Merits for solo play primarily

[Sneakypants]

Since hitting 75 MNK, I capped 5/5 KA, and opened Invigorate so far.
From experienced MNKs, I'd like to hear what they think the best options are for almost exclusively solo play. I hardly do any group oriented events any more since schedules are too hard for me to keep, so I'm not too interested in those types of merits.

Background:
I have 0 H2H merits and that will remain that way until SE decides to open more combat skill merit possibilities. I'm not willing to remove any of the merits I have in that category. H2H will be my first priority if, and I believe, when SE finally opens combat skills up again.

For tier 2, I was thinking to cap Invigorate for all the possible HP regen. Not really questioning that. Probably 1 Formless Strikes, and the rest into Mantra to boost HP at the start of fights. Thoughts?

For tier 1, is capping Counter rate a no brainer?


I appreciate any feedback.

 

[Gohaan]

I would only cap counter if you have a lot of +counter gear.
Formless strikes is kind of meh, I would open it up just to have it for random stuff (like ghost mobs in KRT)

Crit hits are a must but you probably already have that up.
Mantra (someone correct me if I am wrong) I believe is useless.

Anyway thats my 3 cents but I havnt used my MNK in like a year so dont hold me down to far on this

 

[Sneakypants]

I would only cap counter if you have a lot of +counter gear.
Formless strikes is kind of meh, I would open it up just to have it for random stuff (like ghost mobs in KRT)

Crit hits are a must but you probably already have that up.
Mantra (someone correct me if I am wrong) I believe is useless.

Anyway thats my 3 cents but I havnt used my MNK in like a year so dont hold me down to far on this

I don't have a lot of counter gear and probably won't invest in much more than I have. Would one of the other things be more useful for solo play? Chakra timer, to match up with my 5/5 Invigorate? I had thought about Focus recast, but at the same time I do believe SE will eventually allow more combat merits and capping H2H will be good enough for me.

Formless I agree isn't a high priority for me, but I'd like to have it unlocked. Penance looks like a waste of time for me unless someone can tell me otherwise. Mantra, I was thinking 16% bonus HP to 1500+ base at the start of fights (when it's up, or I plan for it to be up for more difficult fights). It should work out to be a minimum of 240 HP for me using the above HP, with no food. With food and gear swaps, that could be notably higher. I figure while it's active, and my HP is being chipped away at, during a challenging fight, it will really only be chipping away at HP I don't normally have and that will wear off in a few minutes. If that makes sense, does it sound like this will be more worthwhile for a solo player than, say, more merits in Penance or Formless Strikes? That's how I arrived at my opinion anyway. For the times I am in a group, I don't think my party members will mind 16% more HP either.

 

[Auron X]

Merit 5/5 Counter then put 1 into formless strikes. Penance really is a waste since well most people don't chi blast a lot of things anymore unless it is like before a zerg maybe? Just go 5/5 Invigorate and then put maybe 1 in Penance if you want and then the rest can go into Mantra.

 

[Caerloc]

Cap penance and invigorate for Tier2, Counter and kick attacks for tier1 if you can get your hands on a pair of melee gaiters. Bastok AF2 i think, could probably easily be bought cheap from almost any shell. If not then cap chakra.

Capped penance will give the mob 25% less tp for roughly half the time you are fighting it, on top of mnks already high subtle blow. In a solo-situation this will be very much noticable.

As for counter, with counterstance, capped merit and melee gaiters you can pretty much count on getting a counter in on almost all your ichi-casts

If not, then full chakra and invigorate equals to about 700 hp fairly often, wich is very nice to.

The others are sorta meh. Formless strikes only if you plan to solo like slimes or elementals or stuff that invincibles.

 

[Dejavu]

5 KA is a given
5 counter is really nice and i regret not doing it sooner than i did(very noticeable btw)
5 penance is really nice especially in salvage where if you have a second monk you can have the tp reduction on 100% of the time on bosses and such.
beyond that its kinda a toss up... formless strikes is kinda weak, mantra is useless and invigorate can be nice so go 5 invigorate and be done.

Auronx is wrong though.. capped penance is awesome if you actually use it.

 

[Auron X]

5 KA is a given
5 counter is really nice and i regret not doing it sooner than i did(very noticeable btw)
5 penance is really nice especially in salvage where if you have a second monk you can have the tp reduction on 100% of the time on bosses and such.
beyond that its kinda a toss up... formless strikes is kinda weak, mantra is useless and invigorate can be nice so go 5 invigorate and be done.

Auronx is wrong though.. capped penance is awesome if you actually use it.

Yeah well I didn't even think about it when soloing lol and I just stated it since he said he doesn't plan on doing many group activities.

 

[Sneakypants]

Yeah well I didn't even think about it when soloing lol and I just stated it since he said he doesn't plan on doing many group activities.

Yeah this is majorly key for me. I can see why some people like Penance, but I'm not so sure I'm gonna bother with that one. MNK is still a secondary job for me AND I don't do much with groups. When I do, I'm much more likely to bring my THF or NIN as they are better geared and there's usually a need for one or the other.

Also most MNKs I see have capped Penance or at least have it unlocked. Since I am not the cookie cutter MNK looking to provide the best things for groups, but rather the best things for myself, typically...Would the times I am in a group as MNK, bringing Mantra and the possibility of 16% HP 3 minutes at a time to the party, be a good choice in that I am willing to trade typical functionality for diversity? Especially considering your typical MNK already has Penance...

For solo, I have to say, I don't see Penance making a very big difference in my playstyle or being all that noticeable. Where I do think Mantra 4/5 would offer me at least a few more options as to what I would be capable of. People seem to think that is a wasteful purchase of merits though. Can anyone provide any solid reasons why? Other than just saying "it sucks" or something of that nature? Sorry if I don't really buy that opinion, but I'm kind of looking to dissect this idea more, considering I won't be grouping up often at all, and when I do, I am willing to sacrifice (for this job) some merited functionality for groups as a trade for some merited functionality for myself.

For Salvage (if I ever do this) I can see where Penance would help. It's questionable if I'll ever do Salvage though. Even without Penance, MNK is useful for Salvage and if I ever do Salvage I would consider bringing my MNK. Melee Gaiters would be nice, but that means either doing Dynamis (can't commit to that schedule) or finding a seller. Offering right now to buy them, lol. Who's sellin'?

I don't really want to consider my options based on RA/EX gear that I don't have, however. It doesn't make sense to me to put much time into obtaining much RA/EX gear any more. Not unless I can buy it from someone who doesn't need it. I have plenty of random times to hop online and solo some XP and make some money, but I just can't commit to rigid schedules any more.


So the opinions on tier one seem to be mostly 5/5 KA, which I already have, and 5/5 Counter (some say only if I have Melee Gaiters). Can someone provide testimony of 5/5 Chakra merits' performance without Melee Gaiters? The other option seems to be 5/5 Chakra. Normally I'd say that's not worth it over Counter rate, but with capped Invigorate, for someone who will be soloing 95%+ of the time, perhaps that does make sense.

 

[Dejavu]

Ok the reason that i say that mantra is useless is because as far as i can tell i have never actually come up with a good use for it. Lets say that you are soloing and you use mantra and your max hp goes up by 16% for my mnk that would be from 1632 > 1893 which is an increase of 261 (oddly enough exactly what my current {really lazy} chakra set gives me).

Now this when you use mantra you dont actually get this Hp so you would either have to heal it which would take alot of time off of your mantra useage time or you would have to chakra before the fight. Now typically i only use chakra when i am in trouble or when i think that the fight is going to last a while and i want to take some stress of the mages.

So assuming that you dont actually heal it back you really have no gain solo to use mantra because inorder to achieve it you have to pop your chakra where as if you wait until you lose 300 hp you can pop your chakra and be basically at the same place.

Now on the otherhand if you are soloing fights are typically going to be longer. With this in mind if the fight is going to be over 100 seconds you can get the full effect of the penance which will cut the mobs TP gain by 25% meaning that you will get hit by only 3/4 of the TP moves that would otherwise be used against you. The only time that penance is not extremely noticeable is when there are too many melees on a mob and the mob is getting TP at a faster rate than it can actually burn it.

As far as mantra while in a party i wont say that it is completely useless but it is useless in the one area that most people wish they could use it and that is boosting a drks' hp. The problem is that mantra and drain 2 do not stack and the effects of drain 2 far exceed mantra unless the drk gets a horrible resist.

Also i have no experience with chakra merits but i can tell you that 5/5 counter is noticeable without melee gaiters and counterstance its just that all 3 of them in combination is... somewhat broken.

If you can come up with a good situation to use mantra, thats cool go for it, but the effect doesnt last long enough to warrant trying to use it in solo play imo.

 

[Sneakypants]

Cool. Thanks for the feedback Deja. That's more along the lines of what I was looking for. I'm pretty much sold on the Counter merits. For Penance Vs. Mantra, I'll still have to think about it a bit more. With the right gear swaps and a solid Chakra macro it could be a good thing. It's more situational, but I never minded making the most of those types of things as long as there was value in it for me.

Thanks again.

 

[Skaw]

Invigorate was awesome when the cap was only three. Can't imagine how great it'd be now. Getting over 800 HP from my chakra would've been wicked. Bet they still haven't fixed Regen 1 overwriting it though.

 

[Sneakypants]

Invigorate was awesome when the cap was only three. Can't imagine how great it'd be now. Getting over 800 HP from my chakra would've been wicked. Bet they still haven't fixed Regen 1 overwriting it though.

good to know...

 

[ds083roadkill]

dose penance surpass the 50% subtle blow cap?

 

[Bajaratt]

I think it does.

 

[Skaw]

dose penance surpass the 50% subtle blow cap?

It should. It's not a modification to the TP you deliver to your target(which is Subtle Blow,) but the TP the target itself generates both offensively and defensively.