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

[Xiaoki]

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

Yeah, Monk is so completely not fun that people are actually playing it.

Look at the FFLogs for the Endwalker Extreme raids and you see a lot of Monks.

In Shadowbringers you never saw Monks in progression raids because no one wanted them.

So, looks like the Monk changes worked.

[ssunny2008]

Yeah, Monk is so completely not fun that people are actually playing it.

Look at the FFLogs for the Endwalker Extreme raids and you see a lot of Monks.

In Shadowbringers you never saw Monks in progression raids because no one wanted them.

So, looks like the Monk changes worked.

You shouldn´t claim stuff just because... let´s face it:

- Monk has been played in Shadowbringers
- Monk and Blackmage had the lowest playercount via ff.logs in Shadowbringers

Now:

- Monk is played in Endwalker
- Monk and Ninja has the lowest playercount via ff.logs in Endwalker

So what changed?

- Ninja is less popular probably caused by the release of Reaper
- Monk didn´t changed in its popularity even if it has got a complete rework, meanwhile Summoner, who got a rework too, is one of the most popular classes right now. (Obviously because it´s easy and has bling bling.)

In the end...

The changes DID NOT work. The most ppl out there running and logging trials with Monk are old Monk mains for sure. They test it out, some of them (myself included) even hope that we get our positionals back within the next patch, so all this new practice incl. positional-play makes sense. But the overall popularity and playrate didn´t grow and if Monk stays in its current state, it´ll sink drastically in the future.

[IruruCece]

Yeah, Monk is so completely not fun that people are actually playing it.

Look at the FFLogs for the Endwalker Extreme raids and you see a lot of Monks.

In Shadowbringers you never saw Monks in progression raids because no one wanted them.

So, looks like the Monk changes worked.

This is a ridiculous take. People were playing Monks back in Shadowbringers as well. The problem that you conveniently overlooked is that Monk has the second lowest number of parses being submitted to FFlogs for Extreme raids. Only Ninja has fewer (which suggests that job also has issues, something that can be corroborated by the number of Ninja-related discussions on these forums).

Monk is one of the top five raid DPS in the game right now, yet has one of the fewest numbers of players taking it into existing endgame content. Other jobs with lower raid and personal DPS have considerably more people contributing parses to that site.

Monk was also one of the lowest played jobs in endgame in Shadowbringers. If nothing else, with the sheer number of people playing Endwalker, if the job changes actually worked to attract old players AND new ones, surely the numbers on FFlogs would reflect this. They do not. Other jobs, with lower raid or personal DPS, have more people pushing them into endgame content despite the removal of 4 positionals, despite the removal of Greased Lightning in Shadowbringers, and the addition of flashy animations for the Blitz system, AND the half-hearted return of old animations that the majority of Monk players will see only when they sync down and play the job when it is arguably even less engaging.

The Monk changes did not work.