MNK 4.0 Changes . . . I'm not a fan tbh

And one could argue that Monk still has decent numbers but its more of a bitter sweet experience, you have every class further improving on what made them so unique and good, DRG got an expanded Blood of the dragon, BRD has better song usage, Ninjas got flashier with their Mantras, etc. And we Monks got skills revolved around the very worst and most useless mechanic about our class, Fist sound good on paper but when a DPS job is to... DPS then there is no reason to use anything more than Fire, you can't just add the Riddles without doing something first to the Fists itself. and adding to the list, why even keep Steel Peak, a miserly 150 potency skill that doesn't stun, they would had at least make that one change with the fist instead of Shoulder Tackle because lol... why add knock back to a skill design to close a gap.

I have to say, despite my initial infuriaton, I am not entirely displeased by the lv70 Monk. I have hit ilvl 300 yesterday, and my GCD with GL3 is at 1.99 sec, which is insanely fast. With RoF it's at around 2.28 (iirc), which is not too bad, given that we have a +30% damage. Of course it still slows me down, but it's not bad, compared to the 2.38 I had in the earlier 60s, which was infuriating. If we had +30% damage (and possibly other damage buffs from drg?) without any drawbacks it would be kind of op imo.

Brotherhood has been kind to me quite a few times, sometimes unkind, but that's RNG for you. Really depends on the group. With a DRG and a big pull I have had Chakras build up so fast that FC was still on cooldown (which is 5 sec). However, I have not done any of the new raids/primal ex's, so I wouldn't know how Monk fares there. Deep Meditation has given me love sometimes, and denied it other times. I have over 1300 crit, so I do crit fairly often, but rngesus can still be unkind at times.

Overall, I like Brotherhood and Deep Meditation, having Chakras build up during fights is cool and I think brings quite some fun. I do agree with people saying that it needs to be adjusted in some ways because it's a bit too heavily reliant on rng, which can be very annoying (e.g. having 4 stacks and not getting the last one for like a minute). Though sometimes, mainly when I'm in RoF, and I have 4 stacks, I simply cast the last one and make a hit. I know, this might not be the most efficient move, but I'm not that big of a numbers guy.

RoE, while it's GL refreshing effect leaves quite a lot to be desired (I have felt the urge to get hit on purpose more than once), the idea of having a skill that instantly changes our fists without any animation stutter and gives us +20% damage reduction is not bad. It's not the best kind of skill, but I do enjoy it at times. Maybe it's also just because I gave RoE a better key bind than Fist of Earth...

Tackle Mastery should be called Tackle Mystery because like everyone else, I have no idea what the heck this is supposed to be about besides a lackluster attempt at making us switch fists lol. I would really like it if they made SOMETHING out of it.

Also: remove Arm of the Destroyer, I don't understand how this piece of trash is still a thing despite it having a name rooted in the Monk lore. One Ilm Punch can be deleted, too, I have used it at times when I was below 64 but just for fun, really.

And Tornadokick? Still don't get it. Makes no sense. If it were an attack that refreshes GL3 instead of consuming it, now THAT would be helpful! Together with RoE it would certainly help sometimes (I'd think). Or just make it consume nothing and give it a CD of like 60 sec or something.

Just for completion: change the CD of PB! It's just annoying.

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Originally Posted by SpeckledBurd

Riddle of Earth is useless, in Susano the boss does a jump without an AOE to refresh your stacks with about 90 seconds in and Perfect Balance is still on cooldown so you have to slow wind up your way back to three stacks, meanwhile the samurai has their PB equivalent up by that point and it gets all of their buffs right back on. I have no idea what Square was thinking with this ability.

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Tidbit, I wouldn't compare Meikyo Sishui to PB exactly, considering if a Sam uses MS he's trying to get Midare off or use the Sen gained in general. This requires he use gekko, kasha and yuki. 2 of which give him no buffs and the last that applies slashing rebuff. He still has to go through a shifu and jinpu to get his buffs. At this point he needs to finish his combos for the Sen because if he doesn't, it'll be a dps loss.

I see what you're saying, but you made it sound too simple for samurai.

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Originally Posted by Leonus

Tidbit, I wouldn't compare Meikyo Sishui to PB exactly, considering if a Sam uses MS he's trying to get Midare off or use the Sen gained in general. This requires he use gekko, kasha and yuki. 2 of which give him no buffs and the last that applies slashing rebuff. He still has to go through a shifu and jinpu to get his buffs. At this point he needs to finish his combos for the Sen because if he doesn't, it'll be a dps loss.

I see what you're saying, but you made it sound too simple for samurai.

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I only say that because they were literally using it to get up Shifu, Jinpu and their slashing Debuff in three GCDs, which is exactly what PB is for, getting up GL3, Twin Snakes, and Dragon Kick.

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Originally Posted by Leonus

Tidbit, I wouldn't compare Meikyo Sishui to PB exactly, considering if a Sam uses MS he's trying to get Midare off or use the Sen gained in general. This requires he use gekko, kasha and yuki. 2 of which give him no buffs and the last that applies slashing rebuff. He still has to go through a shifu and jinpu to get his buffs. At this point he needs to finish his combos for the Sen because if he doesn't, it'll be a dps loss.

I see what you're saying, but you made it sound too simple for samurai.

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It's a poor comparison to be sure. It takes Samurais 8 weapon skills to get back to full buffs and their buffs are less impactful. It takes monks 9. The difference aside from being weaker buffs so less important than GL3 is at the end of samurais getting off their 8 weapon skills to self buff back up they get to hit with a 720 potency attack that they can buff up to like 1080 potency. Monks get to exist. A better comparison is Blood of the Dragon or Enochian. Buffs that are necessary to play the class so are on 30 second cooldowns.

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It's a poor comparison to be sure. It takes Samurais 8 weapon skills to get back to full buffs and their buffs are less impactful. It takes monks 9. The difference aside from being weaker buffs so less important than GL3 is at the end of samurais getting off their 8 weapon skills to self buff back up they get to hit with a 720 potency attack that they can buff up to like 1080 potency. Monks get to exist. A better comparison is Blood of the Dragon or Enochian. Buffs that are necessary to play the class so are on 30 second cooldowns

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I agree that this is a more accurate comparison. Sam gets their buffs chasing Sen normally, mnk has to more consciously apply theirs... in a sense.

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Originally Posted by SpeckledBurd

I only say that because they were literally using it to get up Shifu, Jinpu and their slashing Debuff in three GCDs, which is exactly what PB is for, getting up GL3, Twin Snakes, and Dragon Kick.

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At the risk of sounding like a jerk, that samurai waisted Meikyo Sushui doing it that way. Literally could have Midare' d or converted the Sen into kenki for shiinten/HG. I may not be 100% sure since im not a ffxiv math wiz, but based on what I read and do know... It's safe to say that is a horrible way to use MS, 9 times out of 10.

That feeling you get when you pop Brotherhood in a dungeon and don't get a single Chakra. I'm not even sure what the odds of that are... I know the RDM was in melee mode and the tank was a Paladin.

My friends are taking the piss out of me so bad which sucks because back in 3.X I was their main source of damage - now I'm their main source of entertainment.

Meanwhile my best friend who went RDM is pulling aggro from the tank, using aggro drops - only to get aggro back again, at which point I finally have three stacks of GL...

I've had Monk at 70 for a few days, and I guess the question boils down to: what is Monk supposed to be now? Back in 3.X, it was the greedy DPS, minimal raid utility but (theoretically) the largest sustained DPS. SAM has taken that role now, so where does that leave MNK?

Is it meant to be still greedy but with a dash more raid utility? If so, the DPS doesn't reflect that.
Is it meant to be the DPS that can reflexively switch between roles, becoming tanky or speedy? If so, while it's still early days, there's no call for this in 4.0 ex primals and historically there has never been.
Is it meant to be the rapid fire DPS that stacks buff after buff to go from weak to strong? The DPS still doesn't reflect that and Riddle of Fire works against that design.

Honestly, it kind of feels like MNK was worked on by a few people with different ideas as to where it should go, and none of them were talking to each other.

If only they delete the rng on rng; make chakra gain consistent, it would be a huge improvement. And replace the useless tackle mastery with something else.
And remove the speed reduction from RoF.

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Basically redesign the whole damn thing post 3.x lol.

Why would one not prefer sam over monk now?

EDIT:
Also on lower lvl content, monk has fallen. Nerfed potency and no damage buffs. Before I had no problem being top dps in just about any instance. Now, it seems I'm easily out-dps'd by many of the jobs that got utility to boot. ... Or maybe I just had a bad couple of runs. Or I suck and never noticed...

so this is coming from a level 60 perspective, and may i say that level 60 monk is terrible compared to what you have already mentioned. i feel like you need to get SB abilities to even come close to where you were before 4.0.

personally, i feel as if Monks have a right to have a great rotation of combos up to level 60 as it did before cross-class damage-type abilities were removed.

a wide variety of damage-based abilities to use between each stance combo was one of the many reasons i loved monk so much. it reminded me of classic arcade fighting games where you could execute a extended combo without giving the enemy a break.

One-Ilm Punch and Arm of the Destroyer are both fairly weak abilities on their own and should not be stance combos. either one, but probably not both, should be taken off stance combos and have a recast of at least 50 seconds.