Monk Needs a Complete Rework

[Shurrikhan]

Honestly, GL will always have a hard time being a mechanic so long as it's tied to any form of DPS increase, especially one that stacks up.

That depends entirely on the reward. Clearly even with a 30% bonus to oGCD damage and a relative ~47% increase to weaponskill damage over time during SB, it was still quite able to be utilized as a mechanic. Even now TK openers are viable.

We see this with NIN, DRG and BLM where their maintenance "Mechanics" are non-interactive. Where you press a button to toggle it on and then you forget about it.

Yeah, and they are a pitiful waste of a would-be mechanic and/or button. As buffs with no levels nor spending interactions, one has to wonder why their current version bothers to exist at all. But therein lies the question. Do you mercy-blow any and all of these mechanics because they've been so gutted, or do you revitalize them?

As far as speed manipulation goes, it's a universally hated mechanic. Not only have Monks been vocal about how awful it is, but back when AST had cards, people often expressed distaste over receiving The Arrow because of how the shift in speed would mess with their rotations. Well, this is speed manipulation in combat.

In combat, -- vs. ...what, out of combat? -- speed manipulation is hardly the issue. The issue is control. Getting an Arrow half-way through your rotation, when you were not ready for it and now have no way to utilize it, feels like poop because there's no way to utilize it even though it takes up part of your focus. It will consume mental resource at no gain. Having control over it, however, provides a very different story. For my own part, I loved it. It let me pull off even more would-be overextended rotations, allowing me to triple-Kick during PB before I had the SkS to do so by default, or allowing me to get in an extra Aeolian into TK window or skip Fire altogether on by BLM, each fun rotational differences. And with the number of BLMs who entered an AST party with "Hi. I'll be taking all your Arrows," that hardly seems unique to me.

One could propose a rework to the "Fists" that would enable people to select a speed of MNK they find the most comfortable. I.e. Earth is slow, Fire is medium and Wind is fast. With of course, the slower stances gaining increased %damage to compensate and make all 3 equal for DPS. This would also help alleviate the concern the devs have over the 4th GL stack and MNK becoming "Too fast" and having a rift between good and bad players widen since the bad players that cannot handle the high speed can instead opt for a lower speed that suits them.

While that might sound like a similar direction, it'd most likely nearly antithetical. There are only three ways such a system could go:

1. There are too few restrictions on stance changes to prevent someone from merely using high-damage-low-speed on each high damage-per-GCD skill and low-damage-high-speed on each skill with low damage-per-GCD (not including buff effects), forcing one to swap stances as often as possible to better juice Demolish and Bootshine.
2. The stances are too restricted to have any useful additional effects, and likely thwart gameplay that, too any player, would seem an obvious use of the stances, making them feel unnecessarily bloated.
3. Some miraculous hybrid of the two that manages to axe either side's issues -- possible, but horribly unlikely.

That's why I'd prefer that stances remain more or less their own things, albeit far, far less niche (or dominant, in the case of Fire until GL4 and Wind thereafter) than they are now. They can have an impact on speed, sure, but making them only a stick shift for speeds will end up with a Cataclysm-era Warrior debacle (whereby every skill was just macro-bound to a stance-change) with unnecessary bloat.

We can have just as much choice and flexibility in speed without needing that bloated approach to stances. Consider my oft-repeated suggestion of having GL work like HW-era BotD, where all relative potency builds GL duration (called "Ki") but only Coeurl skills move you up to the next GL level (with GL duration at or above 10 seconds providing the next level's bonus to the Coeurl skill that levels you up) and GL duration (Ki) can be spent to add additional effects to your damaging abilities. If you want to go the stance-specific route, let's say that Wind will "rush" the ability, making it usable before its cooldown is ready at cost based on its potency-per-second time number of seconds rushed, Fire empowering the ability, for a damage buff at variable consumption, and Earth "fortifying" it, causing its damage to grant rapidly fading damage absorption, which grants bonus potency upon consumption that does not stack with positional potency bonuses (thus effectively guaranteeing positionals and leading to seriously chunky Bootshine crits). In such a case, there's no need to stance-dance constantly just to milk particular skills; instead, it's all about the flow and sync, allowing you to align the perfect Internal Release, Perfect Balance, Riddle of Fire, or what have you.

Now bring back the suggestion that GL stacks should fall off one at a time. For context, let us say that we go back to the old 5% Damage and 5% Attack Speed per stack. When increasing GL level, the speed at which GL drains over time and per ability enhancement (the spending on which is completely optional in Wind if you go the stance-route, or at all times if you do not) likewise increases by 10%, compounding (for a 1.1, 1.22, 1.33x, or perhaps even a harsher 1.1, 1.3, 1.5x, consumption). It therefore become a risk-reward system: Do I want to remain in GL3 just for my auto-attacks, Twin Snakes, Dragon Kick, and Snap Punch, or would it be worth spending Ki now, dropping a level, and then maxing it again before my next Coeurl skill for full Bootshine, True Strike, and Demolish damage? Unlike TK, you don't only have a mathed-out single answer that utterly changes your playflow; you have granular control, all without even needing any additional keys.

In such a system, intentionally overspending on additional effects for your abilities could easily and smoothly down-level you, yet that could be used tactically rather than as a fail condition. If you would otherwise outpace your Twin/Dragon/Demolish buffs and have no abilities left in that rotational string to benefit from GL's damage buff, you could freely downlevel yourself in order to time those reapplications more closely, neither clipping nor delaying Demolish, etc, all while conserving Ki.

No extra buttons would be necessary just to manipulate your speed: you'd have constant, granular control -- just through your plethora of core abilities (including a returned SP, HF, and the whole gamut).

* In this, TK would be a raw Ki spender, worthwhile at the end of CDs, before going into downtime, or before PB. That said, padding enough Ki (GL duration) onto your highest stack could technically cause it to have no cost to GL stacks, either dipping down a level only just before a Coeurl skill with 10+ seconds duration (i.e. giving the benefit of the next benefit on that Coeurl skill as well) or leaving you with a sliver of duration left even on your highest stack. That wouldn't typically be optimal, but it'd be damn close.

In addition to this, you could also tweak Tornado Kick to where it's usable at any level of GL, but its damage scales up with each stack. So one can maintain low stacks if they wish to try and captialize on Crit buffs *Cough*Bring back Internal Release*Cough*

I think those two things would be helpful indeed no matter what direction Monk takes.

[Kalise]

That depends entirely on the reward. Clearly even with a 30% bonus to oGCD damage and a relative ~47% increase to weaponskill damage over time during SB, it was still quite able to be utilized as a mechanic. Even now TK openers are viable.

From what I've read, TK openers are DPS losses.

Also, I mentioned, that the only way they become a mechanic, is when you can basically skip it by quick stacking to the point of there being no actual reason to have TK consume GL in the first place.

But therein lies the question. Do you mercy-blow any and all of these mechanics because they've been so gutted, or do you revitalize them?

I guess it would depend entirely on if you can think of any way to make them interesting mechanics despite their innately passive nature. Without giving way to clunky design for the sake of making them "Interesting" (I.e. What would most likely occur with Fire IV Mage)

speed manipulation is hardly the issue. The issue is control.

And yet, many Monks have complained about the slowdown on RoF as well as the slowdown post TK.

Both things are controlled. You know exactly when you're going to suffer the slowdown, since you induce it.

But it feels crappy either way, especially when one of the main draws to MNK is its faster attack speed (2.5s GCD's suuuuuuck)

While that might sound like a similar direction, it'd most likely nearly antithetical. There are only three ways such a system could go:

Or, option 4: Stances are restricted in the same way as AST's sects, in that you cannot change them in combat.

Thus, people find the stance they like the most and pick that. Instead of being arbitrarily stuck sitting in Fire/Wind 24/7 depending on what is SE's FotM mandatory stance (With the slight exception that is current Fire while at 1-3 stacks and old "Switch to Wind for literally 1 skill for free 2 GL")

Stance dancing is an unneccesary when literally the core rotation of the job IS stance dancing. If element based "Stance Dancing" is desired, I'd rather it come in the form of the Riddles. Provided Riddle of Earth and Riddle of Wind become something notably interesting to contrast Riddle of Fire's flat damage boost.

We can have just as much choice and flexibility in speed without needing that bloated approach to stances.

Except, your suggestion doesn't help poor players who can't function at high speed. They will HAVE to be jumping up and down in speed in order to utilize their Ki. Heck, everyone will, including speed demons.

It's not a particularly elegant design to make people have such varied speed, while in theory, yes you can open up a lot of decision making in doing so, one might argue you open too much where you might end up in the same situation as SE's designed MNK where you have no idea if you're supposed to be attacking fast or slow or some mix of both.

It honestly sounds like such a system would serve to piss off everyone, except specifically you.

Not to mention, it will get mathed out what the optimal rotation will be. No matter what, people will figure out whether its better to spend Ki or sit on high GL stacks and then you're left with the same "TK Optimizing" scenario, only you've put MNK through the wringer to get it.

When, there are far more ways to add interesting mechanics to MNK, especially if GL stack preservation isn't mandatory for passive DPS boosts (Since then GL maintenance skills can be repurposed). Not to mention the potential for a Chakra rework to make it something other than an oGCD that has an RNG CD that also causes MNK's to be slaves to Crit (Thus, also have the "Bard" issue where they go from horrible to amazing for DPS over the course of an expansion due to the scaling of Crit on gear)

[Shurrikhan]

Also, I mentioned, that the only way they become a mechanic, is when you can basically skip it by quick stacking to the point of there being no actual reason to have TK consume GL in the first place.

Except that, even with RoW massively overtuned, it wasn't always the best choice for how to spend Tackle, it had vastly different interactions with or without PB, and back then we couldn't maintain GL indefinitely so TK still had a place outside of RoW and PB. It functioned on its own, functioned better with RoW, a bit better with PB, and better still with the two together, and it felt great for exactly that reason. It really brought the kit together, but not in the half-assed way that RoE and Anatman have where they function as bloat, existing only to invalidate something else. That TK was worth far more in the presence of RoW and PB did not remove its value outside of PB and RoW.

Or, option 4: Stances are restricted in the same way as AST's sects, in that you cannot change them in combat.

That's literally option 2. One that's also been shat on since AST was introduced and was forced to be a SCH- or WHM-substitute rather than wholly its own job.

Except, your suggestion doesn't help poor players who can't function at high speed.

They will HAVE to be jumping up and down in speed in order to utilize their Ki. Heck, everyone will, including speed demons.

No, they wouldn't. I was quite explicit in saying that overspending, the same thing that would drop BotD entirely during HW (but here only reduces you by a GL level at a time) reduces your speed, not any and all use of Ki.

Think of it like Tsubame-Gaeshi filler/rush GCDs. Without raid buffs, "ad hoc" play, especially at speed demon levels, is just as good as aligning perfectly to TG's cooldown. As more raid buffs come into play, syncing to them will naturally matter more -- just as it does for every job in the game -- but it's still not going to suddenly make a massive difference in performance. Even at the highest level of play, based on gear type one can choose how they play with only minimal change to performance. That's what I'm talking about here: putting control into the hands of the player, allowing for more flexibly timed burst, player-created peaks, and so forth, so that engagement remain high between CD periods rather than following the typical WAR/DRK burst-sleep-burst-sleep model.

Playing at full speed 100% of the time, especially in a comp not super dependent on snapshotting into raid damage windows, is still likely to net you 95%+ performance or so.

...one might argue [if] you open too much [decision making] you might end up in the same situation as SE's designed MNK where you have no idea if you're supposed to be attacking fast or slow or some mix of both.

What, exactly, is the problem with having some freedom to choose, some balance around the kit that could present two choices as near enough to equal that you might want to consult a guide for the minutiae of each's benefits or do what you want?

The only pitfall here would be if there was a clearly wrong answer presented in the same way as everything else (a la Ice Mage), despite making full use of the kit. But, there's been no example of that. Every "wrong" but sane answer (one that still makes full use of a kit, apart from whatever is for a time laughably underpowered, such as using Flamethrower for direct damage rather than Heat) has resulted in minute losses despite offering far more breadth of play.

We've seen it in Fuma vs. Raiton, where Raiton is best used to prevent clipping Shadowfang, except when nearing TCJ and/or where less potency clipping on SF is prevented than the potency in the difference between a final Aeolian before a Jump or just missing it. We've seen it in BLM's use of Thunder. Is BLM's identity destroyed just because it may have periods where Thunder is less worth maintaining? Is it wrecked because not everyone will immediately know whether they should use Thunder always, never, in certain circumstances, or in all but certain circumstances? These are precisely the things that offer jobs their skill ceiling and a sense of really and progressively learning a job. To throw all those out the window just because it causes people to question how they play is ridiculous. They should question how they play. That's a large part of the fun of any job.

And let's be clear: I am not advocating that one should have to obsess over decisions of GL. I merely want it to have actual decisions that one can make in regards to its use, thereby offering flexibility in timing and scrapping bloat and anti-QoL in favor of more efficient and manipulable design.

It's four birds with one stone:

• we get back forking rotations and thereby rotational variance and returning the ability to deal with positioning through preemption rather than merely through positionals-negating bloat skills;
• we get back the ability to sync our rotations to CDs, bypassing the awkward timing issues otherwise forced by all but certain SkS tiers and melee downtime;
• we negate the need for bloat and anti-QoL (e.g. FS spam) skills for GL and reinvigorate GL-dependent skills without having to remove decision-making by separating them from interactions with core mechanics or making them a mere side-effect of normal rotation;
• we get back GL as something that feels good to maintain (e.g. making it at least a little difficult to maintain, say, GL4 when having to move about, without making it so punishing to lose it, since it'd be lost only a stack at a time). This would be especially lucrative if do something like the frequently requested Chakra Gates ("Rock Lee mode" or what-have-you) allowing access to extreme speeds for as long as we can keep feeding it now that it wouldn't utterly crush you to lose GL and drop back to normal speed or so.

Simple as that. I'm not asking for a grand change here, only that we go ahead and use the tools already given to us when they can be so lucrative.

Not to mention, it will get mathed out what the optimal rotation will be.

Which has no effect on diversity of play so long as the circumstances behind play aren't limited (as TK windows mostly were) solely to CDs with zero interactions with other circumstances. There would be optimal rotational strings, but no one optimal speed or behavior that would divest you of all other means of play.

One need look no further than Double-Boot/True vs. Fracture/ToD per Demolish vs. ToD only while alternating post-reapplication Demolishes and clipped Demolishes in previous iterations of Monk play. Or look at Fuma usage on Ninja, or filler/rush usage on Samurai, especially at higher speeds. There is no one constant answer. They are context-dependent -- on downtime, on how long the fight will go on, on jump timings. That optimal play existed in no way restricted what could be used over a longer span of time, only which ought to be used in that particular 15, 18, 20, 24, or 30-second span while keeping in mind something some minute or two in the future.

There will always be optimal play. But if it reduces what skills you effectively have access to or what decisions need to be in the context of a encounter itself or the happenings therein, there is a problem with the toolkit. No amount of fatalism would make that any less lackluster of design.

You yourself have mentioned this time after time in the context of whether customization is possible. Yes, external balance will give us a best choice. Should we therefore remove all jobs not in the absolute highest performing speedrun composition? Maybe we could just rotate between which jobs are made available each month so we still see them all, but no one feels "pressured" to play the optimal ones, since those would be the only choices? Surely not.

The only difference here is that this is internal balance, the balance between choices that can be made in combat rather than outside of content (i.e. by choice of class, gear, or talents). Should we remove the ability to hit a 3-eyed-Geirskogul before BfB is ready just because it wouldn't be optimal in most raid settings? Should SB have removed Fuma just because it's going to be better at events 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7 for this character in this fight while Raiton would be better at 4, 6, and 8 and players might not want to bother figuring out what's best? Surely not.

I want to balance for a larger variety of playstyles and make available (again, in many cases) a greater breadth of gameplay to the job. That's it. Therein, you could happily stay 24/7 speed demon at no negative effect prior to speedrunning Savage content. As for me, I'll probably be spending the majority of time as a speed demon, but occasionally banking for raid buffs because I just really like having the ability to sync my skills in smoothly order to deal with otherwise awkward SkS tiers. I probably will bite a bit more than I can chew, complexity-wise, and end up performing almost exactly the same. That's all there is to the suggestion: a desire for greater breadth of play and to eliminate a number of core problems in one of the simplest ways possible. Fix GL, and you fix four other issues that have since sprouted over the expansions. Fix, rather than leave yet another part half-done just to throw more random junk into the toolkit.

None of that precludes what can be done afterwards. It does not preclude fun new Chakra interactions. It does not preclude elemental effects. It does not preclude yet further GL mechanics. It merely doesn't leave anything to rot and does not scrap depth

[Kalise]

back then we couldn't maintain GL indefinitely so TK still had a place outside of RoW and PB.

You mean spending GL stacks on TK when you're guaranteed to lose GL stacks due to transition timing?

Such mechanics. Many interactions. Wow.

That's literally option 2. One that's also been shat on since AST was introduced and was forced to be a SCH- or WHM-substitute rather than wholly its own job.

Except, AST's sects are complained about because they simply offer AST the ability to become "WHM-lite" or "SCH-lite" instead of AST being its own unique job. Not the inability to switch in combat, but the fact that AST itself wasn't designed as a unique job.

With the stances, you still pick between "Monk", "Monk" and "Monk". You're not becoming a "DRG-lite" or "NIN-lite" as you're still fundamentally and uniquely a Monk irregardless of which stance you use. The only difference between them is are you a MNK that punches fast or a MNK that punches hard?

No, they wouldn't. I was quite explicit in saying that overspending, the same thing that would drop BotD entirely during HW (but here only reduces you by a GL level at a time) reduces your speed, not any and all use of Ki.

GL duration (Ki) can be spent to add additional effects to your damaging abilities.

You literally even highlighted the fact that you said Ki can be spent.

Then implied: Do I want to remain in GL3 just for my auto-attacks, Twin Snakes, Dragon Kick, and Snap Punch, or would it be worth spending Ki now, dropping a level, and then maxing it again before my next Coeurl skill for full Bootshine, True Strike, and Demolish damage?

If spending Ki doesn't drop a level... Then why would you not simply sit at GL3 and only spend enough Ki to stay at GL3 constantly? Therefore not only maintaining full speed and damage, but also benefitting from the Ki usage with maybe times during burst windows where dumping all your GL stacks into Ki would be worth it (AKA: Exactly the same situation as with TK)

What, exactly, is the problem with having some freedom to choose, some balance around the kit that could present two choices as near enough to equal that you might want to consult a guide for the minutiae of each's benefits or do what you want?

The problem is when the choices are too unclear so that it feels unintuitive to actually play. When you don't know whether you should be doing one of many things, and feel like you have to consult a guide in order to figure out how to play properly, rather than optimally.

Much like how TK usage in StB was. In regular play, it was unintuitive because you'd use it, lose all your GL stacks and feel like crap while you rebuilt it. Only to read a guide and find out that you're supposed to stance dance into FoW to pop RoW or use PB to try and negate its downsides.

Jobs should feel intuitive to play, with the minutia of choices taking place when trying to optimize. Someone should have a reasonable understanding of what they're supposed to be doing when playing the job and how to utilize the kit as it is presented to them.

[Shurrikhan]

You mean spending GL stacks on TK when you're guaranteed to lose GL stacks due to transition timing? Such mechanics. Many interactions. Wow.

That small part was still a hell of a lot more than literally zero interaction, as was suggested by removing GL from Monk.

Except, AST's sects are complained about because they simply offer AST the ability to become "WHM-lite" or "SCH-lite" instead of AST being its own unique job. Not the inability to switch in combat, but the fact that AST itself wasn't designed as a unique job.

They're one and the same. AST Sects being designed as a simply out-of-combat SCH/WHM mode toggle, rather than actually building around hastened/periodic and empowered/preemptory mechanics to be used with synergy between them, is what made AST feel like a WHM/SCH-lite.

With the stances, you still pick between "Monk", "Monk" and "Monk". You're not becoming a "DRG-lite" or "NIN-lite" as you're still fundamentally and uniquely a Monk irregardless of which stance you use. The only difference between them is are you a MNK that punches fast or a MNK that punches hard?

Why are you condemning me over it, even ignoring the fact that imitating a DRG-lite or NIN-lite is not what we'd want? It was your suggestion. I simply pointed out that having the stances do so little would amount to only bloat, either in terms of relatively useless features or CS-like empty apm.

You literally even highlighted the fact that you said Ki can be spent.

Yes, as BotD duration could be. Did we always want to burst our way out of that, too? It's distinctly less ambiguous than TK was given that the StB gave no in-game information on its bonus damage or attack speed and had the wrong damn potency written for TK. (Yes, TK's true potency was a result of a bug. That doesn't make the errant information any less incorrect.)

If spending Ki doesn't drop a level... Then why would you not simply sit at GL3 and only spend enough Ki to stay at GL3 constantly?

It drops a level only when you consume the entirety of your duration, just like BotD did. And you absolutely can sit at GL3. The only difference is, again, that you are not effectively punished for dropping GL during low-damage GCDs and can therefore use it to sync to CDs and positioning requirements despite varying downtimes and base GCDs. It's the same exact thing you've always had, except in that it allows for many of the same things we had before and lost (being able deal with positioning and sync to CDs or downtime through changes in rotation as aided by changes in speed). The idea is literally just two parts: (1) GL falls off stack by stack and (2) you can consume excess GL duration.

Therefore not only maintaining full speed and damage, but also benefitting from the Ki usage with maybe times during burst windows where dumping all your GL stacks into Ki would be worth it (AKA: Exactly the same situation as with TK)

Given that TK spammers were only as common as Ice Mages and outside of meta comps one could still perform highly without using TK rotations, even despite TK dealing 30% more damage than intended, I would be perfectly fine with that.

[Kalise]

That small part was still a hell of a lot more than literally zero interaction, as was suggested by removing GL from Monk.

It's basically the same as not having GL. When you only use it when you have CD's that bypass it consuming GL or when your GL is going to fall off irregardless.

As mentioned, so long as GL is tied to a passive DPS gain, it's going to be near impossible to get an actually worthy "Mechanic" from it and at best you'll get something watered down into Huton/Blood of the Dragon/Enochian where it's a binary toggle on at the start of a fight and oh look you can now use X ability every now and then.

Since what will always happen, is someone will do the math to find out if/when consuming GL is a DPS gain and then it will only be a "Mechanic" in those circumstances where it is (Which, has so far been predominantly "When GL doesn't matter")

This is effectively a non-mechanic. Just as much as crap like Darkside/Enochian/Blood of the Dragon/Huton are a non-mechanic. Where you only think about them once or twice in a fight and only in very specific scenarios.

They're one and the same. AST Sects being designed as a simply out-of-combat SCH/WHM mode toggle, rather than actually building around hastened/periodic and empowered/preemptory mechanics to be used with synergy between them, is what made AST feel like a WHM/SCH-lite.

But that's what I was pointing out. AST Sects are crap because they're simply "Be a WHM" or "Be a SCH".

If they were instead designed around making AST do uniquely AST things it would have been much less of a problem. But no, it was "Here, have Regen and Medica II" or "Here have a shitty Adlo and Succor"

At least we're getting some mixing of the Sects in combat through skills like Celestial Intersection and Neutral Sect... Though, that's still just being WHM/SCH-lite these days...

Why are you condemning me over it, even ignoring the fact that imitating a DRG-lite or NIN-lite is not what we'd want? It was your suggestion. I simply pointed out that having the stances do so little would amount to only bloat, either in terms of relatively useless features or CS-like empty apm.

Since you seem to miss the point.

I mentioned that the stances are NOT making MNK into DRG-lite or NIN-lite. Which is the opposite of how Sects were designed, which instead of allowing AST to be AST, were simply WHM-lite and SCH-lite toggles.

Stances that are actual stances that have actual impact on how you play, while still retaining a uniquely MNK gameplay have yet to be seen and nothing similar has existed in the game (Outside maybe old Darkside? Where without it you got normal MP regen but with it you relied on an increased MP generation from skill usage?)

With an actual appreciable effect on your gameplay, rather than useless Earth stance and mandatory Fire/Wind depending on what SE feels like making the best with a particular MNK change.

To say nothing about how it would interact with optimization, where you might alter which stance you use depending on how much SkS you have on your gear if you wanted to min/max DPS.

With the final point being, it would allow the devs to be able to let MNK's go as fast as they want. They've already noted how they don't want the rift between top and bottom tier players to widen because of the bottom players difficulty playing fast. This is why they gutted a bunch of MNK's oGCD's when they added the 4th stack of GL.

They not only already expressed concerns, but also made detrimental changes to MNK's because of this.

Meanwhile, a static, out of combat choice that enables a player to tune the speed of their MNK would completely alleviate this concern of theirs, because it would mean that the bottom tier players who struggle with speed demon MNK play could opt for a lower speed and get increased damage to compensate, allowing them to still be on par with other MNK's while playing at a more managable pace.

Thus, it would let them actually add in fast gameplay with all the oGCD's MNK used to have for all the players who wish to play that way.

Trying to shoehorn in a pogo style alternating speed into the core gameplay of MNK, will just have them continue to do things to curb MNK's maximum APM so the people who can't play speed demon MNK can still utilize the job.

This could be even more relevant if other changes are made to MNK's kit, such as an improved Chakra system, better Riddle skills, more skills to use in combos, enhanced combos (I.e. Each skill functions like a Mudra and gives a different bonus to the final Coeurl skill) and the plethora of other things that could be altered to have more engagement attached.

I don't suggest something as simple as 3 stances that are functionally the same DPS increase for the sake of being redundant or poorly thought out, but instead because such a feature will serve to help MNK grow in potential complexity because instead of being designed in a vacuum, it is an idea designed with a problem that the devs have outright stated in mind.

So, yes. Convert the current useless Stances into "Useless" Stances, to allow for the betterment of the job as a whole. Rather than trying to cling on to useless features that serve to only hold back the potential of the job or outright cause detriment to it.

[Shurrikhan]

It's basically the same as not having GL. When you only use it when you have CD's that bypass it consuming GL or when your GL is going to fall off regardless.

That is already more thought than required by most decisions to be made in this game. But, you know what, fine, let's just get rid of all choices since they amount to nothing, even if somehow everyone was, in just your last post, being utterly baffled by that very same "non-decision".

But that's what I was pointing out. AST Sects are crap because they're simply "Be a WHM" or "Be a SCH".

If they were instead designed around making AST do uniquely AST things it would have been much less of a problem. But no, it was "Here, have Regen and Medica II" or "Here have a shitty Adlo and Succor"

That's my point. So why would you possibly want to do the same thing to MNK?

Stances that are actual stances that have actual impact on how you play

Are not what you are suggesting here. You are suggesting, effectively, SkS tiers, but as uses up three different buttons. They have zero use in combat, especially if, as you suggested, we were to lock them out like AST Sects. And I do not see how you could possibly throw out any all ideas of in-combat speed manipulation, because there could be a faintly more optimal choice -- albeit a different one at any given point in time -- yet not see how much a Damage-based permanent speed option would favor raid-buff-heavy compositions do to synergies with oGCDs, LF, and Demolish, effectively removing all higher speed options because you cannot switch them in combat.

You worry about the chance that burning GL might be optimal once or twice per minute yet are completely fine with being stuck in a low-speed mode permanently? How do you reconcile this?

If the threat of losing at most 5% performance for not making use of GL-burns (similarly to TKs, but without suddenly dropping your speed completely) in a raid-buff-heavy comp is enough to say that all choice was removed from Monk's speed, how is a permanent AST Sect, for which there will be a single best choice at all times, not just at a given moment, somehow better?

[Kalise]

That's my point. So why would you possibly want to do the same thing to MNK?

I'm not suggesting the same thing for MNK.

I'm not suggesting MNK get stances that simply turns their skills into DRG's dual 5 point combo or into NIN's Ninjutsu or into SAM's Sen combos and Iaijutsu.

Since, as I've said repeatedly, the main problem with AST's Sects is that their effect on AST's skills is to literally just copy one of the existing healers skills.

Had AST gained unique skills from Sects, they'd be less of an issue.

not see how much a Damage-based permanent speed option would favor raid-buff-heavy compositions do to synergies with oGCDs, LF, and Demolish, effectively removing all higher speed options because you cannot switch them in combat.

You worry about the chance that burning GL might be optimal once or twice per minute yet are completely fine with being stuck in a low-speed mode permanently? How do you reconcile this?

I can reconcile this by the nature of not being so narrowminded as to not have the capacity to comprehend potential designs for skills.

Given that I have literally stated no numbers for a reason.

Thus, it would be possible (Also, necessary) to balance the numbers of the increase in damage to the increase in SkS.

In addition, it's possible to adjust exactly how skills interact. Such as if oGCD's are a concern, then make the damage up be Weaponskill Damage modifier and thus not affect oGCD's. If Demolish is a concern, make the increased attack rate an actual Skill Speed modifier so the DoT damage is increased.

how is a permanent AST Sect, for which there will be a single best choice at all times, not just at a given moment, somehow better?

It is better because it allows for more flexibility in the design of Monk as a whole.

Rather than focusing entirely on a MNK playing with his speed for ~5% difference at the cost of the rest of MNK's kit being poorly designed due to dev's concern for high speed potential on MNK.

The stance suggestion is intentionally simple because it then allows for the entire rest of MNK's kit to be more interesting.

Unless you're so delusional to think that the same devs who gutted like half of MNK's oGCD's when adding in an extra 5% recast time reduction from 4th GL stack due to concerns of MNK APM would be prepared to keep said 20% total recast time reduction whilst also making something like Chakra be more interesting than RNG oGCD?

[Shurrikhan]

I can reconcile this by the nature of not being so narrowminded as to not have the capacity to comprehend potential designs for skills.

My point was that it's a fundamental issue. Yes, I already assumed that it obviously would only affect weaponskills. But so long as Monk has certain skills with higher per-execute potency than others, that changes nothing. So long as damage multiplicity, buff windows, and per-execute-potency variance remain a thing, the fundamental issue remains as well. Changing Attack Speed to affect Periodic Damage by the same percentage as it affects GCD speed would be a start, and quite likely a wise change regardless (which is why I've often recommended it, though to your derision last time I did), but if a minute performance gap is enough to "force" what you play, you'd still ultimately be stuck with whichever best snapshots into the raid buffs your composition offers. At such a confined performance level, we don't get choice, we at best get diversity with low costs for playing how we want. By locking speeds to out-of-combat changes only, you're taking the worst of both worlds here: no further choice than when attempting to make use of all three stances optimally, but also taking away all the diversity of making use of all three stances. Your design has a Wind-Monk, an Earth-Monk, or a Fire-Monk, a la B&S's old Wind and Fire specs. There is no complete just "Monk" in that.

Now, I'd probably be relatively okay with that, but it's going to be as an effective design as letting people actually move between the stances with decent balance and frequent reasons to shift between them, with multiple viable choices at most junctures. Without that in-fight diversity, it doesn't seem particularly even worth spending 3 buttons on.

Rather than focusing entirely on a MNK playing with his speed for ~5% difference at the cost of the rest of MNK's kit being poorly designed due to dev's concern for high speed potential on MNK.

At no point. Have I. Ever. Suggested that Monk be focused entirely on playing with his speed. I said quite simply that we've got four issues as unintended consequences of Monk changes over the last three expansions that leaving GL as a mechanic but allowing stacks to fall off separately and GL duration to be spent in certain ways could easily fix. That is it. It is a foundation for design. It precludes nothing.

This cost you're speaking of has nothing to do with what I've suggested. My concern has been revitalizing skills that have had their synergies gutted over time rather than leaving them poorly designed, the exact opposite of what you are piling on me. Pick one. Either I'm the dissenter wanting to revamp core interactions that have since been on life-support and which everyone would rather just see taken out back and buried or I'm the developer shill who wants to keep all these issues exactly the same despite having progressively criticized the removal of their synergies over the last 5 years. I cannot be both.

Unless you're so delusional to think that the same devs who gutted like half of MNK's oGCD's when adding in an extra 5% recast time reduction from 4th GL stack due to concerns of MNK APM would be prepared to keep said 20% total recast time reduction whilst also making something like Chakra be more interesting than RNG oGCD?

They removed 2.33 APM. That's out of an average of 42.3 casts per minute in any high-uptime fight. They removed barely over 5% of its APM while increasing attack speed by the same 5%. And in the meanwhile, they're perfectly happy with MCHs having an APM of 46+ despite that APM being applied far, far more tightly and ping-restrictively, and NINs nearing 50 APM. Judging by other the jobs, we've still got 8% to 18% more speed to go before APM would become an issue.

Now, let's ignore the fact that Monk's ramped-up speed would be exactly the same regardless. Do you seriously expect that even the faintest increase to apm would break Monk for a significant portion of its players? Because I'm seeing 2 skills out, 4 skills in, exactly the same as was done for SB, more than any significant attempt to reduce APM, else they certainly wouldn't have given us Deep Meditation II, which already made for up SP on its own. And how many people do you see on this thread who have been begging for lower average speeds cus Monk is just too damn hard? I certainly haven't asked for it. And while I can see several posts asking for higher speeds or more complex rotations, I'm not seeing anyone else asking for it all to be slowed down, either. Did I just miss it? Pass the link and I'll stand corrected.

Really, what exactly is it that makes any high speeds or GL and/or Chakra as actual interesting mechanics so unimaginable for you?

If it really is just the plain and simple fact that the devs want to leave every job slowed down and/or brain-dead, should I then be totally fine with that just because it's what they want? I'm not. But, by all means, enjoy another layer of RNG and further bloated and/or disfunctional skills next expansion if you are.

If you are likewise not okay with that, then let me again make clear:

My intent is to fix issues and clunky and/or nuance-diminishing restrictions that have come as unintended consequences of Monk changes over the last three expansions. To that end, I have proposed leaving GL as a mechanic but allowing stacks to fall off separately and GL duration to be spent granularly and in a highly optional manner that would provide further flexibility and mobility, since it can deal with each of those issues. That is it. It is a foundation for design. It precludes nothing.

[Kalise]

My point was that it's a fundamental issue.

Well, this "Fundamental" issue is one that is intrinsic to the game at large.

If the concern is being "Forced" into a particular stance because of Raid buff synergy when playing for min/max status, then that is never going to change. Since, no matter what all efforts at "Choice" will result in the same thing.

So long as raid buffs exist and damage buffs stack multiplicatively, you'll always end up not having a choice. As there will always be a mathematical "Best" that you will be "Forced" into if you want to play min/max.

Even with your suggested speed manipulation, there will be a mathematical best usage that will yield maximum DPS (Most likely, sitting on GL3 until raid buffs then dumping everything, using Anatman and dumping everything again. Such choice!)

no further choice than when attempting to make use of all three stances optimally

Like we've ever had choice in this. Earth stance has been useless since its inception.

Wind Stance has only been useful for a single ability in StB and only now has use in ShB because of the 4th GL being tied to it (With 5% SkS and 5% damage outperforming the 10% damage of Fire interesting given how much you've gone on about important DMG is. Heck, Fire is also global damage so affects oGCD's too! By your own admission, we'd want to be going into Fire for CD phases, but everywhere I look it's Wind > all when at 4 GL)

but also taking away all the diversity of making use of all three stances.

Though, this is why I also mentioned changes to the Riddle skills to make up for the loss of potential in "Stance swapping" between the fists, by having Riddle of Earth and Riddle of Wind be actually interesting and useful skills to contrast against Riddle of Fire and it's raw damage boost.

with multiple viable choices at most junctures.

There are no choices. Not for optimal play. As I've mentioned above. There will never be a choice in this game if you're playing for min/max.

Without that in-fight diversity, it doesn't seem particularly even worth spending 3 buttons on.

Honestly, if it's buttons you're concerned about, you can literally condense the stances into a single button that simply cycles between them. Something that has bothered me about Sects and old Tank/DPS stances, there's no reason to not have one active and thus make a single button to cycle between them. (Other than maybe, the devs can't be bothered to make a full kit and so want to keep pointless buttons around to fill out the required number of actions per job)

At no point. Have I. Ever. Suggested that Monk be focused entirely on playing with his speed.

No, but you have to think about what the devs are likely to do.

So far they've shown that they like to make a jobs focus be about primarily a single aspect. Add to that the "Coincidence" in the lack of job evolution for MNK since TK has been implemented and doubling down on buttons to manage GL.

Making speed manipulation a thing, would likely get used as MNK's primary focus, causing other aspects of the job to get less attention.

Do you seriously expect that even the faintest increase to apm would break Monk for a significant portion of its players?

It's not what I expect, but what the developers expect that matters.

If it was up to me, I'd be making jobs more complex over time, not less. With the "Issue" of bad players being solved by telling them to "Git gud"

But I'm not the one developing the game. The people that are, have expressed concern over how fast MNK plays and have made changes that reflects that (As I recall, they did literally say the reason they removed oGCD actions from MNK was because they wanted to add in that 4th GL stack)

Really, what exactly is it that makes any high speeds or GL and/or Chakra as actual interesting mechanics so unimaginable for you?

The way the devs have changed jobs. Their stance on aspects of jobs. Quotes from them that leave me with less than stellar opinions about their view of the game (Including "People find WHM hard to play, so we're making it easier")

I'm not. But, by all means, enjoy another layer of RNG and further bloated and/or disfunctional skills next expansion if you are.

If you are likewise not okay with that, then let me again make clear:

Let me make this clear:

My simplification of the issue of MNK speed and tying it to something as "Boring" as out of combat stances, is not a merely a sign of accepting boring and bloated skill design that the devs have trended towards in recent days.

It is merely a tidying up of mechanics, to allow other areas of MNK to flourish and get far better design than they would ever likely see in the case where GL stacks are still tied to speed and raw damage.

This includes the fact that, I am not only, not against GL becoming a mechanic, but have outright suggested a potential mechanic that utilizes GL.

The suggestion I made coincided with thoughts about having Riddle of Earth and Riddle of Wind be changed to have a "Riddle of Fire" type impact on performance, but in unique ways that would more accurately portray the "Stance Dancing" that swapping between Fists of Earth/Wind/Fire could theoretically have (But have yet to actually coalesce, especially given that so far the only significant change caused by Fists has been Shoulder Tackle being slightly different in each stance)

On top of a massive overhaul to Chakra, to make that not only less RNG reliant, but also more interesting to boot (Honestly, I've always been a fan of the 7 Light Chakra and 7 Dark Chakra idea since that became a major plot point in the MNK job quests. Also that cool super saiyan mode that was the Forbidden Chakra right before we got just a lame oGCD skill)

This is because we have yet to be shown that devs are willing to do anything interesting with uptime skills that are tied to passive DPS increases. We have evidence of that with Darkside/Huton/Blood of the Dragon/Enochian/Songs. We could also include WAR's Storm's Eye too and even their Wrath/Deliverance stacks which have been axed with ShB.

Heck, even not real jobs have been affected by this particular modus operadi of the devs, with BLU having Off-Guard gutted into a mere "Trick Attack-lite" CD.

With all of this, why would anyone, ever think that the devs are suddenly going to do a 180 and make MNK of all jobs, suddenly have a GL that continues to be a passive DPS boost, also have an appreciable mechanic tied to it, especially given the current and previous expansion where they've done literally nothing to reinforce it as a mechanic and kept it as this thing that you just maintain and sort of interact with occasionally?