1.
Monk Rotation Overview
Monk's rotation as of Endwalker is quite odd - but also quite even. Ourgameplay at level 90 revolves around an odd and an even buff window, withoptimization focusing on GCD manipulation to ensure that the highest possible damageis dealt within each window. The core pieces of Monk can be broken down intosections for easier digestion. We have the core of our job - our GCDs, theChakra system, the Beast Chakra system, and then finally, our burst windows,which combine and condense together everything previously mentioned.
1.1.
Flowchart
As was touched on before, the core of Monk's single target rotation iseffectively a priority-based, decision-making flowchart.
- When in Opo-opo form, do you have Leaden Fist active?
- If yes, use
Bootshine.
- If no, use
Dragon Kick.
- If yes, use
- When in Raptor form, does your Disciplined Fist buff have more than 6seconds remaining?
- If yes, use
True Strike.
- If no, refresh
Twin Snakes.
- If yes, use
- When in Coeurl form, does your
Demolish have more than 6seconds remaining?
- If yes, use
Snap Punch.
- If no, refresh
Demolish.
- If yes, use
1.2.
Chakra
Chakra is a resource that we passively gain throughout fights due to our Deep Meditation II and
Brotherhood. Using it iseasy - simply use
The Forbidden Chakra as soon as itbecomes available so that you do not overcap Chakra. Overcapping refers to whenyou are already at five Chakra and generate another, wasting its potentialpotency.
1.3.
Riddle of Fire, Riddle of Wind, and Brotherhood
Riddle of Fire,
Riddle of Wind and
Brotherhood are our three personal buffs.
Riddle of Wind has less nuance than the other buffs; we simplypress it and start auto-attacking faster, and it does not interact with the rest ofour toolkit much further than that. The best way to use it is to press it oncooldown, as holding it to align with other buffs will likely result in youlosing entire usages. Only hold it for buffs if you know your killtime, so youcan be sure that you are not going to lose a cast as a result. As for
Riddle of Fire and
Brotherhood, our rotation isbuilt in such a way to maximize the damage dealt under these buffs. Given theway our rotation works, the optimal way to use these two skills is to simplypress them on cooldown immediately as they become available. The one slightcaveat to this is that we always want to be weaving
Riddle of Fire late into the GCD roll to ensure it will cover all11 GCDs.
Brotherhood does not require late-weaving, as its'placement is for the benefit of the party primarily.
Given that the cooldowns of these skills are 60 and 120 seconds, respectively,this means that every other Riddle of Fire will be without
Brotherhood. This is what we call the "odd RoF window," andwe always want to put one
Masterful Blitz in this window. It iscalled the odd window as it occurs on every odd minute (for example, on minutes 1, 3,5, and 7).
Likewise, the "even RoF window" happens on every even minute (2, 4, 6, 8,etc.) and consists of both Riddle of Fire and
Brotherhood. As this is our strongest burst window, we want tohave two uses of
Masterful Blitz here.
1.4.
Perfect Balance, Beast Chakra, and Nadi
Perfect Balance is the key to some of our strongest skills -our Blitzes. As mentioned, we always want to be using two Blitzes in our evenwindows and one Blitz in our odd window. As for when specifically to use
Perfect Balance in our rotation, as a general rule, you always wantto pop it following an Opo-opo GCD. There are a variety of differentcombinations of skills you can use to generate each Blitz, though there areoptimal ways to build up to each one.
Elixir Field requires we use three GCDs from the same form. We wantto choose the Opo-opo form for this, as they are our strongest spammable GCDs.As such, we would use either
Bootshine →
Dragon Kick →
Bootshine, or
Dragon Kick →
Bootshine →
Dragon Kick, depending on whether or not you have Leaden Fistgoing into the
Perfect Balance window.
Rising Phoenix requires three GCDs of unique forms to have beenused: one Opo-opo, one Raptor, and one Coeurl, in any order. As for which GCDs to usespecifically, this depends. The fact that we can use one GCD from each form makesthis a flexible
Perfect Balance sequence. It can be used torefresh any timers that will be falling off soon, and if there are none, it can be used tosimply press the higher potency GCD from each form.
Phantom Rush will be executed regardless of which Beast Chakrayou have generated, so long as you possess both the Solar and Lunar Nadi. As wecan press any buttons we like, we want to press the ones that do the mostdamage. This means that we want to do the
Elixir Field GCDsequence of three Opo-opo GCDs.
Celestial Revolution is effectively a consolation prize forwhen you make a mistake under
Perfect Balance, executed when youhave accumulated only two different types of Beast Chakra. It has a lower potencythan every other blitz while simultaneously being a single-target skill, whereasall other blitzes are AoE. This skill should never be used intentionally.
Following the use of any Blitz skill, we are granted the Formless Fist buff,which we always want to spend on an Opo-opo GCD.
2.
Openers
Monk has 4 different openers. There is no single opener that is betterthan the others for every scenario, and the reason we have this many openers is toaccount for different situations. You will be choosing which opener to use basedon party composition, total fight duration (or killtime), and phaseduration.
2.1.
Lunar Solar
The Lunar Solar opener is recommended for most general play for two reasons.Firstly, it will ensure that you get the maximum potential uses of Phantom Rush possible throughout an encounter. Secondly,it facilitates our easier rotation which should be used in a majority ofsituations.
If you are unable to double weave without clipping, move Brotherhoodto after the second
Dragon Kick and
Riddle of Winduntil after the second
Bootshine.
- At any point within 30 seconds before pulling, use
Form Shift
Thunderclap as close to 0 on the pull timer as you canwithout pre-pulling.
Dragon Kick →
Grade 6 Tincture of Strength
Twin Snakes →
Riddle of Fire
Demolish →
The Forbidden Chakra
Bootshine →
Brotherhood →
Perfect Balance
Dragon Kick →
Riddle of Wind
Bootshine
Dragon Kick
Elixir Field
Bootshine →
Perfect Balance
Twin Snakes
Dragon Kick
Demolish
Rising Phoenix
2.2.
Double Solar
The Double Solar opener is reserved for more optimized scenarios. This openerstarts by generating two Solar Nadi, hence the name. The reason this is doneis that Phantom Rush is effectively a two-minute cooldown, beingtied to three uses of
Perfect Balance. This means that whichever burstwindow you use
Phantom Rush in, odd or even, it will remainthere for the rest of the fight. By generating two Solar Nadi in our opener, wedelay our initial
Phantom Rush cast into our even window, meaningit is going to be hitting a lot harder than if it were to be used in the oddwindow. However, due to the fact that we overcap a Nadi, this can potentiallylose us a use of
Phantom Rush over the course of a fight.As such, this opener is only recommended for an optimized situation where you canreasonably estimate your killtime and know that you are not going to lose thatfinal
Phantom Rush cast by following this opener and rotation.This opener also effectively scales with your party composition, as having moretwo-minute raid buffs in the group facilitate higher DPS compared to otherrotations.
- At any point within 30 seconds before pulling, use
Form Shift
Grade 6 Tincture of Strength immediately before
Thunderclap
Thunderclap as close to 0 on the pull timer as you canwithout pre-pulling.
Dragon Kick →
Perfect Balance
Twin Snakes →
Riddle of Fire
Demolish →
The Forbidden Chakra
Bootshine →
Brotherhood
Rising Phoenix →
Riddle of Wind
Dragon Kick →
Perfect Balance
Bootshine
Snap Punch
Twin Snakes
Rising Phoenix
Dragon Kick
True Strike
Demolish
2.3.
Early Openers
There will be situations in encounters where you are forced to use Riddle of Fire or
Brotherhood in non-optimal ways.For instance, sometimes there will be downtime, or a boss will go invulnerablesoon after you have used your buffs, which might make you want to hold thatusage until you have a target to hit once again. However, sometimes by holdingthat usage, you will end up losing a use of those buffs over the course of anencounter. This means you have to use them before the downtime and simply acceptthe shorter buff window. For these situations, we have the early openers. Theseopeners skip the Opo-opo GCD at the beginning in favor of starting with
Twin Snakes. This allows us to use our buffs sooner, which meanswe get slightly more effective uptime on those buffs before whatever forceddowntime occurs.
2.4.
Early Lunar Solar
- At any point within 30 seconds before pulling, use
Form Shift
Grade 6 Tincture of Strength immediately before
Thunderclap
Thunderclap as close to 0 on the pull timer as you canwithout pre-pulling.
Twin Snakes →
Riddle of Fire
Demolish →
The Forbidden Chakra
Dragon Kick →
Brotherhood →
Perfect Balance
Bootshine →
Riddle of Wind
Dragon Kick
Bootshine
Elixir Field
Dragon Kick →
Perfect Balance
Twin Snakes
Bootshine
Demolish
Rising Phoenix
2.5.
Early Double Solar
- At any point within 30 seconds before pulling, use
Form Shift
Grade 6 Tincture of Strength immediately before
Thunderclap
Thunderclap as close to 0 on the pull timer as you canwithout pre-pulling.
Twin Snakes →
Riddle of Fire
Demolish →
The Forbidden Chakra
Dragon Kick →
Brotherhood →
Perfect Balance
Bootshine →
Riddle of Wind
True Strike
Snap Punch
Rising Phoenix
Dragon Kick
Perfect Balance
Twin Snakes
Bootshine
Demolish
Rising Phoenix
3.
Rotation Choices
As for what to do following the opener, Monk has three different choices forwhich rotation to follow - Looping, Optimal Drift, and Double Solar. As always,these rotations all have the same core flowchart gameplay, and the differencesbetween them come about in how they handle their buff windows. If you are justdipping your toes into Monk and want to see how it plays, the Loop is quick andeasy to get started with to give you a solid grasp of how the job feels. Inorder to Loop we make a few rotational compromises in order to generate asomewhat easy-to-follow rotation that repeats every two minutes. This is thelowest DPS option of all three rotations, however it is only about 1% lower than theother options, and so will still allow you to perform at a competitive level.If you decide you want to stick with the job then it is strongly advised tolearn Optimal Drift, as it is our most flexible rotation and allows you toadjust on the fly to any situation you may find yourself in. Double Solar isreserved for optimal runs with an ideal killtime (finishing after an evenwindow) and a strong two-minute buff comp. In a solo scenario Double Solar isslightly weaker than Optimal Drift, however it scales better raid buffs.
4.
Which Opener is Best?
There is no one best opener. Each opener is designed to accommodate differentscenarios, and the one you should use depends on your kill time. If you arein a situation where you do not know what your kill time will look like,then you should go with Lunar Solar.
4.1.
Monk Rules
As simple or as challenging as each potential rotation may be, having a levelof understanding as to why we do certain things is going to make the learningexperience easier. Certain rotations also break some rules, and so it isbeneficial to first understand why each rule exists so that you can understandwhy and when they may need to be broken.
- Always press
Riddle of Fire and
Brotherhoodon cooldown. The reason here is twofold; it keeps us aligned with partybuffs, and it ensures we do not lose buff uses by drifting. Since ourrotation is purpose-built, it is important to play around these 60-second intervals.
Perfect Balance should always be used following an Opo-opoGCD. Opo-opo GCDs are our strongest, and so this maximizes the amount we canuse over a fight.
- The Formless Fist acquired following any
Masterful Blitzshould always be an Opo-opo GCD. This is for the same reasoning asabove.
5.
The Loop
As mentioned previously, the looping rotation makes several compromises inorder to ensure a clean loop, and the first one begins immediately followingthe opener. Although the general rule is to always use an Opo-opo GCD followinga Blitz, after the Rising Phoenix in our opener, we will insteadpress
Twin Snakes. This sets our rotation back two GCDs to allow fora clean loop. Following this, continue with the typical Monk flowchart gameplayuntil the first
Riddle of Fire window.
5.1.
Odd windows
Your odd window will be as follows:
Bootshine
True Strike
Demolish
Dragon Kick
Twin Snakes
Snap Punch →
Riddle of Fire
Bootshine
True Strike
Snap Punch
Dragon Kick
Twin Snakes
Demolish
Bootshine →
Perfect Balance
Dragon Kick
Bootshine
Dragon Kick
Phantom Rush
Bootshine
Of course, the odd window itself is simply the Riddle of Fireand everything contained therein, and the skills shown beforehand are there to showyou how we set up our entry to this window. You need not worry about memorizingthe setup, as by following the standard Monk flowchart, your GCDs will naturallyalign this way.
As mentioned, this will repeat every odd minute. The only difference isthat each time the Opo-opo GCDs will invert, causing Dragon Kicks tobecome
Bootshines and vice-versa.
From here, simply resume the standard flowchart decision-making untilthe even window.
5.2.
Even windows
The even window will look as follows:
Snap Punch
Dragon Kick
True Strike
Snap Punch
Bootshine →
Perfect Balance
Dragon Kick →
Riddle of Fire
Demolish
Twin Snakes →
Brotherhood
Rising Phoenix
Bootshine →
Perfect Balance
Dragon Kick
Bootshine
Dragon Kick
Elixir Field
Twin Snakes
Demolish
Bootshine
Same as before, this will be how all of your even windows look, with the oneexception being that the Opo-opo GCDs will invert. You may also notice thatmuch like the opener, following the Rising Phoenix we use
Twin Snakes instead of following the rule of always Opo-opo. Thisserves the same purpose as when it is done in the opener, allowing the rotationto cleanly loop.
5.3.
Fixing the Loop
Up until this point, we have been talking about the looping rotation in afull uptime, combat dummy scenario. In that imaginary scenario, this rotationrepeats itself cleanly, forever. Real fights generally do not allow for this,so what do we do when our rotation gets misaligned?
There are three different ways in which our rotation can be misaligned.
First is the timer of our Disciplined Fist buff. This is effectivelyirrelevant. As long as you make sure you are always putting a Twin Snakes before the
Demolish in the odd window,this fixes itself - yes, even if it will clip your buff early. This is a totalnon-issue in the even window given that we use a
Twin Snakesin the first
Perfect Balance window, again fixing itself.
The second way we can be misaligned is relative to our Demolish timer. This is primarily a concern to us in the oddwindow, as in the even window, you simply repeat the same thing every time, evenif it would cause your dot to clip. Of course, this does mean that since itfixes itself on the even window, you could merely just keep playing, clip on theeven window, and then go into the next cycle of the loop fresh. However, thereis a way that we can fix this without having to eat the DPS loss of waitinguntil our even window comes back around.
The way that we fix this is by essentially learning all nine different places Demolish can come up relative to
Riddle of Fire,in addition to understanding how to handle each situation. At first, this might seem like itwill be a lot to learn, but in reality, it is quite simple as we can solve thisissue by cross-referencing a few rules against our knowledge of the job.
Before executing an Opo sequence Perfect Balance window, wealways want to have refreshed our
Twin Snakes and
Demolish beforehand such that they do not fall off mid-burst.This means that we are looking for a natural
Demolish to buildour
Perfect Balance sequence around. When executing our normalrotation, a
Demolish will naturally happen once every 9 GCDs.This means that we are guaranteed to have a natural
Demolish thatwe can use to build our burst off of somewhere around
Riddle of Fire. But how do we know which nine GCDs to look at? Well,consider the fact that after pressing
Perfect Balance, it takes fourGCDs to get to our Blitz. This means that we can use
Perfect Balance no later than seven GCDs into
Riddle of Fire, else our Blitz will fall out of our buff window.Since we want to
Perfect Balance after an Opo-opo GCD, this meansthat the very latest usable
Demolish can occur six GCDs into
Riddle of Fire. From this, we have identified the nine GCDs we need tobe looking at - anywhere from three GCDs before, or six GCDs into, our
Riddle of Fire. Once we have located where in those nine GCDs ournatural
Demolish refresh is, we know that we need to force theRaptor GCD before it to be a
Twin Snakes, even if it clips thebuff slightly. Once this has been completed, you have fixed your odd windows,and can simply
Demolish → Opo-Opo GCD →
Perfect Balance → Opo-Opo GCD → Opo-Opo GCD →Opo-Opo GCD →
Phantom Rush. Although this meanssometimes you may have to use
Perfect Balance slightly before
Riddle of Fire is available, this is completely fine as your
Phantom Rush will still be within the buff window, in addition to alater
Demolish refresh.
The misalignment we can face is our Form-to-RoF CD alignment. This is when weend up in the wrong form as Riddle of Fire is coming off ofcooldown. Thankfully, if you understand how to fix
Demolishalignment, then you can apply the same rules here to know which
Demolish to build your burst off of odd windows. Evenwindows are much simpler, effectively fixing themselves by merit of beinglinked to a
Perfect Balance use.
6.
Optimal Drift
This rotation is named Optimal Drift as it is a more optimal way of playingthan the loop, and your Riddle of Fire entry form drifts back by oneevery two minutes. Like the looping rotation, Optimal Drift begins with a LunarSolar opener, but the similarities end there. As opposed to having repeatingburst sequences, this rotation instead has variable windows depending on howyour GCDs align leading up to
Riddle of Fire.
6.1.
Odd Windows
The way that we build our odd windows when doing this rotation is effectivelythe same as the way you fix the loop being misaligned relative to a Demolish timer. Since we are not looping, our entry to oddwindows can consist of any possible GCD alignment. This effectively meansthat every odd window needs to be "fixed," so by applying the rules learnedpreviously, you will be able to execute any possible odd window alignment thatmay occur.
6.2.
Even Windows
The even windows in this rotation are where the real difference comes in.Much the same as how we build odd windows from a Demolish,we build our even windows from any Coeurl GCD. We split hairs further thansimply considering a
Demolish vs a
Snap Punchhowever. Between each
Demolish application, we have two uses of
Snap Punch, and each one results in a different overall GCDalignment. This means that each
Snap Punch is treated as a uniqueGCD, as each
Snap Punch leads to a different even windowsequence. To distinguish between each window, the GCDs will be referred to asDemo, Snap 1, and Snap 2. With this distinction outlined, we can look at howeach potential burst window is constructed.
Similarly to odd windows, we consider the fact that we need to fit two Perfect Balance uses and their respective Blitzes in this
Riddle of Fire window. Again, this means that we are looking at thesame three-GCD window around
Riddle of Fire to determine what burstsequence we should follow: the two GCDs prior to, and the one GCD following
Riddle of Fire. Depending on which of our three possible CoeurlGCDs falls into this window, there are three different potential burst sequencesthat we will end up doing.
RoF+BH 1
Demolish
- Opo
- Raptor
- Snap 1
- Opo
- Raptor →
Riddle of Fire
- Snap 2 →
Riddle of Fire
- Opo →
Perfect Balance →
Riddle of Fire
- Opo
Demolish
Twin Snakes
Rising Phoenix
- Opo →
Perfect Balance
- Opo
- Opo
- Opo
Elixir Field
- Opo
RoF+BH 2
- Snap 2
- Opo
- Raptor
Demolish
- Opo →
Perfect Balance
- Raptor →
Riddle of Fire
- Snap 1 →
Riddle of Fire
- Opo →
Riddle of Fire
Rising Phoenix
- Opo
Twin Snakes
Demolish
- Opo →
Perfect Balance
- Opo
- Opo
- Opo
Elixir Field
- Opo
RoF+BH 3
- Snap 1
- Opo
- Raptor
- Snap 2
- Opo
Twin Snakes →
Riddle of Fire
Demolish →
Riddle of Fire
- Opo →
Perfect Balance →
Riddle of Fire
- Opo
- Opo
- Opo
Elixir Field
- Opo →
Perfect Balance
Twin Snakes
- Opo
Demolish
Rising Phoenix
- Opo
Note that there are three instances of Riddle of Fire in eachwindow. This is because
Riddle of Fire can occur on any of thosethree possible GCDs, not because you need to somehow use the buff three times.
GCDs simply labeled "Opo" or "Raptor" can be either of the two available GCDsin those forms, depending on how your rotation has aligned by following thestandard Monk gameplay loop. GCDs that are specified by name are notflexible. Brotherhood is not listed as its placement isirrelevant - as long as you are using it on cooldown, it will always be in thecorrect place.
The most practical way to learn how to recognize and execute the correctwindow is to check what Coeurl GCD you are using when the cooldown of Riddle of Fire is between 21.34 - 15.52 seconds. This is becausewhatever Coeurl GCD you use in this window, you will be using again in nine GCDs,which is the three-GCD window we are looking for. This allows you to prepare inadvance. If the Coeurl GCD in this window is
Demolish, you willbe doing RoF + BH 3. If it is Snap 1, you will be doing RoF+BH 2, and if it isSnap 2, then you will be doing RoF + BH 1.
In a full uptime scenario, RoF + BH 3 should not occur. The most effectiveway to practice this rotation and make sure you are actually understanding theprinciples behind it (as opposed to just developing good muscle memory) is topractice on a dummy and randomly insert Six-sided Star to testhow well you can identify the correct windows.
7.
Double Solar
The Double Solar rotation is an optimized rotation that follows the DoubleSolar opener. This rotation is optimized around pushing Phantom Rush back into even buff windows, and as such scalesbetter the more two-minute raid buffs you have in your party, provided you do notlose a total usage of
Phantom Rush over the course of anencounter.
7.1.
Odd Windows
The odd windows for this rotation are constructed in the exact same way asin the optimal drift rotation.
7.2.
Even Windows
Even windows for this rotation are constructed in a somewhat similar way tothe Optimal Drift rotation. Again, we are looking for the Coeurl GCD that ishappening in the window two GCDs prior to or one GCD following Riddle of Fire, but instead of accounting for which specific CoeurlGCD it is, we simply force it to become a
Demolish, even if thatmeans clipping your dot early. Given a full uptime scenario, this only causessix seconds worth of clipping every six minutes, which is well worth the DPS weare able to gain as a result of this slight clip. Similar again to what haspreviously been discussed, the Raptor GCD before this
Demolishshould always be a
Twin Snakes, even if that means clipping thebuff slightly early. Once you have identified the correct Coeurl GCD and forcedthe
Twin Snakes →
Demolish, the rest of yourburst window practically plays itself, as all that is left to do is use your
Perfect Balance charges.
Twin Snakes
Demolish
- Opo →
Perfect Balance
- Opo
- Opo
- Opo
Phantom Rush
- Opo →
Perfect Balance
Twin Snakes
- Opo
Demolish
Rising Phoenix
The resultant GCD sequence will look like this. The placement of Riddle of Fire simply depends on where in relation to
Riddle of Fire your forced
Demolish is.
8.
Additional Monk Concepts
8.1.
Six-Sided Star Use
Six-sided Star is acquired at level 80 and has no related form,so it can be used whenever. This is a utility skill rather than something to beincorporated into a set rotation - while it has a potency of 550, its recasttimer is double that of every other GCD, and doing any combination of two otherGCDs amounts to more than 550 potency. Where
Six-sided Star findsuse is in situations where we are unable to do two GCDs, making the long recastirrelevant. As such,
Six-sided Star can be used as the final GCDbefore an enemy either dies or goes untargetable, before casting LimitBreak, or before having to disengage due to ground AoEs. To aid us in thislatter use, Six-sided Star provides a small boost to our move speed forfive seconds after use.
8.2.
Brotherhood Chakra Delay
Chakra delay is a finer detail of Monk, but nonetheless is worth being awareof. As you will know, Brotherhood guarantees a Chakrageneration upon weaponskill execution. It does not grant you this Chakrainstantly, however. The Chakra is gained upon damage application. The reasonthis is somewhat awkward is that not all GCDs are created equally, and someweaponskills have much longer damage applications than others. As an example,
Demolish does not apply the damage until 1.604seconds after you have pressed the button. This means you will not gain aChakra from Demolish until the very end of your GCD roll. This causes issues insituations where you have four Chakra ready, and your next GCD is a
Demolish. The Chakra gained from this will come up too late tospend, and so you will be unable to use
The Forbidden Chakra untilafter your following weaponskill. This means that you have just overcapped oneChakra from yourself, alongside however many Chakra you potentially gainedfrom your party members. There is not really anything that we can do to fix thisproblem, but nonetheless I believe that there is value in knowing exactly howthe tools of your job work.
8.3.
Double Weaving
Unfortunately, due to the fast GCD of Monk, double weaving is effectivelyimpossible unless you have single-digit ping. This presents a problem as therewill be scenarios that force you to double weave to avoid drifting buffs.Thankfully, there is a third-party program we can use to mitigate this issue -XIVAlexander. XIVAlexander works by effectively simulating a low pingenvironment by shaving off some of the animation lock certain skills have. Whilethis is incredibly useful and evens out the playing field for those of us withworse ping, it is still a third party program and so should not be discussed ingame. While there are no known bans of users who simply use this tool in aresponsible manner (as it is not detectable unless modified to an extreme), Iwould still stress that you use it at your own discretion.
8.4.
Triple Blitzing
Triple Blitz windows rely upon long periods of downtime in order to leveragethe 20 second durations of both Perfect Balance and
Masterful Blitz in order to charge up a Blitz, and then hold ontoit until your next
Riddle of Fire window whereby the 40 secondcooldown of
Perfect Balance will have refreshed, netting you anadditional buffed blitz at no cost. This is doable due to the fact that ourAoE skills will generate a Beast Chakra even if they do not hit any targets, andso can be used in downtime. This is not something that is going to come up veryfrequently, as there are not many fights that have long enough downtime toaccommodate something like this. You are most likely to be able to do this inUltimate fights due to their tendency to have large chunks of downtime.
There are two different potential triple blitz entries depending on whichrotation you are using.
8.4.1.
Optimal Drift
Given that you enter this window with no stored Nadi, you have options onhow you wish to structure this window. You can start with either Elixir Field or
Rising Phoenix, and depending onwhich you do the rest of the window will have to change to accommodate yourchoice. As for which one is better; it depends.
Demolishplacement will be different depending on which window you choose, eitherclipping or falling off, which results in all subsequent Demolish uses being indifferent places in each burst window. This means that phase timing can pushone option ahead of the other in terms of DPS, and so you should account forthis when making your decision. Below are two potential reopener sequences;
Dragon Kick
Twin Snakes
Demolish
Bootshine →
Riddle of Fire
Elixir Field
Dragon Kick →
Perfect Balance
Bootshine
Demolish
Twin Snakes
Rising Phoenix
Dragon Kick →
Perfect Balance
Bootshine
Dragon Kick
Bootshine
Phantom Rush
Dragon Kick
Dragon Kick
Twin Snakes
Demolish
Bootshine →
Riddle of Fire
Rising Phoenix
Twin Snakes →
Perfect Balance
Dragon Kick
Bootshine
Dragon Kick
Elixir Field
Bootshine →
Perfect Balance
Dragon Kick
Twin Snakes
Demolish
Phantom Rush
Bootshine
Following on from this your rotation is going to have to change in order toaccommodate your new Nadi alignment, as you will enter even windows with asingle Lunar nadi. This means subsequent Even windows will become an OptimalDrift/Double Solar hybrid, whereby you need to always be doing Rising Phoenix →
Phantom Rush. This isgoing to start off fine as it sets you up to go into RoF+BH 1 windows, howeverwill get a little awkward as you start to hit RoF+BH 3s. That being said, withsuch a niché optimisation as this you should really be planning out yourentire rotation ahead of time anyway, and as such will need to come up with yourown solutions to any problems that may arise as a result.
8.4.2.
Double Solar
Given that you being with a Lunar nadi, you are relatively locked in as tohow the rest of the window needs to be sequenced.
Dragon Kick
Twin Snakes
Demolish
Bootshine →
Riddle of Fire
Rising Phoenix
Twin Snakes →
Perfect Balance
Dragon Kick
Bootshine
Dragon Kick
Phantom Rush
Bootshine →
Perfect Balance
Dragon Kick
Twin Snakes
Demolish
Rising Phoenix
Bootshine
As usual, this is much simpler than the choices Optimal Drift has.
A few key points to keep in mind regardless of the route you may end up goingchoosing to follow when attempting a triple blitz window is that it starts quitelate relative to other jobs reopeners. As such you may have to modify your burstin order to better catch your groups timings and have the ability to place Brotherhood at a better time for your party. This could meanpossibly doing an early reopener variant, which would involve starting on
Twin Snakes and inverting all of the following Opo GCDs. Toreiterate, given the specific conditions required to pull off a triple blitzwindow it will be incredibly rare you find opportunities to actually implementthis technique, and given the particular nature of these windows each will mostlikely require some additional fine tuning or planning in order to account forthe specific counter therein. There will be no universal solution to the waysthat these windows may occur in real encounters, and so will require meticulousplanning if you want to squeeze out the absolute most potency possible.
8.5.
FPS Locking
Our FPS matters when it comes to our GCD speed, as the game waits until thenext frame is rendered after your GCD is up to execute the action you currentlyhave queued. What this means in practice is that the GCD the game shows on yourtooltip may not necessarily be accurate, resulting in a potential loss of GCDsover a large span of time. Given a consistent frame rate, your effective GCDincluding FPS may be calculated via GCD+((1-GCD*FPS) mod 1)*1/FPS, where "GCD"is the GCD speed shown on your in-game tooltips, "FPS" is your framerate, and"mod" indicates the usage of the modulo operation. This is easier to understandby graphing the results of this for a given tooltip GCD. The graph for a 1.96tooltip GCD looks as follows;
As you can see, there are clearly certain framerates that are preferable toothers. Each dip in the graph represents your effective GCD speed accounting forFPS being as close as possible to the advertised tooltip GCD, which occursevery 1+50n FPS where n is an integer, for example, 1FPS, 51 FPS, 101 FPS, etc.
At Monk's ideal GCD speed of 1.94, the rotation drifts slightly as you areforced to hold Riddle of Fire briefly in order to accommodate thelate weave slot. This can be mitigated somewhat via third-party software thatwill minimize the amount of required
Riddle of Fire drift in orderto retain our ideal late-weave spot while simultaneously minimizing how much wedrift out of our teams' 60/120s raid buffs. Both the ReAction plugin availablevia Quicklauncher and XIVAlexander have FPS aligning functionality, which willsave you having to use something like Rivatuner to lock your FPS to a specificnumber.
To offer a simplified explanation of the problem, the GCD speed shown in-gameis not strictly accurate, being variably slower based on your frame rate. Forexample, if your game displays a 1.94 GCD, but you play at 60 FPS, your actualGCD is closer to 1.95; as a result of this, after 106 GCDs (or roughly 206seconds) you would be a full GCD behind someone who was playing at 1.94 but hadan optimal frame rate. At the same, you can also suffer even when not a full GCDbehind. With regards to end of fight/phase scenarios, if you were for example1/3 of a GCD ahead, for randomly distributed encounter durations you would losea full GCD in one in three of those. This is also not the only place where losses canoccur due to frame rate; again, assuming 1.94 GCD 60 FPS, you would lose out onbuff alignment over the course of a fight as you would be forced to slightlyhold Riddle of Fire on each use in order to late-weave it,gradually pushing you further and further out of raid buffs.
Locking your frame rate at specific values via Rivatuner or using the FPSfunctionality of either ReAction or XIVAlexander mitigates these issues byaligning your GCD with your framerate as closely as possible such that you haveminimized wait times before queued actions are executed. Please note again thatthird-party tools are to be used at your own discretion.
9.
What is the point of Celestial Revolution?
Celestial Revolution is strictly a consolation prize for whenyou make a mistake during
Perfect Balance and should never be usedintentionally.
10.
Changelog
- 18 Jan. 2024: Updated for patch 6.55.
- 24 May 2023: Updated for 6.4.
- 13 Jan. 2023: Up-to-date for Patch 6.3
- 20 Apr. 2022: Updated for Patch 6.1
- 24 Mar. 2022: Youtube embeds for dummy rotation videos added, triple blitz added
- 07 Jan. 2022: FPS information added.
- 05 Jan. 2022: Optimal Drift Even Window description fixed.
- 31 Dec. 2021: Guide added.
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