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Monk (MNK) Actions, Traits and Role Actions
Though now under Garlean rule, the fortified city-state of Ala Mhigo once claimed dominion over the lands of Gyr Abania and boasted the greatest military might of all Eorzea. Among its standing armies were the monks?ascetic warriors dreaded by foes on the field of battle as much as the Ala Mhigan pikemen.
The monks comprised an order known as the Fist of Rhalgr, and it was to this god?the Destroyer and guardian deity of Ala Mhigo to whom they devoted their lives of fervent worship.
In their remote mountain temples, the monkhood underwent rigorous training of both mind and body, ever seeking to draw closer to the godhead of Rhalgr himself. Over the long course of its esoteric tradition, the Fist has developed a deadly and destructive martial art.
Patch 1.21 saw the introduction of jobs to FFXIV, which allows you to become one of the traditional jobs from the FF series after completing a quest. A Pugilist can become a Monk by equipping the Soul of the Monk item after completing the first quest. The details for this quest are below.
In their remote mountain temples, the monkhood underwent rigorous training of both mind and body, ever seeking to draw closer to the godhead of Rhalgr himself. Over the long course of its esoteric tradition, the Fist has developed a deadly and destructive martial art.
Patch 1.21 saw the introduction of jobs to FFXIV, which allows you to become one of the traditional jobs from the FF series after completing a quest. A Pugilist can become a Monk by equipping the Soul of the Monk item after completing the first quest. The details for this quest are below.
| Quest | NPC | Location | Conditions |
| Brother from Another Mother | Gagaruna | Ul'dah Merchant Strip, Pugilists' Guild |
PGL 30 |
For each quest you complete, you will be rewarded with a new ability, while the latter quests will also reward you with artifact (AF) armour that is shown in the screenshot above.
Introduction to Monk
Monk is a melee damage dealing job which branches from the Pugilist class. It is quite complex compared to the other damage dealing jobs and requires a lot of thought and movement to play right. Most abilities can only be used when in the right form.
Attributes
As a Monk your main attribute is going to be Strength (STR) as this increases physical attack damage. You should be focusing on equipment with this stat. For secondary stats you should be focusing on the likes of Direct Hit Rate, Determination, Critical Hit Rate and Skill Speed in addition to simply boosting STR. However you'll find Skill Speed is generally not worth it.
Skill Speed and Critical Hit Rate are self explanatory in what they do. For the other two, Determination is used to boost the damage dealt by all attacks and the amount of HP recovered when healed while Direct Hit Rate is Stormblood's replacement for Accuracy. Instead of a simple hit or miss effect that Accuracy could give, having low Direct Hit Rate for a fight will reduce damage dealt so it is important to improve this stat.
Forms
The Monk has access to three forms, which dictate the skills they are able to use and when. Before we can get into skill rotations it is important to understand what these are and what can be used when. The three forms are called Opo-opo, Raptor and Coeurl. Each of them have three abilities and one will lead to the next form, starting with Opo-opo, on to Raptor, then Coeurl and then back to Opo-opo.
In order to use a skill from one form you must already be under the previous form, with the exception of Opo-opo as this is where you begin.
Actions
Actions are skills that the Monk can equip to their bar and select to use at any time as long as their timer is available. Actions used in a combo will generate additional damage and effects. All Monk actions are exclusive to that job.
MNK NIN PLD RDM SAM SCH SMN WAR WHM
| Name | Level | Cast | Recast | MP | TP | Range | Radius | ||
 | Rockbreaker | 30 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 5y | |
| Delivers an attack with a potency of 150 to all nearby enemies. Can only be executed when in coeurl form. Additional Effect: Changes form to opo-opo Duration: 15s |
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| Rockbreaker | 30 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 | 0 | 5y | 5y | |
| Delivers an attack with a potency of 130 to all enemies in a cone before you. Can only be executed when in F201FAF201FBcoeurl0101 form. F201F8F201F9Additional Effect:0101 Changes form to F201FAF201FBopo-opo0101 F201F8F201F9Duration:0101 10s F201F8F201F9Additional Effect:0101 Grants F201FAF201FBGreased Lightning0101 F201F8F201F9Duration:0101 16s F201F8F201F9Greased Lightning Bonus:0101 Increases damage dealt by 10% and reduces weaponskill cast time and recast time, spell cast time and recast time, and auto-attack delay by 5% |
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 | Shoulder Tackle | 35 | 0 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 20y | 0y | |
| Rushes target and delivers an attack with a potency of 100. Maximum Charges: 2 Cannot be executed while bound. |
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 | Fists of Fire | 40 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | |
| Increases damage dealt by 10 %. Cannot be used with Fists of Earth or Fists of Wind, and shares a recast timer with both. Effect ends upon reuse. |
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| Fists of Fire | 40 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | |
| Increases damage dealt by 6%. Cannot be used with F201F4F201F5Fists of Earth0101 or F201F4F201F5Fists of Wind0101, and shares recast timer with both. Effect ends upon reuse. |
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 | Four-point Fury | 45 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 5y | |
| Delivers an attack with a potency of 140 to all nearby enemies. Can only be executed when in raptor form. Additional Effect: Extends Twin Snakes duration by 10s to a maximum of 15s Additional Effect: Changes form to coeurl Duration: 15s |
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 | One Ilm Punch | 45 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | |
| Delivers an attack with a potency of 120. Can only be executed when in F201FAF201FBraptor0101 form. F201F8F201F9Additional Effect:0101 F201FAF201FBStun0101 F201F8F201F9Duration:0101 1s F201FAF201FBStun0101 is impervious to stun nullifying effects. F201F8F201F9Additional Effect:0101 Changes form to F201FAF201FBcoeurl0101 F201F8F201F9Duration:0101 10s |
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 | Dragon Kick | 50 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | |
| Delivers an attack with a potency of 230. 260 when executed from a target's flank. Opo-opo Form Bonus: Grants Leaden Fist Duration: 30s Additional Effect: Changes form to raptor Duration: 15s |
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 | Form Shift | 52 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | |
| Grants Formless Fist to self, allowing the execution of a weaponskill that requires a certain form, without being in that form. Duration: 15s Any additional effects associated with the executed action will also be applied. |
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 | Meditation | 54 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | |
| Opens a chakra. Up to five chakra can be opened at once. Opens all five chakra when used outside of combat. Shares a recast timer with all other weaponskills. |
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 | The Forbidden Chakra | 54 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | |
| Delivers an attack with a potency of 250. Can only be executed while under the effect of the Fifth Chakra. The five chakras close upon execution. ※This action cannot be assigned to a hotbar. |
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 | Elixir Field | 56 | 0 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 5y | |
| Delivers an attack with a potency of 250 to all nearby enemies. | |||||||||
 | Purification | 58 | 0 | 120 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | |
| Restores 300 TP. F201F8F201F9Additional Effect:0101 Reduces enmity by half Can only be executed while under the effect of the F201FAF201FBFifth Chakra0101. The five chakra close upon execution. |
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 | Tornado Kick | 60 | 0 | 45 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | |
| Delivers an attack with a potency of 400. | |||||||||
 | Riddle of Earth | 64 | 0 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | |
| Reduces damage taken by 10% and nullifies all action direction requirements. Duration: 6s Maximum Charges: 3 |
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 | Riddle of Fire | 68 | 0 | 90 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | |
| Increases damage dealt by 25%. Duration: 20s |
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 | Brotherhood | 70 | 0 | 90 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 15y | |
| Grants Brotherhood and Meditative Brotherhood to all nearby party members. Brotherhood Effect: Increases damage dealt by 5% Meditative Brotherhood Effect: 20% chance you open a chakra when party members under this effect execute a weaponskill or cast a spell Duration: 15s |
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 | Enlightenment | 74 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 10y | 10y | |
| Delivers an attack with a potency of 220 to all enemies in a straight line before you. Can only be executed while in combat and under the effect of the Fifth Chakra. The five chakra close upon execution. Shares a recast timer with the Forbidden Chakra. |
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 | Anatman | 78 | 0 | 60 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | |
| Extends the duration of Twin Snakes and your present form to maximum and halts their expiration. Duration: 30s Cancels auto-attack upon execution. Effect ends upon using another action or moving (including facing a different direction). Triggers the cooldown of weaponskills upon execution. Cannot be executed during the cooldown of weaponskills. |
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 | Six-sided Star | 80 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | |
| Delivers an attack with a potency of 540. Additional Effect: Increases movement speed Duration: 5s This weaponskill does not share a recast timer with any other actions. Upon execution, the recast timer for this action will be applied to all other weaponskills and magic actions. |
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As well as these the Monk can also equip Pugilist actions.
Role Actions
Since the A Realm Reborn expansion for FFXIV, cross class actions were removed and replaced with the concept of "role" actions. Role actions are more generic as they don't belong to specific classes, but instead to roles such as melee DPS, magic DPS, healer or tank. The Monk can equip up to 5 of these.
| Name | Level | Cast | Recast | MP | TP | Range | Radius |
PvP Actions
From the Stormblood expansion PvP was revamped significantly and you can no longer use PvE actions during PvP battles. That means all of the actions above you can no longer use in PvP. Action Points (AP) were also removed. While some of the dedicated PvP actions do have the same name, they will have different potencies or effects. Below are the PvP actions that are unique to the Monk. There exists even more PvP actions and even traits but these are not unique to the Monk. You can find these further down the page.
| Name | Cast | Recast | MP | TP | Range | Radius | |||
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Raw Destruction | 2 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 8y | 0y | ||
| Delivers an attack with a potency of 8,000. Can only be executed while the Adrenaline Gauge is full. |
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Somersault | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | ||
| Delivers an attack with a potency of 750. F201F8F201F9Additional Effect:0101 Opens a chakra |
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Shared PvP Actions
The following is a list of PvP actions which are shared across all classes and jobs. These can only be used in PvP areas and you are limited to selecting two of them.
| Name | Cast | Recast | MP | TP | Range | Radius | |||
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Aetheric Siphon | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 25y | 0y | ||
| Activates the instrument. | |||||||||
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Anti-gravity Gimbal | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | ||
| Simulates the spell Levitate using Nero tol Scaeva's odd contraption. | |||||||||
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Bolt | 0 | 45 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | ||
| Movement speed is increased. Duration: 10s |
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| Chimatsuri | 4.5 | 45 | 0 | 0 | 8y | 0y | |||
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Concentrate | 0 | 45 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | ||
| Creates a barrier preventing Stun, Sleep, Bind, Heavy, Slow, Silence, and knockback effects. Duration: 10s |
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Deflect | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 4y | ||
| Scatters potentially harmful aether. | |||||||||
| Doom Of The Living | 4.5 | 45 | 0 | 0 | 8y | 0y | |||
| Dragonsong Dive | 4.5 | 45 | 0 | 0 | 8y | 0y | |||
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Enliven | 0 | 90 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | ||
| Restores 50% of maximum TP. | |||||||||
| Final Heaven | 4.5 | 45 | 0 | 0 | 8y | 0y | |||
| Delivers an attack with a potency of 9,000. | |||||||||
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Muse | 0 | 90 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | ||
| Restores 25% of maximum MP. | |||||||||
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Purify | 0 | 45 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | ||
| Removes Stun, Sleep, Bind, Heavy, Slow, and Silence from target. Can be used regardless of own status affliction. | |||||||||
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Recuperate | 0 | 45 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | ||
| Restores 25% of maximum HP. | |||||||||
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Safeguard | 0 | 90 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | ||
| Reduces damage taken by 25%. Duration: 10s |
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Smoke Screen | 0 | 2.5 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 20y | ||
| Throw an incendiary device that creates a blanket of smoke temporarily granting you the Stealth status. | |||||||||
| Ungarmax | 3 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 14y | 20y | |||
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Vril | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0y | 0y | ||
| Use the aetheric residue lingering on your body to temporarily disguise yourself as one of Lakshmi's loyal dreamers. | |||||||||
Shared PvP Traits
The following is a list of PvP traits which are shared across all classes and jobs. These can only be used in PvP areas and you are limited to selecting three of them.
| Name | Description | |
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Decreased Damage Taken | Decreases damage taken by 3%. |
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Decreased Recast Time | Decreases recast time of additional actions by 20%. |
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Increased Action Speed | Decreases weaponskill and spell cast and recast times by 3%. |
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Increased Damage Dealt | Increases damage dealt by 3%. |
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Increased Healing Potency | Increases spell-based HP restoration by 5%. |
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Increased HP | Increases maximum HP by 5%. |
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Increased MP Regeneration | Increases MP regeneration rate by 25%. |
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Increased Resistance Duration | Increases duration of resistances by 50%. |
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Increased TP Regeneration | Increases TP regeneration rate by 40%. |
Monk Equipment
The best equipment for your Monk constantly changes depending on what was added in the latest patch so it is important to do your own research on top of this guide. We have broken the equipment down into tiers in order to give some indication of what you can use before you get up to that item level tier.
MNK NIN PLD RDM SAM SCH SMN WAR WHM
Comments
The following comments are from our legacy commenting system.
Anonymous
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Jun 13, 2015 - 09:56:15 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box |
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I cant turn a monk my pugilist right now are 36 and lancer 15 but the quest to turn a monk don't show in the pugilist guild a did something wrong |
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Xenor
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Jan 11, 2015 - 21:48:29 | Location: Durham, United Kingdom |
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I just checked and it seems MNK lost Impulse Drive in 2.45. But well pointed out because it seems I forgot to implement the 2.45 LNC/DRG changes. I'll get it sorted now. |
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| CharGen [Anon]
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Jan 10, 2015 - 18:18:53 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box |
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Impulse drive was removed, patch 2.4 I think? |
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| Anonymous
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Jan 19, 2014 - 03:39:10 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box |
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"parry doesn't seem as effective as defense to me." You clearly don't play a tank in this or any other mmo... Therefore you sir are an idiot. |
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| Duke [Anon]
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Dec 10, 2013 - 16:35:35 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box |
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To the person who commented before me: Why would you get rid of bootshine? Its easily one of your hardest hitting abilities, if not the hardest hitting. As long as you are behind the enemy its a guaranteed crit. Are crits 200% or 150% base damage/potency in this game? Even if it's 150% that still brings bootshin to 195 potency. If anything maybe get 2 bootshine off and then go through the rotation to keep GL up. Beside mercy stroke, B4B, and invig, cross-class are personal preference. I take bloodbath and foresight to help the healers out. Slows are pretty miniscule in this game. And parry doesn't seem as effective as defense to me. |
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| Anonymous
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Oct 02, 2013 - 07:34:21 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box |
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take impulse drive. it helped me a ton with my dps. it seems stupid but ill explain. the two highest potency abilities you have access to (excluding mercy stroke) are snap punch and impulse drive. when you have greased lightning x3 you can actually fit 3 impulse drives in ur combo and still have time to snap punch to refresh greased lightning. this means you are landing way more 180 potency abilities and not overlapping ur greased lighting way too early. this also allows you to remove true strike and bootshine almost completely from your rotation since you are now just refreshing dragon kick and twin snakes, since your I II III stance rotation is stretched out a lot longer. |
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| Anonymous
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Sep 23, 2013 - 14:05:24 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box |
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Image for Skull Sunder and Bloodbath should be the other way around xD .. and in response to SomeWolf; yeah they add up / equate / stack |
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| SomeWolf [Anon]
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Sep 09, 2013 - 18:08:25 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box |
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So I have a mechanics question, not just about Monk, but it is most relevant here. Damage bonus % increase buffs, as from Fists of Fire, Twin Snakes, and Greased Lightning, and further increases from Raging Strikes and Blood for Blood. How do they stack? Do they additivly work on each other (3x Greased Lightning and Fists of Fire would equal a flat 26% damage increase), or is it some other method of increase that would make way less sense? |
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| Xenor
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Sep 05, 2013 - 02:23:59 | Location: Durham, United Kingdom |
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Thanks for pointing that out Tay. I had a look and it seems that typo was on all the job pages. It's fixed now. |
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| Tay [Anon]
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Sep 04, 2013 - 19:26:20 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box |
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It says "You can then equip them on your White Mage no matter what your level. " White Mage should be Monk for this page  Typo! |
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| Anonymous
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Aug 23, 2013 - 11:41:40 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box |
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War is not a DD.....i would say for solo play DRG beats MNK due to MNK needing quiet some time to put all his buffs up to be fully effective. |
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| Anonymous
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Aug 14, 2013 - 03:56:34 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box |
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how good is monk actually going to be or will it be over looked on runs like it was b4 ..... cant decide if war mnk or drg will be the best for a single dd / solo friendly job |
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| Xenor
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Aug 07, 2013 - 22:00:05 | Location: Durham, United Kingdom |
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Interesting, I'd missed that one with the leaks. I can't update the skills until phase 4 though. People have been told off for leaking the changes. |
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| Anonymous [Anon]
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Aug 07, 2013 - 13:21:44 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box |
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Will be MRD instead of GLA in Phase 4 |
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