How to fix MNK. For real this time.

[Khelek]

So we all know the attempt to help get monk back on its feet last year came short of doing anything significant, and we still get laughed at for entertaining the notion of playing the job. In hopes that this might reach the eyes of the devs, let's go over what's holding monk back, and present the simplest ways to adjust it, in order to bring monk back to its role in the game. This is from the perspective of endgame play, as lower difficulty content is easy enough to allow the use of any job.

What is causing monk to be dismissed for events today is quite simple. It is a damage dealer intended to contribute to the encounters with increased survivability for themselves and others, and they fall short on both ends.

Damage:

Their dps is unreasonably low due, not to their white damage from punches and kicks, but to their very lackluster arsenal of weapon skills. In today's game, we have a meta that has allowed for melee damage to be viable, thanks to a lot of buffs and much more powerful gear that allow for a higher frequency of weapon skill use than last time monks were viable. Monks however lack weapon skills that allow them to keep up with any job able to utilize weapon skills such as Chant du Cygne, Resolution, Torcleaver, Tachi: Fudo, Rudra's Storm, Last Stand, etc. This is the primary issue with monks right now, and needs to be addressed. Many have voiced concerns about Puppetmaster receiving too strong of a buff if this were to be fixed, which I can see the reasoning behind. The two jobs require very different setups and buffs however, so I do not see this becoming an issue. (An alternative would be to focus on Ascetic's Fury otherwise.) In order to deal with this issue, let's compare some WSs that share traits with the obvious choices for receiving adjustments, Victory Smite and Shijin Spiral:

Victory Smite (Current):
Effect: Increases chance to crit 10-45% based on TP.
fTP: x2.25. Does not carry across all hits.
Mod: 80% STR
# Hits: 4

Shijin Spiral (Current):
Effect: Increases chance of plague based on TP.
fTP: x1.0625. Does not carry across all hits.
Mod: 85% DEX
# Hits: 5

Chant du Cygne:
Effect: Increases chance to crit 15-40% based on TP.
fTP: x1.6328125. Carries across all hits.
Mod: 80% DEX
# Hits: 3(4 when dual wielding)

Resolution:
Effect: Increases fTP from x0.71875 to x2.25 based on TP
fTP: x0.71875 to x2.25
Mod: 85% STR
# Hits: 5

Looking at these, it's clear why Chant du Cygne and Resolution are viable, wheras Victory Smite and Shijin Spiral are not. The main issue is not having their fTP modifier carry across all hits of the weapon skill. Simply making some changes to Victory Smite and/or Shijin Spiral would be all that is required. An example of what could be:

Victory Smite (Suggestion):
Effect: Increases chance to crit 10-45% based on TP.
fTP: x1.6328125. Carries across all hits.
Mod: 80% STR
# Hits: 4

Shijin Spiral (Suggestion):
Effect: Increases fTP from x1.25 to x2 based on TP. Additional Effect: Plague.
fTP: x1.25 to x2. Carries across all hits.
Mod: 85% DEX
# Hits: 5


Survivability:

Their contribution to the group's survivability was once very attractive to parties and alliances, thanks to mantra, penance, and chakra allowing monks to take some of the load off of healers during heavy debuff/damage situations. With the gear improving over the years, the impact monks have in this regard is greatly diminished. However, thanks to mantra and penance being percentage based, this could still be enough as long as monks could once again contribute to damage in a meaningful way.
The only major change I would suggest in regards to these abilities would be to change mantra's hp boost to be based on a % of the monk's max hp at the time of use, instead of giving everyone an individual % boost.


Other issues:

First off; Relics, Empyreans and Mythics are all over the endgame scene, and they are for the most part great. However, the hand-to-hand weapons are severely nerfed by not having the aftermath effects (or relic damage multiplier) trigger on the offhand swing. This causes Glanzfaust, Verethragna, and Spharai to operate at half efficiency compared to every other weapon class's counterpart. Fixed easily by allowing the offhand to proc these effects.

Issue second; Accuracy cap. Why it was decided to give the main hand for 1handed weapons a 99% acc cap, when they are the ones who needed it the least is beyond my comprehension. Even more so however, is why hand-to-hand was not included in this change. This is more of a game balance issue than a monk issue, but hopefully the acc cap can either be raised to 99% on all weapons, or just be 100% like it always should have been. Nothing is worse than not having control over your reliability in a group. And missing at 500% the rate of 1handed dps with equal accuracy gear is not really acceptable.

The last major issue that has more recently become apparent, due to the stats on gear increasing over time, is the lack of a Sub slot gear piece. This is a huge amount of acc/atk/hp/wsmod, if you look at Utu Grip for example, that monk is completely missing out on. An easy change would be to simply allow grips to be equipped.



To summarize; Adjust Victory Smite and/or Shijin Spiral to carry fTP and we're good. Making changes to the other things mentioned would also be a great help, but fixing those WSs would allow us to play the job again.

So please, Dev team. Show us that you care. We miss playing our monks.

[Halley]

I don't want to be that guy (actually, yes, yes I do.)

They will have to do more adjustments than that. Good and bad. Mnks white damage and counter is ridiculous. They have to adjust those, THEN they can adjust weaponskills.

If they don't "adjust" the white damage down, before adjusting the ws up, then we have mnkonry all over again.

[Khelek]

You be whoever you want.

Whether or not monk's white damage is good is irrelevant though. They are roughly putting out somewhere between 50-70% of the damage an equally buffed and geared DD of a different job is. If you increase the damage of the weapon skills to put monks within 10% of the pack, the white damage doesn't affect that change. Counters also do not really factor in, as they are not a reliable source of damage. Counter is a nice semi unique defensive feature to monk, but you can't counter TP moves or magic, you gain no TP from it, and the overall damage dealt from counters is negligible in an endgame scenario, even if you were to tank the entire fight. Exception being perhaps if the mob used hundred fists, but then WAR with retaliation and arke gear is still leagues ahead on dps resulting from that.

The main reasons monk was so prevalent in the times you are referencing are also no longer present. We're no longer using crit atmas in abyssea, more jobs than monk have ilvl weapons, there's more defensive gear available to DDs than blackbelt, twilight torque and dring, and we're not in need of a job to cover several NMs' gimmicks in the same instance. Other jobs often failed to bring anything of value to the fights aside from their damage, and that's just no longer the case.

[Halley]

You forget that the next bigupdate will be abyssea V2 for Empyrean+3 so, yes, yes, we WILL be using Crit atmas, and right back to the MNK onry mentality. So.

You need to see the whole picture, not the right now. Monk had a very long time as the ONLY job, logically it needed a downtime (right now) it will be back (abyssea v2). If you buff it before that, you break it later.

Shijin Spiral does absolutely blow though, there's no if's and's or but's about that. Shijin Spiral is terribad.

[Khelek]

I don't subscribe to the mindset that since the game was unbalanced in something's favor previously, it should now be unbalanced to its detriment. To me that feels rather petty, and unhealthy for the game. There's also no point in us basing our reasoning in very specific hypothetical future scenarios. We can assume af3 will receive an event in the future, and it would make sense if it was related to abyssea sure (omen isn't exactly limbus so we're 50/50 on af upgrade events being related to the old systems). We have no confirmation, to my knowledge, that even that will be the case though. Even less so that the new event would be using the old atma system.
Bottom line; Balance the game for what it is today, and don't introduce content that breaks that balance, unless you adjust it again when that time comes.

Shijin Spiral really is junk though.

[Nyarlko]

You forget that the next bigupdate will be abyssea V2 for Empyrean+3 so, yes, yes, we WILL be using Crit atmas, and right back to the MNK onry mentality. So.

You need to see the whole picture, not the right now. Monk had a very long time as the ONLY job, logically it needed a downtime (right now) it will be back (abyssea v2). If you buff it before that, you break it later.

Shijin Spiral does absolutely blow though, there's no if's and's or but's about that. Shijin Spiral is terribad.

We have no idea what the next Big Thing will be. Anything regarding such is 100.0% rear-end pulled speculation, so please don't try to spread misinformation. :-|

As far as MNK goes, I agree that it had too long a day in the sun and that the devs are not likely to allow it to become dominant again. There is no reason why it needs to be as far below others in general though and H2H WS could indeed stand a buff. Personally, I get the feeling that the main "con" for the devs on this matter is that any direct buff to WS will also affect PUP. SE has a proven track record of not knowing how they should handle pet jobs, and I would be surprised if the devs were not worried enough about PUP's combined master+pet damage potential that MNK suffering is just collateral damage.

[Kayin]

I'd just like to contribute a few observations to this.
The first argument I've heard countless times is being worried about making PUP too awesome by doing any updates for MNK. Why? Because they've literally changed PUP Only in the past to have, now, the same H2H Skill as MNK, they've given it many martial art traits, through gifts, to have pretty much the same delay as a MNK (-5 Delay Difference in the two jobs)--If this were a valid argument at any point, Why did PUP only get all these enhancements, they even game them Asuran Fists when it was originally MNK only. I know today Asuran Fists is a joke, but what isn't on MNK. I'm more providing facts that these are two different jobs; you can buff one without touching the other; as I've pointed out, this has already happened multiple times—fix Monk.

Most comments I've read on 'what to fix' are generally correct. When you have other Jobs constantly doing 2x, 4x our Weapon Skill Damage. Then they make a Skill chain equal or sometimes double that our white numbers don't mean a thing. I've seen COR do 90k WSs in Dynamis followed by a 99k skill chain. MNK will never touch that in their wildest dreams; or rather only in their wildest dreams.

They also do Weapon Skills nearly twice as fast, our TP Gain is damaged. I can wear tons of multi attack and TP gain, and I don't care what the melee job is, equally geared I'm doing roughly 1/2 to 1/3 the Weapon Skills that they are and for around 1/2 to 1/4 the damage. I'm well geared and have a lot of swap sets for my Weapon Skills. It's not lack of gear or skill, it's that Monk TP is garbage and our H2H Weapon Skills have garbage fTP attributes on them. There is no amount of skill and gear that will fix that—fix Monk.

I love my MNK, I wouldn't play it otherwise, but most often I'm either told 'no' or just laughed out of an event if I even consider offering to bring it; just the idea MNK can be useful in current end-game is a joke. I’ve finished Relic +3 5/5 on MNK. With that you’d think it’d be amazing to bring to dynamis? I mean I’m literally wearing the top gear of that content, bringing it to that content; this is not the case, and you guessed it—fix Monk.

This isn't a feel bad for me or compliment me, it's just the raw facts about it. I do not want Monk to be the best by any means. I loved it before it was bandwagon and I choose it, even now, when I can find friends to tolerate the suck of me bringing it for damage--I have fun.

I do want for it to be an option. If a fight needs a generic DD, some source of melee; I just want to be considered with the Sam, Blu, Drk, War etc... I'd just like it as a viable alternative; not the joke that it is.

-

Monk is:

ATT starved; give it smite closer to what a DRK gets.
fTP deficient; give it fTP the carries across hits like nearly all other jobs get, or increase the fTP bonuses—pretty simple, adjust to shoot for 25~30k Weapon Skills, no higher, Let DRK keep their 45k Reso; I do not want bandwagon Monk.
Very low TP gain; most jobs can get full 1k TP to do a Weapon Skill in 4 or 5 hits. Monk needs far more than that. I don’t understand how our TP Gain works, but I know compared to all other 20 Jobs, it’s super bad.

Fixing these three issues would fix Monk.

TL;DR

Fix Monk Please, thank you.

[Shiyo]

Monk is fine. OP plays in a linkshell that 18 mans the entire game so he'll never see a purpose for monk. It's not meant for that type of playstyle, and you're always going to be better off coming another job when you TP burn things with 18.

It's niche and uniqueness are for lowmanning, not 18 manning. Monk cannot be buffed to fit into 18 man zergs without breaking the game for lowman groups. Not every job needs to be good in every situation, that'd be bad for the game.

Monk is fine.

Sincerely, someone who plays monk for it's unique niche situational uses(which there are actually many of)

[Kayin]

This game has 22 Jobs. Some of the current end-game—Omen and Dynamis-Divergence, for example, have gear for all of them.

For example, Monk has an Artifact and a Relic Armor set that you can obtain/upgrade by doing these events.

I have no idea why there would be equipment for a Job in either of these contents, for example, when the Job is not meant to be a part of it; that makes no sense, Shiyo.

The issue is Monk cannot bring anything to the table. So sticking with the above example, in the past Monk would bring reasonable; sometimes top damage, to their lower level analog—Dynamis and Limbus parties. These original parties were 18 man parties. The short and sweet of it; it did fine in end-game and in 18 man setups respectfully.

Ever since level cap has been raised from 75, Monk has only gone down hill. Its mechanics operate much differently from the other Jobs and this was not at all taken into account by development—raising level cap and creating ilvl to go up even further broke Monk and they still have yet to address this issue. That’s why Chi Blast pre and post Boost update is garbage; it literally, with top MND gear, is only able to do roughly 2k damage. At level 75, this was a god-killer; Kirin for example.

-

To the point, Monk brought damage to parties and alliances. It did have some survivability and limited but helpful tanking in some situations, but the bulk and heart of it was bringing damage. Monk brings nothing to a party now.

All jobs were given an HP increase which completely takes away from the fact that Monk has HP Max Boost; survival feels no different than that of a BLU, WAR, SAM etc.

Monk never did bring support buffs beyond having Mantra which was nice for short burst, but the cool-down on it didn’t and still doesn’t make it a reliable buff like an actual support job’s buffing.

The bottom-line, in all the ways you can contribute to a party Monk falls least on every category. It does not do top or even remotely close to top damage anymore (it used to). It doesn’t offer support, buffs or healing. It’s not able to tank anything end-game; all jobs have that survival HP that was once unique to Monk. This is all the Monk player’s complaints, mine included—for end-game Monk is useless.

Most of us do not want to make a COR or BLU just because development decided; lets give it all to these classes—they can do tons of supporting and/buffing, and in addition to that, do top damage in pretty much all end-game. At 75 Monk equaled on some and topped on other fights with a well geared War, Drk. They’re severely diminished since raising the cap from 75.

I know I’ve stated this already, but I really need to say it a final time because I feel I’ve failed to make this point. Development NEVER fixed Monk since they broke it. The only attempt they made was making all our weapons have a higher DMG+ value on them. Which did really help our white numbers, but this did nothing for malfunctioning TP Gain or our low damage Weapon Skills. I want to do reasonable numbers to the other damage dealing jobs (just like I use to) not retire it because development doesn’t know how to fix what they broke.

It’s annoying that it’s taken this long and has still yet to have been fixed since they’ve broken it—fix your shit SE… please. :(

[Halley]

It makes perfect sense. Gear is just gear. There is no content "for this job".

You get Ranger Daggers from SR, I've never seen a ranger even one time do SR, guess they shouldn't exist eh?

I guess all aeonics shouldn't exist either, thats SMN only content, but smn gets literally nothing from doing them.

[Khelek]

Monk is fine. OP plays in a linkshell that 18 mans the entire game so he'll never see a purpose for monk. It's not meant for that type of playstyle, and you're always going to be better off coming another job when you TP burn things with 18.

It's niche and uniqueness are for lowmanning, not 18 manning. Monk cannot be buffed to fit into 18 man zergs without breaking the game for lowman groups. Not every job needs to be good in every situation, that'd be bad for the game.

Monk is fine.

Sincerely, someone who plays monk for it's unique niche situational uses(which there are actually many of)

Please don't presume to speak for me. A majority of the content, I enjoy in a group consisting of me and two others.

This niche and uniqueness you speak of is completely fabricated. There is not one thing I can think of in the game, with any size group, where I would consider monk a good choice over the other options. They simply do not do anything atm that another job can't do better. You mention these many uses, but despite all of the adjectives used I see no examples that could help further the discussion. I have been playing monk since back when there was only a handful of us around who even bothered to cap guarding, so I've seen pretty much every iteration of the monk's role. And it not being for groups with X number of players is neither intended, nor is it particularily true. Just because you can't effectively use it for something other than casual play or old content currently, does not mean it is meant to do that, or that it is particularily good at it compared to any alternative.

Just because you have chosen to play monk does not mean you are in the wrong for doing so. But it also doesn't have any correlation to the validity of the concerns brought up in this thread, or the viability of monk in today's endgame (which is what this thread is addressing, as mentioned in the op). You're not being accused of being bad, just because you've chosen to play something that is currently bad; Please keep it civil, constructive, and based in facts.

[Khelek]

Its mechanics operate much differently from the other Jobs and this was not at all taken into account by development

Well put together post. I feel you hit the nail on the head with this in particular.

As much as I don't miss the boost portion, I do miss chi blast. I've always hoped that they would end up allowing mab to modify it, have them lower the cooldown, and maybe even allow it to magic burst. Heck, could even have it be no cooldown, consume all TP, and be an alternative to WSing, if done right.

[Shiyo]

HQ/NQ Kenda.
Incredibly high max HP.
5% DT belt that's BIS for TPing.
75% subtle blow + penance(100% uptime with 2 monks)
Feeds 1/16th of the TP of non-subtle blow jobs.
Mantra.

These are all insane niches and make many fights much safer and easier, and allow for a lot more mistakes/slower reflexes. Consider bringing MNKs to vinipata for example, to make it a lot easier. Monks damage also isn't that much lower - we're at a point where we have so much gear and buffed supports(brd being buffed recently) that nearly any DD job is capable of clearing content. Monks are capable enough as a DD to bring ONLY mnks to albumen and clear it safely and quickly(Have seen this multiple times).

Monk is a super durable DD, it will never be a "top tier" dd, but being durable makes bringing Monk's to content a lot easier on the mnk players, and the healers healing them. Less tp moves, higher hp to survive, lots of mevasion, it's great. It's also why Ninja is such a great DD now despite doing less damage, very durable. Durable DD's are nothing new, there was a time when the game was BLU ONRY because of how durable they are.

Name another job that feeds as little TP as Monk? You can't.

Name a DD as durable as monk in pure DD gear. Bluemage? Dispels removes ALL their durability. Ninja? Shadows might be useless, migiwari might prove useless on x boss, less hp than monk.

Monk has never been, and never will be a top tier DD. You use them for safety and reliably. A dead DD does zero damage.

[Khelek]

HQ/NQ Kenda.
Incredibly high max HP.
5% DT belt that's BIS for TPing.
75% subtle blow + penance(100% uptime with 2 monks)
Feeds 1/16th of the TP of non-subtle blow jobs.
Mantra.

These are all insane niches and make many fights much safer and easier, and allow for a lot more mistakes/slower reflexes. Consider bringing MNKs to vinipata for example, to make it a lot easier. Monks damage also isn't that much lower - we're at a point where we have so much gear and buffed supports(brd being buffed recently) that nearly any DD job is capable of clearing content. Monks are capable enough as a DD to bring ONLY mnks to albumen and clear it safely and quickly(Have seen this multiple times).

Monk is a super durable DD, it will never be a "top tier" dd, but being durable makes bringing Monk's to content a lot easier on the mnk players, and the healers healing them. Less tp moves, higher hp to survive, lots of mevasion, it's great. It's also why Ninja is such a great DD now despite doing less damage, very durable. Durable DD's are nothing new, there was a time when the game was BLU ONRY because of how durable they are.

Name another job that feeds as little TP as Monk? You can't.

Name a DD as durable as monk in pure DD gear. Bluemage? Dispels removes ALL their durability. Ninja? Shadows might be useless, migiwari might prove useless on x boss, less hp than monk.

Monk has never been, and never will be a top tier DD. You use them for safety and reliably. A dead DD does zero damage.

Thank you for bringing some examples. Let's break this down, because these are valid points, and by all means SHOULD be cause for MNK to be viable.

#1: HQ/NQ kenda is not unique to monk.

#2: Max HP on monks is barely any different from other melee, and in cases where max HP would matter, monk doesn't keep the lead it may have had due to gear options.

#3: It's a good belt. It is not enough to make up for anything.

#4 & 5: TP feeding is generally a non issue, as most relevant mobs either have enough regain to use their TP moves at the same rate, or don't do anything that can't be dealt with by your healer. If the tp move is devastating, you'd not be up in its face, or even use a cat, as that's more reliable. Thanks to kenda, SAM is preferable by a mile if you want to slow down the mob's TP gain without sacrificing damage.

#6: See #2. Max HP rarely matters to the extent that you'd want to build a team composition around it, and other jobs get plenty of hp+ in their hybrid gear, in which they outperform mnk still.

#7: I would call them insufficient niches, despite which, bringing mnk instead of another option makes the fights take much longer, forcing your players to rebuff more often, and introducing a lot more chances to screw up, or lose focus. Monk damage is about 30-40% behind other melee in equal quality gear, with ideal buffs. Just because it is capable of clearing content does not mean it shouldn't be adjusted to keep up with the other melee.

#8: Nobody is asking for it to be a top tier DD, and it is definitely not any more durable than other melee currently, such as WAR, DRG, SAM, DRK, BLU. We simply want it to be a viable option when presented with choice of job.

#9: Don't have to, it's largely irrelevant. But SAM. If we're talking all jobs though, SMN literally feeds negative TP by alternating rage BPs with mew.

#10: WAR, DRG, SAM, RUN, anything ranged, etc.

#11: It has, but we aren't trying to make it that either, as we've stated several times in the thread. If you need safety and reliability, you go with the myriad of better options. Monk's survivability is not significantly better, if better at all, than other jobs, so I'd rather go with the other ones that won't die, but still do good damage. And as it is as applicable as the statement that a dead dd does zero damage; A dead monster can't kill you.

[Nyarlko]

I would like to see MNK get a bit more support towards being a viable tank at this point. Give MNK a trait that gives 2x Guard and/or Counter checks (to parallel parry+shield, parry+parry, etc.) a trait that doubles the non-standard ilvl stats on H2H weapons since it's apparently a tech issue to add strap equivalents (so not H2H skill, but direct accuracy+, Double Attack, etc), and address the complaints/problems surrounding Martial Arts / TP loss (again, thru a MNK-only trait IF the holdup is concern about over-buffing PUP.) Might be nice if the accuracy check on Counter was removed or lowered to reasonable-in-tanking-gear levels at least.

[Khelek]

I would like to see MNK get a bit more support towards being a viable tank at this point. Give MNK a trait that gives 2x Guard and/or Counter checks (to parallel parry+shield, parry+parry, etc.) a trait that doubles the non-standard ilvl stats on H2H weapons since it's apparently a tech issue to add strap equivalents (so not H2H skill, but direct accuracy+, Double Attack, etc), and address the complaints/problems surrounding Martial Arts / TP loss (again, thru a MNK-only trait IF the holdup is concern about over-buffing PUP.) Might be nice if the accuracy check on Counter was removed or lowered to reasonable-in-tanking-gear levels at least.

I like the idea to shift focus to becoming a viable tank. Maybe rework counterstance or footwork to be a low cooldown, high duration tanking stance, with crusade's enmity boost and a change to the counter acc check while on. I doubt they would put in the work required to adjust the rest of the job though. Would require changes to give monk hate tools beyond what a subjob would offer etc. If they're not keen on putting in the work to adjust WSs, I think it might be too much to hope for.

[Shiyo]

You don't like monk, we get it. Monk isn't bad, you think it's bad. Nothing anyone says is going to change your mind. You're just going to say it sucks and is the worst job ever, despite the fact that
people are clearing content on monk all the time, safely, quickly and consistently. Sorry you don't like it, but it's not going to be buffed because it'll break the game if it becomes even stronger.

Carry on.

You know a job that REALLY needs to be buffed as it has NO unique niches or special situational uses? Dancer. It's basically a dead job.

@ Nyariko

I too would've love monk to become a tank. It's really fun when you play it that way, and pretty meh to play as a DD.

[Halley]

Dancer is already in a fantastic spot if you know how to play it properly.

Monk does need some upwards adjusting, just not as much as people make it seem like. Just fix Shijin and Smite, give some form of offhand/make fencer work for mnk and maybe some more smite trait

[Shiyo]

There's no playing properly, it does fine damage it just has nothing it brings that makes you want to bring it over any other job. So it's like not really a good job.

It's not bad, it just doesn't..excel at anything.

Shijin should actually do damage, I agree with that.

Also asuran fists should do damage, and monk should get a distortion WS, but I think every weapon type should have every level2 sc property now.

[Khelek]

If you're going to be immature and resort to baseless, aggressive accusations whenever your claims are disputed, I suggest you leave. Make your own thread where people can shout their opinions at eachother all day and be as toxic as they want.

[Shiyo]

No one did any of those things.

You simply won't change your mind and will just say "nuh-uh monk is bad" until you're blue in the face. I mean, you compared monk(or any job, honestly) to summoner which isn't fair at all. You also said samurai is good at not feeding TP and equal to monks 75% subtle blow which makes absolutely no sense and think monks higher HP isn't valuable. You just say "no its not" to everything, there's really no point in discussing anything with you.

As I said, we get you don't like monk, but the job is fine. Sure, it needs some slight buffs, but it's not unusable and not bad, it's just not the best in every situation, and no job besides RUNE(can SE stop catering to this job? it's getting old) and GEO really are.

[Khelek]

Dancer is already in a fantastic spot if you know how to play it properly.

Monk does need some upwards adjusting, just not as much as people make it seem like. Just fix Shijin and Smite, give some form of offhand/make fencer work for mnk and maybe some more smite trait

Agreed, dancer can definitely perform well, and has great utility. Not a lot of people end up playing it sadly, since like you said, you do need to know how to play it properly, and there isn't a lot of up to date help out there for getting into it.

I feel like the perception of what people are asking for is a bit skewed, as I agree with your suggested solution here. I don't think anyone is asking for more beyond that, in terms of power scaling. The only other areas that could just some work are minor, such as certain abilities that would benefit from an update. When was the last time anyone used counterstance for example? It's like a slow mijin gakure at this point.

[Khelek]

No one did any of those things.

You simply won't change your mind and will just say "nuh-uh monk is bad" until you're blue in the face. I mean, you compared monk(or any job, honestly) to summoner which isn't fair at all. You also said samurai is good at not feeding TP and equal to monks 75% subtle blow which makes absolutely no sense and think monks higher HP isn't valuable. You just say "no its not" to everything, there's really no point in discussing anything with you.

As I said, we get you don't like monk, but the job is fine. Sure, it needs some slight buffs, but it's not unusable and not bad, it's just not the best in every situation, and no job besides RUNE(can SE stop catering to this job? it's getting old) and GEO really are.

Just to be clear, you did it again in this very message. This is the last time I'm replying to you here, as I see no reason to attempt discussing with someone who clearly doesn't want to.

I compared it to summoner. Summoner is a DD. Summoner is an alternative job in FFXI. I compared their ability to not feed TP while dealing damage. I did not compare hundred fists to conduit.

Samurai is fantastic at not feeding TP. As you're using the maximum potential subtle blow achievable for MNK, I'll remind you that SAM reaches 65%, hits the enemy far less often, and the TP fed vs damage dealt ratio as a result is fantastic. Yet in almost every scenario that's irrelevant for the reasons I mentioned in the earlier post.

Monk's higher HP is negligible, and isn't even higher than a fair few melee jobs while in defensive or hybrid gear. Even if you're comparing monk's hp to others' while wearing nothing but weapons, the difference between say a MNK and a WAR is less than 100hp.

I asked you to please not presume to speak for me, and you keep doing it anyways. I hope whatever is troubling you gets better so you can be a happier person. Good day.

[Shiyo]

Nothing anyone here types means anything, there is on CM for the English forums. Google translate to japanese.

Also, seriously dude? You're the one with the issue, you do nothing but call everything "irrelevant" or "worthless" make silly comparisons. Sounds like all you want is an echo chamber.

Here's some more people with much more indepth feedback someone gave about monk being useful/good situationally
https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/36705/iipunch-monk-guide/188/#3326040

Read "Comeatmebros" posts and ones in the next pages. He's actually tested monks as the only DD vs vinipata as well.

[Nyarlko]

I like the idea to shift focus to becoming a viable tank. Maybe rework counterstance or footwork to be a low cooldown, high duration tanking stance, with crusade's enmity boost and a change to the counter acc check while on. I doubt they would put in the work required to adjust the rest of the job though. Would require changes to give monk hate tools beyond what a subjob would offer etc. If they're not keen on putting in the work to adjust WSs, I think it might be too much to hope for.

I kinda figure that it would feel safer for the devs to change their focus (or create one since MNK does feel like one of the rather aimless jobs,) rather than buff damage output. It would be simpler/safer to buff MNKs defensive abilities up to viable tanking levels than to adjust damage capabilities upward from a dev perspective. Any direct adjustment to WS benefits more than just MNK after all, and with the way the game scales with highest end gear any change that would be noticeable for the majority has the potential to be gamebreaking overpowered at the top. That's why I suggested using MNK-only job traits to address the issues involved rather than direct changes to anything that could affect multiple jobs.

As long as it was possible to raise Counter rate to match PLD parry / RUN parry as far as damage intake goes, then I like the idea of turning Counterstance into an actual stance. Give counters an enmity bonus, reduce/remove the accuracy check on counters, and maybe some sort of enmity loss reduction on successful guards? Enmity generation shouldn't be difficult to adjust (they could raise Boost to 10,000CE/10,000VE if they felt like it.)

The only actual complaint I have about MNK as a non-MNK-main player (though I do have a 119 MNK alt, with enough experience to know how the job works,) is the inability to engage with Boost active issue. >_<;; This problem bugs me enough to keep me away from the job on it's own. I still think there should be a way to implement a bypass specifically for Boost, but devs have bigger fish to fry I guess. Issues with MA match to same problems with DW and while both need to be looked at IMO, it's not a job-specific problem but a weapon-type issue at the system level, so not sure it is really relevant to this thread or not. :/

[Khelek]

The only actual complaint I have about MNK as a non-MNK-main player is the inability to engage with Boost active issue.
I wish I could wrap my head around the boost change as a whole... It was too weak to be worth using during combat before, so they changed it into something that's even worse to use. Guessing the test team was busy that day.

[Halley]

I see what they were trying to do with boost... what they /meant/ to do, was a great idea.... but they did it wrong.

Engage, use boost, run up while boost is ticking down, get a large single attack in, fantastic. or, use boost, get a strong ws and the delay after boost is the small penalty. (you get a delay anyway after a ws)

........however. The delay is waaaaaaaaaaaaay too long, the boost isn't good enough, and it doesn't do (anything, or nearly nothing) to ws's at all.

They completely failed.

Simple fix, DNC already has the answer. Turn boost into a flourish clone. And drop the delay.

[BBWallace]

I'm confused on what they want to do with MNK now. It was apparently intended to be a tank I heard somewhere? And judging from the JP category and gifts it seems that what SE was trying to push it towards. I do have a couple of qualms with the job boost is weird and I've still haven't figured out use it I've been reading up on it and it just confuses me more. MNK tp gain is just sloppy with the massive amounts of MA being thrown at it. It's one of the only jobs I feel gets punished for mastering it. The WS damage is simply not up to par in the slightest when the best WS you have is Howling Fist you know you have a problem. It's White Damage is not enough to justify it taking a spot over another DD.

Countering is also a bit wonky to me.While it is possible to cap counter without the use of counterstance I feel like the counter damage is severely gimped when you do that. Another thing that hurts MNK survivability is the lack of counterable things and the massive amounts of Status Effects you get bombarded with. Using Counterstance your defense gets cut in half basically turning you into playdough not using counterstance you then have to resort to using ambu gear and jolt counters which takes away from the counter damage buffs your relic gear provides.


I would like to see MNK move into a more tanky role would be fun to play.

[Nyarlko]

I see what they were trying to do with boost... what they /meant/ to do, was a great idea.... but they did it wrong.

Engage, use boost, run up while boost is ticking down, get a large single attack in, fantastic. or, use boost, get a strong ws and the delay after boost is the small penalty. (you get a delay anyway after a ws)

........however. The delay is waaaaaaaaaaaaay too long, the boost isn't good enough, and it doesn't do (anything, or nearly nothing) to ws's at all.

They completely failed.

Simple fix, DNC already has the answer. Turn boost into a flourish clone. And drop the delay.

Boost does work as intended.. It's just much more complicated now then the old braindead spammage.

The delay is confusingly high without being delay capped, which makes it actually dangerous to use at lower levels. If you're 10MNK and pop Boost, you are going to be doing nothing but imitate a punching bag for a good 15sec or so.. The devs did not properly explain the mechanics behind it when it when live, and I find myself explaining it to newbies in my ls as I do explaining how learning works for BLU because the way Boost works is very unintuitive. I still think there should be a graphical effect that grows with time passing to indicate "powering up" and a better clue on the usage timing than counting in your head IF you know that's what you are supposed to do...

JIC anyone reading this is also confused, Boost duration is based on 3xDelayxDelayReduction, and for MNK, this has a lower limit of ~5sec (288 Delay, but there appears to be a 5sec minimum on Boost duration regardless of actual delay). Boost effect scales with how long it has remaining on the duration, so for maximum effect on a non-melee swing you want to try to hit your WS with ~2-3sec remaining on the timer. The time elapsed doesn't matter, so even if you push the Boost duration up to 45sec+, it will have the same effect on the next attack at 2sec remaining as if that duration was 5sec. Since the buff timer icon durations disappear and the icons start blinking at 5sec remaining, you will have to practice counting down in your head to get the proper timing down. I never got feedback from an awesome MNK on how high they could push the actual buff from Boost, but with my poorly geared alts, I got ~3k-4k extra damage on both my MNK and my DRG/mnk. I don't know how high someone who has proper gear for it would be able to push it or if it would ever be worth using. IMO, the best way to use it (assuming delay capped) is to pop Boost, then another damage increasing JA, then a WS. If you do this sequence, while delay capped, then there should be no perceivable penalty before your next melee swing.

It feels like they were trying to push it's usage towards being similar to Sneak Attack actually.. But unlike SA, there is no extra buff to the JA when used as main job MNK. :/ I say double-triple the effect for a MNK/sub and it might be good enough to actually get used regularly. Everything else about is technically OK, but the preventing engagement thing will always irritate me.

[BBWallace]

Boost does work as intended.. It's just much more complicated now then the old braindead spammage.

The delay is confusingly high without being delay capped, which makes it actually dangerous to use at lower levels. If you're 10MNK and pop Boost, you are going to be doing nothing but imitate a punching bag for a good 15sec or so.. The devs did not properly explain the mechanics behind it when it when live, and I find myself explaining it to newbies in my ls as I do explaining how learning works for BLU because the way Boost works is very unintuitive. I still think there should be a graphical effect that grows with time passing to indicate "powering up" and a better clue on the usage timing than counting in your head IF you know that's what you are supposed to do...

JIC anyone reading this is also confused, Boost duration is based on 3xDelayxDelayReduction, and for MNK, this has a lower limit of ~5sec (288 Delay, but there appears to be a 5sec minimum on Boost duration regardless of actual delay). Boost effect scales with how long it has remaining on the duration, so for maximum effect on a non-melee swing you want to try to hit your WS with ~2-3sec remaining on the timer. The time elapsed doesn't matter, so even if you push the Boost duration up to 45sec+, it will have the same effect on the next attack at 2sec remaining as if that duration was 5sec. Since the buff timer icon durations disappear and the icons start blinking at 5sec remaining, you will have to practice counting down in your head to get the proper timing down. I never got feedback from an awesome MNK on how high they could push the actual buff from Boost, but with my poorly geared alts, I got ~3k-4k extra damage on both my MNK and my DRG/mnk. I don't know how high someone who has proper gear for it would be able to push it or if it would ever be worth using. IMO, the best way to use it (assuming delay capped) is to pop Boost, then another damage increasing JA, then a WS. If you do this sequence, while delay capped, then there should be no perceivable penalty before your next melee swing.

It feels like they were trying to push it's usage towards being similar to Sneak Attack actually.. But unlike SA, there is no extra buff to the JA when used as main job MNK. :/ I say double-triple the effect for a MNK/sub and it might be good enough to actually get used regularly. Everything else about is technically OK, but the preventing engagement thing will always irritate me.

One day your're on I would be happy to test boost effects on WS and in general. I'm pretty close to BiS on every WS beside shijin spiral which is absolute garbage. I'll take your advice and go test out on some mandies in ceizek. I just avoided using the JA as a whole because the delay part.

[Halley]

The forced delay makes it unusable, even with hundredfists up. The gain just doesn't match the loss.

Capped haste boost is 8~10 seconds delay. the amount of hits you lose in the delay doesn't make up for the increase.

Now if you do it perfect; engage..... wait.... run in and ws, then its neat.

[Nyarlko]

The forced delay makes it unusable, even with hundredfists up. The gain just doesn't match the loss.

Capped haste boost is 8~10 seconds delay. the amount of hits you lose in the delay doesn't make up for the increase.

Now if you do it perfect; engage..... wait.... run in and ws, then its neat.

With capped delay for H2H, you should be looking at right around 5.5sec Boost duration. Which happens to be just about perfect to pop one more JA before WS. You can try for two, but just a tiny bit of lag can make you lose the buff if you are actually delay capped. :( As long as you are spending the delay time doing something else instead of just sitting there tho, it should help even out the damage loss a bit. I have no idea whether Hundred Fists actually applies to Boost duration or not, and forgot any other interactions that I tested when the Boost change went live, but MA+ and normal gear/magic Haste definitely do. (DW affected dual-wielders instead of MA, and the lower cap is definitely 5sec. I checked delay values that should've been much lower and they still came out as 5sec.)

Maybe MNK/THF rolling Boost+SATA could become a thing? XD Only half joking on this, since I have no idea how good a fully geared/buffed Boost could be.

[Halley]

I have 9 second boost with Cornelia haste2 26% gear and march (which is overkill)

8 seconds even with hundredfists up.

removed pretty picture

If it were actually 5 that would be reasonable.It needs to be more like a flourish. But no delay penalty and can't be used on an autoattack.

[Nyarlko]

I have 9 second boost with Cornelia haste2 26% gear and march (which is overkill)

8 seconds even with hundredfists up.

If it were actually 5 that would be reasonable.It needs to be more like a flourish. But no delay penalty and can't be used on an autoattack.

That looks like you are not actually delay capped. You still need appropriate Martial Arts to reach the lower limit of 20%. The precise value needed will vary based on your weapon delay. Interesting that Hundred Fists did so little to it though.

Looked up my own Boost testing from when it went live btw. XD The total delay is actually 4x, not 3x like I was thinking, so minimum delay for H2H is actually 6.4sec. Tack on 80% of your weapon delay, and should be somewhere close to 7sec. To get up to 9-10 sec, you'd need to be missing MA/Haste somewhere. Minimum for DW was indeed 5sec and appeared to be a hardcoded limit. I personally agree that the delay is too high, particularly for the somewhat meager increase in damage provided (when compared to 30k-50k WS spam from others, +3k doesn't sound all that impressive.) My preferred fixes for it would be: lowering the delay from 4x to 2x for MNK-main, increasing the TP return bonus to 1k+, and widening the timing window for maximum output to 3-4 sec remaining to allow for lag and compensate for being unable to have precise measurements of buff durations remaining under 5sec. You have to admit that Boost would take on entirely new aspects if it could be used to self-sc if timed properly, and it feels really lousy that /MNK actually can use Boost better than MNK-main. ><;;;

[Halley]

It's not that either. It just cannot go that low on MNK. I'm over capped delay, with overcap martial arts. Impossible to go any lower.

Unless the most recent MA needs are wrong. +13 should be overcap on every weapon. (under 138 delay)


So the minimum delay we can experience with Godhands is:
(480 + 138) * .2 = 123.6

When Haste-capped and Mastered, Godhands delay is:
(480 + 138 - 210) * (1024 - 256 - 448) / 1024 = 127.5

13 more Martial Arts would put you at 123.4375, or a hair too far.
12 is the most you'd want to wear.

[Nyarlko]

It's not that either. It just cannot go that low on MNK. I'm over capped delay, with overcap martial arts. Impossible to go any lower.

Unless the most recent MA needs are wrong. +13 should be overcap on every weapon. (under 138 delay)

Ahah! I think I figured out what the disconnect is then. I didn't/don't have any high delay weapons to test with and wasn't expecting that you'd be checking the highest delay in the game (I think that's it other than base Relic Knuckles?) As far as Boost goes, I was overstacking on everything to ensure that all delay sources were capped (since I have no MNK JPs.) There is no actual penalty to Boost for being overcap, other than losing STR to increase the effect. With Godhands, your Boost duration when fully delay capped should be 8.24 sec, which definitely is far too high and feels like penalizing you for using an Ultimate Weapon. -_-;; Still think it would be fixed w/ what I suggested above to make it something awesome for MNK-mains.