Monk rework suggestion.

[SpeckledBurd]

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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.