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

Been playing Monk since 3.x. I think after getting Form Shift, I was very content with the necessary windup to get to GL3. Perfect Balance comes off CD perhaps once or twice a fight, and proper form shifting to coeurl form should get you 1 stack right away so in my opinion GL3 maintenance didn't need any boosts so think Monk needed three things coming into Stormblood:

1. Raid utility - nuff said.
2. Something else to do with those chakra stacks and some other way to gain those chakra stacks!
3. (Every job wants) New mechanics to integrate into their core skill rotation; or a new rotation to consider to handle certain scenarios optimally
4. Potentially look at ways to revise Tornado Kick

I think Brotherhood was an attempt to give us #1 and #2. The problem is that the raid utility is only 5% damage, and only to physical damage dealers. I won't complain about the RNG mechanic feeding chakra stacks because I still think it is very strong as long you're capable of spamming Forbidden Chakra quite often. However, it is a reactionary chakra mechanic during the buff and the rest of the time, Meditation is still an out-of-battle thing to do. Maybe this buff to personal DPS is enough to contribute what a party-wide buff would do for the raid if the RNG lines up right? If so, there's not a balance complaint here - just a play mechanic one. I wish the chakra feeding aspect of Brotherhood was a permanent thing that could happen whenever a monk is fighting in groups. In order to perhaps not strongly favor only physical party compositions, maybe every time someone in the party spent a job specific resource (lily, aetherflow, etc) you'd get chakra?

Personally, I think it would have been more interesting to give Monks something else to spend chakra stacks on as well. Either a very short and very strong party buff, or a self buff - maybe both. Something that keeps Forbidden Chakra relevant to use if the buff might be wasted (boss going away) and potentially lets you plan your usage of the incoming chakras instead of a no-brainer "I'm going to hit really hard with this." I'd even say it's worth considering ways to have Monks use Greased Lightning stacks beyond just dumping it all with Tornado kick. How about burning one stack or two stacks for something less potent but has some utility or situational damage? You could either pre-plan on spending it as you know a boss is going away to "wind down" your stacks or you could use them right before a coeurl stance to get it back immediately.

One thing people should keep in mind is that the designers of the game don't want the game to have skills learned at lower levels becoming useless. Monks already have large suite of attacking skills AoE and single target - though they lost a DoT - so I'm fairly satisfied with what they already have in terms of attacking, but wish there were more ways to use/manage the resource we already have. I think a lot of what I said would make playing monk more fun for me and feels like a good extension of what a Monk is, however I don't think that it keeps Monks easy to use. I'm sure the designers have this question at the forefront: How do you reward those who know how to play the class to a level that satisfies them while keeping it accessible to those who aren't as adept?

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Originally Posted by EbonySeraphim

One thing people should keep in mind is that the designers of the game don't want the game to have skills learned at lower levels becoming useless.

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They don't, so they bypassed the problem by making the class itself become useless. Please Look Forward To It.

So can we at least get TK to not take away our GL now?...

I'm not looking forward to mnk, I'll still play it as it was my main for 2 years and it shares gear with samurai.

I think we'll get buffs and adjustments in 4.1, Because these changes and skills are not good whatsoever.
SE probably won't listen to us until probably raid savage tire as thats when these types of balancing and adjustments really matter. Yoshi even said we should calm down until we try it first then they'll make adjustments.
So we should be as loud as possible come raids and every see how mnk fairs(Not good pretty sure), there isn't that many of us monk compared to whms so we gotta make sure our voices are heard.

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Originally Posted by Arcian

They don't, so they bypassed the problem by making the class itself become useless. Please Look Forward To It.

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If the 5% damage boost to physical damage + the average amount of added Forbidden Chakra damage landed to a raid-wide DPS boost somewhere between Battle Litany and AOE Balance would you consider Monk still useless?

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Originally Posted by EbonySeraphim

If the 5% damage boost to physical damage + the average amount of added Forbidden Chakra damage landed to a raid-wide DPS boost somewhere between Battle Litany and AOE Balance would you consider Monk still useless?

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Maybe not useless, but at the moment we're incredibly underpowered compared to every other melee dps (we just edge out drg on personal dps, but they have Disembowel and BL). Brotherhood is weaponskill-reliant and since it only affects physical damage, every caster in the party besides the one (or two) healer(s) lessens its overall usefulness. BL is a flat boost to everyone. Balance is a flat boost to everyone. Brotherhood is gimmicky, does not apply to the entire party or the monk using it, and doesn't compensate for the nerfs and loss of abilities, and neither does the rng-happy chakra setup.

Useless? Not entirely. Godawful at the moment? You betcha.

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Originally Posted by Arcian

Maybe not useless, but at the moment we're incredibly underpowered compared to every other melee dps (we just edge out drg on personal dps, but they have Disembowel and BL). Brotherhood is weaponskill-reliant and since it only affects physical damage, every caster in the party besides the one (or two) healer(s) lessens its overall usefulness. BL is a flat boost to everyone. Balance is a flat boost to everyone. Brotherhood is gimmicky, does not apply to the entire party or the monk using it, and doesn't compensate for the nerfs and loss of abilities, and neither does the rng-happy chakra setup.

Useless? Not entirely. Godawful at the moment? You betcha.

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The 5% physical damage boost that Brotherhood applies effects everyone but the monk if I recall correctly. If that is the case then all the 'free' chakra gained in the 15 seconds Brotherhood still makes it feel like an ass-backwards attempt at 'party synergy'.

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Originally Posted by Seemo

The 5% physical damage boost that Brotherhood applies effects everyone but the monk if I recall correctly. If that is the case then all the 'free' chakra gained in the 15 seconds Brotherhood still makes it feel like an ass-backwards attempt at 'party synergy'.

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Everyone else, yeah. Pretty much useless on casters though, which is what I meant there. Still inadequate and ineffective, either way.

Well with the data miners having done their data Mining I've gotta say I'm still pretty sad with Monk's new changes overall.


Brotherhood is fine, however since it's back to only increasing physical damage it's rather limited in how effective it can be in all parties compared to Battle Litany and Trick Attack's effects which effect all types of damage. Further, based on the Chakra generation from the E3 video I'm really not entirely certain we'll manage to get more than one Forbidden Chakra from it's use. Overall the party synergy aspect of it is very weak and it doesn't even look like we'll be getting huge numbers of Forbidden Chakras to make up for it.

Riddle of Fire is a fine cooldown, but at the end of the day it's just a replacement for Blood For Blood with a slow effect that takes away the haste of Monk, which is the aspect of the class that I enjoy most about it. In fact, it's the aspect of the class that pretty much defines it. Riddle of Fire removing haste is akin to Ninja gaining a new ability that prevents them from Using Ninjutsu or Dragoon getting an ability that removes their access to their jumps.

Riddle of Earth is at least functional now that it's final effect is released, but it's also just...incredibly redundant. It and Perfect Balance have the exact same role as a means of going through a phase change and coming out the other end with 3 stacks of Greased Lightning and it really didn't take a new action to accomplish this when a reduction of Perfect Balance's cooldown so it was in line with Blood of the Dragon and Enochian's would have done the same thing. Riddle of Earth as it is is like if SE's solution to Black Mages having Enochian troubles was to add a new action that added 30 seconds to Enochian's timer instead of giving them Foul. It's really boring and redundant and I would rather have a new action than a second button that does the same thing as a button we already have.

Deep Meditation, while initially seeming promising just seems incredibly uninteractive now that I saw it in E3 footage. It built up Chakras so slowly that it almost took 3 minutes to get a single forbidden Chakra, that's just a total bummer. Worse, since the chakra generation can vary wildly you won't necessarily be able to rely on Purification being up for specific points in the fight. It's also odd that they'd put focus on Chakra stacks in a trait and not expand upon it at all. We can build Chakras through a fight now, but we don't have any new way of spending them whatsoever.

Tackle Mastery is still Tackle Mastery. No comment really needed there beyond it still being a trainwreck.

A few people have said that the Auto attack changes could be where the majority of Monk's damage is going to be coming from with Stormblood and frankly that's really just...boring. We can auto attack harder than everyone but that's hardly fun at all, there's no interaction there since they're... well automatic. It's not something we the player gets to do, it's just something that happens in the background. If the thing SE is counting on to carry Monk compared to Samurai, Ninja, and Dragoon is having absurd auto attack damage that's really disheartening since there's nothing fun about that at all.

Overall Monk's changes at this point just look unbelievably boring and frankly for a video game, something being boring is just about the most damning thing you can say about it. There's barely interaction to most of what we're getting and what we did get goes against the core of the class or is just redundant.

I'm really hoping SE goes back to the drawing board and just...reworks all of this for 4.1, cause at this point the Job just looks dull.

Edit: Even sadder, a lot of the changes to the battle system gives Monk more useless and highly situational abilities. Riddle of Earth's new effect makes Tornado Kick so situational it may as well not exist (RIP our coolest animation) and the changes to Brink of Death and Weakness pretty much eliminates the 1% of the time you'll want to leave Fists of Fire in a normal fight, so the expansion which had the explicit goal of removing useless, situational, or actions that are just button bloat gave us a bunch of useless, situational, or more button bloat.

Like, I'd grudgingly accept being suboptimal, because that's hardly new for us on the whole, but...it doesn't even look fun.

That's what really kills me.

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Originally Posted by Arcian

Like, I'd grudgingly accept being suboptimal, because that's hardly new for us on the whole, but...it doesn't even look fun.

That's what really kills me.

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It just feels like whoever designed this, never played monk nor bothered asking anyone who did. And considering how the Monk was supposed to be the new main character class it just feels bad. DRG felt improved with heavensward. MNK feels like they don't want us to play it.

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Originally Posted by SpeckledBurd

Deep Meditation, while initially seeming promising just seems incredibly uninteractive now that I saw it in E3 footage. It built up Chakras so slowly that it almost took 3 minutes to get a single forbidden Chakra, that's just a total bummer. Worse, since the chakra generation can vary wildly you won't necessarily be able to rely on Purification being up for specific points in the fight. It's also odd that they'd put focus on Chakra stacks in a trait and not expand upon it at all. We can build Chakras through a fight now, but we don't have any new way of spending them whatsoever.

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You saw the E3 Susano fight too, huh? Yeah, someone did the napkin math on reddit a while back and it averages out to be five stacks of chakra at about 2min (Assuming you have an outrageously impossible 50% crit chance).
Might as well start Bootshining two or three times in a row now to build chakra faster, because what with GL lasting 16 seconds and fracture/ToD being removed what else am I going to fill that time with?

Job guide is up check out monk for yourselves in all it's "glory"

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/jobguide/monk/

This is just depressing.

Oh hey, Deep Meditation is 50% now.
That's nearly acceptable. NEARLY!

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Originally Posted by phishstix

Job guide is up check out monk for yourselves in all it's "glory"

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/jobguide/monk/

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MNK is getting pounded into the dirt. I'm just sad about that.

ROFL! Not that I care but wow, PVP in general is funny. You have to build to GL3 regardless, no PB no Axe Kick. Form Shift to repeatedly get it, I guess but it's no longer 30s. And there's no meditation, you have to build chakra through GL3 reapplication or Somersault. Wow, it's my ideas only heavily nerfed and takes away what I built on.

This is pretty horrible. I'm legit in shock right now.

The Deep Meditation change is better, but I'd rather it stay at 30% and have a chance to give chakra with any hit, including auto attacks. That would make SkS a very attractive stat for MNK.

From there's it's just all bad. Tackle Mastery still exists. Riddle of Earth asks me to eat damage or is otherwise just a new underused skill. Riddle of Wind is tied to tackle mastery making it inherently trash, and on top of that has the audacity to only last for five seconds. Tornado Kick still unchanged. One Ilm Punch is still useless.

Worst of all, they made our middling utility worse. Brotherhood back to only physical damage? On top of only granting chakra from weaponskills? So we're just going make MNK performance hugely dependent on party comp like that?

Man, like... what is really going on...

This is just depressing. I'll still get MNK to 70 first but I doubt I'll keep playing it after that now.

The revised patch notes do clean up some of the issues. Deep Meditation being 50% is kinda nice, Riddle of Earth not saying you need to take damage to refresh GL is kinda okay too.
But I agree, we've been gutted and gelded. Monk seems so much more simple feeling with the removal of two dots it kinda feels like 2.0.
Tackle Mastery still feels like a half handed attempt at trait verity.
Riddle of Fire is a half baked cooldown still. The 30% damage is nice and all, but the -15% speed is really counter intuitive to monk play style. If it were a flat 20% damage boost it would make up for the speed loss, but I think the speed loss was added in an attempt to make RoF feel unique... but it seems arbitrary for the speed loss.
Deep Meditation is an RNG gate behind an RNG gate. Monks have never had an ability behind an RNG gate before so it feels counter to the class. (Haymaker doesn't count)

Ya know what's sad? Despite the (Justified) rage and (Perhaps a little dramatic) shitshow that took place due to the Whm changes, at least two of their skills are potentially pretty potent. Thin Air (Awesome) and Divine Bension (Free, instant Stoneskin ain't bad, tho Lillies still are ehhh...). Looking at the job guide for Monk, I can't say anything new is objectively great. The best thing is Deep Meditation, but that ain't nearly close to making up for everything else being mediocre at best.

Like I said, I'll main it and Sam side by side, likely with PLD, but just... damn. I'm legit not looking forward to leveling like in 3.0.

What the.... ?! Did they just switched all our positional to rear. Check the skills there's no "flank" anymore just rear... was that why they potency nerfed us?

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Originally Posted by DatPotato

What the.... ?! Did they just switched all our positional to rear. Check the skills there's no "flank" anymore just rear... was that why they potency nerfed us?

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You almost gave me a heart attack but Snap Punch, Twin Snakes, and Dragon Kick are still flank.

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Originally Posted by DatPotato

What the.... ?! Did they just switched all our positional to rear. Check the skills there's no "flank" anymore just rear... was that why they potency nerfed us?

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Goodbye floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.

I really hope the Rear descriptions are just typos... lol.

I duuno if it's a poor translation but check the changes
Potency reduced from 140 to 130.
Potency when executed from a target's rear reduced from 180 to 170. that's for snap
Potency when executed from a target's rear reduced from 140 to 130. that's for TS
Potency when executed from a target's rear reduced from 150 to 140. That's for DK

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Originally Posted by DatPotato

I duuno if it's a poor translation but check the changes
Potency reduced from 140 to 130.
Potency when executed from a target's rear reduced from 180 to 170. that's for snap
Potency when executed from a target's rear reduced from 140 to 130. that's for TS
Potency when executed from a target's rear reduced from 150 to 140. That's for DK

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On the Job Guide they put out they are all flank. At least they are on the NA version. If I log in and they are rear I will be immediately buying a set of gear and leveling Ninja XD

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Originally Posted by Eitarou

On the Job Guide they put out they are all flank. At least they are on the NA version. If I log in and they are rear I will be immediately buying a set of gear and leveling Ninja XD

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I am reading the NA version right now and they say Rear for me.

I didn't even look at the PvP options, they're a whole nother story.

Form Shift grants GL, costs 120 tp
SP/Demo grants a chakra when GLIII is up.

Uhhh... these should have been the pve effects imo...

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Originally Posted by Zephera

This is just depressing. I'll still get MNK to 70 first but I doubt I'll keep playing it after that now.

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Exactly the same for me. Probably gonna immediately level SAM after beating the MSQ and switch from then on if there's no changes.

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Originally Posted by Saerie

I am reading the NA version right now and they say Rear for me.

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Oh you are correct. I wasn't looking at the 4.0 changes section. And it shows flank on the base part but rear on the 4.0 changes. God I hope that really is a typo and doesn't go through.
I didn't think to look at that since the potency nerfs were carried over to the tooltip so I figured everything else would be as well XD

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Originally Posted by Saerie

I am reading the NA version right now and they say Rear for me.

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The updated side stuff all say rear but the tooltip column is all updated numbers and placements. I'm sure those "rear" in the quick look updates are typos.

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Originally Posted by Eitarou

Oh you are correct. I wasn't looking at the 4.0 changes section. And it shows flank on the base part but rear on the 4.0 changes. God I hope that really is a tipo and doesn't go through.

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I have asked a friend who can read japanese to check the JP Job guide and it seems that theirs still say Flank. In most cases the japanese patch notes are always correct, so it just might be english one being bad as usual.

Oddly enough the french version still has flank

why'd they nerf you guys anyway

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Originally Posted by Verdan

why'd they nerf you guys anyway

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Because apparently no one on the battle design team has ever played mnk in their lives.

looking at MNK, they reduces your dmg in general but then you get also get a NEW trait where it increase your dmg if you use fist of fire... does anyone know how much % dmg does it increase?

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Originally Posted by Jilliebeans

looking at MNK, they reduces your dmg in general but then you get also get a NEW trait where it increase your dmg if you use fist of fire... does anyone know how much % dmg does it increase?

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That's not a new trait. FoF has always been a flat 5% damage increase.

You're looking at Tackle Mastery, which gives Shoulder Tackle in FoF a whopping 20 more potency.

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Originally Posted by Jilliebeans

looking at MNK, they reduces your dmg in general but then you get also get a NEW trait where it increase your dmg if you use fist of fire... does anyone know how much % dmg does it increase?

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It is about a net 15% damage buff. It is 30% damage but 15% speed reduction. The biggest issue I and many other have with it is that one of the fundamental parts of monks is going fast and keeping your stacks. If you messed up then you lost your stacks and attacked slowly again and lost damage. But now this skill makes it so every 90 seconds we have to feel like we performed the ultimate taboo as a monk for 20 seconds.

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Originally Posted by Eitarou

It is about a net 15% damage buff. It is 30% damage but 15% speed reduction. The biggest issue I and many other have with it is that one of the fundamental parts of monks is going fast and keeping your stacks. If you messed up then you lost your stacks and attacked slowly again and lost damage. But now this skill makes it so every 90 seconds we have to feel like we performed the ultimate taboo as a monk for 20 seconds.

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Someone on Reddit summed it up quite nicely:

"Going slow was a punishment. Now it's baked into our rotation."