Monk really is awful

I'm open to the idea that; I could be the one that's awful. But after playing over 100 matches, easy, here is what I've seen first-hand comparing it to only the other Melee Jobs.

-PART 1-

Mobility
Is the worst of the melee. I've seen Reaper, Dragoon, & Ninja be amazing with escape, kiting, and even sticking like glue to the target. With one Thunderclap less AND no Stun the 'best' I can hope for is a cheeky kill with a 12k poke in the back (literally less damage than one recuperate) Assuming you have a Thunderclap up, unless a team mate is there to rescue you, you can't use it to escape, and WHEN you do escape with it, you give them your tiny shield and usually end up dying anyway (just find giving someone else the shield when you're likely the one needing it more is bad design on top of the fact you can't be mobile without help)

Crowd Control
Um, it's gone, so literally nothing to talk about; it's just not a thing anymore.

Defensive Game
Monk, now, has same hit points and other classes. Every job has Purify and Guard. The ONLY thing unique to Monk is Earth Reply. So other jobs will get bulky shields or straight up mitigation like you take X% less damage. So even if they're stunned the shield is taking hits, or the damage reduction is soaking up hits. Monk, you just straight up die. Even more exciting is SO many times I've used it, then died, then saw the big 30k~60k heal pop-up over my body, but I'm already dead and it does nothing.

Burst
In a normal fight you engage the fight for a bit, then back off, and you keep doing that dance. IF you're teams is amazing and you're already winning, well THEN you can live long enough to build up your combo to do Phantom Rush. Like if you're forced to heal and forced to be defensive, you'll just NEVER get to use it; it resets way to quick. So all that leaves is your 12k fireball (assuming you buff it otherwise it's only 6k) and then your Limit Break.

-Part 2-

Limit Break
Of all the melee, this is the worst of them. Ninja can rack up kill streaks. Samurai can just do raw damage or go for the, lets kill a person or two gimmick. Reaper can literally drop an entire groups Shield and force them to run off cart and then begin comboing. Dragoon can become immune in the air then smash a group for some damage, and get a shield afterward.

Monk will Stun itself, and someone else.

I'll say that first part again, you Stun... yourself...

and then it will drop their shield, and do a massive 24k damage. (note that all classes got more health across the board AND you can't pressure-point onto the damage)

So unless they're 24k or less they'll just heal up from it like you did nothing.

I can't say enough different ways how horrible this limit break feels to use when comparing to the other melee jobs, you can only use it safely when you're already winning the fight and using it on someone that's forced to block and having a team pounding on them to begin with, if you want it to kill anything.

Monk's damage output is so low I find Warrior and Gun Breaker to be pretty much unkillable in a 1v1 and that's bursting my 12k tickle fireball into an Limit Break they just shrug it off. You can't even limit into a group on the cart, you just Stun yourself and die before the damage even comes out.

-Part 3-

tl;dr
Monk is supposed to melee (that's what SE has the archetype as on the site), but it is by far the worst melee to melee as.

So here's my question; I'm seriously asking.

If anyone in the community or someone on SE dev side would speak up.

What the hell are you supposed to do in a Crystal Conflict match with this Job??

Specifically, this melee job--Monk is the least:
Burst
Mobile
Defensive
Buff
Debuff

VS ALL of the other melee jobs.

So unless I've really missed the mark, is the ONLY reason to play it to impose a handicap to your other team members?

I'm asking, please add a PvP guide/description to the website that explains what useful unique reason there is to play Monk vs just playing a any of the other melee jobs that literally out perform this in every, some in multiple, categories.

Thank you,

Just play with your team

Mobility, SAM has it worse in melee DPS. Same for tanks, but they're tanks. But the loss of thunderclap charges somewhat harmed the job I think, especially with no crowd control, but at least there is still 2 charges remaining.
On Meteodrive I kinda disagree, this LB when used right can still punch above 50-60k damage with a delayed PR + phoenix buffs and oneshot people. Nin LB is overtuned right now but it also stuns the NIN for a while as well and I've seen a lot of them drop dead because they just went greedy with it. If anything I'm glad not many people play MNK right now because that stuff is still oppressive as hell when played well.

I climbed to crystal in CC with monk by day 4. I've spoken with others who also played monk only to reach crystal (there wasn't many). Monk is in a healthy state, but it's not OP. The old state of monk was extremely toxic. With this kit you can still be impactful and it has synergy with the OVERALL changes to CC which have nerfed ratting and incentivized more front-to-back gameplay on the crystal.

Ya, you could give back 3 charges to dash which would have parity with VPR. It was not uncommon for me on monk in CC games to output top overall damage while also taking/sharing the most damage. Riddle of Earth is just as strong as always if you treat it as a DPS button and not a survival button. If you are treating it as a survival button, use guard immediately after. Fireball sharing same potency as wind reply allows you to take advantage of constant 12k potency AoE damage. The hit detection changes make it so that you can stack some crazy AoE damage with Rising Phoenix -> Fireball -> Earth's Reply -> Dash -> GCD (the bigger the earth reply, the crazier the damage stack, and you dash to make sure the reply hits your target). Speaking of Earth's Reply, yes, it got buffed. With all the cleave around point and the baseline added 2k potency, it's not uncommon to drop 16-20k bombs which is some of the highest non-LB damage in the game right now.

Paired with 60s meteos, it's a strong pick. Calling a target to Wind Reply -> Rising Phoenix -> Phantom Rush/Fireball -> Meteo is a solid amount of damage that the target LITERALLY can only recupe in response immediately after the KB. With a smidgen of help from the team they are dead EVERY time with the only counterplay being bailed out by quick healer/paladin reactions. If they guard/purify anything else in that combo, it's wasted. Everything you do after KB lands with your meteo. Every 60s. Monk has always been oppressive, this version just lets the target have more opportunities to recupe now. That doesn't help them if they can be hit by everyone on your team.

Good monk players will always have an argument to play it as long as meteo exists. You are highly undervaluing the job. Perhaps because much of the other kits capitalize on solo noobstomping. In higher level play NINs rarely get more than 1 kill on a target that is already hurting. DRGs rarely get a kill with their LB and mostly get guards out. SAM's base kit is strong right now, and that makes up for more lenient counterplay on their LB, that's fair enough, probably getting a slight nerf still. Reaper is less oppressive now that LB gen got nerfed. Viper, while it can pump overall damage, is weaker than monk because of LB diff.

Call meteos, call targets in guard if you have PR prep'd and use it when their guard hits 1s (or meteo followup), they WILL pop. Be more mindful of your dashes providing an 8k shield. Use this new kit to literally never let up on point pressure, that's where monk shines right now. Similarly, I find it more fun in FL than the old version.

MNK will never be awful by virtue of having a "this guy is dead" LB on a 60 second cooldown. If you are using your LBs intelligently then the enemy team practically has to fight 4v5 for half of the game.

They just need to return hit registration back to the old version, and I think that itself will improve every job including MNK.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SeaJae

You are highly undervaluing the job. Perhaps because much of the other kits capitalize on solo noobstomping.

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I think your absolutely right.

I do often feel helpless trying to engage many of the other jobs in a 1v1 fight compared to before, with the old kit. I could actually kill bulkier Jobs, like Warrior, before from full health pretty reliably most of the time unless I got grouped up on piled on by others.

It's like going from, you got to play as the Batman, to now being Robin, the boy wonder--the new kit feels like, you're now playing as the sidekick.

I guess at the end of the day, Batman does need a Robin lol

You did give A LOT of super good info/advice, and I see a few things I hadn't thought about trying with the new kit--using the lag-system--the delay, to bring my Earth Reply to a group as it's going off is top of my list on something I'm going to start practicing into gameplay for sure; that's super kewl!

I also need to play with Phoenix and Wind/Fire; I've seen mixed answers and not sure what the right order they should be used with the new delays for it to come out best.

For this one:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SeaJae

Speaking of Earth's Reply, yes, it got buffed. With all the cleave around point and the baseline added 2k potency, it's not uncommon to drop 16-20k bombs which is some of the highest non-LB damage in the game right now.

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I'm not sure I understand the numbers, it says the damage is 1/4 taken, with a 2k potency. So to do a 16k AoE, I'd need to have taken 56,000 damage?

Does using Guard take away from this or do you have to actually have lost 56k+ health?

Also, thank you everyone for the helpful info and advice so far.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Phylecia

I'm not sure I understand the numbers, it says the damage is 1/4 taken, with a 2k potency. So to do a 16k AoE, I'd need to have taken 56,000 damage?

Does using Guard take away from this or do you have to actually have lost 56k+ health?

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You have to have actually lost that amount of health. This is easier to accomplish with the HP buffs this patch and healers on your team. Assuming I have full HP/MP, I normally keep my Riddle of Earth running and taking damage until I'm left with a recuperate or two (if necessary) and decide from there depending on what's going on. Am I going to be swapped to/am I the current focus target? I'll Earth Reply and Guard immediately to land the HP recovery and hopefully some damage. Does my team have advantage and I'm not at risk of being focused? Do I still have purify/guard/MP? I'll continue with the combos mentioned above if I think I can press the advantage. It's a high risk playstyle, but it's also perfectly fine to play it safe and combo your reply with guard and make those buttons virtually inseparable until you get more confidence. Guard catching more damage and being way more snappy is a big buff this patch. You can then look to dash out of guard to a team member and give yourself a reset. This can be an important move especially if you used purify before guarding, as the danger has shifted from being bursted before guard to being bursted after guard with queued up damage.

As for empowerment of Wind/Fire, they are the same potency. You can "hide" your Wind kick by not empowering it, as good players are hardwired to recognize danger when they see phoenix. It basically comes down to what you are going to do and the oGCD weaves it'll take. If you want to weave in Earth's Reply damage after your kick you might want to empower your Wind kick. As a final interaction this patch, it is possible to Phoenix after using Phantom Rush, and Phantom Rush will still be empowered. The practical application of this is mainly to again stack as much damage as you can into a single damage frame, and again it can also "hide" your Phantom Rush, although there's still plenty of time for players with guard ready to react to it without a meteo to combo them.

There's definitely some opportunities for improvement in this kit I won't deny, but it's in a workable state and after some balance patches of mainly stronger jobs getting nerfed, I think we'll see more monk players. I know high-end light party play and more casual/solo play are very different, but just today the winning team in a CC tournament played around their monk. A LOT of the overall shift in PvP and especially in CC has gone more towards teamwork and there's some growing pains with balance right now as well as community learning.

Mobility
it's not the worst out of the three. Sure they've clipped their mobility options, where you need to carefully expend your charges, but it's not the worst. would be nice they give back the 3rd charge, but depending on how fight's go: generally try to hover close enough in the thick of things where you'd have easy access to a teammate to dash to, or there's a clear avenue of escape if guard/purify's available.

Crowd Control
Wind's reply is still serviceable for disengaging/displacing someone for crowd work, as well as meteo. The removal of SSS -did- leave monk with less tools for the trade, but it would've been fine if given a slow/heavy in exchange to assist in keeping with targets, engaging, disengaging, & peeling.

Defensive Game
Depending of your overall positioning in fights, & how you spread out your resources: Monk's bruiser identity is still there. For RoE coming out late after your die, I've always chalked it up to either server, or overestimating how much wiggle room can be had before recasting. Monk's defensive game is still solid in a way of how well they position themselves for fight's & RoE's meaty healing, but due to the delay for Earth's Reply, they'll have to dance on the tight rope of -when- to pop it before/after engaging.


Burst
For building up to their burst window, it helps to maintain the chain bouncing two targets or so, but saving it for the primary (Clumped ideally). Depending how everyone's spread out, it can get tricky & it'll fall off, which you'll have to rev the frier again & recoup. I wouldn't say the reset timer's short, given it's NOT explicitly told IG where it hold's its current ability in the chain for roughly 15s or so. If a monk is steadily keeping themselves near targets while in weaving in Flint/Fire's reply to keep pressure, they'll regularly be getting out their PR's with/without Meteo (Ideally).

Limit Break
Given from my experiences: people H A T E seeing MNK's with their LB up, or just seeing one in loading screen & it's 1 of the top 2 things complained about MNK (which is funny, given SAM/NIN LB ignores guard, but that's none of my business). With meteo's usefulness in removing problem targets out of the equation, leaving the enemy team on the backfoot...it's more or less -fair- you're locked in the animation. Given it's double edged nature, you only go in KNOWING they'll be effectively removed with good follow up from your team, especially if pinged prior. Worst case scenario(s): You'll have to burn it in preventing a teammate's death, or the inconsistency of it's damage at times. Meteodive's ability to lock down/remove problem targets keeps it at being one of the best LB's in the game's state, when applied proper.

That being said, 7.1 didn't do monk any favor's clipping its wings, how much they've been left underperforming compared to the other melee DPSs. It's just now MNK can't just strong arm MOST jobs it wants into submission without recourse, & is more reliant in coordinating -well- unless you take the reigns yourself in making calls to make the pieces fall in your favor. Otherwise you'll be floundering like an awkward NIN. On a lighter note: It still brings something to the table of being a bruiser, as well as its LB, granted you'll have to carefully weave yourself in/out of fights when necessary & strike quick & fast when the opportunity presents itself.

I'll say for certain that the times I've played MNK(Mind you I'm not playing ranked.) I truly feel worse in the 1v1, but all the AoE potential they have now shifted them from a comically stupid 1v1 fighter to being pretty serviceable everywhere. Only thing that I and probably others can complain about is the slow execution on {Phantom Rush} when it realistically could've been a Tri-Fold attack so the damage comes out in a reasonable amount of time if they're so concerned with animation lining up. You don't really need to worry too bad about losing some Dashes when you have a speed buff technically built into one ability and ranged attacks nows.

Well, l like to play the fire mage now. That's all l am going to say

Monks are in a good spot now, they can get things done without being oppressive and unkillable.
Personally. I want to see them in an unplayable state same as WHM because they were untouchable for two whole years.

The issue right now is healers/Tanks do too much damage and everything else. PLD has too much of a WR due to absurd utility and kit. I don't know how many beers the devs drunk before thinking giving a job invul, cover, shield break, healing, team buffs is okay but here we are. Ranged in general are easier to perform than melee.

Our job is pretty good, and initial disappointments with its snapshots have turned into a blessing. Being able to Wind's Reply or Phantom Rush late into someone's guard to hit them with intense pressure as soon as they get out has made the job really oppressive. Really a faster snapshot on Earth's Reply (it just feels bad even if the potential is high) or a third charge of Thunderclap is all I would ask for right now. Don't think it's OP but I think it will age well in the 7.1 spec.

Perhaps losing the stun skill might not be a big deal for some people, as they think the job still has decent strength. However, I have to say that the Earth Reply skill absolutely needs a redesign. It adds an unnecessary action to my rotation. Even RPR's defensive mechanics are easier to use—while their effect might not be as strong, at least they don’t activate only after you’ve died.

I’m not saying Earth Reply is a bad skill, but the activation animation is way too long. As a healing skill, why isn’t it an instant-cast ability? I have to wait for it to complete its animation, which forces me to cast it early, but this often leads to dying before the skill actually activates.

This further reinforces the message that players with poor internet connections shouldn't play MNK.

Moreover, I don’t think removing the Monk's stun skill was a good decision. In the current 5v5 format, where a large number of jobs still have stuns—even SMN has an instant stun—Monk's concept of locking down backline or isolated enemy mages has been severely compromised. Now, not only can Monk no longer achieve this, but it’s also easy for enemies to escape.

The opponent only needs to stun me and then run to grab a nearby recovery potion to restore a lot of their status, while I, as a MNK, can do nothing about it...

In this situation, with our Thunderclap charges still capped at a maximum of two, how are we supposed to effectively pursue targets?

The only thing Monk is good at now is high burst damage, which can kill someone quickly. But if that’s the case, why wouldn’t I just play NIN? NIN has a stun, enough burst damage, and can also finish off targets.

Perhaps I’m underestimating the current state of MNK, but I still think Monk shouldn’t be designed as such an awkwardly handled job

I think the buffs have been... wildly out of touch. I rather have gotten mit on Riddle of Earth (paired with +% damage so you don't lose damage as a result of taking less) or another charge of Thunderclap... Feels like the monk buffs were decided by someone who doesn't play monk.