Monk Positionals 6.0

[Shurrikhan]

I really don't think that we need a rework, we already got one and the base is good.
It just needs some small changes.

Agreed. Just two essentials, imo:

• PB, rather than the Blitz, gives Formless Fist and/or Blitz CD reduced to 30 seconds (with the majority of potency siphoned thereto coming from Twin and Demo's direct damage, as to make optimizing their durations a bit more valuable).
• Returned positionals, ideally with some manner of unintrusive leniency mechanic.

The rest would just be non-essential but fruitful matters of making things like SSS, Anatman, Meditation, and Form Shift a bit smoother and more intuitive / "de-clunky-ing" the toolkit.

[Rochedalaix]

Since I play 90% of the game solo positionals have always just been there.

[Shurrikhan]

Since I play 90% of the game solo positionals have always just been there.

You can get all positionals off in solo play, even without using any immunities like True North. It's gimmicky, but they're absolutely doable.

[Larxene]

I've barely been able to level MNK since I can't get past the queue 90% of the time but my first impressions aren't entirely enthused. MNK is the only DPS I've played since ARR's launch, and we've gone through so many changes but I really felt we had a good thing going in HW and that MNK iteration felt more coherent. I know I can't exactly judge all the changes at just level 82, but it used to feel like MNK had more power/personality behind it than it does now for me. I really liked the style of weaving in CDs with the positionals, and I don't feel engaged in the fight the same way currently. Maybe I'm weird, but spinning around the boss was fun lol.

Much of my opinion right now however is very subjective and I'm still adjusting to the changes. I don't know, it feels like we're missing something now? It doesn't necessarily have to be about the positionals, just feels like the class needs something other than another bar that stacks chakras though I can see that it might have been an attempt to reduce overwhelming the hotbar with too many abilities.

Edit: Thinking back I even kind of miss Greased Lightning. It feels like every patch erodes the skill ceiling for MNK-- and while I'm not saying a class needs to be tedious or challenging in order to be fun, I'm sure a lot of other MNK players would agree that was part of why MNK was so rewarding. The challenge of keeping such a carefully balanced rotation with as much DPS uptick as possible made it stand out from the other jobs. It had a higher skill ceiling, but I think that was a great thing because other jobs had different ceilings for those who preferred less of a difficult learning curve.

[meowmaou]

Started playing MNK again after going through MSQ with NIN. It does a few things right that I didn't give it credit for. I think the new PB is cool, I like getting formless fist after it, though I would like it more if-
- Cooldown was a bit faster so I can use it more often
- Blitz was oGCD

Now, positionals being removed still bugs me because of job identity (I'm still doing them out of habit so I'm probably having more fun than I "should" be) and so does losing oGCDs because of the loss of speed and quick thinking. I preferred shoulder tackle, but if we're stuck with this new thing then I would really prefer if it just worked like En Avant if you weren't targeting anything. In a lot of situations where I WOULD dash to a party member, I don't really have time to target them on gamepad. I also just think it's pretty insulting to take oGCDs we had previously and now make us work for them and turn them into GCDs. But I only started playing this game at ShB and the impression I get is that that kinda bullshit happens a lot.

In terms of other positives, I love Shadow of the Destroyer so, so much. Great animation, very weighty, and fun to spam under PB and get a shitton of crits. Probably my favorite new thing on the job.

Also why does Enhanced Thunderclap exist? Why do I need 3 stocks of such a rarely used skill that doesn't do any damage at all? If it were me I'd make the trait make it do damage on top of giving you the extra stock.

[VentVanitas]

Seeing a lot of suggestions to make Blitz attacks oGCDs lately in this thread and I fail to see what that would achieve.

I really don't think that we need a rework, we already got one and the base is good.
It just needs some small changes.

This, 6.0 MNK is frustrating to me because it's almost good, but isn't quite there yet. They solved our major issue with mobility by giving us a versatile damage-less gapcloser (which is very responsive and snappy), and they gave us some mix up to the standard MNK rotation with the introduction of Blitz. It's far from the best attempt at it, but I don't think it's worth losing what was given.

[meowmaou]

Seeing a lot of suggestions to make Blitz attacks oGCDs lately in this thread and I fail to see what that would achieve.

Compensating for the speed we've lost in EW. Of course I'd also be happy with new oGCDs or a better chakra system that lets me use those oGCDs more often.

[Shurrikhan]

Compensating for the speed we've lost in EW. Of course I'd also be happy with new oGCDs or a better chakra system that lets me use those oGCDs more often.

We've still plenty of speed to make use of the strings around Blitz windows, though? We're at just enough speed to have the choice of either getting in an extra BS/DK/SotD and dropping Disciplined Fist briefly before FPF/Twin or skipping it for Twin/FPF. I don't see why that choice should be an 'annoyance' we need get rid of.

And if you, just personally, really hate it, you can get enough SkS to remove that point of decision; no need to remove it from everyone or ensure no one can actually see their Blitz animations (let alone that they'd be the most reasonable target to weaken to compensate for no longer taking a GCD's uptime).

[meowmaou]

We've still plenty of speed to make use of the strings around Blitz windows, though? We're at just enough speed to have the choice of either getting in an extra BS/DK/SotD and dropping Disciplined Fist briefly before FPF/Twin or skipping it for Twin/FPF. I don't see why that choice should be an 'annoyance' we need get rid of.

And if you, just personally, really hate it, you can get enough SkS to remove that point of decision; no need to remove it from everyone or ensure no one can actually see their Blitz animations (let alone that they'd be the most reasonable target to weaken to compensate for no longer taking a GCD's uptime).

Well, we lost 3 offensive oGCDs. That's a speed drop, and I'd like something to make up for it. It's exacerbated by not having to move as much with the positionals removed. Maybe I should have said APM instead. It doesn't have to be the blitz that becomes oGCDs, I just want more APM. I care more about that than seeing all of an animation if it DID have to be blitz, but of course it doesn't have to be.

[Shurrikhan]

Well, we lost 3 offensive oGCDs. That's a speed drop, and I'd like something to make up for it. It's exacerbated by not having to move as much with the positionals removed. Maybe I should have said APM instead. It doesn't have to be the blitz that becomes oGCDs, I just want more APM. I care more about that than seeing all of an animation if it DID have to be blitz, but of course it doesn't have to be.

If we're talking speed, that's a mere matter of APM. At 30s CDs, TK, EF, and SC each gave 2, so that totals to 6 apm lost -- significant, but recoverable. That's something that can be made up for via Chakra intake (or, ofc, by returning any of said oGCDs). 30 more Chakra per minute would produce an identical effect. We're probably between a third and half way to that already, in an average minute, due to the DM / BrH changes. The speed can easily be tuned, such as even by including periodic damage (AAs, Demo) as possible Chakra contributors or, though less effective, by swapping Brotherhood from guaranteeing Chakra gen to simply adding a further Chakra per weaponskill atop whatever would have normally have been given. Taking Blitz off the GCD would provide 1.33 extra apm, but would ultimately just feel like button swapping. Which brings us to the next possibility...

But if by "speed" you actually mean "sense of urgency induced by cognitive load", then that just means it need more of any given kind of mechanic affecting optimizable periods (breadth) or more to do within any of those mechanics (depth). Decisions like the above add to that, however, not subtract. By simply replacing a Blitz GCD with a regular GCD, as per your suggestion to take Blitz off the GCD, you'd have little change to speed, but you would have reduced cognitive load and thus the sense of urgency at particular moments per minute, all at the cost of being able to see our Blitz animations if one need weave anything else into the GCD's gap.