Monk Rework just brought us back to 2.0 MNK but with no GL.

[Fendred]

I actually like the new monk. It feels clean and has a focus on being fast. As for improvements, Fist of Wind should be a passive: We have to land way more positional attacks than anyone else, and mob size + mob movement affects that a ton. Fists of fire I'm going to argue should stay, as I'd much rather be making choices about stances than have another damage cooldown to throw into a rotation. We eventually get 20% haste, so that means we have 20% less time to consider our options in between attacks on top of positional requirements. So I definitely do not want more buttons to consider. When things get hectic, I sometimes have to check if I have leaden fists up or not because of how fast things are going relative to all the stuff I have to keep track of.

[Mikey_R]

... Fists of fire I'm going to argue should stay, as I'd much rather be making choices about stances than have another damage cooldown to throw into a rotation.

What choice? It's FoF 99.99999% of the time, the other small % is using FoE for damage mitigation for the lols when you can't hit anything anyway. Just like with Ninja's venoms they should remove it and apply the damage boost across the job.

We eventually get 20% haste, so that means we have 20% less time to consider our options in between attacks on top of positional requirements. So I definitely do not want more buttons to consider. When things get hectic, I sometimes have to check if I have leaden fists up or not because of how fast things are going relative to all the stuff I have to keep track of.

You should not be thinking what your next GCD is on the GCD you are about to use it. You need to plan ahead. When you use Snap Punch, you should know whether your next coeurl will be Snap Punch or Demolish. You should be able to keep track of your Twin Snakes and Leaden Fist in the same way. This then goes onto knowing boss mechanics and what they do. You know they are going to turn for a mechanic, prepare in advance by positioning yourself early, or getting ready to True North/Riddle of Earth.

You might think this is alot, however the same rule applies to all melee jobs and to an extent the ranged as well. You need to think ahead and plan what your actions are going to be ahead of time so you can properly prepare yourself. This is what differentiates a good player from a great player.

[Fendred]

What choice? It's FoF 99.99999% of the time, the other small % is using FoE for damage mitigation for the lols when you can't hit anything anyway. Just like with Ninja's venoms they should remove it and apply the damage boost across the job.



You should not be thinking what your next GCD is on the GCD you are about to use it. You need to plan ahead. When you use Snap Punch, you should know whether your next coeurl will be Snap Punch or Demolish. You should be able to keep track of your Twin Snakes and Leaden Fist in the same way. This then goes onto knowing boss mechanics and what they do. You know they are going to turn for a mechanic, prepare in advance by positioning yourself early, or getting ready to True North/Riddle of Earth.

You might think this is alot, however the same rule applies to all melee jobs and to an extent the ranged as well. You need to think ahead and plan what your actions are going to be ahead of time so you can properly prepare yourself. This is what differentiates a good player from a great player.

I can play the monk just fine, thank you. This game has a library of three expansions worth of content on top of the base game. Asking someone to memorize all of the content to be optimal is silly.

[Kolsykol]

Stances aren't a choice that you make.
It's fire, and if you want to be fancy you can swap stances but I honestly never see anyone even do this.

I agree that Fist of Wind should be a passive tho and I've been saying that too.
It feels like a bad joke that we have a stance for it while Ninja has it as a passive.

I can play the monk just fine, thank you. This game has a library of three expansions worth of content on top of the base game. Asking someone to memorize all of the content to be optimal is silly.

No one really does this tho, the only time you'll ever really be pestered about your dps is in the hardest current content.
You shouldn't really have to think too much about what you're doing tho, there is a system just like there is with every other Job.
Sure your timing can be off but it's the same with Samurai, for example if the second Midare is coming up and I look at the cooldown of Tsubame and see that it's at around 30s, okay I know that I am on time so I continue as usual.
If it's bellow that due to mechanic delays then I move on to the filler and then the burst phase.
Hasn't failed me yet, it always lines up correctly.

It's the same with Monk, your timing will just naturally be off sometimes and that's where some intuition steps in.
Like maybe the burst phase is coming up and instead of refreshing Demolish only to have to clip it for the burst phase immediately after I'll just do two Dragon Kicks instead to compensate and then move into the burst phase with a buffed Demolish like in the opener.

Even when things go wrong it's less about making organic decisions and still more about a system.
Especially with Monk since the rotation overall isn't as relient on hiting specific notes like Samurai, at least with Samurai there could be argued to be more specific math that you need to do quickly in your head for things to line up.
I actually see the speed of Monk as more beneficial in that regard because adapting your burst phase to the clock can be done relatively close to the burst phase while with Samurai there's potentially more guess work.
It's easier to end up with Midare too early and for Tsubame to be on cooldown than it is to screw it up with Monk, and even if you do screw it up with Monk it's not really a big deal to clip Twin Snakes and Demolish.
While with Samurai you either need to sit there for a GCD and wait 1-2s for it to come off cooldown or continue and have it sit there off cooldown until after the next Midare.

[wereotter]

What choice? It's FoF 99.99999% of the time, the other small % is using FoE for damage mitigation for the lols when you can't hit anything anyway. Just like with Ninja's venoms they should remove it and apply the damage boost across the job.

I'm not one for advocating dumbing down a job... but in this case I agree. The fist stances are largely useless and just a check to see if players are actually paying attention to their skills. The closest they ever had to making these stances mean anything was Stormblood having the be in the stances as part of using the riddles, and using wind tackle to get extra GL stacks so we could finally use Tornado Kick...

I can't see any way they can make the stances relevant, so just make them passive traits at the level you unlock them.

[IruruCece]

I'm not one for advocating dumbing down a job... but in this case I agree. The fist stances are largely useless and just a check to see if players are actually paying attention to their skills. The closest they ever had to making these stances mean anything was Stormblood having the be in the stances as part of using the riddles, and using wind tackle to get extra GL stacks so we could finally use Tornado Kick...

I can't see any way they can make the stances relevant, so just make them passive traits at the level you unlock them.

Don't even bother that much with them. Just take the fist stances out of the game and be done with them. Burn them out of the game and never mention them again, even as traits. They are that worthless.

Every expansion has rendered the dumb things as little more than One Stance You Sit On, and Two Others You Ignore Forever. The one time you actually did something remotely different with them in your rotation was, shockingly enough, Shadowbringers, where players would open in Fire, then sit in Wind until they lost GL and needed to re-open.

People will talk for a looooong while about how GL "added nothing" to the job, but I'm here to tell you that the elemental fists were far worse to the overall health of the job's kit than GL ever was. After repeated button culls and reintroductions under different names and icons, the Elemental Fists have somehow withstood the test of a time, offering nothing to nearly every other aspect of the job until the introduction of GL4... which now doesn't even matter. They are collectively a diseased boil on the arse of the entire kit. Let the earth they get buried under be seeded with all the salt in the world. I would rather have three OGCDs to use in their place.

[SpeckledBurd]

If the topic is Fist Stances, I've said it before: For all that there might be some sort of potential to do something with them that potential is meaningless if it's never manifested. We've had two expansions where they've added traits to them and those traits have always been worthless, and frankly I'd say that the "Riddle of" actions that were tied to them were just as bad as they were introduced in Stormblood, to the point where they were untied to the Fist Stances in Shadowbringers and have gone through multiple revisions. At this point I'd rather see the Fist Stances get deleted entirely so they stop wasting design space, because all they're doing now is stifling the job from growing in any other way by continuing to receive traits that contribute nothing to the job and shouldn't exist.r

Let them die and let the job grow. The job isn't improved by having a Tank or a Sprint Stance it never uses, there's no choice there. It wasn't improved by having the illusion of choice between Fists of Wind and Fists of Fire at the beginning of Shadowbringers either, because that's not a choice either. It's just something that will cause people who don't know better to make the wrong decision.

[Kolsykol]

The only way I'd like to see Fists of Fire stay really is as a visual effect lol.
Just make it replace Riddle of Fire but with the same effect and make your fists actually visually be on fire.
Just makes more sense on a thematic level.

Just on a visual level I think Monks are in need of an update, Bootshine, True Strike and Snap Punch in particular look so visually underwhelming and not like we're these ultra masters of doom.
I also have the same problem as with Dancer which is that the animations just stop if you move in certain ways ( which we do a lot ).
Just looks really awkward when that happens.

[Fendred]

The only way I'd like to see Fists of Fire stay really is as a visual effect lol.
Just make it replace Riddle of Fire but with the same effect and make your fists actually visually be on fire.
Just makes more sense on a thematic level.

Just on a visual level I think Monks are in need of an update, Bootshine, True Strike and Snap Punch in particular look so visually underwhelming and not like we're these ultra masters of doom.
I also have the same problem as with Dancer which is that the animations just stop if you move in certain ways ( which we do a lot ).
Just looks really awkward when that happens.

I agree we need a visual update of some kind. Some other helpful updates would be:

1. They should change Brotherhood so that it provides a temporary aura bubble that counts the number of attacks done by party members. Every 5th attack gives a chakra. Much less swingy than a 20% chance.
2. Perfect balance should drop us off in Opo-opo form when it wears off. As it stands right now, we end up losing a critical bootshine or lose out on leaden fists for one volley, which feels really odd.

I absolutely do not like riddle of fire. Melee OGCD's get staggered due to dodging boss mechanics, so all it does is create this unpleasant situation where the monk wants to line up her OGCD's, but the encounter design explicitly prevents that from happening outside of a target dummy. The only job with a real burst phase that I'm familiar with is the Machinist when he uses heat blast. I think they should just fold Riddle of Fire's damage into our other abilities and call it a day.

[Mikey_R]

2. Perfect balance should drop us off in Opo-opo form when it wears off. As it stands right now, we end up losing a critical bootshine or lose out on leaden fists for one volley, which feels really odd.

It might not be clear what you mean, however, to clarify, the only thing you should be doing when you are formless coming out of Perfect Balance is Dragon Kick. That will give a higher total potency for those 2 opo-opo GCDs.

I absolutely do not like riddle of fire. Melee OGCD's get staggered due to dodging boss mechanics, so all it does is create this unpleasant situation where the monk wants to line up her OGCD's, but the encounter design explicitly prevents that from happening outside of a target dummy. The only job with a real burst phase that I'm familiar with is the Machinist when he uses heat blast. I think they should just fold Riddle of Fire's damage into our other abilities and call it a day.

Every single job has a burst phase. Dragoon has Life of the Dragon + Lance Charge, Samurai has Tsubame-gaeshi + Meikyo Shisui, Ninja has Trick Attack, BLM's fire phase is just one long burst, RDM has their melee combo, Summoner has the trances, Bard has Raging Strikes, Machinist has their heat and Dancer is around Technical Step. Some might be more flexible than others, however, every job has to play around these factors. This might mean delaying them until after a mechanic that pulls them away from a boss, it might mean delaying as the boss is about to jump and become untargetable, there are many different reasons. However, working your buffs around the boss is, again, a way to differentiate between a good player and a great player.

With your recent posts, I have to wonder, maybe playing melee just isn't for you?