Monk Needs a Complete Rework

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Originally Posted by Imshail

You guys must have forgotten about the devs and how they've been handling monk the past 3 expansions if you think they're going to change anything at this point then you're delusional.

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You must be fun at parties.

"You know what would be neat?"

"NO, BECAUSE IT CAN'T HAPPEN SO SPECULATION, AS A FUN PAST TIME, SHOULDN'T HAPPEN"

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

You must be fun at parties.

"You know what would be neat?"

"NO, BECAUSE IT CAN'T HAPPEN SO SPECULATION, AS A FUN PAST TIME, SHOULDN'T HAPPEN"

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I took his post to be more frustration at the developers for neglecting us for the past 3 expansions rather than a dig at the players for speculating. I dunno just seemed to be that hopeful thinking now is more or less gone until next expansion as past experiences show that nearly all big changes come in X.1 and X.2, after those the devs generally view X.3 to be closer to the next expansion so no need to tweak anything except the odd potency.

It's a shame and I enjoy reading new speculations for innovative MNK changes but the guy's not wrong to expect changes from this point onwards. We might get a potency change here and there, or if the outrage is really vocal there is the tiniest slither of a chance something small like 6SS, TK or Anatman gets a rework, outside of that our core problems will remain now until 6.0 which pains me to say as I've been vocal along with Speckledburd since before HW days. But judging from previous changes to MNK over the 6 years I've mained it and how proactive the devs have been towards the MNK playerbase we can expect the same drivel we got at the start of 5.0. aka "we knew MNKs didn't like anatman (RoF) and lack of OGCDs (Slowdown), so we are moving it back to an OGCD ability! Also 6SS has been removed and replaced with nothing, so is tornado kick! MNK is the job i'm most proud of for 6.0". Meanwhile all our actual problems this expansion and last will maybe be fixed in the next but we won't get anything new that can add to the MNK identity.

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Originally Posted by Sora_Oathkeeper

I took his post to be more frustration at the developers for neglecting us for the past 3 expansions rather than a dig at the players for speculating. I dunno just seemed to be that hopeful thinking now is more or less gone until next expansion as past experiences show that nearly all big changes come in X.1 and X.2, after those the devs generally view X.3 to be closer to the next expansion so no need to tweak anything except the odd potency.

It's a shame and I enjoy reading new speculations for innovative MNK changes but the guy's not wrong to expect changes from this point onwards. We might get a potency change here and there, or if the outrage is really vocal there is the tiniest slither of a chance something small like 6SS, TK or Anatman gets a rework, outside of that our core problems will remain now until 6.0 which pains me to say as I've been vocal along with Speckledburd since before HW days. But judging from previous changes to MNK over the 6 years I've mained it and how proactive the devs have been towards the MNK playerbase we can expect the same drivel we got at the start of 5.0. aka "we knew MNKs didn't like anatman (RoF) and lack of OGCDs (Slowdown), so we are moving it back to an OGCD ability! Also 6SS has been removed and replaced with nothing, so is tornado kick! MNK is the job i'm most proud of for 6.0". Meanwhile all our actual problems this expansion and last will maybe be fixed in the next but we won't get anything new that can add to the MNK identity.

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We're more or less on the same wavelength on this. 5.2 was really the last chance for any major changes to a jo. Unless the devs realize that leaving a job (as its meant to be played) in a state that's near unanimously panned by its playerbase for two full expansions is a serious mistake and they do something dramatic in 5.3 (which would be the right thing to do, but I won't hold my breath), we're waiting until 6.0 before there's a chance at satisfaction. The most we'll probably get is some more token buffs to bump the player numbers for the job up in the vein of the 1% to Fists of Fire added in 4.5 now that its pretty much guaranteed to be the least played job for the rest of the expansion.

It's miserable to think about, but it's the most likely scenario at this point.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

You must be fun at parties.

"You know what would be neat?"

"NO, BECAUSE IT CAN'T HAPPEN SO SPECULATION, AS A FUN PAST TIME, SHOULDN'T HAPPEN"

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Speculation can definitely be fun, but at some point, speculation is also meaningless. Having fun ideas or getting your hopes up for change doesn't actually make those changes into reality. Reality for Monk, at this point, is the developers have bungled the job for two expansions in a row, and have apparently refused to actually really look at the feedback from the community in Japan and outside of it. Bearing that in mind, why should Monk players expect anything? Why should they get their hopes up for ideas that are far more likely to never be implemented in any fashion? We're more likely to have another DPS job thrown into the mix before we see existing DPS have their issues fully addressed, and reality has proven this to be correct multiple times.

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Originally Posted by IruruCece

Speculation can definitely be fun, but at some point, speculation is also meaningless. Having fun ideas or getting your hopes up for change doesn't actually make those changes into reality. Reality for Monk, at this point, is the developers have bungled the job for two expansions in a row, and have apparently refused to actually really look at the feedback from the community in Japan and outside of it. Bearing that in mind, why should Monk players expect anything? Why should they get their hopes up for ideas that are far more likely to never be implemented in any fashion? We're more likely to have another DPS job thrown into the mix before we see existing DPS have their issues fully addressed, and reality has proven this to be correct multiple times.

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Rather fill my time with design discussion than a pity party.

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Originally Posted by IruruCece

Speculation can definitely be fun, but at some point, speculation is also meaningless. Having fun ideas or getting your hopes up for change doesn't actually make those changes into reality. Reality for Monk, at this point, is the developers have bungled the job for two expansions in a row, and have apparently refused to actually really look at the feedback from the community in Japan and outside of it. Bearing that in mind, why should Monk players expect anything? Why should they get their hopes up for ideas that are far more likely to never be implemented in any fashion? We're more likely to have another DPS job thrown into the mix before we see existing DPS have their issues fully addressed, and reality has proven this to be correct multiple times.

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When you've made it clear that the mother devs won't hear you, what good do your moans and self-pity do?

At the least the speculation allows us to refine our understanding of what we do and don't like about the existing kit and what we would and would not like about future kits so we can give more precise feedback early on, rather than providing an overly broad response that can be retailored to whatever narrative or opinion the devs prefer to acknowledge.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Rather fill my time with design discussion than a pity party.

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And I would rather play the game as a different job than play pretend over what could be if only I was actually a developer and not just another customer that's been getting ignored. So I do.

I've played the job for years, I know pretty intimately what I like and dislike about the job. I know many people who have raised the same issues, and others that my casual play would never have uncovered. There have been many, many threads complaining about what isn't working. There have been many threads about how to "refine" or "fix" what is broken. None of that feedback has been addressed, much less acknowledged.

If imagining something cool makes you feel better about the current state of Monk, hey, more power to you. It doesn't do anything for me though, nor does it actually contribute much. It's the same thing as saying "the job sucks," you're just adding "but what if it didn't?" The discussion, so to speak, has been ongoing through Stormblood and Shadowbringers, and we've basically heard nothing in response.

You can call it self-pity if you want, but no amount of speculation will change the facts as they stand. Until we see patch notes that say otherwise, it's pretty obvious that SE's solution to Monk has been "You're not playing it the way we want you to."

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

When you've made it clear that the mother devs won't hear you, what good do your moans and self-pity do?

At the least the speculation allows us to refine our understanding of what we do and don't like about the existing kit and what we would and would not like about future kits so we can give more precise feedback early on, rather than providing an overly broad response that can be retailored to whatever narrative or opinion the devs prefer to acknowledge.

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And what good does speculation and precise feedback do when the Devs have shown time and time again that they'll willingly ignore complaints anyway? "We hate the slow on RoF" is pretty precise feedback that the devs received at the beginning and happily ignored throughout the entirety of Stormblood.

Precise feedback gets ignored, and a broader response gets retailored to whatever the devs want so let's not pretend that refining our understanding of what we like and don't like about the current or future kits will result in any sort of significant or meaningful design changes or decisions from the devs. It certainly hasn't before.

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Originally Posted by Ramura_Sono

And what good does speculation and precise feedback do when the Devs have shown time and time again that they'll willingly ignore complaints anyway?

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Then why make this thread at all? Seriously? There are plenty of other threads that more directly amount to "Monk is dead" for people to visit. There is no need for another group therapy thread on the subject.

If you're just trying to take a piss on anyone and any job still left with some hope, then... all the power to you, I guess? But that's the only thing this all-is-hopeless-so-let's-despair-together-and-ridicule-any-new-ideas mindset in going to uniquely provide.

I for one believe Monk needs a complete rework. That it may have to wait until 6.0 sucks hard, but that doesn't mean I'm going to call anyone and everyone who sources ideas for down the line naive nor try to force an entirely reactive ('there is obviously zero willingness to change until the change has already happened -- despite that it obviously has to occur prior for those changes to have been made at all...') point of view on everyone else.

Why shut down discussion on reworks in your own thread requesting... a complete rework?

I don't know why we're losing ourselves over if the feedback is accurate, succinct or verbose and senseless. There's plenty of things to talk about when it comes to MNK because the issues of the job have existed for basically ever. The summary from a few posts ago isn't exactly eye opening nor lists anything new.


Everyone who plays MNK wants something new and while none of us entirely agree on which direction the job should go. We do agree it needs to change a lot of what currently exists.

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Originally Posted by Mahrze

I don't know why we're losing ourselves over if the feedback is accurate, succinct or verbose and senseless. There's plenty of things to talk about when it comes to MNK because the issues of the job have existed for basically ever. The summary from a few posts ago isn't exactly eye opening nor lists anything new.


Everyone who plays MNK wants something new and while none of us entirely agree on which direction the job should go. We do agree it needs to change a lot of what currently exists.

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At this point it almost feels like some of the issues with providing feedback on Monk is exhaustion with providing the feedback itself after having to do it for so long and resignation that it won't be taken. Some of us have been giving feedback here on the OF regarding aspects of the job since Heavensward, and while some problems with it have been addressed its only when its part of broader game design changes. TP Burn and Aggro for example, were huge problems in Heavensward, and it was only when TP was a non-existent problem for everything (in single target at least) in Stormblood did it stop being a problem, while Aggro didn't get fixed on Monk until Shadowbringers. Even when they finally gave Monk an aggro cut the job was penalized for it because we had to eat a Forbidden Chakra for it. For every job barring Samurai aggro control just happened as a matter of course for, and Samurai's cost for cutting aggro was a Third Eye proc (but not gauge, so it was extremely minor).

I can't blame people for not only being extremely negative about the job, but not even bothering to provide feedback for it anymore or switching to a different job entirely. In 6 years of playing it I can think of two patches where they actually made substantial good changes to the job, and one of them got reversed because people dared to use Tornado Kick instead of them changing how Tornado Kick worked. The rest of the changes have just been appeals at doing something to the job in the form of Minor potency buffs that didn't make the job competitive or fix its major issues (every buff in Heavensward), total missteps in design which took way too long to fix or still haven't been fixed (Stormblood Monk), or changes that are part of broader systemic changes that still somehow miss the mark because of how dumb they are in the way they work (Aggro Cut Purification, the existence of Riddle of Earth and Anatman).

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Originally Posted by SpeckledBurd

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I don't disagree with the frustration or any of the feelings. But if we're arguing that either of the feedback choices are futile, arguing the futility of it all is equally as bad. I am aware we are all just spit balling things and seeing whatever sticks, be it from references of other RPGs or gameplay from other main line FF games as something they could draw inspiration from and improve MNK which, like one new person said it in NN on my server: "MNK feels like NIN beta".

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Originally Posted by Mahrze

I don't disagree with the frustration or any of the feelings. But if we're arguing that either of the feedback choices are futile, arguing the futility of it all is equally as bad. I am aware we are all just spit balling things and seeing whatever sticks, be it from references of other RPGs or gameplay from other main line FF games as something they could draw inspiration from and improve MNK which, like one new person said it in NN on my server: "MNK feels like NIN beta".

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I wasn't trying to say to say that it's futile either, just that it feels that way after so many years of complaints either falling on deaf ears (or worse, complaints being acknowledged and nothing being done). And that feeling brought about by the devs indifference to feedback might have had an effect on peoples willingness to provide feedback.

Well at the risk of double posting, here's some more data from the most recent Lucky Banchou census on what active players are using. The results are unsurprising to say the least.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EQX2xQKX...png&name=large

Monk is the least played job right now and the least leveled job at the level cap. Like checking the number of parses uploaded to FFlogs it's still an external third party metric, but since it's based on active characters its probably a little more accurate.

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Originally Posted by SpeckledBurd

Well at the risk of double posting, here's some more data from the most recent Lucky Banchou census on what active players are using. The results are unsurprising to say the least.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EQX2xQKX...png&name=large

Monk is the least played job right now and the least leveled job at the level cap. Like checking the number of parses uploaded to FFlogs it's still an external third party metric, but since it's based on active characters its probably a little more accurate.

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I could have sworn Ninja was above the lowest quarter when Shadowbringers launched... For all the hype its rework has garnered, I'd have thought it'd have risen.

AST, WAR, BRD, and MNK are exactly as you'd expect, sadly.

The funny thing is that i enjoyed 2.0 MNK way more than the SB or SHB MNK. They do need to atleast look on how to improve it if nothing else.

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Originally Posted by VenKitsune

The funny thing is that i enjoyed 2.0 MNK way more than the SB or SHB MNK. They do need to atleast look on how to improve it if nothing else.

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One thing I've noticed is that the "core" Monk rotation has existed mostly unchanged since 2.0: Opo-Opo alternates between Dragonkick and Bootshine, Raptor alternates between Twin Snakes and True Strike, and Coeurl does a rotation of Demolish->Snap Punch-> Snap Punch. During ARR and HW getting the gcd down below 2.1 let you intermix a Touch of Death every 30s while maintaining everything else and you could replace True strike with One-Ilm Punch in the rare case you wanted an enemy's buff (such as stone skin) removed.

When Touch of Death was removed in the great DoT purge of Stormblood they really should have added in 2 "formless" weaponskills that could be intermixed into the core rotation. Instead Monkmostly ended up with a bunch ogcds which were "enhanced" versions of existing ogcds.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

One thing I've noticed is that the "core" Monk rotation has existed mostly unchanged since 2.0: Opo-Opo alternates between Dragonkick and Bootshine, Raptor alternates between Twin Snakes and True Strike, and Coeurl does a rotation of Demolish->Snap Punch-> Snap Punch. During ARR and HW getting the gcd down below 2.1 let you intermix a Touch of Death every 30s while maintaining everything else and you could replace True strike with One-Ilm Punch in the rare case you wanted an enemy's buff (such as stone skin) removed.

When Touch of Death was removed in the great DoT purge of Stormblood they really should have added in 2 "formless" weaponskills that could be intermixed into the core rotation. Instead Monkmostly ended up with a bunch ogcds which were "enhanced" versions of existing ogcds.

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To be fair, until 5.x, there were always distinct higher-speed rotational strings, such as via

• "Demo-drop" rotations in ARR (whereby DK was permitted to drop before Demolish and Twin before Dragon Kick itself to a loss of 36 bonus potency in exchange for 70 additional potency via an added Bootshine and True Strike per Demolish for a net gain of 34 potency minus 10% of any AAs or oGCDs that might occur over that period, making it effectively like any other positional, but in rotational form and requiring more foresight) and
• FracToD strings in HW to minimize clipping and delay on the 21s Demolish.

5.x is the first time we've been forced into just one one rotational string ad nauseum, let alone Double-True without including Double-Boot to make the repositioning far less awkward.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Why shut down discussion on reworks in your own thread requesting... a complete rework?

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Your response was basically telling the people who feel their feedback is meaningless that its the fault of players providing overly broad feedback. Which is simply untrue. Telling them to rehash the feedback they feel has been consistently ignored isn't exactly gonna get them to start spewing more out.

The main issues with Monk are easily broken down into three broad areas.

1. A stagnant and uninteresting rotation.
2. An overabundance of overly situational and underutilized skills.
3. A lack of mobility options.

Which can all of course be broken down more precisely. Both broad feedback and precise feedback can and should be taken into account with any rework. Likewise, identifying precise parts of a kit that just don't truly add anything to the job - locking effects behind fist stances didin't resolve the issue of stances themselves being bloat or asinine activation requirements such as RoE needing to take HP damage to proc it's effect and determining how and if they should be changed and reworked to fit not only within the resolution of broader Job issues, but within the mantra and broader design of the game itself.

Solving precise issues (we want to use SSS/TK more) within broader issues (We have too many situational skills) can be part of a resolution for other issues as well (we use SSS / TK more, This has resulted in our rotation changing) rather than hyper focusing on some precise issue and resolution without thought towards how the result fits into the overall job design which is arguably how we've ended up at the state we are.

Suggesting reworks that add needless complexity in an attempt to justify bloat skills, or that involve a reworking of core game mechanics themselves don't exactly foster discussion when one is ignoring the mantra of "the removal of overly situational and niche skills" and is just more of the same thing we've disliked from precious iterations of monk. The other is just trying to speculate a rework outside of the games core design. It took TWO years to get RoF changed. That's changing two numbers on one skill. That's changing and testing one job. A rework that changes the way the game works at it's core requires testing every job, changing numbers on every job. A rework requiring such things exists far outside the realm of possibility, and thus discussion, for many players.


Having sensible additions to our kit ( rewards for landing positionals or maintaining our maintenance buff ) end up as part of other jobs, neither of which revolved around them as part of their core class mechanic/identity, and then having the idea of monk getting the same thing shot down because homogeneity is somehow bad on top of seeing issues we've suffered with for literally years both get acquired by and resolved for other jobs in a matter of months has understandably made many monk players jaded.

As far as the "woe is me our feedback is futile" goes, at this point it's probably a more effective vehicle for change to let the devs know just how great our disappointment and how little our trust and faith in them is. If an entire community essentially feels their feedback doesn't matter, you've made a big misstep as a developer.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

When Touch of Death was removed in the great DoT purge of Stormblood they really should have added in 2 "formless" weaponskills that could be intermixed into the core rotation. Instead Monkmostly ended up with a bunch ogcds which were "enhanced" versions of existing ogcds.

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Not even that, we lost more oGCDs than anything and we haven't gotten anything to replace them. Enlightenment is the "same" as elixir field nominally but it lacks any use in single target. This is also somewhat of an extension of a point I made earlier in the thread about how certain changes that are made to Monk as part of broad changes in design like the removal of Solo-Dots which had a different interaction with Monk's kit or the removal of Dragon Kick because physical aspected resistance debuffs were removed even though Monk was the only job to benefit from that. The original whole of Monk in 2.X and 3.X worked because it had these aspects, without these aspects, Monk is extremely barebones.

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Originally Posted by Ramura_Sono

Your response was basically telling the people who feel their feedback is meaningless that its the fault of players providing overly broad feedback. Which is simply untrue. Telling them to rehash the feedback they feel has been consistently ignored isn't exactly gonna get them to start spewing more out.

The main issues with Monk are easily broken down into three broad areas.

1. A stagnant and uninteresting rotation.
2. An overabundance of overly situational and underutilized skills.
3. A lack of mobility options.

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I'd also say that the double layered RNG that you can't fire of early on a gauge with no overhead and the Full-Party Physical composition dependence to Monk are issues people have with the job as well. Double layered RNG and the gauge have the same issues we've outlined repeatedly for almost three years now, and Monk is still reliant on Scholar/Dragoon for Crit Buffs to fuel that RNG and a Physical Heavy composition beside that to get Chakra procs in Brotherhood (which can still be a total wash even with a favorable comp and is pretty much always a disappointing phase in 4-man's or Solo duties because of your lack of a full party.)

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

One thing I've noticed is that the "core" Monk rotation has existed mostly unchanged since 2.0: Opo-Opo alternates between Dragonkick and Bootshine, Raptor alternates between Twin Snakes and True Strike, and Coeurl does a rotation of Demolish->Snap Punch-> Snap Punch. During ARR and HW getting the gcd down below 2.1 let you intermix a Touch of Death every 30s while maintaining everything else and you could replace True strike with One-Ilm Punch in the rare case you wanted an enemy's buff (such as stone skin) removed.

When Touch of Death was removed in the great DoT purge of Stormblood they really should have added in 2 "formless" weaponskills that could be intermixed into the core rotation. Instead Monkmostly ended up with a bunch ogcds which were "enhanced" versions of existing ogcds.

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One Ilm Punch or Six Sided Star (Maybe OIP could just upgrade to 6SS as a trait during leveling?) should have been reworked into a formless GCD with a recast of 30s or so with a decent potency attached. This would force it into the rotation but also alleviate the tightness of the forms by allowing a buffer between stances.
I'd then increase Twin snakes duration by 3s to allow for times in the rotation where OIP/6SS comes off CD. This would reinforce a 2x True per Twin but at least make things a little less strict

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Originally Posted by Sora_Oathkeeper

One Ilm Punch or Six Sided Star (Maybe OIP could just upgrade to 6SS as a trait during leveling?) should have been reworked into a formless GCD with a recast of 30s or so with a decent potency attached. This would force it into the rotation but also alleviate the tightness of the forms by allowing a buffer between stances.
I'd then increase Twin snakes duration by 3s to allow for times in the rotation where OIP/6SS comes off CD. This would reinforce a 2x True per Twin but at least make things a little less strict

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The One-Ilm Punch/6SS change would functionally be pretty close to Touch of Death from Heavensward except not as Dot effect, all they'd have to do is extend Demolish's timer a little to prevent drop off. I'd be pretty happy with that in all honesty, even if it isn't exactly job evolution so much as a de-regression and putting us back at our starting point.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

To be fair, until 5.x, there were always distinct higher-speed rotational strings, such as via

• "Demo-drop" rotations in ARR (whereby DK was permitted to drop before Demolish and Twin before Dragon Kick itself to a loss of 36 bonus potency in exchange for 70 additional potency via an added Bootshine and True Strike per Demolish for a net gain of 34 potency minus 10% of any AAs or oGCDs that might occur over that period, making it effectively like any other positional, but in rotational form and requiring more foresight) and
• FracToD strings in HW to minimize clipping and delay on the 21s Demolish.

5.x is the first time we've been forced into just one one rotational string ad nauseum, let alone Double-True without including Double-Boot to make the repositioning far less awkward.

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Those rotations, in my understanding, were more to cover flaws caused by lack of a 2nd viable formless gcd to fill in holes in the core rotation created by higher sks and GL. The rotation was fairly solid at 2.06 gcd (29 gcds per minute), but buffs and dots started clipping or falling off (depending on rotation) bellow that necessitating use of Cross-class weaponskills (of which Fracture being the best available at the time).

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Originally Posted by Sora_Oathkeeper

One Ilm Punch or Six Sided Star (Maybe OIP could just upgrade to 6SS as a trait during leveling?) should have been reworked into a formless GCD with a recast of 30s or so with a decent potency attached. This would force it into the rotation but also alleviate the tightness of the forms by allowing a buffer between stances.
I'd then increase Twin snakes duration by 3s to allow for times in the rotation where OIP/6SS comes off CD. This would reinforce a 2x True per Twin but at least make things a little less strict

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I don't know if a Twin Snake duration change would be really necessary (or if anything a slight increase to 16s would be fine) and being on a 30s cooldown (even on a sks based one like GNB's Gnashing Fang Combo and DoT) is likely not enough. You would want to be using the filler gcd enough times every 15 seconds that TnS won't fall off.

Sooooo... I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but as someone who has been out of the PvP loop since this past patch, I only just popped back over to the Wolves Den Pier to find my 5.0 MNK PvP hotbar had some skills removed, and when I went back to look at what was changed, I saw Axe Kick was not only reintroduced, but the way the skill works was completely different than how it was before.

And I have to say, potency numbers aside, it's exactly what PvE MNK needs right now. I mean, yes, I would agree that MNK needs a total overhaul, but in the short term, if no other changes were to be made to the job, giving it this one oGCD would make a huge difference in several respects.

For those of you who haven't seen it, 5.1 Axe Kick is now an AoE which gives a GL stack for each target hit. In a single-target fight, it would be swapped in where Anatman is currently being used in the Anatman opener, giving one stack instantly. However, since it's an AoE, it could be used in dungeons to help us get stacks back very quickly, which might even be preferable to something like Wind Tackle or burning a PB if you drop your stacks, as against a trash mob you can potentially max your stacks out right away.

With a tool like this, in addition to Anatman which can be used for things like phase transitions as it was intended, who knows, maybe having an accelerated way to get stacks back might wind up making a mid-rotation tornado kick viable again. Or maybe not, who knows until we test it out. But I love the idea of it being universal between the single-target and AoE rotations, and I would be more than willing to give up the very silly-looking form shift spam for this in dungeon situations and as a 2nd GCD replacement for Anatman in single-target openers.

5.x MNK has been lacking in oGCDs compared to SB MNK, and many players want one or two oGCDs put back. Axe Kick and Somersault were two I have suggested for SHB MNK since early access, and this is the best version of Axe Kick yet. If SAM could get an oGCD back, I think in the immediate short-term, this is the best thing we could all ask for, as it's unlikely at this point we'd get a full rework until 6.0. The best part is, its animation, icon, visual effects and job effects are already in the game, it just needs to be moved over, making it a realistic, quick, and cheap/cost effective thing to implement into PvE. The actual damage output of it could have a small potency, something like a formless Arm of the Destroyer (80 potency to all targets), or even less for all I care, it just needs to do its job with GL stacks and it's pretty perfect in both single-target and AoE/trash mob contexts. :)

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

I don't know if a Twin Snake duration change would be really necessary (or if anything a slight increase to 16s would be fine) and being on a 30s cooldown (even on a sks based one like GNB's Gnashing Fang Combo and DoT) is likely not enough. You would want to be using the filler gcd enough times every 15 seconds that TnS won't fall off.

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It's not really about Twin. The problems with no formless GCD that has rotational use causes desyncing issues with Demo and RoF. Currently it's better to do 2x Dragon Kick throughout the rotation to realign RoF with Demo, iirc it's every other RoF as the gain from getting 2 demos under RoF without clipping is a pretty substantial gain.

The Twin change would need another 3s. Currently Twin falls off for its reapplication under the 2 true per twin rotation. Adding a formless GCD would set that back by one GCD, resulting in needing another 3s (to ensure the buff is up for the reapplication aswell). Not changing the buff timer would result in awkward 2 trues per twin but only when OIP/6SS isn't coming up.

Tbh I would rather MNK take ideas from GNB and NIN.
Continuation ability on MNK would feel great imo and keep to the core of feeling fast.
Remove TFC, re add it, Haymaker and OIP as add them as part of continuation, with TFC being the finisher to it. Make it all cost 5 chakra, increase max chakras to 7.
Add a filler chakra cost for ST and AoE.
Have TK proc from GL upkeep for however long (30s?).
Move chakra building to certain positionals (true and snap as they have no extra effect) and have it increase linearly instead of RNG.
Remove chakra gains from Brotherhood, make BH 5% damage buff to all.
Remove potency from Leaden fist and spread it more evenly across the rotation, it's ridiculous just how much of MNK's damage is backloaded into Leaden Fist Boot and TFC...
Remove fist stances, they are just an illusion of choice. Even in prog Fists of Earth is crap.
Lastly I'd rework Anatman to give 1 or 2 stacks of GL instantly with no channeling.

These are just off the top of my head but it'd make the job faster without button, keep damage more consistent due to lack of RNG and have rewarding phases of TK for GL upkeep and 'continuation' for positional landing.

Response part 1:

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Originally Posted by Sora_Oathkeeper

It's not really about...

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This is only an issue if you go by the Balance rotation which is at a GCD speed of 1.94. If you play at a GCD speed of 1.86 or higher, lots of these problems are resolved and you don't have to double up on anything. The big issue with job balance overall is that there's little incentive DPS-wise to invest in speed because it results in a damage loss, but this is where I'd say for all jobs, if a SkS increase were tied to a main stat increase, there'd be a lot more freedom with rotation variety and dull jobs would become more exciting to play, without having to worry about a damage loss. It's clear from live letters and interviews that the battle design team is more interested in how jobs play in terms of flow and feel, whereas mathing out what does the maximum amount of damage is more of a community-borne attitude, and the devs don't seem to share that philosophy.

At 1.86 and higher everything falls back into alignment and DPS output is still viable for clearing Savage content, and the jankiness with the type of MNK play you're familiar with from this expansion goes away entirely.

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Tbh I would rather MNK take ideas from GNB and NIN.

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This is literally the worst idea ever. No. Absolutely not. The things that NIN and GNB do are like training wheels for MNK, where players are rewarded for understanding how to consciously time the usage of their oGCDs into their GCD window. By using something like Tenchijin or Continuation, you rob players of that choice which reduces the skill ceiling. When Mr. Happy suggested doing to Brotherhood what NIN changes did to Tenchijin, I immediately screamed "HELL NO," because giving it a fixed amount of inputs like 6 punishes players who understand how to time Brotherhood into a GCD window and get a 7th one, and this becomes harmful to alternative styles of play and high-speed rotations, restricting the variety of play style. That goes against what they said in a past live letter they want to do with MNK in SHB.

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Continuation ability on MNK would feel great imo and keep to the core of feeling fast.

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Remove TFC, re add it, Haymaker and OIP as add them as part of continuation, with TFC being the finisher to it. Make it all cost 5 chakra, increase max chakras to 7.

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The chakra gauge needs to be at 5 because it's a visual reference to the Wu Xing elements and chakra points, so this is never going to happen.

Asking for things to be removed, re-added, and then putting in Haymaker and OIP (no thank you, that was removed for good reason) is excessively complicated, and I don't think you understand that requests such as these are why MNK feedback falls on deaf ears.

Part 2:

The amount of work needed to implement all this stuff, and then rebalance the job, is just way too much work and cost to be reasonable, especially because it has to be balanced with a) every other job in the game, and b) every encounter design. You're getting wayyyyy ahead of yourself here and asking for the Taj Mahal. It is infinitely more likely for quick and cost-effective solutions (i.e. "this thing can be implemented within the hour and we already have all the assets/animations/icons/effects done for it") to be implemented over these requests. And that's pretty much a running theme with this post of yours.

It is simpler to just say "put this one oGCD into the game," and for that, see my prior post about Axe Kick, which already solves a lot of problems.

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Add a filler chakra cost for ST and AoE.

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Unnecessary.

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Have TK proc from GL upkeep for however long (30s?).

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Making TK a proc-based ability instead of a meter-based thing goes against the spirit of MNK as a martial arts job. The meter makes it more like a fighting game. Changing it to a proc-based ability is antithetical to the identity of the job.

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Move chakra building to certain positionals (true and snap as they have no extra effect) and have it increase linearly instead of RNG.

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I'm not the biggest fan of the RNG but chakra gain issues are some of the most minor with MNK right now and tying them to positionals instead of them being critical hit based, when we have guaranteed critical hits from BS and very predictable points in the rotation where we can expect a chakra gain, sounds like a nightmare to both play and balance.

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Remove chakra gains from Brotherhood, make BH 5% damage buff to all.

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This is a terrible idea, because chakra gain during Brotherhood gives MNK something more to do and allows for more weaving opportunities, which is where the fun factor of the job comes from, and it would totally nerf damage output in the burst window. BH can't be a 5% damage buff to all, because then it creates balance issues with DRG's Battle Litany, and pretty much any buffs from NIN, DNC or BRD. The amount of time and resources needed to rebalance the job would be absolutely staggering so the likelihood of this ever happening is nonexistent. A better idea would be to take the stacking effect of Meditative Brotherhood (which is listed nowhere on the tool tip but is indeed part of Brotherhood as of 4.3) and remove that, and instead double the percentage to 60%. At present, a stacked Brotherhood allows MNK to have tFC with enough of a frequency that it adds a tremendous degree of fun to the job, nearly making up for the lack of oGCDs.

Part 3:

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Remove potency from Leaden fist and spread it more evenly across the rotation

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I agree with this. Specifically, instead of putting all their eggs in one basket with LF only adding 150 potency to Bootshine, spread that 150 evenly between the 6 single-target primary weaponskills, so +25 a piece. Then it becomes like Blunt Resistance Down, only now there's no confusion as to what it does. It's the simplest way to propose this solution in concrete terms.

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Remove fist stances

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While I agree FoE is pretty useless in its current incarnation, I'd disagree with you about FoF and FoW.

Firstly, in certain high-speed rotations, being able to switch between the two is necessary in order to maintain viable damage output while trying to get your stacks up.

Secondly, you have to remember that while some MNK mains like to go fast, a) not everyone is comfortable with high speeds, and b) not everyone has the ping to handle a ping-dependent job. The fists allow for a player to modulate speed based on their personal comfort while maintaining damage output. This was done in order to make the job accessible to a broader demographic of players. Getting rid of it and forcing MNK into a baseline speed would outright ruin the job for many players, so this idea would cause more harm than good.

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Lastly I'd rework Anatman to give 1 or 2 stacks of GL instantly with no channeling.

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Please re-read my post about putting the 5.1 version Axe Kick into PvE. It works for single-target fights, it works for dungeons, it slices, it dices, it cooks, cleans and does your taxes. Leave Anatman for things like phase transitions and just get rid of the silly-looking Form Shift spam to keep stacks up, as it wasn't even in SHB to begin with and was only a band-aid measure. If you're concerned about chakra gains as well, just add in Somersault to boot, because it would just give a chakra stack and help give players a bit more control over their chakra gain, so they're not left hanging with 4 out of 5 chakras and unable to tFC when it would be ideal to. Leave their PvP effects, give Axe Kick 80 potency like AotD and Somersault could have a lower potency as well, like 120 or something to that effect.

This is a very simple solution to a lot of MNK's problems. That, and just slightly buff TK and shave off two seconds from its recast time, so those of us who know how to do the SHB version of the TK opener can do so without it not being so worth it, and without having a weird GCD clipping issue if at specific odd-numbered GCD speeds (e.g. 1.87, 1.85, etc.). It doesn't rely on massive reworks or reinventions to the job, and it can literally be implemented and tested within the hour without having to rework job-wide potencies.

Anything else is just too much work. Keep the suggestions simple and you're more likely to get what you want, sooner rather than later.

I'm not going to contribute much to this discussion other than I agree with most of the gripes about Monk.

I've been playing all Melee jobs in ShB. Really enjoy all of them... except Monk which I am currently leveling (75). The job has been a slog to level and feels super clunky. Rotation is confusing until you look up guides (the other jobs I found super intuitive in comparison).

Also spamming form shift between pulls/phases feels like some kind of archaic system from 90's PC gaming. Who thinks that's fun? And apparently this was a quality of life change RECENTLY... I also look like a total goof stomping the ground constantly. Is my character's foot asleep??

I'm totally in favour of a Monk rework. If this was the first job I decided to play as a new player I'd have unsubbed.

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Originally Posted by ValStormbreaker

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Not sure how you can reconcile bashing the idea of (I imagine you meant perfect balance and not brotherhood) PB having 6 inputs and being concerned about how higher ping players will be able to play monk if their skill speeds reach sub 2 seconds. Wouldn’t this be to the benefit of high latency players and whoever is uncomfortable with high skill speed? They wouldn’t have to worry about the tight timing and/or if they executed PB late enough into the GCD.

Also, the fact that SE allows MCH’s hyper charge > heat blast / auto crossbow to exist (among other things) would suggest that FoF wasn’t designed to be an option for higher ping players.

About the chakra gauge needing to be 5 because of Wu Xing… the job quest clearly talks of 7 (and 14) chakras. While it would be fulfilling to see the devs make the connection between the story and our actual gauge, I’d say the devs’ time could be better spent elsewhere.

I don’t think Sora meant TK being a “proc” as something random; it would be a reward for keeping max gl stacks for X amount of seconds (30 or 45 sound good). If you want to talk about what goes against the spirit of monk, look no further than deep meditation, which I would say is a major issue.

Like you said and how I mentioned earlier in the thread, having the devs tune/incorporate existing assets is probably more likely than a full rework (although MCH proves otherwise). Using assets like Axe Kick from PvP is a great idea; I’d say they can go one further and implement how chakra is generated in PvP to PvE (maybe locking the actual generation to landing a positional correctly).

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Originally Posted by Rayplicant

I'm not going to contribute much to this discussion other than I agree with most of the gripes about Monk.

I've been playing all Melee jobs in ShB. Really enjoy all of them... except Monk which I am currently leveling (75). The job has been a slog to level and feels super clunky. Rotation is confusing until you look up guides (the other jobs I found super intuitive in comparison).

Also spamming form shift between pulls/phases feels like some kind of archaic system from 90's PC gaming. Who thinks that's fun? And apparently this was a quality of life change RECENTLY... I also look like a total goof stomping the ground constantly. Is my character's foot asleep??

I'm totally in favour of a Monk rework. If this was the first job I decided to play as a new player I'd have unsubbed.

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Thankfully, I haven't had to relive leveling monk from scratch, but I can imagine what a nightmare it'd be in its current state what with all the ogcds that were removed.

And yeah, Form Shifting to keep up your gl stacks is definitely a pain in the ass, but it's the only way to maintain them in most situations; it's the only fix we've got for an incoherent design.

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Originally Posted by 3ureka

I don’t think Sora meant TK being a “proc” as something random; it would be a reward for keeping max gl stacks for X amount of seconds (30 or 45 sound good).

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Exactly what I meant, I was going to reply with many of the other things you stated like the chakras being 7 (14) in the job quest and they should stick to the lore rather than outside references. But I just gave up in my response after seeing Val still wants chakra procs to be RNG albeit at a higher rate, which is still stupid to me, just remove it and have positionals give chakras on certain weaponskills. Then it can be consistent and we don't need to fear drifting EF outside of raid buffs due to TFC taking priority in BH windows.

I don't disagree with everything Val said, I was preaching Axe Kick's inclusion into PvE back in HW days along with others but that feedback went ignored (as does all MNK feedback, even the JP players are tired of being ignored and neglected).

Honestly though PB being a set 6 weapon skills would be such a nice QoL. Because that's what every MNK is striving for and it's only cucking those with high latency. I understand the optimizations Val is talking about with FoF to realign Demo with RoF as I've done it, but it's against MNK staying fast so you intentionally slowdown, I honestly can't stand that 6SS, TK, Anatman and FoF optimizations force slowdown on MNK or to stand still it frustrates me that MNK feels like the only melee where the abilities actively fight you to go fast.

A form shift animation change would be nice, check out early HW footage of form shift it literally sounded like you were breaking vases underneath your feet when you stomped lmao. It had such a ridiculous sound effect in its first iteration.

Response part 1 (ugh character limits XD)

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Originally Posted by 3ureka

Not sure...

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The problem with the "higher ping players" argument is you're looking at something very situational and then asking for changes to the entirety of the player base to cater to a portion. That very line of thinking is what got MNK into its 5.x incarnation in the first place.

There are good reasons for why online games tend not to make concessions for people with high pings or bad internet connections. YOUR latency is YOUR problem, and YOUR responsibility. It is within your power to upgrade your net connection, or move to an area that supports a better net connection if online gaming is important to you (I did this myself when I first moved from the East Coast to the West Coast). If it's not within your power to do so right this very moment, it may be in the future if life circumstances permit or even require you to do so.

To impose game design decisions onto the entirety of the player base because some people have more latency than others is reckless and irresponsible. This goes doubly for players - many of whom I know on my own server - who are connecting to the game via a VPN from places like the Philippines to a North American data center. That's a choice they choose to make, and players who are actually IN North America shouldn't have to suffer consequences because someone chooses to subject themselves to latency issues. If I were visiting family in New Zealand and I'd be connecting to an NA data center with a bad ping, I would understand that I don't have a gun to my head forcing me to play a high-speed job like MNK or MCH, and can switch jobs at any time, unlike many other MMORPGs out there, and use something else my ping would be able to handle for endgame content. I would never, ever in a million years demand that the game change to cater to my situation, and would instead exercise personal accountability because the former is incredibly entitled. Japanese players are also extremely close to their data centers and it punishes them when they don't have latency issues. So, consider the broader consequences of catering to pings.

The argument that we should make all the things accessible because some people MIGHT want to try it is foolish. Not every job is going to cater to every player, and players who enjoy the job because of its speed and complexity are the ones who get shafted the most. That's not a risk I'm willing to take... again. Why again? What did 5.0 accessibility changes for players with high pings do to MNK in the end? We lost a bunch of oGCDs because double-weaving was hard for players to do, making the job far more boring and simple. Now it's the least played job in the game, and only garnered interest briefly because it was top of the tier list, not because it was more fun to play. I don't want a repeat of that, so let's learn from the mistakes of history, shall we?

Part 2

I prefer being able to fit in as many abilities within the PB window as I can based on my skill and what I'm capable of doing at the speeds I'm capable of playing. Suggesting we force PB into a strict 6 GCDs would take that away from players like me, in order to make it accessible for players who aren't good enough to do it on their own, ping or no ping. That devalues actual skill and practice, and neuters the job further. No thank you!

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Also, the fact that SE allows MCH’s...

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How Machinist is designed is a mutually exclusive topic from how Fists of Fire works. We don't even know that the same people were responsible for the same decisions between both jobs. One thing has nothing to do with the other.

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About the chakra gauge...

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Wu Xing doesn't mean "five chakras," it means "five elements,". They are conceptually tied to the idea of chakra points on the body, and the system is still used as a reference in some forms of complementary and alternative medicine and martial arts in various Far East Asian cultures since it flourished in the Han Dynasty.

The reason it's not going anywhere is because it's of cultural relevance to the Far East Asian player demographic, and we're talking about a Japanese publisher. The likelihood that this will change because you want an alteration to the chakra system is small.

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I don’t think Sora meant TK being...

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I understand what she meant. It's still antithetical to the identity of the martial artist job. In fighting games, meter management is a thing you need to handle yourself. Making it a "reward" for keeping GL stacks up for what is pretty much the recast time of a True North is once again taking away a big chunk of agency from the player.

Whether or not you want to accept it, the double tornado kick opener is actually still possible in SHB. People have posted about this on these very forums before, myself included. It's extremely fun to do, too, and it is still viable for content, even if it isn't optimal. The problems with it which make the effort in pulling it off not worth it are only two things, 1) it's not powerful enough to justify dropping stacks, and 2) the 10-second recast time causes GCD clipping in specific situations. The solutions to this are very simple: buff TK and reduce its recast time by two seconds.

Then, those of us who actually ENJOY the opener and WANT to use it again have the option to do so. And pulling it off at high speeds requires skill, finesse and precise timing, so being able to do it feels like a reward for having skill. Suggesting making it a proc for doing something as braindead as not dropping stacks for 45 seconds not only removes the feeling of it being rewarding, it restricts how often it can be used and inhibits variety of gameplay. Again, this hurts the job further and restricts player agency by overly simplifying it.

Part 3

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Like you said...

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MCH wasn't completely revamped mid-expansion into what it is now compared to Stormblood. If you want to have that discussion with MNK, save it for when 6.0 is around the corner, since it's not productive to have it in the here and now when there are more straightforward alternatives you're infinitely more likely to get.

Tying chakra generation to positionals is a taller order from a programming perspective than perhaps you're willing to give credit for. It also isn't a completely thought-out idea, since it means every 5 GCDs I'll have tFC and that not only causes balance problems, it disrupts the rhythm, beat and flow of the job's rotation, especially with how it plays on a controller. All the double-weaving MNK has is in the same sets of pairs, and that is what gives the job its waltz-like 3-beat structure. All of a sudden, what sounds like a simple idea on paper to you winds up opening a can of worms that just makes things more unnecessarily complicated and affects other parts of the job. You can't suggest stuff like that in a vacuum, you have to think of how it affects the package.

What you would like, in essence, is what I've been suggesting since before 5.0 then, and that's the inclusion of Somersault. It's a cool-looking oGCD that deals damage and gives a chakra, allowing for players to offset the sting of RNG with a bit more control. This way you're not stuck at 4 out of 5 chakras and get unlucky with RNG before your burst window runs out with nothing to do.

I can't stress this enough... I think if we could only ask for two major changes, and what we got was 5.1 Axe Kick from PvP and Somersault (with adjusted potencies, of course), rotations will be affected such that 90% of the problems people obsess over would minimize into non-issues and hair-splitting gripes. We'd get two oGCDs, have the GL stack issue solved, and have a bit more control over chakra, all while looking cool doing it. And the icons are already done and the animations are already made so there's very little time or cost needed to implement them. The only other thing I'd do is to buff TK and shave 2 seconds off its recast time and MNK is pretty much back in good shape and fun to play.

Couldn't ask for a simpler or more elegant solution if you tried.

But asking for things like trying to reinvent how chakra gain works and making TK into a skill that procs, and all that... that's just getting into "reinventing the wheel" territory and makes things more complex than it needs to be. If this is the nature of the suggestions that MNK mains have been giving over the past few years, then it's no wonder these suggestions aren't being implemented, because compared to "buff TK and slap two seconds off its recast time, and move these two pre-existing PvP moves into PvE," we're getting a bit lofty and leaping into "easier said than done" territory. Keep it simple, and you're more likely to get what you want sooner rather than later.

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Originally Posted by Sora_Oathkeeper

snip

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That's not actually what I was saying. I use a high speed opener which is viable, albeit not AS powerful, and is a variation on the Anatman opener that reduces the Anatman problems to a minor annoyance more than anything. No third-party tool use or anything, and I never switch back to FoF mid-rotation or do any of that. Imagine if the Anatman opener was buttery smoothe and had zero jankiness to it, was actually straightforward and didn't require any double inputs, with the only slight annoyance being from a possible and relatively minor pause for Anatman, which half the time is a non-issue. It feels so good to use, and it's not only viable in Savage content, and seems to magically line up with all the fight mechanics of every raid, but it also works really well for TEA without having to remeld or alter my rotation and I can keep consistent uptime.

What I was saying with regard to FoF is that players who have higher pings, as well as players who may have lower pings but just don't like to go fast, have the option to keep the damage output at a lower speed. You have to remember, the overall population of raiders in this game is small, so you will have players who want to dip their feet into a job but aren't necessarily going to be raiders. This is an accessibility option for those players.

My biggest suggestion 6.0-wise would be to separate MNK and SAM gear so they can be balanced separately. Right now, since they're shackled by gear, and are the ONLY melee jobs to share a gear set, when one is balanced nicely, the other winds up being total garbage, and when they're both balanced equally they both sit in the "mediocre" territory. It's like a see-saw of nightmares for both jobs. I'm willing to bet it's a headache for the devs as well, so it'd just be easiest to give SAM its own gear set and call it a day. Would probably work wonders for the cosmetics, too, since there's very little you can do with a middle ground for SAM and MNK glamour that doesn't just look ill-fitting on both.

I'm still waiting for my Saint Seiya crossover, Yoshi-P! :P

I come from the fighting game community, so I like the idea of TK running on a meter management system, and I like how chakra is used for tFC and Enlightenment. What I don't quite like is that dropping GL stacks slows you down, and both GL stacks and chakra are an all-or-nothing sort of thing, so it's not like you can store them up for more powerful versions of the attacks (like EX attacks in Street Fighter). I don't mind SSS, because at my SkS, if you use it to disengage, by the time you re-engage you can use your GCD moves again, so it lines up very perfectly.

It really feels like 90% of the problems most players are experiencing with Anatman, SSS and TK are the result of slowing the job down for more power. And I get it, for clearing DPS checks this gives you better output... but it just feels clumsy and unnatural, so my rule of thumb is, no matter how much DPS it gives you, it if feels wrong, maybe that's not what you're SUPPOSED to be doing, even if you CAN. BUT, most of the talk concerning MNK is an outgrowth of very specific rotations people are doing at very specific skill speeds in accordance with the current meta, so there hasn't been a whole lot of experimentation encouraged as a result of the people who are driving the rhetoric and what they want to popularize. It's not popular to bring up that the double TK opener is still possible under the right conditions, and that its problems are minor and easily fixed in a few minutes with adjusting a potency value here and a recast timer there, so sometimes I feel like I'm the only one bringing this stuff up. At higher speeds, DPS optimization comes from being able to more seamlessly bounce from mechanic to mechanic and greed more comfortably with far less risk, so long as you can handle the speed it requires (which for me is still far too slow). I wish more people would try to spread playing the job like I do, and maybe they'd find a lot more comfort in it compared to what the Balance has been spreading. But hey, I'm not some celebrity in the community so nobody wants to hear what I have to say, even if people would really enjoy giving it a shot...

I actually recently tried out Black Desert Online's "Mystic" job, and OH BOY do I wish MNK in XIV played like that!

Val, you talk as if Somersault and Axe Kick weren't already requested to death for SB back in HW. They aren't doing it. What good is gaining a chakra from somersault when you are still at the mercy of chakras from RNG especially during BH windows? You will without a doubt miss out on the chakra multiple times unless they A) increase the chakra cap to allow small overflow or B) rework how chakras are gained so that it can be consistent.

What we're asking for by raising the chakra cap to 5 is to fit the LORE of the game. Not just a reference to far eastern culture. As well to not punish us for gaining extra chakras while already capped since they aren't in our control, especially during BH.

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Originally Posted by ValStormbreaker

Response part 1 (ugh character limits XD)

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You can actually edit your post to bypass the character limits. Just save your essay post before and put in something like "placeholder" since to place a reply you need at least 10 characters and "placeholder" is 10 characters.

Just a small QoL suggestion.

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Originally Posted by ValStormbreaker

It really feels like 90% of the problems most players are experiencing with Anatman, SSS and TK are the result of slowing the job down for more power.

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My issues with those skills is how counter-intuitive MNK is, they always try to go one direction but don't seem to know where said direction will take them.

As a Brawler in RPG fashion, the job doesn't flow compared to exmaples we've given before of games like other Main FFs, Legend of Legaia, Xenogears, Star Ocean and even some Tales of games.

Outside of those references my gripe is: Combos don't evolve, they don't extend/branch to anything. Fists would likely create a layer of complexity to branch or change combos but it seems that overall they want to make things as linear as possible and MNKs base design screams "I do what I want". And while I don't mind its versatility, if it loses some of it for the sake of some semblance of evolution and enhancement of gameplay then I am ok with that.

But I am convinced at this point I'll be pressing 3 buttons in 6.0.

This is going to be long, so:

TL/DR: Brainstorms and arguments are good for us as comunity. but the problem is much deeper than that.

Now to the point:

I do not konw how to react to Val's posts as he:

1) on one hand wants everyone to get a good IP and VPN (which is not possible on PS4) and

2) wants different playstyles to be possible (they are talking about TK openers but those are a huge damage loss right now not only comparing to other monks but other melee too).

But their post have some point: They are promoting the CHOICE, while the reality is, there is no choice. Back in 4.2+ you could ignore TK rotation and still be viable (or only do TK at last second or RoF and nobody would notice), now, pretty much, you have one viable rotation and, depending on your ping+skill+party comp+add ons, 3 openers, with anatman being the best "all round" one (even the best choice for PS4 players). If we do not count "delaying buffs" to line them up, we are the only job whose performance relies on decisions made 10s pre-pull.

For me, the question RIGHT NOW is not what we want, but what DEVELOPERS WANT. It is clear, that we are abusing the job's design to either:

1) get the best performance or
2) get the best experience

and since those two are so different I think we should just ast the devs one question:

WHAT DO YOU WANT US TO DO?

and from the answer we can get giong.

We thought they want us to TK.
They made it more difficult.

We thoght they want us to hit positionals correctly.
They gave RoE a new trait.

And the list goes on...

I agreee with Val in many things, in many I do not.
I agree with many players posting in these forums, in many I do not.
The only thing I am 100% sure is - I do not know what devs want us to do and if we are doing it.
I even do not know if the PB burst isn't another Ninja "players found out a better rotation, so we changed potencies" which happened TWICE during HW.

EXAMPLE: double-true rotation I think they do not want to. It makes no sense to drop a buff and it looks like oversight from miles away.

Just tell us so we can give you a relevant response.
Shoha on SAM. SAMs were unhappy and they got one change in 5.1 (a big one) and another in 5.2 (getting freaking gauge!!!)
Why we can get this, please?

Just tell us what you want so we can tell you why it is not fun...