Monk suggestions

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Originally Posted by Fhyrr

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


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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Random thought.

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

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

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Originally Posted by SpeckledBurd

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

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Eugene_Kirigaya

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

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