Riddle of Earth is a terrible skill

https://i.imgur.com/SAbdEbv.png

Basically, this skill is meant to extend your Greased Lightning timer to maximum after you take damage. Therefore, this could be used on phase transitions in raid fights where you take damage when the boss jumps.

Except, it doesn't work like that.

If you receive a shield from a healer, or any mitigation from a tank and don't take a hit to your HP, this skill doesn't go off.

This means, I am clicking off succors and adlos, trying to dodge paladin wings so I don't lose my stacks on a transition.

This was such an issue in UCOB in the Twintania to Nael transition as well as Bahamut trios (before the Perfect Balance changes) that my entire rotation would change based on whether or not I got a crit adlo. It was so frustrating I just switched to ninja and finished UCOB as a nin.

The transition from Ifrit to Titan in Ultimate Ultima I have the exact same issue. I have to position myself perfectly on the edge, enough so I don't die but also a little further forward so I can go into titan with Greased Lightning stacks.

Outside of raid, the only way to use this in casual content is to run ahead of tanks, pull mobs and stand in their attacks.

I don't believe this skill is working as intended.

TLDR if healers/tanks perform their jobs correctly, Monks dps rotation suffers.

They need to make it so the “On hit” portion of the ability applies even if 0 Damage is done. That, or just make it a Cooldown to Refresh your current level of Greased Lightning.

going to be honest guys, mnk like every job has that 1 problem skill. but i can 1000% assure you mnk is doing just fine and that this skill will probably not be looked at until 5.0. don't worry about it, 60sec PB and riddle of wind are 2 possible alternatives to mitigate the trash value of this skill.

Just change it to

"Freezes your GL Timer" and reduce the duration. Easy.

Easy fix in my eyes is changing it to when u actually press the button ur timer is reset and not while taking damage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

They need to make it so the “On hit” portion of the ability applies even if 0 Damage is done. That, or just make it a Cooldown to Refresh your current level of Greased Lightning.

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This is exactly the change I'm hoping for too. I'm thinking, as an example, during the DPS meteor for Starstrafe in God Kefka. If you do it right, you get a 0 damage taken indication, but that 0 damage doesn't trigger riddle of earth. Simply making it so that registered 0 damage triggers the skill would solve the main complaint that a scholar got a crit on you and now your DPS suffers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wayfinder3

going to be honest guys, mnk like every job has that 1 problem skill. but i can 1000% assure you mnk is doing just fine and that this skill will probably not be looked at until 5.0. don't worry about it, 60sec PB and riddle of wind are 2 possible alternatives to mitigate the trash value of this skill.

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Yeah, but that just raises the skill ceiling. RoE goes against a DPS’s job, which is to avoid taking damage unless it’s unavoidable(raid wides). RoE has value in Guardian and Kefka because there are portions where you’re put into forced downtime. However, we need a better way on this skill to keep stacks.

it should be on hit no matter the damage
and give a stack not extend (it would work out the same way)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wayfinder3

going to be honest guys, mnk like every job has that 1 problem skill. but i can 1000% assure you mnk is doing just fine and that this skill will probably not be looked at until 5.0. don't worry about it, 60sec PB and riddle of wind are 2 possible alternatives to mitigate the trash value of this skill.

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Excuse me, Monk already has the biggest meme skill of all time.

https://i.imgur.com/1pzxOzj.png

If they're gonna keep that in from 2.0 and not make it useful, the least they could do would be to give a functional Earth's reply from the earth tackle.

The skill is trying to mirror the function Blood of the Dragon, Enochian, and Huton have where they can refresh the status during down phases but due to a desire for Monk to have a difference in feel they implemented it in a way that just makes it way less effective. Take the current 24-man for example, during the second boss there’s a mechanic with significant downtime to the point where if your last hit wasn’t a combo finisher your stacks are lost. If you use Riddle of Earth to eat the boss’s charge, you get a 30 second slow Debuff. This isn’t a new problem either, several fight mechanics force Monk to eat a Vuln Stack or another debuff to use Riddle of Earth. At the same time there’s the problem OP mentioned, where it won’t always proc because of shields.

In the end it just makes Monk require two actions to ultimately be worse at doing what other more favorable jobs can do with a one.

Just another example of how the devs didn't take more then a few minutes to design SB monk. Its a dumb skill in the first place (take damage to keep GL) and it doesn't even work if you take 0 damage. Not sure why they haven't changed the 0 damage part of it yet. I just assume no one at Square ever plays monk. Maybe they'll fix it before the next expansion comes out.