Monk- general discussion and feedback

[Cynric]

I agree with Noctis. No on everything except #7, It's kind of weird I use pretty much every single move on my list except One Ilm Punch.

[Shyle]

GL changes , emnity dump and a ranged attack that grants GL (chi-blast?).

Otherwise I think things are fine.

[DerpyCubone]

I think people aren't understanding this completely. It's not a cry for more monk damage, it's for a better play experience. It is extremely frustrating to see your GL wear off while you stand around helpless because the boss is off somewhere else making tea or whatever it is they do. It's just stressful to hit a quick dps check starting from scratch when 12 seconds ago you were dpsing at full speed through no fault of your own. Then to top it off, several of our abilities are useless because of the monk rotation time constraints or just sloppy design.

[NoctisUmbra]

I think people aren't understanding this completely. It's not a cry for more monk damage, it's for a better play experience. It is extremely frustrating to see your GL wear off while you stand around helpless because the boss is off somewhere else making tea or whatever it is they do. It's just stressful to hit a quick dps check starting from scratch when 12 seconds ago you were dpsing at full speed through no fault of your own. Then to top it off, several of our abilities are useless because of the monk rotation time constraints or just sloppy design.

No, I understand it quite fine honestly. It's common for people to immediately think someone must not be understanding them if they don't agree, but unfortunately that's not nearly as often the case.

A MNK sustaining GL3 will outshine every DPS job in game right now. Every. Single. One. Granted the fight lasted long enough that you can ignore the wind-up to a certain degree.

The DPS a GL3 + DK + TwS + FoF MNK puts out is outstanding. It also does this with a relatively long-lasting TP pool due to low costs are on all bread & butter native skills. You can see it in the design of the job, coupled with content, that it was expected for MNKs to lose their GL3 buff every now and then due to mechanics and have to spend time winding up again.

GL3 is a massive buff to DPS, and the core problem here is that naturally every MNK player just hates losing the buff. It's something that just gets hard-coded into you from the minute you unlock GL at early levels of PGL, and only worsens as you unlock additional stacks. You're dishing out the damage and then for whatever reason you lose GL3 and feel like you're going to have a stroke. You hate it. I hate it. We all hate it. Doesn't mean there's a problem in class design, because what most people don't understand is it's not something we were ever meant to keep up full time. It is a buff that is to be kept up full time ideally.

A MNK does not need to keep up GL3 to match their dps with another equally geared DPS job. A MNK that keeps up GL3 does greater dps than another equally geared DPS job. What a MNK can do to optimize their DPS is maximize their GL3 uptime for any given content, first and foremost.

So no. GL3 does not require any changes. An extension to GL3 buff time, or a change to make it lose stacks at a time instead of fully dropping it, etc all extend a MNKs ability to keep up GL3 and in turn increases their content-specific DPS.

When balancing DPS jobs, one does not take the top performer and make it better and/or easier.

[DerpyCubone]

Snip.

On the flip side, monk requires GL3 because of their low base damage abilities. This is the reason they are able to compete with other DPS. They aren't going to win the day hitting between 130 and 180 potency attacks to DRG's 150-300. I would completely agree that if monk had access to higher potency attacks then GL3 wearing off would be no issue (and in need of a nerf at that) but that is not what is happening. Monks naturally don't hit as hard, and GL is the difference maker. So it is just very frustrating when it wears off through no fault of your own. No other class loses that much DPS or takes as long to get it back. I'm not saying that all classes should be the same, or that monk shouldn't have some ramp up time. I picture Monks as something of a train, takes awhile to get going but then you can't stop them... expect you can stop them by teleporting away for 4 seconds.

[NoctisUmbra]

snip

The key point is, GL3 puts MNK dps well above every other job. Thus, losing it a few times is expected in terms of balance.

The misconception going around is that MNK needs GL3 up all the time to be competent in DPS. No. A MNK with GL3 up all the time has no competition in DPS in a sustained fight.

[Naelle]

The key point is, GL3 puts MNK dps well above every other job. Thus, losing it a few times is expected in terms of balance.

The misconception going around is that MNK needs GL3 up all the time to be competent in DPS. No. A MNK with GL3 up all the time has no competition in DPS in a sustained fight.

I agree with this. Monk does great damage while losing stacks multiple times throughout a boss fight. It does suck to lose all of your stacks and I feel like a longer cooldown, ranged attack could be a solution to two problems (the other being one ilm). 60-180 second cooldown (I'm not a balance dev clearly) ranged attack that resets timer but does not give a stack could give us that decision in a fight; when do I need to keep my stacks. Put haymaker in one ilms place and change one ilm to wave fist (Tactics woot). My $.02.

[DerpyCubone]

The key point is, GL3 puts MNK dps well above every other job. Thus, losing it a few times is expected in terms of balance.

The misconception going around is that MNK needs GL3 up all the time to be competent in DPS. No. A MNK with GL3 up all the time has no competition in DPS in a sustained fight.

Your not getting what I'm trying to saying. I might not be coming across correctly. I'm not trying to focus on the damage output, those numbers can always be changed and likely will at some point. I'm talking about the fight experience. It is stressful to lose a chuck of your damage going into a burn phase and have to spend time ramping it back up. Keeping up your stacks through rotation, knowing when it hit demolish last second so it doesn't fall off but also not overwriten by your last one so you lose you stacks... that's fun. That's why I play monk, for the mini game of "what can I squeeze in my rotation". But what's not fun to me, is losing that mini game because I'm a monk and this battle says so! No one else has that. It needs tweaking.

If your looking for my opinion on how to balance it, I would do this
Replace GL3 with GL5, gain a stack every 10 levels. GL5 = GL3 buff wise. Same duration, lose 2 stacks per when it goes to wear off. It would slow monks down at the start a bit, but help them keep up pressure after non-damage phases.

[Resheph]

I agree with 1-7, except I do use AotD for specific things, like bugs in WP (lol). I feel like it doesn't do enough damage for the amount of TP it soaks up.

Edit:

...It is extremely frustrating to see your GL wear off while you stand around helpless...

Also agree with this completely. Even on trash mobs it's annoying to lose GL on every group of mobs or be forced to pull yourself when the rest of the party isn't ready. "Resheph, stop pulling!!" "Greased Lightening, bro, gotta go fast!"

[Cynric]

Noctis is pretty much right on the money. If they wanted us to always have GL 3, it'd be a passive, not a buff. You all are treating it like its a passive always on ability that just drops off for no reason.


No GL - Good Damage
GL 1 - Better Damage
GL 2 - Much better Damage
GL 3 - Best Damage mixed with basically 2.0 s GCD

If you're always at the top end of your DPS, then you're always dishing out your buffed damage at all times. As opposed to every other class that waits on CD's throughout parts of the fight where they lose their buffs. We just top out and stay topped out the whole fight? What kind of mentality is that? The majority of the fights we always have an XX% DMG buff going on. Losing GL3 isn't the end of the world. When bosses disappear everyone has to ramp back up to their top damage. It's not like this is something that we solely get affected by.

So all you're really asking is to make Monk more overpowered. Don't forget that not a single DPS job stays at their optimum DPS throughout an entire fight. We all deal with cooldowns and buff upkeep, along with proper DoT usage. Some of them just have it a bit easier than others(bard) but it's not like said class is staying at their current place. It's also not like the fights aren't being tuned to be more melee friendly to begin with.

Add all that together and by the end of the patches we'd just be taking bards place.