How i would fix monk if i had the chance.

Monk is my favorite job, so i don't get to play my favorite job very much ....
I love monk in every single FF property i always feel its fun to play, and XI is no exception ... however i see some major problems in game design on monk, a lot of abilities that dont have thier place or home and are rarely used in newer modern content ... and a lot of really confusing equipment options and design ....

So lets start at the meat and potatoes the job and abilities itself ... this is what i would do ...

First i think we need to break monk down into 3 sub roles and i think some of those sub roles need more than one option as well.

Tank - We havent seen this one but rarely since abbysea ... to many mobs with endeath or rediculious endrain effects, as well as aoe magic damage flying everywhere and many mobs almost REQUIRING the tank not to engage.

Damage dealer - The only thing monk is allowed to play right now and generally your are pretty much last pick as slow TP gain, a near inability to self sc, and being one of the frailest melee dd's in the lower gear tiers make you a very risky pick.

Magic damage dealers - Really old like 50 cap and 75 cap old ... boost and chi blast sets lol haven't seen that in forever ...
-----------------------------now----------------
I want to hit these one at a time lets start with tank and we'll move on to roles as we go until i run out of space.

First problem :: Counterstance
I understand the learyness of the developers after abbysea to give monk a mainline role as tank as they also deal a llot of damage but nowadays no one bats an eye when a run/drk or run/sam pull staggering damage numbers while tanking ....
I'de like to point out if you look at every other tanking ability in the game you generally give up offense to increase your defense or give up nothing at all (Defender, Sentinel, Utsusemi, etc.) Monk has the distinguished honor of having the worst designed defensive ability in the game ... you trade tons of defense ... for a better chance to not get hit by regular auto attacks .... adoulin mobs and up have tp regular attacks all day, ws one shot you without even a 2 hr, and you still have the glaring monk weakness of absolutely no magic defense. to give the tank ability back to monk we have to make it mutually exclusive.

So i want to propose a few simple solutions to this .... one change counterstance into a "Stance" meaning it cannot be dispelled lasts super long and refreshes cooldown on zone. and what it does is increase guard chance and the percentage of damage reduced by a successful guard(primarily weapon skill damage reduction) nd increase counter chance (less than it currently does) and an enmity bonus in exchange for attack and counter attacks now generate enmity, finally allow counter attacks form the entire 180 front ark and guard from all directions. this places it firmly in the tank abilities ... it will lockout any other "monk stance" until the cooldown is over or a zone happens or another job gives a JA refresh (like corsair).
This way a DD with paper armor cant just throw on counterstance at no cost, the enmity will make that a risky gambit, and their damage will suffer.

Second up the new stance needs equipment support.
Weapon Spharai changes ...
Give spharai DT - II less than paladin more or less than runefencer can access depending on where you want them to fall in damage, switch the afterglow to attack on all attacks.

Artifact 119+ take all the counter, counter attack damage plus, Highest defense and HP stats of all the endgame job specific gear and then add DT- This set at +3 should add up to 50 DT- with a +1 moonbow belt on. wearing this armor on a monk should mean the highest max HP in the game ... no other FF property has monks with lower health than any job in the game ever ... but ill take highest hp on tank role only if that all i can get.

Change Mantra to a passive aura that grants max HP to the monk (double) and allies based on the monks unadjusted by gear max health. mantra plus on gear will increase the % health gifted as will merits or JP. giving monks a dynamite gift to give the party.

I would make a few conditional changes to some abilities while under the effects of counterstance as follows ::

Chi blast :: becomes aoe on target and generates increased enmity(like provoke), does not break sleep.

Perfect Counter :: Negates the next physical weapon skill and gives the monk 100 tp if successful.


Boost :: Change boost back to a spammable 10 sec cooldown ability, but with a longer duration so you can stack it ... it will be used to prepare other abilities faster.
under effects of counter-stance :: resets attack cooldown, and ignores haste for next attack round and generates no enmity, every three boost stacks will be immediately consumed to reset chackra cooldown.

Chakra :: Under the effects of counterstance ::
Can be used regardless of CC status (cannot be prevented by any physical crowd control magical crowd control or conditional like paralyze) Scale the burst heal differently to be more like half the monks max health, but chakra + gear will add to "Invigorate" instead. change invigorate regen to be +regen amount and have it stack with autoregen or spell regen. every 2 seconds and upon initial use of chakra remove one physical debuff.

Moving on to damage dealer.

Monk is already a decent damage dealer ... there is a few small things, here that you have to worry about ... one is cross bleed ... if you make monk able to tank how do you prevent their damage from cross bleeding like it did in abyssea. Simple make Impetus a DD "Stance" and organize the DD gear i actually recommend splitting physical DD into 2 types a "Two handed fighter" like variant and a "Dual wield" variant lets start with the "Dual wield" Variant

____Fast attacking dd monk____

Impetus :: will be changed to a "Stance" which means its undispellable and locks out counterstance, Footwork, and Formless Strikes. It will create a combo bonus each successful consecutive hit, will reduce enemy evasion (will not refresh but will be overwritten by a greater effect ... more consecutive hits) and increase your crit chance until a critical hit is achieved then the critical hit chance will reset. guard chance and defense will suffer in exchange.

Focus :: Increases accuracy and prevents Impetus from resetting on a critical hit for its duration. this skill can break the accuracy cap with diminishing returns. Or if thats too hard to program have it gain zanshin chance.

Chakra :: Under the effects of impetus :: any chakra +, and invigorate + is added to regain that lasts during invigorate.

Chi Blast :: Can double attack, triple attack, quadruple attack, and kick attack, stacks impetus, and gives TP for hits.

Boost :: Three stacks will instantly be removed upon completion and grant a buff for 1m that gets consumed on next weapon skill that grants greatly increased critical strike chance for that Weapon skill(+20% ?) each boost + on the last boost will increase the critical hit bonus to next ws.

equipment :: Verithragna is already well suited to this task, just move TP store and more DA/TA to relic set and some of the Crit from the Artifact over here.

__Two handed damage dealer type __

Change Footwork to instead be a stance called Devastation increases Base damage of your primary weapon and WS damage in exchange for lower attack speed and dodge it locks out impetus, and counterstance and formless strikes. it is important to note that no benefit will be gained from offhand weapons (grips yes).

During impetus the following job abilities change effect ::

Focus :: Each successful consecutive hit reduces enemy defense (does not refresh but can be overwritten by more consecutive hits(greater effect))

Chi Blast :: Temporarily stuns the target.

Boost :: Now after three charges are acquired a 1m buff thats consumed upon activation the next WS does increased base damage per hit and Does a single unresistant dispel (doesn't pierce immunity) and each boost + on final boost adds a dispel that can be resisted.

Lastly i want to talk about how i would revive the long dead days of the monk magical DD.

It starts ... you guessed it with a stance.
Formless strikes i always thought was a unique ability it was something most players overlooked until they really needed it ....

Lets change it to like all the others i have listed lock out counter stance, impetus, devastation(footwork), etc. now i would recommend making it convert some physical attack or all into magic attack just make sure that the levels of magic attack attainable are commensurate with a magic damage dealer .... we don't want this to be the highest magic damage dealer in the game ... we just want role flexibility for the monk ... so people don't say "Sorry this boss can't be physically damaged" and not allow the monk to come. Next like the other DD options on monk we want a "combo bonus" each consecutive hit will debuff the targets magic resist(will not refresh but can be overwritten by more hits) especially with monks high HP and as ive added to the class flexibility. monk will lose ... well ... attack in trade .. they will be losing all ability to do any real physical damage in exchange for their damage type always being magical .... this ability should also unlock a WS of each elemental damage type for ST and AOE but lockout the physical weapon skills. Its ok if these WS's are only stage 2 as the monk will be trying to magic burst on the third step of a sc or their own second step with chi blast.

Chakra :: Works like the counterstance chakra except it purges magical debuffs every few seconds instead of physical.

Boost :: after three stacks are achieved creates a 1m buff that empowers the next chi blast and resets chi blast cool down to magic burst and grants a HIGH base damage increase and Matt bonus to it.

Chi Blast :: all Chi blast + gear is doubled in effectiveness and raises the base damage of Chi Blast.

Focus :: In addition to accuracy each melee hit will stack up Matt until a spell is cast or chi blast is used.

As some final notes, i think in general more "Stances" need to be created and they should be willful decisions to play a different way i think honestly composure is the best in game example already go ahead and make that a stance as well. all stances should have this in common on any job :: they lockout other stance options form the same job. they modify the way the class is played, they are undispellable, and they are a meaningful choice one equips around, and adapts ones playstyle to. Ill cover some more when i examine other jobs and put up my 2 cents.

I think by default on monk boost should be a "give up dps, enmity, etc." now for a greater effect later ... and the player should have to work them in to their rotation in a way they "don't cost too much" like in the example of the tank ... boost generates no enmity, it resets and slows down your attack round .... it has a cost in time .... but its there so if you have control of enmity, you can better heal yourself(with chakra).

I also think that each of these stances should be available before the subjob cutoff making monk a much more diverse and useful subjob. making it possible for any melee DD to use the formless strikes and be viable in a fight where physical damage is pointless or overly dangerous.

Mantra should be main job only level range its a unique buff no other job has and i feel if the amount given is substantial enough its a reason anyone might want a monk in the party even to dd as it may make the summoners and blm in the part a touch more survivable.

DT- i think is really too hard to get for some jobs and i feel monk falls into this category found it rather confusing that thiefs have the same DT- right at 99 - 119 range as you do as do dark knights who are supposed to be "Glass Cannons" but i want to do a excerpt on what ide change about darkknight anyway so ill cover that later.
Monk often at low gear levels has little to no access to DT- meaning alot of the undodge-able and unavoidable entry level end game encounters are near impossible for monk and lead to a lot of instant one shots on a job that really should be one of the tankier melee DD's and safer melee dd's to play.

Lastly if you like my content posted above or any of my others, please use it square even only some of it ...I am very interested in Game design ... i would love to switch careers into it if possible .... so if you do use it please credit me so i can use it as a reference ... or heck hire me i need money. Remember ... even though i am criticizing the game i absolutely love it ... there isnt a game ive played for more hours or gotten more enjoyment out of than this one ....

Thanks for all that you do.

Forgot to mention i think monk should either one of the following in order of my preference ::
Be able to dual wield clubs, claws, fists etc. slower than nin.(like thf) to get the stat bonuses from offhand fist weapon.

Be able to equip grips and have stat scaling on their fist weapons to be commensurate with excellent 2 handed weapons like lionheart and ragnarok have them count as two handed weapons for interaction with SAM.

Stay programmed as they are but with at least 2 handed weapon stat scaling....

Monk has a serious problem due to how its weapons work it doesn't interact well with other jobs that it would sub, DA overwriting KA since you can't proc both on same attack and KA is better by gear and JP ... counter being almost last in defensive order ....(followed only by guard) cant parry .... with no native provoke (which i fixed with my proposal) pretty much limits them to /war or /dnc, with /SAM with a pole but there is no good pole weapons for monk past 119 baseline.

Subbing sam with a native provoke would open monk up for fights that need you to avoid melee auto attacks (endeath).

Monk also needs a better way to buff its measly Magic resistance .... even if its a specific sub ... what available by subbing either run or GEO is not enough either those jobs subjob additions to the formula need some buffing or monk itself maybe needs access to a touch more magic defense and magic evasion especially in "Tank gear"

Forgot to mention that monk 2 hr is already completely obsolete .... most people just call it "regular attack speed" on all the other jobs in the game.

i would change the 2(1) hour to ::
Master of styles :: Gain all the benefits of monk stances for 30 seconds and none of the disadvantages.

(even before you have the stances)

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Category:...or_3_.28Su3.29

This set has super high magic evasion, biggest thing that needs to be done for this set is to change the subtle blow I to subtle blow II due to both mnk and nin easily attaining maximum subtle blow I without head/body/hands/legs/feet equipment.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Exalted_Staff_%2B1

Current MNK staff BiS

Right and neither of them make you capable of tanking end game or dpsing end game they are both not very useful.