Monk Needs a Complete Rework

[Sora_Oathkeeper]

Now I do the leaden fist PB combo and at the last second I pop a Six Sided Star to keep my stacks. So when do I use TK? When the boss is about to die ... or when they're about to do something that makes keeping GL stacks annoying.

You don't use Six sided star in this way either. It's 400 potency but takes up 2GCDs. So unless it's just before a boss jumps it's the equivalent to 200 potency per 1 GCD. Sounds decent until you realise that it halts your rotation and you bread and butter combos are worth more potency than using 6SS. Therefore you are better using Snap or Demo (Demo is much stronger than if it can tick the full duration) within PB. The only time you don't use a coeurl WS is if you have max uptime on Twin and Demo and you can get RoE to proc during PB. Very nich optimization though.

Generally I agree though, many niche skills fulfilling similar roles within the job. It needs an overhaul similar to NIN.

MNK needs meaningful CDs, not just hit it and forget it. It needs to reclaim synergy back with it's kit and to not have skills that just sit there because they are a trap in most cases or you have to play russian roulette with Anatman and hope for GL ticks when TKing. It went from evolution in HW to regressing to a convoluted mess from SB. And while the TK rotation was a breath of fresh air and amazing synergy with PB, Fist stances and IR it was convoluted to pull of still.

NIN right now plays so smooth, everything makes sense, there is clear synergy between skills and ninki and CDs link together and interact (DWAD > Assassinate. Kassatsu > Ninjutsu. TCJ > Meisui.) Mnk has... Crit Boot synergy with Chakra generation very little synergy with anything else in its kit and it's sad when looking at other jobs.

[3ureka]

At the risk of whining, I'm just deeply saddened that the class that got me through the majority of my FFXIV experience feels so lackluster (if not bad) to play. I'm having much more fun with basically all of the other classes (NIN and SAM in particular). I was outright angry with MNK on SB's release, and now I think I'm at the acceptance - albeit disappointed - stage. :/

[Shurrikhan]

Mnk has... Crit Boot synergy with Chakra generation very little synergy with anything else in its kit and it's sad when looking at other jobs.

There's a fine line between "synergy" and "crippled if CDs are desynced". Synergy is like Internal Release increasing the relative value of a double-Bootshine rotational string back in SB or decreasing it in HW to a certain breakpoint, adjusting your optimal choices but not to a point that one need be held for the other. Synergy is 6SS finally being usable, if only at the end of a damage CD's duration and when mindful of sync elsewhere (that is, if MNK still had some way of adjusting its sync, which it hasn't since 6SS's release with ShB). Synergy is being able to use TK when able to quickly generate it back, though at cost to another rotational possibility and not so strong (such as due to, say, a bug making its damage 39%-45% higher than stated) as to be obligatory. Anything past that is simply costing two buttons for a single combined action, dependence more so than synergy.

Yes, Monk lacks synergy. But let's be careful not to fall back on such bottom-of-the-barrel examples as the "synergy" of DWaD and Assassinate, for example, when we try to fill that lack. Assassinate is literal bloat. It could merely be apm bloat, par for NIN's former high-speed identity, and that'd be fine so long as there's nothing that other double-weave that would be obligatory in that same GCD (and at present, there isn't, so by all means). Using two buttons, however, just to effectively DWaD twice is hardly design worth imitating.

Right now, Monk has a few too many underpowered tools in much the same vein as pre-buff Meisui (a button previously devoted entirely to a potential mistake -- if someone forgot to instead use Fuma-Katon-Doton instead of a Fuma-Raiton-Suiton when TA is already on cooldown and the effect will not cover all 3 hits), but it's had far closer misses much more worth imitating just within its last two expansions than it'd see from, say, 5.1 NIN. It needs synergies, not bloat, not over-dependence, not skills used just to unlock another skill, and certainly doesn't need its apm crippled. It can afford to be a bit esoteric, a bit eclectic; it need only be synergetic, sensible in the context of its own skills, and fun.