Controversioal Changes to Monk

[VentVanitas]

If MNK's identity is built around its freeform combos then it still fails in that regard because it does not take advantage of it like its previous iterations did. Making Leaden Bootshine weaker does not deal with the fact that you're still ultimately just alternating between Bootshine and DK, and double True Strike is still dead in the water because there isn't a big enough of a potency difference between it and Twin Snakes.

As for the fist stances... I've said this so many times in the past and a lot of MNK players have as well. They need to be deleted. Repeating the mistakes of SB and ShB by trying to make the fist stances relevant is not a worthwhile endeavour.

[Kolsykol]

Fist stances don't need to be deleted, they need to be merged.
I am still salty over losing the extra movement speed when we lost GL since we went back to fire stance.

They might as well make them a passive but I don't want to just lose more stuff again.
MNK running faster just makes thematic sense too, I do think it makes sense for NIN as well but considering that we rely the most on positionals and are such physical fighters that are also the fastest it only makes sense that we could run faster.
I know it's not a huge deal but still, you do feel the difference and it doesn't make sense that we lost it.

[Sqwall]

If you continue to insist there were not problems with it, or that they were fixable, or something people could work to overcome, that is your right. Opinions are subjective, I wouldn't dare say 'People who enjoyed old Monk are liars.' However, 1: We have actual data, not just random forum posts that show this isn't a widespread belief (ex: The Stormblood Job Satisfaction Survey) and 2: Insisting that it was a minority of uninformed whiners complaining about GL who just needed to 'git good' runs counter to every bit of evidence we have on how Monk was perceived by the majority of the community who does not participate in the forums.

I great comparison.... NIN vs. MNK playstyle. NIN and MNK have been very close in playstyle since ARR, but I would say NIN has gone in the right direction. While MNK has most definitely gone in the wrong direction. Now if we think about those players that changed to NIN after it launched and stuck with it, I would say that they feel WAY better about their decision then those that stuck with MNK.

To that point....I regret my decision on sticking with MNK due to the terrible decision making for MNK over the years. It's not the games fault at all otherwise EVERY job would be horrible. I have played nearly all the jobs (sch never wowed me), and I can say this. MNK can't hold a CANDLE to NIN as far as job gameplay design. NIN job design compliments it's identity COMPLETELY.

MNK completely misses the mark as a gameplay design, and gradually lost it's identity over the years. NIN kept it's identity and I hate to say it, but I have way more fun on NIN then MNK.

From a new player stand point? No crap those that pick MNK are turned off to the game, and it doesn't do well to keep the job in it's current state. It only harms the new player experience and can drive new players away if they make the first judgement. "Wow MNK sucks, are all jobs like this?" "Free trial is up and MNK sucks, no sub" These are actually questions I have heard from IRL friends, but I simply tell them....MNK just sucks lol, pick a different job. BUT then they say "But I like punching things!" Which brings up the same argument again. Why did you decide MNK in the first place, "Because I like fast gameplay and punching things, so I choose MNK"

SE has an obligation to new players and old players to fix this class and bring it back on track. A track that serves the new players to stick with it and have a good pay off, rather then a wet fart it is now. And for those that have stuck with it (raises hand), to make it not such a complete mess of a max level mediocre ARR 2.0 MNK.

This person is 100% correct in saying the job is the problem....not the game.

[Sqwall]

Fist stances don't need to be deleted, they need to be merged.
I am still salty over losing the extra movement speed when we lost GL since we went back to fire stance.

They might as well make them a passive but I don't want to just lose more stuff again.
MNK running faster just makes thematic sense too, I do think it makes sense for NIN as well but considering that we rely the most on positionals and are such physical fighters that are also the fastest it only makes sense that we could run faster.
I know it's not a huge deal but still, you do feel the difference and it doesn't make sense that we lost it.

With the way the game is going. Seems only tanks will have the stances moving forward. And DNC being perfectly happy with Closed Position.
I will play devils advocate here.

If we kept the stances in? Then merge fists into riddles.

Fists of Fire ---> Riddle of Fire (+5% damage + 20% damage = Broken...but awesome!)
Fists of Earth ---> Riddle of Earth (-10% damage taken + Positionals negated = keep combo and avoid damage)
Fists of Wind ----> Riddle of Wind (new skill) (+15% run speed + %20 evasion = need to get somewhere fast and avoid damage if possible)

Riddles now extend the bonuses to the entire party/raid. Riddles can no longer be stacked.

You effectively merge the stances into riddles and give more emphasis to riddle swapping to buff the party, kind of how strong Trick attack is and also the importance of timing your riddles.

Would this break the game...yup.

Would it be fun....YEP.

Will they do this....NOPE!

[Garnix]

I can imagine them doing a bard-ish thing for the fists.
Like, Fists of Fire increase your crit rate for the next 20s, earth makes it so that you charge a chakra when doing a positional correctly during the next 20s, wind increase your skill speed and run speed for 20s.
Not sure it would work well, but I can see them going that way, and push further into the proc-based design of chakra, and making MNK the proc-based melee.

[Sooru]

If we kept the stances in? Then merge fists into riddles.

Fists of Fire ---> Riddle of Fire (+5% damage + 20% damage = Broken...but awesome!)
Fists of Earth ---> Riddle of Earth (-10% damage taken + Positionals negated = keep combo and avoid damage)
Fists of Wind ----> Riddle of Wind (new skill) (+15% run speed + %20 evasion = need to get somewhere fast and avoid damage if possible)

Riddles now extend the bonuses to the entire party/raid. Riddles can no longer be stacked.

You effectively merge the stances into riddles and give more emphasis to riddle swapping to buff the party, kind of how strong Trick attack is and also the importance of timing your riddles.

Would this break the game...yup.

Would it be fun....YEP.

Will they do this....NOPE!

I agree with the merging of the fists into Riddles, but making them raid wide? No thanks, Monk would just become borderline mandatory on every high difficulty raid because of having access to so many party/raid wide buffs (Mantra 10% increase to healing actions, Brotherhood 5% damage increase and now 3 more?). Not only is Monk one of the better performing DPS jobs but with these changes it would also become one of the best supportive jobs available. And then they'd have to either make the raids more difficult which would only feed into the problem or nerf/rework Monk which would defeat the entire point of the changes in the first place.

I can imagine them doing a bard-ish thing for the fists.
Like, Fists of Fire increase your crit rate for the next 20s, earth makes it so that you charge a chakra when doing a positional correctly during the next 20s, wind increase your skill speed and run speed for 20s.
Not sure it would work well, but I can see them going that way, and push further into the proc-based design of chakra, and making MNK the proc-based melee.

While this would increase the speed of Chakra weaving and by default the speed of the job, which on the surface seems like the right direction, as long as the Chakra gauge is as shallow as it is currently (get 5 chakra, use oGCD damage skill gated behind chakra, repeat), it will not do anything other than to pump more damage into the job. I think the concept is a neat idea but it definitely needs more fleshing out.

[dezzmont]

So of course we can claim and agree, that MNK is the least played class. But is it a bad thing or does it has a problem? NO!

You are right! Low play rate doesn't alone indicate a problem. Low play rate because niche (like BLM) is different than low play rate because of an unfriendly job design! Play rates should not be the only metric we care about.

- So many ppl claim that BLM is perfect designed, but it´s not more picked than MNK. Why?

Black mage has a lot going for it design wise. The main things that jump out are the clear 'goals' of the class that you can understand, with excelent, frequent feedback on how well you are doing in the rotation, lacking severe punish elements that make the job fall apart for more than a few seconds, while still having lots of room for mastery and for players to display skill.

Enochian and GL are very similar designs, but work to different ends. Enochian rewards you for aggression, but does so positively rather than negatively, and managing it is non-trivial. You will need to figure out yourself when to 'abort' to resetting rather than doing your optimal rotation, a skill even good players need. A good monk never really thinks about GL, but a good BLM has to think about Enochian.

On top of this, the abilities getting lots of visual updates or replacements means BLM has very good feedback. You want to earn abilities in the Black Mage rotation and play black mage well not for its own abstract sake, but because executing well on Black mage feels REALLY good, and losing out on casts is very noticable to the player and feels bad, without feeling like a punishment.

Monk doesn't need to become like black mage obviously, but there is a very good reason Black Mage is considered a well designed job despite it not being super popular: Black Mage knows what it is, tells you what it is, and you know pretty damn fast if you like black mage or not. Most players don't like turret mages and that is fine, but it is very 'honest' in what it is about to the point even non-black mage players know a lot about how black mage plays and sees the game (heck, people who I know don't play XIV send me Leyline AOE memes! The job is THAT well designed its influence extends outside of XIV!).

Monk meanwhile basically requires you to read a balance guide to 'figure it out.' So many abilities have unclear or confusing uses, or have overlap that make you wonder what the heck is going on (ex: PB vs Form Shift. Their actual uses are very different but if you are starting out Monk you will have no clue what you are supposed to use either of them for). This, combined with terrible animations and the lack of any 'reward' style attacks, combined with a lot of 'bad' outcomes like dropping debuff or GL or buffs, make it very disorienting and stressful despite not being hard.

Monk is in the worst case scenario where it is complex, but not deep as a job at all.

[ssunny2008]

BLM

Well thx for the answer, but it doesn´t really answer the core question. Of course ppl don´t like a static turret job, but that´s it?


"The job is well designed in out eyes, let´s don´t care about its pickrate." It sounds like that. But why do ppl cared about MNK again and again until it got so braindead and still want to get ride of the core aspect? I mean, a bunch of argumentation seems to be a low pickrate at this point. Why don´t we get ride of BLM´s casting times (the turret aspect) then, to offer it to more players???

I guess you know what i mean and it doesn´t make sense. There have been times where MNK was completely fine, just to see ppl complaining about it. I could complain about BLM at every day too, meanwhile others call it perfect. The prime example would be, that it never really grow too. The play around fire and ice, the play around fire and ice 2, the play around fire and ice next generation. All this matched with more and more buttons to play around the casting times and movement crippling. It´s like its opposite "MNK" with the play around Raptor / Courl and more buttons to maintain GL or to get ride of positional requirements.
Both of them are niche, one is a movement cripple and the other the most movement - intensive class. Again, it´s fine and was fine. Either ppl like those aspects or not. But it doesn´t mean, that there are game-made issues. (Away from the GL cutszene bs.)

The rest about MNK is your point of view, i can accept that. For me personally, it´s exactly the other way round. I mean, everything on MNK is well explained and it´s easy to get into it. You press DK or BS and the next step appears. It´s actually one of the classes where you definately need no balance guide to get into. Even BS and chakra will tell you "more crit pls". Just stack as much crit as possible and be fine with that. The mix of DET / DH, when we would talk about BIS is not that big of a deal.
The only thing where i could agree is PB. Of course a newbie won´t immediately think about BS-spam. But it´s still a skill you can work / experiment with.

The animations aren´t terrible too. Hell the most even complain like "i love its aesthetics". What do you actually expect from a MNK? Flying around like in japanese films? Or perma LB3? I personally don´t need a monitor, which blinds me and i know a bunch of players who got ride of their animations on casting classes so...


I could write even more, but here we are and all of this is subjective and it´s not only you or me, there are more than enough ppl out there which think the one or other way. When ppl show up with an opinion like yours, it´s totally ok. But to claim it´s a job issue? If you really dislike everything of a class and if you´ve problems to get into it, why don´t leave the class, where it is? Why does classes have to be for everyone or needs to be changed for some guys, who won´t main it anyway? I do hate scholar for it´s skill inscriptions and healer gameplay, it´s horrible. But do i complain about it or want the class to be changed?
I´ll never get it.
As long as MNK is the fast positional class, with or without aesthetics / rewards, things won´t change anyway. But if SE is getting ride of it, it´s not MNK anymore, which is bs.

[Kolsykol]

Personally I feel like the animations on MNK are a mixed bag, bootshine, true strike and snap punch feel very outdated.
But demolish and dragon kick looks great and should be what the others should live up to imo, and twin snakes is okay I guess.

But the three former kinda just feels weak and not like a '' Master Monk ''.
I also think that they make us feel slower than we actually are, if our animations were more like demolish for example overall then suddenly it'd feel way faster to play because more would be happening on screen.
With true strike and snap punch in particular tho there's these long pauses, I can kinda accept it with twin snakes since it's a buff tho.

[Jirah]

Personally I feel like the animations on MNK are a mixed bag, bootshine, true strike and snap punch feel very outdated.
But demolish and dragon kick looks great and should be what the others should live up to imo, and twin snakes is okay I guess.

But the three former kinda just feels weak and not like a '' Master Monk ''.
I also think that they make us feel slower than we actually are, if our animations were more like demolish for example overall then suddenly it'd feel way faster to play because more would be happening on screen.
With true strike and snap punch in particular tho there's these long pauses, I can kinda accept it with twin snakes since it's a buff tho.

Animations are a massive mix for MNK, Forbidden chakra and TK are fun to see visually and Demo and twin have that blunt force to them that makes them fun to use. But bootshine is way too drab to be used as it’s main attack for Crits (Ledan fist should’ve upgraded Bootshine to somthing else similar too Ruin IV not assigned but upgrades on its own or another example being refulgent)