change the 5 gate need for MNK chakra

[Almalexia]

Meditation does exactly what Yoshida said it would do: it gives MNK a way to offset DPS loss in situations where attacking a target at melee range is too dangerous or impossible. Form Shift is the same way.

It's not without problems, though:

- Meditation is noisy. For the number of times we're expected to Meditate before it pays off, the same, obnoxiously loud SFX grates hard on the ears. The first four Chakra opened should have gentler SFX, and the fifth can have the current SFX to distinguish it from the rest for the sake of audio feedback.

- The Forbidden Chakra is slow. MNK skill speed is higher than ever between new item levels and new buffs from other jobs. By 56, we have four off-GCD to weave: Howling Fist, Steel Peak, Shoulder Tackle and Elixir Field--not to mention self-buffs--which all fit neatly between GCDs. The Forbidden Chakra locks out player input even with precise inter-GCD timing. Considering its overwhelming potency, however, this may be intentional. I would still welcome additional tactical value to TFC: refresh the duration of the current GL stack, if not add a new stack altogether.

[Chokee]

maybe they can make it only 3 stacks but the cooldown is 2.5s each. so its still 7.5s total to get max stacks. just to lessen the number of key press it takes. it gets pretty tiring

[Kailok]

Meditation is not intended to be used multiple times in a direct fight. The entire point of it is to give you a way to make up for the DPS lost when a boss jumps or becomes invulnerable - NOT to be thrown into the middle of your rotation. Hit it 5 times between pulls, or make yourself a macro to have it do it for you so you don't have to hit a bunch of buttons over and over. If you're trying to use Meditate in the middle of your rotation, you're doing it wrong and losing DPS for it.

I will agree the sound is pretty grating, though. I like it but 5x between every fight not to mention tossing my form shift in as well can be a pretty loud mess before every pull. Aside from this there is nothing wrong with the skill that you can't fix with a quick macro in between pulls / phases.

[CouchOne]

...words...

i think everyone understands the "purpose" for the most part, it's just the implementation that sucks.

the noise is annoying, and spamming a button 5 times between pulls just isn't fun. AT ALL.

MY SOLUTION: gain a Chakra stack for every ability used that would grant greased lightning AFTER you have your 3 stacks. the stacks don't fall off, and Forbidden Chakra gets a potency buff. 400 maybe. this would be an effective way to use the abilities in most boss encounters, AND would promote good management of GL stacks and form shift when running around in the open world, as most mobs won't take long enough to kill to actually get Chakra stacks unless you chain them together.

[neoxdeciple]

This Really does need a change, We get that it should be used outside of combat, but why the spamming. its been said over and over, its annoying and not fun.

Possible fix's: Passively gain stacks while not attacking an enemy.

Off globe cool down: Gain stacks of chakra while not using ability's.

just make it so we don't have to spam that stupid button everywhere we go, Hell you could even put it like Aetherflow like summoner/ Scholor. just make it only be able to use outside of combat.

Form change is also very lack luster, anyone that plays monk knows you learn how to interact in a fight to keep your stacks differently to how everyone else deals with mechanics, its a part of monk i enjoy, having to move exactly at the right time and not just going "meh il spam yet another ability to get to snap punch and not learn. personally i think Form shift would have been better suited as a single use perfect balance, again not to have to spam the hell out of a non damage annoying ability.

[Aeliott]

While the spamming between pulls is a bit much, I don't think that warrants changing its intended function in battle. People saying they don't get a chance to use it after the opener, are you absolutely sure you're not using it immediately when you can't hit anything? I've found many fights in Heavensward where I can get off 3-4 Forbidden Chakras in typical dungeon bosses, slightly more in Bismarck / Ravana (the latter especially). Even if you only get a couple of stacks during one brief bit of downtime you can finish them off at the next chance, every brief bit of downtime take advantage. I'd welcome something that stops it being spammy between pulls, maybe make it fully charge when out of combat - or gain 2 / 3 stacks when out of combat - but honestly I think the 5 stack thing IN combat is fine.

Also because Shoulder Tackle is now weave-able at all times I'm finding it's down when I'd have otherwise needed it before, but hey, more chakra stacks :P (or a Form Change to keep GL which could be more important. I like all these new situational decisions we have). Before we only had to worry about GL stacks which required a general knowledge of fight patterns, but now we need to know them more intimately to know when to Form Change, Meditate, or Tornado Kick. When people start getting more comfortable with familiar fights and know exactly when they can get away with Meditation I think this initial reaction will ease off. Also don't forget - Meditation is a supplement to our primary rotation when it's unavailable, not a be-all-end-all mechanic. In some fights it will be pretty useless (T8 comes to mind), but again - a lot of content in H/W seems to be allowing ample time to practice the new stuff on Monk. Retaining Greased Lightning with our tried and true rotations is more important than Forbidden Chakra, but at the same time I'm not finding it _that_ bothersome to attain a few times in the new fights.

But yes, please do something about the spam out of combat and/or sound effect!

[AniCelestine]

Meditation | instant | 1.5s recast time

"Opens a chakra. Maximum of chakras open is 5. Shares a recast timer with all other weaponskills.

Effect out of combat: opens 5 chakras at once"

That's what I hope the tooltip would say, since when a boss jumps/is untargettable/invurnable you're still in combat so you still get 1 stack on those times, but it would reduce the noice pollution between everything else, and save time when doing quests or fates etc.

You killed the monster that you had to kill? Good, now stand there for 7.5 second spamming one button while watching as others are already halfway to the next place.

[CouchOne]

first thing i did was macro it behind ST so i could run while spamming it. NO WAY i'll stand still to do it unless waiting for a pull.

[Lilyth]

I agree on the spamming part, it gets REALLY annoying.... and theres a lot of ways SE could fix that without affecting the skill intended usage.

A very simple solution would be for it to simply open all 5 chakras when used outside battle. Doing so would remove 90% of the annoying spam, while still maintaining its core purpose during battle unchanged.

[Craiger]

SE wanted to make downtime less painful for MNK's, and that idea is good, but they shouldn't have focused only on downtime... Elixir Field is a very nice ability, but apart from that it's all related to downtime in some way. Forbidden Chakra and Purification can only be used after getting 5 stacks of Chakra, which requires downtime(except first one). Form Shift is useless unless you can't hit anything(really think this ability is a waste), and Tornado Kick is a DPS increase if you use PB right after I think, but that's still very limited usage, and mostly used right before, you guessed it, downtime...

Even after getting those 5 stacks, you're only getting a 320 Potency attack, which is much for MNKs, but still not like extremely high.

Meditation should be usable even when there's no downtime, oGCD with short CD, or work in another way.