Small, balanced adjustments that would fix Monk's new kit

Let me start by saying: this isn't a 'buff Monk' thread.

Right now our damage is exactly where it's supposed to be, the logs have shown that, but the real problem with Monk isn't that it doesn't perform well - it's that a chunk of its' kit (mostly its' new kit) doesn't FEEL good to use, or is simply so badly designed so that it's hard to find a use for it.

In this thread I won’t talk about all of Monk’s kit (the grievances with the loss of ToD, the inefficiency of AotD, the useless One-Ilm Punch, the overly long PB CD etc) as I have nothing new to say there. Instead I’d like to focus on our new kit – most of which feels quite badly designed – and offer some small, balanced adjustments that could be made just to make it more useful or fun.

My hope is to start a friendly discussion about chaning the new abilities in the hope that someone at SE might read this thread, and make even one of the changes we can come up with! Let me know what you think:

Riddle of Earth

- Earth's reply removed
- Additional 10% damage reduction moved from Earth's Reply to Riddle of Earth
- The first time you take damage while under the effect of Riddle of Earth your Greased Lightning is refreshed to its' full duration, as it is now

Pretty simple reasoning here: an additional 10% damage reduction only AFTER you've already suffered the big hit you were trying to mitigate is redundant. Why would it be designed this way? However, I feel like the one time refresh of GL works well as is and doesn’t necessarily require changing.

Tackle Mastery

Wind Tackle/Riddle of Wind/Fists of Wind

- Fists of Wind's movement speed buff increased. (I’ve put this in as it’s relevant to RoW)
- Riddle of Wind duration increased to 30s

An impactful movement speed buff and a second gap closer for the Monk is a great idea and very useful in movement/AoE heavy phases! Unfortunately, right now, FoW makes almost no impact to our speed and RoW is useless - because how often do you need a second gap closer within only 5 seconds of your previous one? Increase it's duration to the full 30 seconds of Wind Tackle's cooldown, buff FoW and we'd actually have a reason to use the stance/tackle mastery. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why it wasn’t like this already?

Earth Tackle

- Knockback removed
- Stun duration increased to 4 seconds

I'm not too sure how to fix Earth Tackle (feel free to give suggestions) but I know that none of us or anyone in our group wants a knockback. If it's going to deal less damage and have a shorter range than our other tackles, then double it's stun duration – it’ll still be useless in any boss fight but at least then it'll be more useful in solo content or for stunning tougher mobs in dungeon runs (maybe?).

Riddle of Fire

- Recast time increase removed
- Damage buff reduced from 30% to 20% (Or there about's)

There's nothing wrong with RoF's performance, but its’ recast time increase nullifying the speed buff from GL3 FEELS bad to use and flies in the face of what the job is about – I can only imagine that it is the way it is to encourage us not to use it outside of GL, as a way of circumventing the damage loss on our opener when we don’t have PB off cooldown. Who knows. Either way remove it, and reduce the damage buff to compensate, to make this ability feel less clunky.

While we’re on the subject of Perfect Balance though, if that IS ^ their reasoning behind RoF’s current state, then they need to at least reduce its’ recast. I know I said I wouldn’t bring it up but none of us will ever stop asking!!

Brotherhood

- Damage buff now affects magic damage
- Chakras may proc from spells as well as weaponskills

This is the only straight up buff I’ll ask for, and it doesn’t affect our personal DPS; Brotherhood’s anti-synergy with magic users is daft – Battle Littany and Trick Attack affect everyone, and would still be more powerful buffs besides (which I’m not complaining about).

Limiting Brotherhood to physical damage makes Monk that bit less desirable in raid groups with casters, which almost encourages them to choose one or the other (which is unlikely to go in our favour). Reduce the Chakra proc rate if necessary to account for this change, but change it nonetheless.

Deep Meditation

I’ve saved this one for last, simply because it’s the only new addition we got in the expansion that I think is potentially ok as is. I know a lot of us have lamented the RNG nature of the skill and it’s lack of reliability, but plenty of other jobs have a similar mechanic. As I’ve said, either way, our personal DPS seems to be exactly where it’s supposed to be.

If I had to suggest a change though, to increase its’ reliability, then on balance:

- Bootshine, when executed from the rear in Opo Opo form, will guarantee the opening of a chakra

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Originally Posted by Fritz_OS

I'm not too sure how to fix Earth Tackle (feel free to give suggestions)

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Earth tackle:

Reduces target opponents damage dealt by 5%
Duration: 10 seconds

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Originally Posted by ChaozK

Earth tackle:

Reduces target opponents damage dealt by 5%
Duration: 10 seconds

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That would actually be a really neat bit of utility for us, and definitely make Earth Tackle very useful in endgame content. I'm not sure how the tanks (well, the DRk's) would feel, however, about us having our own 10 second Reprisal on only a 30 second cooldown...

But I definitely don't think giving us something along those lines would be 'unbalanced', plus it would fit really well with the theme of our Earth stance giving us damage mitigation!

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Originally Posted by Fritz_OS

Riddle of Earth

- Earth's reply removed
- Additional 10% damage reduction moved from Earth's Reply to Riddle of Earth
- The first time you take damage while under the effect of Riddle of Earth your Greased Lightning is refreshed to its' full duration, as it is now


Pretty simple reasoning here: an additional 10% damage reduction only AFTER you've already suffered the big hit you were trying to mitigate is redundant. Why would it be designed this way? However, I feel like the one time refresh of GL works well as is and doesn’t necessarily require changing.

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Frankly, the 10% damage mitigation coming after the damage is only a part of the issue with this skill. The fact that we have to take damage is in and of itself an issue. Look at Dragoon and Black Mage, they literally just have to hit a button they already had to extend their buffs. Requiring Monk to get hit in order to actually refresh its GL3 creates a lot of situations where other Jobs can keep their buff while Monk can't (Most dungeon bosses that have some sort of Jump phase in Stormblood, including Shisui and Ala Mhigo), or it requires Monk to eat an avoidable AOE that the devs clearly want for you to avoid since it gives you a penalty Vuln stack (Shinryu and Shisui). Either let Monk refresh its stacks on use rather than requiring us to get hit, or let Monk refresh its stacks some other way (IE: going through Coeurl form on Form Shift, reducing PB's cooldown).

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Originally Posted by Fritz_OS

Tackle Mastery

Wind Tackle/Riddle of Wind/Fists of Wind

- Fists of Wind's movement speed buff increased. (I’ve put this in as it’s relevant to RoW)
- Riddle of Wind duration increased to 30s

An impactful movement speed buff and a second gap closer for the Monk is a great idea and very useful in movement/AoE heavy phases! Unfortunately, right now, FoW makes almost no impact to our speed and RoW is useless - because how often do you need a second gap closer within only 5 seconds of your previous one? Increase it's duration to the full 30 seconds of Wind Tackle's cooldown, buff FoW and we'd actually have a reason to use the stance/tackle mastery. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why it wasn’t like this already?

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Buffing Fists of Wind's movement speed isn't gonna help at all because you'll still want to be in Fists of Fire for the 5% damage buff. We'll still have no use for Riddle of Wind. The only way it would be useful would be if they made this work similar to PVP, where you automatically get Riddle of Wind after your Shoulder Tackle, and that has the issue in and of itself of messing with Monks DPS potential.

There's no good way to fix Riddle of Wind without returning Shoulder Tackle to how it was in ARR and giving it a minimum range requirement for it to be used.

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Originally Posted by Fritz_OS

Earth Tackle

- Knockback removed
- Stun duration increased to 4 seconds

I'm not too sure how to fix Earth Tackle (feel free to give suggestions) but I know that none of us or anyone in our group wants a knockback. If it's going to deal less damage and have a shorter range than our other tackles, then double it's stun duration – it’ll still be useless in any boss fight but at least then it'll be more useful in solo content or for stunning tougher mobs in dungeon runs (maybe?).

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An interesting idea at least, and certainly more useful than a Knockback, however it has the same issue of requiring you to drop Fists of Fire, which is something you never want to do.

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Originally Posted by Fritz_OS

Riddle of Fire

- Recast time increase removed
- Damage buff reduced from 30% to 20% (Or there about's)

There's nothing wrong with RoF's performance, but its’ recast time increase nullifying the speed buff from GL3 FEELS bad to use and flies in the face of what the job is about – I can only imagine that it is the way it is to encourage us not to use it outside of GL, as a way of circumventing the damage loss on our opener when we don’t have PB off cooldown. Who knows. Either way remove it, and reduce the damage buff to compensate, to make this ability feel less clunky.

While we’re on the subject of Perfect Balance though, if that IS ^ their reasoning behind RoF’s current state, then they need to at least reduce its’ recast. I know I said I wouldn’t bring it up but none of us will ever stop asking!!

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Agreed. Riddle of Fire is very much the new Wanderer's Minuet and I despise being on the job that's impacted by it. The real problem here is Monk actually needs the 30% in order to be competitive at this point and the gain of 2 GCDs in the RoF window isn't going to make up for the loss of 10% to *everything* that gets done within.

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Originally Posted by Fritz_OS

Brotherhood

- Damage buff now affects magic damage
- Chakras may proc from spells as well as weaponskills

This is the only straight up buff I’ll ask for, and it doesn’t affect our personal DPS; Brotherhood’s anti-synergy with magic users is daft – Battle Littany and Trick Attack affect everyone, and would still be more powerful buffs besides (which I’m not complaining about).

Limiting Brotherhood to physical damage makes Monk that bit less desirable in raid groups with casters, which almost encourages them to choose one or the other (which is unlikely to go in our favour). Reduce the Chakra proc rate if necessary to account for this change, but change it nonetheless.

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Brotherhood shouldn't buff Magic Damage, full stop. I'd rather see Riddle of Fire get a slight buff by gaining 2 GCDs in its window and not losing any of its percentage than for Brotherhood just be Monk Trick Attack.

What should change however, is Chakras only proccing off weaponskills. They should proc of Spells as well and the overall percentage should be lowered to 15-20% so we still gain the same number of Chakras overall. It sucks that Monk's capstone skill is so utterly dependent on other party members that it completely flubs in 4-Man's because you often end up without another physical DPS in the party.

Let's not move the 10% damage reduction of Earth's Reply to Fists of Earth, having an unlimited 20% damage reduction available at all times is a bit too much. Instead, we should get that additional 10% damage reduction when we activate Riddle of Earth, and have Earth's Response only refresh GL.

As for Riddle of Fire, I'm personally okay with it, it just feels like we are winding up our punches to hit harder and it makes weaving skills easier, especially when it's CD lines up well with Brotherhood.

Speaking of Brotherhood, I consider it a personal buff. It's called "Brotherhood", but in truth I just have my peons give me their energy so that I can uppercut more.

Even if there were no other physical DPS, there's always the tank(s).

I think that maybe Riddle of Wind should just reset Shoulder tackle when switching into Fists of Wind.

I think that making Tornado Kick an AoE Chakra spender instead of it being a Greased Lighting spender would make it stronger overall.

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Originally Posted by Fritz_OS

Let me start by saying: this isn't a 'buff Monk' thread.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fritz_OS

Brotherhood

- Damage buff now affects magic damage
- Chakras may proc from spells as well as weaponskills

This is the only straight up buff I’ll ask for, and it doesn’t affect our personal DPS; Brotherhood’s anti-synergy with magic users is daft – Battle Littany and Trick Attack affect everyone, and would still be more powerful buffs besides (which I’m not complaining about).

Limiting Brotherhood to physical damage makes Monk that bit less desirable in raid groups with casters, which almost encourages them to choose one or the other (which is unlikely to go in our favour). Reduce the Chakra proc rate if necessary to account for this change, but change it nonetheless.

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ok...and isn't it a "buff Monk" thread?

Brotherhood affects magic damage will makes Monk really fun, its a really good "gameplay" change :)

it sounds more like a "make monk meta pls...." when tbh monks are really good right now.

Brotherhood at the very least should give us a chance at chakras when party members use attack magic. It just feels like having your fun penalized because your friends like playing mages. It doesn't make sense considering they did stuff like changing MCH's Hypercharge to benefit both physical and magical damage regardless of the turret.

I figured Riddle of Fire making us slower was to increase our damage while slowing down our TP use so we don't run out in longer fights (since they kept telling us to try it out on longer fights). I don't mind either way on the speed but it would feel way better if our animations changed or we were covered in flames or SOMETHING to make it more satisfying. Especially since we didn't get any badass looking new attack skills this expansion.

Riddle of Earth is good but cumbersome, someone a while back said it should freeze your greased lightning until the buff wears off, and if you get hit it would refresh it like it does now. I think that would improve it a ton... losing your GL 2 seconds before you have any chance of getting hit by the boss's big unavoidable attack is annoying.

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Originally Posted by Greywolfamakir

it sounds more like a "make monk meta pls...." when tbh monks are really good right now.

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MNK is actually in the same spot it was in before the expansion. Stuck behind NIN and DRG like usual plus with how popular SAM is its common for MNK's to be blocked from parties due to sharing gear.

her's another fix. I want a boxing glove glam.

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Originally Posted by Strength

her's another fix. I want a boxing glove glam.

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If you mix one of the earlier cloth gloves that look like oven mitts, dye them red, and glamour Emperor's New Fist it'll come out fairly close. Someone posted their boxer glamour on Reddit about a week ago, was pretty well done.

I think they should just take an axe to Tackle Mastery and replace it with a new Mythril Peak that gives us a Chakra when its used instead, I would honestly be able to live with the rest of the kit after that.

Honestly, just make Form Change work like it does in PvP and MNK become infinitesimally better. Just form shift thru jump phases and you'll maintain your GL without a worry. Tornado Kick might need a longer CD to compensate for how easy it would be to maintain and get back GL but at least it might finally get some use outside of a single niche purpose. This suggestion also gives room for Riddle of Earth to be changed into something actually useful for raids, like an AoE damage mitigation skill.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Honestly, just make Form Change work like it does in PvP and MNK become infinitesimally better. Just form shift thru jump phases and you'll maintain your GL without a worry. Tornado Kick might need a longer CD to compensate for how easy it would be to maintain and get back GL but at least it might finally get some use outside of a single niche purpose. This suggestion also gives room for Riddle of Earth to be changed into something actually useful for raids, like an AoE damage mitigation skill.

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and we should give MNK AoE res in combat, Hallowed Ground, Piercing Debuff, Hypercharge and Riddle of Fire should insta kill anything and MNK become infinitesimally better

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Originally Posted by Greywolfamakir

and we should give MNK AoE res in combat, Hallowed Ground, Piercing Debuff, Hypercharge and Riddle of Fire should insta kill anything and MNK become infinitesimally better

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My suggestion is really no different than BLM maintaining Enochian with Transpose so I'm not really sure why you are saying this as though I'm making MNK this unspotable killing machine. Even if Form Shift became our 1 button GL maintenance skill, what's wrong with that? Tornado Kick would still eat our GL and we can't realistically use Form Shift in the middle of a fight unless we need to distance ourselves from the boss for something so it's not like it would be OP in any way in PvE. Riddle of Earth also getting an actually use instead of just being Fist of Earth with a nice GL on hit and a redundant buff that we loss instantly upon switching back to Fist of Fire is also hardly broken in any way either so again, why are you acting like it would be in anyway OP?

The Riddle of Fire change would only increase monk damage to the point where it's above samurai. Giving them that or making brotherhood increase spell damage and procs off spells means that's 2-3 more people contributing to your chakra generation. This is, as expected, a net dps increase and a net raid dps increase. That's enough to not only snuff out any notion of Samurai having a place in high end raids but also could potentially make Monk preferred over something like Dragoon in traditional comps of nin/drg/brd/caster.

Brotherhood is already a fine CD for triple melee comps with a bard and frankly I don't think there's any way to change Riddle of Fire to where it's not a meager dps increase just to make it so Monk keeps their 1.9sec gcd throughout the fight. Classes change with time, if anything it's good for the class that they're shaken up a little and not play exactly like they have since 2013.

Honestly, at this point I'll take anything that makes RoF feel less clunky so I don't end up a salt mine when I try to play the class I've mained for almost four years. As it stands, I've resigned myself to playing SAM.

But please, SE. Get rid of Tackle Mastery. It is probably the single most useless thing I have ever seen on a melee dps class.

I can't fit all of my issues into less than 1000 words. So I'm just going to address my biggest one, make tornado kick useful. For me, ideal situation for tornado kick would be to be able to use it in the RoF windows to have more oGCD's to fit in the longer duration between GCD's and add more to your burst windows. In that same vein, I'd be ok with adjusting the cooldown of TK so you can only use it once per RoF. But if they want to make it a nastrond/life of the dragon situation i'm cool with that too!

Honorable mentions are redundant/near useless abilities like the three fists and their tackle masteries (just give mnk a 5% damage buff passive?), purification (make it an oGCD aggro dump?), arm of the destroyer, one ilm punch, and that darn 5s cd on FC.

I'm honestly surprised One-Ilm Punch doesn't grant a stack of Greased Lightning instead of stunning. Make that change and increase the cooldown on Tornado Kick to a minute and it would be better overall, imo.

That said Brotherhood affecting spells should have its chakra proc rate reduced to compensate. Since it's guaranteed to affect the whole party now.