Monk ignored for 4.1

[Silver-Strider]

Honestly, just rework Riddles to be upgraded Fist Stances would work, just add a secondary effect to each fist stance on activation and you're already off to a better start than what MNK currently has, which is a whole lot of useless button.
Tackle Mastery is a crock and needs to either be removed or reworked so that it might actually be useful. Having it effect all our oGCDs might be a bit of a stretch but anything would be better than that joke of a trait.
Remove the timer on Forbidden Chakra, for the love of god. While you're at it, remove timers on form stances as well because stance dancing for hours before a pull is utterly annoying.
All the clutter skills we have (Tornado kick, One Ilm Punch, etc) need serious reworks. Either changing Tornado kick to use Chakra or even just removing the GL cost entirely for an increased CD time would make it salvageable as a skill. One Ilm Punch into the new Touch of Death, Arm of the Destroyer into an actually damaging AoE, Purification as an instant GL3 for 5 Chakras (which I feel would be fine given that Purification is currently just an inferior Invigorate in every possible way and that it offers nothing currently as MNK is now TP positive in all but the absolute extreme of AoE situations, of which are very few ATM.)

[KalinOrthos]

Monk does need a little bit of tuning and ability adjustments (seriously, why do Brotherhoods overlap? That seems like a serious oversight), but the amount of gnashing of teeth I'm seeing in this thread is...silly, quite frankly. I also see a lot of "What about SMN, they did as much damage as BLM, they were fine" and that makes my head scratch even more. SMN, at this moment, has such a high skill floor that it's very hard to play competently. Once you do, it's a thing of beauty, but to get there requires time investment and training. The changes that SMN is getting should serve to lower that skill floor significantly while still maintaining its micromanagement that I find a lot of fun. Meanwhile monk has...Riddle of Fire, that just slows things down slightly and makes attacks hit really hard, and people don't really like that? Like, come on, people.

I don't want to detract from the idea that monk needs to get looked at. Like I said, they do need a bit of tuning. But to say that they need it more than SMN or SCH is such a bonkers and disingenuous statement that I have to wonder if you really know what you're talking about.

[SpeckledBurd]

Monk does need a little bit of tuning and ability adjustments (seriously, why do Brotherhoods overlap? That seems like a serious oversight), but the amount of gnashing of teeth I'm seeing in this thread is...silly, quite frankly. I also see a lot of "What about SMN, they did as much damage as BLM, they were fine" and that makes my head scratch even more. SMN, at this moment, has such a high skill floor that it's very hard to play competently. Once you do, it's a thing of beauty, but to get there requires time investment and training. The changes that SMN is getting should serve to lower that skill floor significantly while still maintaining its micromanagement that I find a lot of fun. Meanwhile monk has...Riddle of Fire, that just slows things down slightly and makes attacks hit really hard, and people don't really like that? Like, come on, people.



I don't want to detract from the idea that monk needs to get looked at. Like I said, they do need a bit of tuning. But to say that they need it more than SMN or SCH is such a bonkers and disingenuous statement that I have to wonder if you really know what you're talking about.

It's very much a knee jerk reaction. Yes, playing Summoner is cancer, but at the same time if you can actually do it, it offers better personal DPS and better party support than either Black Mage or Monk. The concern is largely that Summoner is going to get all of these changes and then it's personal DPS isn't going to come down, at which point it's just flat out OP.

And many of the frustrations with Monk aren't brand new like the issues with Brotherhood and Riiddle of Fire are. They've been complaints since ARR and Heavensward, and they've all been exacerbated since the devs promises to revise actions to be useful in Stormblood just didn't happen for Monk. The reason threads like this pop up every two or three weeks is because these problems with Monk should have been solved in Heavensward and it's flat out insulting that the most the devs have done is pay them lip service at the cost new actions and traits in Stormblood.

[Eisenhower]

Arm of the Destroyer and One Ilm Punch has always been a bit iffy. What I find strange is that the two moves haven't been "fixed" by letting them along with Rockbreaker being the monk's AoE combo chain. I'd rather see the silence effect disappear from Arm in preference to a more solid AoE attack. Currently single target direct damage can be seen in the BS/TS/SP combo; buff placers to shift things in the monk's favour is found in the DK/TS/Demo combo. Arm/OIP/RB could (should?) have been our go-to AoE combo.

That being said, I haven't really found the 4.0 monk personal damage to be lacking. But as many has noted, the job now feels schizophrenic in how it feels to play it and to some extent what it's trying to do. I don't know if the items below solves everything, but just instinctively I'd make it so that:

- Arm/OIP/Demo serving as AoE damage combo (compare to SAM's Fuga combo, DRG Doom Spike combo). I do with this was the case. A proper AoE combo. Strip the actions of their silences and stuns, adjust potency so it doesn't get too crazy in damage output. But in the end, make the full 3x3 set of core monk weaponskills relevant and prevalent in regular play. Actually, rename One Ilm Punch to Tornado or Hurricane Kick if the name doesn't feel right. Ivon Coerlfist got a move like that. So could other monks.

- Riddle of Earth granting Earth's Reply (GL refresh) when taking damage as long as the RoE buff is active. Not just for the first instance. RoE should from the start grant an additional +X% mitigation instead of baking into the reply effect. In raid environments it'd give monk a decent personal mitigation tool. Maybe it can open up scenarios where monks are desirable for dealing with certain mechanics over other dps jobs as they can survive the blast by themselves. The +X% mitigation doesn't really matter in standard dungeon and overworld content. Monsters rarely if ever have moves that would justify leaving FoF.

- Riddle of Wind being the utility action. If utility is stripped from Arm/OIP but needs to go somewhere (since ninjas got innate silence and dragoons got innate stun), have the RoW work like Dark Arts and modify existing weaponskills or abilities to stun or silence. This RoW utility buff could have it's duration adjusted to make it more or less flexible in relation to when the stun or silence is needed. Personally, I have yet to get any use out of two charges of a weak variant of Shoulder Tackle in PvE content and I'd rather see RoW do something interesting. If it needs more impact, the silence and stun can be made to go through diminishing returns.

- Riddle of Fire should stop killing our haste from GL. It's not strange to think that a buff like RoF or B4B should have a cost associated with it. There should be a risk associated so that good decision making is rewarded. Personally, I'd make RoF be an inverse Embolden. You start at some bonus percentage and the bonus grows with time. The drawback is that if you take damage the growth stops. That way the monk gets a good bonus if the timing is right and a weak bonus if mistakes are made. Naturally I'm biased in favour of this RoF variant, but I'd be able to sail with most other variants that didn't mess with GL speed.

- Tackle Mastery is garbage. Remove it. It has no impact on gameplay decisions and the earth variant is basically an active detriment. I'd rather see the bonuses baked into other things.

[MauvaisOeil]

AOTD could be a lower potency, lower cost AOE, designed for long AOE where TP could become an issue. At first you start with AOTD/twin or true strike / rockbreaker, and if TP become an issue you shift to Aotd/twi or true strike / Snap punch for lower damage lower cost AOE.

I don't think having three AOE moves would be a good thing on monk, it would just remove it's flavor, but a second aoe move on a different stance with different purpose would be interesting.

[Wollip]

What we need to look at is what makes Ninjas and Dragoons so viable.

Ninjas and Dragoons can raise the entire raid's damage by a significant amount that makes the additional damage Monk's bring to the table insignificant. The former jobs' buffs affect the entire raid, with the addition of bringing slashing and piercing debuffs which actually helps more than their own job.

With blunt damage resistance down, who do Monks help? Only themselves. It doesn't even apply the intelligence down debuff anymore that made it somewhat more useful in earlier days.

Dragoon's Eyes and Litany affect casters and physical damage dealers, as well as healers. Ninja brings unparalleled aggro control to the table, that no other class can achieve.

If we take a close look at why every party desires Dragoons and Ninjas so much, we can begin to fix Monk as a more balanced and viable addition to raid groups.

They're not that far off actually, but a small buff here and there (not necessarily damage) would go a long way.

[SpeckledBurd]

-Monk vs Ninja and Dragoon balance stuff-

For the most part Monk and whether or not it's viable/competitive with Dragoon Ninja isn't what's being discussed here, it's just the issue's Monks kit has (many of which date back to ARR mind you) and its play style in Stormblood overall.

[Xaert]

I wouldn't expect anything decently tweaked to Monk before 4.4. I'm sure the developers don't pay attention to any of the English forums (for an understandable reason, painfully admitted) but even within the JP forums' Monk Thread, there's heavy opposition to how Monk currently stands, so we have that ray of light to cling onto. Hell, I'd be happy with them even acknowledging on a Liveletter that they hear Monk's malcontent without throwing the "It's working as intended, please try it out™."

They're just not going to change mnk with a patch.

But bro. Bro, I won't jus- Bro, you listening? I won't just accept this as fact. Before 4.0 even hit, WHM's playerbase flipped their lid on how WHM performed currently with the Lilies, even with the developers saying that it's "an old build" not near the final and they took that to heart and really laid into changes concerning Lilies. Warrior's problems were addressed and, as we can see, are being slowly resolved with the changed being made to Shake It Off in 4.1.

Monk's performance, not DPS mind you, Monk's skill kit performance has been an issue since the beginning of Heavensward; I only predate it that far since that's the approximate time I began playing; Stepping into the game with the general consensus of your favorite niche job being revolved around the meme of #deletemnk isn't exactly a welcome stigma. The development team can stand to start tweaking Monk here and there to see both community and Dev Team work cohesively toward a solution, there's no apparent reason that I can see why they can't.

[Lastelli]

But bro. Bro, I won't jus- Bro, you listening? I won't just accept this as fact. Before 4.0 even hit, WHM's playerbase flipped their lid on how WHM performed currently with the Lilies, even with the developers saying that it's "an old build" not near the final and they took that to heart and really laid into changes concerning Lilies. Warrior's problems were addressed and, as we can see, are being slowly resolved with the changed being made to Shake It Off in 4.1.

Uhmmmmm you're not familiar with the healers' current state, are you? WHM problems are still there. They changed the lily mechanic to make it not rng because in a game like this where fight mechanics are heavily scripted, rng healing is pure idiocy (they also changed lightspeed and aetherflow rng traits by the way), but this didn't change the fact that the lily system as a whole is still totally useless and most whm raiders don't even look at their lily gauge. Also, they made a very simple change since they just made the proc rate from cure 1 and 2 100% instead of 20%. Similarly, WAR got some very small changes to their wrath gauge to allow for easier stance swap. But people here are pretty much asking for a MNK overhaul so it's a completely different issue. I really don't think they will do that in a patch, especially since they said things like "wait and see how it performs in omega savage", so they clearly don't think that MNK needs to be changed. And btw I was a MNK main for most of HW so I'm aware of the #deletemnk meme, but at that time the biggest issue was actually MNK's dps coupled with lack of party synergy. That's why we now have brotherhood, they wanted to give mnk some party synergy...and that's why sam dps is so high (but probably still not high enough). Anyway the biggest issue is MNK total lack of complexity or flavor aside from GL and positionals...and these two things alone are not enough to give identity to a job, not now when any other dps job has a distinguishing feature. It was a problem in HW too, MNK has been the easy to pick melee for a while, but now it's even worse because all other dps got a guage that actually changed something in their gameplay, be it songs, heat, bahamut, botd etc. while MNK got...a nice presentation for the stacks they already had back in HW, I guess. Very disappointing. I don't even care about RoF, I don't dislike that skill, but aside from that it really feels like MNK is the same easy job it was in HW, maybe even easier since they took fracture away and made MNK into a 1-2-3 job.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

snip

Those were still beneficial changes. Despite their insistence, I sincerely doubt they had any intentions of changing those percentages prior to the immense backlash. The stance swap penalty was no small change either as it had a rather noticeable impact on Warrior's potential burst. Regardless, most here haven't asked for any changes that different from Shake it Off. Likewise, they could easily reduce Perfect Balance's cooldown or make Fist of Earth and Wind offer some reason to not constantly maintain Fire. Monk mains are primarily fed up the job has seen virtually no new additions, and the few changes they did make are wholly useless. Even White Mages got Thin Air.