Help me get out of the box

[Zeraze]

Long time reader first-time poster. I am returning to the game after a 1 1/2 year hiatus and need some help. I have read every post that I can find re: /sub for the monk job. I know that /war holds highest dd potential. I know that it is the most "appropriate" sub for my job class. I dont want to sub warrior. I will be /drk. Please try to keep the flames to a minumum here. I know all the reasons I should /war but i still am not gonna do it. So having said that, what I am asking for is help. I would like for the sages and wisemen of this website (read Icemage and Armando) to assist me in coming up with a playable strategy. I read all the time how with the right play style, gear, food, and party set up any combo is possible, so i am asking for your help and here is what i have come up with so far:

stat bonuses to str agi int and mind(i think)
2 atk bonuses
Last Resort and Souleater (not as good as berserk but still very useful)
Weapon Bash (staff?) Shoulder Tackle and Stun, gives me three stunning options
Drk Magic (bad I know) Poison -gives me a quick ranged attack for pulling
Drain- Nice for Mnk on one min timer
Aespir-to recharge an almost non existent mp pool
Absorb Spells- abs-vit>>>>>>>>Chakra
abs-mnd>>>>>>>Chi Blast and Latent effect on Vamp Claws
abs-agil>>>>>>>Dodge
Now absorb spells are on a 60 sec timer...how long do the absorb effects last? Can they be stacked on themselves? If I can get a decent mnd boost I could get off monster chi blasts and not sacrifice too much dd ability as I would with a /whm

gear, food, and party set-up I have no clue on.........im thinkin I will probably want some int/mp gear, a dd setup, and maybe an evasion /counter setup to deal with the all the hate. I thought the vamp claws would be nice to help me from becoming an mp sink.

If the above named points could be made to work it would add a lot of versitility to the monk job. Stunner Puller dd and Nuker. so that's all i got. Please assume that money is no object (even though it always is) I will farm/grow/hunt/craft/steal whatever I need to make this work. Thanks in advance for your time and efforts.

[Mog]

Oh god, not another one...

Before anyone says anything, I'll say only this. Before you go through with this, either:

1) Form your own static party
2) Form every single one of your parties

Otherwise, have fun sitting at level 20 and wondering why you're never receiving invites. MNK/DRK is very situational, and you'll end up pissing off people who are also trying to level jobs up. If you want to use a combo like this, level MNK and DRK seperately and sub drk for it whenever you're helping someone out with something, farming, etc..

P.S. This is typically how a thread like this goes: Looking for an endgame Taru RDM/PLD

[Eohmer]

I dont want to sub warrior. I will be /drk. Please try to keep the flames to a minumum here. I know all the reasons I should /war but i still am not gonna do it.

Umm, why not?

[neighbortaru]

oh why oh why do you insist on doing things "outside the box?"
you are, by the sounds of it, already aware that you will be sub-par by doing this, so what even compels you to do it? to prove that you can? or to be "original?"

so aside from my fascination with why you are attempting this, here's what else I have to offer.

you won't have enough MP to nuke in any meaningful way. furthermore, at half skill, good luck with tickling the XP mobs.

stunning with weapon bash with staff? please don't even joke about that >.<
so that only leaves you with 2 stuns, well 1 really until 74... or .5 really as shoulder tackle is flaky (i wouldn't bet my life on it).

furthermore, you are gonna have to rest for MP (because, frankly, no refresher is gonna waste time with you) so there goes your TP for weaponskills, which means there goes your contribution as a damage dealer.

people invite monks to be damage dealers; not pullers, not stunners. screw with that and you screw with your invites.

my advice for you would be to suck it up with /war until you get into some monk-burn parties. then you can go /nin as i see many often do.

disclaimer: my opinions and experience do not apply for endgame events

[Aeolus]

......

Staff for weapon bash. A macro that equips a Staff then uses weapon bash will loose you alot of TP and probably miss the whole stun idea of weapon bash from the delay. And exping with staff out constantly good luck with that.
/drk for stun, ok, you need to be 74+ and you will probably have someone else in PT who can do that if you even need it in a normal Exp PT.
A monster Chi Blast takes about 3mins to prepare and has no use in a Exp PT at all.

3 points why you never need to post anything about that combination again.

[Jei]

No. Don't do it.

There's no point trying slow down your levelling. There are so much better things waiting for you to do once you're higher level.

Do what ever you need to get your level, or you'll never truely see what the game offers.

[Raydeus]

Help me get out of the box

If the box is too tight for you to move enough then I suggest using the 1 inch punch in the same way Uma did in Kill Bill.


Now about out of the box subs... just follow the link Mog gave you.





PS > On a more serious note, the main reason why subbing DRK or anything that uses skills you don't have native skill for is that it will be very weak against XP mobs.

Not only you'll have tiny MP but also the skill will be the same lvl as your sub. So for a MNK75/DRK37 you'll have lvl 37 Dark magic skill which will make Absorb spells useless because the mob will resist them all.

You shouldn't choose a sub because you don't want to do what everyone else does, you gotta pick a sub that let's you do what you want to do, but you also have to consider if what you want to do is plausible or not.

[Zeraze]

I really dig the physicallity of the mnk but would like some more abilities to play with;

so weapon bash is out. I was referring to nuking with chi blast I will be happy to refresh my self with drinks and juices. Perfectly happy and capable of making my own parties.

so what you are telling me is that none of you, with all your logged playing time can possibly come up with a party set-up in which this might work or suggest gear that would help to overcome the short comings of this setup. Jei's reasoning is the only one so far that makes a plausible argument for me, however that is not what I was looking for. its my time money and effort to raise a character and maybe it won't be feasible to do in an exp situation, if you can help then help. why even have a /sub system if there are really no choices? and I would be /war to 30 (or whatever level it is at which a monk can no longer tank) to raise my guard and evasion skills.

i know the main/sub combos that are out there exist because they work. however, they only work because they are predicated on the same party structure. there was a time when /nin was a marginal sub but now, with game evolution its nearly out of control (blm/nin for cryin out loud), but this too will change.

If no one can help, i will not waste anymore of your time posting here.

if you follow the crowd you will get no further than the crowd........

thanks again

[Mog]

No offense, but until you understand the mechanics of this game, don't use this combination.

[Murphie]

It's not that none of them, with all their logged playing time can tell you when it might work. It's that it doesn't work, and they are saving you the trouble of finding out the hard way.

There are a lot of reasons for the job/subjob system. They are for utility, when you aren't in an exp party, for camping, for farming, for missions, for exp, etc. There are various subs for various uses. But not every job combo is a viable one. And they don't have to be, either. People have been playing this game for years, and the community knows what does and doesn't work for the most part. Just because you're playing as a MNK/WAR or MNK/NIN (after 74), or MNK/WHM (for Chi Blast) doesn't mean you're "getting no further than the crowd." It means you understand the game mechanics.

[Eohmer]

so weapon bash is out. I was referring to nuking with chi blast I will be happy to refresh my self with drinks and juices.

I can see now how much gil you're going to end up spending on all this stuff.

Perfectly happy and capable of making my own parties.

You can start your own, fine... but let's see how many people you invite are willing to stay.

If no one can help, i will not waste anymore of your time posting here.

Helping you doesn't necessarily mean that they have to tell you what you WANT to hear... I believe many HAVE helped in telling you how this won't work.

if you follow the crowd you will get no further than the crowd........

Doesn't seem like you will get any further either. I'm sorry.

[Zeraze]

So first thank you for being "gentle" with your posts. I expected a lot of flak for revisiting this topic but it was truly better than I thought it would be. I appreciate everyone's time and posts.

Having said that..... I can live with all the shortcomings and problems with the exception of the Abs spells? is there no way to land these on an exp mob? what about solo and farming?

abs vit>>>>>>>chakra would be hot
abs mnd >>>>> chi blast yes its on a three minute timer but every three minutes you could have ws-like dam
abs agi >>>>>dodge

and can they stack on themselves (like boost)?

I would think that my costs for equip, food and juice would be insane, but would view it like ranger and ninja just the costs of doing the job.

what I want is to pound schtuff into the ground with my fists and drop an ocassional spell or two. I really like the idea of hundred fists >>>souleater. drk is the sub i chose because it offers some magic w/o a big sacrifice of dd'ing dam which is why I like monk. I dislike the warrior sub because double attack, and beserk while arguably the best jt and ja respectively do not offer enough "toys" for me to play with. thought about drk/mnk w/ h2h but i'm sure most would say that's even worse than this combo.

I did play to lvl 42 drk 35mnk 30 rng 20war 25nin

[BurningPanther]

MNK/DRK just isn't gonna offer you the flexibility you're looking for. Even on my 75 RDM/DRK, I have a hard time landing Absorb spells, the only combo I can think of that wouldn't is BLM/DRK. The absorb spells don't stack on themselves either, and should your spells actually land, the benefits of the absorption only lasts a short period of time, after which you lose the extra effects of the stat you absorbed.

Your mana pool will be not so much a pool as it will be a teardrop, and tears will be shed when you see the piddly damage your nukes do. Focusing on MP or INT gear will only serve to take away from gear slots better devoted to playing to your MNK's strengths, only weakening you further.

[Eohmer]

I would think that my costs for equip, food and juice would be insane, but would view it like ranger and ninja just the costs of doing the job.

Ranger NEEDS Ammunition, Ninja NEEDS tools.... Mnk/Drk does NOT need refresh drinks.

what I want is to pound schtuff into the ground with my fists and drop an ocassional spell or two. I really like the idea of hundred fists >>>souleater. drk is the sub i chose because it offers some magic w/o a big sacrifice of dd'ing dam which is why I like monk.

Can you imagine the hate you'll get with all the "poundage" you're wanting to do? DRK itself doesn't offer too much MP in the first place, so one or 2 spells you'll be able to use probably won't do much.

I dislike the warrior sub because double attack, and beserk while arguably the best jt and ja respectively do not offer enough "toys" for me to play with. thought about drk/mnk w/ h2h but i'm sure most would say that's even worse than this combo.

You dislike Double Attack? Did I read that correctly? >.<

If you were all those jobs you say you leveled, you'd understand why /war is better for XPing.

[Armando]

Sorry. It really doesn't work.
- You can't land absorbs on EXP mobs. Mages with capped, A-ranked magic skills still have plenty of trouble landing magic on EXP mobs. You're certainly not going to be able to do it with half-capped skill. At most you can land it on EP mobs (but even those will give you ocasional resists.)
- Same goes for elemental magic. Hell, most DRKs don't consider it to be worth it.
- Your MP pool will be a joke, and I believe each Absorb costs 33 MP on top of that to boot. It's a hefty ammount of MP even for a DRK.
- Last Resort is a joke. Seriously. It gives a pitiful ammount of Attack for a JA that's on a 5 minute timer, and on top of that it only lasts 30 seconds, gimps your Defense, and creates ridiculous hate.
- Attack Bonus won't help as much as Berserk.
- Souleater is gimped when sub, is on a 6 minute timer, eats up your MP, also creates a lot of hate (and MNK already pulls too much hate) and is just as bad idea overall. Double Attack on the other hand gives you 10% more normal swings and 10% more WS (due to getting 100 TP 10% faster.)