I’ve struggled to come up with a relic glamour for Monk’s new Samsara from the Blades of Gunnhildr. While its colors are generally up my alley, with red, black, and gold all featuring heavily in my glamours over the years, Monk in particular lacks solid glamour options that cover all three in a way that works well with the new relic. My first attempt was serviceable, checking off the necessary boxes, but not particularly satisfying since it used a lot of staple and familiar pieces. It also had issues for Samurai, given the Monk-specific gloves—not the most frustrating issue, since I rarely play Samurai, but one that did bother me a little.

With the new Peacock Attire, though, I got an important new option for Monk in the form of the Peacock Gloves. I’m always on the lookout for new over-the-elbow length gloves and gauntlets, which are all but necessary for many of my glamours since I’m a fan of neither FFXIV‘s penchant for puffy sleeves nor the way slender miqo’te arms tend to look alongside most of the game’s bulky gear for the arms and hands. The Peacock Gloves have a lot going for them in terms of colors and dyes, even if they’re a tad bulkier than I usually like for these things, and after my recent review I thought I might put them to use alongside Samsara.

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Glamour Components (Requirements: MNK/SAM 80)
Weapon: Samsara
Head: Reading Glasses (Ul Brown)
Body: Facet Cyclas of Striking
Hands: Peacock Gloves
Legs: Skallic Bottoms of Striking (Jet Black)
Feet: Gyuki Leather Highboots of Striking

With the Peacock Gloves, I was finally able to put to use the Facet Cyclas, a piece I’ve honestly had my eye on for a long time. It’s got all my favorite glamour colors in one piece—and I’d been thinking about using it for Samsara, even—but I’d never been able to find a pair of long gloves that I liked alongside it, since the Facet Gloves aren’t really my jam. The Peacock Gloves are just the sort of thing I’ve been looking for, though, so I took this opportunity to glamour the Cyclas for once. Since I was already looking for red and black, I didn’t even need to play around with dyes!

From there, things mostly proceeded as you might expect: I explored thighboots, considering various options like the Scion Healer’s Highboots, Atrociraptorskin Thighboots, and Ishgardian Thighboots. All of these worked well enough, but it was the more muted tone of black on display from the Gyuki Leather Highboots that really worked for me alongside the similar tone of the Cyclas. Then I need a solid pair of shorts, and as has become something of my go-to for Striking classes, the Skallic Bottoms seemed best to me overall. That settled everything, and then it was just a matter of dye for Alahra’s glasses (I waffled between Ul and Cork Brown, with Ul winning out after not liking the way Cork looked for screenshots).

I’m not perfectly happy with the result, though. While most of the golds line up across the head, hands, legs, and weapon choices, the bronze of the Facet Cyclas is pretty markedly different. It’s not a jarring thing, but the other main problem I’ve had using the Cyclas (or any of the other Facet gear, really) is how difficult it is to approximate the color of of its metal bits. I like this look well enough to keep it for a little while yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I revisit Samsara after a little while to give this whole relic glamour yet another go.