Monk Needs a Complete Rework

[SpeckledBurd]

Edit: Something I just remembered, but Riddle of Fire and Brotherhood have literally no reason to be separate buttons. There's never a point where you want to use one and not the other.

Let's keep in mind though that the passive mobility bonus wouldn't have to be your only means of mobility. Similarly, if passive, but not necessarily native, the duration could easily be limited; it could instead, say, be applied only after using "Wind-based" skills, such as Tackle, Tornado Kick, or after any damaging ability at all, etc.

Yeah fair, it's easy to lose track of the broader scope when talking on a point by point basis. However I still don't think higher native movement speed will matter, nor will an additional sprint, when directly competing against skills that provide instantaneous movement across long distances.

That's fair, but my issue with merely providing Charges (with no further ICD) to a potency skill is that, well, it's resultantly more about damage than mobility. Its mobility component is just that bit that most people look back at longingly after they've already used it to maximize DPS and have since screwed up.

In other words, the added Charge is sold as mobility when in practice it just adds a thin extra layer to damage-maximization.

That's the current problem with Shoulder Tackle yes. My point was that I don't think the developers will bring back Riddle of Wind as a free tackle because that concept seems to have formed the foundation for charges on gap closers (and probably charges on actions in general).

I get the desire not to merely have the same buff by two names (although that was entirely common when one was target-specific and the other was not), but wouldn't giving the same effect via Crit/DHit end up compounding its dependence on compositions, in ways we wanted to avoid (e.g. by rehauling Chakra and revising or delimiting Brotherhood)?
Sorry if I'm nitpicking what was meant only as a spitball.

It shouldn't as long as Chakra is reubilt to not be connected to crit. At that point it just means Monk will crit 5% more than other jobs. What made previous Bard so attached to the Dragoon on top of Piercing was Battle Litany improving the proc rate of River of Blood in HW and Repertoire in SB. Monk having Internal Release in HW didn't make that dependence, it was having an additional resource that was contingent upon landing crits, as long as that interaction is gone a crit buff to the self is independent to the rest of the party.

[Sqwall]

It shouldn't as long as Chakra is reubilt to not be connected to crit. At that point it just means Monk will crit 5% more than other jobs. What made previous Bard so attached to the Dragoon on top of Piercing was Battle Litany improving the proc rate of River of Blood in HW and Repertoire in SB. Monk having Internal Release in HW didn't make that dependence, it was having an additional resource that was contingent upon landing crits, as long as that interaction is gone a crit buff to the self is independent to the rest of the party.

I agree with this as if we are to no longer have Internal Release and it's never coming back, then we need have something that isn't dependent on the whole party comp being specific. The RNG would be great IF the job complimented it fairly. We should not have to use food and gear specific stats/melds for us to get MEH chakra gains. Internal Release was so nice that I could pop it when I needed chackra fast before my riddle of fire came up. Monk needs passive crit chance buff or a skill to increase it in larger doses.

I have been in a Puppets Bunker run where I was lucky enough to be in a party of ALL monks. WOW...the comp is soooo amazing, damn near broken as we had a brotherhood/ROF buff running nearly constantly. So many forbidden's all over the place! But the next time I ran it...all casters. Brotherhood was so gimp I virtually got 2 chackra with each round of brotherhood. This can't be intentional to have 2 very huge differences in damage just with party comp.

[VentVanitas]

All I ask for at this point is that Tornado Kick is introduced into the rotation and Anatman has a new purpose worth using it for (it doesn't need to be, nor do I want it to be, a new burst or offensive buff tool). I can wait until 6.0 for SE to address Chakra, Brotherhood and the stances. TK and Anatman are both skills that become defunct under the premise of GL becoming entirely passive (freezing form timers isn't worth having a whole skill for, we already have Form Shift). As for what they would specifically do I'd rather leave it to people who can theorycraft better than I can.


However if I may be humoured then I would like to have a GCD on a cooldown be part of the rotation (whether it be SSS or TK, doesn't 100% matter), it would be nice to bring back the play-feel Touch of Death had in HW, having a separate GCD outside of forms so it can act as a buffer to move into positionals and mix up the combos every so often.

[Shurrikhan]

Edit: Something I just remembered, but Riddle of Fire and Brotherhood have literally no reason to be separate buttons. There's never a point where you want to use one and not the other.

I feel like that might not be the case if Brotherhood's Damage component were removed and the Chakra generation furthered.

Without needing to hold Brotherhood for other's ramp-up or for its multiplicity with RoF, you'd instead want to use it first, to bank Chakra before RoF starts. But, that does indeed seem a tenuous reason to keep a second key.
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While we're on the subject, let's note that we also have zero need to keep Meditation and Form Shift as keys at all.

Form Shift can be handled passively by allowing access to (rather than moving you into) a further Form with each GCD spent off the GCD.

Meditation can be handled by passively generating a Chakra every half a GCD spent off the GCD.

The only difference would be that the two would no longer be in conflict, but that hardly seems a gameplay consideration worth spending two keys on.

Or, in this case, freeing up Meditation would allow for TFC to be spent at any amount of Chakra, thus clearing up our bankability issues; we need only spend whatever Chakra we have before the boss jumps away.

[Sqwall]

Or, in this case, freeing up Meditation would allow for TFC to be spent at any amount of Chakra, thus clearing up our bankability issues; we need only spend whatever Chakra we have before the boss jumps away.

I can't tell if your teasing the idea of having to spend chackra before a jump. Or being serious and not requiring to spend chackra before a jump. The whole disengagement argument for monk bores me as I hate that we are supposed to be the only disengage job in the game. I want to speculate and say monk disengaging and blowing all the GL it has as a last ditch effort was not the desired gameplay for the job despite who lack luster the one hit of TK truly is and if you indeed have 5 chackra before a jump. This argument is STILL pushing monk in a rigid style of game play focus on blowing your chackra and stacks before the jump. Even with anatman this isn't ideal, but that's just me.

Didn't know what your thoughts are here.

[Shurrikhan]

I can't tell if your teasing the idea of having to spend chackra before a jump. Or being serious and not requiring to spend chackra before a jump.

I meant no more than I said. The only Chakra-related interaction left would be that you spend it before the jump. That requires... spending it before the jump, just as one would with Repertoire, direct-damage CDs normally banked for damage-window CDs you'd otherwise end up holding too long, etc.

That means all the other BS is gone, i.e.

Previously, we literally had no good fit between boss jumps and Chakra; it was purely a matter of luck.
4 Chakra and boss jumps? Well, guess I'm getting only 74 downtime potency this jump (4 Chakra effectively wasted).
Chakra jumped right after using a newly available TFC? Cool. That's a an extra 296 potency I just net myself, through no skill of my own.

So, again, that BS RNG-based interaction with fight mechanics/timings is now gone. We're left instead with, say, the much fairer interactions of a Bard -- pop Perfect Pitch before the boss jumps and chances are you'll have another before the boss returns.

At that point, Monk would not be unique in regard to disengage-related considerations; Dancer, Ninja, BLM, Samurai (though Shoha would actually be worse than TFC now), and any job with high amount of oGCD banking potential would have it just as bad (or, involve just as much gameplay).

At "worst", like Samurai, Monk would just have something to do during the boss-jump while everyone else just idles (Anatman, in place of Meditate).

:: You already know my stance on Tornado Kick and Anatman, but that's rather out of scope for what was purely an de-clunk-ifying improvement to Meditation itself. If you want me to restate them, I will, but I don't see how I've been slyly ambiguous or disingenuous in wanting this simple intuitive improvement to Meditation/Chakra/TFC.

[waterboytkd]

Out of curiosity, a quick question for anyone/everyone:

What are some forms you wouldn't mind a reworked Greased Lightning taking? Moreover, what gameplay loops and general feel must it still accomplish?

(Same question for other resources like Forms, Stances, and Chakra, if you find those similarly pertinent.)

I have a tendency to get verbose, so I'll try and keep this as concise as possible. Also, full disclosure, I main Samurai, not Monk (though I *want* to be a Monk main, the QoL is just too low for me).

EDIT: Lol, my post was too big, and seemed to break something in the formatting. So here's a very abridged version:

• First, I'd like GL to simply be a buff Couerl attacks make. Only 1 stack, giving us what we currently get with 4 stacks.
• Second big change is Chakra. I'd like it to just use MP. Make TFC and Enlightenment cost 9000 MP (wiggle room so we don't overcap). Then all the percentage chances to open a Chakra are instead MP gains (ie Deep Meditation II would give ~1200 MP, Brotherhood would give ~500 MP, and Meditation would give 1800 MP in combat or 10,000 MP out of combat).
• As for Forms, I think they're good and should stay. Only thing I would change is Form Shift (I would make it, starting at level 54, also include Meditation's functionality).
• As for Stances, I would remove all straight dps gains from them. Instead, they would all have some QoL type buff attached to them. Earth could be nullifying direction requirements (maybe just vs opponent's for which you have enmity?); Fire could be greater range/radius on weaponskills; Air would be mostly the same (maybe recast reduction for Shoulder Tackle and/or Sprint addition?).
• Riddles would get a quick makeover, too. They would just be useful oGCD abilities. Earth would change to just a simple raid-wide damage mitigator; Air would replace Enhanced Tackle at 66, and give a 10-yalm backstep that automatically resets the recast timer on Shoulder Tackle (Shoulder Tackle should lose the attack aspect--potency would be shuffled into other abilities--and the 2nd charge); Fire could remain unchanged, but maybe gains the raid-wide buff of Brotherhood (then Brotherhood is just the "Meditative Brotherhood" part).
• Tornado Kick, Six-sided Star, and Anatman all need changes, though I don't know exactly what. Tornado Kick could have its potency reduced, then whenever you gain GL while you already have GL, it gives you a stack Combo (or name it anything else). Tornado Kick requires a stack of Combo to use, and you can stack up to 3 stacks of Combo. Six-sided Star could turn into a 3rd Couerl weaponskill (since we only use Demolish on every 3rd Couerl, we actually have room in the rotation for it) with an unshared recast timer. Anatman...I have no idea. Form Shift already does the Samurai Meditation effect. It could even just do something plain-jane, like instantly recovering 8000 MP.

EDIT: I forgot to answer the part about Gameplay Loop! Basically, keeping buffs up by correctly using the rotation is the basis. The biggest issue with GL is rebuilding after dropping because of errors/mechanics, so I would want a very quick recovery time (no more than 6 gcds). After that, the double RNG of Chakra needs to be addressed, preferably with a method that also addresses the forced possibility of overcapping. Then, I don't want dead abilities on my hotbars (so something needs to be done about TK, SSS, and Anatman). Beyond that, I think making the Stances more a flavor choice, as opposed to a "which is best dps?" choice would be great, especially if there were niche reasons that could encourage some *light* stance-dancing.

[Kahnom]

If we still got the old wind shoulder tackle ... I think it might fit for current 4th GL, I mean getting 1 free GL will make our rotation less boring, don’t you think ?

[Xau]

[*]As for Stances, I would remove all straight dps gains from them. Instead, they would all have some QoL type buff attached to them. Earth could be nullifying direction requirements (maybe just vs opponent's for which you have enmity?); Fire could be greater range/radius on weaponskills; Air would be mostly the same (maybe recast reduction for Shoulder Tackle and/or Sprint addition?).
something plain-jane, like instantly recovering 8000 MP.[/List]

do you realise what giving a skill 100% uptime of no positional requirements makes it too op?, i mean, if we compare it whit the other 2 fists of... changes you sugested, it makes it way too op, since longer range and shortening recast on shoulder tackle(this one could be used just before using shoulder tackle and then changing back to 100% no positionals fist once the skill was used) aren't as great as ignoring positionals all the time(to the point of directly affect dps performance), to the point of why create such skill when positionals could be outright removed, fists of are better removed to the game since they bring ilusion of choice, and add nothing really relevant

[Navnav]

They need to make the positionals ONLY for bootshine. Tbh, i don't know how people think it's skill to stand between back and side and just keep moving to get the little extra potency each attack. Yes it adds up, but its a pointless thing to do considering how often it has to be done. It's not skill to hit positionals, its just an arbitrary requirement meant to make it seem like we are engaging with the job more. Its hella annoying. Try positionals with true north and you have a tank that wants to go mongo dongo spinny boss weeeeeeeee!!! All of a sudden you realise now, that for you to hit your positionals is impossible. That is bad design. Remove them.