Overview

The weapons class of choice for Monk and Puppetmaster, hand-to-hand (H2H) emphasizes pure melee damage potential. Although its attack and accuracy are calculated like that of one-handed weapons, hand-to-hand damage and delay are calculated in a way unlike any other weapon class.

The damage of a hand-to-hand weapon is added to a character's natural hand-to-hand damage. A character's natural hand-to-hand damage is calculated by multiplying hand-to-hand skill by 0.11 and then adding 3. When calculating the Weapon Rank, however, the number used as the weapon base damage is the number displayed on the weapon plus 3, with no contribution from hand-to-hand skill.

This means that hand-to-hand damage is capped slightly lower than other weapons with equivalent damage rating. For example, the weapon rating for Destroyers with capped hand-to-hand skill is 53, but their damage cap is equivalent to another weapon (such as Sword) with a weapon rating of 50 because their weapon rank is computed as 18+3=21. This can be a problem when using some damage calculators for FFXI, since they assume weapon rank uses the same number as weapon rating or equivalent Weapon Base Damage, and would therefore give slightly inaccurate values. To fix this problem with hand-to-hand weapons and other weapons which have different weapon ranks than predicted by their weapon rating (Maneater, Blau Dolch, etc.), a damage calculator must ask for both the weapon rating and weapon rank separately instead of trying to calculate one from the other.

A hand-to-hand weapon's delay works in the same way as its damage. A character's natural hand-to-hand delay is set at 480 and can be reduced with a Monk's or Puppetmaster's job trait Martial Arts. Multiple levels of Martial Arts allow a Monk's natural delay to go as low as 280. The amount of delay seen on a hand-to-hand weapon is added to the base delay.

NOTE: If a character does not have natural hand-to-hand skill (or a subjob with the skill) or has equipped a shield, attacks will only swing with one fist instead of two regardless of any hand-to-hand skill merits present, but the delay will still be the same length as if it had two. For example, a Red Mage/White Mage with a hand-to-hand weapon would only swing with one fist, but a Red Mage/Warrior or Red Mage/Monk will swing with two. The only job trait that affects this skill is Martial Arts.