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Update 30: Unarmed and Not That Dangerous
Goddammit, Faye!
This update isn't gonna be showing too much. There is a bug that I'd like to show off. Oh don't worry, it's not particularly useful, and I don't plan on exploiting it. Still, it's something I'd like to make a minor showcase of.
First things first, remember when I said that you should make 5 Ninjas? Well the time for them to be useful has come.
Take them to the Celestial Palace.
And subclass Farmer on every single one of them. This is your new farmbot team.
The reason for that is because of the Ninja's Class Skill, Keburi no Sue. Since it decreases the TP costs of every single skill by 9 TP at level 10, it makes them the ideal farmbot since some of the Farmer's skills are actives, and they are pretty costly. Oh and as for your other Farmers? You can dispose of them. They're useless now.
Oh right, the main thing I wanted to show off.
Mmm, I could use a nap.
Ahhhh, that was a good nap. Wait, who am I? What is this place?
As you can see, Faye has all her skill points back, but has lost 5 levels. She also lost her Princess subclass she got in the last update.
Several minutes of grinding back the 5 levels later, it's time to get her a new subclass.
I turn her into a wizard.
I cast fist! Hee hee hee!
I can't see this going anywhere good.
Don't care.
There we go.
Blah blah blah, get to the good stuff already.
Oh I'll charge, alright.
I've got fists of steel!
So there was a portion of the Monk skill tree that I completely ignored. Their fist skills. The reason is because they're pretty decent in the 1st Stratum, then the damage falls off horribly afterwards.
Kikouken is a pretty simple skill. It deals 140% to 190% Strike damage, and has a 30% to 50% chance to inflict Paralysis on a single target from levels 1 through 10. Honestly, it's not to great. The Monk has a terrible LUC stat, so they're not good at inflicting ailments.
Leveling up Fist Mastery to 8 unlocks these skills. Counter and Retaliate are both counter skills, with Counter activating when the Monk gets hit by a physical attack, and Retaliate activating when they get hit by an elemental one. When they activate, the Monk goes after the enemy that attacked them with a Strike attack that deals 200% to 380% damage from levels 1 through 10. They can also activate multiple times. But you'd have to predict which attacks are coming out, and ensure that the Monk gets hit by them, which probably isn't good for their survival.
Fist Mastery, like the other weapon mastery skills, provides a 2% to 11% damage boost to fist attacks from levels 1 through 10. Unlike the weapon mastery skills, the damage bonus from Fist Mastery applies to skills. This because the damage bonus is applied directly to the formula that determines how powerful a Monk's fists are. More on that later.
Breakfire Fist is unlocked by leveling up Fist Mastery and Waking Chakra to 3.
Can't keep a good girl down!
Waking Chakra is a passive that affects how fast a Monk can recover from status effects and binds. At level 1, it's a 30% recovery rate, and at level 3, it's a 38% recovery rate. It caps out at 70% at level 10. But I really don't find this a useful passive for a few reasons. One reason being that if your Monk gets tagged with an ailment or bind, chances are, you want to get rid of it immediately. And Waking Chakra, even at max level, only ensures that ailments and binds will go away after 2 to 3 turns, which is more than enough time for a formidable enemy to capitalize on that and ruin everything. Still, I need to get it to 3 to unlock their best damage skill.
Leveling up Fist Mastery to 8 and Breakfire Fist to 3 unlocks Darkness Fist. Which is a fist skill that sacrifices 25% of the Monk's current HP pool, in order to deal 130% to 210% Strike damage to all enemies, and has a 30% to 60% chance of Cursing them. It's not that great. Curse is by far the most worthless ailment in the series (on the player's end anyway.) and the Monk has one of the worst LUC stats in the game. Still, this is the only skill that can inflict Curse, and some of the worst conditional drops in the game require the Curse ailment, so I'll be showing off this skill later. 
Flaming fists of justice!
And now for the main attraction. Breakfire Fist is a random target attack that hits 2 times, and each hit deals 70% Fire/Strike damage at level 1, while at level 10 the skill can hit 2 to 5 times, and each hit deals 100% damage. So it has an average damage output of 350%.
There's a lot you can do with one little spark.
And I spent the last skill point in Fire Mastery, because why not?
Anyways, in order to use Fist skills, you Monk must be unarmed. So how powerful are a Monk's fists? Well the formula to determine that is (Level + STR) * Fist Mastery Skill Power. So Faye is essentially wielding a weapon with 57 attack power right now.
For comparison, this is one of the strongest maces I have at the moment. Yeah, not that great. That's mainly the reason why Punch Monks can't keep up with actual damage classes. Their fists can't keep up with weapons until the postgame. Now there is a way to make Punch Monks stronger. Though be warned, this is not a legitimate thing you can do, and is more of an exploit.
For reference, this is how much damage Faye can do at the moment.
Now what happens if you have a Monk equip a weapon, and leave their first equipment slot empty?
What in the world is that.
It's my club! I had a great idea! Like, I taped the thing to my arm so I could punch things with my fist and my club at the same time! Cool, huh?
Uh, and just how's that different from hitting things with the club?
You'll see!
Well she's basically attacking with her weapon.
Still not seeing a difference.
This is just idiotic.
Rrr. I'll show you. This totally works!
Alright, see those bugs? I'll go and-the heck?
Is that... Narmer?
Hey, I thought we killed that thing. How's it alive and... staring right at us?
Perhaps it is challenging us to battle.
Hmm. Hee hee hee!
Whenever you kill a boss, they won't respawn until you reach the final floor of the next Stratum, which is the 8th floor in this case. Afterward, they'll respawn every 14 days, like the Red FOEs.
Hmm, I don't think this catfish plans on running this time. Stay back everyone, I'll fight this thing myself!
Heh, well I guess I'm itching for another fi-wait WHAT!? Okay Faye. I love a good fight and all, but there's living the dangerous life, and then there's just being crazy. You're doing the second thing.
Pfft, whatever. You think this fist club is dumb? I'll prove you wrong!
Miss Faye, please stop this madness!
On rematches, you don't have to catch up to Narmer. You can just walk up to it to fight it.
Here's Faye's setup for this fight.
Video: Faye punches a catfish. In the face.
For the record, you can't go behind Narmer to get a preemptive attack. It'll just turn to face you if you attempt that. In fact, every boss in this game does that now, so no more preemptive attacks on them. Though with that said, you can randomly get a preemptive attack on Narmer since you could get the drop on it the first time you fought it. That didn't happen here.
Now the reason I'm doing this is because of Narmer's Gold Drop. You have to kill him with a 1 man party, which you're unlikely to pull off when you first have to fight him.
Indomitable is my biggest safety net. If something goes wrong, or Narmer decides to just kill Faye, this will prevent me from getting a game over.
Come at me!
I really don't see this ending well.
Hey, if Faye gets in trouble, we'll just step in and help her out. Simple.
Since Faye is the only character in this fight, she'll be taking every single hit, which the game really wasn't balanced around.
CHARGIN' UP!
You don't have to yell when you're accumulating energy, you know. Only barbarians do that.
But Rose does it all the time!
...Once again, only barbarians do that.
And even though Faye has a mace equipped, she still has access to her fist skills.
Faye did a total of 717 points of damage. Eh, I guess that's okay.
Flaming fists to the face!
Hmm. Surprising. It actually works!
Eh, sort of? Still not seeing it. I mean I could probably hit it even harder with my crossbow.
Gah! Where'd Narmer go?
He's in front-no no, now you're just walking backwards.
Take this! And that!
Miss Faye, perhaps you should heal up. Your wounds are starting to look serious.
Solo fights tend to involve spamming healing items due to the nature of one character taking a lot of or little to no damage. If you get unlucky and the enemy uses a lot of high damage moves, you might be forced to waste a bunch of turns healing up until they decide to use one of their less lethal skills.
Uh, Faye? What are you gonna do about that? You can't search for Narmer by yourself.
I've got an idea.
This is pretty much a dice roll, but it's better than just attacking one hole at a time.
But fortunately, I've managed to draw Narmer out.
Faye just dealt a total of 1192 points of damage.
And Narmer doesn't have much HP left.
Now in rematches, Narmer won't run once it drops below 51%. It'll just stay and fight.
I take this time to restore Faye's TP, since she's running low.
Submerged move has an action speed of -200, so it'll always go last.
I was debating on whether I should have Faye pop another Amrita, or just have her heal up.
Healing up turned out to be the better decision.
Here's Earthquake in action. It has an action speed of -90, so your party has extra time to draw Narmer out if it decides to use it. It's an Almighty attack that uses Narmer's STR stat, so people in the back row will actually take less damage. Though when you first fight it, that's unlikely to make a difference.
Ow... So that's what happens if I leave it in there.
Whether you draw Narmer out yourself, or it decides to use Earthquake, it'll pop out of the mud sooner or later.
Get ready, cause here I-
Really?
How long do you think she can hold up?
You know her. She'd try to walk through a brick wall, even if you told her it was impossible. Her determination and stubbornness are something, alright.
Oh boy. This is the main thing that caused a game over in my attempts to have Faye solo Narmer.
Ow ow! Geez, that was close.
Whip Ripper is Narmer's most dangerous move in a solo fight. Mainly because the multihit aspect enables Narmer to hit through Indomitable if you get unlucky and he rolls a high number of hits, which fortunately didn't happen here.
Hmm. Aha!
At this point, I realized that Narmer's most dangerous move was Whip Ripper, not Earthquake since Faye can tank Earthquake pretty easily.
Okay Narmer, hit me with your best shot!
So my strategy was to have Faye Etheric Charge, then punish Narmer's use of Earthquake by following up immediately with Breakfire Fist.
Flaming fists to the fa-
ACK PBBBBTH!
Argh!
Pffffthahahahaha! Ah... Should we step in now?
Unfortunately, Mud Throw has an action speed of +2, which is enough to outspeed Faye and ruin my plans. 
No need. Because if at first you don't succeed...
Ow. Stand closer...
And punch again!
See? Told you I could do it!
Well done, Faye. Now please don't do that again.
I think I could have killed it faster with my crossbow, but I guess if you want to keep using that thing, go ahead.
Um, is it me, or did Narmer just suddenly disappear?
Huh you're right. Must've been a ghost or something. Spooooky!
...Sure, whatever you say, Faye.
So how you get Narmer's Gold drop is that the game checks to see how many people are in your party when you deal the killing blow to Narmer. However, summoned units count as extra party members! So if you're using a Ninja or a Wildling, if you still have a clone or an animal out when Narmer dies, you won't get the Gold drop. So make sure to call off the summon right before you deal the killing blow.
For those of you that have played the 2nd game, you'll probably be disappointed to find that not only are the conditional drops are a lot harder to get, they sell for way less. For those of you that aren't familiar with what I'm talking about, boss conditional drops sold for 30,000en and were far easier to get than the boss conditionals in this game. (All you had to do for the 1st boss was kill it while it was Poisoned, which was far easier to pull off than soloing it.) Now if that sounds like it toppled the game's balance, trust me when I say that wasn't the worst of it.
Anyways, selling the Trembling Fin unlocks this baby.
It's... it's beautiful. 
And extremely expensive.
Can you pleeeeeeease, lower the price?
No.
Aw come on, I have some coupons I can use!
Only one coupon at a time, please.
Darn. 
And that's why I advised you not to go for the Gold drop. Not only do you miss out on the crossbow, you unlock a weapon that is gonna be super time consuming to get the money for if you unlock it as soon as possible. I'm not gonna bother scrounging up the money for that thing, because I really don't like grinding. Also because that's not actually the strongest mace in the game (but it is the 2nd strongest!) Anyways, if I made Punch Monks seem appealing, there's one last word of warning I must pass on.
I don't know... how much longer I can last...
MEEEEEDIIIIIIIIC!
Oh no! Sidney's legs have been torn off! There's so much blood gushing out!
I have suddenly burst into flames! 
Don't worry everyone, I can fix thi-
...Aw, fudge.
Chances are if you're using a Punch Monk, you had to ignore their healing skills.
Good job Miss Faye. Your skills in getting us killed are to be admired.
Once again Faye, you never think things through.
You know, I really appreciated how you ignored my severed legs, just so you could punch a catfish and a croc.
Just what were you hoping to accomplish with that?
Okay okay, I get it! I'll stick to healing! Sheesh.
And the main problems with Punch Monks are that if you're making use of one, they're not healing. And Monks have a much bigger impact when they're supporting your party instead of punching things in the face. Even with the glitch, you're leaving a party member that's not making use of an equipment slot for armor in the front row. Which is too much risk for too little reward, if you ask me. Especially in the post-game, where you really want to be making use of every single equipment slot for the big fights. And the Monk's class skill increases their healing capabilities, not their damage output, so the class really isn't suited for offense. If you really want to use a Punch Monk, it's just better to use a Gladiator and sub Monk onto them, since they actually have the stats to deal damage, and they're durable enough that the unarmed glitch's equipment restriction won't hinder them.