Monk Needs a Complete Rework

Devs are biased against monk and any ignorance they have with regards to the job is willful and malicious.

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Originally Posted by Ramura_Sono

Devs are biased against monk and any ignorance they have with regards to the job is willful and malicious.

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Eh, I don't think they're biased *against* Monk even if it frequently feels like they are biased towards certain jobs when it comes to how much effort they put into new actions/traits (like Black Mage consistently getting amazing additions). The problem with Monk is the devs have admitted to being clueless as to how to progress Monk, but in spite of this when they make a misstep like they did in Stormblood and now Shadowbringers, they're aggressively slow when it comes to actually implementing any of that feedback. We complained about Stormblood Monk from the get go and we got hand ringing but no action about it even on Shadowbringers Launch. The overwhelming design of Shadowbringers action is "GL Upkeep Skill, More Fist Stance stuff when you'll only want to use one stance, and taking out low end skill to put them on higher levels but worse!" which were all complaints about Stormblood Monk. When they finally did implement a small amount of the feedback we gave them... they turned around and ruined it by making what had just become a useless action even more useless for many of its intended use cases and only made it unpleasant for its unintended use case.

Compare to Samurai, who got Shoha changed in a single patch after player's complained.

Part 1.

I read through the thread and have been checking up on it whenever there's a new reply. Below are some thoughts that I've been adding to incrementally while at work. Sorry if this is a bit disorganized.

What would you all like to see in terms of *new* skills?
- The stances, as they are now, are one and done for the most part. Once you build up your GL stacks, you can stay in wind and forget about it. To that effect, what do you all think about getting rid of the *stances* entirely? Vestiges of the stances can remain in the form of Riddles - Earth, Fire, and a new one for Wind (maybe a reskin of Internal Release?)
- I think other ways to spend our chakra would be great. Currently, we only have The Forbidden Chakra and Enlightenment. Might’ve been mentioned in this thread, but I think if we could consume chakras to generate GL stacks, that would re-introduce the viability of TK (similar flavor to SAM’s Hagakure and NIN’s Meisui).
- On the topic of chakras, I think, if we removed the stances, we could replace those “skills” with one that tie in the light/dark chakras mentioned in the job quest.
- This is just a stab in the dark, but consider something like this: reduce the number of chakras stored to 4; GL 4 is now a trait. Introduce a skill that consumes 4 chakras for GL 4 (could convert a lesser amount too, e.g. 2 chakras for 2 GL stacks). Tie a Light/Dark chakra generation depending on whether you used True Strike, Demolish or Rock Breaker; True Strike would grant a Light Chakra. Demolish and Rock Breaker would grant a Dark Chakra. To borrow a little from RDM (of which I only have superficial knowledge), if we have more Light chakras stored, then at 3L, 1D, we can consume them all for a buff (as to what that buff does, idk). On the opposite end, if we have 3D / 1L, maybe just make the chakra consumption an ogcd skill with moderate potency? (That way in AOE rotations, you’ll have that ogcd to prevent over-capping; candidate for bringing back Howling Fist?) And if we have 2D/2L, then we can use TFC / Enlightenment

What would you like to stay?
- I think most monks would agree that greased lightning and the progression of forms (Opo-opo > Coeurl > Raptor) should stay
- With MCH being the only class I play that I know got a rework, I don’t know if there were any changes made to the story of its job quests. To that end, I think it’d be best for all parties (players and devs) if we kept chakra; reason being, the time spent trying to design/implement another resource could be better spent in other aspects of the job imo.

Part 2

What are some pain points of the job for you?
- Double rng gating of chakra was the sole reason I quit in Stormblood. It’s made better now with the trait that boosts the chance to 80%, but double rng is double rng. I think it’d be much more palatable if it were locked behind just a single gate (I still don’t think that it fits thematically with a monk, but it’s something I’d settle for)


Personally, I wasn’t a big fan of augmenting the tackles based on what stance you were in (back in Stormblood) because you’d mainly only ever be in one stance; if you tried to switch stances > tackle > try to switch back, you’d run into clipping issues (and I think there was and still is? a cd to swap stances too) In terms of design, I’ve seen across MCH (reassemble), SAM (kaiten), and DRG (life surge) all have an ogcd skill that buffs one *weapon*skill. I’m not saying that MNKs necessary *have* to have a similar weapon skill buff, but historically speaking, the design philosophy suggests that weapon skills are typically the ones to be augmented by a singular buff.

I want to punch things faster.

I want a couple of animation changes.

Actually, I mostly just want to punch things faster. Monk has always felt like the most engaging DPS job to me because of all of the constant positioning and how the stance rotation works. Sometimes though, when you're in that two back hits or two side hits or whatever part of your combo, it almost feels agonizing waiting for the GCD while standing still. Speed it up more! I want to break all of my gamepads and fingers and keyboards speed mashing monk abilities!

What else do I want? A few of the same things everyone wants - no useless skills, or skills with such specific uses that they almost never get used.

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Originally Posted by Ramura_Sono

Devs are biased against monk and any ignorance they have with regards to the job is willful and malicious.

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I think they just bias towards whatever jobs seem easiest to handle, fix, or placate. Due to short-sighted advancements, bar one incidental goldmine (for half, mercury for the other) that's bit them just as badly, Monk has ended up as none of those things.

This is, after all, the team that seems to have only four tools: the potency syringe, excessive bandaging, the embalmer's hook, and the sledgehammer.

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Originally Posted by Malmstrom

I want to punch things faster.

I want a couple of animation changes.

Actually, I mostly just want to punch things faster. Monk has always felt like the most engaging DPS job to me because of all of the constant positioning and how the stance rotation works. Sometimes though, when you're in that two back hits or two side hits or whatever part of your combo, it almost feels agonizing waiting for the GCD while standing still. Speed it up more! I want to break all of my gamepads and fingers and keyboards speed mashing monk abilities!

What else do I want? A few of the same things everyone wants - no useless skills, or skills with such specific uses that they almost never get used.

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Completely agree. Niche skills are too niche.

Also, what would you say to a 1.5 gcd? I feel like that's as low as SE would comfortably go.

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Originally Posted by 3ureka

Completely agree. Niche skills are too niche.

Also, what would you say to a 1.5 gcd? I feel like that's as low as SE would comfortably go.

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For many players, that wouldn't be enough time to even single-weave given that there's no ping mitigation on oGCDs (only GCDs, and only up to 250 ms). It may well also be the GCD cap, meaning that all SkS would then be wasted.

If used for just certain skills, as a sub-GCD similar to 5.1+ Mudras, so that other more normal-length GCDs (e.g. 1.8s+) could still weave oGCDs, that might be fine, but it'd still create noticeable discrepancies between high- and low-ping players in terms of timing flexibility.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

It may well also be the GCD cap, meaning that all SkS would then be wasted.

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Ahh. Good catch. The reason I brought up the 1.5 second cd was because that's how long Heat Blast and Autocrossbow have for MCH. Timing isn't super tight for single weaving between those skills, but that's with *good* ping, so I can imagine how bad it'd be for those with higher latency.

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Originally Posted by 3ureka

- The stances, as they are now, are one and done for the most part. Once you build up your GL stacks, you can stay in wind and forget about it. To that effect, what do you all think about getting rid of the *stances* entirely? Vestiges of the stances can remain in the form of Riddles - Earth, Fire, and a new one for Wind (maybe a reskin of Internal Release?)

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Remove them. They've had three attempts at making the Fist Stances something other than two stances you never use and one stance you stay in all the time. The Riddles are fine as cooldowns, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see Earth go now that 5.05 Form Shift fills its original function better than it ever did.

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- I think other ways to spend our chakra would be great. Currently, we only have The Forbidden Chakra and Enlightenment. Might’ve been mentioned in this thread, but I think if we could consume chakras to generate GL stacks, that would re-introduce the viability of TK (similar flavor to SAM’s Hagakure and NIN’s Meisui).

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I think a bigger consideration for Chakra should be reworking how we build chakras, making it so it isn't unusable unless its capped, and changing the levels you earn gauge actions at so they actually make sense. Enlightenment for example is a skill that on any other DPS would be earned in the 50-64 range. The only reason it isn't on Monk is because the devs practically ignored Monk's gauge in Stormblood. Then they had so few ideas for Monk in Shadowbringers that they would have had a hole in its leveling curve if they'd done what they should have and made it a level 58 skill to replace Purification.

Tying Chakra more into the Lore of Light/Dark Chakras strikes me as needlessly convoluted and a unnecessary. It needs to be reworked so we have overhead between being able to use our skills before we cap, IE, Forbidden Chakra/Enlightenment still Cost 5 Chakra to use but we can store up to 7/10/14. Really any overhead above our current Zero would be appreciated. Further we should build it in a manner that doesn't involve RNG, Monk is about consistency of output and the RNG aspects of Brotherhood and Deep Meditation have grated for a while. In fact just removing the RNG aspect makes the overflow problem non-existent, but having that overhead invites the opportunity to build new skills that will use more Gauge and have greater effects. I'd suggest Deep Meditation now just build Chakras on a Greased Lightning Refresh and that Brotherhood just grants you a 3 Stack Buff on you that lets you use a Chakra Free Forbidden Chakras (about what you get ideally with a standard 8 Man Comp) instead of having any of the manyfold problems that exist with it as it exists.

In terms of new skills I want... new Weaponskills and Abilities that we actually get to use as part of our rotation. One of the things that's made Monk players the angriest going from expansion to expansion is how we're constantly losing skills and getting nothing in return for them. The best we get is something close to similar skills that are worse in the leveling curve like Riddle of Fire replacing Blood For Blood but with an effect everyone hates, or Enlightenment replacing Howling Fist but we can't use it in Single Target. Monk is the only job that hasn't had a new rotational Weaponskill added to it since A Realm Reborn. Give us a replacement for the stuff we've lost, a Weaponskill with 30 second recast separate from the GCD like Shadowfang or Sonic Break that hits obscenely hard and feels good to use instead of an "Ultimate" skill like Six Sided Star that's just utility we get to touch maybe once or twice a fight. The reason this ends up feeling like a pseudo rework is that a lot of this stuff needs to be added into the low levels instead of into 80-90, because as it is Monk is absolutely barren down there and there's so many things that need removing and replacing that it'll create the worst leveling curve imaginable should they make the changes they need to.

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Originally Posted by 3ureka

Completely agree. Niche skills are too niche.

Also, what would you say to a 1.5 gcd? I feel like that's as low as SE would comfortably go.

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As Shurrikhan said, it would be too low for the pace of this game (and it's Netcode) if it were sustained. If they put something like that on Monk it would make the most sense as a relatively short Duration Cooldown you could pop for like 10 seconds of insane speed, but even then its really going to make it painful to play at higher pings as we've seen with new Wildfire/Overheat on Machinist.

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Originally Posted by 3ureka

Ahh. Good catch. The reason I brought up the 1.5 second cd was because that's how long Heat Blast and Autocrossbow have for MCH. Timing isn't super tight for single weaving between those skills, but that's with *good* ping, so I can imagine how bad it'd be for those with higher latency.

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A 1.5s GCD should have the half the remainder after the 600 ms of the skill itself ((1.5 -.6)/2 -> 450 ms) as a safety margin before latency could affect uptime, but it seems a whole lot more finicky than that, for some reason that doesn't seem accounted for by any on-paper generalities.

Granted, XIV's exact latency margins have always been a little... odd. For instance, for the brief period where during HW where the servers moved to within a couple hundred miles of me but they hadn't yet added additional protections from speedhackers, I could pretty consistently double-weave at a 1.8 GCD (my Howling Fist would barely get off the ground before being clipped). Now, even at that same 40 ms I need a 2-second GCD to consistently lose zero uptime (even with a VPN and Turbo-ing the oGCD keys), whereas I should theoretically need only 1.96.

Put simply, if they could allow for consistent single-weaving at a 1.2-second GCD (as would be possible if oGCDs had the same ping protection as GCDs), then that would probably be our cap and I'd love to see Monks thereby use multiple GCD lengths as to feel faster and more furious but still varied rather than merely wrist-breaking. Given the present workings of the game, though, ~1.75 is probably our lowest limit.

I feel like it's also worth considering just how few people are actually playing Monk post 5.1. Now that Monk isn't the flavor of the month Job by virtue of very slightly overperforming over the other melee, Monk has fallen to the least played job in the game based on the number of FFlog Parse uploads it has compared to other jobs. In Savage it's below Ninja in plays despite Monk arguably being the stronger job in terms of raid damage and having Mantra, and it's actually less played than Red Mage which has a case for being the weakest job in the game at the moment. The Copied Factory is another important data point, in that its probably the best indication for how Monk is perceived outside of the relatively small group that's doing savage content. There it shows an even bigger disparity in player numbers with Monk having about 5000 uploads less than the next least played job (around 12000 monk players to 17000 Ninja players), when they're the only two jobs with less than 21000 plays. While this is certainly not a perfect metric due to the bait for people to upload to FFlogs being the leaderboard aspect and thus it’s extremely prone to publication bias if someone is dissatisfied by their performance, it is still the best look at what people are actively playing as opposed to what they just have unlocked or leveled as some census methods will provide by taking lodestone data.

While we can argue all day and night about what we want them to do (which we have been doing since the beginning of Stormblood if not throughout Heavensward) it doesn't change the fact that the devs need to do something about the Monk kit at this point. By all indications the Shadowbringers iteration of Monk is as unpopular or less than the Stormblood iteration which was a Developer admitted flop with the player base.

Monk right now feels beyond bland to play, having to cycle through the exact same unchanged ARR combo along with the two layers of rng, the unrewarding optimizations and the loss of ogcds just makes the job unfun to play, especially when compared to how it played after the 4.2 patch, the Anatman nerf was the final nail in the coffin of a job that was only being played because of it being in a very overtuned state, I really hope the devs give this job some heavy reworks as soon as possible.

I'm just glad that the Japanese MNK playerbase is just as vocal as we are.

Controversial opinion: Probably the reason as to why the dev team may not change MNK in the next major patch unless they do say so is because Leaden's fist Proc is unbelievably broken on monk and its their main source of DPS output. if the dev team wants to make Tornado kick viable again they have to rearrange numbers and properties on monk. basically a rework like ninja could work but they have to redo all the numbers and effects.

Monk is in a unique spot that while their numbers are high,their playstyle/rotation is incredibly dull and janky. thats something that im worried about because the dev team will just look at the numbers and say "YEP MONK IS DOING WHATS ITS INTENDED TO DO"
Just make the class fun again. I hate having niche abilities on my hotbar that does jack-squat except for situational mechanics/downtime.

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Originally Posted by Todhaseo

I'm just glad that the Japanese MNK playerbase is just as vocal as we are.

Controversial opinion: Probably the reason as to why the dev team may not change MNK in the next major patch unless they do say so is because Leaden's fist Proc is unbelievably broken on monk and its their main source of DPS output. if the dev team wants to make Tornado kick viable again they have to rearrange numbers and properties on monk. basically a rework like ninja could work but they have to redo all the numbers and effects.

Monk is in a unique spot that while their numbers are high,their playstyle/rotation is incredibly dull and janky. thats something that im worried about because the dev team will just look at the numbers and say "YEP MONK IS DOING WHATS ITS INTENDED TO DO"
Just make the class fun again. I hate having niche abilities on my hotbar that does jack-squat except for situational mechanics/downtime.

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I would hope that the devs would understand at this point that just because a Job is where it should be in terms of DPS numbers doesn't mean that its in a good place or that players are satisfied. You only need to look at Stormblood Machinist or even Stormblood Monk to see that. They had the lowest and second lowest player numbers in the game respectively in spite of their personal damage and raid contribution, while not being DRG/NIN tier at the end, were still good enough. But they were absolutely in need of fixes. Machinist got them in the form of a complete overhaul to great effect (not the most played in the way that a DRG or a SAM is, but respectable enough numbers), while Monk got... changes more appeals at making broken skills becoming useful more than actual fixes or more skills that are redundant with what we had.

On some level I'd like to believe that the devs actually got the message that 5.0 Monk was absolutely unacceptable and that 5.05's bandaids were a sign for longer term fixes which typically take 1-2 patches as happened with Summoners 4.06 DoT buffs, but I'm not going to hold my breath. History has proven otherwise. Monk has historically been the job the devs historically just ignore. It was dead and ignored with multiple problems that went unadressed throughout Heavensward. It's playstyle concerns from Stormblood were completely ignored throughout that expansion to the point where they iterated on things we hated instead of fixing the fundamental problems with them. This is the dev team that left Riddle of Fire's slow in for the Shadowbringers release even though they knew that it was the single most despised part of Stormblood Monk.

When it comes to Monk the devs have repeatedly claimed that they had heard our complaints and were fixing it only to turn around and slap us in the face with more of the same of what we've hated. They've burned every shred of goodwill and now it's blowing up in their faces. Should they fix Monk with Something akin to a Ninja or Summoner level rework? Absolutely. Will they? Probably not, they certainly haven't before. Until proven otherwise I'm expecting nothing in the coming patches and 6.0 to have more skills trimmed out at the low level and added back at the top end if they're returned at all alongside a bunch of terrible Greased Lightning management skills.

Pebble Toss! Pebble Toss!

I just need that one enemy, not the whole mob.

I really like the stance system they have in lieu of traditional linear combos tanks and other melee dps have.

Outside of that, I wouldn't mind if they scrapped everything and built something new around that core of the stance system.

I agree, it needs a rework. It kinda sucks to play.

I recently-ish leveled Mnk ... I love Love LOVE this job!

AND I see that it needs a from-the-roots-up rework.
I'm the type of person who likes to try to connect the dots on my own before looking at the thoughts of others ... so to me, as someone completely new to MNK, it seemed like "OH, PB allows me to do w/e attack I want .... there are 2 single target attacks that generate GL and 1 AOE that does that ... TK blows ALL your GL. Sooooo I should use TK and get back to 4 stacks of GL by spamming out the best attack for the situation, right?" Then this for a bit until I looked for info on how to do da deeps with the job and found out about the leaden Fist PB combo being better.

Like, that can't be what the devs intended ... right? Now I do the leaden fist PB combo and at the last second I pop a Six Sided Star to keep my stacks. So when do I use TK? When the boss is about to die ... or when they're about to do something that makes keeping GL stacks annoying.

The job is full of these strange holes and dead ends wrapped around a pretty chill and brain dead skill rotation.

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Originally Posted by reivaxe

Now I do the leaden fist PB combo and at the last second I pop a Six Sided Star to keep my stacks. So when do I use TK? When the boss is about to die ... or when they're about to do something that makes keeping GL stacks annoying.

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You don't use Six sided star in this way either. It's 400 potency but takes up 2GCDs. So unless it's just before a boss jumps it's the equivalent to 200 potency per 1 GCD. Sounds decent until you realise that it halts your rotation and you bread and butter combos are worth more potency than using 6SS. Therefore you are better using Snap or Demo (Demo is much stronger than if it can tick the full duration) within PB. The only time you don't use a coeurl WS is if you have max uptime on Twin and Demo and you can get RoE to proc during PB. Very nich optimization though.

Generally I agree though, many niche skills fulfilling similar roles within the job. It needs an overhaul similar to NIN.

MNK needs meaningful CDs, not just hit it and forget it. It needs to reclaim synergy back with it's kit and to not have skills that just sit there because they are a trap in most cases or you have to play russian roulette with Anatman and hope for GL ticks when TKing. It went from evolution in HW to regressing to a convoluted mess from SB. And while the TK rotation was a breath of fresh air and amazing synergy with PB, Fist stances and IR it was convoluted to pull of still.

NIN right now plays so smooth, everything makes sense, there is clear synergy between skills and ninki and CDs link together and interact (DWAD > Assassinate. Kassatsu > Ninjutsu. TCJ > Meisui.) Mnk has... Crit Boot synergy with Chakra generation very little synergy with anything else in its kit and it's sad when looking at other jobs.

At the risk of whining, I'm just deeply saddened that the class that got me through the majority of my FFXIV experience feels so lackluster (if not bad) to play. I'm having much more fun with basically all of the other classes (NIN and SAM in particular). I was outright angry with MNK on SB's release, and now I think I'm at the acceptance - albeit disappointed - stage. :/

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Originally Posted by Sora_Oathkeeper

Mnk has... Crit Boot synergy with Chakra generation very little synergy with anything else in its kit and it's sad when looking at other jobs.

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There's a fine line between "synergy" and "crippled if CDs are desynced". Synergy is like Internal Release increasing the relative value of a double-Bootshine rotational string back in SB or decreasing it in HW to a certain breakpoint, adjusting your optimal choices but not to a point that one need be held for the other. Synergy is 6SS finally being usable, if only at the end of a damage CD's duration and when mindful of sync elsewhere (that is, if MNK still had some way of adjusting its sync, which it hasn't since 6SS's release with ShB). Synergy is being able to use TK when able to quickly generate it back, though at cost to another rotational possibility and not so strong (such as due to, say, a bug making its damage 39%-45% higher than stated) as to be obligatory. Anything past that is simply costing two buttons for a single combined action, dependence more so than synergy.

Yes, Monk lacks synergy. But let's be careful not to fall back on such bottom-of-the-barrel examples as the "synergy" of DWaD and Assassinate, for example, when we try to fill that lack. Assassinate is literal bloat. It could merely be apm bloat, par for NIN's former high-speed identity, and that'd be fine so long as there's nothing that other double-weave that would be obligatory in that same GCD (and at present, there isn't, so by all means). Using two buttons, however, just to effectively DWaD twice is hardly design worth imitating.

Right now, Monk has a few too many underpowered tools in much the same vein as pre-buff Meisui (a button previously devoted entirely to a potential mistake -- if someone forgot to instead use Fuma-Katon-Doton instead of a Fuma-Raiton-Suiton when TA is already on cooldown and the effect will not cover all 3 hits), but it's had far closer misses much more worth imitating just within its last two expansions than it'd see from, say, 5.1 NIN. It needs synergies, not bloat, not over-dependence, not skills used just to unlock another skill, and certainly doesn't need its apm crippled. It can afford to be a bit esoteric, a bit eclectic; it need only be synergetic, sensible in the context of its own skills, and fun.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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Maybe DWAD isn't a good example as I somewhat agree. But that's an example that can be replicated across multiple DPS jobs which MNK simply falls behind on. Jump proccing mirage dive comes to mind. What I mean is NIN's main thing it has going is Ninki and Ninjutsu and huton to a much lesser extent. There is much more synergy within NINs core identity than there is in MNKs.

I'm mostly talking in regards to MNKs core mechanics, Greased Lightning, Chakras and positionals. There is very little within MNKs kit which actually engages with these mechanics. Positionals have no reward aside from increased potency and crit on Bootshine which synergizes with deep meditation. That's one WS out of 6 which has meaning to MNKs gauge and it's RNG dependent. TK is a trap and can be a gain or a loss depending on downtime length and anatman ticks when optimizing. So, it has a very underwhelming synergy with GL, the rest of the GL skills, RoE (which has a niche to hit 6 opo-opo hits under PB), Anatman, 6SS, Form Shift, PB (if that can even be counted anymore outside of the opener) have almost no interaction with GL other than to maintain it. Why bother even having 6SS increase GL length still after the QoL MNK got? Lastly we have Chakras, they are an all or nothing deal. They are only useful if you have all 5 anything less than 5 is completely useless. They are RNG on top of RNG to obtain and only Brotherhood can help you get more.

To sum up: MNK has next to no synergy with its 3 core mechanics. One positional is leagues ahead of all others, TK is too niche to make much impact on the GL mechanic, Chakras are RNG, have an all or nothing deal and BH punishes the MNK for double caster comp.

NIN on the other hand: Ninki doesn't need to be capped to be used. Bunshin actively helps build ninki further whilst doing more damage. TCJ > Meisui interacts with ninki, Kassatsu boosting and giving one charge of mudras is nice interaction with the Ninjutsu mechanics, ninjutsu resetting shukuchi is nice for gap closing a few times. NIN genuinely synergizes well within its own kit with MOST of its abilities. Again, I agree DWAD > Assassinate is button bloaty and doesn't interact with the job gauges whatsoever.

I would like to see more interaction/synergy with MNKs core rotations and gauges.
Chakras increased to 7 to allow an overflow would be nice or give TFC the pitch perfect treatment so that it can be expended prior to 5 chakras albeit at less potency. But their is always incentive for Max stacks when necessary. This would help MNK going into downtime with chakra stacks unnecessarily allowing them to build them back and not feeling like you've 'wasted' a TFC because you crit your last hit before the boss left and ended up with 4 or 5 chakras.

I would move chakras off of crit RNG and scatter them throughout landing positionals so that there is some synergy between positionals and chakra building. These are just ideas off the top of my head but you get the jist. I agree MNK doesn't need unneccesary buttons and the eclectic moveset could work, but there needs to be more to MNK than just double true per twin and hope for Chakras in the meantime? And please stick Leaden fist on the gaue icon... Searching for that icon during buff intensive moments is a nightmare.

To clarify: I don't want MNK to become NIN. I want it to have its own identity and be more engaging with its resources so that it actually feels like its evolving as a job.

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Originally Posted by Sora_Oathkeeper

Maybe DWAD isn't a good example as I somewhat agree. But that's an example that can be replicated across multiple DPS jobs which MNK simply falls behind on. Jump proccing mirage dive comes to mind.

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...Isn't that just a significantly better version of Assassinate, if only due to having 50% more activation duration, to make it more flexible, and having StarDiver running off a similar bank-and-use-at-the-opportune-moment theme? You use a button to unlock another skill when you could have as easily combined the buttons, since the first will never be usable within 15 seconds of the second falling out of usability.

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Originally Posted by Sora_Oathkeeper

What I mean is NIN's main thing it has going is Ninki and Ninjutsu and huton to a much lesser extent. There is much more synergy within NINs core identity than there is in MNKs.

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I agree that one thing NIN has always done right is to play off its former tools.

Raiton his hard? Well how about auto-critting it? Normally waste the initial mudras to cast a complex one?
Well how about comboing them into each other for a single-dual-tri Ninjutsu chain?
Aeolian hits like a truck compared to other skills (obviously no longer the case)? How about a second one for free?
Sacrificing a (usually too early, on-cooldown, or currently in use) TA window for another burst skill (to slip into that TA's bonus damage)? Why not?

That's... pretty decent design, to say the least, and they pushed similar enough ideas in optimization (macrorotation, mostly, insofar as sync, margins, and more immediate setup), and until recently doubled down on a particular style (oGCD-filled, high apm, and precise more than spammy). That makes a compelling design.

(Personally, I preferred when those came with weaknesses as well, such as Kassatsu resetting the Ninjutsu cooldown rather than adding an additional charge, but I'm probably alone in that.)

Now, I agree with each of your complaints on Monk. Again, I'm not arguing that Monk is good, only that really strong synergies, like... Leaden Fist... can as easily go wrong as right, so we should be careful of chasing a buzzword over than its resultant gameplay.

I've written a few "How I would do Monk" threads over the years, but for now the short of it is...

• Return Crits to a flat 50% damage bonus, but have excess chances increase effectiveness instead. For instance, a 120% crit chance (e.g. a Bootshine with a native 20% crit chance) would have a 60% bonus damage modifier (50% *120% = 60%).
• Increase the relative value of positionals (this would be for all melee though, as 40 potency for Monk is already almost 60 potency for everyone else), but return position-less skills (similar to Fracture and ToD back in the day, but with less of a maintenance aspect while maintaining wastefulness if used too often. OR revamp the form-cycle system entirely to something truly unique.
• Reduce the total value of DK-Leaden Fist over double Bootshine, apart from wanting to maximize its output in damage windows, to amount to about a positional bonus. It's therefore a worthwhile optimization around damage buffs, but a soft optimization that can be flexed or sacrificed to prep a TFC earlier. OR change DK completely.
• Remove GL4 as a mere increased-delay/increased-punishment mechanic. It will be replaced with funner things that offer more agency.
• Merge Chakra into GL, which is now a system similar to HW's expendable BotD, but still tiered. GL is still ranked up instantly by Coeurl up to GL3, but its timer can also be extended by any and all relative potency dealt. You can then spend excess timer to accelerate your oGCDs (use them before they're refreshed). This means that you can build up a bank large enough to use TK at the start of burst CDs, get a bunch back from the TK itself to bounce back to GL2 or even lose no GL depending on how much excess timer you have, go hog over the buff's duration, finish with another TK that will bounce you back to GL1 on its own, and the PB right back to GL3.
• Fixed ("Fists of") stances are gone. Instead, you generate elemental... essence, or whatever you want to call it, from your oGCDs. Those elemental effects are now... quite significant. Steel Peak, Wind Step (a renamed Shoulder Tackle), and Red Lotus added while TFC, Howling Fist, and Elixir Field become essence-dynamic. These offer significant combo opportunities between themselves and in interaction with your rotation (especially via Fire's DoT mechanic, which allows for banking and Wind's Haste mechanic) or the fight occurring around you (from which Earth can absorb raw potency to be used in your own strikes). Fill-and-spend-and-fill-and-spend play gone, replaced by choices and synergistic flow. Internal Release returned and now plays into these essences, effectively replacing Riddle of Fire, Riddle of Earth, and Riddle of Wind in a more dynamic way that integrates better with the setup from your elemental skills. (Keep in mind these are simply called Adamantine, Gale, and Red Lotus stance in Japanese, so they shouldn't be going so far as being tangibly elemental, only reminiscent in style.)
• In summary: Clunk = bad. Excessive ramp-up = bad. Gimmicks = bad. Unusable skills = bad. Modular control = good. Positional control and setup = good. oGCD choice and flow = good. Macrorotation that doesn't revolve around just one ability = good. Seems fair?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

...Isn't that just a significantly better version of Assassinate, if only due to having 50% more activation duration, to make it more flexible, and having StarDiver running off a similar bank-and-use-at-the-opportune-moment theme? You use a button to unlock another second.

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There's also the fact Mirage Dive feeds into Dragoon's Job Gauge where as Assassinate does.... jack all. I know this is a MNK topic but out of all the things to not get axed on Ninja is Assassinate, really? I don't think it's been relevant to our kit/lore at all so why keep it around?

On Topic, from the outside looking in and a couple attempts to play the Job, it does feel the most weird/different of the Jobs to me. Something's off about it but I can't bring myself to get it to higher levels to even figure out what I find off about it.

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

There's also the fact Mirage Dive feeds into Dragoon's Job Gauge where as Assassinate does.... jack all. I know this is a MNK topic but out of all the things to not get axed on Ninja is Assassinate, really? I don't think it's been relevant to our kit/lore at all so why keep it around?

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I mean, I'd like to keep what little apm remains, so I'd most want it to just be either (1) retooled to again be usable against low-HP enemies, and preferably generate some Ninki, while being unlocked against an enemy regardless of HP for a free charge after DWaD or (2) hotswap into DWaD's place for its 10 seconds' activation time after the prior has been used. Removal wouldn't be a noticeable blow after the blunt force trauma of the unnecessary slow-downs, though.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I mean, I'd like to keep what little apm remains, so I'd most want it to just be either (1) retooled to again be usable against low-HP enemies, and preferably generate some Ninki, while being unlocked against an enemy regardless of HP for a free charge after DWaD or (2) hotswap into DWaD's place for its 10 seconds' activation time after the prior has been used. Removal wouldn't be a noticeable blow after the blunt force trauma of the unnecessary slow-downs, though.

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There's keeping it because it's effective and fun and keeping it because "Well we need to push a button here or else it feels slow". Like if it did more than just damage maybe it wouldn't feel so empty and wasted of a slot(Cough, Assassinate is Jugulate locked behind another timer).

Oddly I think MNK kinda has that same problem of wanting to hold onto things as is without trying to future proof/work with new parts. But again, my experience and info is second hand but it just sounds weird all they've tried to keep for MNK.

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Originally Posted by Sora_Oathkeeper

I would move chakras off of crit RNG and scatter them throughout landing positionals so that there is some synergy between positionals and chakra building.

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I actually really like that idea.

I was leaning more towards 100% chakra generation on crit instead. There would still be an element of RNG, but at least not double.

Both, I think, would require a potency nerf to the spenders, but being able to have it more often to weave into your attacks would make it feel a lot better.

I've only mainly leveled up physical dps classes, but are there any jobs that have a similar "double rng" gate?

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Originally Posted by 3ureka

I've only mainly leveled up physical dps classes, but are there any jobs that have a similar "double rng" gate?

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Currently no, previously Bard had a chance to proc it's Repertoire stacks off of its dots Critting. They removed it because it made Bard synergize too heavily with Dragoon and Scholar.

Monk didn't get the same treatment when it came to being overly dependent on party comp through that (And Brotherhood for physical comps) because of course it didn't.

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Originally Posted by Malmstrom

I actually really like that idea.

I was leaning more towards 100% chakra generation on crit instead. There would still be an element of RNG, but at least not double.

Both, I think, would require a potency nerf to the spenders, but being able to have it more often to weave into your attacks would make it feel a lot better.

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The problem with any degree of RNG on Chakra is that it inherently works against Meditate's ability to act to mitigate down time loss. Considering Meditate is technically Monk's ranged skill at the moment, thats a problem. If we have no control over the rate at which we build Chakra, it's possible and likely that we will disengage from the boss and be unable to make the most of time spent away because we have Chakra already banked.

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Originally Posted by SpeckledBurd

Currently no, previously Bard had a chance to proc it's Repertoire stacks off of its dots Critting. They removed it because it made Bard synergize too heavily with Dragoon and Scholar.

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Even when Bard's procs were based on crits, they were weren't double rng like monk. Bard had a 100% to proc on dot crits, with 2 dots ticking every 3 seconds.

The fact the dev's admitted they had no idea what to do with monk in Stormblood, and then proceeded to not put in an ounce of thought into the job in the 2 years between expansions, resulting in us getting more of the same garbage we complained about in Shadowbringers is pathetic. Shameful. If the Devs care so little about Monk, then they should hire someone from the community that actually gives a toss about the job. Or delete it entirely since they seem to be uninterested in giving it the same treatment as any other job.

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Originally Posted by SpeckledBurd

The problem with any degree of RNG on Chakra is that it inherently works against Meditate's ability to act to mitigate down time loss. Considering Meditate is technically Monk's ranged skill at the moment, thats a problem. If we have no control over the rate at which we build Chakra, it's possible and likely that we will disengage from the boss and be unable to make the most of time spent away because we have Chakra already banked.

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Yeah, but the RNG would at least be alleviated some by the guaranteed Bootshine crit.

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Originally Posted by Ramura_Sono

Even when Bard's procs were based on crits, they were weren't double rng like monk. Bard had a 100% to proc on dot crits, with 2 dots ticking every 3 seconds.

The fact the dev's admitted they had no idea what to do with monk in Stormblood, and then proceeded to not put in an ounce of thought into the job in the 2 years between expansions, resulting in us getting more of the same garbage we complained about in Shadowbringers is pathetic. Shameful. If the Devs care so little about Monk, then they should hire someone from the community that actually gives a toss about the job. Or delete it entirely since they seem to be uninterested in giving it the same treatment as any other job.

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Ah the error was mine then, but it's sort of splitting hairs. I was thinking of the pre-Stormblood River of Blood trait which was basically the Mage's Ballad Repertoire effect with only a 50% chance to proc on a crit but being up full time.

And I more or less agree even if I won't go into it again in this thread for the fourth or fifth time, though I'd rather they not delete the job. Monk is one of the original Final Fanatasy Jobs right there with White Mage, Black Mage, Red Mage, Ninja and Warrior. You'd hope they'd be able to do right by it.

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Originally Posted by Malmstrom

Yeah, but the RNG would at least be alleviated some by the guaranteed Bootshine crit.

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It would be alleviated, but the manner in which the Deep Meditation Traits work against Meditation as our "ranged" skill would remain. Even with it proccing off a guaranteed bootshine there would still exist crits outside of that, so Monk would still be relying upon a Scholar and a Dragoon in the party to perform optimally and have instances where it would enter down phases and be unable to make effective use of meditate.

The fact is Chakra as a gauge was never properly made into an actual gauge in the way that other systems like Warrior's Wrath Stacks were converted into gauge. It's still rooted in the design of a downtime mitigation skill.

I would like Form Shift to always reset Grease Lightning outside of combat. Would lessen that endless stomping in dungeons by quite a bit. 20 instead of 16 seconds grease lightning would also be welcome. Thank you :)

If you're not constantly stomping, you're doing monk wrong hahah

But yeah, it would definitely be nice to have a less mind-numbing way to keep that up. At the same time, at least we *do* have a way to keep our stacks unlike DRG which loses everything. NIN's can always Huton > Hide, and SAM can just sit back.

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Originally Posted by 3ureka

If you're not constantly stomping, you're doing monk wrong hahah

But yeah, it would definitely be nice to have a less mind-numbing way to keep that up. At the same time, at least we *do* have a way to keep our stacks unlike DRG which loses everything. NIN's can always Huton > Hide, and SAM can just sit back.

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They changed the blood of the dragon buff to have a 25s CD and the buff lasts 30s. At end game, you can never lose it and its only a button press every 25s rather than every 2-3s.


https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/jobguide/dragoon/

Oooh. F. My bad! I'll be the first to say that I'm guilty of maxing it and not touching the job after that lol. At least for the earlier levels, DRG can potentially lose all of their buffs if they don't hit anything in the next 25 seconds (I feel like they could probably move that lvl 78 trait that buffs BoTD to 30s down to be accessible earlier on); whereas monks get Form Shift at 52, which, for most cases, unlocks 100% uptime of GL stacks.

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Originally Posted by 3ureka

Oooh. F. My bad! I'll be the first to say that I'm guilty of maxing it and not touching the job after that lol. At least for the earlier levels, DRG can potentially lose all of their buffs if they don't hit anything in the next 25 seconds (I feel like they could probably move that lvl 78 trait that buffs BoTD to 30s down to be accessible earlier on); whereas monks get Form Shift at 52, which, for most cases, unlocks 100% uptime of GL stacks.

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Yeah but the change to form shit was a direct skill change. the trait to BotD already was a thing in 5.0 launch. Form Shift's current iteration was one of the many "noticeable" flaws when they make bandaid changes to abilities that change the leveling experience. I don't disagree with your reaosning, but its more of the bandaid fix always trickles down to make things "OP" in earlier levels because everything is balanced for end game only.

A similar example of things that don't make sense after you ponder them is the second step of aoe combos for Tanks. DRK and GNB generate resource by default, but PLD and WAR don't until 20/30+ lvls respectively.

Ahh. Yeah, I came into ShB kind of late after my hiatus from SB and noticed the changes to Form Shift; not the most elegant buff but a huge quality of life upgrade nonetheless.

I can't speak for PLD, but I've been leveling my WAR the past few days and I thought they introduced the generation and spending of Beast Gauge at a pretty decent pace. We get Inner Beast at 35 and then our second step of aoe at 40. Maybe because DRK and GNB come out of the box at a higher level, Square didn't think twice about baking in resource generation to their 2nd aoe step?

On an unrelated note, I've been getting back into monk to take it into savage content, and it feels just like I remember it. And while I can appreciate the purpose of the niche skills like Tornado Kick, Anatman, and Six-sided Star, I feel like as a whole, there's a lack of cohesion. Seeing as I'm not at the point where I've optimized every skill for every encounter, I could easily be misunderstanding these skills' use cases, but for the other melee DPS classes, I found myself interacting with every skill fairly often. I can't quite put my finger on it, but maybe it's because of the frequency (or lack thereof) with these niche skills that leaves me wanting something more.

lol monk has been complete garbage to play for years, its hilarious there are still people in threads about monk asking what is wrong with it when its been well documented. I've played monk at a pretty decent skill level since early HW. Literally everything is wrong with monk. It hasn't had anything notable added since HW and has been dumbed down so much that its tedious to play and there is no longer anything fun about it. Like congrats, they finally removed the slowdown in 5.05 (remember the torture that was leveling monk in 5.0?) while leaving the rest of the job a dumpster fire. I'll check back for the 6.0 patch notes when they remove a skill and replace it with a skill that is the exact same thing, another GL maintenance skill that no one asked for and no one wants and probably a trait that increases the damage dragon kick does or some other asinine trait. The devs don't understand monk. They never will. Just give up on this job and go do literally anything else.