RIP MNK 1.x - 5.x

[Ramura_Sono]

I believe they were removed because the development team initially thought that GL4 would be """too fast""" for us to deal with. Just... ignore how this was right after the busiest iteration of MNK and they went back on their word eventually anyway by turning TK into Steel Peak.

"GL4 will be too fast" is how you knew not a single person on the Dev Team played Monk. We were no faster. We just invested more stats into crit rather than sks and maintained the same GCD speed we've always geared to.

[Kahnom]

"GL4 will be too fast" is how you knew not a single person on the Dev Team played Monk. We were no faster. We just invested more stats into crit rather than sks and maintained the same GCD speed we've *always* geared to.

Yes, you sum it up pretty nicely.
Not a single main MNK complain that “its too fast”.
Fast GCD is what we signed up for and that’s why we called ourselves main MNK.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

Do you not play Monk? How Andy_T93 described the relationshiop is how it already works ingame. At 0-4 Chakra, the button is meditation, once you hit the 5th Chakra, Meditation changes to The Forbidden Chakra.

I think that you mis-read what I meant... I was to think.. imagine if Meditation does not exist, and The Forbidden Chakra is a action that just sits on your hotbar and you can not use it, until you get five Chakra, and then The Forbidden Chakra action goes from grey to lit up and ready for use. My point is that would annoy me, because I like the Meditation action, and I like how it transforms into The Forbidden Chakra, when The Forbidden Chakra is ready.

I believe they were removed because the development team initially thought that GL4 would be """too fast""" for us to deal with. Just... ignore how this was right after the busiest iteration of MNK and they went back on their word eventually anyway by turning TK into Steel Peak.

"GL4 will be too fast" is how you knew not a single person on the Dev Team played Monk. We were no faster. We just invested more stats into crit rather than sks and maintained the same GCD speed we've always geared to.

Yes, you sum it up pretty nicely.
Not a single main MNK complain that “its too fast”.
Fast GCD is what we signed up for and that’s why we called ourselves main MNK.

That may have also been the case... I think that their delete was because of "button bloat", but that may be the case... And I agree that it is nonsense.
I love Monk because I love speed... I love a thing that does not exist in FFXIV, the Speed archtype play-style, and Monk is the most close to that... To me, too fast does not exist, only too slow exists.

However they could easily take the place of current Elixir Field and TK, potency, cooldown and all. Might as well, seeing as how the only damaging oGCD present in the demonstration was Forbidden Chakra.

As for that, I could go with that... I think that would work out, so let us go with that idea... In that case, hmn...Howling Fist would be a short-range frontal straight-line AoE with potency 250 and a 30sec CD, while Steel Peak would be the melee-range single target attack with potency 400 and the 45sec CD...

[IruruCece]

"GL4 will be too fast" is how you knew not a single person on the Dev Team played Monk. We were no faster. We just invested more stats into crit rather than sks and maintained the same GCD speed we've always geared to.

What makes this worse is that it's clear nobody on the dev team has been seriously playing Monk on live servers since 2.0, if we're being generous. The way GL was handled up until its eventual removal feels like someone was following a design document, and not even bothering to experiment for themselves what their changes were doing to the job. What monk mains were actually demanding the removal of steel peak and howling fist? Which ones wanted a skill that SLOWED US DOWN, on top of our old capstone skill doing the same and reverting us to a weakened state??????

The addition of Blitzes is probably one of the most visible instances of someone actually taking player feedback about the job seriously, if not the first. And it's impossible for me to be excited about it because the devs have mishandled the job for so long, I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

That may have also been the case... I think that their delete was because of "button bloat", but that may be the case... And I agree that it is nonsense.

I think what makes the "button bloat" removal on the devs part frustrating is that they didn't actually address button bloat.

If they wanted to address button bloat more decisively AND effectively, elemental fists should have been removed from the game by 3.0 at the latest. They have been a thorn in the side of the job since inception, have rarely demanded players to dance between them, and the biggest change to that dynamic, AFAIK, was in ShB, where a popular opener involved STARTING in Fire, then switching to Wind when we hit GL3 so we could push into GL4... so we could sit in Wind for the rest of the fight, barring the need to reopen.

And then they removed GL anyway, so now we just sit in Fire. Again.

I would trade all the elemental fists for the OGCDs we've lost over the years, since its pretty clear that "button bloat" isn't actually something SE has ever cared about in regards to monks for a VERY long time now. Hell, ShB Monk had plenty of button bloat to deal with just having the elemental fists and a host of buttons all designed to help maintain GL... which is no longer in the game, and were made worthless even before that because SE decided it was more important that we lose GL while we watch the same damn mid-fight cutscenes again, and again, and again.

Maybe if TP still existed in the game, the enforced breaks might be somewhat welcome. Maybe.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

ah, the fists of actions. verily, those are bad design... and they make little sense, to begin with, in my opinion.. since they seem to be more akin to magic, than aught else, and I have no memory of monk's identity ever to include "Elemental Brawler" in it....I have no idea what plans the Dev Team has for the Fists of actions, but I have been to write up and work on my own ideas for them...
I had concept ideas to re-design the fists of actions from toggle passives, to GCD WeaponSkills with a CD, that require forms like our other WeaponSkills, one for each form, with the aesthetic idea of to convert them from magic enhancements into Chakra-power Martial arts, and in order to add a bit more into the Monk rotation... I am still to work on the details of those concepts, though...
Not quite done with to complete it, yet.. as I need to in full theory-craft the CD parts of the re-design concept.

as for oGCDs... I think we will need to wait, see if Elixir Field and Tornado Kick were in fact made into blitzes, or if it was just similar animation, and those two are still around. That said, I am all for more oGCDs on Monk. If Monk has enough oGCDs, with different CDs, Monk could even single-weave as a constant, and gain a illusion of speed that makes it feel even more fast.

[Shurrikhan]

If they wanted to address button bloat more decisively AND effectively, elemental fists should have been removed from the game by 3.0 at the latest.

Tbf, we could then make the same case for every intermediate actions, such as every combo skill short of the final, or at least every combo skill without an additional effect worth generating for its own sake.

Bloat isn't a matter of whether something is more than an immediate necessity; it's marked by its providing no unique value, design-wise, in its present context. That always leaves three solutions, however—only one of which is the action's removal. The other two are to adjust the context such that the skill gains that unique opportunity or to adjust the skill such that it actually provides a unique opportunity within its contexts.

Any case one can make for the stance's removals can be mirrored by a case for their being made an actual mechanic. The real problem is merely that neither has happened—outside of perhaps 4.3's iteration, and even it was far from stellar.

[wereotter]

Yes, you sum it up pretty nicely.
Not a single main MNK complain that “its too fast”.
Fast GCD is what we signed up for and that’s why we called ourselves main MNK.

I always interpreted that more as the developers being worried they would have a harder time balancing such a fast job to the other DPS than us having trouble playing it. But they always reword things so play down troubles they might have as troubles we would have.