What I'd Like to See for Monk

[Shurrikhan]

Written during Shadowbringers

Background Changes

• When replacing a given status effect on oneself or on the same target, the prior duration is duplicated onto the replacing application to a maximum of the lesser of the replacing application's duration or 3 seconds. E.g. if you clip a Demolish (normally 18 seconds) at 15 seconds (3 seconds left), the replacing application will last 21 seconds.
• The time at which animation lock (the time in which you are prevented from using other actions, not movement) should cease is now queued in addition the skill's actuation, cutting the effect of ping on each action by half. The second use of any oGCD during a GCD may now be queued if more than 600 ms remains before the would GCD refresh and animation lock will automatically cease before GCD refresh, cleared client-side. This further increases the ability to double- or even triple-weave.
• All skills now trust that they have the conditions required to perform an action after checking -- only the once -- upon the time of their actuation (release from queue). This means that as long as you still had Greased Lightning up when you hit Tornado Kick or as soon as it cleared the previous action's animation lock, it will go off; if you still had Dreadwyrm Trance up when you hit Death Flare, it will go off; if you started a spell under Thin Air or Astral Fire it will still be affected and permitted by those effects, etc., etc., you get the idea. If a skill looks like it should have gone off, it will go off (due to earlier snapshotting).
• You can now "Prioritize" certain buffs on your Status Bar, categorically and by name. You can also "Reserve Space" for Prioritized buffs, leaving the leftmost X icon spaces open for those particular buffs to appear, rather than their appearing and disappearing moving them or other buffs around.
• You can now "Prioritize" certain debuffs on your Target's Status Bar, categorically and by name. You can also "Reserve Space" for Prioritized debuffs, leaving the leftmost X icon spaces open for those particular debuffs to appear, rather than their appearing and disappearing moving them or other debuffs around.
• Far more modular customization added to Job Gauges, including redundancies/preferences for what should be shown on the Job Gauge, Status Bar, or both.
• * MP recharge rate reduced by 20% but now ticks GCD's time. Tick-based abilities like Anatman and Meditate likewise tick per GCD's time and will therefore grant their effects exactly per GCD (or rather, GCD's time spent off the GCD). This does not buff said abilities, but does make them more intuitive and consistent.
• * Variable CDs now dynamically recharge based on GCD rate with each GCD, rather than having their reduced CDs snapshotted based on their GCD speed at time of use.

Monk Changes (Simpler form, not comprehensive)

Condensed/Streamlined Version for those who just want to trim Monk's "irredeemable bloat"

• GL's power has been deemphasized, but its position solidified as a core mechanic.

• GL now increases Damage, Movement Speed, Attack Speed, and Defense by 5% per stack. Still max 4 stacks, but skills which apply Greased Lightning now apply it before dealing their damage or incurring their GCD cost, therefore benefiting from it themselves. Lost %damage made up for via the change to Form Shift (now the passive Fluid Form) below.

• Greased Lightning duration reduced to 7 seconds, but now fades 1 stack at a time. Each time a stack fades, it refreshes to full duration one stack lower.
• Form Shift made passive. Form lockouts replaced.

• Form Shift and form lockouts replaced by the Flowing Fists trait. Instead of forms being locked out, for every GCDs' time since using a given Form, that form's skills deal 20% more damage. (Or, put inversely, Monk has a +40% damage passive, but that's lost after using the given Form, half returned a GCD after that, and fully ready again 2 GCDs thereafter, just like if you were cycling between all three forms.) Base Potencies reduced by ~20% accordingly, arriving at roughly the same net damage between the up to 40% damage bonus from Fluid Form and reduced damage benefit from Greased Lightning.
• Perfect Balance skills count as having no Form and therefore allow for full freedom upon exit.

• Stances revised.

• Fists of Earth, Wind, and Fire are now each granted at level 30, upon equipping Monk. Rockbreaker is now a Pugilist skill instead. Fists of Wind now grants your maximum Attack and Movement Speed regardless of GL level. Fists of Fire now grants the full benefits of GL towards your Damage regardless of GL level. Fists of Earth grants the full benefits of your Defense regardless of GL level.
• Fists of Earth has two further effects:

1. Damage dealt during Fists of Earth generates Body of Stone in equal amount. This does not stack; larger instances of damage will replace previous, with a duration of 5 seconds. Body of Stone delays absorbs incoming damage up to the stored amount, causing it to instead be dealt over 6 seconds. Overhealing taken will purge the remaining damage to be taken in equal value (2000 HP of overheal will cleanse 2000 HP of DoT damage left to be dealt).
2. Damage mitigated grants a variable duration (based on its value vs. your base HP at level) of "Earth's Reply", which negates positional requirements over the duration; use it before raid damage for free positioning for a while, or to mostly negate the need to position correctly while leveling.

• You cannot turn off stances, only swap between them. Each now drains MP over time while in combat, based on the amount of effect it's granting you extra. They therefore have no passive drain cost once you reach your maximum number of GL stacks. Using them to effectively ignore the costs of Tornado Kick, for instance, will quickly drain you, but you will have no problems using them to ramp up.

• GL4 no longer requires Fists of Wind to be reached.
• Anatman faintly revised: "Halts and reverses loss of Greased Lightning duration over time and generates a stack of Greased Lightning for every [GCD's time] spent channeling." Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds. As an intentional "bug", the GL-halting effect of Anatman takes an extra GCD to wear off. This should make its use more fluid.

• Tackle Mastery returned.

• Flame Tackle has been renamed Red Lotus, and now detonates your DoT damage on the target, instantly dealing half the remaining potency atop 100 base potency. (Use when you can soon refresh Demolish.)
• Wind Tackle has been renamed Galestrike and now applies the full potency and GL itself, with no need for Riddle of Wind. Its follow-up usable within 5s of Galestrike, Galewake, deals no damage. This is available even if you swap to another stance after using Galestrike.
• Earth Tackle has been renamed to Steel Peak and, when already in melee range, will knock the target back until hitting another enemy, damaging both. If unable to move the target either, it will now launch you backwards the same distance, thereby offering a means of escape.

• Other changes to previously redundant skills:

• Tornado Kick no longer requires maximum Greased Lightning stacks and now has a dynamic duration and potency based on the number of stacks consumed.

[Shurrikhan]

Edits:

• Revised the dead thread when it came to my attention from being necroed half a year after its getting only a few responses.

[Vendalwind]

Hey, ive been busy lately but ive been intending to do a big look at what youve done at some point. My brief glance told me it looked pretty good but i havent had a chance to try to calculate your changes on a rotation level yet.

Also tbh i think most people burnt out on monk rework ideas via my thread sadly.

[Kabooa]

I can sum up what I'd like in a few basic changes.

Anantman: A 45 second cooldown that exchanges 5 Chakra for Maximum Greased Lightning.
Enlightenment: Reverted to Howling Fist on a 45 second cooldown. When 5 chakra are present, evolves into Enlightenment at much greater potency.
Tornado Kick: Mostly unchanged, but increased potency
Six Sided Star: Reduced to 2.5s recast like all other weaponskills. Deals approximately the same potency/skill as the mainline combos. Generates 1 Chakra.

Goals
A) Introduce some more Resource conflicts in the base kit. Having a competing use of Chakra between Enlightenment and Tornado kick. Forbidden Chakra being your "worst case but I still have to spend" option, in order to move away from the bog standard "Cap and dump".
B) Give Six Sided Star a true and unique purpose through on demand Chakra generation. It also now serves as a stop gap, much in the way Touch of Death used to.
C) Reduce "situational use" on most of the expansions of the Monk Kit. It's okay to have some, but not every single niche need representation (And immediate invalidation via Form Shift)

Personally i'd also revamp Fist and Riddles, but that'd be venturing in TLDR for a simple "I'd rather have this" response.

[DRKoftheAzure]

Burst combo; The Forbidden Chakra -> Tornado Kick -> Six-sided Star(does not consume Greased Lightning stacks at all but maintains them and maintains Twin Snakes buff and Grants Leaden Fist buff at the end) but you need 5 Chakra stacks that is consumed when you start the combo and need 3 or more Greased Lightning Stacks to actually use it.

Also bring back Howling Fist and Steel Peak.

[Haggenn]

I would be so happy with a monk rework. It was my main class since ARR but now it seems so strange, with useless stuffs, rhetorique etc.

Also, loved the ideas, people! If a CM see this thread it would be awesome.

[SpeckledBurd]

I'm all for Monk getting reworked, but this seems needlessly convoluted and probably introduces more problems to Monk than it solves (or actually reintroduces problems that existed before that were fixed).

[Ultimatecalibur]

Shurrikkan, I think your suggestions are really out of wack and don't really think they do anything to fix the major flaws with the Monk. Your Fist stance changes are in many ways untenable.

Your Fists of Earth effect is either pretty much useless (only effecting those debuffs that can be cleansed by Esuna) or potentially overpowered and would require SE go back through all debuffs and determine which ones are ok to halve. It might even require them to create new monk only versions of the debuffs.

The constant benefit of Fists of Fire self-heal effect would make them pretty much immortal and need no healing unless an attack would one shot them.

[Shurrikhan]

Well, that was an unexpected necro. I'd forgotten this thread even existed.

[wereotter]

I would be so happy with a monk rework. It was my main class since ARR but now it seems so strange, with useless stuffs, rhetorique etc.

Also, loved the ideas, people! If a CM see this thread it would be awesome.

I agree, the job needs it. Especially after this expansion with so many skills gutted (mainly the OGCD moves) the job just feels boring and hollow. I need more to do between combo moves than the occasional Forbidden Chakra. I've barely touched the job this expansion after maining it for four years because it feels so dull to play now.