Criticism on Stormblood's Monk

[Paolito]

Still super salty about it. Though I'm still gonna level my Monk.... in case they fix it

[Xau]

Think one ilm punch is for aoe stuns after aotd into rock breaker

one ilm punch is single target, and unless you are on perfect balance, you can't stun multiple targets because is locked behind raptor form

[Rheumasalbe]

I think Monk is okay as it is, besides Tackle Mastery (of which the purpose is an enigma through and through) and the restriction of Brotherhood to physical damage only. I should mention that I did a 4-man run yesterday with WAR, RDM and AST, and when I popped brotherhood, the WAR gave me two Chakras a few times. Yes, there were also one or two times that I got hardly any Chakras, but for the most part I did. Granted, it might correlate with the fact that he pulled huge and did a lot of AoE (I haven't really checked how AoEs influence the procs of Brotherhood and Deep Meditation), but it was still enough. Had Brotherhood given the buff indiscriminately, I would have gotten like twice the amount of FB, making the DPS over the top. So, in essence, I think Brotherhood is somewhat fine. Although I would appreciate it if at least the damage buff of +5% was given to everyone (maybe including the Monk themselves) to give us at least some viable raid utility besides a melee heavy composition.

What I have seen quite a few times here in this forum are suggestions/demands on how to change the Riddles, like reducing the damage increase on RoF but getting rid of the slow down. This is a valid point imo, and I can see why people want it. Me personally, I don't mind the small breather that gives me nice burst damage. Or RoE's refresh is bad (which I agree with!).

What I cannot agree with is people suggesting that RoW should give us a speed buff. I understand where the people are coming from, but imo, I don't need to go faster EVEN MORE. I'm plenty fast on my own (currently 1,99 CD). And not only that, but it would lead to design and gameplay flaws (/challenges):

The Riddles work by putting you in the respective stance, which makes sense (and personally, I like it that way). Hence, RoW would put us in Fist of Wind. This means that Fist of Wind would need a new effect (e.g. increased skillspeed or damage) to become valid. If not, RoW would give us skillspeed but reduced damage since we're not in Fist of Fire anymore. This seems like a bad trade-off since it's supposed to be a buff, and not something that, in effect, doesn't change the damage output. So either, the new buff of Fist of Wind, too, is +5% damage, which would make a distinction between Fist of Wind and Fist of Fire obsolete (though some people have called for getting rid of different fists altogether). OR it is something else that would balance the lack of these +5% damage, since again, you can't do RoW without being in Fist of Wind. However, giving us a Riddle that increases speed ON TOP of a Stance that increases speed seems overkill and unnecessary. And nothing feasible or not highly complex besides increasing skill speed or damage comes to mind (or into consideration), tbh.

Assuming SE gave a new effect to Fist of Wind, it would beg the question: Why would Monk have two different offensive stances? It would make sense if FF14 was a game that gives us variation and customization on how to play a job, but that's not what this game is about. And frankly, it's what gave them the chance to make a decent game because they could allocate resources to other things besides class design. Having two offensive stances would require a ton of rework of the whole monk rotation and design, which imo it doesn't need, and would make it highly (and unnecessarily) complex.

Of course one could make the Riddles be buffs that work without the bindings to the respective stances. This would be a valid idea, but honestly, just plain boring and uninspired.

What they could do, however, is this:

Riddle of Wind could be our GL3 refresh, either restoring it to maximum duration upon usage, or freezing the countdown for an arbitrary amount of time, or until an arbitrary action is taken... Maybe something like throwing it on a 60 second cooldown, and letting it freeze your GL timer in place for 10 seconds or something? It would massively increase flexibility, and basically erase that frustrating feeling in a dungeon run when the tank's just a bit too slow and your stacks drop in between packs.

This would solve a lot of problems:
1) the idea of the Riddles putting us into the respective stance would still work. You would switch into RoW and Fist of Wind whenever you don't need to be in your damage stance or a little before you receive damage, for which you would use RoE to refresh GL3 to its maximum duration again. This would give us another/more advanced way of refreshing/keeping GL3 up.
2) we could get rid of Tackle Mastery (which, in essence, is synonym to Riddle of Wind anyways)
3) all the stances would have a specific purpose: Fire offense, Earth defense, Wind movement and GL3 upkeep
4) the fear of losing GL3 while the tank pulls a lot of mobs is mostly gone
5) it wouldn't change the current design or gameplay for Monks at all since you would only replace one (useless) trait with a (useful) active skill that you only use in special cases/outside of battle anyways
6) it would finally give a purpose to the movement speed increase of Fist of Wind: GL3 is frozen, so you want to move faster to get to your desired monster to start your combos again.

[KingFrost]

Yeah. Riddle of Wind should be an ability and have some sort of effect on either GL or Tornado Kick. Tackle Mastery... As I've said before, I'd rather see it just be good. Maybe Earth be a bind (No dispel on damage) or wind deal no damage for a huge cd reduction. It'd fit with Riddle of Wind helping our GL.

Really, just too many useless abilities. Just make them viable/reasonable in some way, SE. Our damage is fine, just a wee bit more tuning of overniche skills would go a long way for Monks of every level.

[mxllxr]

Riddle of Earth: This should lock your current GL stacks for ~15 seconds allowing you to actually make use of Tornado Kick without losing the stacks. Give it a weaker damage reduction component for the party to stack with Mantra and make your healers happy.

Riddle of Fire: I like this as it is - allows for double weaving and does obscene damage. I don't want a boring monotonous buff like BFB that's click and forget. Also acts as a TP regen.

Brotherhood: Visually stunning. Make it affect us or allow the 5% damage buff to affect all types of damage. If anything we should be giving Direct Hit as a party buff with this skill.

Tackle Mastery: Nice idea, poorly implemented.

TL;DR - Needs tweaks to make already existing skills work out better or be usable (i.e. Tornado Kick, means to gain/maintain GL stacks, party/self buffs). I'm 100% for having a more supportive melee class that flourishes off the brotherhood theme.

[Coldbrand]

I like that now that one-ilm punch is stupid you can't do anything against stuff like the new hunt mob with the shock/ice spikes. Was one of the coolest features of MNK, was also funny in PvP before it was a cell phone game.

[Meui]

Here's another suggestion (which I'm sure has been made, but I still can't stress enough):

Our form durations. Those need to be aligned with the new GL duration. I've already lost GL3 a handful of times because I had 1-2 seconds on it, went to refresh on the target... only to have my form drop prematurely. Maybe I need more time to adjust to this "new" Monk but that's a simple QoL that I don't see causing any sort of imbalance. It's like when MCH's ammo had a duration for, apparently, no reason.

[Barghest1210]

IMO remove the form requirement of 1ilm punch and give it a cooldown shorter then the average stun.
Remove tackle mastery and replace it with a trait that upon gl3 refresh a 10% chance of allowing us to use TK for free.
Bake the effect of riddle of wind into FoW and increase the window that we can use the second shoulder tackle so it's viable for add phases. But honestly just give me the first two suggestions and I'd be perfectly happy with where monks are right now.

[Chill_Ghost]

First off, remove Fists. I don't get why they want to push stance dancing when there's an obvious one you should always be in. Wind has zero purpose, Earth is pretty situational, and Fire is what you should always be in. Make Fire a trait like how Ninja poisons were
Change Riddle of Earth to give 10% damage reduction for 10 seconds and instead of refreshing you GL3, you cross-counter any attack with an automatic haymaker if the enemy is targetable and within range for 10 seconds. Using another riddle cancels the effect
Change Riddle of Wind to give a free Tornado Kick for 10 seconds and gives a mini sprint. I love Tornado Kick and want to use it more. Using another riddle cancels the effect
Keep Riddle of Fire the same. Using another riddle cancels the effect
Change Tackle Mastery to have a 50% chance to boost the potency of Forbidden Chakra back to 320 or just 25%

[LilithThanheim]

Truer words have not been spoken- we had this expansion absolutely stolen from under us, so they could give to a class catering to casual players, so that they can derp out high numbers with easy playstyle SAM. While thankful for the 5% damage increase of Brotherhood, we took such a hit on the our base damage it's ridiculous.


[Now, for those of you who want to moan and complain about the lack of line breaks, wow- why does everyone act like whiny brats when online? Please grow up, you're reading this online, with either a phone or PC, both of which offers an easy scrolling mechanism so you can literally move it line by line if reading is far too daunting a task for you. If THAT proves too difficult, follow word by word with your finger like you did in school. It's like you've never picked up a book before in your life, I got through the post just fine, as did many others. I almost never log on to comment but some people need to be remindeed that their shit does, in fact, stink.]