An equipment dilemma that's been giving me headaches.

[Macht]

Originally posted by JayblahX
Cycles +5 ACC
Life Belt +10 ACC

I boldfaced what I use almost all the time as per the original post. Hope that clears it up.

Yeah, I see I totally missed the cycles and the life belts when I did that. Well then that changes it all. I still wouldn't take that hit in STR though, if you have plans to replace it somewere else then that's good. I still don't see any neck or back items so you can probably focus more of your Accuracy and what else you need in there and just restore the Sun Ring or better version of it in place of the sniper ring.

The +Haste items are suppose to be good. Especially when you get haste cast on you with those it's suppose to cut your delay in half. So that could get out a lot of damage in a very short time.

[Bajan2]

75Mnk/37War Galka here. (its also late so i might mess up a sentence or two. or three.)

Alright so around your level i almost never missed and did excellent damage. If my memory serves...

Temple Crown
Temple Gloves
Temple Cyclas
Life Belt
Sniper Ring
Sun Ring
Temple legs (forgot name)
Temple gaiters
2 Spikes
Spike Necklace
Amemite mantle

Now as far as i'm concerned the weapon you chose ontop of that build makes a big difference as far as accuracy goes. On Midgard everything is super super expensive, so i used what i suppose is termed 'middle of the road' equipment. Tac hooks to 60 then a switch to Cermets +1.

Heres what i noticed, and it might just be me here...
Claw class, weapons with fast aspd (low delay) seemed far more accurate than the 'heavy' knuckles which i call them (Bone Patas+1, Spartans etc.) It might just be that since you attack more, when you miss a swing it doesnt seem like as big of a deal, but i found claw class to be far far more accurate, and just as damaging overall. At 65 i switched it up with Shivas claws and gained the extra +8 accuracy. Definatly a good choice. Everyone beaks shivas but i found them to be wonderful overall weapons, delay stats and dmg wise.

Now I used Shivas until reaching 70, where i again changed it up and had a pair of custom Diamond Knuckles ( i say custom because like 3 pairs exists on midgard >.>) forged. The +2 accuracy was welcome, though it throws you off balance after being spoiled with shivas +8. The Damage more than makes up for it though, and the vit+2 has its various uses (couple extra hp points from chakra etc).

Until Ratsuseme (cant spell it) set that was what i used in exp fighting with my spt, and it worked better than i could have imagined. Constant damage, high speed attacks and powerful weaponskills to compliment.

This morning I had my Diamond Knuckles upgraded into what i thought were going to become Koeings Knuckles, but they went HQ on me and formed into Kaisers ( 20dmg 86 Delay Accuracy+3 chr+3) which made my day. These are the babies you wanna shoot for endgame.

Endgame equip:

Kaiser Knuckles (best non rare-ex weapons in the game.)
Panzer Mask / Tiger Mask
Melee Gloves (relic, like ochudo's kote x10)
Temple Cyclas (for exp) / Ratsuseme body (non exp) / Scorpion Hanress very soon to compliment.
Life Belt (Tried and True. She's served me well and i've no regrets about chosing it over brown. My wallet loved me too.)
Sniper Ring (also still with me, nice to have the acc on the side)
Ruby Ring (standard str)
Ratsuseme Hakama
Ratsuseme Boots
Coral Earring
Kampfer Earring (chances are late end of the game the bones will turn on you cuz we own them. Kampfer has been a wonderful asset).
Spike Necklace (50+ levels of pure goodness.)
Amemite Mantle+1

Now my spt has a bard, so i generally have +20 accuracy + a madrigal and a minuet,...though i've partied with non bard parties and was still connecting fists with the best of them.

Ochudo's Kote are NOT required. First of all, +20 attack! Yay! I think not. All that attack does is raise your max 'possible' dmg, which on h2h weapons is like 1-5 dmg either way. Kote are the friends of Samurai's and Ninjas. Your temple gloves give you a nice 4 str if i remeber right, which lowers the base dmg yes? As i played through i prefered to try and keep my damage consistant, by raising str and keeping 'atk' balanced so my numbers didnt fly all over the place. Personal experiance ( i might just be crazy ) seemed to indicate that a tighter dmg ratio gave me a strangely higher hit rate in comparison to other monks my level who had more irratic numbers.

And last but not least, you probably do it anyways, but equipment macro's have become my life now. Since i never wear the temple crown unless hnm fighting (+mnd for chi) my focus macro is something like:

/equip Head "Temple Crown"
/ja "Focus" Bajan
/equip Head "Tiger Mask"
/p Focus - Accuracy increased

So if you wanted to do that with your crown and mrc.cpts head bit it 'might' give you a slight more edge, but i never tried that.

And i've talked way too much. I hope theres something there thats useful

Bajan
Midgard

[Weap]

Originally posted by Bajan2
75Mnk/37War Galka here. (its also late so i might mess up a sentence or two. or three.)

Alright so around your level i almost never missed and did excellent damage. If my memory serves...

Temple Crown
Temple Gloves
Temple Cyclas
Life Belt
Sniper Ring
Sun Ring
Temple legs (forgot name)
Temple gaiters
2 Spikes
Spike Necklace
Amemite mantle

Now as far as i'm concerned the weapon you chose ontop of that build makes a big difference as far as accuracy goes. On Midgard everything is super super expensive, so i used what i suppose is termed 'middle of the road' equipment. Tac hooks to 60 then a switch to Cermets +1.

Heres what i noticed, and it might just be me here...
Claw class, weapons with fast aspd (low delay) seemed far more accurate than the 'heavy' knuckles which i call them (Bone Patas+1, Spartans etc.) It might just be that since you attack more, when you miss a swing it doesnt seem like as big of a deal, but i found claw class to be far far more accurate, and just as damaging overall. At 65 i switched it up with Shivas claws and gained the extra +8 accuracy. Definatly a good choice. Everyone beaks shivas but i found them to be wonderful overall weapons, delay stats and dmg wise.

Now I used Shivas until reaching 70, where i again changed it up and had a pair of custom Diamond Knuckles ( i say custom because like 3 pairs exists on midgard >.>) forged. The +2 accuracy was welcome, though it throws you off balance after being spoiled with shivas +8. The Damage more than makes up for it though, and the vit+2 has its various uses (couple extra hp points from chakra etc).

Until Ratsuseme (cant spell it) set that was what i used in exp fighting with my spt, and it worked better than i could have imagined. Constant damage, high speed attacks and powerful weaponskills to compliment.

This morning I had my Diamond Knuckles upgraded into what i thought were going to become Koeings Knuckles, but they went HQ on me and formed into Kaisers ( 20dmg 86 Delay Accuracy+3 chr+3) which made my day. These are the babies you wanna shoot for endgame.

Endgame equip:

Kaiser Knuckles (best non rare-ex weapons in the game.)
Panzer Mask / Tiger Mask
Melee Gloves (relic, like ochudo's kote x10)
Temple Cyclas (for exp) / Ratsuseme body (non exp) / Scorpion Hanress very soon to compliment.
Life Belt (Tried and True. She's served me well and i've no regrets about chosing it over brown. My wallet loved me too.)
Sniper Ring (also still with me, nice to have the acc on the side)
Ruby Ring (standard str)
Ratsuseme Hakama
Ratsuseme Boots
Coral Earring
Kampfer Earring (chances are late end of the game the bones will turn on you cuz we own them. Kampfer has been a wonderful asset).
Spike Necklace (50+ levels of pure goodness.)
Amemite Mantle+1

Now my spt has a bard, so i generally have +20 accuracy + a madrigal and a minuet,...though i've partied with non bard parties and was still connecting fists with the best of them.

Ochudo's Kote are NOT required. First of all, +20 attack! Yay! I think not. All that attack does is raise your max 'possible' dmg, which on h2h weapons is like 1-5 dmg either way. Kote are the friends of Samurai's and Ninjas. Your temple gloves give you a nice 4 str if i remeber right, which lowers the base dmg yes? As i played through i prefered to try and keep my damage consistant, by raising str and keeping 'atk' balanced so my numbers didnt fly all over the place. Personal experiance ( i might just be crazy ) seemed to indicate that a tighter dmg ratio gave me a strangely higher hit rate in comparison to other monks my level who had more irratic numbers.

And last but not least, you probably do it anyways, but equipment macro's have become my life now. Since i never wear the temple crown unless hnm fighting (+mnd for chi) my focus macro is something like:

/equip Head "Temple Crown"
/ja "Focus" Bajan
/equip Head "Tiger Mask"
/p Focus - Accuracy increased

So if you wanted to do that with your crown and mrc.cpts head bit it 'might' give you a slight more edge, but i never tried that.

And i've talked way too much. I hope theres something there thats useful

Bajan
Midgard

.... That changed my whole perspective on weapons

[bleegh]

Bajan, how do you think the higher-end weapons such as Cross-Counters and Spartan Cesti measure up against what you used on your trip to 75?

[Bajan2]

Bleegh:

Cross-Counters are just too good at the level you get them. 19 damage with a decent delay and counter is by far the ultamite choice for leveling weapons 50 to late 70's.

-Of course anything that good costs 2.3million gil on Midgard, so as monk was my first class that was out of the question. I dont know many monks that had the money to get them either so comparing them against other weapons would be sketchy. Suffice it to say though, these are beautiful, beautiful weapons.

Spartans i know much more about as I've used them in conjunction with almost all the other high level claws. Cesti class weapons have never been very favorable in my eyes, i dont know why but i find them to miss a ton, do slightly higher damage than Bone Pata+1's but the delay is killer. Alittle accuracy is nice, but not that nice with the slow hits. After running a series of damage tests i actually chose to use my shivas claws over them during exp parties which hit much more often and much faster. Between 60-65 i'm still a Cermet Claws+1 fan though, but i've always prefered to attack faster for less damage than slower for slightly more. The Damage usually adds up in a lower delay weapon dealing more in the end.

Then theres the Kaiser Knuckles, They are pretty much super Spartans. 20 dmg 86 delay (SO fast.) accuracy +3 and chr+3. You're getting a faster attacking weapon which makes a huge difference. Highest weapon damage and a low delay makes them the choice knuckles above the other two... but thats why you have to wait to 75 to use them

[Zeth]

Being a Hume, I'm sort of stuck with an accuracy or str problem. We lack natural str that elvaans and galkas have, so I'm a little reluctant to get myself a snipers ring, but I have also noticed that my accuracy is becoming a bit of a problem. I'm juggling the possibility of 3 options for myself at the moment.

1: 1 Sun Ring, 1 Snipers Ring, Brown Belt.
2: 2 Sun Rings, Life Belt.
3. 2 Sun Rings, swap between Brown Belt and Life Belt when needed.

I'm drawn towards the 3rd option more because it'll save me money (I done the belt quest), but I'm a little worried that I'll end up not using the Brown Belt.

Any advice would be helpful.

[Bajan2]

Until about 65 if your having accuracy and str issues you could try:

Sun Ring, Snipers Ring, Lifebelt (brownbelt later 65+)

Its what i used, and though I'm galka one of my good monk friends who is a 75 hume now used the same things as me in most cases.

For any race i'd try to hover around the +15 and +20 (more so +20) accuracy mark with monk. Anything beyod that is overkill and should be added to boosting str :p

[Arkadya]

I sold my kote a few days ago, bought em back yesterday. Af wasn't even close to keeping up. Seemed to be a good 10-20 damage more on vt and lower mobs, and a solid 2-3 easily on IT exp mobs. I do have +40 atk with the kote on though and thats a lot (until I hit 58 and jump to spartan cesti from tactician magicians, but the anemit mantle will fix that). I didn't do a whole lot of testing or anythign but it just felt low to me.

That and the 56 war/nin was dealing the same damage as me (56 mnk/21 thf, someone had to bring TH) on bones. We were fighting tomb mages and warriors in eldieme getting coffer keys for a blm, checked high vt/low end IT, both of us were hitting in the 50-60 range. Problem is he was consistantly hitting in the 50-60 range, I was hitting in the 40's often, whereas with the kote I was in the 55-70 range (and thf sub certainly wasnt helping my damage, but even then on a per swing basis I should be [and was with the kote] ahead).

I will probably pick up some pallas' braceletes when i get to 60 and try em out for a few days but I suspect the result will be the same. I am, however, quite certain that AF gloves are not a valid replacement for the kote, and this is from a str starved mithra.

[Zeth]

Snipers Ring and Life Belt? When you put those with AF body armour, isn't that a little bit over kill?

[Strifey]

when you start fighting toramas in onzozo youll be thankful you have that accuracy ^^

[Dano]

if you have a bard in the party +20 or so acc is pretty much enuf, but when there is non you'll wanna switch to faster weapons and higher acc. I have a static but there was no bard, i will always use 2 snipers, life belt, spectacles and cyclas for exp parties, since i'm an elf i wont need to bother much about being not enuf str, accuracy is a bigger issue.

as for atk and str, from my experience my difference in dmg was not high, compared to another elf that uses all +str equipments (where i only have +1 str and all atk gear), his dmg can be as low as 60 and sometimes as high as 120, while mine is always around 80-110. So i would assume +str raises yer maximum dmg, but +atk raises your minimum dmg. Another case was weaponskillz, where the highest i've got on my howling fists (wif double attack and all those stuff kicking in) i've only got up to 900, the other mnk had gone up 1k+ before (we were rivals, he's a fan of str, i'm a fan of atk & acc).

overall i think both ends up being pretty much the same, he hits very high sometimes, where i hit for more consistent dmg. Only noticeable difference was ws, my dmg was always around 400-600, cant go higher, he can go as high as 900 or as low as 150. It's a pity i was unable to use asuran fists since we wanted to do light chain and i've always have 200% tp ready (assume we are doing a 3 men skillchain).

bajan:
about that macro of yours, i thought if you take out the crown while in focus, you will not get the "enhance" effect, isn't that you need to keep yer crown on to keep the effect ?

oh btw you just cant resist the sexiness of the red kote !!!

http://img59.photobucket.com/albums/v179/Danor/pol_2004-05-01_04-14-58-54.jpg

[Strifey]

im just starting monk but looking down the line which weapon would you suggest bite teh bullet for cross counters (2.5mil) or just get spartan cesti later (700k)

[navpops]

unless you`re rich i' m never a supporter of 2++ million gil items

i would kill myself if i farmed 2.3 mill just do get a pair of grey knuckles

can do bcnm for spartan and get free