Quote Originally Posted by Shurrikhan View Post
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?