Monk needs one thing above all.

[GreysonMidori]

I am definitely appreciating the various points of view for this thread to be honest. It's definitely giving me some insight on a lot of details I would not had thought of otherwise.

I hate to say it I think I preferred late shadowbringer's monk playstyle because of extreme 26 button input combo burst. But after the burst it's just a minute long wait til the next burst.
I also enjoyed the high skill ceiling, fast demanded reflexes. If yoshi-p wants anatman to stay the way it is though. They might as well just delete it and give its function to some other abilities any monk already uses in its stead; Its purpose wasn't for form and buff alone, It was entirely designed for greased lightning; which no longer is a factor.

I've mentioned my Anatman recommendation many times now and remain steadfast with it.

Anatman:
Increases Chakra gauge, grants one Chakra upon execution
Grants disciplined fist and formless fist and holds their duration.
Nullifies knockback and draw in effects
Reduces all damage by 50%

If you're aware of the dodge phase with the last boss in Vanaspati, MNK would be able to Anatman through the entire thing.

Giving a single chakra is defeated by the fact meditate and crits exist, it makes sense for the disciplined fist and formless fist however; frankly that should had been a given and it wouldn't be too unbalanced due to the 90s cooldown, the knockback nullification is too complex and unnecessary. Monk has 3 gap-closers that can be used on but friend and enemy, and gapclosers cancel knockback and draw-in effects when timed right, and arms length does exist.
the 50% damage reduction is unecessary so long as riddle of earth exists with its 20% per stack, up to roughly 60% (I care not to add them up in their weird math, I'll just state it literally instead)

Genuinely. I kinda want monk to be a bit faster, I enjoyed how busy it used to be, But I know exactly what they want monk to be now and if they really want to go all out with it, wouldn't it just make more sense if they just made it some linear trainride..? Frankly Even I'd prefer something more open-ended than what I suggested. But I do not, don't like, and get bored of kits that suffer from what feels like tripping mid-combo even though I'm being told I'm doing it perfectly in my group. Something about it just feels...wrong. It really feels like everything that monk deserved mechanically was given to reaper instead so we have to change who we are so reaper can sit in our chair from now on.

It's whatever. I can't control what the devs do with this job. I can only play and pray that they aren't going to be lazy with it.

And regardless what happens to monk. I'm a diehard monk main. I'll play it even if it becomes the worst job. I'll play it regardless of what's changed. It's just what I do. Let's see what happens in the future patches.