The problem with Monk isn't positionals (opinion piece)

[Rolder50]

So wait SE simplified yet another job to the point it's no longer fun? I am shocked, I say. Shocked!

[PariahDoge]

So wait SE simplified yet another job to the point it's no longer fun? I am shocked, I say. Shocked!

It's more "No longer the easiest job to play against bosses that don't have positionals."

Still has issues like SSS/Thunderclap both filling the same role and Anatman really feeling like an odd duck since the removal of Greased Lightning.

[IruruCece]

It's more "No longer the easiest job to play against bosses that don't have positionals."

Still has issues like SSS/Thunderclap both filling the same role and Anatman really feeling like an odd duck since the removal of Greased Lightning.

MCH exists, you know.

Thunderclap was not a good replacement for shoulder tackle. If nothing else, they should kill Anatman dead, even in the face of the inevitable whining from players who will suddenly demand our Twin Snakes buff to also become a passive, give us shoulder tackle back, and make Thunderclap more like the Dancer dash. Making that reliant on targeting other players OR mobs just feels like more trouble than the button is worth.

Six Sided Star should also go the heck away. Replace it with an OGCD we weave in when available/during burst phases. Monk does not need a button with an extremely narrow use-case, no job does. Anyone who would miss it will feed well in 7.0 when SE inevitably recycles the animation from it as an upgrade to Celestial Revolution or something.

[PariahDoge]

MCH exists, you know.

Baseless lies.

Thunderclap was not a good replacement for shoulder tackle. If nothing else, they should kill Anatman dead, even in the face of the inevitable whining from players who will suddenly demand our Twin Snakes buff to also become a passive, give us shoulder tackle back, and make Thunderclap more like the Dancer dash. Making that reliant on targeting other players OR mobs just feels like more trouble than the button is worth.

Six Sided Star should also go the heck away. Replace it with an OGCD we weave in when available/during burst phases. Monk does not need a button with an extremely narrow use-case, no job does. Anyone who would miss it will feed well in 7.0 when SE inevitably recycles the animation from it as an upgrade to Celestial Revolution or something.

Agree on SSS/Thunder/Anatman. If they wanted to make SSS a disengage, I'd go with making it an OGCD that applies a few seconds of of pacification with the speed boost. I pretty much only find myself using Thunderclap to reengage a boss after stay away mechanic. I find myself reaching for sprint before thunder for trying to get away. Anatman just does not fit anymore and can be removed. If anything I'd give Monk a piddly weak ranged poke for those OMG STAY AWAY phases. Something like Air Render could fill that gap.

[Shurrikhan]

Thunderclap was not a good replacement for shoulder tackle.

...

Six Sided Star should also go the heck away. Replace it with an OGCD we weave in when available/during burst phases. Monk does not need a button with an extremely narrow use-case, no job does. Anyone who would miss it will feed well in 7.0 when SE inevitably recycles the animation from it as an upgrade to Celestial Revolution or something.

No, please, to both of these.

Thunderclap is a fine replacement for Shoulder Tackle. We merely should have gotten back its apm elsewhere. (Technically, we did, via increased Chakra intake, but that still leaves necessary compensation for the apm lost from removing Elixir Field and the oGCD that carries the name and animation of what was TK.)

Six-sided Star is fine as a finisher and disengage. I'd rather have a situational tool than empty apm. That's not to say that I dislike APM; I'm just not willing to lose a single tool for it, especially when increased apm does not oblige the removal of decent tools. And, yes, SSS is a decent tool -- though no better than "decent" -- and certainly has more reason to exist as a given button than does Meditation or, especially, Form Shift.

[Silver-Strider]

No, please, to both of these.

Thunderclap is a fine replacement for Shoulder Tackle. We merely should have gotten back its apm elsewhere. (Technically, we did, via increased Chakra intake, but that still leaves necessary compensation for the apm lost from removing Elixir Field and the oGCD that carries the name and animation of what was TK.)

Six-sided Star is fine as a finisher and disengage. I'd rather have a situational tool than empty apm. That's not to say that I dislike APM; I'm just not willing to lose a single tool for it, especially when increased apm does not oblige the removal of decent tools. And, yes, SSS is a decent tool -- though no better than "decent" -- and certainly has more reason to exist as a given button than does Meditation or, especially, Form Shift.

Thunderclap has 3 charges specifically to be used as a means of engaging and disengaging from an enemy so I fail to see the need of SSS as another disengagement tool. MNK needs more than just niche or decent skills, it needs direction in its job design. Right now, MNK just has a lot of button bloat with no substance to them that either need to be reworked or just flat out removed and SSS is one of those skills that desperately needs something to make it actually usable rather than being another One Ilm Punch.

[Shurrikhan]

Thunderclap has 3 charges specifically to be used as a means of engaging and disengaging from an enemy so I fail to see the need of SSS as another disengagement tool. MNK needs more than just niche or decent skills, it needs direction in its job design. Right now, MNK just has a lot of button bloat with no substance to them that either need to be reworked or just flat out removed and SSS is one of those skills that desperately needs something to make it actually usable rather than being another One Ilm Punch.

It is the least button bloated of any melee DPS, though?

DRG - 8 buttons that have no reason to exist. (Mirage Dive separate from Jump, separate buttons for linear combos; F&C and WT as separate skills despite being mutually exclusive and literally not usable except in their proper orders)
NIN - 4 buttons that have no reason to exist. (Ninjutsu as a separate button from any repeated Mudra, since such would already end the series; Spinning Edge and Gust Blade as separate from Armor Break / Aeolian Edge, since they're non-decisions; Phantom Kamaitachi as separate from Bunshin, as they are linearly sequenced, just like DWaW and Assassination before.)
RPR - 4 buttons that have no reason to exist. (2 purely linear combos wasting 2 buttons each.)
SAM - 3 buttons that have no reason to exist. (Hakaze, Fuga/Fuko, Ogi as separate from Ikkishoten despite being unlocked only by the latter.)
MNK - If you never had a reason to minimize downtime while moving in a direction separate from any enemies or allies (so, definitely don't play certain Savage fights), 1 button.

Is Anatman lackluster? Yes. Is SSS undertuned? Yes, faintly. But I fail to see how giving it fewer tools for optimizing uptime would somehow give MNK, thematically/historically the most uptime-obsessed of any melee, more "direction in its job design".

[Silver-Strider]

MNK - If you never had a reason to minimize downtime while moving in a direction separate from any enemies or allies (so, definitely don't play certain Savage fights), 1 button.

.....and certainly has more reason to exist as a given button than does Meditation or, especially, Form Shift.

It's funny how you argue that MNK has only 1 skill that is button bloat while also saying that Mediate and Form Shift are essentially worthless and would constitute as Button Bloat. I don't see Button Bloat as an argument at all if the skills in question are functionally relevant to a class's rotation. It doesn't matter if High Jump and Mirage Dive are separate buttons because the only thing that matters is that they build up Dragon Gauge, which is a part of DRG's rotation. Anataman and SSS don't do anything for MNK and I'd even argue Riddle of Earth is also purely unnecessary now that positionals aren't a thing. They don't contribute anything to MNK in relation to its mechanics nor rotation so why do they exist? If SE's agenda of merging skills or removing them is purely to combat button bloat that are seen as fluff and don't negatively impact the class, then all 3 of those skills can easily go the way of the Dodo and begone but for some asinine reason they exist still which is absolutely baffling when you consider that their spokesperson for one of the Live Letters leading up to EW pretty much said that Anatman was just a MNK exclusive emote at this point. It's not an excuse at all.

As for how removing skills to maximize uptime is useful, it isn't but SSS isn't really that useful regardless. There is exactly 2 moments when SSS is a DPS gain. One is if a Disengage is longer than 5 seconds and the other is if we have more than 1 Chakra during a short Disengage. In the case that we have 0-1 Chakra during a short Disengage, than its better to use your GCD on anything else and use the disengage time to use Mediate instead since the 5s Slow down on SSS would effectively lose out to the 4-5 Chakras from Mediate, with the lone exception being if we missed the positional on Snap Punch and that's only a potency gain of 10.

If potency is really the only benefit to SSS than a 2nd charge to TFC/Enlightenment would accomplish the same thing without the need to jump thru hoops to do so while also not contributing to the button bloat that is SSS.