Suggested Monk Changes

[MauvaisOeil]

My MNK is only at 65 but a friend and I were talking about the Fist abilities and what-if they changed them like BRD's songs, where they completely changed their effects to all be useful most of the time and you had to rotate through them. They could also condense Riddle of Earth and Fire together, with effects that reflect their Fists.

For example: Fist of Fire could stay at a 5% increase to Damage done but it would only last for 30 seconds and when you use the Riddle ability, Riddle of Fire will grand you +10% more Damage to it (15% total).
Fist of Earth could lengthen your Greased-Lightning's effect time by like x% for 30 seconds and Riddle of Earth could just extend the time to max+x%.
Maybe Fist of Wind could deal with skill speed, attack speed, or oGCD time or something?
Then they could keep the Riddle ability at 90 seconds and make people have to decide when a good time to use it is, like if you're in a boss battle and the boss is about to become untouchable, you could pop Fist of Earth and Riddle to save your Greased-Lightning OR you could just use Tornado Kick and save Riddle for when you can damage the boss again you can pop Fist of Fire.

Maybe the fists were more interesting during 1.0, as I heard, they were temporary buffs draining MP for specific effects.

I think one fist assuming the soloing/bulky purpose, tied to a riddle for enhanced effects, is a good tradeoff.

The fact beeing, if one fist is tied to damages, with a riddle improving it. what could be the purpose of the third one ? We've all seen that movement is a poor choice as the actuel fist of wind is unused outside of capitals.

Making it the burst damage fist, would frail the other damaging fist or put them in competition

Making it a survival one, will compete with the earth one.

The range is a good idea, but as seen if it's a trade instead of damages, none will ever put it on.

What can the wind inspire, that would be more than situationally usefull, but not a "must never drop" buff ?

[Shurrikhan]

Maybe the fists were more interesting during 1.0, as I heard, they were temporary buffs draining MP for specific effects.

They worked out to more overall variety in 1.x because Fists of Wind had rotational benefits (it reduced the recast times of damaging abilities used under its effect), and the elemental wheel was still used, meaning that just by switching to Earth on an Earth-weak mob you could be doing up to triple damage. Until Yoshida took over, the incapacitation/break-off system was also still used, which required x strikes and potentially y effects active to, say, knock a skeleton's head off or a buffalo's horn off, sabotaging it and/or offering unique loot. Iirc, Fists of Earth was required for at least one of these.

[Shurrikhan]

I feel like if you want to make the Gale/Lotus/Adamantite (Wind/Fire/Earth) stances work in current XIV, you would need to make each rotationally useful and more impactful within the Greased Lightning mechanic. You could also vary Howling Fist and Steel Peak in the same way that Shoulder Tackle was via Tackle Mastery, but unless the effects are more diverse than its were, I doubt that would feel satisfying.

Assuming necessary changes to base potencies, let's say that:
- FIRE increases Damage by 5%, Critical Strike Chance by 10%, Critical Strike Bonus by 15%.
- WIND increases Attack Speed by 5%, Movement Speed by 15%, and Haste by 20% [Reduces recast times of damaging abilities].
- Earth increases Attack Power by 5%, reduces damage taken by 10%, increases the speed at which negative effects fade by 33% and reduces the rate at which positive effects fade by 33% (continuous additional drain / reduction of drain over duration).

This means that Wind offers nearly the same damage increase as Fire, while Earth comes in at a close third that doubles up by improving, indirectly, Second Wind.

Now, let's take Greased Lightning. Imagine the UI ring of 5 Chakra, but this time including Greased Lightning as a trio between the 5. Each orb of Chakra takes on a different color and internal sign, for Wind, Earth, or Fire.
The base benefits of Greased Lightning are roughly halved. Each increases all stat modifiers (Attack Power, Defense, Magic Defense, Critical Strike Chance, Critical Strike Bonus, Attack Speed, Movement Speed, and Haste [which reduces the recast time of abilities]) by 3% each. But they also each carry half the benefits of the stance used when the Greased Lightning was generated, and [tentative idea] a consumable Essence (of Wind/Fire/Air), consumable by certain abilities.

[Tentative] The point of these Essence is to provide bankable resources for tactical adjustment to play. An Essence of Wind, for example, allows you to ignore up to a certain amount of a given remaining damaging ability's cooldown (percentile reduction per Essence based on total cooldown*potency), accelerating it, making it useful for doubling up on Shoulder Tackle or chaining stuns. Preparing enough Wind Essence to ready oneself for an incoming event where fitting an additional damaging CD (say, Elixir Field) into a window would outweigh the general modifier given by Fire Essence or for needed movement or utility, for example, could make the difference between a decent Monk and a very good one.