A wordy observation of 6.X MNK

[Valence]

Id say that gutting the OGCDs leaving only Forbidden Chakra/Enlightment, removing half of the positionals and making the second least busy melee only beaten by RPR that is mostly faceroll counts as butchering its complexity by a lot(just that there are also jobs that are even easier doesnt make MNK complex), it was actually one of the justifications for the rework: "job is too hard, average player can barely push glowing buttons in order so we must make it simpler plus its easier for the 4 job devs to balance if most jobs fall under our 2 min game system".


This is the average actions per minute in 6.4

Job CPM Min Max
NIN 48.3 47.7(4th) 49.4(2nd)
MCH 47.3 46.5(6th) 48.2(7th)
BRD 45.4 44.6(1st) 46.3(5th)
SAM 44.5 44.0(10th) 46.1(1st)
DRG 43.6 43.0(7th,8th) 44.6(2nd)
GNB 43.4 42.2(2nd) 44.8(3rd)
MNK 42.1 41.1(10th) 43.9(5th)
AST 41.3 40.1(9th) 43.1(7th)
DRK 40.5 38.8(9th) 41.7(1st)
DNC 40.0 38.9(5th) 41.5(6th)
RDM 38.6 38.0(6th) 39.3(2nd)
RPR 38.2 37.8(2nd,3rd) 39.6(4th)
SCH 37.4 35.7(2nd) 38.6(3rd)
SMN 37.3 36.2(5th) 38.2(1st)
PLD 36.4 35.5(7th) 38.4(4th)
WAR 36.0 34.8(4th,5th,10th) 39.9(7th)
SGE 33.7 32.3(8th) 34.6(2nd,7th)
BLM 33.3 32.6(4th,6th) 34.3(5th)
WHM 33.1 31.6(7th,9th) 34.9(2nd,4th)

I don't think we're speaking about the same thing. Yes, MNK used to be harder on positionals, and yes MNK used to be harder on keeping up greased lightning when it was still a thing, and peak MNK during SB with the double TK rotations was challenging on its own.

However, nothing has yet come close to the rotational complexity and depth the new Blitzes provide in terms of constraints to play with (not dropping fists, not dropping demolish, cf optimal drift and other advanced rotations), but again, if you're not going for the advanced optimization, yeah, it's not hard. You can even DK spamm and get 100 DPS behind the optimal results, which is ridiculous. Imo that's the real glaring problem with the design. The rest is more a problem of flavor and what people like vs what they don't.

oGCD and APM is not exactly a good indicator of what's easy or hard imo. We're probably going to get into very subjective territory (if we haven't already), but telling me that MCH is hard? Come on, it's pretty mindless with a stupidly low skill/parse ceiling. BRD isn't exactly either, but its main difficulty lies in an extremely finicky optimization, which isn't tied to APM but drift/clipping, and proc management. SAM used to be lower APM and harder than what it currently is due to Kaiten... And so on.

Edit: I realize that the complexity was maybe not part of the initial comment and I may have gone on a tangent. I'm not especially keen on difficulty for difficulty's sake, and I'm more after interesting and unique designs more than anything. But if something has 25 APM and proves super unique and interesting how it plays, then I'll take it over a carpal tunnel brainless 50 APM job hands down.