Monk in the "Savage" community

[Zorixas]

Throughout the history of the game, there have been many game designs that don't take into consideration the selfishness of the players. For example: During A Realm Reborn, the Dragoon job had a very low magic defense, where it couldn't survive the various magical attacks that were present throughout the game. With that, dragoon players had to deal with ridicule and mockery for a long time, until the magic defense was finally increased. Another example was during the 2016 Moonfire Faire event, with the Yellow Ranger's repeatable quest of having to kill enemies that were very few in numbers and only spawned 2 at a time when there were none alive. That was far too careless to be just an oversight.

[Zorixas]

Now the Monk job has received this stigma from dragoons, however, instead of there being not enough defense, it's now not enough damage. Every other DPS job has some form of damage synergy with the entire party. Monks are the only one that do not, and it's because of this lack of synergy that monks are receiving this stigma. For example, a Ninja in a party would boost the damage of a Paladin or a Dark Knight with Dancing Edge, and would receive a boost in damage if there is a Warrior in the party using Storm's Eye. There is also the indirect boost in damage using Shadewalker & Smoke Screen, where it will help tanking jobs stay out of their tanking stance for longer periods in order to be able to pull off more damage. Not to mention the increased damage taken from Trick Attack on the target.

[Zorixas]

For a monk to be appealing against a Ninja as they are now, they must not only make up for the extra damage lost from the tank(s) via Dancing Edge/Storm's Eye, but also the extra damage that is lost from Trick Attack's vulnerability down and the tanks that have to stay in in their defensive stance to be able to keep up with the enmity generated from the monk that they cannot reduce or redirect. The other scenario is against the dragoon, where if there is a bard or machinist in the party, then their damage is being increased by Disembowel. Also there is the increased critical strike chance from Battle Litany, which is useful for everyone. Also there is Elusive Jump, which reduces the dragoon's enmity, which also helps tanking jobs stay out of their tanking stance for longer periods in order to be able to pull off more damage.

[Zorixas]

For a monk to be appealing against a Dragoon as they are now, they must not only make up for the extra damage lost from the Bard/Machinist, but also the extra damage that is lost from Battle Litany's critical hit rate increase and the tanks that have to stay in in their defensive stance to be able to keep up with the enmity generated from the monk that they cannot reduce. Either scenario would be ridiculous should they be addressed directly. I myself cannot think of a proper solution to this whole mess, but there needs to be one, especially when the Pugilist/Monk is the most stressful to level up due to the reliance on damage through Greased Lightning, which is terrible for short fights with long breaks in between, and their defense doesn't make up for that trouble, having to go through all of that trouble, only to realize that it is not suited for strong teamwork, something that is important to the game, especially savage content.

[ChiiSoSeriouz]

Just so you know, in the future you can edit your post in order to circumvent the character limit. Regarding your post, while the sentiment is true enough, some of your examples are kind of off. First, not wanting to take a dragoon because of low magic damage isn't selfish.. they literally couldn't survive high raid damage that the rest of the party would. Second, tanks don't have to stay in tank stance to hold enmity against a monk, i don't know where you're getting that, or where you think monk isn't "suited for strong teamwork". They have mantra and dragon kick, two really good abilities that work the best when coordinated with the team. Basically the long post you wrote has been discussed over and over again in threads and it's not really necessary to make a new one. Monks have utility, they just don't have utility that increases overall raid dps like battle litany and trick. All this is irrelevant considering 4.0 is going to be a reworking of jobs and an overall monk patch.

[Nyghtmarerobu]

I don't know where this notion that monk isn't suited for raid is coming from. Monk is still the highest preforming melee dps in the game, that has not changed. They may lack some raid utility that the other 2 bring to the table, but that's at the cost of their own personal dps, where monk is still king, even if it is only by a small margin.

Dragoons magic defence buff was a nessecity. It was something that NEEDED to be done, simply because dragoon wasn't going to get any play in raid with such a glaring flaw. I raided on drg in final coil, and I got a lot of flack for playing it, and not switching to ninja. but I also remember in T11 when we pushed into final phase of Kaliya, his ultimate move would 1 shot me if I didn't have Stoneskin, adlo, Apoc, Sacred Soil, Dragon Kick, and Storms Path. That is a lot of things to have, to make sure 1 person doesn't die. While good gameplay is important for player, all of those things should not have to dictate wether 1 person lives or dies. And just to clarify, if 1 of those things was missing, I was dead on the floor, many times my blm would forget apoc, and that would be the differance between life and death, and this scenario is not where monk is in the game currently.

Dancing Edge should not be used by the ninja if he can prevent it. Obviously, if you have a pld/drk tank combo, you kind of have to do it, but if groups have wars, ninja should never be doing it themselves, so that point is very moot. Trick attack is a great tool, but ninja's actual dps suffers for it.

What I'm basically saying is, Monks are still in a good place right now, they might be at the bottom of appeal for people creating raids, but they are not as bad as you say they are. They are still the strongest Melee DPS in the game, and you have to think, if monk gets any kind of raid utility to the point of Battle Litany and Trick attack, their DPS will have to suffer to keep them in-line with everyone else. There is give and take in balance.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Yes. This is a popular topic. And while many people will try to make you think otherwise, the truth of it is that Monk has no damage utility, no direct party synergy, and just barely surpasses the dps of other melee jobs.

Maybe if Monk had the same of a Black Mage or something, but 50 dps more than a DRG that can offer piercing debuff and Battle Litany? No.

It doesn't help that while Monk offers defensive utility, the raid meta right now is focused exclusively on how much damage your party can output.

[Vethos]

If another DPS/support DPS comes out that uses blunt damage, but doesn't have the means of applying a blunt resist down, monk would become much more of value.

You'd have to get rid of DRK if you want to be optimal but DRK still would have its place in any party that doesn't have a monk lol.

[Stormfur]

I think come 4.0 there will be a lot more synergy between party members so that you don't have to have a specific composition in order to get the benefits.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Let's see... MNK... WHM... now all we need is a thread about how poorly suited PLD is for Savage Raiding! On topic, MNKs are just fine now. Taking one means having an easier time recovering from mistakes, where not having one can cause a small mistake to snowball into an otherwise easily prevented wipe.