We’re probably a couple weeks from Patch 5.4 now, while there’s plenty to be excited about as with any new raid tier patch, I think the thing I’m looking forward to the most is the upcoming Monk rework. I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with the job in FFXIV—it’s the job I would main if I could but have never fully clicked with over the seven years since the game’s relaunch.

Although Alahra’s canon job is more or less FFXI‘s tanking Ninja, even back then I imagined that she fought with her feet and fists more than any actual weapons (though I imagine she supplements things with swords and ninjutsu/chi, naturally). So, I’ve always been drawn to Monk despite clashing with its gameplay in a number of fundamental ways regarding Greased Lightning. With the revamp on the horizon, though (which is supposedly going to remove Greased Lightning maintenance), I’ve had the itch pretty strongly lately.

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Glamour Components
Jobs: MNK/NIN/SAM — Level: 50 — Gender: Female
Weapon: Augmented Hellfire Claws (Cork Brown)
Head: Reading Glasses (Ul Brown)
Body: Nezha Lady’s Togi (Jet Black)
Hands: Replica Allagan Gauntlets of Striking (Jet Black)
Legs: Nezha Lady’s Slops (Jet Black)
Feet: Raptorskin Boots (Gunmetal Black)

Longtime readers will probably recognize the core look, here. Back in Stormblood I largely settled on the Nezha Togi/Slops combo as pretty close to Alahra’s canon get-up as the Warrior of Light, and I had a number of variants for different armor types at the time. Of those, my favorite was always the tank version, since the Doman Iron pieces really complimented the Togi perfectly. I was less happy with the versions for Monk and Ninja, though, as I couldn’t get the colors and profile to line up quite right.

Shadowbringers has added a couple key things that allowed me to revisit the look for the modern era, though. I always struggled to find a solid pair of boots for the look on both Monk and Ninja. Originally, I used the Allagan Sollerets since I was already using the Gauntlets for Ninja, but those didn’t really sit well with me. Their “square” tops clashed with the more angular lines on the Nezha pieces, and I eventually moved to the Gyuki Leather Highboots instead, but those didn’t really have enough gold to my eyes for use with the Nezha Slops.

Enter Shadowbringers, then, which added a swath of new crafted gear for the level 1-49 experience, including the Raptorskin Boots, which have shown up several times on the site since their addition (most recently for a semi-casual Bard glamour). I’d been considering them for awhile, but truth be told, they don’t really dye that well in general. They lose their leather sheen in most colors, which made them a poor choice for the Togi, since it has a bit of shine to it.

But we’ve also got Gunmetal Black now, which lets me both use the Raptorskin Boots and go for a black version of the look (which works much more cleanly for the Allagan Gauntlets, which have a leather section that remains black regardless of dye). On top of that, I can use the glamour for both Monk and Ninja with just one glamour plate (which is great, since I’ve been struggling with the limit of fifteen plates for some time now). That leaves me properly prepared to roll with either job as Alahra’s DPS main, depending on how the Monk revamp feels to play for me, which is a pretty satisfying thing!