The state of Monk in Shadowbringers (long)

[gumas]

i really really hope they fix/balance monk soon, even the jp community are raising their voices about monk

[Jack-Rakan]

They just need to either give us back a couple ogcd's/put PB timer back to 60seconds and give us wind tackle back.

tbh I dont like the 'charged' tackles, since I liked that with wind tackle if the boss to the other side of the arena i can get with its range and get that free GL stack.
I almost never used the TK rotation/opener but I still use TK for either transitions or a final hit before the boss dies.

Also the tooltip has a typo and TK is actually apparently 430, not 330. and I can tell since when I get my little burst windows it's crit is higher then what a 330 potency should give.
Doesnt really make it any better since you can only use it once every 120 seconds, which is when PB comes up and you can get your stacks back. My skill speed is ungodly high anyway(1778) so even with RoF the slowdown isnt noticed with me. since it takes me to 2.25s or so from 1.97sec's I have under FoF GL3, when normally I am at 2.37sec for so.

speaking of the jp community I saw the job satisfaction graph and... monk is pretty low in those numbers.

[silverdragontyr]

I don't know how others feel but I don't enjoy having to use PB to rebuild stacks. In fact I don't having to rebuild stacks at all. I am getting use out of SSS and I enjoy it's viability but anything below 80 or with long transitions is still a nightmare on Mnk.

The lack of Sks on endgame gear currently is also pathetic. I definitely feel the slowdown from that. I know some people think "Oh it's just start of new expansion it'll change as we get more stuff" but it's the start of a trend I'm personally not a fan of. On your relic set you have Sks on one piece for +236. On Ronka gear you have it on 3/11 pieces totaling +600. On both endgame sets you currently can get it's on less than 1/4 the pieces.

In contrast, The iL.400 set from 10 levels ago has Sks on 8/11 pieces totaling 1409... 10 levels higher and we can't even get half of the Sks we had.

I don't mind maintaining GL in 80 fights. It's a bit of a chore but not the worst thing ever. Just either give us a way to instantly get max stacks back so god forbid we DO drop stacks we're not spending a significant time just trying to get back to match other DPS, or forcing us to save an ability that can be used for good damage output purely as our GL rescue button.

[Xaert]

The amount of neglect that Monk has been given, despite the devs saying they "reworked" the job, is revolting. If anyone could actually consider Monk a fun and engaging class right now, they're surely still in the stage of denial or haven't played Monk for very long. What the balance team did to Monk regressed it to a state I'd consider much much worse than 2.0 Monk and I have absolutely no faith that they're going to fix it now, this expansion, next expansion, and so on.

As OP said, the stark dissonance between what the majority of Monks want (Fast-paced combat, a flowing combo rotation) and what Monk has (RNG-based damage output, forced slowdown of playstyle) plainly shows without any doubt that the devs actually have no idea what to do with Monk. My closest assumption is that they're trying to make the class much more appealing to newer players since Monk itself has one of the smallest job communities. Those that are in the community have played Monk for a long time, or love what Monk can be but just quite isn't. All in all, I have no faith in the developers; the Japanese community is my only hope for any slight change, though I heavily believe that Yoshida will just say "The class is performing as expected, so we have no plans to change anything currently." Just as they did for Stormblood.

The overall pacing of Monk is something that I never hear that I'm glad that OP also brought up. Monk pre-70 is absolutely grueling to play, let alone pre-50. If you really want to make Monk better? Change the levels at which you get skills. Before Heavensward, you have your base combo and Shoulder Tackle for your damage combo. No Internal Release for a burst, no more oGCDs to press, not even Perfect Balance til 50. Why do you think Monk is so unpopular? Did you want them to not feel like they're actually a burst rotation until they're 68 with Riddle of Fire? Did you want them to feel like Monk hitting fast with no high peak of damage the identity? Why keep the slowdown then? "We slow you down so you don't have trouble double-weaving oGCDs." Then why take away all our oGCDs? Why have our entire burst rotation at the end of the Stormblood? There's so many poor decisions and contradicting statements. Monk was not a bad job, the devs intentionally MADE it a bad job and you can't say that they didn't mean to. The only redeemable quality that Monks have is that their damage output is fantastic, which I'm sure the devs will use as an excuse at some point.

I don't care if I'm being too negative, I don't care if I'm being overdramatic, I've played Monk since mid-2.0 and I've voiced before how much I didn't like Monk in 4.0 (though I did like the TK rotation, that was a fun addition midway through the expac, RIP TK rotation). The only way devs change things is if players throw a big enough fit, but the Monk community isn't even big enough TO throw a fit.

I don't need Monk to be the best DPS, I don't mind if it's the lowest DPS. I just want my class to be fun again. Is that too much to ask from a video game?

[silverdragontyr]

You said something that I think has been an elephant in the room for a long time. I'm going to compare to Overwatch, don't worry it'll make sense.

You mention they want to attract more casual or newer players with these changes and I think that's fair assumption for changes for a lot of classes. Sch losing a lot of it's damage ect. In Overwatch, there is a large cast of characters or "classes" if you will. Some simply ARE more advanced, technical and harder to play. It's a nature of their character. They don't dumb those characters down. Mnk by the nature of being a speed and combo based job, is kind of a technical class. The FFXIV team has been trying to keep all jobs easy to approach so everyone can enjoy them.

FFXIV Class development team if you're reading this... Please stop this.

Accept some classes will simply be harder to play. It's in the nature of having an increasing amount of classes to keep them varied. Accept Mnk isn't a job you can keep fun while maintaining a "simple" play style. Let us go fast as lightning. "Oh but then you can't double weave skills." You absolutely can. There is NO downside to speeding the Mnk up. If your argument is "If your GCD is too fast then any time not attacking to use other skills is wasted." That's part of what makes Mnk fun. Striving to be the fastest you can with muscle memory, finding good combos and and optimizing your rotation. You balance maybe letting that GCD sit a moment for using a buff that increases all further WS Crit/Dmg ect for the next 15 seconds.

When 2.0 first came out and you told us about the new Mnk, you said it would play like a fighting game. Bring that back. Give us great potential. Make Mnk skill ceiling the freaking moon. Give us buffs to manage. Give us speed. Let us be The Dragon.

It will make Mnk hard to approach for new comers. Yeah, yeah it will. Accept not all classes will be easy to play. Accept some classes will have a lot of depth and take a lot of practice and I guarentee you your fans, especially Mnk fans will be happier for it.

[Carstien]

I love the official forums. The vocal minority create an echo chamber, shadowbringers edition.


Not one of you can say with any certainty what most monks want, nor can I. Most players won't ever see this thread, I only saw it because I was waiting for a queue and bored. For the record I'm fine with monk, there are things I'd rather have, I miss the tk rotation a little but instead of whining I'm learning how to make the best of what we have like a lot of other players. Sss can give you an extra couple hundred dps on the extremes if you use it well, I think that's pretty fun.

[Sora_Oathkeeper]

snip

Of course not one person can definitively say what they want Monk to be. The devs made sure of that by dividing the player base in stormblood with all RoF, RnG chakra procs, removal of dots and contradicting kit while many other jobs got more added to their kit which benefitted the aesthetic of the job. It was already the 2nd least played job in SB according to FFlogs and it will be the lowest now. The job just doesnt evolve outside of maintaining GL, which, after years is getting stale.

No other job is actively punished like Monk is. Imagine if using xenoglossy on BLM got rid of AF and UI as well as Enochian. It would feel terrible to use because you'd have to ramp up again. That's what TK feels like now and server ticks on Anatman can mean it takes between 12 and 15 seconds to gain back GL4 after a phase transition, couple that with having to form shift x3 and build chakras back up which takes about 15 seconds just to get prepared for the boss coming back. That's around 30 seconds just to be fully buffed after a phase transition assuming TK was used prior. It's busy work for the sake of it.

Form Shift should give a formless buff enabling any stance attack for one GCD while also refreshing the current GL, similar to umbral soul/transpose. That takes out all of the nonsense with Anatman, RoE, PB and current form shift. TK should be rewarded for good play imo, exactly like xeno and foul.
Internal Release should be added back along with steal peak. SP should give guarantees 5 chakras every 2 mins or so. SSS is so niche and situational and competes with chakra gains, I'll give an example, imagine you are 3/5 chakras, there is a an aoe which will take 2 gcds to move out from. If you SSS you gain a 400 pot gcd, but if you chakra twice you gain TFC ogcd for 370pot plus whatever GCD you would have used instead of SSS. Six sided star is only decent if it doesn't cost you a forbidden chakra in the fight.

Despite the complaints I don't mind Monk. But it's a shell of its former self when compared to the TK rotation Monk. It also just feels like there's a lot missing from the job when compared to other jobs. I would still like to see changes though in some form to make the job more engaging rather than busy work just for the sake of it.

[Physic]

I love the official forums. The vocal minority create an echo chamber, shadowbringers edition.


Not one of you can say with any certainty what most monks want, nor can I. Most players won't ever see this thread, I only saw it because I was waiting for a queue and bored. For the record I'm fine with monk, there are things I'd rather have, I miss the tk rotation a little but instead of whining I'm learning how to make the best of what we have like a lot of other players. Sss can give you an extra couple hundred dps on the extremes if you use it well, I think that's pretty fun.

i disagree with the OPs main points, and it does show that monk players aren't all wanting the same thing, but even you say you find it less fun, also mnk is suffering more sharply from the skill treadmill design of SE than some other classes. They reworked some skills/mechanics then put them in the new 10 levels. You basically lose your stack control, then slowly get it back, lose gcds, then get some back.

point is, right now mnk is less entertaining for a lot of mnk players, which is probably the opposite of what you want in a new expansion.

[Physic]

Of course not one person can definitively say what they want Monk to be. The devs made sure of that by dividing the player base in stormblood with all RoF, RnG chakra procs, removal of dots and contradicting kit while many other jobs got more added to their kit which benefitted the aesthetic of the job. It was already the 2nd least played job in SB according to FFlogs and it will be the lowest now. The job just doesnt evolve outside of maintaining GL, which, after years is getting stale.

No other job is actively punished like Monk is. Imagine if using xenoglossy on BLM got rid of AF and UI as well as Enochian. It would feel terrible to use because you'd have to ramp up again. That's what TK feels like now and server ticks on Anatman can mean it takes between 12 and 15 seconds to gain back GL4 after a phase transition, couple that with having to form shift x3 and build chakras back up which takes about 15 seconds just to get prepared for the boss coming back. That's around 30 seconds just to be fully buffed after a phase transition assuming TK was used prior. It's busy work for the sake of it.

Form Shift should give a formless buff enabling any stance attack for one GCD while also refreshing the current GL, similar to umbral soul/transpose. That takes out all of the nonsense with Anatman, RoE, PB and current form shift. TK should be rewarded for good play imo, exactly like xeno and foul.
Internal Release should be added back along with steal peak. SP should give guarantees 5 chakras every 2 mins or so. SSS is so niche and situational and competes with chakra gains, I'll give an example, imagine you are 3/5 chakras, there is a an aoe which will take 2 gcds to move out from. If you SSS you gain a 400 pot gcd, but if you chakra twice you gain TFC ogcd for 370pot plus whatever GCD you would have used instead of SSS. Six sided star is only decent if it doesn't cost you a forbidden chakra in the fight.

Despite the complaints I don't mind Monk. But it's a shell of its former self when compared to the TK rotation Monk. It also just feels like there's a lot missing from the job when compared to other jobs. I would still like to see changes though in some form to make the job more engaging rather than busy work just for the sake of it.

fflogs isn't a good measurement of general population, since the majority of users are high end raiders focused on performance in high end content. Regardless of entertainment value, if mnk had consistently higher dps, with similar difficulty to pull it off, it would have a lot of fflog users.


i agree it needs changes though, because right now, it's simply less entertaining than before, leveling to 80 or buying a new expansion to eventually become a bit less fun than it used to be isn't an attractive concept

[Xaert]

I love the official forums. The vocal minority create an echo chamber, shadowbringers edition.


Not one of you can say with any certainty what most monks want, nor can I. Most players won't ever see this thread, I only saw it because I was waiting for a queue and bored. For the record I'm fine with monk, there are things I'd rather have, I miss the tk rotation a little but instead of whining I'm learning how to make the best of what we have like a lot of other players. Sss can give you an extra couple hundred dps on the extremes if you use it well, I think that's pretty fun.

"Lol, I'm fine with the class so you all are the vocal minority."

There recently was a survey including all jobs for the JP playerbase expressing how much they were satisfied with their job changes. Monk was 3rd to last, only beat by AST and SCH, and I'm only sure those were beating it because the general playerbase for that is larger. To try and invalidate what we've been saying for 2, soon to be 4, years on why we think this class isn't fun and needs change is folly. Change doesn't come by just hoping for it. SSS can give an extra hundred DPS in the extremes, but so what? It's not fun to use; it's one more piece of GL management bloat that surely Monk needed with how sparse their GL management is. Take a look at the JP forums, even with Google Translate, you'll see that the minority are the people who are actually content with what Monk is now.