Monk Positionals 6.0

[Miralyth]

Tbf, I suspect even those who enjoy them on the whole are still annoyed by losses outside of their control. Some manner or other of leniency mechanisms, such as via an unintrusive trait, have been suggested since ARR for that very reason.

I'm not entirely sure what you have in mind with leniency mechanisms. I think the current solution to leniency is TN, but I'm sure we all know how frustrating that can be during a busy oGCD window (not that we have as many of those anymore), or when charges simply run out due to a mechanic being extremely long or back-to-back with another anti-melee mechanic. If you mean a softer punish for potency/crit/etc. loss, I'm not sure this would satisfy a lot of people; I can't speak for others, but I know that it's the loss of any damage at all that annoys me with positionals.

Aside from the annoying bit of positionals, I simply don't enjoy the mechanic. I don't hate it, but if I had to choose, I think I'd rather go without altogether. It's that additional layer of being annoyed by a forced miss that elevates positionals to strongly disliked for me, as opposed to just being something I'm not really interested in.

[Shurrikhan]

I'm not entirely sure what you have in mind with leniency mechanisms.

A simple spitball:

Fluid Strikes (Trait) - Every third flank or rear attack you land from the correct position generates a charge of Fluid Strikes, which are consumed to cause your next would-be missed flank or rear attack to deal damage as if it hit from the correct position. You can hold up to three charges of Fluid Strikes.

Simple. Intuitive. Not invasive. Actually deals with random boss spins and tank shenanigans.

[Miralyth]

A simple spitball:

Fluid Strikes (Trait) - Every third flank or rear attack you land from the correct position generates a charge of Fluid Strikes, which are consumed to cause your next would-be missed flank or rear attack to deal damage as if it hit from the correct position. You can hold up to three charges of Fluid Strikes.

Simple. Intuitive. Not invasive. Actually deals with random boss spins and tank shenanigans.

Thanks for explaining! I understand now; I've seen the idea of automated (old) RoE/TN as a reward for landing positionals shared before. I think it would definitely be preferable to what we have now, or have recently had, though I also think it'd have to be a lot more than a 3 charge cap to deal with all of the game's said shenanigans. I'd still prefer to have no positionals at all, but this kind of leniency would go a long way toward making me not irate with them if the charge cap were high enough.

[Shurrikhan]

Thanks for explaining! I understand now; I've seen the idea of automated (old) RoE/TN as a reward for landing positionals shared before. I think it would definitely be preferable to what we have now, or have recently had, though I also think it'd have to be a lot more than a 3 charge cap to deal with all of the game's said shenanigans.

Given that this version wouldn't count the positionals guaranteed by Fluid Strikes towards further Fluid Strikes generation, I wouldn't hate having 4 charges, but this would already allow for, in effect, 3 & 2/3s charges, since the progress towards the last would just be frozen until the 3rd charge is made open again. That's effectively 3 guaranteed in a row and only a single further success to guarantee yet another.

Honestly... it feels unlikely that we'd need more than ~6s (nearly 10s) at a time or at frequency greater than every ~18-26 seconds.

If a stack point, for instance, is forcing us out of positionals for that long, it's almost certainly just in the wrong place (it should, unless specifically prevented, be centered on the center of the boss's hitbox, allowing positionals even while helping to split the damage).

[Miralyth]

Given that this version wouldn't count the positionals guaranteed by Fluid Strikes towards further Fluid Strikes generation, I wouldn't hate having 4 charges, but this would already allow for, in effect, 3 & 2/3s charges, since the progress towards the last would just be frozen until the 3rd charge is made open again. That's effectively 3 guaranteed in a row and only a single further success to guarantee yet another.

Honestly... it feels unlikely that we'd need more than ~6s (nearly 10s) at a time or at frequency greater than every ~18-26 seconds.

If a stack point, for instance, is forcing us out of positionals for that long, it's almost certainly just in the wrong place (it should, unless specifically prevented, be centered on the center of the boss's hitbox, allowing positionals even while helping to split the damage).

I think uptime strats and very coordinated groups usually don't force monks (before the changes) into a position where they might need more than the TN they have available to them, though it does happen with a select few fights iirc. Current monk would definitely not need more than 3 charges, but previous monk would. I had assumed that this leniency change was hand-in-hand with positionals being brought back, in which case I don't agree that 3 or 4 charges is enough.

However, I'm assuming coordinated groups in difficult endgame content for the sake of these examples. This doesn't solve all positional issues for all of the game's content and playing with random players. I'd personally rather not try to solve a problem for a job with only favorable scenarios taken into consideration, and in specific circumstances (Savage/Ultimate/Ex etc.) at that. The inherent volatility of positionals across content and groups is one of the reasons I'd really prefer to just see them go.

[Shurrikhan]

I think uptime strats and very coordinated groups usually don't force monks (before the changes) into a position where they might need more than the TN they have available to them, though it does happen with a select few fights iirc. Current monk would definitely not need more than 3 charges, but previous monk would. I had assumed that this leniency change was hand-in-hand with positionals being brought back, in which case I don't agree that 3 or 4 charges is enough.

It would come with a return to positionals, yes. But we'll just have to disagree on whether 3-4 GCD's worth at a time would be sufficient.

I cannot imagine any case short of being forced out of melee range entirely (in which case we have SSS and Meditation) that would force over 4 consecutive GCDs in front of the boss and distant enough from the flank and rear (as in, not stacking within the boss's hitbox) that melee would be unable to get positionals.

[IruruCece]

The inherent volatility of positionals across content and groups is one of the reasons I'd really prefer to just see them go.

Some Black Mages also complain about fights that force them to move (and healers complain that some black mages try to sit through damage and stress their resources more as a result). Should we then also remove 3/4th of all castbars from jobs that have them? Some Black Mages also complain about astral/umbral timers because they don't want to feel "punished" for making mistakes. Should we just remove those too?

That's what this argument ultimately boils down to. Should we remove things that actually challenge players who are seeking to put out the most DPS possible? Because at the end of the day, a good Monk not only was able to land their positionals consistently, they could manage their resources to account for times when a boss/encounter was going to make landing them difficult. A good black mage learns the fights, learns where and when they can greed, to slidecast, when they absolutely need to move. Good players strive to follow "the plan", true, but more importantly they understand what to do when the game deliberately throws wrenches into that plan. That's part of the skill. That's what makes learning fights, learning a job as a whole, actually interesting.

I feel like people want to be able to reach the "maximum" their jobs are capable of without putting in the effort required to get there.

[Miralyth]

Some Black Mages also complain about fights that force them to move (and healers complain that some black mages try to sit through damage and stress their resources more as a result). Should we then also remove 3/4th of all castbars from jobs that have them? Some Black Mages also complain about astral/umbral timers because they don't want to feel "punished" for making mistakes. Should we just remove those too?

That's what this argument ultimately boils down to. Should we remove things that actually challenge players who are seeking to put out the most DPS possible? Because at the end of the day, a good Monk not only was able to land their positionals consistently, they could manage their resources to account for times when a boss/encounter was going to make landing them difficult. A good black mage learns the fights, learns where and when they can greed, to slidecast, when they absolutely need to move. Good players strive to follow "the plan", true, but more importantly they understand what to do when the game deliberately throws wrenches into that plan. That's part of the skill. That's what makes learning fights, learning a job as a whole, actually interesting.

I feel like people want to be able to reach the "maximum" their jobs are capable of without putting in the effort required to get there.

I can't agree with the premise of your argument toward me. Your base counter-example uses cast bars, which are not volatile in the same situations that positionals are and therefore have a different feel to them. If you wanted to compare me liking positionals or not to a mechanic that is exactly the same and ask me about it, that would be fine. The base premise of my argument (a few posts back) is that I don't enjoy positionals, and their volatility is "one of the reasons."

Positionals have long since become near-automatic for me. I of course occasionally miss them through no one's fault but my own, I think everyone does some times, and that isn't what bothers me. My desire to see positionals go has nothing to do with difficulty and everything to do with being uninterested in them. I understand that other people find them difficult and enjoy that aspect of them, and I think positional difficulty would be a comparable argument to have with other mechanics, but that is not at all what I'm expressing here.