Meditation should be treated as a downtime tool that you only use if you are unable to hit a target.Though I took a bit of a break when my obsession with Animal Crossing started, I’ve slowly been getting myself back into Final Fantasy XIV.Īnd of course, I couldn’t give myself an easy project to get back into! The first thing I jumped into was working on gear for my gatherers-and adding as much materia to that gear as I could. You can build up to five stacks of Chakra, and then spend them on either a single target or a line AoE oGCD. ChakraĪt Level 15 you will gain access to Meditation, allowing you to build Chakra. As mentioned before, these skills are worth using when you can hit three or more targets. You’ll gain Arm of the Destroyer, Four-Point Fury, and Rockbreaker at levels 26, 45, and 30 respectively. As with the other Timer GCDs, you want to apply the Leaden Fist buff from Dragon Kick, and on the following cycle use a Bootshine to spend the Leaden Fist. Following the same principle as before, you’ll apply Demolish on the first cycle, then use Snap Punch on the following cycles until Demolish needs to be reapplied.Īt Level 50 you gain access to Dragon Kick, fully fleshing out your six core GCDs. At this point you can start to practice alternating skills between combo cycles using Twin Snakes to apply Discipled Fist on the first combo cycle, then using True Strike on the next cycle before Disciplined Fist needs to be reapplied.Īt Level 30 you gain access to Demolish, your DoT. Your AoE GCDs are all only worth using at three or more targets.Īs you level up, you’ll slowly gain access to new skills, fleshing out your rotation as you go.įrom Levels 1 - 17 you only have access to Bootshine, True Strike, and Snap Punch while you get used to progressing through your forms.Īt level 18 you gain access to Twin Snakes, the aforementioned buff. Demolish applies a damage over time effect that ticks for 18 seconds. Twin Snakes applies Disciplined Fist, increasing all damage dealt for 15 seconds. Dragon Kick applies Leaden Fist, which increases the damage of your next Bootshine. Your Timer GCDs all apply some kind of buff or debuff that you want to keep up. Your Pure Damage GCDs are Bootshine, True Strike, and Snap Punch, which simply deal damage with no additional effect. At each step you have three different GCDs to choose from a Pure Damage GCD, a Timer GCD, or an AoE GCD. Leveling RotationsĪt its core, Monk’s rotation is about progressing through your three forms Opo-Opo, Raptor, and Coeurl. Don’t let your GCD stop spinning.Īnd then, once you have one through three down, worry about maintaining proper positionals.ĭefensive actions like Feint and Arm’s Length as well as healing actions like Bloodbath and Second Wind help you stay alive in solo and group content. Stick to the boss like glue, assuming you meet one and two. Maintain Uptime (ABC - Always Be Casting).Deaths cause much larger losses than missing a GCD or two.
If you have to sacrifice uptime to not die, you know the choice to make. Nothing is more important than properly handling mechanics.ĭon’t die. If you fail mechanics, you could cause a potential raid wipe and a fight reset. These are listed in order from largest to smallest loss of damage if you fail that level. While it is a loss to miss your Positionals, landing them should be your last priority, after you have met all of the other combat priority requirements of a melee DPS job.