[MONK] My issues with the MONK, especially compared to other jobs.

[Zatoh]

I thought it was funny someone replied to "I'm never sure what you guys mean by clunky" by using the word a whole bunch without defining what it means, but then it *kept happening.*

[Shurrikhan]

I thought it was funny someone replied to "I'm never sure what you guys mean by clunky" by using the word a whole bunch without defining what it means, but then it *kept happening.*

Thus far, if we're going to go by the reasons given for MNK being "clunky"?

"Clunky" = "Takes less setup and has fewer dead weaponskill choices in any given GCD than SAM" and/or "Crit-dependent effects." Who knew?

/shrug

[VentVanitas]

You just said it, chakra has rng attached to it, that makes it clunkier than kenki.

It's more accurate to say that Chakra is more inflexible than any other job gauge rather than a vague term like clunky. It's not the inherent RNG aspect of it that makes it bad, it's that the job does nothing to accommodate for it being RNG unlike other skills of its nature like Pitch Perfect or Sabre Dance.

[vetch]

...That has nothing to do with what I wrote.

The problem with early PB is it literally costs you a form every time you use it because it removes what forms you had going in and doesn't grant Formless at its end, meaning that your only useful options after each PB are... Dragon Kick or Arm of the Destroyer.

This problem happens because they tied that Formless buff to Blitz instead of to having consumed all your stacks of Perfect Balance. I.e., you need Blitz for Perfect Balance to even function fully/correctly.

It has everything to do with what you wrote.

Having to restart with DK after a PB combo -- having to figure on needing more GCDs before you can refresh Demolish and thus having to plan differently -- instead of getting Formless afterward and being able to re-enter your skill chain wherever your giddy heart desires, changes the flow in a more interesting way to me. I don't consider it a flaw.

I understood your position perfectly, I just think you're wrong.

[Shurrikhan]

It has everything to do with what you wrote.

Having to restart with DK after a PB combo -- having to figure on needing more GCDs before you can refresh Demolish and thus having to plan differently -- instead of getting Formless afterward and being able to re-enter your skill chain wherever your giddy heart desires, changes the flow in a more interesting way to me. I don't consider it a flaw.

I understood your position perfectly, I just think you're wrong.

You honestly prefer having less choice, even though you have a greater ceiling of optimization and greater contextualize and viable GCD tiers without being forced to use Dragon Kick after each PB?

I could understand your position if the benefits were otherwise excessive rather than allowing for new and even tighter fits to aim for, but that's not the case. The ceiling, too, is lower from PB not granting Formless after its last stack.

[Silhart]

I don't have anything to contribute to the topic at hand, other than wishing that people would discuss their gripes with MNK in a way that doesn't involve the dreaded 'C' word. That word tells us nothing, and there is no useful discussion to be had around a word that means wildly different things to different people.

Anyway, I just wanted to respond to this post that caught my eye:

I don't agree. Figuring out how to do steady damage by using PBs to farm crit Bootshines as much as possible without dropping Twin Snakes or overwriting Demolish when you must restart with DK afterward is one of the charms of low-level monk and is, frankly, way more interesting to me than the post-59 'you're a burst job like everyone else now, press PB to prep for the stupid burst window'.

The easy solution to this is to use Perfect Balance on the next Opo-Opo GCD following both a natural Twin Snakes and Demolish refresh (so, Twin Snakes -> Demolish -> Opo-Opo & Perfect Balance -> 3x Opo-Opo -> Dragon Kick). Those natural refreshes will happen often enough that you will never overcap on Perfect Balance charges, and you will maximize your Bootshines while minimizing clipping & downtime on Twin Snakes and Demolish.

There it is, that's level 50 MNK fully optimised. There's not much to it, but it is good to think of MNK's rotation in terms of maximizing Bootshines and being efficient with timers, because MNK's Optimal Drift rotation at cap operates entirely on that principle. Which brings me to this...

It has everything to do with what you wrote.

Having to restart with DK after a PB combo -- having to figure on needing more GCDs before you can refresh Demolish and thus having to plan differently -- instead of getting Formless afterward and being able to re-enter your skill chain wherever your giddy heart desires, changes the flow in a more interesting way to me. I don't consider it a flaw.

I understood your position perfectly, I just think you're wrong.

You will love MNK at 90, because optimal MNK gameplay demands that you spend every Formless Fist on an Opo-Opo GCD to get as many Bootshines as possible in a fight. And yes, you absolutely need to plan your timers to account for this fact.

[vetch]

You honestly prefer having less choice, even though you have a greater ceiling of optimization and greater contextualize and viable GCD tiers without being forced to use Dragon Kick after each PB?

Yes. The level 50 constraint of 'must DK after PB' makes the solving more interesting, whereas the level 60+ constraint of 'forget that, just do whatever you want as long as you don't drift your cooldowns out of burst' makes it more neurotic instead.

I'm normally receptive to arguments about higher skill ceilings, but that consideration must come after whether the job's rotation is fun or not.

The easy solution to this is to use Perfect Balance on the next Opo-Opo GCD following both a natural Twin Snakes and Demolish refresh (so, Twin Snakes -> Demolish -> Opo-Opo & Perfect Balance -> 3x Opo-Opo -> Dragon Kick). Those natural refreshes will happen often enough that you will never overcap on Perfect Balance charges, and you will maximize your Bootshines while minimizing clipping & downtime on Twin Snakes and Demolish.

There it is, that's level 50 MNK fully optimised.

There's more than that to play with if you want it, though. Demolish lasts long enough that with high SkS, you can delay PB by a full combo and still refresh in time, so you can start a PB after Twin Snakes -> Snap Punch -> DK instead to accommodate mechanics or catch stray buffs. That's really fun.

Haste builds in general are fun and it's depressing that there's not more room for them at 90.

You will love MNK at 90, because optimal MNK gameplay demands that you spend every Formless Fist on an Opo-Opo GCD to get as many Bootshines as possible in a fight. And yes, you absolutely need to plan your timers to account for this fact.

Nah. I don't like FF14's take on bursting jobs in general and dislike monk's version in particular since it's too far from what the job was sold as. You remember when you were a lowly level 1 PGL and Hamon told you that the job was about 'many rapid small blows that end up doing as much damage as a flashier, slower job's big hits'? I want that.

I think it's bad game design that we're not allowed to have that anymore.

[Silhart]

Yes. The level 50 constraint of 'must DK after PB' makes the solving more interesting, whereas the level 60+ constraint of 'forget that, just do whatever you want as long as you don't drift your cooldowns out of burst' makes it more neurotic instead.

I'm normally receptive to arguments about higher skill ceilings, but that consideration must come after whether the job's rotation is fun or not.

But... after 60 you need to use an Opo-Opo GCD on every Formless Fist if you want to maximize damage. Unless you're doing some crazy spreadsheeting with 2-target fights, using Formless Fist to refresh timers is, more often than not, a pitfall and a sign of poor planning.

There's more than that to play with if you want it, though. Demolish lasts long enough that with high SkS, you can delay PB by a full combo and still refresh in time, so you can start a PB after Twin Snakes -> Snap Punch -> DK instead to accommodate mechanics or catch stray buffs. That's really fun.

Haste builds in general are fun and it's depressing that there's not more room for them at 90.

I mean, I agree in that I love Haste builds and I am actually putting together a SKS set for my MNK at 90 because screw it, I've cleared the tier so why not.

But I am also wondering what kind of SKS you're getting at level 50, because even with Greased Lightning 4 and 1.94 GCD at level 90, there is no way you can enter a 3x Opo-Opo Perfect Balance after a Snap Punch without having downtime on Demolish. Genuinely curious, what kind of mechanics require you to enter on that window in the first place?

Nah. I don't like FF14's take on bursting jobs in general and dislike monk's version in particular since it's too far from what the job was sold as. You remember when you were a lowly level 1 PGL and Hamon told you that the job was about 'many rapid small blows that end up doing as much damage as a flashier, slower job's big hits'? I want that.

I think it's bad game design that we're not allowed to have that anymore.

Hmm, what changes would you make to MNK to bring it closer to how you envision it? I do kinda agree, but I'm just not sure how level 50 MNK does any better of a job at delivering this experience.

[Shurrikhan]

Yes. The level 50 constraint of 'must DK after PB' makes the solving more interesting, whereas the level 60+ constraint of 'forget that, just do whatever you want as long as you don't drift your cooldowns out of burst' makes it more neurotic instead.

But you don't "do whatever you want". You do what is optimal. Which is far more contextually involved when your progress isn't reset after each PB.

Haste builds in general are fun and it's depressing that there's not more room for them at 90.

There is room for them at 90. Sub ~1.9s GCDs, for instance, allow absurdly tight Twin Snakes and Demolish timings (minimal clip and/or absence), more diverse macrorotational alignments, and better Leaden Fist exploitation than the "BiS" 1.94 and 1.93 builds' more lockstep macrorotation. I play at 1.83-1.87 for the fun of it, but it actually fares just fine.

High SkS Monk is plenty viable, because the only things that don't scale with Skill Speed are Brotherhood's party Chakra generation and your opening Forbidden Chakra. Since you can have a higher portion of Bootshines/Leaden Fists at higher SkS due to less Twin/Demo waste and, more importantly, all Chakra generation outside of Brotherhood and your free set upon instancing in come from your GCDs, Monk scales better with SkS than any other job in the game, and better than it ever has before.

Your Monk is only level 69. Hit 90 and actually play around with these things so you know what you're talking about before insisting that cutting down the job's skill ceiling in that way is better for the job's complexity.

Also, having to take two GCDs after PB to reset Twin... is literally just Blitz + Twin anyways. You think 2 GCDs ahead with the forced DK... or you think 2 GCDs ahead with Blitz. The only thing you'd have to further think ahead for by forcing a non-Opo-opo Dragon Kick after each PB/Blitz is Demolish, and that'd only be by 1 of 3 GCDs. And for that you'd lose the ability to set up your Demolish and Twin Snakes to specifically get out precisely their full durations 3+ more times per raid cycle.

_________

Vetch, if you told me that SAM was better when it had only 30s duration on Fuka and Fugetsu (or would be better if it only applied 20s of duration at a time but both Jinpu/Shifu and Gekko/Kasha applied those buffs), I'd readily agree because the additional duration devalued existing optimizations without offering new ones (except perhaps to those absolutely minimizing Skill Speed). But here, not being forced to raw Dragon Kick after each PB doesn't just slightly increase the "accessibility" of that mechanic but also creates new, even more stringent/precise, optimizations that can result from it. It raises the ceiling by more than it "lowers" the floor.