The Monk Class
Learn to Dominate the Game ... Monk Style
All trademarks/copyrights in this document owned by respective trademark/copyright holders. This content may not be copied, reproduced or distributed without the express written approval of multiplayerSTRATEGIES, LLC.
Basic Job Description
The Monk is your basic damage dealing class. Of the 6 basic (non-advanced) jobs, the monk's job is probably the most straightforward: beat your target with your hand-to-hand weapon until it dies, while keeping skillchains going with your weaponskills.
Job Skills Description
Job Abilities
Hundred Fists - LV1 - Duration: 1 minute - Recast: 2 hours : when used, you attack extremely quickly over the 1 minute period. This 2 hour ability for monk is an extremely efficient way of killing something quickly, but can also get you killed quickly if not careful. Make sure to give your party a warning if you're about to use Hundred fists and stand near the paladin so he can cover you if possible and mages can cure you. Focus and berserk are both suggested if possible before use of this 2 hour, as long as you cut berserk once you start taking damage (see 4th paragraph below in Monk's Role in the Party for an explanation on removing status effects).
Boost - LV5 - Duration: 3 minutes - Recast: 15 seconds : this is one of the defining attributes of a monk. Each time you boost each time you boost your attack rating increases (the amount depends on your level and is also increased when wear the monk artifact armor gloves). You can do this every 15 seconds and your attack will increaes each time, however after 3 minutes all stacked boost effects will wear off. Also note that this bonus only lasts one attack, but is extremely useful when stacked and used for Chi Blast and is often used right before weaponskills.
Dodge - LV15 - Duration: 2 minutes - Recast: 5 minutes : enhances evasion. Useful when you happen to do a bit too much damage and start taking a beating or when soloing.
Focus - LV25 - Duration: 2 minutes - Recast: 5 minutes : enhances accuracy. Extemely useful ability because accuracy is extremely important for a monk. Use it as much as possible, if possible coordinate it so that it's available when using your weaponskill.
Chakra - LV35 - Duration: Instant - Recast: 5 minutes : recovers some HP. How much HP you recover depends on your MND and your total amount of HP. Artifact armor (AF) body piece enhances this ability, recovering more HP with each use.
Chi Blast - LV41 - Duration: Instant - Recast: 3 minutes: deals a quick but relatively low damaging attack which ignores defense and spell effects (will go through blink). This is useful for a monk to use as a means of pulling monsters (like a type of ranged attack) although not always dependable because of the 3 minute recast timer. The boost skill and your MND will determine how much damage it does. Each stacked boost greatly increases the damage your chi blast will do, and with AF gloves (which enhance boost) you can easily do up to 300-500 damage with a fully stacked boosted chi blast, instead of the regular 20-50 damage. Since it ignores defense, this can be useful against such things as jellies and elementals.
Counterstance - LV45 - Duration: 5 minutes - Recast: 5 minutes : Greatly lowers defense but increases counterattack rating. This is more just a useful skill when fighting monsters considerably lower level than you because it lowers your defense so greatly.
Job Traits
Martial Arts - LV1 - Increases speed of hand-to-hand attacks. This passive ability is improved throughout the levels as monk, and is one of the reasons why, beyond any doubt, hand-to-hand is the best weapon for monk at all level ranges.
Counter - LV10 - Allows for a chance to negate an enemy's attack, while at the same time additionally counter-attacking the enemy. This is another defining attribute of a monk, when you counter-attack not only do you not take damage, but you inflict additional damage. With all the available +counter equipment available at higher levels, it makes farming/soloing all the more efficient.
Max HP Boost - LV15 - A boost to your maximum HP.
Martial Arts - LV16 - Further bonus to your Martial Arts trait.
Martial Arts - LV31 - Further bonus to your Marital Arts trait.
Max HP Boost - LV35 - An additional boost to your maximum HP.
Martial Arts - LV46 - Further bonus to your Martial Arts trait.
Kick Attacks - LV51 - Another important trait for monks. You will randomly get an additional attack where you kick, for which you gain TP and do approximately 50% of the damage your punches do.
Max HP Boost - LV55 - An additional boost to your maximum HP.
Martials Arts - LV61 - Further bonus to your Martial Arts trait.
Max HP Boost - LV70 - An additional boost to your maximum HP.
Kick Attacks - LV71 - Improves Kick Attacks (frequency and damage, I believe).
Martial Arts - LV75 - Further bonus to Martial Arts trait.
Monk's Role in the Party
The monk's primary role is to do damage, as stated in the Basic Job Description. In a party situation this will always be best achieved when using hand-to-hand weapons because of the Martial Arts job trait (see above in the Job Skill Description) and because it has the best weapon rating (described more in Equipment and Stat Focus). Aside from that, at level 25 you will get Focus, which should be used at the same time as Berserk (usable at 30 if using warrior as a subjob). This makes sense because you want your most powerful attacks to also be your most accurate ones. Additionally, both Focus and Berserk have 5 minute recast times, so it is extremely easy to keep the two synchronized.
You are also responsible for producing the most effective skillchains possible. These will almost always involve the use of your most powerful weaponskills: the multi-hitters. At least until level 60, after which skillchain opportunities often outweigh opportunities for the most possible damage from a weaponskill. The multi-hitters include combo which hits up to 3 times and raging fists which hits up to 5 times. These both skillchain the same way (can be said to be Impaction element... see the strategy area for a list of skillchain charts). Based on this, you will generally be best at producing Fusion (fire/light), Impaction (thunder), or Detonation (wind) skillchains. You will notice that Impaction chains (thunder) are a good alternative to distortion skillchains becuase most common levelling monsters which are vulnerable to ice, are also vulnerable to thunder (crabs and crawlers in particular).
Damage dealers that most compliment monks in a party include rangers,samurais, dark knights and even warriors, but until level 60 thieves and dragoons aren't the optimal combination because of a lack of good skillchaining opportunities (although decent skillchains still exist).
Aside from the more obvious role a monk plays, it's high HP and half-decent defense ratings allow for a good party member to help set up for sneak and trick attack onto the tank, bonuses such as dodge and defender (defender only at 50+ with warrior sub) add to this. For those thinking "Yes, but Defender would reduce your attack for the rest of the fight", status effects are easily cut, simply hit the 'SelectWindow' key, default for which being ctrl+f / f / + on the keypad twice and highlight the appropriate effect to cut it. As a monk you should often take advantage of this feature to cut/remove berserk when you take hate (monster attacks you) and cut/remove defender when you lose hate.
Monk is not a tank, do not let the high HP fool you. A monk's paper-thin armor and few ways to keep hate result in the mage's wasting more MP keeping you alive and taking more damage (possibly dying) because you can't hold hate. However, I will say that it is possible for a monk to tank at the lower levels (1-30 range) if you desperately can't find a paladin, warrior, or a ninja to tank. Not recommended though.
Subjob suggestions
I personally have no doubt that the best subjob for monk levelling from 1-75 is warrior. I'm not referring to when you're farming or soloing, but rather when you're in a party situation where you're either fighting a tough battle (BCNM, mission fights, etc...) or when you're levelling. Double attack allows for three and pontetially four punches a round (available from level 25 warrior sub), each adding to your overall damage output and TP building along with your kick attacks. Berserk (available from level 15 warrior subjob) allows for extra damage with every hit, including weaponskills. Additionally, double attack allows for potentially an extra attack with your multihitting weaponskills, which you'll use the most. Aside from that, warrior also generates great stat bonuses towards stats like STR and DEX.
The only other two subjobs I'd consider worth mentioning would be thief and samurai. Thief can make a decent subjob in the level 30-50 range (once you can use sneak attack and before warrior gets the bonus of double attack). This is especially true if you don't have the gil or the time to make the gil for all those nice +accuracy items, and find you miss a lot. Sneak attack stacked with combo or raging fists guarantees your first hit will actually hit and that you will at least regain 6+ TP and do a certain amount of damage. However, keep in mind that not having berserk means you do less damage with every single hit for a 3 minute period (usable every 5 minutes). So even if you do less damage with your weaponskill using warrior subjob, the total damage from your regular hits will usually more than compensate, which is not always obvious. Samurai only becomes useful at 60+ monk when you can sub it for meditate (+60 TP when used as a subjob, usable every 3 minutes). Remember that it takes two people to skillchain, and you'll be doing less damage with regular hits missing out on double attacks and berserk. I feel this would only really be useful if partied with a samurai, where the large number of skillchains you could do could possibly offset the damge loss.
Equipment and Stat Focus
A monk is a damage dealer, so let me start by suggesting you take the time to read the following tutorial (link available to members) , which is a post I made concerning some general facts (as well as a bit of speculation) about damage dealers of all kinds. To summarize some more important facts pertaining to monks, make sure you always get as many +accuracy items as possible, and if no such items are available (or affordable) focus on dex, str, and attack in that order (although magnitude of each bonus available may make it more worthwhile to chose another, e.g. 2 str vs. 20 attack, such is discussed in the above damage dealing thread).
A rather large amount of +str and +attack is contributed by meat mithkabobs, which are relatively cost efficient (~200 gil each across servers) and add str +5 and attack +21.9% (as well as agi+2, vit and int-1) for the duration of a half hour. Aside from that, pamama au lait/pear/etc... can be used for their regen HP effects, which is helpful when trying to conserve your mage's MP (and concentration) in such places such as a BCNM fight. The regen pamama food also make a huge difference when leveling lower level jobs - a post actually details this strategy at the following link (link available to members) .
Given the above guidelines, what's the best armor for you should be pretty clear (even if unaffordable at times), but I often notice monks using weapons which may seem good, but are not in fact the best. First, let me start by explaining the way hand-to-hand weapons work: you may notice that hand-to-hand weapons don't have a delay on them, but rather a +delay. That is because hand-to-hand attacking is possible without a weapon, and has a sort of natural delay on it (pretty slow without the monk's Martial Arts passive bonus). When using weapons, they add a +delay to this natural delay. According to my research, you're almost always better off going with a higher delay and higher damage. This is likely the case because the +delay seems relatively small when compared to the natural delay of using hand-to-hand, and that extra +damage makes a noticeable difference. In general, these larger delay weapons not only have higher damage but also have accuracy and/or attack bonuses on them making them even more worthwhile.
Sample Macros
These are just some sample macros that will be common to a monk (some are common to many jobs). The square brackets [ ] are meant to represent the auto-translator brackets.
Chi-Blast Macro
/ja "Chi Blast"
/wait 1/p [Chi Blast] >>>>
* Most macro suggestions I make involve the party chat not first, but second. Often this party chat will appear just as the animation begins to render in-game for the skill itself. However, the delay between the party chat and using the skill if done the other way around can be annoyingly slow (and often fatal in the case of provoke).
Enemy Spotted Macro
/p [Enemy] - - - [Found it!]
Provoke Macro
/ja "Provoke" /wait 1/p [Provoke] --> <>/wait 20/wait 8/p [Provoke] [Ready!]
Focus / Dodge / Chakra / Berserk / Defender Macro (all the same style)
/ja "Focus"
Hundred Fists
/ja "Hundred Fists" /wait 1/p [Hundred Fists] ! [Cover] + [Cure] [please]
Food Macro
/item "Meat Mithkabob"
TP Reporting Macro
/p TP : @1 [Raging Fists]
Weaponskill Macro
/p [Combo] < TP: > /wait 1/ja "Boost" /wait 1/ws "Combo"
Boost Macro
/ja "Boost" /wait 16/ja "Boost" /wait 14/echo BOOST READY!
