IiPunch - Monk Guide

Victory smite is pretty terrible and I wouldn't recommend spamming it. I'm not certain about solo with trusts since I don't do that at all, but when buffed up, MNK can do much better with long skillchains. Even for WS spamming, WS like howling fist, raging fists, and kick WS like dragon and tornado kick will significantly outperform victory smite.

Smite is OK under impetus with decent stacks, but even then it's really not the strongest WS most of the time.

That said, in terms of weapons I'd say get Karambit to start, then ideally you'd get Godhands. Since you said it's not possible (might be, try networking and/or forming a group yourself), I'd get Verethragna. They're very strong and can still perform very well, offering a significant boost over Karambit.

Finally, regarding Varga: I've never owned them, but from what I've heard they're quite strong, both with Maru Kala and also with smite or other WS. The triple damage procs and PDL, plus the new SC options, make them very interesting and competitive DPS-wise. Though, and this is not to be underestimated: getting a stage 4 (or 5) prime weapons takes A LONG TIME. Especially as someone who isn't established and doesn't have a static group...it's frankly not realistic. I wouldn't put your eggs in that basket until much later in your ffxi career/adventure/experience. Focus on the here-and-now first.

This is correct. Even with stage 5 Varga and capped impetus stacks I don't spam exclusively smite. I've found the most effective way to use it is to self skillchain 3 and 4 step comboes with our best weaponskills. With capped impetus stacks in limbus for example, I usually kill most mobs before getting to the second smite into double light step of the first skillchain.



I think Varga and godhands are both in contention for BiS weapon. Monk has very high white damage compared to other jobs, and that's one of varga's strengths. But if you're a newer player without the resources to get a stage 4 prime quickly, I'd look to getting godhands and using that for a while. Godhands is pretty easy to build if you can find a group to run the NM gauntlet, and it's extremely powerful. The longest part is just getting the 50k points to buy your key item from spamming domain invasion for hours.