brd for whm on the Shantotto one) People need to remember that outside of bird camp counts for things, but stuff outside of bird camp is CHALLENGING and people don't want to see a parser of them losing to blms (on HNM) or drks/mnks(on Zergs). Bird camp and the realization that sam needs a CONTROLLED nerf that SE will never give them has made any other melee DD seem obsolete, mnk most of all because we have to deal with the fact that NOTHING IS WEAK TO BLUNT! (barring bones, but when was the last time that was a viable excuse?)

Everything can be easily summed up by this simple fact: SE thinks about the consequences they can see due to the current state of the game, they had no idea that SAM would whip out a Polearm if given birds to kill and Overwhelm merits, they just gave us what we needed at the time, a new spot with harmless VT mobs to kill to help people get the merits they had been bitching over for 2 years. Now if at night bones spawned in the bird camp it would be far more balanced, but the EXP would have been worse and nobody would use it because undead are scary, and we all remember the first time we died to them in the dunes, and it still affects non-mnks all the way to 75.

In summary, sucks to not be a SAM, you should kick gimps from parties and tell them to take 20 fucking minutes to read up on how to gear their job, don't pity the worthless fucks just because you're afraid you'll look mean or make them poop their pants, and it's at least partly your fault for leveling something other than a DD class in a game saturated with DD classes and no support/tanks.

[pathwriter]

bigpapi, on 14 November 2009 - 10:07 AM, said:

I'm sure this is not what you wanna hear but level other top tier DDs to balance yourself out.

For what little it is worth, my Samurai is parked at 59 and waiting for Ninja to be finished (level 72). At issue, though, is that I don't want to be forced to play a job that I find shockingly dull simply because people don't understand how well one of my primary jobs performs. I've got Bard, White Mage, and Ranger leveled and Ninja upcoming; with Monk, that should represent a sufficient spectrum. Returning to the issue of Shantotto missions, for the Full Moon fight, the group I went with wiped on the first try with me on White Mage but dominated it effortlessly with my Monk pounding through the little fuckers. But, yeah, I'll be dragging Samurai to 75 at some point exclusively because it wears all the shit my Monk and Ninja wear.

Azagarth, I wonder if you've not seen my Monk? I've been storing gil towards Usukane upgrades (if friggin' 35s will ever start dropping for me), but I'm not exactly slacking when it comes to things like Black Belt and the like.

Still wondering if anyone knows why Archaic Gears become several times more obnoxious with a Samurai hitting them in spite of all the math suggesting that it should not be that way.

[Inform-me]

pathwriter, on 14 November 2009 - 10:30 AM, said:

At issue, though, is that I don't want to be forced to play a job that I find shockingly dull simply because people don't understand how well one of my primary jobs performs.

oh hai thar.

[pathwriter]

Puppetmaster has a different problem in that most people have never seen a competent one. If someone has never seen a competent Monk at this point in time, it's because they started playing less than a year ago.

[bigpapi]

Veg I think I just remember why I stop coming to these forums, you guys still running rampant with OMAGAWD NERF SAM people.

@ path, My mnk and sam get very similar playtime, there just things one job is better then the other at.

ISNM with competent group = sam - with pickup = mnk

Ein T2-3 Mnk/nin - Ein T1 Sam : people usually question this choice but I refuse to /nin on my sam and Tanking/DDing on T3 mobs that rape shadowless DDs works out very well..

Dyna Cities windy-sandy polearm Sam or Mnk, Bastok Sam, glacier Mnk, Xarc Sam, Most CoP Mnk, Tav mnk or sam

Limbus Mnk most zones except SE(diff damage bonus exc)

T2 jailers Sam, Sky gods Sam

Salv Mnk or Sam depends what I wanna play but I'm the DD/tank responsible for the run.

Znm T1-2 manaburned with small groups so I'm usually rdm, T3-T4 are melee burned so Sam.

Can figure out my line of thinking pretty easily from these examples, even tho i can use Sam or Mnk effectively for most the things I do. Having the option to pick a job that might have better result for what you trying to accomplish is always favorable.

Incase anyone was wondering my mnk and sam are both geared equally well.

[_Vivik_]

The problem Path is that many people have tunnel vision, they don't see things as they are , or there full potential. Monk is a job with more potential then i many others, problem is how ever that instead of people taking advantage of Mnk's or any other of the "forgotten jobs" they much rather stick to what they know. The best example i can give you is a monkey siting on a branch, most groups are like that they have found a spot were can be happy unwilling to move on. Even if the branch 3ft away has better bananas and it's warmer, they are "happy" were they are and not prone to change. My 75's are mnk, brd, nin, sam, whm, and i use them all to better my mnk armor and merits. Like you i'am in the same boat, my mnk armor is nothing to frown at but still brd and nin are my top used jobs in events. Even when i final got the elusive black belt i got to use it one's in sky, only one's. Then i had to gear nin because tanks had a rough time, with salvage how ever i am really unsure were you get people that say lolmnk. I have done it for an extensive time frame and i have never ever been in a run with out least 2 mnk's, and time's were we had 1 was because it was a low man run. You are in the right ball park to be unhappy that mnk, a job 3/4 of the people have(had) leveled is inching to the bench like pup and dnc. But there is really nothing that we can do, anyone that play's mnk knows that it's a high end job, if the rest are to oblivious to see it that's there loss.

edit: @bigpapi
i'am not saying gimp others just stop over looking mnk, for scenario's were we do on par with the rest.

[pathwriter]

bigpapi, on 14 November 2009 - 10:50 AM, said:

Veg I think I just remember why I stop coming to these forums, you guys still running rampant with OMAGAWD NERF SAM people.

There are reasons for this attitude, though. I'm not a particularly social creature. I have a Dynamis 'shell and two Salvage 'shells and that's pretty much it. One of the Salvage groups has people in it all the time, but they generally spend all their time sitting around Whitegate or using Astral Flow in Korroloka. So when I want to get something done, like the recent Shantotto missions, I end up joining pickup groups. When I want to merit, as I don't have Summoner at 75, I have to cope with pickup groups. Sitting in Whitegate and seeing someone shout "Any SAM wanna merit?" makes me grind my teeth. I was in a group on Bard a few weeks back and ended up in a party with two Samurai... both in 4/5 Hachiman and Wyvern Helm full time, one using an Ushikirimaru and the other using a fucking Iron Ram Lance. I left after four pulls. I don't think Samurai strictly needs a nerf, but if that's what it would take to get people to unwrap their lips from its cock, maybe it's time. Something has to give so as to weed out all these truly godawful Samurai cluttering up the place.

[bigpapi]

I've ran into the same situation with war/drk/drg/mnk mostly in ISNM group.

Flow your merits or merit with friends

[Hitoseijuro]

bigpapi, on 14 November 2009 - 10:07 AM, said:

I guess people have forgotten that anything a mnk can punch effectively can easily be Tanked by a mnk. Exchanging a high survivability high damage output for a higher damage out put job is not uncommon now a days. I usually pick what job to be on based on the support available(mostly cor brd healer + 3 DD) and what event we'll be doing. I can easily out tank and out live a top tier 2handed weapon DD but with the way hate works if iI'm punching for decent damage 90% of the time I will have hate.

I'm sure this is not what you wanna hear but level other top tier DDs to balance yourself out.

I agree with big papi on this one. Anything a mnk can effectively put full damage on, is game for mnk. You might not want to accept the fact that there are chances that we might not parse the highest, but chances are you will come out as one of the top dogs and your difference wouldnt be so high tbh(outside of weapon type bonus). Monks always been a hit or miss in other peoples eyes. "monk gives too much tp" "monk cant spike damage it sucks" "chi blast onry" "monks dont do a lot of damage they punch for like 70, my <insert job> swings for like 110, thats better" funny enough these are probably the same ppl who jumped on sam. Monk use to get a lot of love though before the 2h update. 2h basically recieved a 20acc/att from base, and when things really get going they get an instant 30~35att/acc from the way things are converted. Gear wise thats a very big advantage. Still monk still can shine with the right aggressive player. What hurt monk, and probably still does(outside zergs) is the fact that they get penalized on HNM type mobs. If the mob isnt debuffed right and/or the monk buffed up, a mnk cant preform at full potential(HNM wise).

I dont think sams that over powering, but it has received a lot of attention. Imo though, the biggest thing thats helping sam right now, is really the 19% from overwelm. The bonus' from g/y/k are nice, but a majority of the time sam does great with polearm(no surprise polearm is a sam weapon afterall) however if you would limit 19% OW to just GK only, then maybe polearm sam wouldnt feel as broken as it does to others. I dont think 19% GK only limitation would hurt sam so much to cry about(ppl still find ways) and imo its the other jobs that need better updates. Dont nerf sam, give other jobs better/smarter updates to keep them all even to a *degree*.

I agree still, I wish mnk got a bigger recognition/role in endgame situations that dont involve mobs equal to or less than exp mobs in terms of difficulty.


Like BP said, level other jobs you could enjoy. I have sam/mnk/pld/blm/drk. I love/enjoy all my jobs I have leveled I never gimped them in away, play them all to my fullest and if asked to come on them over another its fine by me. There are times where I would like/rather come on another job b/c imo I feel that job would do better for said situation(b/c thats why I leveled those jobs, to benefit the group for different situations) but have to do what the leaders want you to. Then there are times when you will have to do different things where your job, could of done other better things. Either way level up jobs you enjoy that give you opportunities to every event you would like to do and have fun with any job you have available.(that answer is obvious, but you would be surprised how many ppl level job A and B just to do events/get accepted to shells and ask to come as job A or B and hate it or worse suck at it.)

[Kleiner]

In my view, the two biggest things that hurt MNK..

Inability to sub WAR without getting facerapped (even talented healers have a hard time keeping a MNK/WAR up. They will inevitably hold almost all hate, and it can be very mana draining)

Lack of a defensive skill, from main or SJ.

2handers can sub SAM and get an excellent defensive skill, Seigan, while still gaining offensive capabilities (Hasso, Meditate, Store TP II, Zanshin)

Sub WAR, and you get Berserk and Double attack, arguably the two best offensive skills available from a sub, but you lose any defensive skills other than defender, which honestly.. we might as well just pretend it doesn't exist.

That, imo, is one of the real weaknesses of MNK. with no innate defensive capabilities (Yes they have counterstance but Conterstance is more likely to kill you than save you), and in order to make up for that they have to sub NIN, which offers no offensive skills and casting Utsu slows punches.

A really easy remedy would be to A: Make counterstance not have the defense penalty, B: Introduce a Guardstance that drastically increases guard, C: Make Defender useful (25% increase to chance to Parry/Guard/Shield Block? could actually make PLD/WAR viable again, too..) Ect.


That's my personal opinion on MNKs. They're EXCELLENT DDs, the damage they deal is just as good, if geared properly as other DDs. the problem is that they're high enmity and have no ability t odefend themselves. if they sub NIN to do so, they lose much of their damage, and fall behind. it's just a lose-lose situation. This has resulted in a FFXI-society shunning of MNKs from most situations, and people who only allow cookie-cutters generally don't even understand WHY they don't accept other players.

[Griss]

i find my self with the same feelings path. i have never claimed to be an excellent mnk or have the best gear heck i managed to get my picture in the "retarded mnk's are the wave of the future thread". but im going to stop before i go onto some rambling tl;dr story that no one really cares about


sadly there is little that can be done about the situation sam is the current flavor of the month for the popular wisdom community. and when that wind changes only the spaghetti monster knows what job will be branded the bandwagonee

[TresDuendes]

You miss everything because you are a MNK, and therefor don't have any accuracy.

[evilpaul]

To reply to a few things and throw in my thoughts on the issue:

I eat the dirt a lot less as MNK/NIN than I see SAMs and 2h DDs eatting it. And unless the mob I'm fighting has some faceraping physical TP moves I'll have Counterstance up pretty much fulltime. It's practically as good as Shield Mastery for getting Ichi back up. Between Chakra and Invigorate I can heal about 750HP every three or five (I forget ) minutes. A JA Cure IV+Regen II is pretty nice. It'd be nice if Regen 1 didn't overwrite it. >.>

As for merits I don't really LFP much at 75 anymore. I've been joining LS parties a few months back, and not doing any meriting at all lately. I've got 400+ of them and nearly all the useful ones for all my jobs already. Will a SAM/WAR with a Polearm do better on Birds? Sure, but who really gives a fuck?

Also, 2 MNKs will feed a mob less TP than 2 SAMs. The MNKs do have Penance merits, right?

I do get to come MNK to a lot of events as it's one of the better geared DD jobs in my LS. Working with pickup groups and being told to come as another job while other people bring their inferior DPS DD job instead is pretty irritating though. I still need to do both the Shantotto fights too. >.<

[TresDuendes]

Having tanked on both MNK and PLD quite a bit, I'd like to add that Counterstance is far more useful than Shield Mastery for getting Ichi up (if you let shadows go down anyways).

[Deemos]

All i can add is that on my personal experience, and having both jobs with pretty much capped gear (full usu, black belt, full haste on sam, pretty good oshit setup, etc) i can easily say that SAM can tank toward attack, and MNK can tank toward defense and control. So you should have both, and with polearm skilled. That's all, doesn't matter how much you love monk, sometimes samurai is just better, tp feed or not. When you feel that you need a safer tank, just get on MNK. And by tank i mean any mob you end up facing it, taking damage, etc.

[Yhelothur]

Can't go wrong with having them both, that's for sure.