Thread: How should Monk 4.0 have been done?

1. What makes a Monk a Monk?
Fast hits revolving around doing consistent more than high damage between 2-3 combos and keeping GL. The burst of the monk currently is an addition not a defining feature since it's a 10% base pot damage increase (B4B) with a 30% crit increase (IR) so the overall damage climb isn't high and it mainly far more about keeping the consistency of the damage and weaving oGCD that benefit from that increase (HF and FC). It's a high risk high reward self-contained dps that doesn't require help to do damage.

2. What did you most enjoy about Monk gameplay?
Doing a high amount of damage as quickly as possible. I'm more of a speed than power player. This is how I've played in most RPGs and MMOs. I find it's skills to be easily focused and while I'm different than most (I Boot-TS-Demo/DK-TS-SP) and always move between positionals, never staying in one place. It's a challenge I enjoy to keep my damage as high as possible from staying on the move around enemies.

3. In what way were 3.x designs an improvement over 2.x. Which design ideas should have been extended in 4.x?
The addition of form shift, chakra, and tornado kick took a bit for me to get used to but it was relatively easy to pick up once I practiced the optimal rotation and figured out ways to build chakra between combos. Even then, the chakra system didn't take away anything, only added to the rotations we already had. TK was a high-cost move and easily ignored as well but honestly, having a "Well S**t" button made losing GL between phases or pulls not as bad. If anything should have been built on it was TK's pot and risk and trying to find ways to make MNK's TP last longer. If anything Purification costing 5 chakra is dumb for 300TP. It should either be 500TP or only 3 chakra. And extending Chakra isn't a bad idea, it's just misguided in making it proc based. MNK doesn't need a proc based system if it's built on consistency. Instead build chakra through battle similar to the WAR and fell cleave.

4. What significant issues did Monk still face in 3.x? To what degree, or under what conditions, were they acceptable?
Monk's damage was too low to not have any group synergy or raid utility. What's being talked about with SAM now is what MNK should have been in 3.0. There's no way that balance wise adding to said damage would have done much and to me ultimately was made the monk suffer was the ultility balance of the monk was extra healing. No fight can make it so that's a necessity or MNK is needed and balance is thrown way off. It's the similar issue to One-Ilm Punch having a relatively strong effect but useless since it doesn't work on any boss or raid (The only one I've seen it work on is the Damage Up from Stone Vigil HM's final boss). Fist stances being imbalanced is an issue but not a gamebreaking one. Even if you were to change Fists of Wind to 5-10% increased attack/movement speed it wouldn't compare to the flat pure damage of Fists of Fire's 5% and on top of exascerbating the TP problems that the monk already has.

5. How could these issues have been solved, if necessary?
TK pot increased to 500-640, or applying a 5 sec physical damage vuln to the target with it's current pot. There has to be a trade-off where when you use TK there's some kind of return. Losing GL3 is too high a risk for that low of damage. Brotherhood is a good addition, just needs work. The concept is good but misguided. MNK is self-contained and Brotherhood fights with that. Why make the MNK still have no real synergy with no class and then make it dependent on groups for extra (or because of the pot changes, needed) damage. It weakens the MNK to force utility and even then it doesn't make you any stronger just the group. So why not, change that to an ability not too much different. Brotherhood does the 5% increase for physical damage (or everyone but I'd stick with physical) but instead of chakra building it's a GL+ effect that gives you a secondary stack of GL for those 15s that increases attack speed by 10% and lowers TP costs by 10%. 120s cooldown.

6. How could the overall experience of Monk gameplay have been improved in 4.0?
Monk overall needed a buff to GL retention, Chakra Managment, and different abilities taken away and others built upon. No pot nerfs whatsoever and no Demo nerf. With the pot buffs of DRG and NIN it's not necessary. I'd change Fists of Wind to 5% movement/attack speed but not to balance the Fists, just to have it make more sense. As for the skills and abilities. First off, Arm of the Destroyer gone. Without a pot increase to put it on par with Death Blossom or Ring of Thorns (no combo) it's not worth thinking about and increasing the pot to that gives the monk an Aoe combo that's too strong even with the drops in TP. AotD (EF), TS (HF), Rock, that's like Deathflare every 90 secs with Painflare every other GL stack. There's no fixing that. One-Ilm Punch gone as well. I'd like to trade it for Somersault but I already have ideas for GL retention. As for moves and traits kept, ToD doesn't leave. Personally I wouldn't remove Mutilate or Phebotomize either, it serves no purpose. Same with Steel Peak/Leg Sweep, no reason to remove the stun or take Leg Sweep away from DRG and also would lower to the cooldown to the DRG standard of 20s, same with Jugulate.

As for added moves and traits. Deep Meditation stays but is reworked. Deep Meditation gives +1 chakra for every reapplication of GL3. In doing so, there's no reason to use meditation during combos for that dps loss and you still build up to a big hit like WAR.

Instead of Tackle Mastery a trait, MNK gets a weaponskill replacement for fracture with a twist. Elixir Blast. An Instant GCD with a TP Cost of 90. But, a range of 10y and a pot of 70 with a 30s Dot for 15 Potency. Exilir Blast is a one-handed ranged Ki Blast that gives the monk a ranged ability along with a dot.

Riddle of Earth, relatively gone. Now this won't happen but my idea fixes a few glaring issues that's plagued monk for a long period of time. Instead of a separate Riddle of Earth, MNK will get Axe Kick moved to PvE with a few changes. Renamed to Shatter Kick, It's no longer an AoE, it does 110 pot, and does not apply pacification. It's an oGCD with that applies GL3 instantly with a 90s cooldown. This will make TK viable every 90s rotation.

Now Secret Arts, Riddle, or whatever. Now this is where Fists come into play. Whatever stance is used when Riddle is used it gives different cooldowns for 18s duration/80s(or 90s) cooldown
Riddle of Earth - Earth's Reply with the 10% defense increase but instead of a GL refresh a GL pause. On activation it pauses GL until it falls off. 30s duration. While paused MNK does not receive GL benefits. Effect ends on fall off or switching Fist stance. (does not affect Brotherhood GL stack) (Forgot to mention: This is not on hit, this is a defense cooldown since MNK like DRG loses Featherfoot, Foresight, and also Mercy Stroke)
Riddle of Wind - Wind Release, reverses the effect of GL and lowers TP cost by 10%, meaning GL3 - 30% attack speed increase and a 15% attack damage increase. (Would be used to build GL and/or chakra fast if lost or keep it.)
Riddle of Fire - Fire Impact, an increase of 15% damage but you take a Pyretic effect that ticks for 1500HP (or a low percentage like 2-3%) every weaponskill used. (B4B only it's not an "if" you take damage, you will take damage, debating of whether it should kill or not or just decrease HP)

And Brotherhood applied like earlier. Does the 5% increase for physical damage (or everyone but I'd stick with physical) but instead of chakra building, it's a GL+ effect that gives you a secondary stack of GL for those 15s that increases attack speed by 10% and lowers TP costs by 10%. 120s cooldown. Chakra changed since you have assured stacks but damage unchanged since the goal wasn't to get rid of the move but rework it into something that didn't make you dependent on others to sustain damage.

Those are just my ideas and overall what I greatly wanted to see. Essentially all the cooldowns build to a small burst and climbing damage similar to 3.0 monk but fixes the issues of TP management but sacrificing damage if need be. Essentially old Army's Paeon but you take the hit not the Bard. Some other small adjustments also, to make Riddle more accessible for this way, no cooldown or GCD for Fist swapping.

EDIT: Riddle of Earth's ability Earth's Reply isn't on hit, cause that is dumb. also wanted to say something in the case of pot nerfs and buffs. I'm only thinking about mdps but to me, there's no reason any class should suffer pot nerfs. By that I mean, lowering a class for balance is never a good idea imo. Classes to should raised to the "optimal" or "meta", not lowered to the disliked or "sub-optimal". It's the direct opposite of what some players want to see.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

While I likely would have simply posted to Orbaius's thread had I seen it beforehand instead of starting this one, it and this are quite different from the only other English Monk thread you've posted to recently, which is instead made up primarily of reactions to the Stormblood skills as given. This is a "from scratch" thread with fairly distinct purposes, essentially a slightly more detailed variant of Orbaius's in retrospect.

Feel free to post ideas of your own though. Their appearing in multiple locations only risks your daily post count to some extent; it certainly doesn't mute them.

I'm not against that, it's simply because they regroup all the WHM thread in one

Originally Posted by silentwindfr

that because the situation is extremely bad.

I know the situation I made some post on the english and french forum.
I was just thinking making a big thread was more easy than making more little thread

thanks for your answer Shurrikhan
then here my answer about the few question ^^

the boost of movement speed of fist of wind and ninja can be compared quite easily, ninja get this boost as trait, if you start to move at the same time in straight line, the ninja will go faster. same if you do the test with a jobs that don't have a speed boost, yes you go faster but it's not really impressive.

why i say that fist of wind loose all his interest? a few thing:
1) most of the time you will be using fist of fire for the boost of the damage, meaning this skill is from the get go underused (if you remember the talk about the combat change was to make underused skill disappear or changed and neither did happend to this one)
2) sprint will have no tp usage anymore, means we will have more freedom to use sprint without loose fist of fire for flee and such.

this two reason by itself make the existance of this skill a big question.

a bit of history, at the base the game had a elemental wheel, means you was able to find monster that had weakness to certain enemy. at that time the three fist was adding damage of this element to your attack. giving to the monk versatibility in many case. sadly with the 2.0 the elemental wheel was take out, and this three skill did loose them purpose. since the release of ARR the three fist are a meh addition to our toolset since most of the time we will use fist of fire.

another point, about your idea of fist of earth, we are dps, we are not means to take damage... however it's still happend, in raid and dungeon, when i have an aoe i know i can't avoid, i switch of stance for reduce of 10% the damage and revert back to fire fist right after. that must be the usage most people around do.then don't it's a better idea to make it a skill like the third eyes skill of the samurai? a cd we use for reduce the damage of the next attack.

Tonardo kick, i explain my idea, how many time you have to run to an add and notice that it did die before you can refresh your gl and don't have the charge for get back to the boss for refresh nor use tornado kick? must have happend often... same in place like potd the stack are tricky to maintain. and tornado kick as melee skill that consume our gl is not efficient. by changing this skill to a ranged, it will allows to never loose stack because not at melee, no cooldown for get back and such.

an important point about this idea, loose of the GL = a net loose of dps for the next 20-21 second. we can't use it only for gain dps... since we will revert to 0 gl stack. the goal will to have a skill for consume the gl in case we can't refresh it.

about the free form combo, actually we don't really have three choice.
you have 3 form, opo opo, coeurl, raptor. each of this form have 3 skill each.

opo opo :
- Bootshine (back attack)
- arm of destroyer (area silence at 100 potency...meh)
- dragon tackle (side attack)

raptor:
- true strike (back attack)
- twin snake (side attack)
- one ilm punch (stun... attack... seriously SE?)

coeurl:
- snap punch (side attack)
- demolition (back attack)
- rockbreaker (aoe attack.... *sighs*at 130 potency)

if you look carefully in all this skill we have in reality 6 usefull skill and 3 that have... a really really situational or even a questionable use.
i will draw a comparaison between the samurai and the monk, the samurai too have combo of aoe, but sadly they are not soo strange than the one of the monk. in all honesty as stand the monk the aoe skill have no use, it's better to focus dps on one target and destroy it. worst with SB they have clearly as intention to reduce our size of pull with all the nerf of aoe. then...

anyway, i digress, the goal of the 4th form it's to offer one skill on side and one on the back. they are not mandatory, you can perfectly switch back to opo opo form skill. but will offer an evolution of our tool and skill. plus rewarding the people that continue to maintain the 3 stack of gl. all in all, it's a way to continue to make the monk evolve. like i have said our two core mechanic are the gl and the free form combo. instead to try to add another system on top of it, maybe use it.

the goal of the change i have think about it's to give back our versatibility and capacity to adapt to any situation, like the gl consumer ranged based. it will make it easier and more interesting to have one at range since it will be always usable even if not in melee, like said at best (if you use perfect balance) it will take 3 gcd for reuse it or... 9 gcd then not a skill really impacting our dps.
about the evolution of the combo system, the idea behind it, it's to make use more active in the combo and fight, because i don't know for you, but on my side all is done in automatic and i'm sure i'm not the only one on this point. the only active part are the ogcd and it bother me a loooooooot. especially since the dragon get more hit to them combo, while gaining ogcd skill AND utility buff... seriously se?

all in all, the idea is to offer option and more tool to us. while rewarding people that can maintain longer the combo, that where come the idea of the 5th form that will be a big reward and like a sort of finisher. the important point it's the stack of gl will still only be given by the 3th form skill. (coeurl) meaning using this 4th and 5th will create new cycle what we desperetly need after 4 years.

ps: a very important point because of SE decision a large part of our dps come from the auto attack, since we have a 45% of damage put on it it's not little and with riddle of fire it will reach 75% (if the number stay the same) it will be quite important in terms of dps and i'm sure it work.... but it's extremely passive as gameplay.

Originally Posted by alex4815162342

To many MNK thread, we should post everything in the same

that because the situation is extremely bad.

Originally Posted by silentwindfr

- arm of destroyer (area silence at 100 potency...meh)
- rockbreaker (aoe attack.... *sighs*at 130 potency)

AotD is 50 pot unless it was increased for SB, I don't think it was. The reason it sucks is more cost than anything, and that even if it were percentage buffed 100% it'd still only do 100 pot and need to be combo stringed. Rockbreaker is yes 130 pot but it's MNK buffed like everything else so it's the equivalent of hitting several off position True Strikes. For the cost it's really not that bad. MNK's AoE is easily the strongest of the current 3 melee dps due to Rockbreaker, Elixir Field, and Howling Fist.

Originally Posted by Blacktestament7

AotD is 50 pot unless it was increased for SB, I don't think it was. The reason it sucks is more cost than anything, and that even if it were percentage buffed 100% it'd still only do 100 pot and need to be combo stringed. Rockbreaker is yes 130 pot but it's MNK buffed like everything else so it's the equivalent of hitting several off position True Strikes. For the cost it's really not that bad. MNK's AoE is easily the strongest of the current 3 melee dps due to Rockbreaker, Elixir Field, and Howling Fist.

i'm not against rockbreaker, just i will have prefer if we had a full combo aoe, it will have make more sense, here we have a opo opo and coeurl, no raptor.
plus i will wait the sam definitive number, because if the number don't change much, the sam will simply outshine us in terms of aoe. and in all honestly i don't feel our aoe dps is our forte. just a nice add, not the main tool, that why i feel it's too situational and not interesting enough for not be counter as main tool of the jobs.

plus with them new intention to avoid big pull, i feel it will only use less and less.
don't get me wrong, i know that the monk will probably throw a very good dps with sb, the trouble is not the number but the evolution of the jobs. do we want to simply get buff that will change nothing to our gameplay (a very artificial way to add stuff to a job after all) or get more tool for make us more active, means more a player enjoying the game.

i'm sure any good monk will admit that we ofte play in automatic because it's not that hard to play more a muscle memory than a real active part of us.

Originally Posted by Blacktestament7

The overall reason I would rather put more GL management than just changing PB is to overall make the MNK less dependent on it as a whole. Don't get me wrong I don't approve of a 180s cooldown but it shouldn't be lowered past 120s at the most. To be honest, I'd rather have PB stick to openers or rebuilding GL instead of focusing it down to a burst. Even if I didn't include Shatter Kick in my idea, I wouldn't change this. The function of shatter kick is to immediately put players back into GL3 for whatever reason it's lost or the Tornado Kick viability. Either or it gives an alternative to PB instead of PB being the only way to restore GL. I also though of this in the sense of dungeons as I see alot of people say to use it on first pulls. I don't do that due to the 180s cooldown and it doesn't take me 3 mins to get to a boss but that's me. This gives MNK another tool to keep damage high throughout a dungeon instead of having to rely only on Form Shift (which could easily be stopped by a tank or loading screen). All that said, I'm fine with more options than one but it's an either/or case for me. I'm not fully opposed to the PB 90s cooldown idea.

I thought about applying the Fist "Mastery" to TK and my Elixir Blast idea. But I didn't want to contradict my Shatter Kick idea by making an op version of TK. And Also wanted to avoid changing Elixir Blast from a DoT. I'm only against the switching of fists in battle because it adds another layer of complications in how to do damage. My ideas are mostly centered around easing resource/buff management and making it so that lower skilled players have tools to raise their dps back up to a manageable state if GL or buffs are lost. I also made a strong attempt to keep the ideas the FFXIV team made stay but there's only so much I can do to that.

honestly them idea are... i will be blunt, they are soo much lazy. a few buff that will increase our number and give utility.... and a mastery that change slightly a 30 sec skill that we use time to time. (with 2 that have a very questionable use) mosty of it don't take long to do a small animation for the riddle and that all... nothing really involving in terms of creation and we can feel that either they had no idea on what to do for the monk or simply not the time nor the will to work on true evolution of the jobs... so far all i see is a very artifical way to make us on par with the other jobs that have all get new tool or new way to fight. when the monk that was the one needing the most evolution have simply get nothing.

Originally Posted by Deithwen

This ! I main monk since 2.1 and the rotation hasn't changed a bit since then, we only got a few QoL tools in Heavensward (which were quite nice) and this is going to be the same again in 4.0 with even less things to do (bye ToD, bye Fracture, hello useless buffs) and buffs that go against the monk meta.

I don't want to spend 2 more years doing the same rotation over and over again.

Okay, a similar question here, because this is another point where we seem to face discrepency based on how much one theorycrafts, etc. My rotation changes slightly about every .04s GCD. (I tend to prefer play at 1.96 or 1.88 GCD because of its rotational options.) When Form Shift was added my rotation became more consistent, but once Meditation was added, too, there became multiple rotations possible to be least affected by being forced out of melee range. To me, this is fairly satisfying, as I find myself adapting more, and to greater effect, than on any other job.

But, clearly that's not the case for everyone. Just as some people by consider the A, B, A, B rotation of a Heavensward DRG as "basically the same" as the A, B, B, rotation of a 2.x DRG, I've heard from many that Heavensward, despite changing Demolish's duration and allowing greater control over Forms during downtime, didn't really affect rotations, providing instead only functionality.

So, at what point would rotation start to feel different? Does the internal balance (how much x skilled is prioritized over all or most others, even if it means clipping duration or wasting potential direct potency) need to change? Does the order need to change? Does it need outright new skills? And if the last, is this for the aesthetic or for new effects?

Though it would require universal changes, maybe something that could be done would be to make Dragon Kick and Twin Snakes more viable even when already active? For instance, if the blunt potency modifier were stackable to some extent, or took additional advantage of itself as to eventually create a nuke skill? Though that would make optimal gameplay less blatantly obvious, it might have a side-effect of reducing skill gap to extent between less skilled and average players, while retaining the same total between those and skilled players.

Or, what about the animations for certain skills changing conditionally? At that point you have the aesthetic varying more than presently. Likely this would be tied to additional effects, either within the skill or attached more broadly to the Monk (e.g. through Fist stances). Would that help?

Or—last idea I can throw out from the top of my head—instead of GL applying on every Coeurl, it instead applies with every completion of all 3 Forms. Lockout is removed; you now have access to all 9 weaponskills at all time, but their "Momentum" (a softer combo mechanic) is retained only when using a new form each GCD and reaching a given form again, after cycling through all others, as quickly as possible. At this point you can open in any Form, thereafter cycle in any order, and even occasionally break from said order (albeit at potency/duration loss), allowing you more rotational variance. The only issue here, were ToD and Fracture kept, would be that they would cost a tiny bit of Momentum as you'd be returning to the Forms of a given cycle per 4 GCDs, up from 3. Their potencies (as might Snap Punch's) would have to be increased slightly to compensate.

Originally Posted by silentwindfr

2) sprint will have no tp usage anymore, means we will have more freedom to use sprint without [trading Fists of Fire for Fists of Wind temporarily]

Sprint has been my main worry, too, about Fists of Wind in SB. As I've never needed Fists of Wind more often than Sprint's duration per its cooldown, it will be replaced. I'm a little sad. And that's coming from someone who would save Invigorate for Sprint in T9 originally because no one would bait the Jumps to melee and we were right on the cusp of pushing phase. ...I still used it when farming Void Ark for Gobdip tokens in order to get more hits on PlantDog, too, giving myself a quarter second spare to hide from the blast and pop back out the other end just barely with enough time to 5-Chakra. #MonkGimmicks

As such, it almost certainly needs to be something else. The question is what. Should it simply cause all potency dealt to reduce the cooldown on Shoulder Tackle by a small amount (e.g. .005 seconds per potency dealt), so that it is at least providing a different form of mobility than Sprint? Should we make it something that takes advantage of Sprint, too, such as by building bonus potency onto the next strike during movement speed? Should we blend the two and have it increase melee range and allow for some amount of blink-strike? Or maybe even have it turn every skill into a minor linear AoE?

Originally Posted by silentwindfr

If you look carefully in all these skills we have, in reality, 6 useful skills and 3 that have... a really really situational or even a questionable use.

I feel like this is a concern with every class and job. Sadly, in many cases the situational skills remain unimproved even while output-affecting cooldowns and DoTs have been flattened or removed.

I don't see AoE or status effect weaponskills as being made any more useful in ST rotation short of SE adds new undermechanics. For instance, for Rockbreaker to be useful in ST despite having an inferior base potency, it must have some unique effect. Let's say every enemy has a specific Armor amount at the head of their health, e.g. making up some 10% of their HP. While that Armor is up, they take reduced damage. This mitigation is reduced as the armor points (AP, as compared to HP) are reduced, whether linearly or exponentially or by whatever other formula. However, when you've destroyed said Armor, you're given some additional opportunities. For instance, certain attacks may explode the shredded armor outward for added AoE damage (e.g. One-Ilm Strike, Clean Shot, Empyreal Arrow, Sonic Thrust), or better clear away the damaged Armor away to remove its mitigation entirely (Rockbreaker, Full Thrust, Aeolean Edge). At that point you'd at least have *some* reason to use Rockbreaker in AoE.

One-Ilm Punch is at the same time simpler and more difficult to make viable; it depends simply on how often SE is willing to include its mechanic on the mobs we fight. If they were more frequently given buffs worth removing, it'd be powerful, possibly even overpowered, but left as is, its use exists only in 2-3 PvE fights in the whole game, and none of them serious content. I suspect the unwillingness to include it lies in SE's being more willing to leave one skill dead than to overpower a job through that skill, which means they haven't yet come up with a formula by which to balance it. Now, that's not to say that they could come up with the formula in a day, apply it, attach buffs to mobs, and we're good to go; this would likely require cataloging and categorizing every buff in the game for its relative value, and then weighing that against the relative potency of One-Ilm Strike. In other words, at DK+Twin+GL3, One-Ilm Strike would deal 180 potency of buff removal, first targeting the buff automatically considered most important, and any remainder of that buff chaining on to the second buff and so forth, or possibly detonating for direct damage after having removed every buff present.