Small, balanced adjustments that would fix Monk's new kit

[Fritz_OS]

Let me start by saying: this isn't a 'buff Monk' thread.

Right now our damage is exactly where it's supposed to be, the logs have shown that, but the real problem with Monk isn't that it doesn't perform well - it's that a chunk of its' kit (mostly its' new kit) doesn't FEEL good to use, or is simply so badly designed so that it's hard to find a use for it.

In this thread I won’t talk about all of Monk’s kit (the grievances with the loss of ToD, the inefficiency of AotD, the useless One-Ilm Punch, the overly long PB CD etc) as I have nothing new to say there. Instead I’d like to focus on our new kit – most of which feels quite badly designed – and offer some small, balanced adjustments that could be made just to make it more useful or fun.

My hope is to start a friendly discussion about chaning the new abilities in the hope that someone at SE might read this thread, and make even one of the changes we can come up with! Let me know what you think:

[Fritz_OS]

Riddle of Earth

- Earth's reply removed
- Additional 10% damage reduction moved from Earth's Reply to Riddle of Earth
- The first time you take damage while under the effect of Riddle of Earth your Greased Lightning is refreshed to its' full duration, as it is now

Pretty simple reasoning here: an additional 10% damage reduction only AFTER you've already suffered the big hit you were trying to mitigate is redundant. Why would it be designed this way? However, I feel like the one time refresh of GL works well as is and doesn’t necessarily require changing.

[Fritz_OS]

Tackle Mastery

Wind Tackle/Riddle of Wind/Fists of Wind

- Fists of Wind's movement speed buff increased. (I’ve put this in as it’s relevant to RoW)
- Riddle of Wind duration increased to 30s

An impactful movement speed buff and a second gap closer for the Monk is a great idea and very useful in movement/AoE heavy phases! Unfortunately, right now, FoW makes almost no impact to our speed and RoW is useless - because how often do you need a second gap closer within only 5 seconds of your previous one? Increase it's duration to the full 30 seconds of Wind Tackle's cooldown, buff FoW and we'd actually have a reason to use the stance/tackle mastery. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why it wasn’t like this already?

[Fritz_OS]

Earth Tackle

- Knockback removed
- Stun duration increased to 4 seconds

I'm not too sure how to fix Earth Tackle (feel free to give suggestions) but I know that none of us or anyone in our group wants a knockback. If it's going to deal less damage and have a shorter range than our other tackles, then double it's stun duration – it’ll still be useless in any boss fight but at least then it'll be more useful in solo content or for stunning tougher mobs in dungeon runs (maybe?).

[Fritz_OS]

Riddle of Fire

- Recast time increase removed
- Damage buff reduced from 30% to 20% (Or there about's)

There's nothing wrong with RoF's performance, but its’ recast time increase nullifying the speed buff from GL3 FEELS bad to use and flies in the face of what the job is about – I can only imagine that it is the way it is to encourage us not to use it outside of GL, as a way of circumventing the damage loss on our opener when we don’t have PB off cooldown. Who knows. Either way remove it, and reduce the damage buff to compensate, to make this ability feel less clunky.

While we’re on the subject of Perfect Balance though, if that IS ^ their reasoning behind RoF’s current state, then they need to at least reduce its’ recast. I know I said I wouldn’t bring it up but none of us will ever stop asking!!

[Fritz_OS]

Brotherhood

- Damage buff now affects magic damage
- Chakras may proc from spells as well as weaponskills

This is the only straight up buff I’ll ask for, and it doesn’t affect our personal DPS; Brotherhood’s anti-synergy with magic users is daft – Battle Littany and Trick Attack affect everyone, and would still be more powerful buffs besides (which I’m not complaining about).

Limiting Brotherhood to physical damage makes Monk that bit less desirable in raid groups with casters, which almost encourages them to choose one or the other (which is unlikely to go in our favour). Reduce the Chakra proc rate if necessary to account for this change, but change it nonetheless.

[Fritz_OS]

Deep Meditation

I’ve saved this one for last, simply because it’s the only new addition we got in the expansion that I think is potentially ok as is. I know a lot of us have lamented the RNG nature of the skill and it’s lack of reliability, but plenty of other jobs have a similar mechanic. As I’ve said, either way, our personal DPS seems to be exactly where it’s supposed to be.

If I had to suggest a change though, to increase its’ reliability, then on balance:

- Bootshine, when executed from the rear in Opo Opo form, will guarantee the opening of a chakra

[ChaozK]

I'm not too sure how to fix Earth Tackle (feel free to give suggestions)

Earth tackle:

Reduces target opponents damage dealt by 5%
Duration: 10 seconds

[Fritz_OS]

Earth tackle:

Reduces target opponents damage dealt by 5%
Duration: 10 seconds

That would actually be a really neat bit of utility for us, and definitely make Earth Tackle very useful in endgame content. I'm not sure how the tanks (well, the DRk's) would feel, however, about us having our own 10 second Reprisal on only a 30 second cooldown...

But I definitely don't think giving us something along those lines would be 'unbalanced', plus it would fit really well with the theme of our Earth stance giving us damage mitigation!

[SpeckledBurd]

Riddle of Earth

- Earth's reply removed
- Additional 10% damage reduction moved from Earth's Reply to Riddle of Earth
- The first time you take damage while under the effect of Riddle of Earth your Greased Lightning is refreshed to its' full duration, as it is now


Pretty simple reasoning here: an additional 10% damage reduction only AFTER you've already suffered the big hit you were trying to mitigate is redundant. Why would it be designed this way? However, I feel like the one time refresh of GL works well as is and doesn’t necessarily require changing.

Frankly, the 10% damage mitigation coming after the damage is only a part of the issue with this skill. The fact that we have to take damage is in and of itself an issue. Look at Dragoon and Black Mage, they literally just have to hit a button they already had to extend their buffs. Requiring Monk to get hit in order to actually refresh its GL3 creates a lot of situations where other Jobs can keep their buff while Monk can't (Most dungeon bosses that have some sort of Jump phase in Stormblood, including Shisui and Ala Mhigo), or it requires Monk to eat an avoidable AOE that the devs clearly want for you to avoid since it gives you a penalty Vuln stack (Shinryu and Shisui). Either let Monk refresh its stacks on use rather than requiring us to get hit, or let Monk refresh its stacks some other way (IE: going through Coeurl form on Form Shift, reducing PB's cooldown).

Tackle Mastery

Wind Tackle/Riddle of Wind/Fists of Wind

- Fists of Wind's movement speed buff increased. (I’ve put this in as it’s relevant to RoW)
- Riddle of Wind duration increased to 30s

An impactful movement speed buff and a second gap closer for the Monk is a great idea and very useful in movement/AoE heavy phases! Unfortunately, right now, FoW makes almost no impact to our speed and RoW is useless - because how often do you need a second gap closer within only 5 seconds of your previous one? Increase it's duration to the full 30 seconds of Wind Tackle's cooldown, buff FoW and we'd actually have a reason to use the stance/tackle mastery. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why it wasn’t like this already?

Buffing Fists of Wind's movement speed isn't gonna help at all because you'll still want to be in Fists of Fire for the 5% damage buff. We'll still have no use for Riddle of Wind. The only way it would be useful would be if they made this work similar to PVP, where you automatically get Riddle of Wind after your Shoulder Tackle, and that has the issue in and of itself of messing with Monks DPS potential.

There's no good way to fix Riddle of Wind without returning Shoulder Tackle to how it was in ARR and giving it a minimum range requirement for it to be used.

Earth Tackle

- Knockback removed
- Stun duration increased to 4 seconds

I'm not too sure how to fix Earth Tackle (feel free to give suggestions) but I know that none of us or anyone in our group wants a knockback. If it's going to deal less damage and have a shorter range than our other tackles, then double it's stun duration – it’ll still be useless in any boss fight but at least then it'll be more useful in solo content or for stunning tougher mobs in dungeon runs (maybe?).

An interesting idea at least, and certainly more useful than a Knockback, however it has the same issue of requiring you to drop Fists of Fire, which is something you never want to do.

Riddle of Fire

- Recast time increase removed
- Damage buff reduced from 30% to 20% (Or there about's)

There's nothing wrong with RoF's performance, but its’ recast time increase nullifying the speed buff from GL3 FEELS bad to use and flies in the face of what the job is about – I can only imagine that it is the way it is to encourage us not to use it outside of GL, as a way of circumventing the damage loss on our opener when we don’t have PB off cooldown. Who knows. Either way remove it, and reduce the damage buff to compensate, to make this ability feel less clunky.

While we’re on the subject of Perfect Balance though, if that IS ^ their reasoning behind RoF’s current state, then they need to at least reduce its’ recast. I know I said I wouldn’t bring it up but none of us will ever stop asking!!

Agreed. Riddle of Fire is very much the new Wanderer's Minuet and I despise being on the job that's impacted by it. The real problem here is Monk actually needs the 30% in order to be competitive at this point and the gain of 2 GCDs in the RoF window isn't going to make up for the loss of 10% to *everything* that gets done within.

Brotherhood

- Damage buff now affects magic damage
- Chakras may proc from spells as well as weaponskills

This is the only straight up buff I’ll ask for, and it doesn’t affect our personal DPS; Brotherhood’s anti-synergy with magic users is daft – Battle Littany and Trick Attack affect everyone, and would still be more powerful buffs besides (which I’m not complaining about).

Limiting Brotherhood to physical damage makes Monk that bit less desirable in raid groups with casters, which almost encourages them to choose one or the other (which is unlikely to go in our favour). Reduce the Chakra proc rate if necessary to account for this change, but change it nonetheless.

Brotherhood shouldn't buff Magic Damage, full stop. I'd rather see Riddle of Fire get a slight buff by gaining 2 GCDs in its window and not losing any of its percentage than for Brotherhood just be Monk Trick Attack.

What should change however, is Chakras only proccing off weaponskills. They should proc of Spells as well and the overall percentage should be lowered to 15-20% so we still gain the same number of Chakras overall. It sucks that Monk's capstone skill is so utterly dependent on other party members that it completely flubs in 4-Man's because you often end up without another physical DPS in the party.