Monk Needs a Complete Rework

[Rika007]

I have a very bad feeling about this. If turning Greased Lightning into a trait is the difficult part of the rework, I wouldn't get my hopes up seeing anything except some potency tweaks and, if we're lucky, a minor change to an ability or two.

Turning Greased Lightning into a trait seems... well it kinda smacks of them removing another mechanic from monk. It's not an especially engaging mechanic, but I have some serious reservations that Monk is going to get anything else to compensate for a mechanic being removed. They never have before, why start now?

I'd love to be proven wrong here but... yeah...

It is a concern but by that same right that also would force changes out of Multiple abilities that's entire reason for being is in some relationship with Greased Lightning, thus meaning they could maybe finally make what were supposed to be premier abilities that were niche can now actually be premier. Six Sided Star and Tornado Kick may actually finally become the big moves they should have been. Form Shift and Anatman would need to be completely reworked.

[Powercow]

It is a concern but by that same right that also would force changes out of Multiple abilities that's entire reason for being is in some relationship with Greased Lightning, thus meaning they could maybe finally make what were supposed to be premier abilities that were niche can now actually be premier. Six Sided Star and Tornado Kick may actually finally become the big moves they should have been. Form Shift and Anatman would need to be completely reworked.

None of those abilities would actually "need" to be reworked if they removed the Greased Lightning interaction, except Tornado Kick being nerfed to hit like a wet noodle (essentially have it replace Steel Peak.) Would they all become completely redundant or so comically niche as to almost never see use? Yes, but the last half-decade of Monk seems to imply this is actually their gameplan.

Call me a pessimist if you'd like, but unless there's some mindblowing stuff in 5.3 I'm going to consider this on the same tier as Stormblood being the monk expansion, or Monk getting a much-needed rework for Shadowbringers' launch.

At the very worst, this change frees Monk in 6.0 for a lot of new ideas, instead of SE constantly making skills that revolve around GL maintenance.

The thing is, the development team has never actually been shackled to making GL-maintenence skills every expansion. They just.. *have* been doing it for some reason, which either means they think that Monks were still somehow dropping Greased Lightning and thus keep needing all these new skills for that, or they have no idea on what to actually do with the job and are just going with the "safe" choice.