Monk rework suggestion.

[Shurrikhan]

I disagree that the Fist stances are fine. They're pointless bloat skills that you could honestly remove or convert into traits and it wouldn't change anything about how the job plays because you just set one stance and forget them. By all rights they should have been removed or turned into traits like Kiss of the Wasp/Viper were during the Stormblood action rework because they've had that problem since 2.0.

As for suggestions I'd suggest keeping the jobs core the same. GL4 and 3-Stage Form combos are fine concepts on their own, but everything that's been added to it, or many changes that have been made systemically have been a detriment to how the job feels. To fix some the problems with the job as I see them at the moment, here is what I would propose.


1. Turn the Fist Stances into traits, because they basically are anyway. Replace at least one of them with some sort of Mobility action that doesn't have damage attached to it. Honestly turning Fists of Fire into a weaker damage buff cooldown as OP suggested that upgrades into Riddle of Fire eventually would give the job some of the engagement that it's now sorely lacking at lower levels, but it could just as soon vanish.

2. Convert Tornado Kick into our Chakra AOE skill at 220 potency to all enemies nearby us. It would be the same potency as Enlightenment, but it gives TK an actual use and it allows us to actually have an AOE use for our gauge at a reasonable period instead of 10 levels later than most jobs. Right now as a button it is worse than another Niche addition to our kit, it actively makes the devs terrified of making our ability to recover Stacks decent because we might use it for a damage gain which is what made the job so miserable to play at launch.

3. Return Howling Fist as it was in Stormblood (60 second Cooldown, moderate AOE damage) at low levels. Have it upgrade to Enlightenment when we normally get it. This gives us a CD at low levels which we now entirely lack and actually makes it feel like there's a gain of strength at later levels instead of regaining what they ripped out of our kit.

4. Fundamentally change how Chakra is built so we gain it at a steady pace, such as whenever we refresh Greased Lightning and cut the RNG. This was the biggest complaint about the job after Riddle of Fire slowing us in Stormblood so naturally they doubled down on it instead of fixing it this expansion and we don't like it any more now than we did two years ago. Currently for Monk to perform at its best it needs a Scholar, a Dragoon, and a Dancer as its partner to receive their crit buffs. The literally fixed this for Bard this expansion, but chose not to for Monk because reasons.

5. Change Brotherhood so it's no longer Physical party member dependent and lacks RNG. A major point of the design for Shadowbringers was to reduce party synergies but Monk is still held in a strangle hold by crit dependence and Physical party members dependence. Potentially just have it grant Monk a stack of 3-4 of a buff that will give it a free Forbidden Chakra allowing every RoF period to be consistent rather than having to pray that we get procs, or have it proc off spells (and Ninjutsu) as well.

6. While Six Sided Star isn't useless, it's pretty underwhelming as a level 80 skill. It's good for short disengages but for such a cool animation I'd like to actually be able to use it more. I'd suggest making it a reward for Upkeeping GL/Refreshing it X number of times so we're rewarded for good play.

7. Anatman's only good point was that it was better than Riddle of Earth on Launch, but with the 5.05 changes this skill is really only good for gaining Greased Lightning stacks after a long phase but only when you can't hit the boss which makes it good for literally like two fights total. It needs an entirely new effect, be it into an upgrade to Formshift somehow to make it less spammy, or just a skill to grant full Greased Lightning immediately.

Hmm, I really don't want at least half of these changes. They effectively...

1. Remove, rather than fix, something that could instead be a powerful and unique tool.

   It's kind of like removing Trick Attack if Suiton were to only uniquely Blind the enemy instead, rather than allowing Ninja to Trick Attack any Suiton-affected enemy. Sure, it's bloat right now, but only because we've literally never tried to make it not bloat. GL4 certainly was no such attempt; it was just a pitiful excuse for having removed our ramp-up skill that allowed TK to actually be a thing -- "What do you mean we made GL even more punishing to ramp-up yet removed Riddle of Wind?! It's right there!"

2. Remove Tornado Kick's effect and Howling Fist's animation past level 72, both of which I like.

   Yes, I liked Tornado Kick for doing the unique stuff it did. Turning it into Enlightenment, and then replacing Enlightenment with a simple potency upgrade or cooldown reduction to Howling Fist, is not that.

3. [This I'm fine with.]
   
   
4. [This I'm fine with, depending on how it's done.]
   
   
5. Replace Brotherhood with straight up TFC spam rather than, say, having anything to do with Brotherhood or combined attacks, i.e. largely removes Brotherhood except as an animation and insofar as Monk would still have a rDPS buff, maybe.

   What would be so wrong with just having it also apply to Spells? There, physical-locked issue over. If you want less RNG, have it start at a higher chance and its chance diminish with each proc. But, have it still feel like its a party skill, at least. I'd sooner lose the damage buff, moving that rDPS back into Monk's pDPS, than lose that.

6. Replace SSS with a GCD that would almost certainly awkwardly affect its rotational string or a Shoha-like oGCD, i.e. removes SSS except as an animation.

   Why? Just... why? All SSS needs to be more useful are (1) more frequent and significant effects to snapshot or (2) more reasons by which to vary our rotation intentionally. Removing it from player control into a mere 'reward per X of Y' system isn't remotely SSS.

7. [This I'm fine with, depending on how it's done.]

   ...Except that I'd rather it not replace Form Shift spam... in that I'd prefer that Form Shift spam not exist in the first place as a means of maintaining GL. Hit a GCD to freeze GL, regardless of movement, until your next action? I'd be mostly fine with that. Though, I'd much prefer a shorter CD on Perfect Balance than for Anatman to just further relegate it to Leaden Fist duty.

[SpeckledBurd]

....

1. They have had multiple chances to make the Fist Stances "powerful, unique tools." and they've never done anything with them beyond more of the same. The argument that they could be something interesting when they historically have never been doesn't hold much water. It holds even less when they continue repeat the same mistakes with them across multiple expansions. If they can come up with some genuine compelling reason to cycle through all of them that isn't just them functionally giving Monk Bard's song system or messes with the jobs flow like TK Monk did, then by all means make something engaging. But if they continue to be what they've always been where you set the highest DPS stance and forget it like Tackle Mastery was in 4.0 and Enhanced Fists of Fire/Riddle of Wind are currently, then they may as well go because the only thing they're doing is wasting both skill and Trait slots.

2. This change is largely about fixing Monk's currently terrible leveling process. Chakra right now is currently similar to what Heat was on Machinist in Stormblood. You have a gauge, but until deep Meditation you can't really engage with it. I might even go further and suggest that Deep Meditation 1 should be moved to level 54 when you get the Forbidden Chakra and Meditation so it always has a use in combat. The alterations I propose for Tornado Kick and Enlightenment in this manner gives Monks gauge an AOE use at lower levels, where it currently can only use it for Single Target attacks. This was a problem when doing Stormblood content and it still is. It also solves the problem of Tornado Kick being the noose around the jobs neck by preventing the devs from giving the job halfway decent recovery. Returning Howling Fist at low levels again, provides the job with something additional for lower levels where the job is almost prohibitively sparse in how you engage with it.

5. Brotherhood already is TFC/Enlightenment spam. The manner in which it interplays with the party is entirely to the jobs detriment in most content. My proposed just makes Monk's Riddle of Fire's consistent in all content including 4-mans and Solo-duties rather than having them be arbitrarily weaker outside of 8-man content due to a lack of bodies. A flaw of the skill is how it is less functional in certain compositions, and included in the umbrella of that happens to be all content where you aren't in an 8-man party. Cutting out the middle man and giving you a consistent Chakra skills solves that.

6. They already messed up Monks rotational loop by implementing a 5% additional haste and making the Leaden Fist buff stem from Dragon Kick without regarding how that would actually affect things on a broader scale. The double True Strike rotation exists entirely because they didn't consider this. Re-extending Demolish to 21 seconds and having Six Sided Star have a rotational use would make it more satisfying to use as a skill and would return some of the flow of Monk it originally possessed that's been lost in the action trimming of the last few expansions.


7. Unless the button that exists to freeze GL while allowing you to move has a 15 second cooldown, then Monk will forever be hamstrung compared to the other DPS by boss jumps, especially now that Greased Lightning 4 has caused the loss of Greased Lightning to become even more painful to recover from than before. Perfect Balance can never have a shorter cooldown as long as Leaden Fist or Tornado Kick as they are now exist as far as the devs concerned, as they don't want it to have the value it does as a DPS cooldown.

[Shurrikhan]

1. They have had multiple chances to make the Fist Stances "powerful, unique tools." and they've never done anything with them beyond more of the same.

Yes, and admittedly, having multiple chances means nothing if they've never used a single one of them. But completely wasting something's potential and something having no potential are two very different things.

"But if they continue to be what they've always been" is not a new threat; it's the status quo. So why are you using it as a strike against what they can be?

To be honest, though, I wouldn't take issue with that, either, if not for all the reductions you'd requested elsewhere, effectively removing TK, SSS, and what makes Brotherhood feel like what it makes itself out to be. If you're going to effectively strip those tools of control away from us, rather than improving upon them, then every remaining tool matters all the more.

2. This change is largely about fixing Monk's currently terrible leveling process. Chakra right now is currently similar to what Heat was on Machinist in Stormblood. You have a gauge, but until deep Meditation you can't really engage with it. I might even go further and suggest that Deep Meditation 1 should be moved to level 54 when you get the Forbidden Chakra and Meditation so it always has a use in combat. The alterations I propose for Tornado Kick and Enlightenment in this manner gives Monks gauge an AOE use at lower levels, where it currently can only use it for Single Target attacks. This was a problem when doing Stormblood content and it still is. It also solves the problem of Tornado Kick being the noose around the jobs neck by preventing the devs from giving the job halfway decent recovery. Returning Howling Fist at low levels again, provides the job with something additional for lower levels where the job is almost prohibitively sparse in how you engage with it.

Then by all means, let's move Deep Meditation to earlier and/or fix Meditation. But that doesn't require Tornado Kick to be effectively removed from the game as anything but an animation. I'd rather the devs work around that "noose" than for Monks to have absolutely no way to engage with their core mechanic, GL. It should be a mechanic, not just a once-per-instance ramp-up punishment that you can very rarely squeeze a bit of extra potency out of by means of two otherwise unused buttons and at least 10 seconds of standing still. Nor would it be a problem for Monk to have no AoE spender if its AoEs just each had a chance per hit, with whatever taper balances it out, to proc Deep Meditation.

5. Brotherhood already is TFC/Enlightenment spam. The manner in which it interplays with the party is entirely to the jobs detriment in most content. My proposed just makes Monk's Riddle of Fire's consistent in all content including 4-mans and Solo-duties rather than having them be arbitrarily weaker outside of 8-man content due to a lack of bodies. A flaw of the skill is how it is less functional in certain compositions, and included in the umbrella of that happens to be all content where you aren't in an 8-man party. Cutting out the middle man and giving you a consistent Chakra skills solves that.

We could say the same of every rDPS buff. Why not cut the middle man out of Battle Voice and Battle Litany and just have it do direct potency instead? At the very least, make THAT your Anatman (since it's, in essence, passively generating Chakra) and don't pretend it's a raid-buff in any way. But then let's call it what it is: Brotherhood removed and replaced with a generic gauge generation ability. Shoha for SSS, super-Ikishouten for Brotherhood.

6. They already messed up Monks rotational loop by implementing a 5% additional haste and making the Leaden Fist buff stem from Dragon Kick without regarding how that would actually affect things on a broader scale. The double True Strike rotation exists entirely because they didn't consider this. Re-extending Demolish to 21 seconds and having Six Sided Star have a rotational use would make it more satisfying to use as a skill and would return some of the flow of Monk it originally possessed that's been lost in the action trimming of the last few expansions.

Double true strike rotation has always existed at high Skill Speeds, both under the 18s Demolish and the 21s Demolish. Unless oGCDs are coming up and most be perfectly synced, it's always been better to lose DK onto DK and Twin onto Twin for 29 potency or 35-37 lost (depending on AA speed) in exchange for the extra 50-60 potency on True (depending on which expansion's Twin Snakes you're looking at).

It just hasn't always been a perfectly consistently loop; Stormblood, following the removal of ToD/Fracture, is the first time it's been woven consistently (outside of RoF, which would then rotate like no-Frac ARR mid-high SkS), and only at especially high Skill Speeds. And that's exactly what I'd want to see from SSS: alterable rotations. That way, we aren't stuck with something clunky (no way to perfectly meet the Demolish timer) between having gained GL4 and SSS. Maybe those rotational strings have a 1:1 ratio, maybe a 2:1 or 3:1. Maybe its meant primarily to align PB and RoF to your greatest potency over duration, similar to "fill"/"rush" TG alignment on SAM. Whatever. But it should be useful without feeling terrible not to have.

7. Unless the button that exists to freeze GL while allowing you to move has a 15 second cooldown, then Monk will forever be hamstrung compared to the other DPS by boss jumps, especially now that Greased Lightning 4 has caused the loss of Greased Lightning to become even more painful to recover from than before. Perfect Balance can never have a shorter cooldown as long as Leaden Fist or Tornado Kick as they are now exist as far as the devs concerned, as they don't want it to have the value it does as a DPS cooldown.

Then fix the mechanic rather than throwing out any and all tools it invalidates. As with Forms, we know the ARR version of the fundamental mechanic is pretty damn awful. So why, apart from the extended duration and the ability to completely invalidate it, is it still fundamentally the same as it was then? Let's fix the core, then decide what needs to go.

[SpeckledBurd]

Yes, and admittedly, having multiple chances means nothing if they've never used a single one of them. But completely wasting something's potential and something having no potential are two very different things.

"But if they continue to be what they've always been" is not a new threat; it's the status quo. So why are you using it as a strike against what they can be?

To be honest, though, I wouldn't take issue with that, either, if not for all the reductions you'd requested elsewhere, effectively removing TK, SSS, and what makes Brotherhood feel like what it makes itself out to be. If you're going to effectively strip those tools of control away from us, rather than improving upon them, then every remaining tool matters all the more.

They are wasting the jobs potential every expansion by existing. Instead of getting new traits that could change or improve gameplay, we're getting more traits for these Fist Stance's that don't change the underlying problems that exist with their design and take up slots that could tie into other aspects of the jobs gameplay. It doesn't matter if they have potential to be something, not only are they not changing them in such a way that actually does anything with their potential, they're detracting from the growth of the job by continually receiving traits that do nothing.

Then by all means, let's move Deep Meditation to earlier and/or fix Meditation. But that doesn't require Tornado Kick to be effectively removed from the game as anything but an animation. I'd rather the devs work around that "noose" than for Monks to have absolutely no way to engage with their core mechanic, GL. It should be a mechanic, not just a once-per-instance ramp-up punishment that you can very rarely squeeze a bit of extra potency out of by means of two otherwise unused buttons and at least 10 seconds of standing still. Nor would it be a problem for Monk to have no AoE spender if its AoEs just each had a chance per hit, with whatever taper balances it out, to proc Deep Meditation.

The core mechanic is a buff that is meant to be upkept, not a resource to be spent. When it could be used effectively as a resource to be spent, the most charitably you could say the reception was was Divisive. And since it is a buff to be upkept, then the way we engage with that should reflect that. Reward us for upkeeping it properly and refreshing it rather than keeping a skill around that currently is at total odds with that design.

Having no means to interact with your gauge in an AOE scenario is absolutely a problem, especially if it's getting more procs from Deep Meditation. Using not having an AOE option for something in an AOE situation is the reason so many jobs had their AOE combos reworked, because it's inherently less effective to be using a Single Target option in that situation. Being able to use more of a Single Target skill in an AOE situation helps nothing.

We could say the same of every rDPS buff. Why not cut the middle man out of Battle Voice and Battle Litany and just have it do direct potency instead? At the very least, make THAT your Anatman (since it's, in essence, passively generating Chakra) and don't pretend it's a raid-buff in any way. But then let's call it what it is: Brotherhood removed and replaced with a generic gauge generation ability. Shoha for SSS, super-Ikishouten for Brotherhood.

That doesn't address my point at all and none of those skills are equivalent. Battle Litany, Battle Voice, or Trick Attack don't directly impact the play of the jobs they're on, they just benefit the party. Monk is different in a way that negatively influences how the job plays. By its design, Brotherhood's design renders Monk's personal less engaging in 4-Man content, Solo instances, or if there's too many casters around. Just making it proc off of casters doesn't make the skill not feel terrible when there's no players there for it to proc off.

Then fix the mechanic rather than throwing out any and all tools it invalidates. As with Forms, we know the ARR version of the fundamental mechanic is pretty damn awful. So why, apart from the extended duration and the ability to completely invalidate it, is it still fundamentally the same as it was then? Let's fix the core, then decide what needs to go.

The mechanic has been fixed, Monk has always suffered disproportionate loss if the boss jumps. The Formshift change lets Monk not experience that loss, and other jobs exist on the same ground now that they have mechanics that can punish them for those jumps if they don't upkeep their buffs with similarly powerful buffs.

The problem is now that there's a bunch of tools that we don't need and arguably didn't need in the first place because they didn't solve those problems effectively.

[Psytic]

Sorry. But how is GL hard to keep up? You legit don't need to do anything but complete a combo. You don't even need to do the positionals, just hit the target. Sure, out of combat runs will make you lose it and Anatman was an ATTEMPT at trying to solve the downtime in fights. (Sustaining your GL stacks, but locking you in place. Not even allowed to move the camera. Though that fails in Dungeons, it's okay in trials)

Infact, the 16 seconds you have to hit -three- buttons is pretty forgiving. Not to mention if you Fist-Swap (Fire until GL3, then Wind for the 4th), you won't really be able to lose them unless your tank is moving at the speed of a snail.

FoF increases damage, FoW increases movement speed per stack. So full GL means you're faster than a NIN.

EDIT: Personally, I think MNK is in an "Okay" place where it is now. Certainly could use a bit of a tune-up, but at the same time. With the 5.1 rework, it has gone from a tedious chore to level. To actually fun to play (for some people, myself included).
Just wish the damage-gap between Monk and Samurai wasn't so huge. I get that Monk is more-so for the team support (Brotherhood, Mantra, etc) but it still feels weak when comparing them to other DPS. Plenty of people just want to brute-force their way through content and the only way to do that is to hit harder than you get hit. That's not a good mentality. Not in Shadowbringers.

If you have to ask "Why Shadowbringers?" it's simple. A small group of adds can kill your entire group if you're not paying attention. Several mobs in every dungeon has a heavy-hitter that has no wind-up or tellegraph. So your Tank goes from full health to "where'smyhp?!" panic in under a GCD.

Its not that its hard I just don't find it a fun or compelling mechanic and most of the player base must feel the same way or more people would be playing monk. They could just work around elemental stances and a naturally lower GCD and get rid of grease lightening if it were up to me.

[kunoz]

-rework TK and make it GCD skill(so that its part of the rotation loop)

-rework SSS and make it oGCD skill(so that its part of the rotation loop)
(it would make monk gameplay more engaging with the combo stances)

-rework stances, no point having fist of earth if we 99% dont use it, same thing with fire. we just wind 99% of the time, so just turn them into traits like how other ppl mentioned in this thread.
-
revert antaman, but give instant 1 grease lighting instead of relying for server tick

ps. if anyone is gonna complain about monk being clunky, then only option is to literally rework the whole class due to grease lighting and combo stances stigma

[SpeckledBurd]

Its not that its hard I just don't find it a fun or compelling mechanic and most of the player base must feel the same way or more people would be playing monk. They could just work around elemental stances and a naturally lower GCD and get rid of grease lightening if it were up to me.

The problem is that while Greased Lightning is ultimately designed as a buff to be maintained, there's nothing that rewards you for doing that like there is with Dragoon earning Life of the Dragon and Nastrond/Stardiver or Black Mage earning Polyglot skills for upkeeping their buffs. Meanwhile there are other jobs that have buffs where upkeep alone is the end goal, but there's stuff on top just the buff to keep them engaging. Ninja doesn't just have Huton, it also has Mudras, Ninki, and several additional cooldowns to track besides those just as Samurai has Kenki, Sens/Iaijutsu, and additional cooldowns with interplays between its systems to track. Monk doesn't have anything close to that, it has one oGCD every 30 seconds in elixir field, and chakra which builds incredibly slowly compared to Ninki or Kenki. In trimming out everything else other than Greased Lightning and not adding anything to replace them or expanding upon it, they've left the job feeling increasingly lacking with each expansion.

[Psytic]

They could expand on elements and stances I personally don't find grease lightening to be fun.

[Nedkel]

Take away positionals, give them 3 buttons to press buff them horribly so its stronk, here job done.

[Malmstrom]

Monk threads are my favorites. It is interesting to read about some of the wildly different issues people have with the job.

I'm on my phone, so not going to super detail, but I mostly just want the uber-niche skills looked at first and foremost. I just leveled MNK again for like the 4th time and all I could think this time through was "I don't care about half of the skills after Dragon Kick, I just want GL 4 again."