The state of monks in PvP

[Zabuza]

I believe this class to be at the bottom of the totem pole currently in PvP. Now before you tell me I need to l2p or whatever, I will say it is not by a large margin, and I believe a few minor tweaks for PvP are necessary in order to balance it. First off, I'm going to start with how this class is not designed too well for PvP at this moment.


-A lot of our moves require a lot of setup and time when PvP arena in this game revolves around bursting a target down either at the start or during a hard swap. Some examples of this are having to use 3 GCDs without perfect balance to actually be able to apply our Dragon Kick debuff. Having to accumulate 3 stacks of Greased Lightning, which without Perfect Balance is likely to fall off because of our poor mobility. Which brings me to my next point...


-Mobility : Our mobility is pretty bad compared to some of the other melee classes. Shoulder Tackle in itself and the cooldown on it is good, however it is our only gap closer and also gives a short stun which will causes our teammates stun to DR. So basically if we want to close the gap and use this we're going to DR stuns for our team. We have no ranged attacks at all so if we're being kited we have no source of damage that we can output. In otherwords being kited completely shuts us down, and we're actually pretty easy to kite, too, especially by a Summoner.


-The cooldown on Perfect Balance is too long for this PvP metagame, this our only source of "on demand burst". Either lower the cooldown on this or give us some other way to burst a target sometimes.


-Positional requirements on our moves as a melee DPS. The likelihood of hitting Twin Snakes, Dragon Kick, or Snap Punch from the side in PvP is near impossible on any target that is moving, cutting our effective DPS by a decent margin. Unlike Dragoon, we have no ability that can waive the positional requirements of our moves.


So what do we bring to our team then? I'd say the main reason to bring a Monk would be dispel. Our PvP abilities are also pretty good, the pacify and the spell speed reduction, however I think we need more of our PvP abilities to stand a chance than any other class does.


In otherwords, we're a sustained damage class in a metagame that revolves around burst. Our mobility is also pretty poor. We have one good opportunity to decide the game. That is when we have popped Sprint + Invigorate + Fetter Ward + Perfect Balance to be able to unleash our "burst" without having to worry about being CCed or kited. After that we have our trinket(Purify) for one more out. If we haven't killed 1-2 members of their team by then, the game is usually over as we will be kited from this point on with little way to do any damage whatsoever. Perfect Balance is on our big damage source and it is on a 3 minute cooldown. So here's my suggestions then in order to make monk more viable for PvP.



Suggested Changes

-Give Monks a ranged ability that they can use, Chi Blast, in order to fix our mobility issue.

Chi Blast: Unleashes a ball of chi at the target, dealing 180 potency and applying a 10% heavy for 10 seconds. 30 second cooldown.
Rank 1: Lowers cooldown to 20 seconds.
Rank 2: Increases the heavy duration to 15 seconds.
Rank 3: Increases the heavy to 20%.

Note that this would of course be cleansable.

-Give a PvP ability that lowers the cooldown of Perfect Balance to 90 seconds.

Meditation: Lowers the cooldown of Perfect Balance to 90 seconds(Passive)

Perhaps some may believe that 90 seconds is too short for this ability, but waiting 3 minutes for our only source of burst in a burst reliant metagame is imo, too long.


-Remove the stun effect on Shoulder Tackle so that it does not DR stuns for our team, please.


So those would be my 3 minor tweaks for monks to PvP. What is your opinion on Monks currently in PvP. Where would you rank them? What would you change about them, if anything?

[Ryuuji]

Straigus Reyist wrecks face as MNK in arena as is. He rivals BRD/MRD damage if the people hes wrecking aren't jumpers. Not only that, but he applies his debuffs/buffs so efficiently and effectively on the fly. He has really good reaction. Once they fix the jump bug caster dds are in for a world of hurt. I have yet to see anyone play monk like him in PVE or PVP.. like literally the only decent one I've seen through my 1,500~ matches so far.

[Rawkzor]

Straigus Reyist wrecks face as MNK in arena as is. He rivals BRD/MRD damage if the people hes wrecking aren't jumpers. Not only that, but he applies his debuffs/buffs so efficiently and effectively on the fly. He has really good reaction. Once they fix the jump bug caster dds are in for a world of hurt. I have yet to see anyone play monk like him in PVE or PVP.. like literally the only decent one I've seen through my 1,500~ matches so far.

Yeah, I don't think even comparing MRD or BRD are comparable. I've been grouping with him a lot, with our BRD friend. We'll go in and he will smash someones face so fast. The fight usually ends quick, and he will sometimes double my damage as MRD.

[Zabuza]

So I take this to mean you both believe monks are not at the bottom in PvP? Even if their damage is good(mostly sustained damage btw). It doesn't change too much if you cannot hit the target because your mobility is poor. Mobility is the greatest issue that I have on monk. If the other team doesn't have one of their teammates dead by after I've used fetter ward/purify/perfect balance, there's like a 50% chance I'll probably get kited the rest of the match, and we will eventually lose.

[Rawkzor]

So I take this to mean you both believe monks are not at the bottom in PvP? Even if their damage is good(mostly sustained damage btw). It doesn't change too much if you cannot hit the target because your mobility is poor. Mobility is the greatest issue that I have on monk. If the other team doesn't have one of their teammates dead by after I've used fetter ward/purify/perfect balance, there's like a 50% chance I'll probably get kited the rest of the match, and we will eventually lose.

Fists of Wind, Sprint, Shoulder Tackle. You have more options than I do as MRD. I get kited plenty, especially against bunny hoppers. DRG gets jumps, but they have long cooldowns, except for the skill "Jump" which returns you to your starting position. Once SMN damage is brought down, hopefully the other changes being made are aimed at CC effects like Sleep and the heavy from Disease. Then we'll be good.

[Zabuza]

Fists of Wind, Sprint, Shoulder Tackle. You have more options than I do as MRD. I get kited plenty, especially against bunny hoppers. DRG gets jumps, but they have long cooldowns, except for the skill "Jump" which returns you to your starting position. Once SMN damage is brought down, hopefully the other changes being made are aimed at CC effects like Sleep and the heavy from Disease. Then we'll be good.

Fists of Wind and Sprint actually are both useless against anyone who can cast Miasma on me. I cannot keep up with someone who is running normal speed if I have Miasma on me(This is with sprint and fists of wind up, by the way.) So Shoulder Tackle is all I have to keep up at that point. So I use that, and then within 5 seconds they are already out of my range again, because Miasma is on me.

[Kazim]

same for all melee miasm ftl
but monk have every thing better crits rate , faster hits , disarm , anti-sprint , reduce casting speed , charge , run speed.
monk are the best melee class atm
90 pvpgear i am destroyed by any good monk 70pvpgear they hits so hard and fast,

/wave at drunge ironfist best monk i have seen ps: stop focusing me

[Mitski]

Fists of Wind, Sprint, Shoulder Tackle. You have more options than I do as MRD. I get kited plenty, especially against bunny hoppers. DRG gets jumps, but they have long cooldowns, except for the skill "Jump" which returns you to your starting position. Once SMN damage is brought down, hopefully the other changes being made are aimed at CC effects like Sleep and the heavy from Disease. Then we'll be good.

-It's not really fair to compare MNK to MRD, as one is a dedicated dps and the other is a tank.
-Fist of Wind only makes a difference when both players have equal move speed (i.e. both heavy [same%] or neither heavy)
-DRG Jumps (plural) do have a longer cooldown than Shoulder Tackle, but their Jumps are also a significant source of damage which fits their playstyle (and the current meta). They also have a ranged poke.

To the OP:

I agree that mobility is the major issue facing MNK. Positional attack bonuses and GLx3 each account for ~30% of our damage potential, and both require mobility to be effective. Essentially, our greatest and most exploitable weakness is the foundation for our damage.

Your proposed class changes aren't bad, but I would be hesitant to add more skills/traits that requires Action Points. I think a 90 second cooldown on Perfect Balance would be fine as a base change, and Chi Strike would have to replace Somersault. An alternative idea is adding Heavy Resistance to Fist of Wind.

[Zabuza]

=To the OP:

I agree that mobility is the major issue facing MNK. Positional attack bonuses and GLx3 each account for ~30% of our damage potential, and both require mobility to be effective. Essentially, our greatest and most exploitable weakness is the foundation for our damage.

Your proposed class changes aren't bad, but I would be hesitant to add more skills/traits that requires Action Points. I think a 90 second cooldown on Perfect Balance would be fine as a base change, and Chi Strike would have to replace Somersault.

An alternative idea is adding Heavy Resistance to Fist of Wind, instead of giving MNK a heavy.

Hmm, I believe that melee classes need a ranged snare of some sort at the moment. I just think it's ridiculous how easily it is to be kited once my fetter ward/purify is down. We do good damage but I think the GL mechanic doesn't work too well in a PvP atmosphere(excluding perfect balance.)

[Mitski]

Hmm, I believe that melee classes need a ranged snare of some sort at the moment. I just think it's ridiculous how easily it is to be kited once my fetter ward/purify is down. We do good damage but I think the GL mechanic doesn't work too well in a PvP atmosphere(excluding perfect balance.)

I agree 100% that kiting is our biggest problem, and GL is the worst class mechanic in PvP. I'm just not sure on the best way to fix them.

If we don't have enough mobility we're weak, but with too much mobility we will be overpowered. Adding a snare is probably the biggest mobility change SE could make because it benefits the whole team. Heavy Resistance to Fist of Wind would benefit only MNK, so I think (properly tuned) it may be a more balanced option.