Meteodrive needs to be reworked

This is probably gonna sound like a tantrum, because I'm gonna preface it in that I don't think the LB in itself is broke, overpowered or anything of the sort on the general level of a game.

However, it's really lame when it comes to effort vs reward and how little counterplay there is for it when used on most ranged squishy jobs. It's literally 2-3 buttons to press mindlessly and you get a kill. There is very little counterplay to it, since it literally comes with no warning (pressure point can be immediately chained into LB, that has enough range anyway, and that will disable the target that can't purify or do anything against it). A decently competent monk just has to quickly check what the target has up and running (shields, mit...), and then proceed with the kill. The LB also charges fast, which means it can shut down a single range half of the game if so they want.

It will temporarily immobilize the monk as well, but that's a cheap tradeoff that honestly doesn't really backfire that much often unless the monk is literally running on fumes when doing it.

I just think this LB is lame as it is. It could be reworked, like seeing its range brought down to 5 yalms so it forces a melee contact, or anything I don't know. At least on bigger/tougher targets it gets closer to Spite in that it needs a little more effort to set up, and there is counterplay (somewhat).

The whole of MNK needs some love. It's great at threatening one player but that's kind of a trash playstyle in a Conflict team fight and worse in Frontline.
Too many buttons before burst is ready.
Too many MNK basically just taking up space when the LB isn't up.
Too many steps to maximize LB damage for most people.
The travel time on this and NIN LB bother me in a similar fashion. I would say the support kit is very nice where it's at, but the primary buttons feel like some kind of stupid by contrast.

Coming from the perspective of the monk, I don't like the idea of it. I think they took the wrong direction. They saw people didn't like being hit for 40k, but rather than lower the burst, they made it less frequent. Once again, just ignorance that no one likes these mechanics that make everything feel like a knife fight where lethality can be around the corner every second. They should have kept its charge time and lowered the total damage. Ideally, assuming 7.0 revises kits, I hope it's a more interactive limit break for both the monk and opponent. It doesn't feel good to use and doesn't feel good to get hit by.

As mentioned above, monk has other problems I don't like. Pressure Point buff feels awful to play around with this game's netcode. Riddle of Earth is a good offensive weapon, but the healing comes at the end of a long animation so it's awful as a defensive mechanism, and lack of auto-cashout when the duration is expired is bad for a pure melee job with fast GCD. I was hoping they would address literally any of the problems I had with monk since 6.1 but they do anything but. They are so good at looking at balance performance numbers but awful at looking at what makes a good game.

The LB combo realistically only one shots the casters/ranged who are full HP. Nuking one player and then bouncing is kind of their entire schtick. Unless you completely redesign their kit they will be completely worthless if you neuter their LB. Keep an eye out on the UI and see if they have LB or not when you see them engaging you. Yes the counter play is limited, but it does exist.

Personally I think MNK overall is fine outside of their main attack takes too long to get to phantom rush. If they could burst more consistently then I'd be ok with an LB change, but as they are now I think how their LB functions is fine.

I always assumed that the lack of cashout when Riddle expires was specifically made for skill play and counterplay: disable the monk before they can press it at the last moment, and they get denied out of it. Then it becomes a game between the monk trying to be too greedy or playing it safer and earlier. So honestly, I don't know what to think about this, I can see both pros and cons for each solution.

My main problem with Meteodrive isn't necessarily the LB concept (I'm always iffy with oneshot mechanics and high damage LBs, but if they require proper setup and have decent counterplay I'm okay with it). In essence it's extremely similar to Marksman's Spite, but it's just superior in almost every way: it normally requires a setup to get good results out of it, and it has enough flexibility that it can be combined on a very freeform basis with the rest of the kit. Problem: RoF + Enlightenment + Meteodrive is already 53k potency on its own, which will delete almost any range (can also add SSS to add a bit of potency and helplessness to the mix). Compared to Spite it deals the same amount of damage (36k) with pressure points, AND will remove any guard anyway. It is also shorter to charge (75s vs 90s), and has enough range to compete in most cases (Spite's only advantage is a bit more niche, when you want to snipe somebody low HP and out of resources fleeing away and being in line of sight at 25y ++). The fact that the LB allows you to delete a good third of the jobs (most ranged) without any counterplay or very little, is way superior to Spite that ALWAYS has counterplay (the silent versions Drill + LB can be healed/recuperated freely between Drill and the delayed LB resolution and Anchor + LB has a lower total potency and can still be healed through if you are fast to purify, and the active WF+Drill/Anchor+LB has WF acting as a big red warning indicating to guard).Meteodrive cannot be healed through unless you have a pocket healer literally glued on your situation or a PLD friendo at best. On top of it it stuns the target for a big duration, which I find a lot added together for a single LB.

That's why I think the melee range for the LB is something that could be put under consideration, which would introduce a delay between the Enlightenment pushback and Meteodrive (much like between Enlightenment and the standard Phantom Rush). Without that delay, you just get snared without any warning and can't heal through.

As said in the OP though I do not think that this LB is overpowered in any form or shape at the scale of a game. It just feels lame when you're on the other end of it (which happens all the time on ranged jobs). I wouldn't mind seeing the rest of the kit being buffed for sure. Even having a Phantom Rush AoE equivalent (elixir field?) to pair nicely with pressure points could be fun?

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Originally Posted by Elfidan

The whole of MNK needs some love. It's great at threatening one player but that's kind of a trash playstyle in a Conflict team fight and worse in Frontline.
Too many buttons before burst is ready.
Too many MNK basically just taking up space when the LB isn't up.
Too many steps to maximize LB damage for most people.
The travel time on this and NIN LB bother me in a similar fashion. I would say the support kit is very nice where it's at, but the primary buttons feel like some kind of stupid by contrast.

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yeah, monk just sucks eggs in a team fight.

Thank you SE for doing something about it. I was not expecting Pressure Points to be targeted, and I do believe it doesn't solve completely the issue, but it should definitely lessen the problem and go toward uses of meteodrive more focused around the disabling and stun effect (and guard removal) of the LB than outright deletion of squishies.

Personally I still think this is a nerf to the Phantom Rush burst and I don't like it for that, so I'd have preferred the LB itself to see the nerf, but well.

The reason it feels awful is the animation lock that's paired with it. Not being able to do anything for the 3 seconds it takes to play the animation of the monk dancing on your head is more deadly than the ability itself.

You'd be surprised how many times in fl you can just sprint up to a caster, stun it, knock it into your raid and meteodive him and just run back again, also amazing at defending nodes in seal rock.

It's also fantastic against the sam cheese, you see sam putting up his shield and guard? LB that sam followed by a stun and watch them either die or try and run away, it's as if their brain shortcircuits and can't understand how their cheese failed.

Works decent against drk aswell, lb as he uses salty earth so he can't bind people, then watch him run away with tail between his legs.

sucks for aoe, but monk is amazing at helping nuke one target with an unpurifiable cc.

MNK is a job that doesn't always look good on the score screen but a few of them are amazing at locking down BHs and making it unsustainable for tanks to get onto your team.

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Originally Posted by Rexxus

The reason it feels awful is the animation lock that's paired with it. Not being able to do anything for the 3 seconds it takes to play the animation of the monk dancing on your head is more deadly than the ability itself.

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Someone is not playing a ranged job in CC I see.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Someone is not playing a ranged job in CC I see.

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Neither of these is mutually exclusive. Obviously having this LB combo is a death sentence for the lesser HP ranged jobs, but he is absolutely right, a 3s guard-breaking and unpurifyable stun is straight up the highest quality about it.

I feel like any ability, regardless or whether it's a Limit Break or not, should not be bringing high damage and top end control at the same time. This of course looks silly next to Dancer's LB that only charms and does no damage, with obviously the idea being that it's strong control.

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Originally Posted by angelar_

I feel like any ability, regardless or whether it's a Limit Break or not, should not be bringing high damage and top end control at the same time. This of course looks silly next to Dancer's LB that only charms and does no damage, with obviously the idea being that it's strong control.

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My only issue with the LB's are the ones that go through guard. While I understand guard needs a counter, I also find the lack of counter to some LB's to be a little frustrating, but overall as I said before the mnk LB is fine considering that is the only thing keeping them relevant.

I haven't seen a lot of Meteodrive abuse on ranged players with MNKs recently so i'll settle for this for now. Still not how I'd have changed it though (I'd have helped the base kit while nerfing the LB damage or even actually go back to what the tooltip actually implied, that the damage was lower on a Guarded target in counterpart of removing Guard). I do agree that I don't like jobs that rely too much on their LBs, although I've seen good MNK players being literally unkillable with a good use of soaking hits with riddle up, guarding with a safe margin, then zoom away while popping riddle. Very good tank job in that.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I haven't seen a lot of Meteodrive abuse on ranged players with MNKs recently so i'll settle for this for now. Still not how I'd have changed it though (I'd have helped the base kit while nerfing the LB damage or even actually go back to what the tooltip actually implied, that the damage was lower on a Guarded target in counterpart of removing Guard). I do agree that I don't like jobs that rely too much on their LBs, although I've seen good MNK players being literally unkillable with a good use of soaking hits with riddle up, guarding with a safe margin, then zoom away while popping riddle. Very good tank job in that.

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Tbh my main gripe with Meteo Drive has essentially nothing to do with the ability itself and more about how Limit Breaks in general just charge for free as long as you stay alive. Seeing the gauge slowly tick up with the MNK doing little only to then get deleted because lol-got-combo is extremely unfun, even if theyre not efficient.

Would love for a mix of performance based LB generation and LB over time. Exact numbers I don't have, but would at least encourage proactive play.

I don't mind the idea in theory, but the game mode already snowballs way too hard (a common problem with XIV pvp, see FLs/RW with battle high...), so having the losing team be nerfed on their LB generation while the winning one gets free treats, I'm really not very hot about it...

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Originally Posted by Valence

I don't mind the idea in theory, but the game mode already snowballs way too hard (a common problem with XIV pvp, see FLs/RW with battle high...), so having the losing team be nerfed on their LB generation while the winning one gets free treats, I'm really not very hot about it...

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I suppose would kind of depend on the "how much" and "under which conditions". Matches in general are rather short so I can see the worry here.

Unless a team fight is a bit more drawn out, a quick total wipeout can definitely be a pain for the LB economy much like Overwatch for example. I mean it currently already does if you stagger a whole team by 15s+ per death but with performance based LBs would require a lot more finetuning for this - to this day they keep tweaking Ult generation in OW.

I'll be more inclined to consider it if they actually gave more defender's advantage in counterpart (and got rid of that weirdchamp fast checkpoint clearance you get under 1min left because ninja comebacks are stupid). In what form? I don't know.