MNK Fists Removal

So, I'm seeing a bit of conversation regarding MNK in EW and the changes being made. But, one conversation I haven't seen a lot of is the conversation regarding the removal of the three fists.

I will put in my disclaimer here, I'm still new to the game. I've wrapped up all the MSQ and finishing up all the outstanding unlocks, but I am by no means a long time player with an intimate knowledge of the game. I'm still learning a lot.

That said, MNK being my main job I have spent a really solid amount of time with it and one thing I've come to love is the fists and their applications. Sure, they're not the most "fun" to press, that's true. However, their niche applications are really nice. Knowing a heavy damage phase is coming and swapping into fists of earth to make the healer's job easier is really nice, maybe even paring it with riddle of earth if it's a really nasty big hit that way the healers can prioritize the BLM who really got hammered instead of the MNK who popped some defensive. Of course, there's all the open world content where having that extra bit of survivability is helpful.

Having fists of wind is extremely useful, and it's applications are widespread, but that's always kind of a given with any sort of movement bonus. It's also nice to have while sprint is on CD.

Fists of fire is just boring. I'll give you that, it is just "DPS mode" and it definitely is just there to make sure people don't end up with FoW or FoE on all the time. Truthfully though, that's totally fine. It lends to the idea of fist weaving in combat as the need arises. If we were really worried about making it "fun" then what we could do is it could grant a passive buff to auto-attacks that applied a small fire DoT to the target that stacks 3 times and lasts for 12 seconds and refreshes with each successful auto-attack made while under FoF. But, I feel that is unnecessary as it's current iteration is fine.

My thought is here, the uses of the fists will lend more usefulness to individuals who crave that extra little bit of mastery over the job where it's nothing astonishing but does speak to a higher skill level and is still useful.

Don't know, just my thoughts. I'm curious to hear other's thoughts on fists and their removal.

The thing is swapping to FoE to help your healer is also gimping your dmg and taking up weaving space you could be putting a dmg ogcd into. Fists of winds movement bonus is totally not needed as all mechanics are made in mind with people's normal ol move speed. And again you gimp your damage. Your extra lil bit of mastery others will argue is just you not playing the job correctly as you are lowering your dps output without much gain from doing so. Not trying to be mean here in saying that.

Don't get me wrong when I was new and leveling monk I really liked the fist stances as well! But I soon realised just how useless the others really are and that they had not been well implemented at all. It was just set and forget fof and then ShB pre GL removal was open in FoF then swap to FoW in opener. That was as interactive as it ever got for me having started in laaate stormblood.

As it is now for endwalker see it like this I spose, your enjoyment of the wind stance can come from your new very snazzy blink. You still have RoE for the free true north and dmg reduction as well. And you now get to think a bit more about combo rotation with your PB being on a shorter cd. I think it will be in better shape now than before, but it seems like you enjoy more utility so maybe for you not as nice, I do hope you enjoy the new MNK tho.

When FoF was 5% it might not have been that big of a deal, but switching off FoF for anything and losing 10% damage isn't good at all. FoW is nice especially for solo content or when you just want to run long distances. Riddle of Earth appears to be living through EW changes so there's that.

I personally think that fists are fine. I'm indifferent to them all things considered. I don't really care if they're there or not But I think the fists are something that gives flavor to the job and I don't really think they should be removed. They don't really do anything bad since you just have hit one button at the beginning of the duty then forget it even is a thing. And if you decide to use them say in a dungeon to get around faster or solo'ing for extra defense it's fine. I think they do what they are suppose to do. I don't think that every job in the game needs to be sterile and only have skills you use religiously in a rotation. I think Every class should have some flavor to it. And for mnk that flavor comes from the fists to a certain extent. That's just my take on it though.

They aren't needed, they were pure button bloat and SE never made any good (intentional) reasons to swap between them. Good riddance to the fist stances.

They were a remnant of 1.0 were they actually were useful. Originally they changed your element, because there was an elemental system that was scrapped from 2.0 onwards.

2.0 simplified the system dividing atacks between physical and magical without caring for the element. Thats the reason why today you can have headscratcher moments like Ifrit a being of fire receiving full damage of a BLM fire atacks instead of reducing/nullifying that element probably to make it easier to balance jobs

Fists of Fire was the issue, no Fist stance shouldve had a damage increase but instead be different levels of defensive utility.

Rip Wind and Earth.

I like Wind's movement speed boost for questing. I'm going to miss that, regardless of battle changes.

Fist of Fire should be trait, to be honest.
Fist of Earth should bundle up with Riddle of Earth since makes it a trait might not be fair for other melees.
Fist of wind is fine, we can use it in open-world.

They are not button bloat if you don't need to use them on the fly. Not everything is just combat and rigid rotations. There's content aside from high end raiding in the game. Many ways that skills are used that go beyond how you play the game that others enjoy. Button bloat is when you have a 30 button rotation where every button uses a different skill or effect. Not skills that are meant to give flavor to the game.

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Originally Posted by Xeahanort

They are not button bloat if you don't need to use them on the fly. Not everything is just combat and rigid rotations. There's content aside from high end raiding in the game. Many ways that skills are used that go beyond how you play the game that others enjoy. Button bloat is when you have a 30 button rotation where every button uses a different skill or effect. Not skills that are meant to give flavor to the game.

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They need to be on your bar to be used regardless though. That's three spots taken on your bar for no real reason at this point.

The fist stances is an antiquated concept in a game designed around DPS output. They don't work because there are very few situations where the benefit of increased DEF outweighs the loss to damage. The only situation I can think of where this applies is where you survive damage that would have otherwise killed you if had not increased your DEF, at that point though, it just becomes a mitigation tool that is meant to absorb one big blast instead of sustained damage; defeating the purpose of a stance.

When I made some brain stews with MNK, I've often thought about the forms also automatically putting you in a certain stance. That way the benefit is mandatory and not something you have to choose. As an example Opo form also puts you in FoE, and while it is active you do have that DEF increase. That was back when Formshift made you switch forms though. Now as passive buffs, I think most players would be like, "Ok, but why?"

The changes in potency calculations through the squish & Blitz finishers should account for the removal of FoF.

The increased mobility of Thunderclap in instances makes Fists of Wind redundant outside of running around cities.

Riddle of Earth alone is more than enough to reduce incoming damage paired with Manta to make it easier for the healer to top up everyone.

-There was precious little incentive to ever turn off FoF and micro-managing fist stances was mostly just a waste of time. As long as you have uptime on boss, FoF and output damage.
We also now never have the "Oh, I forgot to turn on FoF" moments when sync'd.

An "extra damage button" is a pointless thing to have, I'd rather have that just built in; and now we have the mobility, survivability and hopefully the raw output built into our kit from the get-go.

Just checked. XD Didn't reallized they been removed.. Like I said before. I'm indifferent to it haha. Didn't even notice they were gone. Most of my arguments were made cause I assuming it was being requested for them to be removed. Meh I don't care all things considered. XD I wouldn't have mind it at all if the kept them. But I also really don't care that they are gone either. lol

Fists of Earth will be sorely missed for deep dungeon solo challenges, but beyond that I can't say the 3 skills were worth keeping.

The fist stance removal is entirely a good thing. The last time Fists of Earth actually made a difference in survivability was in Heavensward when weakness reduced your total HP, and Fists of Wind was only useful in combat when GL4 was locked behind it. The only impact the Fists have actually had on Monk's gameplay, if we're playing how the devs want us to anyway, has been blocking Monk' gameplay from evolving by wasting traits that could be used better for literally anything else (like 4.0 Tackle Mastery or 5.0 Fists of Fire Mastery and Riddle of Wind GL4). The actual gameplay evolution in 4.2 was both highly divisive and completely accidental, plus the reprisal from it being removed ruined Monks gameplay in Shadowbringers by completely gutting Monk's recovery because people were having fun wrong.

The devs proved that they were unable to do anything with fist stances other than waste the limited design space Monk has in a new expansion. With them gone other things can be developed upon instead of us getting a new version of Tackle Mastery where we still only want to stay in Fists of Fire.

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Originally Posted by SelahWavedancer

I'm curious to hear other's thoughts on fists and their removal.

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I always thought that they made no sense, to be honest.
Monk is a Monk, not a Elemental Brawler, so I always felt like the Fist of stances, and to extension also the Riddle of actions, do not belong on Monk, as it is weird for Monk to be able to use actions that are more or less magic, in my opinion. It would make more sense to either tie all of these actions into Chakra, or replace these actions with new actions that would tie into Chakra, is how I felt about it.

That said, I do also have a Monk action concept, where-in I have made three WeaponSkill actions that replace the Fist of stances, while still to retain there original effects, albeit only in spirit, as this is not a copy-and-paste, these WeaponSkill actions have their own effects; that are also Chakra spenders, to make the magical aspects of the physical punches fit into the Monks' identity better, or at least from my perspective.

I'm kind of in general agreement that the Fists should go, but I really would prefer to keep Fists of Wind as some kind of trait. While it isn't 'necessary', the extra maneuverability always felt in character for a monk and made hitting those positionals more comfortable. I've always hated having to use Fists of Fire because it ruins that agile feeling that comes from having Wind up.

So, Fists of Wind as a trait - scrap Earth and Fire, because they're both meh. (Earth as a trait would also be fine, but it doesn't really matter from a gameplay perspective)

TBH I feel like they should just make peloton a all DPS skill rather than just ranged, it has zero battle implications

I'd rather make them more worthwhile than scrap them, especially with MNK being as basic as it is now (themed mostly around Leaden Fist, upkeep of a buff and DoT each, and a per-40s Iaijutsu come EW).

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Originally Posted by Aelin_Ashryver

They need to be on your bar to be used regardless though. That's three spots taken on your bar for no real reason at this point.

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Except, the thing about skills like that, assuming this is at all relevant because you're somehow unable to use cross-hotbars or more than a single modifier key, is that you could just... not put them on your hotbar, all without removing a feature.

Take Peloton or Sleep, for instance. Zero 8-man combat value. Must we remove those as well just because you can't bother to bind more than some 20 hotbar spaces?

And in Monk's case the last thing we need is the just-barely-not-situational BS that let to the clunk of Anatman openers and the like, which is about the only historically likely candidate we have for filling those 2 spaces (FoF can be traited and FoE and FoW each made 5% damage reductions, of course).

Just make all three fists into permanent traits. MNK and NIN can be the speedy melee.

Fists of Earth to help your healer was a minor help back in Heavensward when weakness and brink of death lowered all your stats and your max health, but today, it really doesn't help your healer. They plan out their heals based off doing the same thing for the monk as for every other DPS in the team. So you just end up contributing to them over healing if you swap over to fists of earth.

Fists of Wind, I've tested this against other movement skills. The ninja passive movement trait, at least at the time I tested it, still has them moving faster than a monk under fists of wind, and both are slower than a player under the effect of peleton or sprint. If the movement speed were more noticeable, I'd miss it. But as it currently is, the increase is barely noticeable.

I'm not going to miss them, I only have had fists of fire on my bar since the removal of Greased Lightning, and prior to that only had fire and wind on my bar because of how you'd need to dance between the two stances to build up the stacks.

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Originally Posted by Pyitoechito

Just make all three fists into permanent traits. MNK and NIN can be the speedy melee.

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FoE as a trait would be kinda OP and potentially allow Monks to cheese certain mechanics with no downside. Eden Savage already had a couple of mechanics in some fights that a Monk with FoE & RoE + TBN could essentially ignore to gain 2+ GCDs, even during early prog - doesn't sound like much but it creates imbalance within the role.
FoF and FoW could easily be traits though, agreed.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

The ninja passive movement trait, at least at the time I tested it, still has them moving faster than a monk under fists of wind

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Nope, they're exactly the same and always have been, this has been tested multiple times over the years.

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Originally Posted by Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai

Monk is a Monk, not a Elemental Brawler.

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Tbf, that's a quirk of the English (and French) localization. The Japanese terms for each are the 金剛、疾風、 and 紅蓮 の構え, i.e., the stance of the unbreakable (or, unbreakable substance/metal, as per diamond or adamantine), gales, and the lotus (albeit the crimson lotus, reminiscent of power, excessive or effusive energy, and indirectly of the 7 chakras), respectively. They're clearly intended, there, as martial art stances / methods, rather than shamanistic elemental evocation. (The German, meanwhile, uses "aura", which is at least a bit less "magi-fists".)