MNK 4.0 Changes . . . I'm not a fan tbh

[DatPotato]

Yoshida: It may be a bit difficult to understand without actually using it in game content. I'll tell you a bit because I want to hint at the rotation. This time with monk, we wanted to focus more on the Fists element, and the element type is reflected in Shoulder Tackle. It was important that you could see the impact of each type when you fight by switching between the three types. Originally with monks it was enough to get used to the fixed rotation, but when you enter a new battle with the associated uncertainty, you need to make quick decisions about things like whether to use Chakra or whether to keep going with the DPS rotation. Your DPS will grow if you excel at that, so I think monk should be rather interesting.

It did look good during our time with it.

Yoshida: It feels good to use. Where DPS used to fall apart at breaks between phases, it's now designed to be able to sustain if you play it well, so, as usual, it's a job that can excel based on the skill of the player. There are also synergies that you'll need to think about how to use to their fullest potential.

So even though the first impression is that the action rotation hasn't changed, it may feel entirely different when you actually take it into content.

Yoshida: The intention of the overall adjustments for DPS was that you'll be able to put out a decent amount of DPS, and all jobs will be raised, without much change what you've done before. However, the differences in player skill should become more apparent because with the simplified and clarified elements, there will be more room for players to come up with ways to further improve.

(Taken from : https://www.bluegartr.com/threads/13...ew-Translation)

Hmm... well unless you begin as monk, the difference of fists is not something we're so eager to use and play with, neither is shoulder's tackle... then again they had Dragoon as the standard class for all melee dps. *sigh*

[Keramory]

"Yoshida: It may be a bit difficult to understand without actually using it in game content. I'll tell you a bit because I want to hint at the rotation. This time with monk, we wanted to focus more on the Fists element, and the element type is reflected in Shoulder Tackle. It was important that you could see the impact of each type when you fight by switching between the three types. Originally with monks it was enough to get used to the fixed rotation, but when you enter a new battle with the associated uncertainty, you need to make quick decisions about things like whether to use Chakra or whether to keep going with the DPS rotation. Your DPS will grow if you excel at that, so I think monk should be rather interesting.

"You make fun of my game? You say my game easy? Enjoy monk you ungrateful ****"

Is what I read out of that. I'm sure I'm in the wrong... but that's the only translation I made

[Deithwen]

I don't understand this statement. it's like, they're so sure about themselves that they don't see the problems raising with monk, thus discarding any contructive feedback...

I really fail to see any good use of riddle of wind, it justs lowers your damages by 5, just allowing you to do a second should tackle.
And riddle of earth, refresh GL upon damage hit, which makes tornado kick useless and can only be used during ultimates provided they don't last too long..

Either our information is wrong and those skills will act totally differently, or there is a real lack of perspective on what they're doing.

[DatPotato]

Well if it can cheer you up guys, on the french monk threads, a community representative told us they took the feed back from MNK WHM and SMN, guess the message come across more or less?

[SpeckledBurd]

Well if it can cheer you up guys, on the french monk threads, a community representative told us they took the feed back from MNK WHM and SMN, guess the message come across more or less?

Do you have a link confirming this? I can't seem to locate this.

Edit: Found it.

I'll still wait until launch to see what everything is, because if Tackle Mastery still exists in any form then the devs will have failed.

[Shurrikhan]

Yoshida: It may be a bit difficult to understand without actually using it in game content. I'll tell you a bit because I want to hint at the rotation. This time with monk, we wanted to focus more on the Fists element, and the element type is reflected in Shoulder Tackle. It was important that you could see the impact of each type when you fight by switching between the three types. Originally with monks it was enough to get used to the fixed rotation, but when you enter a new battle with the associated uncertainty, you need to make quick decisions about things like whether to use Chakra or whether to keep going with the DPS rotation. Your DPS will grow if you excel at that, so I think monk should be rather interesting.


Yoshida: It feels good to use. Where DPS used to fall apart at breaks between phases, it's now designed to be able to sustain if you play it well, so, as usual, it's a job that can excel based on the skill of the player. There are also synergies that you'll need to think about how to use to their fullest potential.

Yoshida: The intention of the overall adjustments for DPS was that you'll be able to put out a decent amount of DPS, and all jobs will be raised, without much change what you've done before. However, the differences in player skill should become more apparent because with the simplified and clarified elements, there will be more room for players to come up with ways to further improve.

(Taken from : https://www.bluegartr.com/threads/13...ew-Translation)

Wow that sounds out of touch. He has indirectly diminished those exact concepts he's touting here.

Skill gap has decreased because there are now fewer adjustments any job can make to match themselves to given conditions. By slimming modulars (e.g. the time or GCD count between where a Demolish would land and when all its DoT ticks complete) and removing DoTs and other such skills that could extend these modulars to allow for multiple sub-rotations across varying attack speeds and uptime durations, rotations have become more fixed, not less.

Ramp-up and uptime dependence, or opportunity cost for salvaging incoming downtime, has increased for DRG and NIN, increasing the extent by which downtime can cripple your DPS. In its current functionality, RoE does almost nothing to help with this (since it requires that we're attacked far enough into the jump that a refresh would allow us to retain GL even onto landing), while the extension to base GL duration merely decreases skill cap and/or devalues Tornado Kick at equal jump durations, and again does nothing if those jump durations are increased by the same or more.

Fists themselves haven't become much if any more interesting. Fire will remain the only fist viable except when in need of a double-charge. RoF becomes an awkward DPS CD. The first is bloat. The second's just any old CD.

[SpeckledBurd]

Fists themselves haven't become much if any more interesting. Fire will remain the only fist viable except when in need of a double-charge. RoF becomes an awkward DPS CD. The first is bloat. The second's just any old CD.

Yeah honestly, the fact that they decided that the "Fists of" stances shouldn't have been trimmed out as part of the action rework, when you literally only ever want to have Fists of Fire on, let alone that they tied a trait to them really shows that they don't have any idea about how Monk plays.

[Shurrikhan]

Think monk lost itself after 1.0. Don't know how many remember but the job was amazing when we had the elemental wheel... and it packed a lot of power. Class was simple within itself too.

I've never been a fan of the GL mechanic in the first place. On paper it looks great but it's a bloody mess when you have EVERY boss jumping around like a mad man.

These changes have done nothing to excite me. Honestly though I don't know much they'd do to make me happy with monk again. Hopefully somehow playing it feels different then what I'm reading now

While I prefer the feel of the 2.x - 3.x Monk over 1.x's, 1.x Monk's place on the battlefield felt outstanding. Though, possibly a bit overpowered.

Off-tank this for me? Sure.
Nuke this down for me? Sure.
Be the last one standing? Naturally.

For me what makes a Monk a Monk now is:

1. Rotational control.

I consider this as the amount of viable rotations and/or macro-rotations a job has available at given breaks in uptime and/or across a given range of GCD rates. In this sense, Monk is unparalleled. Should TP have been balanced (e.g. 50 TP given per GCD), a DRG would actually come close at a 2.22 GCD, allowing a highly complex rotation that adjusts considerably with the number of targets in play, and a sub-2s NIN doesn't trail far behind with a Warrior, but nothing will ever meet the buttery smoothness of internal balance that a 1.9s 3.x Monk provides.

2. Wing everything / confidence abounds.

Overlapping with the above, it feels to me that while the Monk has a lot of depth available for theorycrafting, it's also the job in which it feels most natural, once skilled, to wing everything. Immediacy is key after all, and every strike is merely the beginning of the movement for the next; making decisions on the GCD of cripples you. Yet with time that one GCD gap or more of preparation feels spontaneous. Moreover, its amazing what the mere inclusion of Fists of Wind and Fists of Earth can do for one's confidence. Soak with tank? Fists of Earth. Lived with 2 HP; good to go. Deposit T13 Earthshaker puddles between GCDs? Not even scary with Wind—Snap, Dragon, Twin, and back in back in time for Demo (Monk supper). Now, NIN and DRG get this too, admitedly, but per event/CD rather than on demand. That continual access just does something for the Monk through being that slight bit... more of what's necessary just then. It's surprisingly powerful. It might be unwarranted confidence in some cases. But the combination of it and the need for immediacy is what makes Monk the "Imma punch it" job. And I'm annoyed that SB didn't meaningfully improve upon this, except perhaps for when gathering adds under RoE, which I will maximize/abuse wherever possible to trim an otherwise needed tank.

3. Attack speed.

The rest just wouldn't be as significant without it. Personally, I find 2.15 slow and 1.88 about perfect, which means I'm desperately waiting for TP generation to be balanced/scaled-to-GCD, but it's all a pretty significant improvement. The really gross thing is that with a VPN in Cali I can double weave at said 1.88...

Yeah honestly, the fact that they decided that the "Fists of" stances shouldn't have been trimmed out as part of the action rework, when you literally only ever want to have Fists of Fire on, let alone that they tied a trait to them really shows that they don't have any idea about how Monk plays.

I actually love fist weaving. But at my rotational plateau given the option between 5% uptime on a GCD and 5% damage increase on it, the uptime will be superior 99% of the time because I only have about .2 seconds to spare by which to avoid 25-32 potency lost (for a 120 net gain), so Fists of Wind then becomes surprisingly viable for same-target uptime or facing potential tick neglect (not having Demo up in time for a global tick). If there are no buffs active already, then it becomes a matter of bonus potency now vs. global tick/personal GCD sync for the upcoming DoT.

I feel like most Monks don't actually know how to take advantage of their Fist stances. Granted, the long animation time and average player ping doesn't help. I was far more hesitant to use it at 120 ms ping, because it'd always take 2 GCDs to recover. At 30 ms, I can potentially swap at the tail of the 1st-2nd's gap, so I've only lost the Fire bonus on a single GCD.

The sad thing is to make Fist weaving broadly useful all they had to do was:
1. Make the skills activate faster
2. Reduce their animation time/lock
3. Reduce their cooldown (e.g. to exactly 1 GCD while still remaining oGCD, or to 1.5 seconds flat, since no one's likely to get there).

Granted, that'd make it almost an obligatory part of play at that point, lest they start consuming noticeable amounts of mana that would force them to be used sparingly (base potencies increased and Fire toggled for burst multiplicity).
Given that they would be wholly viable at that point, would you mind using them?

If that still doesn't quite do it, increase the bonuses by 20%, to 6 (Fire), 12 (Earth), and 36 (Wind).

...

My point though was that he could have done so much more to make their use more than just situational though. Being able to blend with the situation feels great on Monk, but being able to craft one's internal situation, like a MCH around the 2nd full burst phase, would add a lot to the job. Fists could have given access to that. Tackle Mastery is interesting insofar as battlefield control, but the game makes too little of that concept thus far. Thus, we needed more. It's a decent start, but we need a lot more for this to be a mechanic worthy of an expansion.

(I'm not counting Deep Meditation as a contributor to that sum simply because I find that it in almost every case diminished Monk gameplay by throwing off internal balance, devaluing stat choice, reducing control, introducing added maintenance, introducing points of viable hesitation absolutely adverse to Monk gameplay, etc., etc.)

[Rufalus]

If this doesn't work out, just play Samurai until some more balancing adjustment patches. Or just enjoy sub-optimal jobs anyway, unless you need to change for a savage raid group. The more jobs we get, the harder it is to keep them all equally viable. There's gonna be periods where certain jobs are less desirable. So much gets altered in an expansion that balancing efforts basically start from scratch again, but they will do significant post-launch fixes as always. Just how the cycle goes.

[Blacktestament7]

If this doesn't work out, just play Samurai until some more balancing adjustment patches. Or just enjoy sub-optimal jobs anyway, unless you need to change for a savage raid group. The more jobs we get, the harder it is to keep them all equally viable. There's gonna be periods where certain jobs are less desirable. So much gets altered in an expansion that balancing efforts basically start from scratch again, but they will do significant post-launch fixes as always. Just how the cycle goes.

For me, it's never been about being optimal or meta. Monk just feels alot less fun with the missing moves, overdependence of Forbidden Chakra, and the bad additions of RoE, RoF, and Tackle Mastery. I'm not much of a fan of Deep Meditation or Brotherhood either as they are either "overpowered" (at the maybe 100% seen in the job actions video and even then with the pot nerf FC doesn't make up for dps losses unless you hit 6 or more in a 15 sec timespan) or underpowered (the 30% from the media tour data that most of us are going off of). None of this helps the class in the end imo.