Changes?

[Futan]

Hey. I'm thinking of coming back to the game and I'm curiously what has changed with Monk with the ToAU expansion. New equip, job abilities, whatever. Any info is good.

[Dryhus]

Same old weapons are still the best.

Mostly, old armor is still the best. Pahluwan Khazagand is like SH with crit rate increase, so some prefer that. There is a variety of other less-than-gamebreaking but nice gear, too, like the Potent Belt, giving STR+3 and Acc+8.

MNK got somewhat weak merit JAs/JTs. Formless Strikes is a JA that makes fists do "magical" damage rather than physical damage. Mantra is a JA that increases max HP of PT members in range. Penance is a JT that gives a negative Subtle Blow effect on Chi Blast, inhibiting TP gain of the target. Invigorate is a JT that gives a Regen effect to Chakra. All merit JAs/JTs increase in potency as you dump more merits into them.

[Futan]

All the merit JAs/JTs sound good to me. ;o Ooh and the Pahluwan Khazagand doesnt have teh -dark element. I do not see a downside to it compared to the SH. It even soounds easier than the SH to get but it probably isnt. ;p

[Zempten]

Actually SH have dropped down to 2 mil on my server I believe . . . .. so yeah . . ..

[Dryhus]

The PK is equippable at 72, versus SH's 59. It also lacks evasion +10, which is helpful when soloing.

MNKs JAs and JTs sound quite useful at face value, but from what I've read they haven't quite held up under tests. Formless Strikes seems to be nice onry on ghosts and other mobs with heavy resistence to physical damage, otherwise it only fails to take advantage of our physical damage enhancements. Penance is a mediocre effect, but some people feel that they may as well take advantage of it to enhance MNK's only endgame use. I've heard Invigorate can be quite nice when soloing, but many seem to disagree. Mantra just plain sucks.