Monk rework/dmg nerf idea.

[IruruCece]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in Stormblood using Riddle of Fire and Riddle of Earth would force you in to their respective Fist stance though that has since been changed in ShB. The Fists also had unique Shoulder Charge effects which was also changed, so it begs the question in the current iteration is there any need in the stances or at least could one be removed or upgraded at later levels to something else (Fists of Earth)? Like the fists could be kept but they could be built in to current actions or one or two be changed in to traits. We keep Fists of Fire active most of the time, switching to Fists of Wind once GL4 is unlocked (and that if a little OP as well but not sure how to adjust it if it should be).

GL4 is hardly OP and not the problem with Monk damage right now.

If they make it so that riddle of fire forces us out of Fists of Wind again, then they have to adjust RoF AND Fists of Fire to justify why we have to lose GL4 to begin with (by buffing them most likely, which would make the backseat developers of the forums upset again when munk potencee go up). If they don't adjust them to justify that change, then just what would the point of these buttons be? Would we be adding complexity for the sake of complexity? That doesn't seem to work, just ask all the NIN players who gave up on their job early into ShB. Sure, it's satisfying to do neat button bemani to make the numbers appear, but when you have to put in a lot of effort for middling results, people get salty.

Coincidentally, that was one of the problems people had with monks in the past, that we would work pretty hard to do our one job, but struggle to keep up with other jobs nonetheless. The changes in Shadowbringers let Monks do great output... at the cost of ignoring some pretty core parts of our design, in addition to completely unmaking positive changes to the job after Stormblood's disasterpiece. It's a bandaid on a gaping chestwound of design missteps.

[Vendalwind]

I'd much rather fist stances be changed like so:

Fists of Wind becomes a trait that increases movement speed
Fists of Fire and Fists of Earth consolidated into one skill and made into a Single Target and AOE stance
Fists of Earth Changes bootshine, twinsnakes, and snap punch into Arm of the Destroyer, Four-point Fury (which now grants the twinsnakes buff instead of refreshing it), and rockbreaker respectively.

That would justify fist stances existing, while also having the benefit of reducing hotbar clutter.
Heck, with a single target and AOE stance monk could get many of it's lost skills back with things like Steel peak and howling fist interchanging depending on the stance.

I actually considered earth and fire as switching between single target and aoe. My one problem with this is adapting for 3 and 2 enemy rotatio. wise because for both of those you want to shift between single and aoe right?

[Shurrikhan]

No. We want to get rid of fist stances. Not lock more skills behind them to try to justify their existence.

"We"? MNK's been my first or among my first jobs leveled to cap and most often played since ARR, and I absolutely want MORE from fist stances.

[Ramura_Sono]

The Devs have had 6 years to mess around with Fist stances and have failed time and time again. So, no. It's time for them to go.

Could they be an interesting Job mechanic? Sure. But we've seen the Devs attempts to validate them. How long should we wait until they get it right?
Short of a rework where Fist stance dancing becomes monks main mechanic rather than GL there's no reason to keep them around. They either end up with skills locked behind them, or get bonus situational effects...on a job that already has too many situational skills.

[Shurrikhan]

The Devs have had 6 years to mess around with Fist stances and have failed time and time again. So, no. It's time for them to go.

There is no "time and time again" here. In those six years they made only 1 attempt at designing Fists stances. The question of "can Monk stances ever be made worthwhile" has for its data a sample size of exactly... 1 attempt. I don't find that convincing one way or the other.

They are not a frequently tried, frequently failed experiment. A single attempt to tie into Fists, solely to meet the minimum requirement for new skills in Stormblood, is hardly even good measure of whether that one particular iteration had potential merit, let alone the Fists system as a whole.

And let's be clear: the Riddles were not an attempt to make the Fists stances more significant. (The only skill that has come close to that is Riddle of Wind after its buff.) The riddles were ways to mitigate unavoidable Monk-specific issues: downtime costing us our GL, and being unable to double-weave during our burst phase. That they tied into that existing framework may call attention to the Fists, but they did not change the Fists stances themselves in any way.

ARR fist stances failed becuase you wanted to be in 1 99% of the time.
SB Fist stances failed becuase you wanted to be in one 99% of the time. The elemental tackles were a failure until the Riddle of Wind change. Which itself had no reason to be tied to Fists of Wind and simply could've been tacked onto Shoulder Tackle itself.
ShB Fist stances fail because...surprise surprise you want to be in one 99% of the time.

Because, *gasp*, we're still using ARR fist stances. They're never changed. We're still using the original concept, just with percentile rebalancing and GL4 locked behind one form. We never once even tried to change them from the "Use one form 99% of the time" design. We have therefore proven that such a take on Fists is not compelling. That says nothing about what else can be done.

[Ramura_Sono]

ARR fist stances failed becuase you wanted to be in 1 99% of the time.
SB Fist stances failed becuase you wanted to be in one 99% of the time. The elemental tackles were a failure until the Riddle of Wind change. Which itself had no reason to be tied to Fists of Wind and simply could've been tacked onto Shoulder Tackle itself.
ShB Fist stances fail because...surprise surprise you want to be in one 99% of the time.
Nothing in SB and ShB that is tied to fist stances has any need to be except as a way to justify using anything other than Fists of Fire.
It's not interesting. It's not well thought out. And with the amount of thought that has historically been put into Monk, it's not likely to change at any time.

So, no. Accept Fist Stances as the bloat they are and remove them. There are far more interesting things that can be done with the rest of Monks kit.

[Vendalwind]

ARR fist stances failed becuase you wanted to be in 1 99% of the time.
SB Fist stances failed becuase you wanted to be in one 99% of the time. The elemental tackles were a failure until the Riddle of Wind change. Which itself had no reason to be tied to Fists of Wind and simply could've been tacked onto Shoulder Tackle itself.
ShB Fist stances fail because...surprise surprise you want to be in one 99% of the time.
Nothing in SB and ShB that is tied to fist stances has any need to be except as a way to justify using anything other than Fists of Fire.
It's not interesting. It's not well thought out. And with the amount of thought that has historically been put into Monk, it's not likely to change at any time.

So, no. Accept Fist Stances as the bloat they are and remove them. There are far more interesting things that can be done with the rest of Monks kit.

I refuse to accept that. Also if your gripe is being in one stance 99% of the time then my post is reasonable. Now your in one stance ~70% of the time 30% in the other, and earth occasionally as needed cutting into the 70%.

Could make it more distinct and tricky too if you wanted. I thought itd be too frustrating to deal with, but you could also buff leaden to 3x the potency, but make it take 3 charges of dragon kick before it was available. Then lock leaden behond earth. Now 2 gcds out of 12 have to also be in earth (switching back to wind before 3rd move for greased lightning 4) and perfect balance now also enforces an extra earth switch. Pk could be perfectly timed to get two leaden in with foresight and planning.

I had the above idea to further balance out time in each stance but decided the complexity wasnt worth it.

[Vendalwind]

Pk i meant pb perfect balance.

[Silver-Strider]

1) Change the CD of Riddle of Fire/Brotherhood to 120 seconds. Extend the duration of Brotherhood to 20 seconds and have it apply to all damage.
2) Remove the GL requirement of Tornado Kick and instead have it be something that can only be used every 3rd refreshing of GL (This also applies to refreshing caused by Riddle of Earth and Anatman) with a 30 second CD.
3) Change Anatman to only grant GL stacks every 3 seconds, regardless of server ticks and lower the CD to 30 seconds.
4) Change SSS into an oGCD that can only be used after a successful Tornado Kick and grant 10 seconds of True North upon its execution with no slow effect.
5) Either remove the True North effect from Riddle of Earth entirely, or reduce it down to 10 seconds at the most.
6) Remove the Fist Stances and untie GL4 from them. They offer nothing to the class and are fluff that can be removed entirely. They can also make the fist stances into just weaker versions of Riddles that change to riddles later on, with Fist of Wind becoming a trait to increase movement speed and Riddle of Wind being the trait to unlock the 2nd Should Tackle.
7) Have Brotherhood naturally generate 1 Chakra every 3 seconds for its duration while also still maintaining the extra chance to earn them from allies.
8) Change Deep Meditation into a 100% guaranteed chakra on crit.

With Brotherhood/Riddle of Fire being on a longer CD you lower MNK's DPS a bit but with the changes to Tornado Kick/SSS as well as the adjustments to Brotherhood and Deep Meditation, you are able to soften the overall nerfs to be less detrimental to MNK as a whole by smoothing out its toolkit in a way that makes it actually enjoyable to utilize your full kit. Tornado kick is no longer a dead skill but something that helps you by unlocking SSS to get another True North effect and with skills like Anatman and Riddle of Earth providing a faster build up towards TK, you can keep that flow going.

Personally, I don't feel that MNK really need a damage nerf all things considered. People say that its over performing because Brotherhood/Mantra is this god tier utility and that ignoring positionals is somehow busted but considering how little those skills actually offer and that the other melee DPS don't even have half the positionals of MNK, I just don't see that as justification for a nerf.

[Kabooa]

"We"? MNK's been my first or among my first jobs leveled to cap and most often played since ARR, and I absolutely want MORE from fist stances.

The only time Monk appealed to me was when Tornado Kick was made possible as a rotation, so they definitely aren't speaking for me.

I understand not all players get the same levers pulled in their head for specific actions, but rapidly swapping "Fist" "Stance" "Options that enable / disable features of the job" absolutely hits all the right levers for me.

Just that one trait in a class/job means it requires more precision, more attention, and ultimately more engagement, and pulling it off successfully -feels amazing-. There's notable and instant feedback when you do it right and do it wrong, and FF14 needs so much more of that.