On the Nature of Monk

Hello! I'd like to start by asking to please focus on the goal and not arguing over who did what wrong. We can all learn and go forward to reaching what we all want: a job that is fun to play and builds upon its flaws to make it better. One thing we all agree on is that MNK has flaws, many many flaws. And it's not a small minority that thinks this.

• http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...82%B9%E3%83%AC
• http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...gnored-for-4.1
• http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/s...rchid=60280284

This MNK thread on the Japanese forums has almost 400k views and around 1k posts. And while I know nothing regarding Japanese language, google translate does give me a general idea that they aren't exactly satisfied. I also link a thread where I have seen and been participant of proposals regarding MNK being ignored in x.1 and I dread but realistically believe the ignoring will continue if things don't get properly exposed.

MNK's status seems as confusing as its current design philosophy: It performs nominally like a DPS. And that is exactly all you can say about MNKs right now. Yes there are outliers and yes there are amazing players out there but MNK is still just MNK. players both rookies and veterans of the class notice immediately the polarizing choices you have regarding the jobs skills.

Veterans themselves have pointed out many issues only to see updates not happening. Now, like I said, I am not opening this topic to witch hunt the development team, but to communally brainstorm things that need work, change, update or flat out replace/remove to improve MNK as a job.

We all play the job and we all like this job and play it because its what we like, but we are all aware that these changes and the lack of reasoning behind them is something we need to address in a civilized manner. I posted a link regarding MNK threads and many are of the same nature since this expansion launched. So I tried to pull a quick list of the things I can generally see are the topic regarding it:


Laundry List of Issues: Yes, there are that many.

1. Greased Lightning:
   1. Clunky.
   2. Has a lot of ways to "manage" it but low effectiveness of each.
   3. Risk vs Reward is very uneven.
2. Fist Stances:
   1. "there is literally no reason to not be in Fire, ever" - MNK Community.
   2. Tackle Mastery (more on Useless Abilities) makes no sense.
3. Forms:
   1. Hamstrung x Infinity.
   2. Limits utility of skills locked behind a form.
4. Riddles:
   1. Riddle of Earth vs Tornado Kick <<< Zero Synergy.
   2. Riddle of Wind + Shoulder tackle = Shoulder tackle in Fist of Fire.
   3. Riddle of Fire Power increase and gimping speed causes knee jerk reaction every time.
5. Chakras:
   1. RNG behind it is quite the layered cake.
   2. Deep Meditation has very low proc to make TFC worthwhile at times.
   3. Brotherhood is not as rewarding as it should be.
6. Perfect balance:
   1. Cool down on it is too damn high.
7. Mobility:
   1. Shoulder tackle is our only venue and with stun and damage attached to it, limits mobility usage.
8. Useless Actions:
   1. MNK still has way too many abilities and weapon-skills that need rework.
   2. Here's a sub-list:
      1. Fist of Earth
      2. Fist of Wind
      3. Arm of the Destroyer
      4. Purification
      5. Riddle of Earth
      6. Riddle of Wind (This attempts to fix mobility but still limited)
      7. Tornado Kick (Still an issue since 3.0)
      8. One Ilm Punch (Oldest issue, In-game joke)
      9. Tackle Mastery

Assorted solutions: these will follow a clean up to better suit the general opinion.

Greased Lightning:

• Resource is a depleting gauge with tier levels (Credit to Shurrikhan on this idea)
• Inherits GL scaling + Movement Speed + Defense Buff from FoW and FoE
• Unlocks usage of skills relating to the gauge as a resource (skills that use a unit rather then use the whole resource)
• Better forms of sustainability or faster reach of max output.

Fist Stances:

• Stances could Customize Combos
• Develop own Resource
• Could make use of GL as addtl resource
• Could make use of Chakra as addtl resource
• Fist of Wind increases Movement Speed and Skill Speed

Forms:

• Scrap gimmick and match animal to element. Each form+"element" maps 1 unique combo
  • Opo = Earth / Raptor = Wind / Coeurl = Fire
• One standard pure damage combo that is consistent through the forms

Riddles:

• Fist Stance Finishers, linked to unique resource of said fist.
• Each finisher can be something that boosts MNKs DPS, Raid Utility or Defensive
• Riddle of Wind - Grant Double Auto attacks for 10s / 120s CD - Sora_Oathkeeper
• Riddle of Earth - Raid Wide shield for 6s / 120s CD - Sora_Oathkeeper
• Riddle of Fire - Raid wide damage buff (5%) for 10s / 60s CD - Sora_Oathkeeper

Chakras:

• Increased resource to 7
• Have defensive and offensive skills tied to them

Mobility:

• We could be using this a speed opening strike like Widargelt does
• Example: https://imgur.com/WLbnP2z

Laundry List

• Perfect Balance: Cooldown reduced to 60s to 80s- Sora_Oathkeeper, Wintersandman, Silver-Strider
• Form Shift: Going from Coeurl(III) to Opo-opo(I) can refresh GL3 - Wintersandman, Silver-Strider
• One Ilm Punch: Taken off GCD and forms. Grants 5 Chakras / 120s CD - Sora_Oathkeeper
• One Ilm Punch: Remove stun, change to Line AoE with 100 potency - Silver-Strider
• Brotherhood: Removed - Sora_Oathkeeper
• Deep Meditation: changed to 'Enhanced Bootshine' > Grants a Chakra every Bootshine crit. - Sora_Oathkeeper, Silver-Strider
• Steel Peak: Gains a silence effect.
• Riddle of Earth: Altered to provide a 8% damage mitigation to the group. - Silver-Strider, KanameYuuki
• Riddle of Wind: weak party refresh MP or and TP that just like Tactitian and Refresh would reduce enmity by half if not added on disengage skill. - KanameYuuki
• Purification: Removed from Chakra system. Changed to reduce enmity and restore TP.
• Tackle Mastery: Grants an extra tackle at 0 potency after using shoulder tackle. 15-20s duration buff. (would help with mobility) - Sora_Oathkeeper, Silver-Strider
• Arm of the Destroyer: Potency buffed to 100. TP reduced to 100. Silence Removed. - Sora_Oathkeeper, Silver-Strider
• Tornado Kick: No longer removes GL3. Instead uses 5 chakras to deal AoE damage in a frontal cone. Potency reduced to 250 - Sora_Oathkeeper, Silver-Strider.

Potential Quality of Life Items

• Greased Lightning and Form timers. Increased to 30s - Sora_Oathkeeper
• All Potency nerfs going into SB reverted back. Including the Forbidden Chakra - Sora_Oathkeeper
• Disengage skill: Something to help reduce aggro to MNK and adds to mobility. - KanameYuuki
• Greased Lightning loss is gradual: 3, 2, 1... - KanameYuuki
• One Fist Button that does all the three effects as a toggle-able skill. - RisaStoleMyHeart
• Greased Lightning gets refreshed even if the attack lands on an invulnerable target.

Overall, we can see that there can be much to be worked on that could push MNK to something that the community would appreciate since it comes to be form a community viewpoint, I could be wrong and many of these things don't need an update, or I could be missing other points that others can point out and we can build upon. Hopefully this can remain civil.

P.S: items in the list of example are a summary of things I noticed and credit is owed and due to those who mentioned them in the past.

Edit: Updated to make the laundry list more specific along with suggestions or proposals from different corners.

The thing I've noticed about Monk is that if there's ever a complaint about it, it doesn't really get addressed until the expansion. For example, in 3.0 both Monk and Ninja had pretty hefty TP issues. Ninja's were almost immediately addressed with TP cost reductions, Monks had no TP costs reduced until 4.0 when everyone else got it. One Ilm Punch has been useless forever, when the devs utterly failed to improve it with 4.0 and we've since complained about it, nothing happened, meanwhile Warrior had a similarly useless action in Shake it Off that was buffed into one of the most powerful group defensive CDs in the game. Monks complained about Arm of the Destroyer having too high a TP cost and doing too little damage; nothing, Ninja's mention their AOE is kinda low, they get Death Blossom's TP cost reduced and damage increased and Katon and Doton both get buffed by like 33%.

It's kinda evident that the devs don't give a shit about Monk as far as responding to feedback goes.

That said, here's some Monk feedback. Monk has a lot of problems, and many of them have existed forever. Useless abilities and abilities that are so hyper situational that they may as well be useless have been Monk's schtick since ARR and that sure hasn't changed at all despite Stormblood having the goal of alleviating those complaints.

To name a few of the problems Monk has.

1. A lack of Mobility. Monk has a single movement ability, Shoulder Tackle, however unlike other melee jobs we're the only one who has to use it on cooldown for max DPS. Dragoon is similar with Spineshatter Dive and Dragonfire Dive, but even it has Elusive Jump for free movement. Monk's options for mobility is losing out DPS by holding its Tackle. That bites. The fix for this is easy, remove the damage from Shoulder Tackle and place it elsewhere while reducing Shoulder Tackle's cooldown. Let Monk actually have mobility.

2. Greased Lightning Management. Yes this is still a problem, why? Who knows. Despite Monk having the most actions to deal with this of any Job (hey I thought the devs were reducing button bloat?), Monk is still the worst at this by far. Form Shift is Great, but Perfect Balance's cooldown is significantly longer than it has any right to be. Equivalent actions (Blood of the Dragon and Enochian) are each on 1/6th the cooldown of PB. Further, Monk has two actions competing for the same role of 'what to do if the boss will jump' in Tornado Kick and Riddle of Earth. Tornado Kick hardly makes up the damage loss, while Riddle of Earth is somewhat unreliable (only can completely count on it in O4S Exddeath) and it's just flat out worse than what Black Mage and Dragoon can do. Black Mage can maintain Enochian indefinitely with Transpose, Dragoon can instantly add 20 seconds to its timer. This leaves Monk with significantly more buff management buttons than similar jobs, but incomprehensibly worse at it than them in spite of it. Solution: allow GL3 to be refreshed like Enochian by letting GL3 refresh when formshifting from Coeurl to Opo-opo, reduce Perfect Balance's cooldown to something more reasonable like 90 seconds so Monk.

3. Useless actions or actions that are so highly situational they may as well be useless. The Fist Stances (and Tackle Mastery by extension), Arm of the Destroyer, Purification, Riddle of Earth, Tornado Kick, and still One Ilm Punch. As far as outstanding complaints go, this one has existed the longest. The Fist Stances can literally be described as "there is literally no reason to not be in Fire, ever" and Tackle Mastery just compounds that. Arm of the Destroyer, as previously mentioned, costs too much TP for how little damage it does (it costs almost 3 bootshines worth of damage to edge it out by 40 potency at 5 targets). It's silence is also unreliable due to being form locked, as is One Ilm Punch's stun. Tornado Kick for all the use it sees may as well be an execute that can only be used at .5%, which is a shame considering how cool it is. Purification was a non-solution to Monk's TP issues in Heavensward that is now a non-solution to a problem that doesn't exist anymore. Even in super long AOE pulls you won't need this if your co-DPS is competent.

4. Overall Job feel. Monk feels bad to play now. Riddle of Fire's slow is jarring and the number of Chakras we get from Brotherhood even with a full physical party doesn't begin to justify it. Brotherhood flubbing anytime the party isn't an 8-man full physical party feels terrible. Not having a chakra AOE spender feels terrible. The loss of Touch of Death and Fracture on Monk feels terrible. This is probably the biggest problem with Monk that people like to wave off the most by saying 'oh that's how the devs want it to play' and 'Monk's DPS is fine'. I want to go fast, that was the appeal of the Job. I enjoyed having Touch of Death and Fracture to delay my rotation to hit positionals and maximize Demolish's dot ticks. Now I just have a job that feels stale and slow. Brotherhood is a similar problem. Monk is designed around building Chakras from party members at this point for max damage, but it just doesn't work in 4-mans even when you're lucky enough to get another physical party member. Proposed fix: Remove the slow from Riddle of Fire, return Touch of Death and re-elongate Demolish to 21 seconds, turn Tornado Kick into an AOE chakra move, and make Brotherhood just remove the chakra limitation on Forbidden Chakra so our output isn't throttled by our party composition.

The biggest issue monks have is that fights are no longer designed with them in consideration. I really became aware of this when going through the Stormblood story and getting to the Susano fight. I had just gotten Riddle of Earth, and had logically concluded that if I used it during his jump phase, around when he drops his swords, that I would be able to maintain my greased lightning. Problem is he takes so long to drop is sword that you lose it even before it drops, and the time between him dropping the second sword and him dealing party-wide damage is so long that Riddle of Earth can't be used to keep up Greased Lightning. It felt like a slap in the face to have gotten new skills to maintain my buffs only to have fights be set up to have these phases be so long as to negate their existence.

I think the main complaint monks have is that Greased Lightning management is much more demanding than it is for comparable jobs, and that our tools for doing so are inadequate for the task. I like the idea of Greased Lightning fading over time rather than all falling off at once (going from 3 stacks to 2 after 16 seconds, then to 1) And while the devs don't want to give us Greased Lightning 4 outright, if it fell off over time, a 4th stack might be able to be kept in reserve. That way longer jump cycles might still end you at 3 stacks rather than all 4, so no loss in DPS.

As far as other useless skills, people have touched on One Ilm Punch a lot, and I will say that this still is likely to never go away and never be usable considering that it's the butt of a joke in the level 52 (I think) monk quest, and changing the skill means they have to rewrite the script, something they probably don't want to put the effort into. So I've resigned myself to having that skill in my repertoire but never on my hotbar. Purification was a niche skill in Heavensward for fights like A9s that had a lot of up-time and you needed the extra TP, but now are completely useless. My thoughts there, personally, is to make the skill reflect it's name. Remove it's chakra requirement and have it mimic Selene's AOE esuna. Considering how many healers don't take esuna nowadays, this would be a pretty valuable upgrade to the skill.

Another issue is that this job is locked behind entirely too many layers of RNG. Consider the Deep Meditation trait. Apart from Bootshine, there's the RNG at play of "will this weaponskill crit?" and if that's a yes, then there's still only a 50/50 chance that you'll generate a chakra stack from it. Compare this to BRD and this is absolutely ridiculous. They get a 100% proc on their crit dots, of which they always have two up, but we only get a 50% proc rate on ours? Also as mentioned above, Brotherhood is too lackluster for any real effect. It's only physical, so if you're running a PLD who happens to be using Holy Spirit when it goes off, you're screwed, and if you have other casters, you're screwed. Also they got nothing out of it since it's only physical, and the proc rate for chakras is too low. I've been in 8-man parties with all physical DPS and still had multiple occurrences of not getting enough chakras to proc one Forbidden Chakra from the use of the skill. This needs to change. Deep Meditation needs to be 100% proc on critical weaponskills, and Brotherhood needs to be buffed to a higher proc rate (I'm not sure what's correct) as well as effect spells. As well as we need to be able to bank maybe 2 additional chakras to accommodate this.

Fists of Wind is one of the skills that I can say I only ever used when learning Sophia EX to help me get to the sides of the platforms I needed to be on. Outside of that, it's another one of those useless skills, especially as it's the weakest movement buff in the game. It's slower than Peloton, it's slower than Sprint, and it's even slower than a ninja's passive movement speed increase trait. If this is going to be a useful skill at all, I would say it should operate similar to sprint. Make it a movement speed buff on a cooldown, and maybe have it reset your shoulder tackle upon use (and combine that with the above suggestion to remove the damage from shoulder tackle to reinforce this as a movement skill)

Monk has so many things wrong with it that I don't see it getting a proper look at until 5.0.

I personally enjoy the fist stances. But if I were to make changes I would do the following.

Fist of Wind - Increase movement speed bonus and increase skill speed.
Fist of Fire - Leave alone

Riddle of Fire - eliminate the skill speed reduction

Riddle of Earth - Refresh GL3 for the duration.

Perfect Balance - Decrease to 60 seconds

Form Shift - going from III to I refreshes present GL3 stacks (so if you have one stack it refreshes the one stack)

Make the PvP skills match PvE skills to allow for One Ilm Punch and Arm of the Destroyer be worth something. Otherwise remove or reduce TP costs.

Honestly I miss the stun on Steel Peak.

I would HARDLY list greased lightning and the forms for GCDs as major issues with the job. Those are definitive parts of the mnk kit and ones that define the playstyle and appeal of the job. They are also one of the few things that the community has largely agreed upon as being great about monk.

With that, I feel that mnk does need some QoL of life changes and has failed to be updated multiple times to keep up with changes to other jobs. So I am hopeful that changes will come to the job that improve the overall experience of playing it. But please, let's not ask for them to just hand us a brainless, cookie cutter job with easy damage. One great thing about monk is its playstyle and, if executed well, the kit is dynamic and unlike any other job in the game.

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Originally Posted by SwarleyMcSwarls

I would HARDLY list greased lightning and the forms for GCDs as major issues with the job. Those are definitive parts of the mnk kit and ones that define the playstyle and appeal of the job. They are also one of the few things that the community has largely agreed upon as being great about monk.

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They made Monk unique. But that uniqueness in SB is more of a hindrance now due to just how short the form timers are and that then has an impact on refreshing your GL. Because the GL timer is also the shortest outside of enochian, but let's face it, you can just hit transpose and never have it fall off. and if it does fall off, well just hit that enochian CD again. Not really the same case for Monk due to PB long timer. Also with ToD and Fracture being removed everything we do now is locked behind a form. the One Ilm punch stun and AotD silence. Locked behind forms. Not only are they a potency loss to use, you have a 1/3 chance to use them when needed. They become unreliable and also an actual hindrance on dps due to, again, our buffs and debuffs being so short. 15s for Dragon Kick and Twin Snakes means you either miss refreshing those, OR you miss out on your 2 strongest attacks GCD attacks (not counting the Demo DoT), bootshine crit and true strike. This is why forms are a mess. I think previously it was just easier in HW to just accept that OIP and AotD(except for aoe) were useless. But we also got new DPS abilities to hit so it didn't feel like too much of the same thing.

But now that we've had ToD and Fracture taken away we're stuck with an even more boring rotation than we did in ARR. As someone above said the devs don't really design fights with Monk in mind. If a drg and nin can go into a long phase change and come out with their buff resource still in tact. A monk should be able to as well. Afterall a monk doesn't even bring the level of dps a drg and nin bring to the raid, nor are we the kings of dps anymore so why are we still punished as if we are? I don't see sam getting punished at all and their downtime is by far the easiest to handle, sure they can drop their 30s buffs and debuff. But if the downtime is long enough they can just meditate and hagakure so they don't need to overwrite any sen when the boss comes back. Sam actually does extremely well from a phase transition. Monk can meditate and... form shift for 1 instant GL. Not exactly much compensated compared to what they just lost. Anyway I rambled, sorry :P

My changes:

Perfect Balance: CD reduced to 60s
Riddle of Wind - Grant Double Auto attacks for 10s / 120s CD
Riddle of Earth - Raid Wide shield for 6s / 120s CD
Riddle of Fire - Raid wide damage buff (5%) for 10s / 60s CD
Brotherhood - Removed
One Ilm Punch - Taken off GCD and forms. Grants 5 Chakras / 120s CD
Deep Meditation - changed to 'Enhanced Bootshine' - Grants a Chakra every Bootshine crit.
Tackle Mastery - Grants an extra tackle at 0 potency after using shoulder tackle. 20s duration buff. (would help with mobility)
AotD - Potency buffed to 100. TP reduced to 100. Silence Removed.
Tornado Kick - No longer removes GL3. Instead uses 5 chakras to deal AoE damage in a frontal cone. Potency reduced to 250

Additional Changes~

Greased Lightning and Form timers. Increased to 30s
All Potency nerfs going into SB reverted back. Including the Forbidden Chakra

This puts our CD alignment the same as every other job that has burst and also synergizes us with NIN. While not being equal to Nin, we at least offer consistent 60s damage utility and would not be such a hindrance if there was no nin and also to jobs that work in 60/120s burst windows (which is the majority)

Numbers can be tweaked but I think the job would feel at least a little more playable, less punishing and more fun and also cut out the RNG gimmick. But that's just my opinion

me only suggestion for improving purification is what instead of heal tp, it could extend gl duration, and not only that, what it does not requires 5 chakra to be used, but depending on how many chakras you have opened = how much it extend the duration

Is it me or does Riddle of Earth not extend GL duration at times? That bugged me because sometimes I'd see the timer reset, and sometimes it doesn't. Do I need to be targetting the enemy for it to trigger the reset or am I doing this wrong?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tracewood

Is it me or does Riddle of Earth not extend GL duration at times? That bugged me because sometimes I'd see the timer reset, and sometimes it doesn't. Do I need to be targetting the enemy for it to trigger the reset or am I doing this wrong?

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You have to take a hit for the effect to trigger.

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Originally Posted by Sora_Oathkeeper

stuff

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The main issue with MNK right now imo is the slowdown and RNG so I love your changes. Would make MNK much more enjoyable to play then it is right now. I'd tack back on the return of touch of death and fracture while making demolish 21 seconds again too, though the devs really seem to hate dots now...

Unfortunately since its fairly obvious the dev team doesn't care about MNK I'd expect zero changes again in 4.2. At best they'd give MNK something pointless, like a 10 potency buff to steel peak.

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Originally Posted by echo78

stuff too :P

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Agreed. I really dislike the slowdown and rng. I hate that for 4 years RNG was never a factor for MNK and then they added not just one but 2 layers of RNG. I feel like brotherhood is such a terrible raid utility right now because its balanced around the mnk getting 3 TFC out of it with RoF up. I honestly hate this synergy within our skillset. Its a forced slowdown because of a knock-on effect from the RNG from brotherhood. It drives me crazy when i see so many awesome ideas that people have thought up and keep the monk aesthetic and wonder how the hell the developers couldnt have thought up something better.

So I'm a nub at MNK, but I have played it off and on since 2.x. A friend of mine was a MNK main in HW and he's been vocal about his opinions to me. Some random thoughts...

From my (a scrub's) perspective, MNK is trying to cling to outdated design principles that other classes have mostly shed with the 4.0 reworks. They kept the very basic idea of the job -stance flow/dance with the enemy- but tried to keep its useless Wind/Earth stances as NOT DAMAGE stances. As we all know, XIV has an overbearing focus on damage for every role. But MNK not only kept the stances that didn't give them damage, they gave players little reason to use them even after adding stuff to them. SE also kept the damage/utility combos (stuns on One Ilm and Shoulder Tackle) that they removed almost everywhere else because they didn't want optimal rotations to cause issues with mechanics due to earned CC immunity. Seems like inconsistent adherence to design principles by whoever was working on MNK.

My humble suggestion for the Fists issues would be to make each fist give you a timed amount of damage, kind of like BRD's songs- Fire buffs DH, Earth buffs det, Wind buffs crit, and when you use them you get a large initial boost that wears off after some time and leaves a smaller permanent one behind for as long as you're in the stance. I genuinely like the idea of swapping stances on the fly to hit as hard as I can, and even if one stat is favoured over the others by min-maxers, the small buffs would not be worth passing up the larger bonuses to other offensive stats. At least, that's the concept. It feels like SE wants us to use the other stances but if they don't give damage, we probably never will. You could make Earth Stance grant total damage immunity on activation and it would still be niche (though OP). So why not change what kinds of damage we get by using them? If stat buffs are no good, what about additional effects on the basic skills?

And please, gating fun buttons behind RNG is AWFUL. Even if it's balanced. Us WHM mains threw such a fit about having our stupid flowers gated behind random procs that SE gave in and made it 100% for Cure I and II (the system still sucks but that's neither here nor there). It's great that MNK doesn't have to wait for downtime to regain Chakra any more but hoping you get lucky and have a good comp for it sucks.

I don't think One Ilm Punch will ever be used as long as it has a utility effect. The situations where 1) it's available and 2) you need/want to use it are so, so rare. I don't want to go so far as saying that it should be removed, but if they can't think of anything better to do with it... well, one of the things my friend hated most about 4.0 MNK was the loss of "stuff" to do (RIP Touch of Death). Maybe make it grant a timed self-buff effect? I know the theme of One Ilm Punch is supposed to be a tiny punch with a huge disabling effect on the opponent, but it doesn't seem to be working out after all these years.

I agree with a lot that's in the OP. MNK is a huge mess of RNG and conflicting bad design decisions that combine to make it still recognizable as the punching job, but slower and less fun to play. (Why did they think making a stance that forced you to trade speed for power was a fun thing that people would like on a job that's all about fast-flowing combos and constant movement? Did they learn nothing from 3.x BRD?) My friend gave up MNK and hasn't looked back since it was so simplified up to 60 then slowed down if he wanted to do max damage at higher levels. Like a lot of things in SB I wonder if the devs balanced jobs they played, or even knew why people liked to play them. There's no mandate saying everyone has to enjoy a job the same way but from what I understood most people liked MNK for its speed and flow. Why ruin that, even if it's still great power-wise?

Also, just as a thought, the biggest thing keeping me from actually liking MNK has been part of it's design since 2.x- I hate, hate, hate the short timer on GL stacks. I know it's gone up but every time a boss jumps away I die a little inside. Especially with the long Perfect Balance CD. Gee I'm sure looking forward to rebuilding all my stacks before it jumps away again. That's more of a petty, personal nitpick though. But please consider decreasing the current CD on Perfect Balance- I'd like the job a lot more if I didn't have to spend so long ramping back up almost every blippin' time the dungeon boss decides it's time to run away. It's not fun, it's tedious and annoying.

Thank you for reading this nublet's complaints about a job they want to like but just can't seem to get into.

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Originally Posted by Mahrze

You have to take a damaging hit for the effect to trigger.

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Very important fix. If you take 0 HP(aka having a good scholar), it won't proc, because game design. Yet, we have Samurai's Third eye being procable off of 0 HP hits because why not!

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Originally Posted by Mahrze

You have to take a hit for the effect to trigger.

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The other fun thing is that you have to take damage from that hit, so if you have a sch who is good at their job, baby, you're losing those stacks anyway :D

edit: dang too slow

but yeah maining monk is an exercise in frustration
is your tank a fraction of a second too slow between pulls? enjoy sucking for the next 20 seconds! does the boss have between-jump phases less than 3 minutes long? of course it does, enjoy doing worse dps than jobs with more utility because your stacks fell off! is your tank watching their parse like a hawk and doing as little aggro as humanly possible? your face is getting eaten because even though you lost gl3 twice already, your aggro is still sky high and you have no way to dump it
allll of these problems have been complained about for literally years at this point so I doubt they're getting fixed, but, it would be nice?
Monk Is A Good Class guys

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Originally Posted by Tracewood

Is it me or does Riddle of Earth not extend GL duration at times? That bugged me because sometimes I'd see the timer reset, and sometimes it doesn't. Do I need to be targetting the enemy for it to trigger the reset or am I doing this wrong?

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If you get a good shield, like a crit adlo and you don't take damage, your stacks don't reset.

Source: I've dropped my stacks multiple times during Ultimate progression for this exact reason.

Glorious design.

Posted this in another thread but I figured it would work here as well.

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 CD to 5 seconds with a reduced potency at 250 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 on single target so either it got nerfed in potency or TFC got buffed in potency. Although I think buffing TFC to 280 wouldn't be terrible either.)
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.
Purification: Removed from Chakra system. Changed to reduce enmity and restore TP.
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.

To add to those lovely changes something I'd like to see.

We need a disengage skill, it could give us some seconds on timer and work exactly like Elusive Jump on DRG reducing enmity by half, they could use even steel peak so we don't get yet another extra button. Our only mobility option is our gap closer which is also our stun and another damaging skill so we cannot rely on just that skill for everything.

GL stacks should decrease from 3 to 1 gradually on timer instead of loosing them all at once, this way it would even be possible to keep Perfect Balance the way it is, something that could also work is that Form Shift refreshes timer but you cannot gain stacks from it, only trough damaging coeurl weapon skills.

Riddle of earth to become party mitigation and since we could reduce useless skills, Mantra would evolve with a trait making it Riddle of Earth or be like that from the very beginning.

Riddle of Wind weak party refresh MP or and TP that just like Tactitian and Refresh would reduce enmity by half if not added on disengage skill.

The biggest thing that can get to me with the Monk class is the ramp up with Greased Lightning. It kind of feels like an intentional troll mechanic that laughs at your DPS plummeting anytime the boss runs away or god forbid you are targeted with an onslaught of AoEs. So far the Form Shift ideas I see here would be great on solving that. I am also thinking they could do something similar to what they did for Dragoons to improve on the ramp up effect. The damage increasing portion could be removed from GL and migrated into potency buffs to all of the attacks. That way if you do lose the buff, only the haste bonus is noticed.

The Fist Stances could also use some rework so we aren't always stuck to the highest DPS one. It may be possible all 3 should have the 5% damage increase so we just use the stance with the secondary effect we want. Fist of Wind could have an enmity reducing modifier added with the speed boost. Fist of Earth would already be good with the 5% damage boost added. Fist of Fire would be the tricky one and the best I can think of for the moment is either a healing increase self buff or a minor leech heal effect of maybe 30% of damage dealt from Coeurl moves.

The Riddle abilities are also odd since they have unneeded costs or restrictions on them. For starters, they should work with any of the 3 Fist Stances. Riddle of Fire could guarantee all your weaponskills grant an extra Chakra and the haste cost can be removed in exchange for the damage increase effect to be nerfed down to around 10%ish. Riddle of Earth's effect also shouldn't need you to take damage to trigger it and just give you the buffs it offers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tigore

Fists and Riddle stuff.

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I like that suggestion on Fists all granting the 5% extra damage but I think it would all need to be balanced a little better then just add 5% extra damage + extra.
I can see Fist of Earth and Fist of Wind gaining 3% damage up but Fist of Earth would also increase the damage of Crit hits while Fist of Wind increases Skill Speed to help balance them out with Fist of Fire's current 5% extra damage.

Riddles also being independent from Stance requirements would also be a boon as now, we can get those benefits without having to sacrifice our damage to do so. I'd still be for Riddle of Earth being a Raid wide damage mitigation but as for Riddle of Fire, I'd like it and Brotherhood to be combined into a Single Skill since they're completely dependent on each other already.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mahrze

Resource is a depleting gauge with tier levels (Credit to Shurrikhan on this idea)

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tfw you've suggested so many different variations on an idea that you don't remember which is being referenced...

What will follow, on edit, are a series of suggestions meant to test the waters in terms of community perception over:
(A) What extent of changes are acceptable for the purpose of (1) broad and (2) job-specific design cohesiveness and (3) optional widening of available niches and uses of the Monk toolkit
(B) What, essentially, is a Monk, lore-wise, and how should that affect its manifestation in gameplay
(C) What range of tools and complexity ought be available to Monk as a level 70 XIV job (of which very few have significant complexity)
(D) How significantly should Monk be permitted to vary in its internal systems from other DPS (e.g. could it perhaps make use of any and all 9 of its weaponskills in any order, although at varying situational viability?)

My own designs always approach from a perspective of reducing button bloat. That is not to say that I think that we should have a low button count, and certainly not that job gameplay should be any simpler than it already is. Rather, I simply wish for each button to be individually and more or less consistently impactful as an actual option or decision, rather than just as obligatory convolution for an decision set prior; at no point should multiple keys, especially those without even a recast time, become wholly unusable in a given global. Moreover, I am fully willing to suggest broad changes that I see as being essential to future broad improvements where relevant to the job I am suggesting improvements to (e.g. I see no issue creating a buff-potency system to fix One-Ilm Punch, as I do not see it as merely a fix to OIP alone). As such, the suggestions here may differ jarringly from XIV's designs thus far.

I already realize, therefore, that they will never see implementation: rather, I am looking to see what parts, mutatis mutandis, you think would make for improved gameplay, or at least point towards an improved design philosophy or perspective.

(Still typing out actual suggestions):

Broad Design Goals (mostly irrelevant at this time)

• Mana Point (MP) usage across all jobs, though in highly varied ways
• Revision to Tactical Points (TP) concept to see more significant and universal use
• Addition of / support for "variable" or "rushable" and "resource" cooldowns
• Addition of / support for interactable buffs (e.g. stackable shields, modifiable modifiers)
• Addition of / support for a general Stagger/Boon multiplier system
• Addition of / support for status effects as granular spectrums
• Addition of / support for continuous growth/decay of (de)buffs
• Addition of / support for "conditional" or "stacked" keys and state-adjusted "modes"
• Addition of / support of progressive (cumulatively diminished) AoEs
• Addition of universal shorthand modifiers (such as Cleave: 50, in place of more lengthy texts' effects that nonetheless amount to no smoother or more intuitive indication of strength for the given category)
• Things are just as AoE as they look
• Adjustment of mob aiming/turning systems (now turn only as necessary, at type-derived behaviors and speeds, to keep their target within their field of vision, allowing for quick adjustments on the tank's part without jarring position)
• Future-proofed comprehensive stat balancing

Monk Design Goals:

• Granular Resources
• Diversification of Stances
• Light and Dark Chakra
• Versatile Resource Spenders
• Little to no wasted key-space (aiming for at most 20 keys, not including <Stat> Potion, Limit Break, Sprint, and mount)

Landmines / Conflicts:

• Forms : Were the ability to manipulate the timings of our Forms returned (such as done modularly via Touch of Death and Fracture, previously, or even Impulse Drive in 2.0), Forms might continue provide a distinct and satisfying take on the combo system that offers a unique sense of timing to the Monk. However, they would still be just as button-inefficient as any other combo system lest all 9 weaponskills were combined into 3 slots, giving the 3 options within one's currently available form, while that in turn would limit the immediacy of Perfect Balance by, say, requiring a then-no-animation, oGCD form of Form Shift to be utilized, making what would usually use a button-order (in order of acquisition) 5, 3, 3, 4, 9, 3 opener [Demo, Snap, Snap, Twin, Dragon, Snap] opener into something like 2, [4], [4], 1, [4], [4], 1, [4], [4], 3, [4], 1 opener, requiring a much higher APM during that time, even if not technically adding any animations or animation lock.
  
  
• Positionals (given Forms) : Alternatively, 2 out of 3 weaponskills per Form vary only by position. One could simply then have ST-damage and Other options per Form, where Bootshine from the side transforms to Dragon Kick, True Strike into Twin Snakes, and Demolish from the side retains Snap Punch (this one's far more iffy). This would only see counter-synergy with True North, which like most Role Skills I can only see as bloat, as it simply allows for the periodic circumvention, rather than skillful navigation, of difficulty in positioning. This would increase the relative significance of proper positioning, but so long as Dragon Kick has no raid-saving benefits by which to influence the choice beyond greatest ppg (potency per global).
  
  
• Ideally, I'd like to entirely avoid both these conflicts and any consequent need for compromise. This will most likely depend on a rework of the Fists stances into dynamic oGCD skills, allowing for hugely more fluid, flexible, bankable, and nuanced control over the Monk rotations, though such a rework should be attractive in its own right. (This is what I am finalizing now.)

Annnnndddd, finding the balance of those oGCD reworks to avoid both landmines is proving a challenge. Hopefully I'll have something in a couple days, at which point I'll unhide the important bits of this.

I just got to 70 on mnk to get away from all of the missed opportunities for innovation and creativity on heated slug shots and other musings(re: failings) of what the dev team did to MCH...and am left wondering what did I just spend my time doing. lol

As a new player to 70 mnk and my first melee dps Greased lightning had a great feeling to it all the way until riddle of fire. Why do I punch slower? What is the thought process behind this? It is a 180 degree turn; an about-face as if we are marching towards stupidity.

Also, Riddle of earth doesn't work. Has anyone submitted a bug report for why Riddle of earth doesn't extend greased lightning. Earth's reply seems great if you're going to take damage when the boss goes invulnerable etc. But when the bosses go invulnerable to do a special move and I hit riddle of earth it never works. Is it just the tooltip or the ability? Or are the Dev's really so stupid that they don't even know how to program a job ability and forgot about MNK?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Id_Slayer

Also, Riddle of earth doesn't work. Has anyone submitted a bug report for why Riddle of earth doesn't extend greased lightning. Earth's reply seems great if you're going to take damage when the boss goes invulnerable etc. But when the bosses go invulnerable to do a special move and I hit riddle of earth it never works. Is it just the tooltip or the ability? Or are the Dev's really so stupid that they don't even know how to program a job ability and forgot about MNK?

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You're the second person in this thread to ask this. Another great idea along with putting slow on Riddle of Fire was making it so Riddle of Earth only works if you take damage. If. You. Take. Damage. If your healer gives you a shield or there is mitigation (tank special moves etc), RoE won't proc and you'll lose your stacks. Basically, you're the victim of everyone else doing their job.

Started this game 3 weeks ago, and just stuck to Monk for whatever reason. I would just like some QoL changes, such as Fist of Earth/Fire/Air just all being one toggle-able skill with less cast time. And i also would like GL stack to go up if even you hit an invulnerable enemy with Demolish, Snap or whatever.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Id_Slayer

As a new player to 70 mnk and my first melee dps Greased lightning had a great feeling to it all the way until riddle of fire. Why do I punch slower? What is the thought process behind this? It is a 180 degree turn; an about-face as if we are marching towards stupidity.

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It can't be said enough times, I think I wouldn't even be complaining about the whole picture if Riddle of Fire wasn't so bad. I've main Monk since halfway on Heavensward and every time I pop that skill I feel all these years of muscle memory went down the drain, I always have to look my cross bar to make sure I even hit anything with a skill because the rhythm it's all messed up.
Lv 62 until right before RoF it's still pretty fun, even if RoE works only when it feels like, and Deep Meditation while not perfect made chakras an actually usable resource (But I still think it should be learned as soon as you get meditation since it's even more useless on lower levels now that purification is not necessary on big pulls and we lost potencies all across the board to make up for forbidden chakra which again, it's not a valid resource until 62).

I just have to say. I have been leveling Dragoon and Samurai. Haven't touched Ninja yet but it really feels like they bolted on abilities on top of Monk whereas with Samurai and Dragoon they are a true expansion. You could theoretically take away everything Monk was given in SB and no one would complain as the abilities break it more than it helps.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KanameYuuki

It can't be said enough times, I think I wouldn't even be complaining about the whole picture if Riddle of Fire wasn't so bad. I've main Monk since halfway on Heavensward and every time I pop that skill I feel all these years of muscle memory went down the drain, I always have to look my cross bar to make sure I even hit anything with a skill because the rhythm it's all messed up.
Lv 62 until right before RoF it's still pretty fun, even if RoE works only when it feels like, and Deep Meditation while not perfect made chakras an actually usable resource (But I still think it should be learned as soon as you get meditation since it's even more useless on lower levels now that purification is not necessary on big pulls and we lost potencies all across the board to make up for forbidden chakra which again, it's not a valid resource until 62).

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By that idea, though, couldn't RoF actually have been our hidden signal for aid? Or at least, a way someone tried to put Monk out of its already discombobulated misery?

Some things I’ve thought of while playing.
Tornado kick - only consumes 1 greased lightning stack and potency scaling is something like 150-300-450? Maybe higher or lower and make the cd so you can only use it once every two combos or something. Get to form 3 pop tornado then use finisher to refresh gl 3
Brotherhood - redesigned so that it is 5% to everyone and every 5 - 6 weaponskills / spells fast while it is up grants 1 chakra. Would eliminate rng portion and you could nin max it and have people drop their OGCD during it.
Every time you use a finisher when you already have 3 stacks of greased lightning it grants 1 chakra (so every other you’d be at 1 because of tornado and then the other finisher would give a chakra).
CD on forbidden chakra removed or at least made a lot smaller. Bards proc ability has none so when they gettin the crits they can just unload. Should work similar.
Max chakra 7 or higher like nin Sam Kenki ninki bars

To clarify, potency on tornado kick is based on how many greased lightning you have when you cast it. So if you have 1 stack you get the 150 value and if you have 3 you get the 450 value. So it scales with how many you have when you cast it.

Also with these changes we'd prob be overtuned I'm sure so just go ahead and get rid of riddle of fire :)

But seriously I'd rather they test out stuff like on a test server or something, make the class fun to play again (even if its overtuned in testing) and then just nerf potencies until we're at what dps we do now. I do a lot of dps now in raids but as most people have said that isn't what I care about.

Edit: both sent from phone sorry

Something that I have been giving a good thought is how to simplify job traits and focus on minimizing button bloat.


To remind Shurrikhan what I remember from his suggestion:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Moreover, for a mechanic to ever feel like a reward to maximize, rather than a punishment to lose, it needs to have something like exponential difficulty or preperation required to be maximized such that maximization is rare, and it needs to be balanced around a state that is less than maximization.

Imagine, for instance, if GL was not a fixed duration, but instead extended by relative potency dealt (potency of all weaponskills, DoT ticks, and abilities, as per their multipliers). While GL could still be advanced by Coeurl moves, perhaps even technically to an infinite level, each ascended level burns through that duration more quickly, whereupon it descends to the previous level. You would be fighting for every precious second of GL4, but it would be always there, always possible, and would thereby again allow further modular control. Have both a single-burner (new) and all-burner (Tornado Kick) ability by which to quickly manipulate GL downwards. Now, after due tuning, the whole spectrum is in your hands: it's now a real mechanic, and its heights actually feel like rewards, not just the initial requirement for dealing halfway acceptable damage.

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Something stemming from what I saw in that is looking to simplify Fists of Wind and Greased Lightning since in concept it seems to serve the same purpose. Now I am considering this change by already trading off RoF for something else and keeping utility and buff strictly on one concept: Wind is the buff trait with MNK.

Greased Lightning:

• Levels or Tiers: Become a passive trait, meaning that after you're lvl 20 or 40, your initial strike automatically triggers the corresponding tier buff.
• Combos: Each Weapon-skill can create a new resource to use with skills
  • Based on this I also figured that since it's a resource we can use it to power up existing skills (Like Howling Fist and Elixir Field), make skills far more usable (Tornado Kick usage is far more often) or aid mobility (Shoulder tackle resource spam?)
  • Said resource can unlock a strong self buff for a limited time (GL IV) by making this strong buff use up all of said resource to gate and make use of MNKs continuous-to-the-mob play style.
• Lose the Form-crutch: Being independent from this and just grant a resource from a weapon-skill that connects to gain said resource would be far more engaging than muscle memory a punching symphony.
• Selfish sufficiency: If we have the resource passively reduce CD usage by a percent while being active, it would add to MNK using many more abilities to weave between a GCD sequence than waiting until the stars align.

Now I know plenty will knee jerk react with punching me on the face with this but hear me out, this would immediately remove 2 buttons that one is a joke in terms of usage (PB on long cooldown) and one seems like a trigger happy stress pad (Form Shift). Tornado kick would become a skill that can be use often (and being an AoE would be great) and we can obviously work on F/RoE to be something else than a rather useless defense buff with a trigger-effect that sees very little use.


P.S: I have been updating the first post, adding the suggestions people add to this thread.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wintersandman

I just have to say. I have been leveling Dragoon and Samurai. Haven't touched Ninja yet but it really feels like they bolted on abilities on top of Monk whereas with Samurai and Dragoon they are a true expansion. You could theoretically take away everything Monk was given in SB and no one would complain as the abilities break it more than it helps.

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Interestingly, if you look at a lot of the feedback Monk had from Heavensward, people largely thought that Monk was a very complete, smooth playing Job. It's just that Stormblood's action rework and its new actions broke that smooth feeling with the removal of Touch of Death and the addition of Riddle of Fire.

Honestly if I could go back to Heavensward Monk in terms of its overall kit, I happily would, and I don't think that speaks to Monk this expansion.

It's a shame my JP isn't good enough yet to understand that part of the forum, anyone here could give me a quick summary from their point of view? same on French and German.

I'm sad you guys. I was one of Monks biggest voices in these threads and now....well... I finally got broken. Have had to switch to Ninja for Ultimate. Trick attack, not losing stacks at every intermission / jump because adlo shields are too good...all these things add up. I've been main monk since T1 was a thing :(

Keep up the good fight.

Throw the whole class away lol jk but seriously I don't play Monk but I notice how shitty they get treated....drgs complained a hell of alot and got an complete overhaul to maintaining BOTD and geriskogul which was our version of tornado kick (not as harsh)...SMNs complained got a skill back and some nice changes...

Monks have been complaining since 3.0 came out and it's crickets...all these fights are terrible for MNK all these bosses either turn to much or jump for too long...and the long list of useless skills that made it to 4.0 is ridiculous and let's not forget Monk feels the same after lvl 50 barely anything changes besides the chakra gauge all the way up to 70

Devs it's time to shift gears from SMN because we all know you guys still Can't figure out the pet AI and move on to addressing MNKs issues since before 3.0

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Originally Posted by Aomine1992

snip

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MNKs have been complaining for far longer than 3.0 but your heart's in the right place.
If we're being perfectly honest, the only complaint MNK's have ever really gotten an answer to was our sustain but that came as a sweeping change for all melee, not just MNK.

We still have Aggro issues. We have arguably the most amount of useless (or at least highly situational skills) out of all the classes. We have the worst maintenance skills for our chief mechanic out of all the classes. We get punished the most severely for missing our positionals. We're no longer the highest personal DPS in the game. Our raid utility is outclassed by nearly every other utility. We didn't gain any additional attacks this expansion, just multiple layers of RNG that is somehow keeping our damage numbers high while simultaneously kneecapping our total damage output.

So, what does MNK have exactly that makes ANY of this warranted?

I read the JP Monk thread (Google translated but you get the gist) and the JP player base is mostly echoing what we're upset with here; the slow on Riddle of Fire, knowing Yoshi was originally going to give us GL IV but then opted for a skill that slows us down instead, how Riddle of Earth doesn't work half the time due to long phases, dodging the damage, shields negating the damage etc.

Honestly, I don't know why they didn't give us a new attack like every other class. You could literally spitball ideas all day long (as many people have done across the many Monk threads) and most would look better than any of the buffs and passives we got this expansion.

For instance-- give monks a 4th step in the rotation (and remove the Fist Stances - converting them into the following...)

Demolish, Snap Punch and Rockbreaker now change form to Chi Form:

Fists of Fire - requires Chi form.
Delivers an attack with a potency of 210 (no directional bonuses).
Additional Effect: The next weaponskill to critically hit grants 1 chakra. (note: remove deep meditation as a trait)
Changes form to Opo-Opo.

Fists of Lightning - requires Chi form.
Delivers an attack with a potency of 120 (no directional bonuses)
Additional Effect: Grants a stack of Greased Lightning.
Changes form to Opo-Opo.

Fists of Earth - requires Chi form.
Delivers an attack with a potency of 150 to all nearby enemies.
Changes form to Opo-Opo.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BucklesTrespen

For instance-- give monks a 4th step in the rotation (and remove the Fist Stances - converting them into the following...)
Demolish, Snap Punch and Rockbreaker now change form to Chi Form:

Fists of Fire - requires Chi form.
Delivers an attack with a potency of 210 (no directional bonuses).
Additional Effect: The next weaponskill to critically hit grants 1 chakra. (note: remove deep meditation as a trait)
Changes form to Opo-Opo.

Fists of Lightning - requires Chi form.
Delivers an attack with a potency of 120 (no directional bonuses)
Additional Effect: Grants a stack of Greased Lightning.
Changes form to Opo-Opo.

Fists of Earth - requires Chi form.
Delivers an attack with a potency of 150 to all nearby enemies.
Changes form to Opo-Opo.

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An interesting concept but needs some work. By introducing a 4th GCD into MNK's Rotation, you throw off the timers for DK, TS and Demo entirely and while you can reconcile that with improving the timers on those buffs, it also means a larger rotation to refresh GL and more of a chance of it dropping in Phase shifts since we can't refresh it as swiftly.

Lightning is also in a very odd since it would only serve as a means to build up GL after it's fallen off and PB is on CD, which is something MNK players want to stop from happening entirely, if possible. It might make Tornado Kick somewhat more usable but probably not enough to be viable, especially since using Lightning is already a HUGE DPS loss from using Fire and getting that guaranteed Chakra.

Just be happy you're not Ninja's. The only movement we have is Shukichi, and it's a short-range transport that requires you to target where you want to move to. I would much prefer shoulder tackle.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zafire063

Just be happy you're not Ninja's. The only movement we have is Shukichi, and it's a short-range transport that requires you to target where you want to move to. I would much prefer shoulder tackle.

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Shukuchi, *especially* post-buff, is possibly the best movement skill in the entire game aside from maybe Sprint.

Also, imagine if Shukuchi was part of your rotation so it's never up when you actually need it for movement.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Powercow

Shukuchi, *especially* post-buff, is possibly the best movement skill in the entire game aside from maybe Sprint.

Also, imagine if Shukuchi was part of your rotation so it's never up when you actually need it for movement.

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I must be doing it wrong then, I have an extremely hard time aiming while moving to get back into range. The aiming cursor moves as you do, and the range isn't very big. The only time I find myself using it is if I'm standing still waiting for an AoE to end. Wish I could just make it launch me forward.