Criticism on Stormblood's Monk

[Vincentv]

Raw damage wise, in fights mnk is the second strongest melee.
When looked at, Nin is objectively better than Sam as well, high damage and all that raid utility. Nin won't compete with any class for a raid spot. Right now seems to be Mnk/Sam competing for a spot, poor Drg is hurting more than anybody. Far worse than people's perceived Mnk issue at this point.

That's my point. Monks are being overlooked because they have the second highest melee damage. The catch is brotherhood is not that strong, not enough to close the gap to Samari. So, Drg will get the attention because it's the lowest DPS whole providing Littany, piercing, and dragonsight buffs.

Check logs, DRG is about 120 behind mnk on Lakshmi and 265 behind mnk on Susano. Considering the piercing alone is worth a least 140 to BRD/MCH, it's already close to monks level for Lakshmi. Then Littany on a group of 18,500 less drg to 15,800 and you get a value around 184 DPS vs MNK brotherhood around 90. Comes out to monk Lakshmi 210 ahead less Drg buffs 324 and MNK actually lower than the Drg for group damage on the fight. For Susano, monk ahead 355 less drg buffs 324 and MNKs ahead 31. Keep in mind I didn't even factor in dragoon sight, while weak and jankey, it is still a small rdps buff.

TLDR MNK rdps is in the same boat as DRG.

Notes: Removed Drg damage from raid on Littany because they are have it applied as own DPS. Used 50th and 75th percentile and not a significant change in DPS gaps. Fights are annoying to both drg and monk stacks. Piercing is more than 5% due to how raid buffs compound and boss armor works, but used 5% for simplicity (Assume BRD at 2800 DPS)

[MrMagnificent]

I like Riddle of Earth.
Stop telling SE to get rid of it!!

[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.

[necroon]

I like Riddle of Earth.
Stop telling SE to get rid of it!!

I'd like it more if using it immediately extended GL and wasn't contingent upon gaining earth's reply to do so... Which the tool tip is rather misleading about.

It's not a good action to give someone at level 64: That's the problem. Past level 60 I feel like I just get stuff that belongs in the level 30-45 range. Compared to other jobs MNK has felt so disappointing to level I certainly won't be putting any more time into it and, flaws in all, I really enjoyed it from 1-50.

[Pyitoechito]

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.

I must have been misreading RoE. I could have sworn there was some initial mitigation. Seems silly that the mitigation only activates after being hit, then disappears when switching back to the useful fist stance. At least there's the usual 5% mitigation for Fists of Earth, I guess.

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.

It probably is a poor example. Would it have slightly better use during Divine Doubt? Getting hit by others should activate Earth's Reply, unless the confusion effect disallows on-hit procs?

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.

They should, but they probably won't. It's probably here to stay, so the best we can hope for is they tweak it into being more useful. Like putting the mitigation on the base Riddle of Earth, and have Earth's Reply just refresh GL each time you're hit.

[MrMagnificent]

The Lakshmi example is a good one.
If there is another melee dps in the group and both of you get targeted one of you might have to move. It depends on the tank's position.
There are multiple examples were I found Riddle of Earth useful. I even found it useful in the omega raids. I can't understand why some of you want to get rid of something like this. When it come to tackle mastery I understand but leave the riddles alone.

[BucklesTrespen]

I must have been misreading RoE. I could have sworn there was some initial mitigation.

The initial mitigation comes from Riddle of Earth putting us into Fists of Earth which has that 10% damage reduction.

I have a love/hate relationship with Riddle of Earth but I love the idea behind an ability to maintain GL stacks. The reason I have this love/hate relationship is because there have been many times where I activate Riddle of Earth but lose GL before taking damage. Also, it is super clunky to have this three-step process of activating Riddle of Earth - taking damage - then reactivating Fists of Fire.

I would suggest the following:

Firstly, remove the Fist Stances and turn Fists of Fire into a trait much like they did with Ninja with their Dripping Blades traits. With our Fist Stances gone the Riddles begin to make a little more sense and be a little more user-friendly. With no more stances to bounce between we no longer have the aforementioned three-step process for maintaining GL through Riddle of Earth and getting back into the fight.

My suggestion for Riddle of Earth would be that activating it refreshes the GL timer and grants us both the 10% damage reduction from the Fists of Earth and the 10% damage reduction from Earth's Reply upon activation. This can maintain the theme that Earth = damage reduction. Then, for Earth's Reply, when we take damage or deal damage we lose the effect of the damage reduction buff and GL is refreshed.

This change means if we take damage under the effect of Riddle of Earth we get the refresh. Good for small jump phases.
If we don't take damage under the effect of Riddle of Earth we have the fallback of being able to do damage to get the same effect. This means no more intentionally standing in stuff we can avoid just so we can keep GL up.
Giving Riddle of Earth the initial effect of refreshing GL, I feel, is the most needed and most obvious buff this ability can receive. This means that the benefit of Riddle of Earth is always the same no matter where we are in our combo chain when a transition happens. Currently if a boss jumps for an AOE mechanic before we can Demolish, Snap Punch or Rockbreaker we are far more likely to lose GL than if we get that last attack off and the boss transitions when we have a full timer.


bottom line, two things need to be changes ASAP in regards to Monk and Riddle of Earth.
1) Fists of Fire needs to become a trait.
2) For any Riddle of Earth change to be effective, be it my suggestion or any other, it absolutely must refresh the GL timer. Losing GL and taking damage a few seconds later is what I am seeing to be the greatest source of irritation from this ability. There is no reason why the benefit of this skill swings massively depending on where we happen to be in our combo chain. Giving it the initial refresh makes this ability have a solid, flat, predictable outcome and that means we can make fa better use of it.

[TheMax1087]

The Lakshmi example is a good one.
If there is another melee dps in the group and both of you get targeted one of you might have to move. It depends on the tank's position.

This is absolutely the wrong way to handle it. If there are two melee and both get targeted there's more than enough space for both to stay in melee range. Hell, even if there's 3 melee, the damage on it is low enough that if all 3 get targeted one can just stand on the tank.

That's not to say there aren't fights where RoE is still useful, as susano's ultimate, -100g in v.2 and the head in v.4 are great places to use it. I still have hopes that they'll make it better, but won't be mad if they don't.

[edgefusion]

Riddle of Earth is alright, it has its uses. It's not something you're going to use in every fight but when it comes in handy it's great to have, although reading this thread people seem to be using it kind of oddly (Lakshmi? No). If SE buff Brotherhood and alter Riddle of Fire to not reduce our speed I think Monk will immediately be in a much better place in terms of how the job feels to play - notwithstanding chakra relying so heavily on RNG, which I think is a terrible idea but they've dug themselves into a hole with it now.

They really need to sit themselves down and have a proper think about what direction they want to take Monk, the class is clearly languishing without a proper role to play since they arbitrarily gave our identity to Samurai.

[Xaert]

Bumping since 4.05 hasn't changed a thing and I want devs to see