Changes to Meditation, Tornado Kick, and Other Actions for 5.0 Monk

[Oxdarock]

Stances need to be gone, plain and simple.

Why do they need to be gone though? Aside from FoE only being used in panic situations, I find myself switching between FoF and FoW all the time in my rotation. Never really had a problem with them and it keeps me on my toes (mind you, I'm saying this as a TK rotation user).

[KanameYuuki]

Why do they need to be gone though? Aside from FoE only being used in panic situations, I find myself switching between FoF and FoW all the time in my rotation. Never really had a problem with them and it keeps me on my toes (mind you, I'm saying this as a TK rotation user).

They serve no purpose besides the illusion of choice and depth, at the very least SE realized that making Riddles entirely independent from them, only to then proceed to lock GL 4 to FoW, I do hope they keep FoW walk speed as a trait or something, so useful for repositioning, specially since we lack a disengage.

[SpeckledBurd]

Why do they need to be gone though? Aside from FoE only being used in panic situations, I find myself switching between FoF and FoW all the time in my rotation. Never really had a problem with them and it keeps me on my toes (mind you, I'm saying this as a TK rotation user).

Because as Yuuki said, the Fist stances are an illusion of choice. You should only ever be in Fists of Wind because Greased Lightning 4 is a bigger DPS gain over Fists of Fire outside of building up to GL4 and throwing out a Six Sided Star and a Tornado Kick at the end of the fight.

This is the same problem they've always had, there's one dominant fist stance you should use for Maximum damage outside of extremely niche situations (Brink of Death/Weakness nuking your HP pool in Heavensward meant it was sometimes worth using Fists of Earth for example, but otherwise it was Fire all day every day). Unless there's a fundamental change in the way fist Stances are designed and there's actual reasons to cycle through them rather than just picking one and sitting in it, they're better off going away completely.

[Oxdarock]

Pre-4.2 that might have been the case, but I just don't see it that way now. You clearly want to be in FoW most of the time, but if you want to end a burst window with a big attack, you switch to FoF before doing a 6SS+TK combo (since buffs are multiplicative), then stay in FoF as you build back up to GL4 (mind you, this is only something you'll do if you have Anatman off CD). And then there's FoE for panic situations and while not ideal, they do happen.

I can see them being pointless if you never try and use 6SS+TK mid-combat, but it's a very different story if you do.

[SpeckledBurd]

Pre-4.2 that might have been the case, but I just don't see it that way now. You clearly want to be in FoW most of the time, but if you want to end a burst window with a big attack, you switch to FoF before doing a 6SS+TK combo (since buffs are multiplicative), then stay in FoF as you build back up to GL4 (mind you, this is only something you'll do if you have Anatman off CD). And then there's FoE for panic situations and while not ideal, they do happen.

I can see them being pointless if you never try and use 6SS+TK mid-combat, but it's a very different story if you do.

Doing Six Sided Star and Tornado Kick mid combat is also a damage loss.

[Oxdarock]

Doing Six Sided Star and Tornado Kick mid combat is also a damage loss.

It's not a dps loss so long as you do it with the proper timing, which should only be after a Twin/TS and Anatman is off CD. It is pretty high risk though, in that you only want to do so during the tail end of a buff window. Also really want either TK or 6SS to crit/dh. Those 3 seconds of downtime during a 6SS+Anatman combo really hurt... ^^;

[Takiwaki]

It's not a dps loss so long as you do it with the proper timing, which should only be after a Twin/TS and Anatman is off CD. It is pretty high risk though, in that you only want to do so during the tail end of a buff window. Also really want either TK or 6SS to crit/dh. Those 3 seconds of downtime during a 6SS+Anatman combo really hurt... ^^;

It's not a dps gain either, so why even do it? Do people really miss TK rotation that much?

[Oxdarock]

It's not a dps gain either, so why even do it? Do people really miss TK rotation that much?

Some people, like myself, do. It's just so much more enjoyable than doing the same 3 hit rotation over and over, but you're not quite sure if you're actually doing decent damage. I actually switched to Sam in 4.4 because of this. Then when I went back to monk and started using the TK rotation, it breathed new life into the class for me and was much more enjoyable, timing when to pop RoF or IR so you could get a TK off right at the end of those buff windows and it just hits for a lot.

Doing a bit more experimenting, I've found that it's probably better to hold Anatman for you RoF windows, since it's now in the same place PB was for SB, so you can use 6SS+TK at the end of all those, which makes the falloff from the following 6SS+Anatman combo less punishing. Then you adjust the PB rotation depending on the party comp.

[Kazer]

I will agree with you that executing the TK rotation was very enjoyable compared to what it is now and I miss using the ability more. However, unless they give us a new way to instantly gain a stack using Tornado Kick mid rotation is not viable right now.

I can see Tornado Kick receiving a rework as it goes against every ability they gave us this expansion. It is currently only used right before a long transition and as the very last button you press. That leaves it at only 2-3 times used in an entire fight which is really bad.

I guess my point here is sure, you can do what you like and have more fun this way. However you would be doing better numbers overall by not using TK mid rotation right now.

[Oxdarock]

I will agree with you that executing the TK rotation was very enjoyable compared to what it is now and I miss using the ability more. However, unless they give us a new way to instantly gain a stack using Tornado Kick mid rotation is not viable right now.

I can see Tornado Kick receiving a rework as it goes against every ability they gave us this expansion. It is currently only used right before a long transition and as the very last button you press. That leaves it at only 2-3 times used in an entire fight which is really bad.

I guess my point here is sure, you can do what you like and have more fun this way. However you would be doing better numbers overall by not using TK mid rotation right now.

But that's the thing, the way to gain GL stacks now isn't that much different than in SB. In SB, you'd either use PB to get back GL stacks after RoF window and/or you'd use Wind Tackle right after a Coeurl stance move to put yourself at 2 GL stacks. Now, you can still use PB to get all you stack backs (though you have to balance that with using it to spam LF Bootshine if you have a Nin in the party) and in place of using Wind Tackle after a Coeurl stance move, you use 6SS+Anatman to gain one extra stack, then keep your GCD rolling to gain the third stack naturally. It's literally the same in that regard.

The main difference now is GL4, which is why I initially said that TK should do more damage at GL4 or, if they gave TK the elemental treatment, a Wind TK could leave you with 1 stack of GL so you can instantly get to GL3 two GCDs later and three more to get to GL4 again (considering that GL4 and GL3+FoF give roughly the same damage buff, though the latter is technically more, you wouldn't really lose too much, if any, damage within those 3 GCDs to get back to GL4 again).