Greased Lightning and Huton

[Lastelli]

You must have had some strange MM on MNK, because it was just as effortless to restart your rotation if GL fell if as you are describing it for NIN.

NIN is the far more complex/busy job of the two, especially after MNK being gutted.

Disputable. They're basically the same in terms of speed and APM. NIN is terribly trivial outside of its TA + ninjutsu window and ninki management is pretty straightforward. MNk has a very streamlined rotation, but it has the added challenge of more positionals and an alternative rotation after the PB window. At the end of the day, they're very comparable. Personally, I find NIN easier to play.

[wereotter]

You must have had some strange MM on MNK, because it was just as effortless to restart your rotation if GL fell if as you are describing it for NIN.

NIN is the far more complex/busy job of the two, especially after MNK being gutted.

The rotation, if you lost greased lighting, and especially if you already popped perfect balance as a DPS increasing move, was a stumbling block very similar to how the slow down on riddle of fire last expansion was. You'd lose your flow because you were suddenly going a lot slower, and unlike ninja who only had to wait at most 20 seconds to reapply their speed increase, monk also had a slow buildup needing to go through 3-4 full rotations in order to not only be back up to the normal speed, but also to be back to normal damage. It messed with muscle memory for the job.

As it is now, though. I also don't agree that ninja is more complex or busy. As stated, monk still has to dance around the boss more because of positional requirements, whereas ninja only has to move to hit armor crush and otherwise just stays in one spot behind the boss. And doing your bursts are comprably complex between monk needing to do its perfect balance, riddle of fire, brotherhood, unpredicable triggers for forbidden chakra phase and ninja needing cram as many of its moves into the trick attack window as possible. Neither is more complex, unless you can count on the predicability of ninja making it less so.

[Ariel_Valmont]

Greased Lightning was removed because they failed at fixing its problems. Huton doesn't have those problems. It gives you a reason to alternate your rotations to keep it up. Removing it would remove a dynamic of the job and it would be unnecessary to.

Greased lightning was removed due to a vocal group of the player base who found it too hard to maintain greased lightning (just as easy to keep up as huton) doing your rotation kept it up (valid excuse for huton apparently)
Removing it, removed a dynamic of the job, and it was unnecessary.

[Ariel_Valmont]

As far as which was harder to play, it’s a matter of opinion, I personally find the MNK positionals easier to keep track of because you always need to be positioned, where the NIN positionals seem to be a mere after thought and are easy to lose track of.

Ya, losing GL sucked, that was kind of the point not to, it was still more rewarding to play than it is now.

The thing that I would say that possibly makes nin easier is the movement speed increase, which was addressed this go round with gl4 and fists of wind, and sadly that’s a memory.

But as was said, it’s disputable/subjective/opinion.

[Vyrerus]

Both Monk and Ninja got the difficulty in their rotations mostly gutted in SHB. For Ninja, now that they've moved Mudras onto the GCD, its rotation is wildly simpler. It has a lot less to maintain now, Huton is the only thing it maintains now. Everything else is just do it in the TA window if it aligns nicely, and if not, do it when it's off cooldown.

The strength of Ninja's Huton and its ease vs. Greased Lightning, before GL's removal was the fact that Ninja can put it up outside of combat with no penalty. This means there's no build up for it, at all, ever, unless the tank pulls the second the instance entry barrier drops. Then you only have to use the Armor Crush combo once, 70 seconds into the fight, and then 30 seconds after that, though a higher buffer may make you more comfortable if you haven't memorized when and how long fight transitions are.

Greased Lightning was far harder to maintain, particularly in the past when it used to only be 12 seconds vs. Huton's constant 70. It's true that every combo ender for Monk ended in the Coeurl Stance, refreshing GL, but the other truth is that there are tons of fights where you have to disengage for a long enough time, that if you delayed those ending hits in the combo by just a sec, you lose the full GL buff and have to rebuild it from scratch. In the past, the reason to delay said combo finishers was to apply DOTs from Fracture and Touch of Death(if TP was no concern depending on fight length).

Even with PB, it took 3 Coeurl Stance moves to do this. Monk's rotation overall, even with the burst phases, brotherhood, and chakra in the mix is worlds simpler and easier to execute, especially Pre-SHB, but perfecting it was madness because there's so many little ways to lose DPS.

Monk's main game has always been keep uptime and do positionals, it has no ranged attacks. Chakra barely felt like an addition to the job, because outside of a Brotherhood friendly comp, you knew the gains on it would always be slow, needing 5 procs to do one oGCD. Riddle of Fire was just a replacement for Blood for Blood with a slightly better downside.

NIN's main game has changed with each expansion. It used to have no positionals other than TA. It gained Enmity control for two expansions. Lost DOTs, gained Ninki. The only constant has been Huton, and maintaining Huton is a joke.

[dezzmont]

You must have had some strange MM on MNK, because it was just as effortless to restart your rotation if GL fell if as you are describing it for NIN.

NIN is the far more complex/busy job of the two, especially after MNK being gutted.

NIN is a deeper job, but it is not more complex/busy.

Part of why MNK was in a design gutter that made it a consistent loser in the Job Satisfaction polls (including among hardcore players, so it isn't just 'mad because its a hard job' problem) is because GL just causes a lot of problems for the job in both terms of downtime and how fun it is to actually play. It actively detracts from the job, rather than adding to it. NIN flows through different abilities, and gets big rewards for doing it well, but missing anything doesn't trash the job in a similar way that monk does. GL all punishments for not getting it right, or for getting downtime.

As for why Huton is better, Vyrerus put it best: Huton is passively gained and re-applied if dropped, GL is very active and took a lot more 'effort' to get back.

Losing huton makes you miss one Ninjutsu. That isn't great but it isn't crushing. Losing GL means you lose an optimal PB window to get it up, or you lose out on the fast pace of monk attacks that the job uses to make up for how visually unimpactful monk attacks are as a general rule (and yes, this matters a lot to how a job feels, there is a reason getting 2 bloodletters in a row on BRD makes you feel like a god despite that only being 300 potency, less than say... a rear strike Bootshine buffed by leaden fist, which doesn't feel much like anything, bloodletter is flashy with lots of clear feedback something good just happened, and hopefully 6.0 will come with a visual update to monk giving it some more 'impact' to good play, like positional correct attack animations), meaning losing GL basically means your not playing your job for 3 rotations, or losing out on the only real 'flash' your job gets.

I get the desire to retain the deep parts of monk, it should maintain its identity as a fast hitting class with heavy positional requirements and a free-flowing combo system, but GL doesn't really support its job fantasy at all besides creating a big emotional penalty for making a mistake (and one that is harder for new players to notice, mind) or hitting downtime in a fight, because 'loses DPS for failing to maintain GCD combo' is a feature of every job in the game. Only BLM has a mechanic that interacts with that on a deeper level than the 'basic' way it costs you DPS, and that works because the entire job has a different relationship with uptime and isn't expected to maintain 100% uptime like physical jobs are.

So it wasn't 'special' that Monk had GL which made it extra bad to lose your GCD, it was a superfluous extra penalty that existed for no real reason besides to overload player's brains and make mistakes or downtime feel truly awful, as well as necessitating a truly absurd amount of mechanics to negate this supposed 'depth' of the job. More than half of the Shadowbringers actives were some variation on 'Handle downtime better.' Heck, if you consider meditate a downtime ability despite you technically getting Chakras mid fight, all 3 of their actives in some way related to Monk's 'downtime' problem, which is a direct result of its GL focused design.

There was just no reality the XIV designers were keeping GL in as a key part of monk. It wasn't a vocal minority of the players, it just... was an anchor weighing down the entire job that very consistently was not popular and who's mains were not happy with it. When your forced to design abilities to make the job's 'unique mechanic' not matter every expansion because when it matters the job really stinks to play, kinda is a big sign that the mechanic just isn't fun.

[VentVanitas]

Losing huton makes you miss one Ninjutsu. That isn't great but it isn't crushing. Losing GL means you lose an optimal PB window to get it up, or you lose out on the fast pace of monk attacks that the job uses to make up for how visually unimpactful monk attacks are as a general rule (and yes, this matters a lot to how a job feels, there is a reason getting 2 bloodletters in a row on BRD makes you feel like a god despite that only being 300 potency, less than say... a rear strike Bootshine buffed by leaden fist, which doesn't feel much like anything, bloodletter is flashy with lots of clear feedback something good just happened, and hopefully 6.0 will come with a visual update to monk giving it some more 'impact' to good play, like positional correct attack animations), meaning losing GL basically means your not playing your job for 3 rotations, or losing out on the only real 'flash' your job gets.

This. MNK has no real relationship with the player when it comes to visual feedback for skills outside of like maybe SSS. Your strongest attack is the skill you get at level 1. If you told anybody that when they wanted to get into the job they'd probably lose interest at that statement alone. To make a comparison to emphasize just how egregious Leaden Bootshine is, let's imagine if for DRG, instead of getting Raiden Thrust- it only made your True Thrust's potency stronger, that's it. No extra or special animation. I guarantee you that if that actually happened to Dragoon, a lot of people would be trashing on how useless of an addition it would be.

Of course I'm not saying the solution to this should be to make Leaden Bootshine a uniquely animated skill because it shouldn't exist altogether in favour of making Dragon Kick more unique and giving more power to MNK's other weaponskills. It's as you said, MNK should have an overall visual tweak to have more "oomph" or distinction because it is sorely lacking in that regard, especially in terms of job fantasy.

[SpeckledBurd]

Monk's main game has always been keep uptime and do positionals, it has no ranged attacks. Chakra barely felt like an addition to the job, because outside of a Brotherhood friendly comp, you knew the gains on it would always be slow, needing 5 procs to do one oGCD. Riddle of Fire was just a replacement for Blood for Blood with a slightly better downside.

Slightly worse you mean, while Blood for Blood was more dangerous to use, Riddle of Fire negatively impacted how Monk actually felt to play to the point where Monk players in Stormblood immediately, viscerally, despised it. Even if the purpose was to allow for double weaving, it didn't actually feel good to players and it was the number one thing people complained about regarding Monk in Stormblood from the get go. Them keeping the slow is pretty much the ultimate example of how the devs completely failed to respond to feedback regarding Monk going into Shadowbringers.

[Equitable_Remedy]

Ok, but is Superman faster than The Flash?

[ItMe]

Ok, but is Superman faster than The Flash?

Literally depends on the author.
They've raced a few times and both have canonically been proven "faster."
Why do you ask?