to stay on topic.... I've never really had any problems with deci, he goes to the flameboard and speaks his mind and he has an intense loyalty to his ls and his buds. I respect that.
to continue the sideline discussion....
my monk gear, level 62.
Spartan cesti
tiphia sting
temple crown (shu'up, not coughing up for empy pin.)
spectacles
Spike earring x 2
SH with Temple body for chakra swap in.
Okote/Temple gloves
Dual woodsman rings as well as str and vit rings for swap in, working on mind rings ><
amemet mantle+1 (low bid this a bit, b^^d the guy didn't care)
Brown belt (2nd best belt ever, i love it.)
Usually use republic subligar but i have af pants and mst sitibaki+1 for common decency
kung fu shoes
I believe this has a net set up of acc+31 with acc rings in and attack averages +42 to +52
Parsed out over a trial of 40 battles each sole > meat chief on certain IT mobs. by about 300 a fight. Sc partner was a thf. in other instances chiefs did parse higher on IT mobs.
let me explain why this is and hopefully everyone can one day understand attack. this all came to me through parsing, experimentation and a mages insight (it helps me notice precise nice even fraction resist tiers ect...)
you have a base damage. you can test this effectively by hitting boreal hound. str will raise your base damage. their vit will lower the damage they take, the reverse of your str. now, to get an accurate reading of how your damage on an average mob works is this. you take the monster's def which gets a random +- an unknown % which varies every swing, kinda like in blitzball in FFX shot vs catch, and the same thing with your attack. There is a formula that compares your attack after these +-'s are factored in, i'm not a developer and i don't know the specifics but, the ratio cuts your damage down into tiers the way elemental magic damage is tiered in resists. With this in mind you will find you have a reasonably consistant average damage on exp mobs of the same type. when you increase your attack or lower the mobs defense you change your damage tier. With +5 attack from the subligar i can move up a tier and do an average of 20 more per hit sometimes.. other times i can toss on the Okote and then add in the amemet mantle and it's not enough to raise my tier to the next level.
If you think a different way, say, a crafter you can think of it in hq tiers, if you're below hq cap it's a longshot freak occurance to hq, same with landing a higher tier hit.
ATT+ food is a large att bonus, using meat chiefs cap at about 90 att, sometimes it's enough to put me all the way up a tier, other times not, often leaving me just below making seamingly freakishly large hits occur occasionally.
Sushi for me makes the difference between missing here&there and never missing, with some of that nice shura stuff at the end of my road combined with all that ACC+ like Ohat i'm sure sushi will hopefully be obsolete for IT's as well.
at mid levels Meat is ok vs IT if you have madrigal up, it works about the same most fights. without a bard... well, let's just say it isn't pretty. stick with sushi there. MEAT is almost(this is my escape clause left in place for torama's on lightningsday, bloody evasive bastards) always best against VT's Swapping between str+ and att+ gear when using sushi can make all the difference between an impressive display on a crab or wasting a slot in the party.
A good indicator for you to use when balancing your gear (and you have to do this EVERY SINGLE MOB with sushi) is /check the mob. if it cons high def put your attack gear on one piece at a time and see what's the least str+ gear you can take out to get the attack over that def. if you get it right you'll lose the high def comment, if you have enough att+ you might get it to read low def. This achieves peak damage.
If you read that and understand hopefully you'll be a more effective melee.
feel free to pick that apart as you like and point out anything you feel is wrong. with extensive testing however i'm about 97% sure that's all right.
good ppl are good ppl
