Monk - Quality of Life Change

[FLeet229]

Hi, first post here.

Ever since I started playing, I always found Monk to be very clunky and disappointing (why can't I use tornado kick more often???). I wholeheartedly agree with other posts on this forum asking for complete rework, but I don't expect a huge change until at least next expansion. So I thought about what could be tweaked to current Monk abilities to make it less dissatisfying and less clunky to play. I think small changes can be implemented mid-expansion so I put together some ideas and put it into an image.

https://imgur.com/gallery/pkAyBnM

These don't change the fundamental gameplay but do address some of the core issues (or at least what I think are the most dissatisfying things about the job), such as constant positional change, chakra overflow, tornado kick and six-sided star that barely get used, clunky opener with anatman, and perfect balance.

Please let me know if the link doesn't work. I just wanted to include some visuals instead of just walls of texts.

[VentVanitas]

Not to sound rude to other people who have brought up their own ideas of reworks/buffs, but this is definitely the one I have seen the most thought put into. I in particular like the idea of your Perfect Balance. It's no longer a SkS nightmare and it's not a mediocre GL recovery ability either. This hypothetical kit just makes it seem less painful to play overall. Good job.

The only other major issue not addressed is the fist stances, but frankly in the face of other problems such as TK/SSS being useless and comp dependent RNG, I'd rather wait until 6.0 for the team to address the fists.

[KalinOrthos]

I actually really like these changes.

I would like to ask, though: have you given any thought to stances? Tight now we really only build to Wind and stay there. The thing that made Monk an absolute blast to play in SB was switching between stances to get RoW stacks in between Tornado Kicks, and it's something I wish they brought back.

[hballamco]

I just .... like it. Very good job

[FoxCh40s]

Hi, first post here.

Ever since I started playing, I always found Monk to be very clunky and disappointing (why can't I use tornado kick more often???). I wholeheartedly agree with other posts on this forum asking for complete rework, but I don't expect a huge change until at least next expansion. So I thought about what could be tweaked to current Monk abilities to make it less dissatisfying and less clunky to play. I think small changes can be implemented mid-expansion so I put together some ideas and put it into an image.

https://imgur.com/gallery/pkAyBnM

These don't change the fundamental gameplay but do address some of the core issues (or at least what I think are the most dissatisfying things about the job), such as constant positional change, chakra overflow, tornado kick and six-sided star that barely get used, clunky opener with anatman, and perfect balance.

Please let me know if the link doesn't work. I just wanted to include some visuals instead of just walls of texts.

See, this is the kind of stuff I'm talking about! A singular person can come up with such amazing and excellent ideas that actually fit, not only the lore, but abilities of the class, but a WHOLE TEAM of employees cant?

I LOVE the ideas, and cannot fathom how the Dev team didnt think of this first.

[Noctisnine]

I love it, would be very interesting if SE takes a look and learn something, cause monk is the least played job right now. Not rewarding having to do so many positionals on a job with 1.90 gcd. It should get the same treatment as Sam and Blm.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Yo, that is your first post? Holy moly, the changes are absolutely LIT my dear! I love every bit of it.

I assume that if you take inspiration from Drill + Air Anchor that TK and Six-Sided Star (one of them) will have an interesting effect tied to it like Air Anchors +20Battery? If so, love every bit of it.

Especially that Anatman change, OH MY GOD I've been wanting that ever since they got rid of Wind Tackle (as much as ppl didn't like elemental tackles, Wind Tackle or current PvP Shoulder Tackle was / is a boon).

[Yani-Madara]

I'm still leveling Monk but I want to add something.

Leaden Fist should either change Bootshine's icon (Like DRG's) or add the yellow lines that pop up on other jobs when an attack is ready.

Example: Enpi on Sam and Firestarter on BLM

Some points are good but I disagree on making Tornado and SSS gcd, Monk is already a GCD fest that needs more oGCD options.

[Vendalwind]

Generally i like it.

I personally also want to see changes to fist stances so they operate as phases, but many people disagree with me on that as ive seen in the past.

There would need to be number tweaks if six sided star was to be used so frequently.

And i dont like the perfect balance change. I primarily play nin (havent played monk in end game since arr) for a very long time ive hoped skill speed would be viable on ninja. But for many reasons its not. When bunshin was teased because it was duration based i thought some sks would finally have its day. But then they nerfed it. And then they made it last only a specific number of hits. I jave other complaints about the current ninja, but on the subject of monk I personally actually like that having a certain amount of SkS not only changes your rotation but enables you to better use your cooldowns.

So i agree with everything except making perfect balance charge based like bunshin.

I do have monk at 80 and do hope to return to the class someday.

[IruruCece]

I disagree strongly with removing positionals, on monk and on any melee DPS. They aren't what keeps players away from any job, and monk was underplayed next to other DPS even when positionals were more of a thing across multiple melee jobs (and had other problems next to other DPS at the time). I recognize, however, that I appear to be in the minority on this.

I suggest getting rid of all the methods Monk (and melee in general) has to ignore positionals instead. It strikes me as incredibly odd that SE left Monk in a state where it MUST engage with the bosses beyond just sitting still and hammering globals, but then gave us MULTIPLE skills that let us ignore than particular mechanic for an extended period of time. It really is an either or at this point, SE should either kill off positionals as a concept (and make the game less interesting IMO), or provide better feedback to players so they know they've landed a proper positional, up to increasing the "reward" for doing so.

KILL. ELEMENTAL. FISTS. These buttons are little more than rotting wisdom teeth on the kit of the job, and have been so since Heavensward. SE has constantly used the excuse of button bloat for nixing off multiple skills that players have actually used in their rotations on the regular, but has somehow managed to leave elemental fists more or less as is: buttons that we hit before a fight, that we switch once we get to a certain part of our opener, and then sit on for its particular buff for the duration. In HW and SB, it was Fire. In ShB, it's Wind. Functionally, SE has tweaked these fists, particularly in regards to our GL4, but practically, players just sit in the same damned fist for 10 minutes until the boss dies. You want button bloat gone? There's three right there. Maybe give us ONE of the actually useful OGCDs we lost between SB and ShB.