With Monks finally getting a cooldown reduction on Perfect Balance, something I’ve been hoping they would get for years now, getting Monk to 70 is probably the highest thing on my priority list now. I’ve been going back and forth on whether or not I actually like Samurai for all of Stormblood, but I think all my Skalla runs on SAM have more or less sealed the deal: I’d much rather play Monk for Alahra’s Striking class. That’s especially true now, with a one-minute Perfect Balance cooldown handily taking care of the main thing I didn’t like about Monk (that they had no way to quickly get back up to speed on short fights like dungeon bosses and even dungeon trash packs) since the old three-minute cooldown often felt like an eternity.

So, while waiting to get started on the new Main Scenario Quests in Patch 4.2, I decided to run around and do some FATEs on Monk to hit 67, since I was most of the way there. This let me try out the shortened Perfect Balance cooldown and the Greased Lightning refresh on Wind Tackle while also being able to better enjoy the zone music thanks to the new battle music toggle. It proved to be a nice little diversion, and I quickly got to 67 (though I did get in over my head a couple times trying to solo some FATEs that were higher level than me).

At 67, I got out my Yanxian Striking gear, and I was almost immediately compelled to glamour. I never got around to using either one of the Scouting or Striking sets from that dungeon while leveling Ninja and Samurai, so I thought I should give it a whirl. The teal blue on the Yanxian Togi of Striking suggested the possibility of a sort of Eastern Ironworks glamour , but I quickly struck out on that one. The Yanxian Togi is just so bulky that it’s hard to make it work with much of anything. I might come back to it eventually, but in the mean time, I had the Ironworks colors on my mind and put something together to use them anyway!

Glamour Components (Required Level: MNK/SAM 64)
Head: Elegant Rimless Glasses (Othard Blue)
Body: Kudzu Tunic of Striking (Rhotano Blue)
Hands: Serpentskin Bracers of Striking (Jet Black)
Legs: Coeurl Beach Tanga (Rhotano Blue)
Feet: Augmented Ironworks Sollerets of Striking (Jet Black)

Of course, this overall look should be very familiar, since I’ve done numerous glamours with the various versions of the Kudzu Tunic’s model, but I like how this one combines a key element of an older Ironworks Monk glamour I used for awhile with the Kudzu Tunic for a color scheme I haven’t used very often for Alahra. Of course, the Sollerets sort of force that on their own, but it’s been rare that I’ve been able to use them for a look that really feels like an “Alahra” look, since the Kudzu Tunic is such a perfect fit for her character.

They key here proved to be the Serpentskin Bracers, which helped to guide the choice of blue on the Tunic (since it’s often a bit tricky to match things to the Sollerets because the Ironworks Blue isn’t exactly reproducible with dyes). The blue on the Bracers is probably the closest match to the Ironworks Blue I can think of, and with them dyed Jet Black, they pair very nicely with the Sollerets, since the blue sticks around even with dye. Just to make sure all the leather had a similar tone, I dyed the Sollerets Jet Black too, even though they’re naturally black and didn’t look bad that way—but I wouldn’t have been glamour blogging for so long if I wasn’t picky about little things like that!

Of course, the Glasses and Tanga are basic staples for looks with the Tunic at this point, and I saw no reason to deviate from them. There’s something about this look overall that has always felt very much like Alahra’s style to me, and I suppose that’s why I keep coming back to it. We’ve not really gotten very many pieces in the same vein as the Tunic, but thankfully we have dyeable versions now, and I can use them with a variety of other things. Will this one last until I hit Monk 70? I thought that about the last Monk glamour and very quickly proved myself wrong. I guess I’ll see what happens!