Monk Identity and Blitz ?

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

Though it'd come at risk of someone telling you that any and every possible iteration of GL is a concept beyond redemption, sure, feel free to share.

Heh... I do not care enough to allow nay-sayers to bother me.
I will respect the opinions and perspectives of others, but no person can talk me out of my own opinion and perspective, that all Greased Lightning stacks had need of was a serious and functional fix, not to be given up on and delete Greased Lightning into a damn trait. Verily, it is more probable that Monk will not turn course back around, that I both acknowledge and admit, but I came up with my redesign before 5.4, any way; and have just put it on a shelf, since then.

Aaaaaaany waaaay, copy and paste time...


First: Greased Lightning stacks only affect “speed”, or in other words, they only reduce WeaponSkill cast time and recast time, spell cast time and recast time, and auto-attack delay; where-in each Greased lightning stack reduces these by 5% per stack, up to four stacks and 20% reduction.
(I can comprehend why the Dev Team chose to remove damage increase from Greased Lightning, and chose to stay with that.)

The only way to gain a Greased Lightning stack, is to enter Raptor form, and shift forms from there, Raptor to Coeurl to Opo Opo, unto which the third action, being Demolish, Rock Breaker, or Snap Punch, will activate a Greased Lightning stack, when the Monk shifts form again, Opo Opo to Raptor.

Greased Lightning stack duration has also been given a increase, up to a maximum of 60 seconds, and while the Monk flows through form shifts and the rotation, each Opo Opo-to-Raptor form shift of a third action, which activates and maintains/upkeeps Greased Lightning, will neither grant the full Greased Lightning stack duration, nor refresh the duration to the full duration.

Instead, the first Opo Opo-to-Raptor form shift activates one Greased Lightning stack with only 10 seconds on the Greased Lightning stack duration.
Every Opo Opo-to-Raptor form shift after the first, will activate another Greased Lightning stack, up to the maximum of four, and extend the duration of Greased Lightning stacks by only 10 seconds, up to the new maximum duration of 60 seconds.
I chose to design Greased Lightning in this manner, because I think that it would be "better" than if it were brain-dead level of almost not possible to NOT upkeep and maintain, as seen with Warriors' Storm's Eye, Shinobi Huton, or Dark Knights’ DarkSide.


Also, keep in mind that even at a (super) slow 2.5 GCD, that would be 7.5 seconds to gain 10 seconds, so as long as the Monk keeps their rotation in flow, it would be easy enough to build up to, and stay at, the new maximum duration, while to build up to that new maximum would be "essential", for Greased Lightning stacks to not be lost when ever the Monk can not attack targets and maintain them.

Side-note I: Just a personal perspective... If 10 seconds per 1-2-3 rotation is still "too easy", it could even be just 7, 8, or 9 seconds, to make the stack maintenance, and to reach the maximum duration, a little more difficult.

Side-note II: I think that it would also be ideal if the fourth Greased Lightning stack has no restriction to and/or lock behind any action, which was Fists of Wind in the past, and only have a level-lock, like the second and third Greased Lightning stacks; while the Monk will unlock the fourth Greased Lightning stack at a much lower level than waaaaay up at Lv76.
Since Greased Lightning II was, and still is, unlocked at Lv20, and Greased Lightning III was, and still is, unlocked at Lv40, I chose to follow the pattern, and the Monk will now unlock Greased Lightning IV at Lv60, instead of Lv76.


Addition: A idea(not my own idea), that is worth mention.

If the duration of Greased Lightning runs out, just one stack of Greased Lightning is lost, rather than all stacks of Greased Lightning are lost.

My own thought on this: after the one Greased Lightning stack is lost, the duration of the Greased Lightning stack/s that remain/s, defaults back up to 10 seconds, so that the Monk has a chance to recover the one loss, before the Monk faces another loss.
Keep in mind that the maximum duration is now 60 seconds, so to even lose the first Greased Lightning stack, under the assumption that the Monk had proper maintenance, would take up to a full minute of the Monk doing naught at all, to happen.

[Shurrikhan]

...

Max 4 stacks of GL, each worth and only worth 5% Attack Speed. I could dig it.

The conditions for gaining GL could use some clarity, though. I don't really get the point of changing it from just being applied on any Coeurl skill, except perhaps to nerf Perfect Balance. The same goes for GL acquisition "neither grant[ing] the full Greased Lightning stack duration, nor refresh[ing] the duration to the full duration." Given that, I don't know what is meant by a duration "up to a maximum of 60 seconds."

___________________________________

To avoid simply copy-pasting some of my older ideas (including the only-one-stack-falls-at-a-time concept, haha), let me try out a new concept that might sound technical beneath the hood but should seem pretty intuitive on the surface.

GL will function a bit like a much more granular version of HW-era Blood of the Dragon. It would be a spendable resource which also drains over time and is generated from any and all relative potency dealt, exempting the effects of GL itself and any enemy mitigation. That form of generation is a new idea, sure, but ultimately pretty simple -- deal damage, get GL.

The GL tiers are still there, each granting 5% modifiers to your Damage, Defense, and Speed stats (yes, that includes Magic Defense, Ability Recast Speeds, and Movement Speed), to a total of 20%. Exceed the requisite GL Gauge and that's it, you're in the next tier. And if you drop below its requirements, there's a 2.5-second grace period before you actually lose that tier's benefits. (This should allow for you to spend tightly without the average Monk feeling like they have to be incredibly precise... even while it may let highly skilled Monks purposely dip below just before a strong GCD that'd pop them back over.)

But, by the same amount as GL increases your stats, it increases your drain rate, i.e., by 15% per tier, to a total of 60%. It's worth noting by then that at GL4 you're also generating 20% more potency over time (due to increased attack rate), though, so it isn't quite as scary as it may sound. In practice, this really just means that your GL falls off one stack at a time and each lower stack lasts longer than the one before.

So thus far we have something for which our excess can be spent, making it an actual resource rather than just a ramp-up penalty and light maintenance challenge.

Graphically, it looks like a horizontal gauge from GL0 with the GL1 threshold marked about two-thirds of the way left-to-right. Once you hit GL1, that progress squishes that down and left and the next threshold is revealed, again two thirds of the way down. Repeat. Repeat. By the end, you have a GL4 gauge with successively smaller and thinner threshold bars as you move from GL4 at two-thirds of the way left-to-right to the previous ones. This means your max banking margin is a third of the total gauge or half of what you've spent just to reach GL4, which is pretty sizeable. (And yes, if you lose a GL tier, the gauge expands/stretches back to how it was at that prior tier.)

Simple enough?

____________________________

But, that still leaves us with our potential spenders and GL's other potential interactions. Let's begin with the latter.

I'm not a fan of how only a third of Monk's skills can be used at a time outside of Perfect Balance, so I figure I'd do something about that.

One possibility is to get rid of the openness from Perfect Balance and use dynamic buttons based on stance, such that we more deliberately switch between them, with each stance having, say, 4 options. For instance, Coeurl might have one option that remains in Couerl (modifying that skill itself), two that go to Opo-Opo, and one that goes to Raptor, while Raptor would have one that stays in Raptor (modifying that skill itself), two that go to Couerl, one that goes to Opo-Opo, and so on.

The other obvious option is to simply remove the form limitations altogether. In their place, we could, say, simply have all Form-based weaponskills generate 100% (after acquiring GL4, lower previously) more GL for each preceding unique form different from their own. If I use a Coeurl skill after having used a Raptor and an Opo-opo skill (between that Coeurl skill and the previous one), then that skill generates three time the GL. If I had just one of the two between it and the Coeurl skill -- only double. Back to back Coeurl skills -- only the normal amount. Or, inversely, I get full contribution when I rotate, on average, in even thirds; two-thirds contribution (not sustainable) when I rotate only, on average, between two of the three forms; and only a third of the possible contribution (causing GL to plummet rapidly) when using the same form. It's worth noting that Dragon Kick has been returned to its earlier form (+10% damage to the target) rather than a trigger for Leaden Fist, so it's not worth abusing this freedom to exploit. Like Twin Snakes, you'd want to be minimizing its portion of casts while retaining effective coverage.

Naturally, Perfect Balance would ignore this penalty. However, as mentioned before, I'd rather Monk feel more free-flowing and driven by interactions between its CDs and rotations, rather than those CDs seeming to be the be all and end all of its macro-rotation. On that note, Perfect Balance is now an Additional Effect, generated by a few other, more frequent abilities, and works to nullify the loss of one such skipped step (i.e., returns a +1x multiplier you'd otherwise lose). Just from natural CD usage, you'd be looking at 4 or 5 stacks per minute, which is enough to allow for some no-cost craftiness with your rotations.

So now we're down to the question of spenders.

On what, if not for rotational variance, ought one spend their excess GL? I'll leave that mostly to your imagination, but off the top of my head... (A) actually fun and impactful stances (similar to what I mentioned before, but running off GL, if we're not permitted to use Mana) and/or (B) Tornado Kick, The Forbidden Chakra, and Enlightenment or (C) a way to "rush" out CDs (assuming equal ppm). (The last would certainly fit the idea of Monks being highly adaptable and modular, such as by being able to cycle two normally minute-long CDs into a single 1-minute period, for instance.)

I see no reason to restrict the last two to RNG when we've got a gauge right there into which they'd have more interaction and potential nuance compared to the mere "hit when full" gameplay they have via Chakra. Drop the Chakra entirely unless it's going to have an effect that's actually fun, unique and reminiscent of a theme one might expect from the idea of chakra. Tornado Kick, thereafter, will be your all-spender (like Flare, but with damage nearly proportionate to resource consumed, though technically best to be used just after having dipped below GL4 anyways), thereby remaining your pre-jump or execute skill, essentially precisely redeeming what potency you lost in ramping up (and thus removing any so-called "weakness" to GL in a fight lasting more than some 10 seconds, so long as you can get the kick off before combat ends).

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

Max 4 stacks of GL, each worth and only worth 5% Attack Speed. I could dig it.

The conditions for gaining GL could use some clarity, though. I don't really get the point of changing it from just being applied on any Coeurl skill, except perhaps to nerf Perfect Balance. The same goes for GL acquisition "neither grant[ing] the full Greased Lightning stack duration, nor refresh[ing] the duration to the full duration." Given that, I don't know what is meant by a duration "up to a maximum of 60 seconds."

I was very specific with my choice of words, as the literal intent of that change is to break Monks' built-in loophole, but not delete that loophole.

Just as Riddle of Earth and True North allow the Monk to ignore positional requirements, Perfect Balance and Form Shift, the latter now Formless Fist, allows the Monk to ignore form requirements and ignore any sense of the "combo bonus" lock, or in Monks' case, form reliant bonuses.

You yourself, my dear intelligent kitty, had lain out the fundamental problem for me, when you did type the concern that the more Monks can do this,
the more that Monks' basic form shift rotation will be made, for the most part, irrelevant in the end.

It baffles me that most Monk players just argue about positional requirements all of the time, when two things that are both more important to Monk's identity, are under threat; be that Greased lightning, already a brutal loss, or the way that monks' forms and form shift is the core of its rotation, which gives it a very unorthodox sense of "WeaponSkill combos". That aside...

The clarification, I: I broke the loophole. The original Greased Lightning stacks activate from "the third hit of a WeaponSkill combo", the Coeurl form actions. This allows both Perfect Balance and Form Shift to skip the basic form shift rotation, jump straight to a Coeurl form WeaponSkill, and gain Greased Lightning stacks. This loophole to skip the form shift rotation and "WeaponSkill combo", to me at least, is a antithesis to Monk, as the Pugilist story makes it very clear that the fundamental identity of Greased Lightning, is a reward for the execution of Monk's unorthodox "WeaponSkill combo".

The reason why I chose to shift Greased Lightning off of the Coeurl form actions, and into the form shifts, is to break the loophole. Greased Lightning stacks no longer activate from the execution of a Coeurl form WeaponSkill, and instead now activate from the form shift after those actions, so long as the Monk had gone through a proper form shift rotation:

The only way to gain a Greased Lightning stack, is to enter Raptor form, and shift forms from there, Raptor to Coeurl to Opo Opo, unto which the third action, being Demolish, Rock Breaker, or Snap Punch, will activate a Greased Lightning stack, when the Monk shifts form again, Opo Opo to Raptor.

What does this mean?

The Clarification, II: if the Monk uses Perfect Balance or Formless Fist to skip straight to a Coeurl form action, those two will still have their loophole effects on the action, BUT.. Greased Lightning will not activate. Greased Lightning requires that the Monk enters Raptor form, and form shifts Raptor --> Coeurl --> Opo Opo, as a prerequisite, before the Opo Opo --> Raptor shift activates Greased Lightning.

The loophole is broken, Monk only obtains Greased Lightning the way it is meant to activate.

On the visual HUD side, imagine a indicator that is a Blitz / Dancers' Dance steps hybrid... the Greased Lightning meter shows active Greased Lightning stacks and tracks their duration, but it also has a second part, that tracks how the Monk has gone through the form shift rotations, sort of akin to locks and keys, of which indicates when Greased Lightning will activate; sort of like the Dancers' "finish", but the indicator spends the locks' keys like Blitz does.

I apologize for that had not been more clear... As for the acquisition of Greased Lightning stacks itself...

The clarification, III: Remember for me, for a moment. The original Greased Lightning would jump straight to its maximum duration, 16 seconds, the moment it activates. I chose to remove that and slow down the duration build-up. Consider what I did type above, and imagine for me... every Opo opo --> Raptor shift, after a proper form shift rotation, The Monk activates Greased Lightning, gains a Greased Lightning stack, up to a maximum of four, and that will have a duration of 10 seconds, up to a maximum of 60 seconds.

[...]will neither grant the full Greased Lightning stack duration, nor refresh the duration to the full duration.[...]

[...]Instead, the first Opo Opo-to-Raptor form shift activates one Greased Lightning stack with only 10 seconds on the Greased Lightning stack duration.[...]Every Opo Opo-to-Raptor form shift after the first, will activate another Greased Lightning stack, up to the maximum of four, and extend the duration of Greased Lightning stacks by only 10 seconds, up to the new maximum duration of 60 seconds.[...]

What does this look like in a actual rotation? Allow me to type out a example of the flow, then...

First rotation: Dragon Kick - Twin Snakes - Demolish, 2.00GCD / 6 seconds: Greased Lightning I activates and lasts 10 seconds.

Second rotation: Dragon Kick - True Strike - Snap Punch, 2.00GCD / 6 seconds: Greased Lightning I - duration: 4 seconds, but now.. Greased Lightning II activates, and lasts for(+10 seconds) 14 seconds.

Third rotation: BootShine - Twin Snakes - Snap Punch, 2.00GCD / 6 seconds: Greased Lightning II - duration: 8 seconds, but now.. Greased Lightning III activates, and lasts for(+10 seconds) 18 seconds.

Fourth rotation: Dragon Kick - True Strike - Demolish, 2.00GCD / 6 seconds: Greased Lightning III - duration: 12 seconds, but now.. Greased Lightning IV activates, and lasts for(+10 seconds) 22 seconds.

Fifth rotation: BootShine - Twin Snakes - Snap Punch, 2.00GCD / 6 seconds: Greased Lightning IV - duration 16 seconds, and now... Greased Lightning IV still active, but now lasts for(+10 seconds) 26 seconds; up to a maximum of a 60 second duration, which the Monk can reach 9 rotations later, at the end of the 14th rotation.

Does that make sense? I think that it does...? =w=;

[...]I do kind of hate how something like this and the new "Perfect Blitz" would work together to make the standard rotation feel largely irrelevant, with only oGCDs (especially this and PB) giving any real punctuation to the job.[...]

since the only way to gain Greased Lightning stacks, is to go through the normal combos and do proper form-to-form shifts, this would make the standard rotation and normal combos important and relevant, so I hope that it would resolve your issue and ease the concern.

As I did type before, I had already thought that the form shift rotation made irrelevant was a issue, and we just share that same conclusion, so when you did type that, it made me think that you have a similar manner of thought along the same lines as mine; of which I had already thought of a way to deal with it, hence my offer to share my idea with you.

All of that said, as I do realize how drawn-out this post has become, I did also read the rest of your post, and will work on my response to the rest, next...

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

To avoid simply copy-pasting some of my older ideas (including the only-one-stack-falls-at-a-time concept, haha), let me try out a new concept that might sound technical beneath the hood but should seem pretty intuitive on the surface.

GL will function a bit like a much more granular version of HW-era Blood of the Dragon. It would be a spendable resource which also drains over time and is generated from any and all relative potency dealt, exempting the effects of GL itself and any enemy mitigation. That form of generation is a new idea, sure, but ultimately pretty simple -- deal damage, get GL.

To be honest, I had already thought of the possibility to spend Greased Lightning stack duration as a resource, but was never certain how and what I would want the actual function of that sort of concept to be... =w=;

The GL tiers are still there, each granting 5% modifiers to your Damage, Defense, and Speed stats (yes, that includes Magic Defense, Ability Recast Speeds, and Movement Speed), to a total of 20%. Exceed the requisite GL Gauge and that's it, you're in the next tier. And if you drop below its requirements, there's a 2.5-second grace period before you actually lose that tier's benefits. (This should allow for you to spend tightly without the average Monk feeling like they have to be incredibly precise... even while it may let highly skilled Monks purposely dip below just before a strong GCD that'd pop them back over.)

A thought of interest... I chose to remove the damage increase from Greased Lightning stacks, because the sheer amount of damage potential lost, when Greased Lightning stacks are lost, was a common complaint and major issue that Monk players had with the Greased Lightning stacks, other than the duration issue; but I do like the idea of if Greased Lightning stacks were to also increase defense statistics and movement speed...

As for the reduction of ability CDs, I could imagine that some posters around here would complain and be against it, but I sort of like the idea... It could be a static 5% to 20% reduction, or could even function similar to Warriors' Infuriate CD reduction, in the sense of that the Monk could spend seconds off of the duration of Greased Lightning stacks, to reduce the CDs of any abilities that are on CD...

But, by the same amount as GL increases your stats, it increases your drain rate, i.e., by 15% per tier, to a total of 60%. It's worth noting by then that at GL4 you're also generating 20% more potency over time (due to increased attack rate), though, so it isn't quite as scary as it may sound. In practice, this really just means that your GL falls off one stack at a time and each lower stack lasts longer than the one before.

That makes a fair bit of sense, yeh.. and makes me think that you threw both solid-resource and resource gauge styles out of the window, for a meter-style resource... Which FFXIV kind of lacks meter-style resources, any way, so I kind of like the idea and you will not read much complaints from me...

So thus far we have something for which our excess can be spent, making it an actual resource rather than just a ramp-up penalty and light maintenance challenge.

Graphically, it looks like a horizontal gauge from GL0 with the GL1 threshold marked about two-thirds of the way left-to-right. Once you hit GL1, that progress squishes that down and left and the next threshold is revealed, again two thirds of the way down. Repeat. Repeat. By the end, you have a GL4 gauge with successively smaller and thinner threshold bars as you move from GL4 at two-thirds of the way left-to-right to the previous ones. This means your max banking margin is a third of the total gauge or half of what you've spent just to reach GL4, which is pretty sizeable. (And yes, if you lose a GL tier, the gauge expands/stretches back to how it was at that prior tier.)

Simple enough?

Yeh.. simple enough, we suppose. And not too simple, at least, so no complaints. / On a side note, that definite reads to be a meter-style resource...

But, that still leaves us with our potential spenders and GL's other potential interactions. Let's begin with the latter.

I'm not a fan of how only a third of Monk's skills can be used at a time outside of Perfect Balance, so I figure I'd do something about that.

One possibility is to get rid of the openness from Perfect Balance and use dynamic buttons based on stance, such that we more deliberately switch between them, with each stance having, say, 4 options. For instance, Coeurl might have one option that remains in Couerl (modifying that skill itself), two that go to Opo-Opo, and one that goes to Raptor, while Raptor would have one that stays in Raptor (modifying that skill itself), two that go to Couerl, one that goes to Opo-Opo, and so on.

Aiya... I like this idea. I had thought of a complete re-design of forms, but had not thought up a concept to just expand what there already is... Would we be correct to assume that the idea with that, is that all actions would have a Raptor, Coeurl, and Opo Opo form bonuses, and any action can lead into any other action, or activate its own form bonus, via a second/repeat use of the action?

The other obvious option is to simply remove the form limitations altogether. In their place, we could, say, simply have all Form-based weaponskills generate 100% (after acquiring GL4, lower previously) more GL for each preceding unique form different from their own. If I use a Coeurl skill after having used a Raptor and an Opo-opo skill (between that Coeurl skill and the previous one), then that skill generates three time the GL. If I had just one of the two between it and the Coeurl skill -- only double. Back to back Coeurl skills -- only the normal amount. Or, inversely, I get full contribution when I rotate, on average, in even thirds; two-thirds contribution (not sustainable) when I rotate only, on average, between two of the three forms; and only a third of the possible contribution (causing GL to plummet rapidly) when using the same form. It's worth noting that Dragon Kick has been returned to its earlier form (+10% damage to the target) rather than a trigger for Leaden Fist, so it's not worth abusing this freedom to exploit. Like Twin Snakes, you'd want to be minimizing its portion of casts while retaining effective coverage.

This idea is less of interest, for me, but it still makes a lot of sense, and would ensure both the importance and relevance of the form shift rotation, at least...

Naturally, Perfect Balance would ignore this penalty. However, as mentioned before, I'd rather Monk feel more free-flowing and driven by interactions between its CDs and rotations, rather than those CDs seeming to be the be all and end all of its macro-rotation. On that note, Perfect Balance is now an Additional Effect, generated by a few other, more frequent abilities, and works to nullify the loss of one such skipped step (i.e., returns a +1x multiplier you'd otherwise lose). Just from natural CD usage, you'd be looking at 4 or 5 stacks per minute, which is enough to allow for some no-cost craftiness with your rotations.

A good re-design idea, I will give you that... It keeps the spirit of Perfect Balance as a loophole to cheat the rules, in a way that is relevant to the core of the concept, while it also seems, at least to me, that it would cause less issues than the current Perfect Balance, and be less of a annoyance...

So, now we're down to the question of spenders.

On what, if not for rotational variance, ought one spend their excess GL? I'll leave that mostly to your imagination, but off the top of my head... (A) actually fun and impactful stances (similar to what I mentioned before, but running off GL, if we're not permitted to use Mana) and/or (B) Tornado Kick, The Forbidden Chakra, and Enlightenment or (C) a way to "rush" out CDs (assuming equal ppm). (The last would certainly fit the idea of Monks being highly adaptable and modular, such as by being able to cycle two normally minute-long CDs into a single 1-minute period, for instance.)

I am not certain what you mean in option C, but I think that I can comprehend options A and B... The real question is just, as a resource, would Greased Lightning replace Chakra, or get spent on complete different things, than what the Monk would there-for still spend Chakra on... My personal opinion would be that Greased Lightning and Chakra have separate spenders, and perhaps spenders that costs both, but I would not replace Chakra with Greased Lightning as a resource...

I see no reason to restrict the last two to RNG when we've got a gauge right there into which they'd have more interaction and potential nuance compared to the mere "hit when full" gameplay they have via Chakra. Drop the Chakra entirely unless it's going to have an effect that's actually fun, unique and reminiscent of a theme one might expect from the idea of chakra. Tornado Kick, thereafter, will be your all-spender (like Flare, but with damage nearly proportionate to resource consumed, though technically best to be used just after having dipped below GL4 anyways), thereby remaining your pre-jump or execute skill, essentially precisely redeeming what potency you lost in ramping up (and thus removing any so-called "weakness" to GL in a fight lasting more than some 10 seconds, so long as you can get the kick off before combat ends).

Last.. other than that I agree with and could see Tornado Kick function in such a manner, I can also agree that the current function of Chakra resource is not a good one... But I would not remove it. Rather, I have been to think about and work on a re-design of the Chakra resource, but that is not quite done, yet...

The skeleton and backbone of my not-yet-complete re-design idea, takes the 14 Chakra of light and darkness as its base, 7 chakra for each side, to be a 14-point solid-resource dual resource pool; with the 7 Chakra of light as a fast build-up resource that the Monk spends often, with full-independent generation, and the 7 Chakra of Darkness as a slower build-up resource, that the Monk uses less often, albeit to execute more powerful actions; that is half independent in its generation, and half dependent on the Chakra of Light, for its generation...

Also, I came up with that before the Reaper reveal, and before we found out how Reaper resources function. The similarity, other than that one is sold-resource and one is gauges, is a total coincidence... I did not copy the Reaper to come up with that idea.

[Shurrikhan]

Last.. other than that I agree with and could see Tornado Kick function in such a manner, I can also agree that the current function of Chakra resource is not a good one... But I would not remove it.

I should briefly clarify. It's not that I don't want to see Chakra involved at all. I just think bonus potency from RNG, even if it were to have synergy with Crit rate (which has as many demerits as merits, sadly) isn't a "real" (or, worthwhile) mechanic. It has no unique function beyond an APM tax, potency siphoned from elsewhere to be made dependent on RNG, and anti-synergy with Meditation (which, btw, is itself a bit contradictory to Monk's theme of wanting perfect uptime). It doesn't even provide, say, the mobility of the old Ruin II/IV procs or Straighter Shot or Procced Slug/Clean back in the HW era of Bow Mage and Turret-Gunner.

Now, an actual mechanic that has something to do with Chakra? Hell yeah. I'd love that. The only APM tax just isn't that, though, and so long as it fetters that thematic space, we can't have anything better.

Now, there are some ideas for Chakra that would clearly subsume the mechanical space of stances or Greased Lightning. If you imagine a Chakra Gates mechanic styled off the likes of Rock Lee or Might Gai, that'd obviously going to tie into that idea of massive Gauge (or MP) expenditure. You manually trigger the start and increasing steps of a disgustingly strong burst phase, that will inevitably put you into the red, for as long as you possibly can such that you go dark the moment after a mob dies or jumps away to a long burst phase. Honestly, that sounds pretty appealing. There are just two issues:[LIST="1"]I had just already planned for that drain style through Internal Release and Fists of Wind, Earth, and Fire (each far more significant that the current effects, since they could no longer be maintained indefinitely), between the three of which I'd have far more options than Chakra's mere further GL levels. [*]And, moreover, I didn't really want to add the APM bloat of manual triggers on GL mechanics or limit maximization/exploitation of the aforementioned GL mechanics (e.g., in purposely spending such as to dip to certain levels or to exploit the safety period).

That still leaves plenty of options, though. Off the cuff, I'd really love to see the Monk internalize the powers of Yin and Yang in mini-burst phases that would build up towards a larger culminating phase that could be rushed or banked deeper than what is, on average, "optimal", in keeping with that sort of available modularity/nuance I'd like to see from Monk. I just need it to do something that deserves that mechanic, and a mechanic that actually does the theme its due, rather than siphoning power away from more intuitive holders only to devalue more core mechanics in favor of wonky, problematic RNG-centric gameplay.

A thought of interest... I chose to remove the damage increase from Greased Lightning stacks, because the sheer amount of damage potential lost, when Greased Lightning stacks are lost, was a common complaint and major issue that Monk players had with the Greased Lightning stacks, other than the duration issue; but I do like the idea of if Greased Lightning stacks were to also increase defense statistics and movement speed...

I chose to keep them for a few reasons, but to be honest not all of them are immediately relevant:

1. First, I like that it causes what few regularly-paced CDs one has (things previously like Steel Peak, Howling Fist, Elixir Field, and Shoulder Tackle) to affect your "free play". Essentially, when a oGCD is coming up in two GCDs, you can't then afford to dip below a threshold in this one without immediately recovering without losing that damage (and lowered recast time) bonus to it. That constrains play in a way that makes the flexibility more of a real mechanic. After all, if the flexibility only amounted to no possibility for punishment, it wouldn't be "flexible" so much as "irrelevant". Instead, GL as a gameplay-affecting mechanic should ask you to take risks, but to take them in a measured, deliberate fashion, aware of what's at risk. It should have significant cognitive load, especially over the rotational string or so leading into oGCDs.
   
   
2. Thematically, I just really liked the idea of each stance having its set benefit -- every form of Speed, every form of Damage (though that's still really just damage), and every form of Defense (which, to be fair, doesn't amount to much when you're wearing leather armor to begin with).
   
   
3. Finally, there's a matter of future-proofing.

If I had my druthers, tanks would have significantly less passive mitigation and a bit less HP (siphoning their budget back into their active mitigation kit and a bit into their maximal offensive output). Adjusting for this would inadvertently again allow certain DPS to briefly snap-tank or off-tank.

Let me illustrate somewhat. In that paradigm, the typical matchmade dungeon would remain typically faster with a tank than without, just due to the sheer added ease of play, but a coordinated premade could leverage the added damage to slightly outpace the norm even without a tank. It'd just take at least double (or more than triple, really, relative to the faceroll Expert roulette experience) the effort. In such a setting, I suspect Monk would be your most sustainable pseudo-tank. It'd have the least on-demand free mitigation when starting cold -- lacking the I-Frames of Dragoon's jumps, Reaper's and Ninja's self-shields, Samurai's added parry rate and Third Eye, or Maiming armor -- but it could blow oGCDs while within Fists of Earth to add Defense (fading linearly over time) at cost to potential damage, and at GL4 it'd slightly outmitigate Maiming gear. I liked that sense of wind-up and having to play around, as a group, both Monk's strengths and weaknesses or else tap into its hyperversatility at cost to its optimal output. It just seemed really fitting.

Would we be correct to assume that the idea with that, is that all actions would have a Raptor, Coeurl, and Opo Opo form bonuses, and any action can lead into any other action, or activate its own form bonus, via a second/repeat use of the action?

In the dynamic-keys approach (as opposed to the removal of form limitations), you'd essentially be choosing to maintain flow vs. exploiting a particular combo (typically only situationally, to align Demolish or the like, or at specific moments in macro-rotation). For instance, perhaps you'd gain Gauge only from weaponskills that shift form, but some of the more unique features would be limited to "combos" (using the same form twice or more). For instance, if there's a movement phase coming up, from Raptor you might choose to use the Raptor skill in order to ready, say, Falcon's Crest, a targeted dash-kick (random example is random), which in turn allows for Karmic Wheel, a linear AoE flip-kick that can ignore knockbacks while in midair (and hits pretty hard). As such, it'd cost you GL to pull off, but it'd be worth it due to uptime thereby afforded or in that you'd be opening a CD (e.g., Internal Release) with a strong AoE.

After the "combo" is maxed out, it'd just turn back into the first Raptor->Raptor skill, which would absolutely not be worth wasting further GL on. This also gives an obvious lever for later additions to pull: get more levels, get longer available combos. And since those "combos" have to be used sparingly and always present at least 3 other options at any given time (or exponentially more pathways), they wouldn't just be the button bloat we're used to from Dragoon and the like.

Personally, this is my favored route, over the no-form-restrictions one, since it's both more button-efficient and more reminiscent of a fighter/brawler-type game, which seems a reason association for the job to have.

I am not certain what you mean in option C [the ability to spend Gauge to "rush" a cooldown]...

Admittedly, that concept was pretty spitball, and if I were to use it, I'd want to constrain it a fair bit. As mentioned before, I like that certain offensive CDs constrain our rotation somewhat, giving us risk and reward for exploiting GL maximally.

That said, the concept is fairly simple. You assign to each rushable CD a cost per second rushed (by which the CD is used despite its still being on cooldown). For instance, let's say I hit Howling Fist 6 seconds early so that it won't fall outside the Trick Attack window. Well, I'd pay as much gauge as is the cost of 6 seconds of Howling Fist. Each rushable CD would count down not just in seconds until its refresh, but in gauge cost to rush the remaining cooldown (centered, or opposite the normal cooldown, in a pale blue font).

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

First, I can agree about Chakra generation... The RNG of Chakra generation is the only thing that I "hate" about Monk, all of my other issues are more minor... But, other than my re-design for the Chakra resource and resource pool itself, I am not certain how to re-design Chakra generation, yet...
A few ideas are to copy PvP Monk, switch to another form of RNG, that is much more probable to happen than not happen, or have Chakra generation be from action themselves or from combos, as with the resource design of many other "jobs", but I am just not certain what to do about Chakra generation...

In the dynamic-keys approach (as opposed to the removal of form limitations), you'd essentially be choosing to maintain flow vs. exploiting a particular combo (typically only situationally, to align Demolish or the like, or at specific moments in macro-rotation). For instance, perhaps you'd gain Gauge only from weaponskills that shift form, but some of the more unique features would be limited to "combos" (using the same form twice or more). For instance, if there's a movement phase coming up, from Raptor you might choose to use the Raptor skill in order to ready, say, Falcon's Crest, a targeted dash-kick (random example is random), which in turn allows for Karmic Wheel, a linear AoE flip-kick that can ignore knockbacks while in midair (and hits pretty hard). As such, it'd cost you GL to pull off, but it'd be worth it due to uptime thereby afforded or in that you'd be opening a CD (e.g., Internal Release) with a strong AoE.

After the "combo" is maxed out, it'd just turn back into the first Raptor->Raptor skill, which would absolutely not be worth wasting further GL on. This also gives an obvious lever for later additions to pull: get more levels, get longer available combos. And since those "combos" have to be used sparingly and always present at least 3 other options at any given time (or exponentially more pathways), they wouldn't just be the button bloat we're used to from Dragoon and the like.

Personally, this is my favored route, over the no-form-restrictions one, since it's both more button-efficient and more reminiscent of a fighter/brawler-type game, which seems a reason association for the job to have.

My thanks for the elaboration... It does read to be quite curious, and I like the idea.

Admittedly, that concept was pretty spitball, and if I were to use it, I'd want to constrain it a fair bit. As mentioned before, I like that certain offensive CDs constrain our rotation somewhat, giving us risk and reward for exploiting GL maximally.

That said, the concept is fairly simple. You assign to each rushable CD a cost per second rushed (by which the CD is used despite its still being on cooldown). For instance, let's say I hit Howling Fist 6 seconds early so that it won't fall outside the Trick Attack window. Well, I'd pay as much gauge as is the cost of 6 seconds of Howling Fist. Each rushable CD would count down not just in seconds until its refresh, but in gauge cost to rush the remaining cooldown (centered, or opposite the normal cooldown, in a pale blue font).

Oh, that is what you meant... My thanks for the clarification. I never would have thought of it that way, or thought of a idea like that... Very curious and of interest.