Epic Monk DPS Fists vs Weapons?
 

So I've talked to a couple different people in game and everyone seems to say something else or have a different opinion. Was hoping some of you guys on the forums would have some definite answers for me.

What are the top 3 DPS weapons (that are tradable) you can have for an Epic Monk? Is it true that just the fist (no weapons equipped) is the best DPS a Monk has?

tstaff for a 2h or epic fist/SoS or just adclub/SoS

Tstaffs going for like 300k on Red atm, so that won't be happening any time soon =P. Right now I don't have a weapon, just Epic Fists (Lvl 50 atm, I think dmg/dly changes @ 60?) so I am just wondering if I should just not bother trying to find a weapon and instead just use fists, or if there something better for me then that atm OTHER then Tstaff lol.

The only worthwhile DPS upgrade to double epic fists is to put a Stave of Shielding or Sky Fist in the offhand.

bear in mind how this stuff might have changed since that chart was made due to monk attack changes

use t-staff and remove it from primary slot after swinging to gain a free attack. place tstaff back in primary slot.

Have you parsed that? There are many rogues who tried something similar (swapping in a high-damage piercer for backstab, then swapping back to highest DPS for auto-attacks) and the consensus appears to be that swapping weapons in and out is so bad for your DPS that you actually lose out.

I kind of assumed monks would have the same issue.

I would think in short term fights, that we have on here now, probably not worth it in the long run, but when Velious comes out with fights lasting minutes not seconds like now, would be worth it.

The thing is with 2 hand weapons is that you don't lose out on an attack by swapping the weapon out because your fist swings faster than the 2hander (you will know you have done this correctly if you don't quad with your fist. If you swapped out and quadded you are replacing the staff too slowly). It's a completely free autoattack, there are no negatives to doing so assuming you equip the 2hander in time to not miss the beginning of its new round.
Yes I have parsed it before, assuming you can do it correctly every time, it is a lot more damage. The only problem is you need a tank who can keep aggro, it pulls a ton of hate when you are proccing the staff and getting an extra 20-60 more damage in a round because of it. When you hit innerflame and swap in/out I've come close to keeping up with thornstinger rogues who hit duelist.
I'm speculating that this trick negatively impacts rogue DPS because you would be swapping from a low delay weapon to a high damage high delay weapon, therefore missing rounds with your primary. The monk version doesn't miss any rounds because your main weapon is the staff, you are always still attacking with your best weapon and not losing rounds due to swapping.


1 handers are better in Velious so this trick will become obsolete once you start getting decent gear. But yes I have done this on beta, mostly on mobs in sleeper's tomb. It is pretty much muscle memory for me at this point. If you ever see me not doing it is probably because I just feel like half ass DPSing at the time or its a fight where pulling aggro would cause a wipe (VS).