Monk suggestions

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

I'm extremely curious where/when he said this, and was it for Monk particularly or all jobs?
If you happen to have that interview I'd love to read it. Monk getting new animations on the level of 4.0 MCH would make me so happy. Monk just LOOKS so boring.

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That's a pov I guess, some of the basic animations are to me, the most simple and interesting. Sure MCH 4.0 looks spinning and fluffy, but the shots really don't feel special, and animations that are too long end up really clipped all the way : Forbidden chakra or tornado kick as an example are so long you don't even see them entirely when weaved between weaponskills.

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Originally Posted by SpeckledBurd

There's a legitimate argument to be made about Black Mage's performance (even though it extends to Monk and Samurai because the exist in the exact same niche of being Greedy DPS), but there is absolutely no comparison when it comes to which Job has the absolute worst kit overall. It had the most useless actions in Heavensward, and despite the action reworks goal being to fix useless actions it basically didn't touch Monk.

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Well, that's not quite true. We definitely lost some useful actions, so they clearly at least touched the job, unpleasantly, and moved on.

That said, it scares me to think what even the practical solution to Monk's vacuous toolkit would be at this point, because until SE actually figures out what it intends for the stances, GL interactions, macrorotation, and elements within the class design the "practical" design path would be to pare down Monk to about a third of its current abilities, or just forever leave it huddled in corner between its trips to the raid park -- outwardly okay, and inwardly distorted.

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

I'm extremely curious where/when he said this, and was it for Monk particularly or all jobs?
If you happen to have that interview I'd love to read it. Monk getting new animations on the level of 4.0 MCH would make me so happy. Monk just LOOKS so boring.

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Monk and Machinist were specifically mentioned if I recall correctly, that said I'm having a hard time finding it. Finding older Stormblood preview articles is hard because everything gets drowned out by the hands on event they had in late may. If I can't find it and I totally just imagined it, then I'll rescind the claim that SE promised new Monk animations.

However, when you look at many of the jobs that didn't see any changes to their rotations, such as Machinist, Bard, and Summoner, they all at least had new animations added via traits whereas Monk...didn't.

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

I'm extremely curious where/when he said this, and was it for Monk particularly or all jobs?
If you happen to have that interview I'd love to read it. Monk getting new animations on the level of 4.0 MCH would make me so happy. Monk just LOOKS so boring.

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Originally Posted by MauvaisOeil

That's a pov I guess, some of the basic animations are to me, the most simple and interesting. Sure MCH 4.0 looks spinning and fluffy, but the shots really don't feel special, and animations that are too long end up really clipped all the way : Forbidden chakra or tornado kick as an example are so long you don't even see them entirely when weaved between weaponskills.

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I have to agree with Mauvais here. The 4.0 Machinist animations, for instance, are to me an outright eyesore. In short, they just make zero sense. If a MCH can summon turrets on demand to cheer-lead or cover-fire for his shots... why isn't he using them consistently? What could it possibly have to do with weapon heat, of all things?

To me, the core issues with the MNK animations are the same as virtually all melee -- the gliding. Second to that is that the initial animations aren't actually practical enough, imo. No Pugilist would ever choose to leave himself so open. If anything, the bigger animations we have now feel like a pretty decent implementation of version 2 animations, where the Monk becomes distinct from the Pugilist, and whereby enhanced strength and speed make new styles effective where they would have otherwise looked ridiculous.

If you want to see them looking flashy and energized, that would probably require more from our Fists abilities than any of the individual animations, allowing conditional overlying animations atop the base forms.

Random thought.

What if every application of GL reduced the CD on Perfect Balance by a few seconds, similar to SCH and Aetherflow?

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Random thought.

What if every application of GL reduced the CD on Perfect Balance by a few seconds, similar to SCH and Aetherflow?

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Would be better than tackle mastery at least

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Random thought.

What if every application of GL reduced the CD on Perfect Balance by a few seconds, similar to SCH and Aetherflow?

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I'd prefer PB to simply have it's CD cut down to 60 seconds or so. It's one of our essentially skills, why it's still on such a drastic CD I'll never know.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Random thought.

What if every application of GL reduced the CD on Perfect Balance by a few seconds, similar to SCH and Aetherflow?

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While this strikes some as more complexifying or synergetic, the only effect it has other than punishing true downtime is to make it slightly less viable to use fewer Coeurls within the PB window itself.

If balanced around base SS, it would at least give higher SS amounts some tiny bonus to scaling, but it would still refresh at a higher count of globals consumed than for low SS builds (e.g. scale incompletely) due to the base CD cost, which does not scale. Just like the unscaled Steel Peak, Shoulder Tackle, Elixir Field CDs, it wouldn't sync up any better as a result.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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Considering PB currently has a 3 minute long CD, it really isn't any more punishing then it currently is so I'm not really seeing how that's much of an argument. Realistically, PB is used almost entirely as a back up in case we end up losing GL, not on consistent CD like the rest of our oGCDs, so I'm not really sure why it would need to sync up with anything at all unless you planned to build around Tornado Kick every time it became available for use, which is just asking for trouble.

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Originally Posted by Sora_Oathkeeper

Would be better than tackle mastery at least

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That's a low bar to clear.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Considering PB currently has a 3 minute long CD, it really isn't any more punishing then it currently is so I'm not really seeing how that's much of an argument. Realistically, PB is used almost entirely as a back up in case we end up losing GL, not on consistent CD like the rest of our oGCDs, so I'm not really sure why it would need to sync up with anything at all unless you planned to build around Tornado Kick every time it became available for use, which is just asking for trouble.

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I never said it would be more punishing than it is now. I was weighing it against the obvious alternatives.

I'm saying said that it would have to be balanced around constant uptime because so many fights provide it, and, being also defendant on constant uptime, would then penalize downtime.

Let's say you have two options" You can have:

(1) a 3 minute CD where every Coeurl skill reduces that CD by an amount equal to your GCD, averaging out to roughly one minute skipped per that CD or an effectively 2-minute refresh rate, or
(2) you could just have a 2-minute refresh rate, baseline.

The difference is simply that the latter still sees that buff even when you're not attacking, be it between pulls or when forced out of melee range. Option (1) cannot exceed Option (2) in maximum strength, because many fights do allow for 100% uptime, but Option (2) can outperform Option (1) in any of the fights where that is not the case, and can feel like a QoL boon during leveling or dungeons.

Simpler can often be better. Complexity where no actually additional control is offered, is not added difficulty or means for skill-gap; it's simply the opposite of convenience, and (however slightly) diminishes other areas of control.

tl;dr: We'd be better off just shaving that bonus off the actual CD, rather than via some combat-dependent mechanic.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

That's a low bar to clear.

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At this point anything is better than tackle mastery. Almost every other job that got a trait to buff existing skills got a new animation to go along with it. Monk? Nah you can have the same crap animation and just have 30 potency added on. They could have easily just have added 30 potency like they do with generic buffs to jobs instead of wasting a whole trait on something that is so useless. Like c'mon SE at least make fire tackle have a damn blazing inferno vortex around it? At least make it look cool even if it's crap! Monk already has some 'meh' animations. And our best animations get cut short because of the GCD lol. At least Elixir field is still cool... Dreaming of the day Monk is fun like ARR and HW and not an RNGfest and uninteresting new 'skills'.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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While I don't disagree that PB should just get a flat reduction, I figured I'd make a compromise so that MNK got SOMETHING mildly useful added.

Just want to add some MNK suggestions too. Let me know what you think.

TL;DR:
-scrap/rework useless skills/traits
-improving raid utilty (a bit)
-reducing rng factor
-merging GL and Chakra system


Fists of Wind - scraped
Fists of Earth -scraped
Form Shift - scraped
Riddle of Earth - scraped
Steel Peak - scraped
Tackle Mastery - scraped


Fists of Fire - reworked to passive trait
One Ilm Punch - reworked to a ogcd attack with Cd, gaining 1 GL
Riddle of Fire - reworked to increasing attack speed by 15%
Brotherhood - reworked to increasing dmg of nearby party members; still have a chance to grant 1 Chakra if party members execute a weapon skill or cast.
Perfect Balance - reduced Cooldown
Deep Meditation: reworked to when gaining new GL and GL3 is already up, 1 Chakra is gained instead.

Tornado Kick - reworked to Hurricane Kick.
Effect: Using up 5 Chakras to deal physical dmg to all enemys in a frontal cone.


New traits:

Double Courl Fists
Effect: Changing Shoulder Tackle into Double Courl Fists
Double Courl Fists: Rushes towards an enemy, inflicting dmg to it and all enemys in the way, stunning the Target, gaining 1 GL.

Pure Will
Effect: If GL runs out by time it sets automatically back to its full lenght. Has a Cd.

Inner Focus
Effect: While not in Raptor-Form or Courl-Form, Opo-Opo Form is automatically gained.


How the MNK would play:
It would still be the same thing. Collecting Chakra with Meditation before a fight and between boss phases, then start with Dragonkick right in Opo-Opo-form (or use PB for opener). Proceeding with your combo till you got 3 GL. Each time you would gain GL beyond 3, the GL timer sets to max again and 1 Chakra is gained. 5 Chakra can be used for The Forbidden Chakra (single dmg) or Hurricane Kick (aoe dmg).
New brotherhood, Riddle of Fire, OIP and Double Courl Fists help gaining GL and Chakra faster.
At moments you can't hit anything, Pure Will provides GL to just fall of.

As you see, most of it is QoL. Balancing can easy be made by reducing/increasing dmg/cooldowns, or by changing single aspects of skills/traits.
(e.g. OIP/Double Courl Fists dont gaining GL3/Chakra)

It seems Tornado Kick becoming a chakra AOE is a fan favorite change that I can completely agree with, the animation is great and it would fit pretty good, I may be the only one who finds Deep Meditation just fine but what I find entirely stupid is that it is not acquired at the very exact moment we get Meditation, we got potencies nerfed on pretty much every skill since chakras are finally something that can be used, yet they locked that until level 62?

But what I hate the most is how stupid RoF is, at least I can get use of RoE every once in a while and it feels great, yet doing content 68+ is a chore thanks to that skill, we got the idea that Monks hit a bit weak yet fast, but then that skill comes to completely ruin the flow and feel of the Job, if anything like Kreyd says it should be an Overclock ability, heck even increase atk speed while lowering a bit damage output to balance numbers.

And it shows Square has no idea what they want to make out of Monk, but they have the answer there already, focus on ATK speed and Chakras.

This is going to be a long one, things will be moved around compared to the original post, but that's just to make life easier. If anything isn't mentioned, I either agree, or don't have an opinion either way.

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Originally Posted by Kreyd

Fists of Wind - scraped
Fists of Earth -scraped
Fists of Fire - reworked to passive trait

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If you make one into a trait, why not just have them all as a trait? Granted, a permanent 10% damage reduction will be a bit strong, so make it lower, but I don't see the point in making one of the fists a trait and not doing the same to the rest.

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Originally Posted by Kreyd

Form Shift - scraped
Inner Focus
Effect: While not in Raptor-Form or Courl-Form, Opo-Opo Form is automatically gained.
Pure Will
Effect: If GL runs out by time it sets automatically back to its full lenght. Has a Cd.

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You have taken the flexibility of Form Shift, reduced it and split it. Form Shift's boon is that you can switch to any stance you want in downtime, granted, this is mostly Coeurl, but there are times when you do shift into others, losing that flexibility will hinder you in the long run. Inner Focus seems quite frankly, silly. Opo-opo is the worst form to start in damage wise, you need to get that GL going asap, so delaying it by 2 CGDs hurts you that way. As for Pure Will, traits don't have cooldowns for a start, so it would be a new ability, basically RoE but refresh on use rather than on hit, so why not make it that instead. As for Inner Focus, why not change it so that it removes timers from forms? It prevents you from having to spam form shift before a fight as you can just sit in Coeurl waiting, and if you keep form shift, you still get to keep the flexibility added with that as well. Simple and easy.

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Originally Posted by Kreyd

One Ilm Punch - reworked to a ogcd attack with Cd, gaining 1 GL
Double Courl Fists
Effect: Changing Shoulder Tackle into Double Courl Fists
Double Courl Fists: Rushes towards an enemy, inflicting dmg to it and all enemys in the way, stunning the Target, gaining 1 GL.

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Personally, I'm not a fan of the idea of having oGCDs applying GL, however, if you take these skills and put them into the toolkit you provided as a whole, it then just seems to me like you saw the problem with starting a fight in Opo-opo, as it delays GL aquisition, and tried to fix it by adding these two as a way to remedy it, that's about the only gripe I have.

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Originally Posted by Kreyd

Riddle of Fire - reworked to increasing attack speed by 15%

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I think 15% is a bit too much, however, if you make it a temporary GL4, that would be better in my opinion.


Overall, while this is my thoughts on what you have suggested, I feel it's just trying to add things to monk it doesn't need, just adding things for the sake of adding things. Keep the changes simple, yet effective. The monk doesn't need much to make it fun again, but go too far, and you add complexity where it isn't needed, and that can be just as bad.

IMHO Tornado kick should fill the 2nd button in MNK aoe combo. MNKs are supposed to be combo masters.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

If you make one into a trait, why not just have them all as a trait? Granted, a permanent 10% damage reduction will be a bit strong, so make it lower, but I don't see the point in making one of the fists a trait and not doing the same to the rest.

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Possible, yes. Movement and less damage taken is always nice, but it's nothing the monk really relies on. Technically they are not there at all, cause nearly nobody uses them, so I put them to scrap. But yes, they could be turned into traits instead.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

I think 15% is a bit too much, however, if you make it a temporary GL4, that would be better in my opinion.

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15% may be a bit much, but many people complain about RoF making MNK slow and a plain Dmg increase seemed to boring, so I choosed this instead.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

Personally, I'm not a fan of the idea of having oGCDs applying GL, however, if you take these skills and put them into the toolkit you provided as a whole, it then just seems to me like you saw the problem with starting a fight in Opo-opo, as it delays GL aquisition, and tried to fix it by adding these two as a way to remedy it, that's about the only gripe I have.

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Actually, it was the exact other way around. :D

Because of the change of Deep Meditation, I was afraid of building up 5 Chakras for TFC/Hurricane Kick just by Courl form abilities could take too long, so I put a GL/Chakra gain to OIP (giving it a right to exist after years) and Double Courl Fists (replacing Tackle Mastery). Also, gaining 3GL on a pull would be way easier with this, so starting in Opo-Opo for Dragon Kick and Twin Viper makes a lot more sense than it does now.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

As for Inner Focus, why not change it so that it removes timers from forms? It prevents you from having to spam form shift before a fight as you can just sit in Coeurl waiting, and if you keep form shift, you still get to keep the flexibility added with that as well. Simple and easy.

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Inner Focus's main goal actually should be, to prevent MNK from beeing formless, after beeing stunned, dead etc. and not to replace Form shift. But after the changes to the other abilites I just realised that Form Shift isn't need anymore, so I scrapped it, getting rid of beeing forced to form dance before and in every boss fight.

But your way would work quiet nicely too.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

As for Pure Will, traits don't have cooldowns for a start, so it would be a new ability, basically RoE but refresh on use rather than on hit, so why not make it that instead.

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Okay, you got me on that one. xD I didn't consider that traits didn't have Cd's. So yes, your way of a reworked RoE would definitely be better.


All in all I tried to think of "what would make fun to play" rather than just "how to fix problems quick" and to take on problems many people seem to complain about (OIP, Tornado Kick, Tackle Mastery etc.) I guess the most simple ways to fix MNK would just lenghten the duration of Forms and GL.

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Originally Posted by Kreyd

All in all I tried to think of "what would make fun to play" rather than just "how to fix problems quick" and to take on problems many people seem to complain about (OIP, Tornado Kick, Tackle Mastery etc.) I guess the most simple ways to fix MNK would just lenghten the duration of Forms and GL.

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This definitely seems to be the way to go.

Personally, though, I find the results you've ended up at -- quite practically -- to be pruned to the point that it'd scarcely be fun to play to me. I'd much rather see Fists of Wind, Earth, and Fire, for instance, be made more fluid, integral, and distinctly significant rather than outright pruned, but that would likely require turning them into something else entirely.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

This definitely seems to be the way to go.

Personally, though, I find the results you've ended up at -- quite practically -- to be pruned to the point that it'd scarcely be fun to play to me. I'd much rather see Fists of Wind, Earth, and Fire, for instance, be made more fluid, integral, and distinctly significant rather than outright pruned, but that would likely require turning them into something else entirely.

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And that is what they require precisely: Turning into something else entirely that potentiates interability play. I would even argue, on top of the effects they would bring, to have their effects linger for x amount of time as you keep shifting them - but for some people that may feel like a lot of clicking. In my opinion, if they wish for Fists to remain as stances/abilities, then they need to make them flow with the kit, all of them. If they cant or don't want to, they may as well be traits then.


Or turn all of them into utility flavoured things that require cycling along them, as you shift between the two major rotations we have... or... something! Novelty is required, regardless of where we look to - useful novelty (for this actual game that is. The idea is not that new x3 )

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Originally Posted by Fhyrr

And that is what they require precisely: Turning into something else entirely that potentiates interability play. I would even argue, on top of the effects they would bring, to have their effects linger for x amount of time as you keep shifting them - but for some people that may feel like a lot of clicking. In my opinion, if they wish for Fists to remain as stances/abilities, then they need to make them flow with the kit, all of them. If they cant or don't want to, they may as well be traits then.


Or turn all of them into utility flavoured things that require cycling along them, as you shift between the two major rotations we have... or... something! Novelty is required, regardless of where we look to - useful novelty (for this actual game that is. The idea is not that new x3 )

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Quite so. It's just a sizable headache to figure out exactly how to create those effects, or where they'd best be placed within the Monk's mechanics.

Should they be the means of returned modular control to form cycles, or should they be the reason for cycling?
Should Monk have an open rotation where flowing through the rotation favors generation of one stance's mechanics, while opting into the occasion repeat or swap-up when procs allow favors another?
Should these stances be driven by shared-resource oGCDs like Steel Peak, Searing Palm, Windstep, or should every oGCD vary with stance while retaining manual control?
How can the stances be distinct while still offering not only viability to each, but also swapping out which is ideal at what timing in general situations?
Should GL be replaced by, work with, or remain wholly separate from stance-based generated buffs like, say, Windform, Chi-flame, and Ironskin?
And the list goes on...

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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And that kind of improvement is what we need to try to aim for and discuss and beg SE for. Not bandaid fixes, but actual mechanics to the class that build upon it. If they don't want to make it too complicated, draw from the SAM gauge with the 3 symbols - but in our case it has to do with our 3 stances... I'm sure there are many ways to make something like this unique, we'd just need to discuss how, and how to make it interesting in contact with what we already have as the core of the class.

Maybe the stances build a specific resource with each finished rotation. A resource that you'd burn for added buffs to yourself or the group? Or maybe just have your rotation build a resource that you'd use your stances to activate x y or z effect for your group? That way it gives raid utility...

So many ways to go on about it... we just need to find a way that seems pleasant for a suggestion for a lot of players

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Random thought.

What if every application of GL reduced the CD on Perfect Balance by a few seconds, similar to SCH and Aetherflow?

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I don't see why that needs a Trait to do. Perfect Balance's cooldown is 6 times longer than equivalent skills on Dragoon and Black Mage, they should just cut it to 60 seconds.

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Originally Posted by SpeckledBurd

I don't see why that needs a Trait to do. Perfect Balance's cooldown is 6 times longer than equivalent skills on Dragoon and Black Mage, they should just cut it to 60 seconds.

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As I already stated, it was a compromise for SE to consider. I prefer a flat reduction but would settle for that.

Riddle of Earth should replenish your greased lightning timer and freeze it until you next hit the enemy. Forget the whole take damage rubbish.

PB: Reduce CD to 80 seconds
Form Shift: Added effect to refresh GL when switching from Coruel to Opo Opo
Deep Meditation: Always grants Chakra on Crit
Tornado Kick: Changed to AoE Chakra move. Reduced CDto 5 seconds with a reduced potency to be 240 with the 80%/2nd target - 50%/5+ targets clause. (Not sure it would be able to realistically keep the 330 Potency cause then it would be used instead of TFC)
Arm of the Destroyer: Remove Silence, Up potency to 110.
One Ilm Punch: remove stun, change to Line AoE with 100 potency
Steel Peak: Gains a silence effect.
Riddle of Earth: Altered to provide a 8% damage mitigation to the group.
Tackle Mastery: Taken into a dark alley and shot, repeatedly. Replace with Riddle of Wind Proper and just have it grant a 2nd Tackle within 15 seconds of use. This is more to help with MNK's mobility, which is questionable at best since we need to use Shoulder Tackle on CD to keep our DPS up, so the 2nd tackle would have no potency.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

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I like the idea of form shift refreshing GL3. It would also make room to give RoE raid wide mitigation. I put a similar concept in the Monk ignored thread. I feel like they are scared to reduce PBs CD due to the huge spike it can have in AoE potential. But if they can make SMN ridiculously OP for AoE and still be Top personal DPS in the game (or slightly under the same) why can't Monk also excel in AoE situations given the right tools.

PB could be used to at least min max during a fight then, instead of currently being sat on a ridiculous CD that sees 2-3 uses in each fight. It's too long to fit into a rotation, due to phase changes like in Neo, where at the 5 min mark you have GCO, leaving it 1 min still on CD if you were to use it in a rotation, forcing stack loss and a slow rebuild. The only other use is at the very end of a fight to spam either true strike and pray for a crit or spam bootshine before finishing off with TK. It's just very clunky to use right now due to it's insane CD length. When you compare it to equal 3 min CDs like holmgang and benediction. It just pales in use usefulness. 80s is more than enough imo. I like the idea of Monk giving a wide variety of healing, defensive and damage up raid contributions.

I kinda wish Steel Peak was more than just a CD to hit, DRG and Nin got it pretty good where it actively interacts with their resource. I'd like Steel peak to also generate our resource of chakra. Every 2 minutes or something. I still wouldn't like the RNG on crits however. while yeah it's still 100% in your version we're still at the whim or crit rng. Maybe every successful boothine crit would work easier and positional skill would play a role still. I'd also get rid of the RNG on brotherhood, and just be a straight 5% damage buff every minute for 10s. A poor man's trick attack but it would be more effective in AoE situations than TA can be, as it's a buff and not a debuff. I'd increase TFCs potency too. While we won't be firing off as many before due to good RNG, we'd at least be more inline with our HW version of firing off one powerful hit due to good play. Honestly i'd rename brotherhood to RoF just to keep inline of having the Riddles because I think the concepts of having elemental riddles is cool, but they are implemented so bad as of right now. Remove the previous RoF and just increase our potencies back to HW values. I'd nerf the TK potency as you said to keep it at AoE use and not for single target.

The way this monk would play would be in 30, 60 and 120s segments like almost every other job does. at 30s you get elixir field. at 60s you get at least one forbidden chakra due to bootshine crits. this pairs up with new RoF(old brotherhood, minus chakra rng), Internal release, howling fist etc and synergizes with other Raid CDs. at 120s we regain Steel Peak, granting us 5 chakra stacks. and can essentially burst with our opener. This creates a more consistent flow in raids due to synergy and also allows monk to play without slowdown due to not getting unexpected forbidden chakras. Would this make monk better than Nin or DRG? nope. but it would certainly bring them a lot closer, and the 60s raid utility they'd have would be much more beneficial than the wonky 90s utility we bring when almost every job works in 60s bursts.

The 90s Raid utility we have as of right now. only aligns with TA at the 1st use, 3 minute mark and then 6 minute mark etc. every other job aligns with TA at the 1st use, 2nd minute, 4th minute etc. I'm using TA as the baseline for alignment because that's the shortest Raid CD we currently have which every other jobs revolves around. Monk utility should be no different imo. I think these changes would make Monk more enjoyable at least and remove RNG elements while keeping positional skill still relevant due to bootshine crits only granting chakra. We could also use PB to grant us more chakras through Bootshine spam.

I just feel like Monk is missing so much right now in terms of making the job enjoyable

Honestly, I was initially in the "Riddle of Earth Sucks!" camp, but having used it for a few months, I think it's the best designed and most satisfying feature SE added to Monk this expansion. Sure it doesn't prevent you losing your stacks in every situation, but it's not *supposed* to. It allows for there to be some skill in finding/optimising where it can be used in contrast with Tornado Kick, and encourages knowledge of a fight and player skill. Like, using it between the pushback of Decicive Battle in v4s, and the Holy hit so you can get a few extra seconds of GL to refresh it with a Coeurl move when he comes back (really satisfying to execute). Or after the last boss of Rabanastre jumps when he does the pulsating AoE. The skill has uses and it's fun to find them. When you can't use it to keep your stacks? Use Tornado Kick. That's why that skill was put into the game to begin with, and that's why we still have it.

For fixing the job, I think the first step is to remove Riddle of Fire, either outright, or with Greased Lightning IV as its replacement. That will make the job fun again, and solve the fluidity issues. Beyond that, I think adjustments to Brotherhood to impact the whole party, and by extension the Monk via the stack generation, would be one good step towards that. I think the bigger issue, though, is not so much that we don't bring enough, rather it's that Dragoon and Ninja have too much synergy with the other jobs in the game, with their Piercing/Slashing debuffs and their AoE Internal Release for Dragoon and Trick Attack (Better Brotherhood) on Ninja. Ninja also gains added synergy with Tanks through their ability to influence aggro, allowing them to use their damaging skills more often.

Even if Monk were to ever be buffed to a point of being able to outstrip the boosts those jobs offer via their utility, I still think we would be second pick to them due to their ability to make the other members in a party feel/perform better via their ability to directly inflate the parses of people around them in a multitude of significant ways.

I only ever see that changing if:
1.) They add more jobs using Blunt damage to the game. (Not an option for 1.5+ years, possibly until there are as many Blunt jobs as there are Piercing/Slashing ones)
2.) Make all physical resistance debuffing skills debuff all physical damage (least favorable option as it leads to arguing over which player has to lose DPS to refresh it for the party.)
3.) Remove those buffs from all physical jobs (not ideal as we then have skills that do less potency with no reason to use them unless they retool the skills heavily)
4.) Mantra is replaced with some form of AoE crit buff akin to Battle Litany, and/or Brotherhood is made more impactful for other party members.
5.) Ninja has its aggro management tools taken away, leaving us still equally less favorable over a Dragoon, but making Ninja overall more balanced in having only two major means to influence party DPS, equal to Dragoon's number, rather than double it, and quadruple Monk's. (I don't like the idea of taking toys away from other jobs so I can be shinier/feel more speshul. However, I think this is the only way to remove Ninja from being mandatory in God Comps for things such as speedkill, prog, and parse parties.)

I think any one of those would do. I don't know which is best for us, or best for the community, but those are my thoughts.

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Originally Posted by Eugene_Kirigaya

Honestly, I was initially in the "Riddle of Earth Sucks!" camp, but having used it for a few months, I think it's the best designed and most satisfying feature SE added to Monk this expansion. Sure it doesn't prevent you losing your stacks in every situation, but it's not *supposed* to. It allows for there to be some skill in finding/optimising where it can be used in contrast with Tornado Kick, and encourages knowledge of a fight and player skill. Like, using it between the pushback of Decicive Battle in v4s, and the Holy hit so you can get a few extra seconds of GL to refresh it with a Coeurl move when he comes back (really satisfying to execute). Or after the last boss of Rabanastre jumps when he does the pulsating AoE.

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Imagine every time you used nastrond on drg you lost heavy thrust and were locked out of your 4th combo finishers for 7 gcds. that's how it feels to lose Greased Lightning on Monk. In HW TK was a welcome addition because EVERYONE suffered from ridiculous buff management so it was easier to TK when you knew it would drop, But you also knew everyone elses was gonna drop too. They eased everyone else up with SB, except Monks. Sure they gave us RoE to counter having to use Tornado Kick. But why make it such a gimmick? Why not just instantly refresh your current GL timer to max? Like BotD does (well 20s out of 30s). Why require a hit to activate it? TK, RoE, Perfect Balance and Form shift all compete for GL3 Maintenance. Dragoon has 1 button to press. BLM has 1 button to press. We have 4 buttons that interact with keeping, expending or refreshing GL3. GL3 bumped to 20s, PB dropped to 60 or 80s, TK moved to the chakra system so it actually sees a use in aoe situations maybe, RoE refreshing GL timer instantly, or having form shift refresh it after coeurl form would cut those 4 buttons down to like, 2, 1 if they actually just stuck it to form shift. PB could be used as a min max tool. RoE could be used for raid aoe Defense mitigation instead. They've took Monk's GL and made it the most backwards crap to keep up. I agree that when RoE works it feels good. But what about the times it doesn't work? Where you pop it, the cast finishes for the attack but takes 2 seconds for the damage to come out so you lose GL3 because of waiting on animations. On Samurai, if i pop third eye before the casts finishes. I still get the eyes open effect. The game will screw a monk over wherever it can when it comes to timers.

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Originally Posted by Eugene_Kirigaya

Sure it doesn't prevent you losing your stacks in every situation, but it's not *supposed* to. It allows for there to be some skill in finding/optimising where it can be used in contrast with Tornado Kick, and encourages knowledge of a fight and player skill.

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If Monk isn't "supposed" to keep it's stacks at all points, why is Monk the only job that runs into situations where keeping GL3 is flat out impossible through a transition when BLM, DRG, and NIN have no such problems with their respective buffs? It's gotten to the point where Monk has more skills to manage to maintain our job buff than other similar jobs that rely on keeping a buff up but we're still the worst at maintaining it by a long shot. Monk basically just gets arbitrarily screwed by fight design, just cause.

Dragoon literally just has to use Blood of the Dragon, Black Mage has Enochian and Transpose, and Ninja has armor crush. Monk has Form Shift, Tornado Kick, Riddle of Earth and Perfect Balance. It's absurd and way against the notion of Stormblood being about reducinng button bloat.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

...I'd much rather see Fists of Wind, Earth, and Fire, for instance, be made more fluid, integral, and distinctly significant rather than outright pruned, but that would likely require turning them into something else entirely.

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Originally Posted by Fhyrr

And that is what they require precisely: Turning into something else entirely that potentiates interability play. I would even argue, on top of the effects they would bring, to have their effects linger for x amount of time as you keep shifting them...

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"Bard"-ifying the stances would actually be pretty nice. Cycle through the stances to access different effects/combos. While we can argue that 10% reduction is overkill, as it stands with earth riddle MNK has a potential ~20% reduction for 30s every min. And MNK in most FF games have high HP & STR so the "sturdiness" can be justified in canon, specially since we're 90% of the time hugging the boss and playing chicken with AoEs.

Then we get to GL vs the rest. Every other job has a convenient way to keep their job buff up with minimal effort. And monk by design has do do a dog and pony show to get to the top and another one to keep the buff. Not to mention Tornado Kick and Riddle of Earth are a "pick your poison" contrast.

When you think about it, MNK is a micro management nightmare in design, 3 stance forms , 3 fist forms (which would technically be the same) 3 riddles (secrets in jp iirc). 5 chakra points, 3 levels of Greased Lightning which are in an all or nothing setup and if we add positional requirements in the mix for our damage output and the nigh-useless blunt damage de-buff and we can start seeing the migraines.

• But Forms can easily get axed by using fists to change the combos akin to how WAR has a duality with their beast skills. making the combos change based on the Fist in use.
• Each Fist can change the combos to match the fist element. While the Fist stance will have a timer and a gauge/point system to execute fist related abilities
• With Riddles can easily be the finishers of each fist stance. These finishers can have utility linked to them. Earth: Increased DH/CH / Wind: Regen/Refresh / Fire: Strong DoT
• The Chakras should be raised to 7 points and have both offensive and defensive capabilities. that are not all or nothing skills. The chakra points themselves should have a higher rate of acquisition.
• And Greased Lightning becomes our passive buff with the addition of Movement from Fist of Wind and the Defense of Fist of Earth (GL1: 10/5/2/2; GL2:20/10/5/5; GL3 30/15/10/10). With PB being our burst "GL4" status for damage output and rather than a Skill Speed penalty, we get an increased TP cost as penalty.

Armor crush can only be put on the same step as coeurl form attacks.

It requires a target and a 3rd step weaponskill, just as gl or botd (which is 4th and 5th combo steps).

There is no way to refresh huton outside of battle except wasting a ninjutsu or the 3rd step of ten chi jin.

Just correcting, the remaining is true and accurate.

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Originally Posted by MauvaisOeil

Armor crush can only be put on the same step as coeurl form attacks.

It requires a target and a 3rd step weaponskill, just as gl or botd (which is 4th and 5th combo steps).

There is no way to refresh huton outside of battle except wasting a ninjutsu or the 3rd step of ten chi jin.

Just correcting, the remaining is true and accurate.

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Yes but it also refreshes for 30 seconds and Huton has a maximum duration of 70. It's so powerful that you literally don't need anything else.

That doesn't make it a managing skill like clicking botd / enochian / transpose.

The mnk also automatically refresh his buff in his cycle while nin AC is a decision to take or to delay.

While mnk GL are too long to get and too easy to loose, and RoE a very bad designed ability for very niche encounter design, the comparaison doesn't really stand.

However, in 20s+ boss jump, nins can manually refresh huton with a ninjutsu and that is something worth comparing to the poorness of RoE and GL maintain.

My humble opinions

1) Dragon's Kick debuff needs to not require opo opo stance.

2) The blunt debuff needs to last 30 seconds. Same with the Twin Snakes Buff. No other self buff is so short.

3) Perfect Balance CD needs to be shorter. 2 min is good, one minute would be dreaming.

4) Monks need a middle button for their AOE combo. Tornado kick thematically seems logical. Remove the GL3 removal on it.

5) Arm of the Destroyer needs to be buffed to 80-100 potency. Currently it's too weak.

6) The stun needs to go away from Tackle. Bosses are immune to it anyway, and the 2s Stun wrecks any stun planning for dungeons due to diminishing returns.

7) Deep meditation needs to be affected by Direct Hits as well. 50% on DH, 100% on crit.

8) One ilm punch is currently useless. It needed to go away with the ability pruning. See the Tackle Stun issue above.

9) Fist of Wind is pointless now with the sprint change. Should be a trait.

10) Tornado Kick needs to apply sooner. It's one of those long animation, damage at the end of it abilities that no one likes.

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Originally Posted by MauvaisOeil

That doesn't make it a managing skill like clicking botd / enochian / transpose.

The mnk also automatically refresh his buff in his cycle while nin AC is a decision to take or to delay.

While mnk GL are too long to get and too easy to loose, and RoE a very bad designed ability for very niche encounter design, the comparaison doesn't really stand.

However, in 20s+ boss jump, nins can manually refresh huton with a ninjutsu and that is something worth comparing to the poorness of RoE and GL maintain.

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I think the comparison is that MNK has a make or break decision on their self buff where as the other three examples are much more forgiving.


NIN doesn't need to use armor crush 3 times to get the full Huton benefit.
BLM doesn't need to press Enochian every 3 spells to get its full benefit (without going into the icing in the cake that is Foul).


DRG is a different issue but DRGs BotD is much more forgiving in contrast to GL.

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Originally Posted by MauvaisOeil

That doesn't make it a managing skill like clicking botd / enochian / transpose.

The mnk also automatically refresh his buff in his cycle while nin AC is a decision to take or to delay.

While mnk GL are too long to get and too easy to loose, and RoE a very bad designed ability for very niche encounter design, the comparaison doesn't really stand.

However, in 20s+ boss jump, nins can manually refresh huton with a ninjutsu and that is something worth comparing to the poorness of RoE and GL maintain.

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I think speckledburd is mainly focusing on the amount of time a nin has on huton. 70s compared to GL3s 16s, Losing huton is losing 15% haste and a ninjutsu. Losing GL3 is losing 15% haste and 30% attack power. GL is certainly more punishing. A monk only needs 16s of downtime to lose GL3, RoE grants us a total of 32s AT BEST. there's a 1/3 chance to go into a phase transition with GL3 having just refreshed. But the refresh requirement sucks. Also if you take no damage due to a scholar's crit adlo, you no longer get the proc to trigger the refresh. If a monk is already losing GL3 at 16s tho due to no attacks happening, then a nin in a similar situation is only 4seconds away from casting huton anyway. Which is much easier to establish. And Armor Crush while yes, being tied to the GCD can increase your huton timer by such a substantial amount and the max huton time is so huge, literally 1 minute and 10seconds means that a skilled ninja will never lose huton. Whereas a skilled Monk will always be forced to lose it. It's that comparison of buff maintenance which is completely unfair. A monk NEEDS to have PB back. I don't really like using trials for examples because i prefer balancing around endgame raiding. But Shinryu for example is abysmal for GL upkeep because there's so many long breaks in the fight that means a ninja can breeze through it. And DRG doesn't lose much either due to both jumps being back to regain the eyes you lost during phase transitions. GCO in V4S is another example of a Monk not being able to keep up GL3, while DRG and Nin can go into it and come out with both resources still in tact. Monk's have to wait 5 minutes into the fight before they can use PB again. If they use it for min maxing when it comes off CD then it becomes a DPS loss later. It is unfair and overly punishing

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Originally Posted by Eugene_Kirigaya

Honestly, I was initially in the "Riddle of Earth Sucks!" camp, but having used it for a few months, I think it's the best designed and most satisfying feature SE added to Monk this expansion. Sure it doesn't prevent you losing your stacks in every situation, but it's not *supposed* to. It allows for there to be some skill in finding/optimising where it can be used in contrast with Tornado Kick, and encourages knowledge of a fight and player skill. Like, using it between the pushback of Decicive Battle in v4s, and the Holy hit so you can get a few extra seconds of GL to refresh it with a Coeurl move when he comes back (really satisfying to execute). Or after the last boss of Rabanastre jumps when he does the pulsating AoE. The skill has uses and it's fun to find them. When you can't use it to keep your stacks? Use Tornado Kick. That's why that skill was put into the game to begin with, and that's why we still have it.

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You cannot lose that much, divorced from any possibility driven by player control, and say that GL3 needs not be maintained 100% of the time, by RoE or otherwise. Monk simply does not have that kind of lead, nor should it: it should not be dependent on fights not having extended jump phases in order to be viable. That would be asinine. Or rather, it would then be left to remain asinine.

Now, by all means argue that RoE shouldn't be sole solution. Sure. Why should anything be? But consider:

For something to be a class mechanic, it must be able to be influenced by the player itself, at all times. This was true when we could precisely time our Coeurls to the final GCD of a Jump (especially for those with parsers and damn good eyeballing). It has not been true since. RoE merely circumvents the mechanic in certain circumstances, while providing nothing in the remainder. TK attempts to give it alternate reward, and therefore works in a broader range of situations, but as it so clearly inferior to GL maintenance, this merely becomes a type check, rather than a real decision: if GL3 cannot be maintained, free damage via TK. If it can, do not gimp damage via TK. At present, the team as a whole can push a jump such that it goes off directly Coeurl or directly before Coeurl, a range even now of 2 GCDs to how much downtime a Monk can handle, and certain jumps just become irrelevant because you have RoE. But there is nothing, lest you call that simple application of a very long Earth's Reply buff before the damage arrives sizeable player skillgap, the Monk itself can do about it.

Moreover, for a mechanic to ever feel like a reward to maximize, rather than a punishment to lose, it needs to have something like exponential difficulty or preperation required to be maximized such that maximization is rare, and it needs to be balanced around a state that is less than maximization.

Imagine, for instance, if GL was not a fixed duration, but instead extended by relative potency dealt (potency of all weaponskills, DoT ticks, and abilities, as per their multipliers). While GL could still be advanced by Coeurl moves, perhaps even technically to an infinite level, each ascended level burns through that duration more quickly, whereupon it descends to the previous level. You would be fighting for every precious second of GL4, but it would be always there, always possible, and would thereby again allow further modular control. Have both a single-burner (new) and all-burner (Tornado Kick) ability by which to quickly manipulate GL downwards. Now, after due tuning, the whole spectrum is in your hands: it's now a real mechanic, and its heights actually feel like rewards, not just the initial requirement for dealing halfway acceptable damage.

No one, especially not me, is telling GL sustaining is fine and fair.

The point is just : things cannot be compaired if they aren't comparable. Armor crush can only be compared to whatever extend the duration of GL : coeurl form strikes. Telling that nin doesn't have to refresh it 3 times as Armor crush is a decision that can be delayed and coeurl form attacks are an automatic cycle. Give +15s to huton on aeolian edge and shadow fang and no one will ever touch AC anymore, because it's a decision, and Coeurl form attacks aren't.

The punishing aspect is none to be compared, because the whole design of GL was turned, as the heavy positionnal, to the relative difficulty to properly play MNK and be top DPS. However, this design is flawed now, and monk is just one amongst other DPS and nothing is a justification to it's exigency.