3 Questions I've encountered.

[Kronikle66]

1: I'm currently a 18MNK/9WAR and I really want to be prepared for when I hit level 34 so I can use Ochiudo's Kote, and at 40, brown belt. I checked the Bastok Auction House and there was only 1 sold and that was in 2002 for 350,000 gil. I gotta ask, how do you guys do it? The NM spawning grounds for most monsters are incredibly populated. I was just wondering if there's a way I could go about making big bucks like that starting at my level so I can save up.

2: Being that I'm a level 18MNK/9WAR, I gotta ask you guys when I should stop leveling in Valkrum. Where should I level instead and when?

3: Well I got my hands on some Tropical Punches and I'm not as happy as I thought I would be. Everything I can possibly use has +STR or +ATK. I'm still doing about 8 DMG less a punch than someone else my level without Tropical Punches. Is the attack delay really worth it?

-Kronikle

[Redlimit]

I couldn't actually afford to buy my Ouchido's Kote until I was level 52, but then again I don't farm very much. NM camping isn't that great of a way to make money in the long term....
As for the Brown Belt, I actually did the quest this week for them, but you are going to need to be 50+ (I recommend 55+) to complete it on your own. I'm actually not too impressed with it, and I find myself just sticking with Life Belt more often than not.

Try to get 20 in the Dunes. The exp will be getting low at the 19 mark, but tough it out to 20 and make the journey to Jeuno and Quifm.

Higher damage and +stats are allways better than low delays at any level. Don't let a low delay fool you, you won't do more damage over time.

[Ungerpurr]

Several things you can do to be ready to buy ochiudo's kote at 34:

1a) Up your fame. Bastok, San d'oria, windurst. Get them all high enough to do the teleport scroll quests. Do those quests, sell the results. Also do warp (bastok), drain (san d'oria), blaze spikes (windurst), aspir (windurst) quests. Sell them - these scrolls sell fairly easily.

1b) Probably a bit late to mention this (as you're already 18), but save every zinc ore you ever get and use it for the "Beauty and the Galka" / "Shady Business" quest in Bastok. repeat this quest around 25-28 times (which necessitates 97-103 zinc ores). This will give you enough fame to do the utsusemi, tonko, and hojo ninjitsu scroll quests, which, at least on my server, are worth a combined 150k gil.

1c) Leveling lower level jobs can be a great source of cash. For me, in Bastok, level 1-6 I kill only huge hornets (wind crystals). I then kill quadavs mostly until level 8 (quadav backplates), then kill maneating hornets to level 10/11 (more wind crystals), then move into dangruf wadi to kill goblins / rock lizards (fire crystals, misc. drops). I can make 40-50k by the time I get a job from 1-15 using this method. It's not quick, but when you're too low level to effectively farm anything, it's quite effective. Also increases the depth of choices you have for your subjob, having a whm and blm sub up your sleeve is very handy.

2) Ditto on the dunes to 20. There is no point to leaving valkurm before level 20, no matter how much the xp sucks, because getting back to your hometown (and you will need to go back, at some point) is a pain in the arse unless you have done the chocobo quest, which you can't do until 20. Tough it out. ^^ I soloed most of the low 20s in dangruf wadi / korroloka tunnel, but that's because I could never get a good group (pretty much used groups only to cap skills, then went back to solo). Qufim sucks (it's right off Jeuno), but it's about all that's available from 20-25 for group play.

3. Tropical punches look good on paper, but they're not all that great. The benefit of them isn't the low delay, but the huge +10 accuracy bonus. Notice how you rarely miss right now? Say goodbye to that when you upgrade weapons. Since you're already 18, I'd recommend to stick it out to level 20 and then get Cougar Baghnakhs (6/51, cold proc)

[sourjirou]

i think im one of the few ppl that actually have a steady income from NM huntin

the way how i got my ochiudo kotes was i camped valkrum emperor at lvl 40 with a ranger friend. got the drop 2 outta 2 tries we split the money 50/50 and i had plenty for the kotes. also at lvl 50 i actually camped for the gloves and got it on the 10th try :mad:

if u have alot of patients u should give NM huntin a try there r plenty of sites with info on different NM's. if ur interested give me a PM i can give u tips on how to beat those cheap JPs when it comes to /targetnpc /provok

as for the other two questions those two before me gave a good answer.

[Kronikle66]

In all my time of playing, I've actually never seen a NM

-Kronikle

[Chapel]

you're only level 19 just worry about leveling up for the moment and questing. You can't really farm or hunt any decent nm's at your level. As for myself i got kote in my 50's as well. Its not realistic to think you can get kote at 34 if monk is your first job. Try hard to get it but if you don't have it its not like your pt's are gonna get on your ass for not having it.

[Ungerpurr]

With or without kote, it's tough getting a group. Same goes for brown belt from 40-48. Yes, YOU may know that you kick ass, YOU may know that you outdamage ANY other "average" geared job, but virtually no one else does. People seem to think monks suck; they couldn't be more wrong.

My gear:

Mythril Knuckles +1
Mercenary Captain's Headgear
Spike Necklace
Beetle Earring +1 (x2)
Jujitsu Gi
Ochiudo's Kote
Courage Ring (x2)
Ram Mantle +1
Brown Belt
Jujitsu Sitabaki
Fuma Kyahan

Prices vary, but on Titan that's ~1,000,000 gil worth of gear. I eat kabobs like they're candy, I use berserk / focus as necessary, etc., I'm a competent player with good gear, considering this is my highest level job. The only job that can keep up with me (ok, surpass, but still) for TP gain / skillchain is samurai (even a tanking pld doesn't come close), and yet I can still wait LFG for hours and hours on end. I advertise my gear in my search comment, too; it's not like people don't know what they'd be getting.

It doesn't seem to matter, people will still take the 45 drk/15 thf with 200k worth of gear who uses meat jerky once an hour over me because "drks are UBER damage!!!111!" The fact that he only gains enough TP to skillchain once every three fights, or lands two out of ten (three-four if he's lucky!) attacks during soul eater doesn't even seem to register with people.

If the situation doesn't improve soon for me, it may be time to move on to a different game. It's patently ridiculous that people don't group with monks more; raging fists is quite literally THE best weaponskill from 41-49 for any melee job, and no matter what the level, a well-geared monk will outdamage a poorly- or average-geared drk/drg/what have you. Considering that I *am* a well-geared monk (at least, relative to the rest of the NA players), and most people *are* average- to poorly-geared, I really don't understand what the deal is.

[albert lee]

comparing a crappy drk to a well equiped monk is dumb. reason why monk's don't get alot of invites is that they don't renki well with others another reason is that monks suck against hard shelled monsters, ie beetles/crabs. imo drg just suck, yet they get more invites then i do.

[buddweiser]

MNKs can renkei with a lot of things......

Very flexible, imo..

[imode]

Well, as a finish move, raging fists' forte is to create a fusion skillchain, which unfortunately doesn't work so hot on stuff like crabs and beetles. Monks are great against bones and fusion is even better, but bones are often in shitty places, and a lot of NA prefer to fight non-Bones stuff that are very resistent against hand to hand attacks. When doing renkei, samurai are your friends. You can renkei off almost all his moves, and you don't have to wait for him to get TP unlike trying to chaining off a paladin or drk.

While raging fist is good from 41-49, there's that disgusting WS drought until 60. You get spinning attack, but that isn't very useful in a party situation. You eventually get Howling Fist at level 60, but of course dark knights get guillotine, so the novelty wears off fairly quickly.

If NA's don't like you, stick with the JP's.

[Ungerpurr]

At level 3, monks can start liquefaction and detonation, can end fusion and impaction.

At level 13, monks gain the ability to start induration and impaction, can end reverberation and fragrmentation.

At level 24, monks gain the ability to start transfixion, can end compression and gravitation.

At level 33, monks gain the ability to start gravitation and scission, can end detonation.

At level 49, monks gain the ability to start fusion and another way to start scission, can end liquefaction.

So, just speaking from my standpoint (level 45), I can start 1/2 liquefaction chains, 1/2 detonation, induration, transfixion, 1/2 scission, 1/2 impaction. I can end fusion, impaction, reverberation, fragmentation, compression, gravitation, and detonation.

I have been in 1 group with a 33+ thf in all my time leveling, and I guess it was my fault that we couldn't get a distortion chain, because I wasn't a warrior(2HS)/drk(2HS)/sam/drg/rng. Big whooptee-doo. I don't know if thieves are uncommon on Titan, or it might just be that if there's a thf the PT won't invite me as a monk. Not that it helps rdms MBing very much, but thundaga is a level 36 BLM spell, and MBs very nicely off an impaction chain, which war/drk/sam/rng/nin could start for me. Fire 2 off a fusion skillchain is nothing to sneeze at either, at my level vs. mobs that are neither strong nor weak vs. fire.

The only downside is that versus crabs, I will probably only be doing Raging fists for 250-325 damage or so on a 5-hitter, depending on whether or not berserk is in effect at the time (and assuming I don't have str down and the crab doesn't have defense up). Seriously though, everybody does crappy damage against crabs, it's not just monks, they are strong vs. melee damage, period. I haven't noticed myself losing proportionally more damage compared to other melee vs. beetles/crabs/etc.

Considering I haven't leveled off crabs since 27, and won't again until the low 50s, this doesn't fit into my particular gripe at the moment, anyway. A lot of people don't even list monk when they go through the damage dealer options for a group, and this confuses me. And yes, I realize comparing a crappy drk to a well-equipped monk is dumb, but what other comparison can I make when this (the "who should we pick for our 5th/6th slot damage dealers" situation) is apparently what is happening? Considering literally ALL of the drks I've grouped with don't even have great sword leveled up, it's not like they renkei better than a monk. A level 45 scythe-only drk only has skillchains beginning/ending in earth, dark, water, and ice. Great sword use adds light and wind, which is nicely well-rounded (and every drk SHOULD have both Great Sword and Scythe leveled), but most drks I've seen only use scythe. /shrug

Maybe I'm just not getting groups because I'm an asshole, but I try to stay pretty low-key about that, and being Mithra offsets it to some degree anyway. ^^

[Lone Dragon]

I've been killing a lot of Beetles lately,
my damage is actually pretty good (Red Mages: ALWAYS GET DISPEL.)

I know for a fact that I suck against crabs.
There was a Cutter in front of selbina
(I have NO idea how it got there)
and a friend called me to kill it.

I was in my late 40's at the time, and I took it out obviously,
but not as quickly as I would have liked...

It was...noticable, at least to me...
the nubs in the area prolly didn't pick up on it.

Nobody will want you for that whole crab period.
If you ever do crabs, you wont be ending the chain,
you'll prolly do Howling Fist > lets say Viper Bite for Distortion.

Crabs, Ghosts, and Slimes. Bad for H2H.

[imode]

Well, get ready to go right back to crabs. You're probably going to reach kuftal and boyahda levels soon. In Boyahda you can take on spiders, but you'll be back to crabs at 54/55. After that though, you can take on lizards in Terrigan and you will once again revel in the damage you can do.

[Serif]

Originally posted by albert lee
comparing a crappy drk to a well equiped monk is dumb. reason why monk's don't get alot of invites is that they don't renki well with others another reason is that monks suck against hard shelled monsters, ie beetles/crabs. imo drg just suck, yet they get more invites then i do.

I don't pick up Monks to Renkai with other people. I usually pick up a DRK or DRG, THF, MNK, PLD, RDM, BRD <--Me.

Vorpal or Double > Viper Bite
Raging Fists stand alone.

Works perfectly fine in Kuftal Tunnel.