How can you continue to ignore monk completely?

[Altena]

Actually it's changed immensely, in a way similar to how Ninja has through the removal of 2nd tier Shadow Fang and Mutilate. You now only have cycles of exactly 3 weaponskills, rather than being able to stretch each cycle from 3 to 5 GCDs. This means that rather than having complete control, within any given GCD, of your clipping, you now have control only within 3 GCDs.

I'm curious as to what you consider gameplay. To me, rotational control certainly contributes part of that.So does the viability and accessibility of cleave dps (e.g. multi-DoTing). The extension or reduction of (de)buff windows is immensely affective to rotation.



From any perspective but aesthetics, gameplay now is about as similar to ARR Dragoon as it is to ARR Monk. And as Stormblood has since worked almost solely to the effect of devaluing Heavensward Monk tools as they amount to actual choices and button-presses (gameplay rather than mere numbers), it's far from unchanged since then, either.

I get the feeling that you either didn't play much Heavensward Monk or have yet to play it in Stormblood...

I'm not saying the latter is outright horrible, but it has arguably less complexity, and certainly less control, than it did in ARR. (Which actually didn't increase by all that much in Heavensward; it just filled out areas in which we previously had no control or contribution, in an minimalistic but intelligent manner.)

Firstly I respect your post a lot more than I respect the baby rager's post before it. Your comments actually read with intelligence.

You're right, I haven't played any of SB's MNK because it has always been the least interesting melee DPS job in my eyes. I did dabble in 3.0 MNK from time to time, but it was indeed a rarity.
My major point here is that the changes in MNK gameplay is insignificant compared to a lot of the jobs that got changed. From a technicality standpoint, sure I will give you that - they recieved some adjustments that slightly decreased their gameplay, however if the belief is that it is anywhere near on the scale as the many other jobs that people are complaining about - I can't agree there.

I do consider rotational control a part of gameplay, however I still don't see how it's immensely different to 2.0 & 3.0 MNK.
You do a couple of less skills? Big whoop. The job has always been extremely rotational and pressing 3 combos repeatedly isn't much different to pressing 5 combos repeatedly.
I mean, do you even notice the "rotation"? Because when it feels like I am just pressing the button that will give me the buff/DoT that's about to fall off.

If the argument is that it hasn't seen gameplay BUFFS since ARR, then I would agree, however I can't actually get on board with you and say that it has changed a whole lot - which would constitute gameplay nerfs.

Just compare the changes to MNK to the changes that DRG saw.
Sure they gained a rage-like stance similar to SMN, however their interplay of actually having to dance around and pay attention with Fang/Wheeling, or the removal of pushing as many skoguls without dropping BotD, paired with their 827398138912638 skill "rotation" (which in my eyes no longer becomes a rotation), down to simple 1-2-3-4-5 combos with a few OGCD weaves when they come off cooldown.. MNK is not even in the competition by this point.
This doesn't even mention that many of the "gameplay nerfs" that MNK recieved, DRG as well.

Again, if your argument is that MNK didn't see many gameplay improvements over the years since ARR, I would agree. However I can't agree that the loss of a few skills and a rather slight adjustment to their very static, short rotation is really a huge enough change to baby rage about (which I notice you're not doing, and can respect).

[Shurrikhan]

Again, if your argument is that MNK didn't see many gameplay improvements over the years since ARR, I would agree. However I can't agree that the loss of a few skills and a rather slight adjustment to their very static, short rotation is really a huge enough change to baby rage about (which I notice you're not doing, and can respect).

This is the crux of the issue to me. When we still had our stanceless skills, especially at high Attack Speed (e.g. sub-2s GCDs), Monk rotation wasn't fixed. it came down to priority systems and 4-6 windows. (Did I already stanceless this DK/Twin? Twice this Demolish? What stance will BFB hit in if I maintain current rotation? Can I DK-drop (on True Strike, before Demolish) given my upcoming oGCDs?) You'd actually even have two different optimal rotations depending on whether Fey Wind was active. Because you had fine rotational control (modular values by the GCD, rather than only sets of 3). Granted, most Monks did not take advantage of this, preferring to simply clip their (de)buffs and rotation as usual and/or being unwilling to put down enough Skill Speed to reach the next plateau (mostly due to crippling TP issues, which left these strategies mostly subject to fights with reduced continuous uptime, usually via speedkills). Oddly enough, now that the TP issues have finally been more or less fixed, we no longer have any opportunity to make use of the extra-fine control and accelerated rotations (e.g. DK/Twin per 8-9 GCDs) that we once needed that TP fix for.

I hope you can see from this, though, why those who did experiment with this level of play would feel cheated, having hoped that we would see more, not less, opportunity, to escape a fixed rotation.

The rest hinges highly on definition. Personally, I would say Heavensward granted immense capability improvement. Its only contribution to gameplay itself (noticeable, but less than often touted), however—mostly by virtue of Tornado Kick being too weak to be used rotationally except at the tail of both IR and BFB with PB ready to restore GL3 and Meditation not scaling with Attack Speed or otherwise too weak to warrant its use as a half-GCD clip-fixer—was its increase to Demolish duration, from 18s to 21s. This is what made the Skill Speed plateaus so much more noticeable, and made ToD and Fracture yet more pivotal in rotation. The rest was simple fight-checking, wherein we now had technically the strongest ranged filler in the game, could make use of up to 21s of downtime (Meditation x5, Purification, Meditation x5, Form Shift x3), and bonus potency before inevitable GL loss via Tornado Kick. Personally, apart from the downtime usage (i.e. our ranged attack filler), The Forbidden Chakra was irrelevant to gameplay. It just padded our opening burst a little.

My hopes for Stormblood were less bloat, which Touch of Death and Fracture were not, and more variety of rotation, stance (Fists of Wind/Fire), and pace. Instead we got more bloat, and less variation. This is, though not by a huge margin, the most "braindead" form Monk has yet seen. And its certainly the most contradictory.

[Tigerlilley]

My hopes for Stormblood were less bloat, which Touch of Death and Fracture were not, and more variety of rotation, stance (Fists of Wind/Fire), and pace. Instead we got more bloat, and less variation. This is, though not by a huge margin, the most "braindead" form Monk has yet seen. And its certainly the most contradictory.

It's really hard to understand why we lost Touch of Death / Fracture and retained the still useless One Ilm Punch and Arm of the Destroyer. They might as well have kept Haymaker in for a laugh. Like I said in my OP, it's just an insult at this point. And I hear you on contradiction, Greased Lightning is for speed, nope RoF takes that away. Riddle of Earth and Perfect Balance is to keep stacks - but you gotta get hit and Perfect Balance CD is very long / Tornado kick <- what?

[wereotter]

It's really hard to understand why we lost Touch of Death / Fracture and retained the still useless One Ilm Punch and Arm of the Destroyer. They might as well have kept Haymaker in for a laugh. Like I said in my OP, it's just an insult at this point. And I hear you on contradiction, Greased Lightning is for speed, nope RoF takes that away. Riddle of Earth and Perfect Balance is to keep stacks - but you gotta get hit and Perfect Balance CD is very long / Tornado kick <- what?

They seem to be pruning DOTs in general. ninja lost mutilate, dragoon lost phlebotomize, all classes lost fracture, summoner had bio and bio 2 combined, and I'm sure there are others I'm missing.

As far as ignoring the issues with monk generally speaking.... didn't anyone else catch that this was going to happen in the trailer? Warrior of Light starts as a monk, sees the crap SE did with his job, and then takes all the gear he already had and becomes a samurai before he even gets off the boat in Kugane. Pretty sure that was their way of telling us to forget about our old job and change to the new one instead :P

[Leonus]

It's really hard to understand why we lost Touch of Death / Fracture and retained the still useless One Ilm Punch and Arm of the Destroyer. Though they did give Mnks a replacement for B4B.

Well, truthfully fracture was not Mnks. It was warriors's. I see what people mean though.

[Tigerlilley]

Well, truthfully fracture was not Mnks. It was warriors's. I see what people mean though.

Did you ... add something on to my quote there. Cuz RoF isn't a B4B replacement. B4B was actually nice to use. I hate Riddle of Fire.

[Leonus]

Did you ... add something on to my quote there. Cuz RoF isn't a B4B replacement. B4B was actually nice to use. I hate Riddle of Fire.

I think I did on accident, my bad.

[Shurrikhan]

Well, truthfully fracture was not Mnks. It was warriors's. I see what people mean though.

When a skill goes from usually a damage loss on its native class to always a damage gain on a cross-class user, it ends up seeming more the skill of the cross-class user than the original...

[Morzy]

Again, if your argument is that MNK didn't see many gameplay improvements over the years since ARR, I would agree. However I can't agree that the loss of a few skills and a rather slight adjustment to their very static, short rotation is really a huge enough change to baby rage about (which I notice you're not doing, and can respect).

I think it's because Monk was so simple and streamlined that it was able to be shifted into such a place that some of us feel with Stormblood. My opinion is Monk didn't really need to change much at all. We got a few QoL things in HW like TP management, things to do while we're off the boss, and of course even something to do at the end which being Tornado Kick. I really believe Monk was perfect with HW. Sure we could ask for more like actual raid utility, but like SAM is now I think it was viewed as being compensated with Monk's DPS.

You're right, though, Monk's rotation is pretty simple and short but I think with the way it works they couldn't just extend it like Dragoons. Adding a 4th step like 1-2-3-4 would force them to change a lot more and with this constraint on it's rotation and just the way it works, there really wasn't much left to do with it.

I think the reason this job feels so different and was effected so easily is related to just how simple but also how constrained it is in its own rotation and circumstances related to it, being the GL timer and our dots. I mean the skill they gave us in HW to fix our TP issue is more or less obsolete just two years later. Maybe this isn't the only job effected like it, but focusing on the only job I play at this moment doesn't necessarily mean I'm ignoring the others... I can't speak for DRG.

Not really sure I got my point across enough, as I'm terrible at articulating things. Call me what you will, but I think you should have tried SB Monk before making the claims that you did. >.<