I'll Punch You in The Goddamn Throat - A Noob's Guide to Pugilist/Monk

[Laude]

Always be at the mob's flank. The end.

Ok, but seriously. Pugilist is a melee DPS class. You punch things. It's fun. But you may be wondering, well how do I effectively punch things?

Have no fear, Laude is here to help! It's actually a pretty simple 1-2-3 combo system for the most part! You get different abilities to weave in once you get a higher level, but every ability you get is useful. ^_^

I am the first person to admit I am by no means an expert at writing guides or formatting them to look pretty. I am also not claiming to be 100% correct in anything mentioned below about Pugilist and Monk, so if you see something is wrong or should be changed, say something! I am a human being, and I derp just like anyone else.

This guide will go over the Pugilist class as well as the advanced job, Monk. They are pretty much one and the same as far as how they work, but Monk gets more abilities as you unlock them through your job quests.

Here's a list of all of the abilities for Pugilist and Monk

http://xivdb.com/?search/!filters/IlNLSUxMUzpBU0FfTU9OSzpBQ0FfSU5HQU1FXzEi

That's a lot! Whew!

1. Stances

Here's a basic rundown of the stances so far from my experience, and the abilities that give the stances:

Raptor
-Bootshine, Arm of the Destroyer, Dragon Kick

Coeurl
-True Strike, Twin Snakes, One Ilm Punch

Opo-opo (Gives 100% Crit Chance to Bootshine if attacking mob from behind, a 1 second silence effect to Arm of the Destroyer, and reduces the target's blunt resistance and INT by 10% for Dragon Kick)
-Snap Punch, Demolish, Rockbreaker

As far as anyone knows yet, only Opo-opo really does anything special - it gives Bootshine a 100% critical chance if you attack the mob from behind, and gives Arm of the Destroy a 1 second silence effect. Otherwise, the forms are just the "buffs" that let you use another ability. I'll update this when further information is found out.

And there are of course also other "stances" monk use as a buff, but you can only have one up at a time, and these are your "Fist' forms. You can stance dance without consequence, so feel free to switch it up mid-battle for any given situation.

Fists of Earth(Level 22): Decreases all damage taken by 10%. Useful for soloing and preparing for unavoidable big damage on bosses in dungeons/raids.

Fists of Wind(Level 34): Increases your run speed. Not as much as sprint, but it's useful for when you need to increase your movement speed without blowing your TP. I can see this being used to assist in running out of massive boss AoE or something similar in a pinch.

Fists of Fire(Level 40 job quest completed): You don't get this until level 40, but once you do, this is your DPS stance. It increases your damage by 5%, so most of the time you're going to be using this one.

2. Rotation for Soloing While Leveling Up

Ok, so, when you're flying solo, you're going to just be attacking the mob face to face. No biggy, nothing special.

Before level 18, you just want to spam Bootshine > True Strike > Snap Punch > Repeat. That's all you can really do. So start whacking away!

At level 18, though, you get Twin Snakes, which gives a buff that increases your damage by by 10%.

And once you complete your level 15 and 30 class quest, you get Touch of Death and Demolish, respectively. These are your Damage Over Time abilities, otherwise known as DoTs. Instead of doing a large amount of direct damage, these abilities give the mob a debuff that "ticks" away their health slowly overtime, for a certain amount of time. Touch of Death lasts 20 seconds, and Demolish lasts 10 seconds.

Once you have those, your rotation is as follows:

Touch of Death > Bootshine > Twin Snakes > Demolish

Bootshine > True Strike > Snap Punch

Reapply Touch of Death as necessary. It doesn't interrupt your combo buffs, so use it whenever.

You always want to have the 10% damage buff from Twin Snakes up, as more damage is always a good thing. ^_^

Now, you may have noticed at level 10, you get an ability called Haymaker. You can only use this ability if you EVADE/DODGE an attack. It has no stance attached to it at all, so you can use it whenever it's up. Just make sure to use it quick, because when you dodge/evade, you basically get a "buff" that allows you to use it within a certain amount of time. It adds the added effect of "Slow" to the enemy.

It's best to use Haymaker after you've done Twin Snakes because of the 10% damage increase. Using Haymaker will NOT interrupt your comboing/stance buffs, so there's no point in wasting it if you've dodged an attack!

3. Rotation for Partying while Leveling Up

Now, when you're in a party, it's a bit different. Positioning is SUPER important in party play! NEVER, EVER stand in front of a mob when you're in a party with a proper tank! The tank is the one who is face to face with the mob. It's your job to attack the mob from the flank and rear to deal maximum damage!

Start off on the flank. If you don't know what that means, basically on the side of the mob, doesn't matter which side.

Touch of Death >Bootshine > Twin Snakes > Demolish

Move to the Rear of the Mob

Bootshine > True Strike

Move to the mob's Flank

Snap Punch

Reapply Touch of Death as necessary. It doesn't interrupt your combo stances, so feel free to use it whenever it's about to wear off. Also follow up Bootshine with Twin Snakes whenever your Twin Snakes damage buff is about to wear off.

That's your basic single-target rotation in a nutshell. Learn it, live it, love it. Don't be a lazy bum and just attack from wherever you feel like it - doing the best you can is important to help the party along in the dungeon. After all, it's YOUR job to make sure the mob dies, so you should be doing the maxiumum amount of damage you can!

AoE Rotation

Honestly, before you get Monk unlocked and get Rockbreaker, in my honest opinion, Arm of the Destroyer, while it may look cool, is not very useful at all for damage alone. You'll want to use it in Opo-opo form for the silence effect when necessary. It costs 130 TP, so it's a huge drain. It DOES start off combos, though. But I honestly think it's kind of a waste of TP for so little damage. You're better off just focusing on a single target until you get Rockbreaker when you unlock Monk, as far as AoE damage goes.

If you REALLY want to use it, it's like this:

Start at the flank of whichever mob you're focusing on in the pack

Touch of Death > Arm of the Destroyer > Twin Snakes > Demolish

Move to the Rear of the mob

Bootshine > True Strike

Move to the mob's Flank

Snap Punch

Reapply Touch of Death as necessary. It doesn't interrupt your combo stances, so feel free to use it whenever it's about to wear off.

But when you unlock Monk, it goes like this:

Pick focus target, start at the mob's Flank

Touch of Death > Bootshine > Twin Snakes > Rockbreaker

Move to the focus mob's Flank

Bootshine > True Strike > Rockbreaker

Reapply Touch of Death as necessary.

Rockbreaker is pretty damn powerful. It has a potency of 130, compared to Arm of the Destroyer's 50. AND it costs less TP! Probably because it's at the end of a combo, but still. It's worth the TP when you're fighting trash packs. Just make sure the tank has aggro on all the mobs first, else you might find yourself eating dirt.

Howling Fist is independent and doesn't rely on a stance. You will want to weave it in for AoE damage whenever it's up. It's AoE in a straight line in front of you for 10 yards.

Level 50 boss rotation:

Now you're level 50, and you're with the big boys! The single target rotation is mainly the same, but now you have Dragon Kick! (assuming you've done your level 50 job quest of course, which you should.)

Dragon Kick has a potency of 100, 150 when at the enemy's flank, and lower's the enemy's blunt resistance as well as lowers their INT by 10%. You literally kick the smarts right out of 'em. XD

Single Target:

You can stand wherever for the opening here

Touch of Death > Bootshine

Flank the mob and use Twin Strikes > Demolish > Dragon Kick

Get behind the mob and use True Strike

Flank the mob and use Snap Punch

Get behind the mob and use Bootshine

By now your Twin Snakes buff is wearing off, so flank and use it again, then follow up with Snap Punch.

Weave in Touch of Death whenever it's about to wear off, use Twin Snakes after Bootshine/Dragon Kick whenever your damage buff is about to wear off, and finish off with Demolish whenever that is about to wear off from the mob as well. From here it becomes less of a simple rotation to more of a "when is my shit wearing off, ok now I use this" but ALWAYS make sure you're in the correct position. Sometimes it can't be helped if the mob is spinning in place, as some bosses like to randomly target another party member and do an ability. But try your best to keep up your positioning and don't let your Greased Lightning stacks drop.

One Ilm Punch is only for when you want to remove a beneficial buff from your target! Don't use it otherwise.

4. Cooldowns

Featherfoot increases your evasion. Useful for soloing, and any "OH SHIT THE TANK DIED AND NOW I'M TANKING" moments in party play. It's super useful evading attacks and spamming Haymaker.

Second Wind is a self-heal. Use when you feel it's necessary and can save your CNJ/WHM/SCH some MP. It's a 2 minute cooldown, so use it sparingly.

Internal Release increases your Critical Chance by 20%. 1 minute cooldown. Use it whenever it's up, because Critical hits are delicious.

Steel Peak is a stun you can use every 60 seconds. Once you hit level 44 and get the passive Mythril Peak, it becomes a 40 second cooldown. This is your stun ability - use it to interrupt any big damage coming your way.

Perfect Balance: 3 minute cooldown. You can use any attack ability regardless of your form! I haven't personally tried this out yet, but I imagine you'll want to use it when you have maxed greased lightning stacks, and your Twin Snakes damage buff.

Single target: Flank the mob and spam Snap Punch for 10 seconds.

AoE: Rockbreaker spam for 10 seconds. Glorious, glorious Rockbreaker spam!

5. Stats

Strength. ALL THE STRENGTH! It increases melee physical damage, so this is your main stat as a PGL/MNK. ^_^

Dexterity is for Archer's. Ignore it.

Vitality increases your Maximum HP. I wouldn't worry about it too much, as you get plenty of Vitality from gear.

Intelligence increases magic damage potency. Ignore it, you're melee.

Mind increases healing magic potency. Not sure if it affects Second Wind, but I would honestly ignore it. Mainly for healers.

Piety increases your maximum MP. Ignore it, PGL/MNK uses TP onry!

6. Conclusion

I am definitely NOT the best at writing guides, but basically monks are fast attackers, not heavy damage dealers. We deal out damage quickly and effectively, so while our numbers aren't huge compared to Dragoon, we dish it out faster.

If you don't want to read my guide here (I don't blame you honestly, I'm not the best at guides or describing things) feel free to watch this Monk vs Dragoon video I found on Youtube. It basically shows you the abilities and how to use them effectively.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfr508Dy6w8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfr508Dy6w8</a>

[Slvr Stryker]

With permission from the original poster, I, the ever-lolPS player Slvr Stryker, shall add in an extra section fraught with info and wonder!

...but no, in all seriousness.  Say you're stuck playing FFXIV on the PS3 or (maybe later down the road, if memory serves) PS4.  Well...you don't have traditional hotbars, and are only stuck with the mild clunkiness that is the cross-hotbar.  What do you do?  Can you even play Pugilist or Monk effectively?

Actually, you can...though it requires a little bit of finesse and some knowledge of how to make macros.

1: Understanding the Cross-Hotbar
The cross-hotbar, while it can be wielded to *some* efficiency...has its quirks.  As a whole, the beast has 8 separate pages, each with 16 buttons laid out to the face buttons on the controller in conjunction to the left and right triggers, or L2 and R2.  In order to quick change pages, you can tap R1 to cycle to the next page, or hold R1 and press one of the face buttons to change to that specific page.  This is provided that the hotbar isn't considered "active", meaning you can use the moves within the section; you must deactivate the cross-hotbar in order to change pages.  In the case of quick-cycling, there are options in-game that allow you only be able to select certain pages depending on whether or not your weapon is drawn.  For instance, while your weapons are drawn, you could opt to quick-change to pages 1, 2, and 3 alone, or to change to pages 7 and 8 while sheathed.

There are also options to change how the hotbar is displayed, as well as what you can do to toggle it on and off.  Let me be the first to state that you should just keep the display type as it normally is, as it gets very confusing in my own opinion if you choose the other option.  However, if you're comfortable with that, you can go right ahead and change it up.

It's the second option I mentioned that bears talking about: the hotbar activation controls.  Initially, it's on Hold, meaning you have to hold the button down to use the moves on it.  As this is a guide on Monk, I'm going to tell you this right now: as a very mobile class/job, Hold-type is clunky and virtually unwieldly.  The other two types, Toggle and Mixed are a lot more beneficial to what we do.  With Toggle, all you need to do is press one of the trigger buttons to active that side of the cross-hotbar, with another press to deactivate that side.  Mixed crosses the two forms together; this is the setting I personally use, as while I toggle the buttons while in combat, it feels clunky to me outside of battle.

2: Macros
So you have a good setup for the class...but there's a problem...only 16 spaces per page.  You have two options at this point.  1: You could constantly cycle between pages for certain actions...and for certain classes/jobs, this could actually turn out very well for you, especially if you're distance DPS like Bard or Black Mage.  But we're Monks...we need to be mobile, and constantly swapping pages isn't very mobile.  Which brings me to 2: create macros for certain abilities.

If you're a Final Fantasy XI veteran, you should know that macro-building was the lifeblood of that game.  You *needed* to be able to make smart macros involving skills, equipment, and anything else you need to throw in there.  Games like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV don't rely on them much at all, however...from a PC player's perspective.  However, with the limited amount of buttons, you should invest in creating macros for certain actions that go well together.

Macro-creating is rather easy, and (unlike XI) they give you a ton of space to write macros in.  Just remember, when you make a macro, there will *not* be an ability timer for either of those actions.  You'll either have to write in an /echo to yourself, do a /recast to see when your ability is ready, or let yourself know somehow that it's ready for use.

3: The Cross-Hotbar for Monk
All that said, it's time to look into the hotbar that I personally use.  Now, at the time of the writing, I'm currently only Monk 46, but I will be including all possible abilities that would be rather beneficial for Monks to have in their arsenal.

That being said, I use two pages on my hotbar while in combat stance, and I shall list them below.

Page 1(Solo)/2(Party)
L2+Up: Mantra'd Chakra - Combination of Mantra + Second Wind.  While it may be mostly self-beneficial, it's a little extra healing when unavoidable AoE comes along.
L2+Left: Invigorate.  While I've never personally had it happen, I know it can, and it's always useful for emergency situations.
L2+Down: MNK Defense - Combination of Foresight + Featherfoot.  As Laude said about Featherfoot, this is basically your "ohshit I'm tanking" button.  Just make sure you mark when they're up separately, as Foresight takes longer to cool down than Featherfoot.
L2+Right: Melee Buffs - Combination of Blood for Blood + Internal Release.  Your damage buffs, pure and simple.  Granted, while it could be clunky to wield, as you could only use both together instead of separately, I personally haven't seen much issue to not pressing the button as often if you're in a situation that requires not taking extra damage.  Again, Blood for Blood cools down longer than Internal Release.
L2+Triangle: Haymaker.  As it's a free action one can use whenever you dodge an attack, it's good to have it here.  However, it's not often active, so keeping it on the off-toggle works just fine.
L2+Square: Shoulder Tackle.  This one's position gives it opportunity for a little prep-work, as I prefer to close the distance with this, then follow up with R2+Down, as I'll get into later.  Has its own cooldown, only works a certain distance out...good to keep it on the off-toggle.
L2+X: Potion/Limit Break.  This one's the free card.  Put something you *could* use efficiently here, but something you won't use all the time.  Thus, I feel that putting a Potion during solo play here allows you some quick healing, and placing the LB button here means you can call upon it when it's asked of you.
L2+Circle: Howling Fist.  Line-of-sight attack, has its own cooldown timer, extra damage overall.  It won't be used that often, but it works when it works.
R2+Up: Dragon Kick.  This is one you want to have available whenever it's up, but as the main combo ring is filled up, this allows you to tag it whenever you need it.
R2+Left: Steel Peak.  Since you always want a stun available whenever you can prevent big damage from happening, this is the perfect place for it.  Just tag the button, and viola, instant stun effect.
R2+Down: Touch of Death.  You always want access to this whenever it wears off.  Thus, you always want it in a position where you know you can use it.
R2+Right: One Ilm Punch.  While you won't *always* use this ability, it never hurts to have easy access for it just in case you want something the mob puts up off of it.
R2+Triangle: Buff/Debuff - Combination of Twin Snakes and Demolish.  This feeds into Laude's starting combination of Bootshine > Twin Snakes > Demolish, and putting the two together allows you to hit the button and virtually forget about it.
R2+Square: Snap Punch.  See below.
R2+X: True Strike.  You might be wondering why, if Twin Snakes and Demolish are together, why aren't these two?  After all, they're part of a Monk's primary damage setup. There are actually two reasons to this.  One, as you can press the buttons faster than you can macro them in together, it gets your damage going faster.  And two, it's a safeguard for just in case you have to move out of range before Demolish goes off.  This allows you to follow up with a Snap Punch and keep your Greased Lightning up and running.
R2+Circle: Bootshine.  The move that starts the attack ring in motion.  You *need* this on your hotbar as you can't do a lot of your other moves without starting it there.

As one can see, it's actually a rather simple setup, but there's some reasoning behind both halves of the page in question.  It all has to do with comfort and convenience.  Assuming you're using the Toggle or Mixed activation setup, one can simply tap the button to activate primary combat actions (in my case, R2) or not-as-often abilities and buffs (L2 for me).  Having all of your often-used attacks on one side of the hotbar not only makes the combat flow better, it allows you to make emergency attacks and actions as you see fit, whereas the occasional other ability can be toggled by using the other side of the hotbar.

That being said, there are still a few abilities not talked about on the hotbar.  Well, I did say I used two active hotbars, after all...

Page 5 (Permabuffs/Misc)
L2+Square/Circle/Triangle: Fists of Earth, Wind, and Fire respectively.  As these buffs permanently stay on you, unlike Featherfoot or Internal Release, all you need to do is tap one, and you're done.
R2+Circle: Perfect Balance.  Now, you may be thinking "Wait, why is this here?  It's rather handy to use."  And you're right; when it's up, it's handy to use.  However, in the primary hotbar page, there wasn't any space.  Also, as Laude pointed out below, there's some rather important attacks to use when it's up...
R2+X/Triangle: Snap Punch and Rockbreaker respectively.  This is why Perfect Balance is here.  As Laude pointed out, when you're fighting a single monster, Snap Punch is better to spam, whereas Rockbreaker is better when you have multiple targets.  Having them paired together with Perfect Balance makes...excuse the pun...perfect sense.

You'll notice nothing about Arm of the Destroyer or Laude's AoE rotation is mentioned.  One could actually place the AoE rotation in the R2+directional buttons slots, and Arm into R2+Square, but it's all up to personal taste here.

...and...well, that's it.  If there's any questions about playing Pugilist or Monk strictly using the cross-hotbar, feel free to shoot me a tell or a message here.  Provided I can answer it effectively, I will help as best as I can. =)