Monk Identity and Blitz ?

[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.