Monk Ideas

[AyinDygra]

Overall, most Monks agree (myself included) that Monk is, and always has been, a great damage dealer. It gained new respect as a tank as well. My ideas are ways to expand our versatility or enhance features that are unique to the job, hopefully without "overpowering" them.

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Guard
First up, I'd say Guard is currently a laughing matter rather than a useful skill, and this is a shame. While the skill itself is great in concept, its infrequent activation gives it little relevance to any serious discussion about its utility. Compounding the problem is how hard it is to increase the skill level. Also annoying is that we have to judge its activation based on how much damage we took, or if we evaded an enemy's TP attack, rather than a clear message that Guard is what just helped us.

* Guard needs to activate much more often against enemies where guarding would matter.
* Please change the combat log to indicate "Guarded" and other special combat rounds (like kicks).
* When you guard an enemy TP attack, instead of showing a miss, let us know Guard activated.

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Monk Off-hand Slot
Second, perhaps in place of shields and grips, create a line of wristwraps or other martial arts-specific gear to place in the off-hand weapon slot which adds Monk-specific bonuses. Some of these would be available to other jobs with Hand-to-Hand skill too (Pup, Dnc, Thf, War, Nin), only equippable while either equipping a Hand-to-Hand weapon in the main weapon slot or bare-fisted.

Examples of Hand Wraps: (EXAMPLES, quickly listed)
* Training Wraps ~ Level 5, Accuracy +1, Guard +1
* Hardened Wraps ~ Level 75, H2H skill +5, Guard Skill +10, Enhances Guard (high chance to guard critical hits)
* Tight Wraps ~ Defense+10, Strength+2, Augments Counterstance (Reduces defense penalty)
* Studded Wraps ~ Attack +10, Adds "Additional Effect: Occasionally ignores defense" to melee hits.
* Soft Wraps ~ HP+25, Vit+5, Auto-Regen (2hp)
* Fireproof Wraps ~ Fire Resist+25 (For each element)
* Enchanted Wraps ~ Enhancing Magic Skill +50? (or some effect that allows en-spells cast on the Monk to do more damage)
* Entangling Wraps ~ Counter +5, Augments Counterattack (Gain TP from counterattacks)
* Disqualifying Wraps ~ Adds "Additional Effect: Blind" to melee hits with concealed blinding powder.
* Dragonscale Wraps ~ Level 90, Occasionally nullifies physical damage.

All Monk Gear (including the new off-hand weapon slot) could have these bonuses:
* Gain TP from counterattacks.
* Allow Monk to counter enemy special attacks.
* Reduce the penalty to defense during counterstance or increase defense granted by vitality.
* Guard attacks that "would have been" critical hits had they landed, more often than normal guard rate.
* Chance to stun/terror target with kick attacks. (very short stun duration)
This version of stun would not contribute to the enemy's magical resistance building to enfeebles.
* Possibly cause TP damage from kicks.

I'd suggest adding things like these to new necklaces, earrings, rings, thrown weapons, and ammo, unless you plan to introduce new armor sets that exceed the Empyrean+2 sets. (or add "wild card" type effects to gear that "acts as a member of an existing set")

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Stances
Third, a problem shared by several jobs, is the fact that "Stances" such as Hasso/Seigan/Footwork/Counterstance/etc can be dispelled by enemies. These stances are integral to the role the job is attempting to fill. Removing them prematurely (especially for those with 5min recast/5min duration) makes dispel one of the most crippling moves an enemy can use.
* Please make all role-adjusting stances (not just Monk's) immune to dispel. Thank you.

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Possible New Job Abilities:

Job Ability: Brawler
Level: 50
Duration: 5min
Recast: 1min
When engaged in combat with an enemy using Hand-to-hand skill, increase player's guard, counterattack, attack speed and kick attack rates.

This is just a flavor skill with the thought that when two martial artists are fighting, they guard and counter each other all the time in a flurry of attacks. (Kicks are fun) I also find it annoying that I sometimes find it better to turn around when faced with a powerful Monk monster, otherwise I'd kill myself with my own attacks (countered). You'd think a Monk is the best prepared to fight another Monk. I'd have made this a trait, but monsters also gain job traits at the same level as players, and this is meant to make it slightly more fun for monks to fight monk monsters.

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2 complimentary stances to add to Footwork and Counterstance. These function on the "Stances" concept of give and take to focus on a different aspect of the job. These stances are not meant for increasing maximum damage -- we do great with that already -- they're for alternative roles in the group. Some people may think we "can" already fill these roles just fine without these stances, but these stances would really cement the idea that we're meant to fill the roles.

Job Ability: Iron Shirt (stance)
Level 50
Duration: 5min
Recast: 5min
This is a tanking stance that entirely switches Monk's focus from attacks to defense. While it reduces a Monk's damage capabilities, it makes up for it with reduced enmity loss and higher enmity gains, so it does not have to rely on damage to keep the enemy's attention.
* Unable to cast spells at all.
* Cannot use "Footwork"
* Guard rate increased.
* Kickattacks disabled, kick attack rate added to guard rate.
* Reduce Damage Taken by 20%
* Reduce enmity loss from taking damage.
* Chance to stun enemy when their attack is guarded.
* During Iron Shirt, the "Boost" ability changes effect to "Raise Defense" until the Monk takes unguarded damage.
When Iron Shirt is activated or wears off, Boost's effect wears off.
* Increase enmity gain (especially from "boost")
* Reduce Chakra's recast when used during Iron Shirt.

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Job Ability: Viper Stance
Level 60
Duration: 5min
Recast: 5min
This is an attack stance focused on using pressure points to cripple the enemy.
* Recast penalty on all spells.
* Decrease Evasion
* Decrease Attack Power
* Increase Attack Speed
* Critical Hit Damage increases.
* Critical Hit Chance increases.
* Critical Hits inflict TP damage and have a chance to inflict one crippling status ailment on the target from this list: choke, paralysis, blind, silence, attack down, defense down, slow.
* Kick Attacks are disabled for the duration.
* Cannot use "Footwork"
* Increase the rate of "additional effects" triggering on armor and weapons.
(Perhaps Kick Attack rate could be used for the additional effect activation rate)
* When enemies counter/block/parry the Monk's attacks, have a chance of inflicting the random bad statuses on them anyway.

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A few adjustments to existing job abilities:

Footwork adjustments
* Increase damage against enemies with high defense. (no effect on low defense enemies)
* Allow more than 2 kicks per round.
* Allow Counter-kicks based on kick attack rate, Double/Triple attack rates, and multi-hit weapon properties. (for example: take it into consideration when activating an extra counter-kick when a counterattack lands. This becomes a "double attack" for Counterattack, only with a kick)

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Invigorate adjustment
Please allow Invigorate's regen to be a separate effect from the regen spell OR do not allow regen spells to over-write Invigorate's effect. Invigorate can be much better than Regen I and II (Regen III can be better, but I still don't want Invigorate overwritten).

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Mantra adjustments
I don't think many Monks see this as very useful unless they have Dark Knight friends. Other Monks would just as well see this ability be forgotten about. When compared to Invigorate, Penance and Formless Strikes, this is generally considered the weakest of the four. My suggestions are:
* When the party receives the HP bonus, cure the newly "gained" hp (this does not mean heal people to full, just cure them by the amount added by Mantra)
* Allow the Mantra status to exist alongside the HP buff of Cruor and Giant Drinks, but only increase HP to the amount that is higher (not cumulative). See adjustment to Chakra:

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Trait: Chakra Mastery
Allows Chakra to restore some HP & MP of nearby party members. ("Wind Instrument Range")
* HP restoring calculation does not change from current Chakra.
* MP restoring is based on the Monk's Mind stat. (Maximum should be about 2x Mnd)
* The AoE Chakra effect also cures the same status effects as the single target version.
* The Area of Effect healing is based on a percentage of the amount restored to the Monk.
Tiers:
I: Level 40 - Heals the party for 20% HP & MP restored. Allows Chakra to restore MP.
II: Level 60 - Increases to 30%.
III: Level 80 - Increases to 40%.
IV: Level 99 - Increases to 50%.
Clarification: If a monk's Chakra healed self 600hp & 180mp at level 99, the highest HP & MP healed to nearby party members under normal conditions would be 300hp & 90mp.
* When Mantra is in effect, the AoE healing effect of Chakra is equal to the healing done to the Monk. Mantra only lasts 3min, allowing only 1 use of Chakra at this strength.
* When used by a subjob, chakra remains self-target only, but gains the MP restoration by this trait at Main80/Mnk40.

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There we go, some Monk ideas that add versatility and uniqueness while not overpowering their damage capabilities.

[Musahashi]

o.o

I think you have thought far too much abuot this...

Think of monks in previous FF games... the whole point was to deal high damage, this game represents that. Why would we want a defense boost, or a reduction in attacks. And why make chakra AoE? You'll only build extreme hate for that. Monk is a DD, pure and simple, it's not a versatility job, a support job or a tank, it's a DD thats all.

If you want to have versatility, and support features, give DNC and BLU a shot, they're designed for that. If you want a tank, give PLD or NIN a shot, just don't go expecting the same damage values.

The only thing I agree with you on, is the off-hand slot, it's unfair everyone else gets grips but we don't get anything. The guard proc rate could also be improved, aswell as counter proc rate, but they are the only things I would like to see changed.

[AyinDygra]

Actually, I assure you that I have done extensive research, as well as having played the past FF games first-hand, always favoring Monk. That was my main motivation to add new things, to bring in the past abilities of Monks with a FFXI spin.

In FF1, yes, they just did lots and lots of damage. (There were few options)
In FF2j, characters did not have unique abilities. (one character had high str and vit and used H2H)
In FF3j, They have the ability to Boost their attack power (Boost/Build Up)
In FF2/4j, Yang had the AoE attack: Kick, also many elemental and status effect claws. In the remake, he had the FFXI "Boost" equivalent: Focus as well as "Brace" which was a major boost to defense (more than the defend command)
In FF5, They can Store/Buildup (Boost), Barefist (grants h2h bonus when barehanded), Chakra (heal self HP, blind and poison), Counter
In FF3/6j, Sabin had several Blitzes including Chakra (cures party based on his own HP) and Spiraler (cures HP and MP of party, but sacrifices self), Aurabolt (much like Chi blast), and several physical and elemental Blitzes.
In FF7, Tifa used the slots-based barrage of attacks.
In FF8, Zell continued the use of Blitz button combinations resulting in attacks similar to Tifa.
In FF9, Amarant was a Monk Ninja mix who used Chakra (single target, but under Trance became AoE, and had a trait that made it more powerful - this healed both HP and MP) and Revive, which brought a party member back to life, Aura (which was single target Auto-reraise and Regen that became party-target under Trance), along with Counter.
In FF Tactics, Monk's Chakra was AoE, and healed both HP and MP. They also had Revive to yell and wake up a KO'd party member. Stigma Magic/Purification cured abnormal status ailments. Secret Fist/Doom Fist caused status ailments with Pressure Points. They also had Counter, Auto-regen, Pummel, Aurablast (Chi Blast), Spin Fist, Hamedo (counterattack without taking damage), and Martial Arts (Hand to hand skill when barehanded).
In FF12 International, the License board was divided into jobs, including Monk that used Brawl (Barehand damage boost), Poles (staffs), White Magic, First Aid (low HP healing), Revive (revive from KO), Achilles (add a weakness to the target), Wither (reduce enemy attack power), Expose (reduce enemy defense), among other things.

Also, the claws in most of the FF games have granted Elemental and Status attacks to augment the Monk's basic attacks.

Several trends are easy to see, and I think everything I put forward fits right in.

[Musahashi]

But try to relate to the game in it's current state. It's no longer the game that squaresoft originally produced, and it's more like a random MMORPG with a high profile brand tag, thats all.

But if anything, true to the wishes of the previous squaresoft team, it does have many more FFV features than it does any other in the series, yet it still lacks any correlation between the games gone before it.

So comparing this game to features in older games will no longer work, Enix have no love for Final Fantasy, and continue to push the new games away from it's original market, that considered, take a look at the battle mechanics to see for yourself.

Since the enix takeover, the entire battle system is almost completely re-written, implementing any of the older features of the job would certainly create difficulty's in battle, especially when you start giving out AoE cures, aswell as dealing the most damage, and then taking all the hits.

Then you have the def boosts.... just no... We'd turn into a TP giver instead of a dmg dealer, just the same as PLD has.

And also, we don't have turn based battle systems here, it's fast paced and now at the high levels, the kills for exp are so quick, all new job abilities would be utterly useless.

On top of that, most of the seasoned FFXI players have left, leaving behind alot of people who can't be arsed to help others without reward, so everyone now finds themself soloing most things, so whats the point of having anything AoE for a pty that wont be there.

[Juilan]

i just think the job needs a guard stance that doesn't adjust damage, but just guards instead of countering

[Greatguardian]

Why would it be better to take some damage than to take no damage *And* hit the enemy?

[Neisan_Quetz]

Ironclads/Karkadann/Shinryu clearly (not that I advocate this being implemented).

[Bulrogg]

I do say, that my sub slot feels naked when I play MONK. Some sort of wraps or forearm bangles would be nice to put in that slot.

[Denabond]

I find giving monk more defensive skills to be rather pointless. Our main focus is DDing, not tanking. Yes were currently the best tanks atm, but making JAs to we can tank even better is rather pointless. Defensive wise, just increasing the base guard proc rate is good enough, so that there is a reason to bother skilling it. And it would be nice to have an item in my sub slot, but a few that you mentioned can be seen as overly cheap. Like the current grips that are out, they should be nice to have, but not overpowering. As for stances, they should just reduce the cooldown to a min like Haseo/Seigan. I haven't really seen that many times where sams and /sams had trouble keeping those up because 1 min isn't that long of a wait. And I would skip on adding even more stances too. The Iron Shirt stance mentioned wouldn't really be used over Counterstance, and Viper Stance just kinda looks like your trying to have a JA that gives you RR atam effect. Overall some nice ideas, but some can be argued to be useless or too overpowering.

[Ruvion]

I like your ideas and see that you put alot of research into this. However, keep in mind that this would WAY overpower the job, but then again, SE seems to like overpowering popular jobs. Remember a few years ago how SAM got EVERYTHING. Now that MNK is a bandwagon job, SE might consider doing some of these things you suggested. I would love to see something that helps improve guard and fill that empty sub slot.

On a side note, I don't understand really why h2h can't be like a dual wield job. I mean you are using both of your hands afterall just like a NIN. Let me mainhand my vereth. and offhand the 2-4 ursine claws +2, lol but I guess that would just way overpower the job like NIN right now anyway.