Monk ignored for 4.1

[Alexalibur]

SpeckledBurd summed up everything that MNK suffers from quite well, but I'd like to add my own thoughts here.

I really feel like the class wouldn't become OP whatsoever if we removed the form timer and let it stay as is, with an option to remove it like AST's Undraw. One massive problem I have, and a lot of others do, is the whole button mashing game you play before fights in order to get your 5 chakras. I farmed A1s for my relic and let me tell you, pressing one button 5 times then 3 times to get to the right form is just quite annoying. Now repeat that process for over 100 x 2 times and you just start hating the class. At this point I'd take QoLs over buffs because it just feels annoying to play MNK these days. I haven't gotten to 70 yet, but as far as I know, the class hasn't changed much.

Why does Steel Peak still exist? No seriously, why? It's the definition of Button Bloat, the thing SE wanted to get rid of. It's the most bland, useless skill in the entire game and adds nothing to MNK's playstyle and it's just a silly button you press on CD. It exists in some classes like NIN's Jugulate and PLD's Spirits Within, which both have AT LEAST some degree of usefulness. It's not like Jump back in pre-HW where Jump just does damage. Jump had the job's aesthetic, and it had power up to 300 potency with Power Surge, and it felt strong to use, with a good, and rather risky animation. Steel Peak is just...there. Seriously, make it useful or just remove it outright. It's the most boring ability in the entire game.

[Brownondorf]

Yup, looking at Steel peak, riddles, shoulder tackles, no more touch of death and one ilm punch, its like they didnt know what to do at all with monk before releasing stormblood and gave us this at the last minute... and now they are really taking their time adressing the issue of the job making no sense at all and beeing far less fun than in heavensward :/

[Lastelli]

Why is Monk, the job with the most positionals, the only job that hasn't gotten decreased punishment for missed positionals, especially in a raid tier where everything seems to want to face the group and screw up everything.

Well, this is a funny question. The answer is: because mnk is all about positionals. If you compare MNK to any other melee, it's easy to see that the job's personal mechanic IS its positionals. You basically have nothing else to manage since you more or less use everything on cd, when you exclude the extremely trivial "don't use IR before bootshine". DRG have eye stacks/geirskogul/lotd management, which became much more important and engaging after 4.1 changes. NIN have ninjutsu and a separate ninki rotation built around TA and TCJ that changes based on almost every fight. SAM have 3 non linear combos + sen and kenki management. I mean, if you take the positionals away from MNK or make them very forgiving...you have an easier versione of PLD. At least PLD has a magic session lol

Why should Monk's "buff" work against them to the point where Demolish has to be either clipped heavily or is dropped for a tick?

This really doesn't make a difference. The only thing that matters is damage. DoTs clipping is totally irrelevant, unless you're some kind of crazy DoT maniac. DRG always clip their CT DoT, the same is true for NIN's SF and there are also instances where SAM might have to clip higanbana dot depending on hagakure cd and available sen. But I could probably just say "Iron Jaws" and leave it at that. In short, DoT clipping is a very weak argument.

[Silver-Strider]

snip

There are so many flaws with this that I don't even know where to start.
Considering that other melee jobs still have positionals, to state that it's MNK's personal mechanic is ludicrous. I still remember when DRG had just as many positionals as MNK and were much more punished for missing them then MNK ever was (No Heavy Thrust buff if not used from Flank being the most frustrating IMO back in the day). Additionally, the fact even an entirely new melee class (SAM) has positionals as well just further makes this train of thought laughably bad. Then, you state that damage is all that matters but when MNKs damage is being kneecaped by it's "own" mechanics, doesn't this sort of demonstrate the exact problem with MNK? Why is it that every other class keeps getting free passes while MNK is sort of left to the wayside?

[Silver-Strider]

PLD's Spirits Within.....(silence)..

Spirit Within no longer silences.

[Alexalibur]

Spirit Within no longer silences.

I had no idea. Thanks for correcting me.

[Sora_Oathkeeper]

snip

I mean, back when MNK was actually top dps, positionals being on every form gcd was basically what determined the good MNKs from the bad. I agree though that positionals is not just MNK's mechanic, every melee has them. But MNK is punished way more than it should be now. We are no longer the top personal DPS in the game. Our skill ceiling is still just as high and just as punishing as ever before in fact even more so because we cannot offset a positional with ToD or Fracture. And True North's CD is so fucking long that it's nothing but a short term fix in a fight like V3s where the boss is constantly jumping around. Not to mention our buff timers are so short compared to everyone elses. Honestly DRG still has something like 6s on refreshing HT, that's almost 3 GCDs, TwS and DK have about 3s left? Basically 1-2 GCD away from falling off (during RoF it's more like 1s before refresh) That's almost the equivalent of running out of a melee range aoe attack and our buffs fall off.

The gap becomes even bigger when you factor in potencies at GL3. For reference, Snap punch is 170 from the flank and 130 from outside that. GL3(factoring out other buffs) puts it up to 221 from the flank and 169 from outside. That 40 potency drop off is now actually a 52 potency drop off. Now imagine we factor in all other buffs excluding RoF. positional = 280.78 potency. missed positional = 214.71. That's 66.07 potency lost. now imagine if we miss the positional inside RoF's window. 365 - 279= 86 potency drop off. Monk is punished really badly for missing any positional than any other melee (except maybe TA) but you have 10s to hit the rear. Despite having a simple rotation, the potency drop off on missed positionals, short timers on forms and buffs, perfect balance's ridiculous CD length, combined with clunky gimmicks to keep GL3 make Monk a real pain to play. I mained the job since 2.1 and it felt good to play for ARR and HW, because it felt like from ARR -> HW that monk actually progressed. We got a way to expend GL3 when we could keep it, we got a way to get to GL quicker with form shift, and we got 2 of the most badass abilities in the form of Forbidden Chakra and Elixir Field. I felt like the job progressed and the HW story set up for more opportunities to gain different chakra abilities (seriously, 7 chakras of light and 7 chakras of darkness and we can only use 5 still(?)) But this time we got Brotherhood, RoE, RoF, Deep Med. & the best one, fire tackle. Yay. 3 buffs and 2 traits.

No new dps skills on a DPS. a buff that was basically a b4b replacement except with a hinderance attached. The worst raid buff in the game, brotherhood. Although not bad for gaining chakras, but I'd rather deep meditation worked off GL3 refreshes when GL3 was already active(At least it would have some synergy with PB) instead of deep med and brotherhood chakras working against each other and missing potential forbidden chakras because RNG. And lastly we got RoE, because apparently hitting a CD to just refresh your already lowest timer in the game wasn't easy enough like it is with DRGs 30s timer (that can actually be as high as 80s counting LotD>BotD>CD BotD) and BLMs Enochian that can already be kept indefinitely with transpose. Nope we got the short end of the stick and have to actually be hit. Can't hit that last snap punch before the boss jumps? GG you now have about 7-8s to be hit.(even if you TK the boss would jump before the damage applies loll) But it's okay you can spam form shift because that 10s timer is going to run out too, too bad your last hit crit and you got a 5th chakra which you now can't even use meditation to make use of your downtime. The saddest part of all this is that despite hating what MNK has become when it had so much potential to become something even more than it's HW iteration, it just doesn't. I wonder how many more posts we need before we'll get GL4 in some way. I mean they said it was a possibility and after everything else we got this expansion GL4 would be my saving grace to the job as it was the most obvious progression point for the job.

use my fflogs for reference. I've played MNK at a high skill level for a long time

[Rhaja]

People always say it. It feels like it's some kind of white knight defense mechanism set in place to delay disappointment or something at this point.

Anyway, it's pretty clear that Monk needs a full rework. Speed is no longer their thing, and SE seems to be terrified of making us go faster. So what we end up with is a job that moves as fast as a Ninja, with a longer ramp up, positionals up the ass and beyond punishing downtimes because for whatever reason, PB is still on a billion minute CD.

I'm really glad to see I'm not the only one who see's this issue. As of right now DRG is the only melee DPS who doesn't get a haste buff, which really makes MNK's supposed focus on Speed really hard to swallow.

What I can get behind is ramp up and stockpiling, something MNK already does fairly well. I would honestly prefer GL and Chakra's to become something more akin to combo points that MNK spends on oGCD's.

[wereotter]

Some easy band-aid type of fixes that could be considered:

Riddle of Earth: Grants earth's reply, fists of earth, and refreshes greased lightning ON USE, and not on being attacked. I like using Fists of Earth in a case where unavoidable damage is about to go out and I can't punch anything, like after the second sword in Susano EX or during Divine Doubt in Lakshmi EX, so getting both that mitigation and greased lightning refresh would be good. Possibly keep the same refresh on Greased Lightning for EVERY hit you take while earth's reply is active in addition to the initial refresh. OR apply the greased lighting refresh upon entering fists of wind, and let earth's reply deal damage back to the enemy for every attack you take. (which would also be an asset to the monk when soloing stuff in the world since every enemy has a positional ring the monk can never utilize)

Riddle of Fire: Remove the debuff on speed, even if that means a reduction to the potency increase. So something like maybe a flat 15-20% boost to all damage dealt.

Tackle Mastery: Remove entirely. It's a pointless buff. No fight has needed us to riddle of wind, no monk wants to knock back an enemy so it can't be hit.

Brotherhood: Apply the "Devotion" change and have it increase damage dealt by all nearby party members by 5%, not just physical damage. Have the 30% chakra opening also trigger on allies landing spells.

Also, reduce the cooldown on True North. There are far too many mechanics in Omega EX that require you to be in set positions for monk to not be completely hosed for missing positionals that they have no choice but to miss, and only getting to bypass that every two and a half minutes is not good enough. I would say make it a 60 second cooldown, which would have the side benefit of lining up for ninja with trick attack, so they can ensure trick attack always lands (just in case a boss turns)

[Greywolfamakir]

Everything we're discussing in here is to help Monk's current playstyle and clunkiness, not push us into the meta.

ok...lets read...

Why should Monk be so heavily reliant on physical comps to the point where we're massively gimped if we happen to have two casters?

gameplay? no, its about comps, no gameplay or "fun" here, just "pls make monk meta"

Why is Monk, the job with the most positionals, the only job that hasn't gotten decreased punishment for missed positionals, especially in a raid tier where everything seems to want to face the group and screw up everything.

gameplay? nope again, its about "positional punish"...its about Potency and DPS...again "monk should be meta !! "