Monk Needs a Complete Rework

[VentVanitas]

In practice, I think what we can expect is an extreme streamlining of the job, which might make it "feel" better to play at the cost of some of its identity. I've started playing Machinist more, and I have a blast with it, but I've heard people with far more experience with the job from its introduction complain that the job's identity took a hit with ShB, making it almost too simple and straightforward to play.

My worry is that they go ham in de-emphasizing positionals in order to cater to players that bounced off the job years ago and never came back to it. One of my favorite parts of the current monk "feel" is the need to be mobile in order to get the best performance out of every strike. Even though I've had fun with other jobs in the game, no melee DPS had that same "dance" next to the mob, and it would be disappointing to see it go away for me.

I'm gonna play devil's advocate and say that Bootshine's positional is really the only one that matters at this point anyway, most of our damage hinges on getting as many Leaden Bootshines out as possible. Not only that, but we have so much positional mitigation that I don't think much would change if some positionals were removed or not. Not that I'm saying that I want them gone, preferably I want all of them to stay and I am very confident that they're going to.

Can't remove identity from a job that doesn't have any in the first place as I like to say.

[IruruCece]

I'm gonna play devil's advocate and say that Bootshine's positional is really the only one that matters at this point anyway, most of our damage hinges on getting as many Leaden Bootshines out as possible. Not only that, but we have so much positional mitigation that I don't think much would change if some positionals were removed or not. Not that I'm saying that I want them gone, preferably I want all of them to stay and I am very confident that they're going to.

Can't remove identity from a job that doesn't have any in the first place as I like to say.

See, I disagree strongly with the idea that Monk doesn't have an identity, because it absolutely does as the game's fastest melee attacker. Unfortunately, it also currently has the single most punishing self-buff to lose in the game right now that is also one of, if not the most demanding to maintain. Positionals were absolutely part of that identity, especially as we entered Shadowbringers with more positional requirements than other melee jobs.

Monks. Have. Six.

All six of our primary weaponskills come with a positional requirement. Nobody else has to deal with that. SAMs could argue that missing their positionals is worse for them due to the lost Kenki. Dragoons can complain about their THREE positional requirement buttons. Ninjas have their three. I don't care. Monks have six.

Yes, SE did put most of the potency increase for landing a positional on Bootshine, while making it so that missing our positionals on our other buttons could be considered "negligible" if you're not interested in getting the absolute most of of the job. Yes, SE did provide us with two extremely potent ways to ignore them entirely, allowing for absurd amounts of uptime even under the nastiest swaths of AoE markers surrounding a boss. Both of those decisions were huge mistakes. This, in addition to much of our new kit focused on helping maintain Greased Lightning to the exclusion of nearly everything else, ultimately contributed to the job's currently underplayed state.

Yes, Monks can and do bring the damage to this day. But the job now revolves around Hittin' Them Bootshines to the exclusion of making the rest of our kit actually interesting to play with, and that sucks a bag of rocks. I would love to hear an explanation from the devs on why they have consistently left the job to rot between expansions and only now have finally gotten around to addressing a core design flaw with the job dating back to 2.0, but I feel like the answer would be incredibly disillusioning at best.

[Sqwall]

Yes, Monks can and do bring the damage to this day. But the job now revolves around Hittin' Them Bootshines to the exclusion of making the rest of our kit actually interesting to play with, and that sucks a bag of rocks. I would love to hear an explanation from the devs on why they have consistently left the job to rot between expansions and only now have finally gotten around to addressing a core design flaw with the job dating back to 2.0, but I feel like the answer would be incredibly disillusioning at best.

I totally agree with this, and I think it doesn't necessarily fall on the shoulders of the devs. I want to place the concern on the meta requirements of the endgame content that the players wanted out of the job. In this case keeping GL up easier. If SE wanted the job to evolve out of the end game content, which it has. Then this is what we got based off of the player feedback from endgame. Form Shift update is a perfect morsel to tide us over until SE can collect more data on where to go next, and they have.

The CRUX of all of this is GL being the smoking gun they needed to prove that the class needs to change. I'm betting that the job/class devs are looking at every endgame content encounter and collecting the data on how many times they lose GL, or comparing what other classes do with the moments of respite during phases. I think it boils down to the fact that they are asking a lot of Monks during an encounter. It's kind of crazy to think about how many buttons I push just when I play monk during and not during combat. SE isn't trying to destroy the identity of monk per-say, they are trying to peel back some of the layers to reveal what was already there the whole time. The meta for monk has just spiraled out of control due to player feedback. 5.01 was a drastic course correction, and I'm pretty sure Yoshi-P had an executive decision in basically saying politely to the team involved in a very boss like tone: "No more. Start over from the basics"

[xxvaynxx]

cut

Honestly I don't even care for the reasoning why they left mnk in the dirt in terms of gameplay for so long at this point.
I just hope what ever they're doing makes mnk fun to play again and less of a bootshine/GL bot.

To this day, mnk is still the least played melee, only really picking up in Delta because how broken it was at the time.
People didn't play it because it was a fun job and even still with how strong it was. Samurai was still close behind
(though samurai will always be popular no matter how crap it is, since its a newbie bait job. A Samurai/Katana welding job will ALWAYS be popular. Either due to Anime, weeb cultural,or just a love of Japanese esthetic..or they just the sword looks cool)

With GL just being a passive trait, its honestly hard to think about. Since that's been mnk thing since well...since the job first came out. I'm hoping they do something unique with it or the gauge will be about as useless as Plds old gauge, just showing you have chakra.

Some people said maybe they'll make it like Eno and though I can see it. Wouldn't that still make monk a slave to GL still in a way? because though they're not dropping it as in losing the power of speed and damage boost, they lose possibly using TK or SSS(if they decide to make TK or SSS the reward of upkeeping GL) thus making mnk still having to play as if it the GL mech never changed.

[Sora_Oathkeeper]

Some people said maybe they'll make it like Eno and though I can see it. Wouldn't that still make monk a slave to GL still in a way? because though they're not dropping it as in losing the power of speed and damage boost, they lose possibly using TK or SSS(if they decide to make TK or SSS the reward of upkeeping GL) thus making mnk still having to play as if it the GL mech never changed.

There's a difference between being a slight hinderance and... holy sh*t my speed and power have dropped significantly, I can't even use my 78 skill to get stacks back because of this frickin' cutscene bullsh*t, so now I have to use PB to get stacks back when I could have used that for extra damage, all the while hitting like a wet noodle because no stacks to begin with. I think I'd take missing a TK over losing everything else.

Further, I would feel as though we'd be on more equal ground in comparison to how other jobs with timers handle cutscene downtime. MNK currently loses 20% haste, 50% damage (Twin drops off too). BLM loses 15% damage from enochian but is able to reapply asap. DRG loses possibly a stardiver/eyes, but at least is able to get back to BotD asap. NIN loses 15% haste, costing them 1 ninjutsu- a small price to pay for what is gained.

MNK is just royally screwed moreso than any other job for cutscene transitions. Even in general gameplay there is no reward for maintaining GL other than just being on par with the other melee. I agree with Sqwall, something had to give at some point and I think GL was the right call, many of us were saying before that GL is one of the biggest offenders in MNK gameplay from expansion to expansion because it's constantly being viewed as 'that job that has tight timers which people can't keep up for whatever reason', so every expansion there are new ways to maintain it, all while feeling bad to use.

[Kabooa]

MNK is just royally screwed moreso than any other job for cutscene transitions..

If this is the impetus for the change, guess it's Gaia's turn next.

[Maltothoris]

NIN loses 15% haste, costing them 1 ninjutsu- a small price to pay for what is gained.

Even then once yo get the timing down, ninjas can still enter those fights with long cutscenes by using huton at the last possible second and they would still have 10-15 seconds, enough time for them to get an armor crush before it wears off. Though the rest of it still stands.

Mnk really just started to suffering when they were adding ways to maintain gl because it came at the cost of other skills as well. Not to mention they've gotten rid of skills for their rotation like howling fist and steel peak. And the fact that enlightenment is just howling fist from 46 to 74 with the one upside being that it could be spammed in rare cases.

[Eliadil]

Not to mention they've gotten rid of skills for their rotation like howling fist and steel peak. And the fact that enlightenment is just howling fist from 46 to 74 with the one upside being that it could be spammed in rare cases.

Can't wait to see tornado kick becoming the old howling fist with the rework. :x

Tbh I'm looking forward to see what they can do with this ability now that it has gotten rid off its GL restraint. I hope that it needs RoF to be used, and puts an end to RoF when used. This at least would make it fun and increase the use of a cool looking skill by a lot.

[Ultimatecalibur]

I hope that it needs RoF to be used, and puts an end to RoF when used. This at least would make it fun and increase the use of a cool looking skill by a lot.

Are you suggesting they turn it into Confiteor?

[Sora_Oathkeeper]

Even then once yo get the timing down, ninjas can still enter those fights with long cutscenes by using huton at the last possible second and they would still have 10-15 seconds, enough time for them to get an armor crush before it wears off. Though the rest of it still stands.

Yeah, so far the only exceptions since ShB is Hades EX I think. I progged Alex Ultimate and Eden's Verse Savage on NIN and you could literally huton before the transitions and still have it up afterwards. It's insane how good NIN has transitions.