Criticism on Stormblood's Monk

[SpeckledBurd]

I don't know if it's been pointed out yet, but Riddle of Earth is probably more useful than people are letting on. RoE was likely not designed for use during boss transitions (keep using Tornado Kick here), but instead to maintain GL and mitigate damage during targeted/unavoidable damage that forces Monks to stop attacking.

Take Lakshmi for example: When Hand of Grace/Beauty targets a Monk, they usually have to move away to properly position the AoE. So, they can now pop RoE to mitigate the damage and refresh their GL on-hit while using Form Shift and Meditation to minimize their DPS loss before returning to FoF and re-engaging Lakshmi. It's bad for jump phase similarly because you have to get hit for it to proc and sometimes the boss takes its time before doing that or doesn't deal damage at all.

Your example from Lakshmi is poor for a number of reasons. First and foremost, there's no need to disengage there so there's no need for a refresh of GL3. Secondly, RoE doesn't mitigate damage at all and Monk isn't squishier than the other Melee jobs so it wouldn't need the mitigation anyway.

Riddle of Earth just needs to go and Perfect Balance needs its cooldown reduced. That's all there is to it.
My only suggestion (for Riddle of Earth) would be to reduce the cooldown to 30s (from 60s) and the duration of RoE and Earth's Reply to 10s each. That way it can be used more often to mitigate mechanics and refresh stacks.

But yeah, those elemental tackles don't make much sense.

It's bad for mitigation of unavoidable damage because you actually have to take damage first before you receive any mitigation.

It's bad to refresh GL3 because, again, you have to take damage to receive the refresh and boss's like to take their sweet time when they jump.

Your Lakshmi example is poor. First and foremost there's no reason to disengage there, you can remain on the boss and perform that mechanic perfectly without losing any uptime meaning there's no need for a GL refresh. Secondly, you don't receive any mitigation from Riddle of Earth until you actually get hit and there wouldn't be a need for mitigation anyway since Monk is exactly as surviveable in Fists of Fire as any other DPS.

Riddle of Earth is a terrible skill and it's sheer button bloat. There's no reason for it to exist. They should remove it from the game ASAP and just reduce PB's cooldown to 60 seconds.