Thread: How should Monk 4.0 have been done?

1. Monk's characterized primarily by Greased Lightning (specifically the speed buff thereof), huge personal damage, a large number of positional requirements, and sustained damage. If it had to be one of these things, it would be Greased Lightning.

2. The speed of the GCD and the way your combos can freely weave in actions depending on the stance you're in. Also that non-combo GCD's didn't break them was a fun Job-feel thing.

3. HW and ARR are like night and day. Everything Monk got in Heavensward fixed Monk's issues in ARR, to the point where I despise synching down as monk.

4. Quite a few issues. There was the lack of an offensive raid buff, the lack of personal damage to account for the lack of a raid buff, it's TP issues, it's inability to bounce back from losing its stacks during invulnerability phases due to Perfect Balance's long cooldown, and it's lack of an aggro control skill.

5. Brotherhood was a solution to a lack of an offensive raid buff. They could have buffed Monk's potencies to give it the personal damage to be competitive. Purification could have had the 5 chakra requirements removed. Perfect Balance could have had it's recast timer set to 90. Featherfoot could have gotten an aggro 1/2'ing effect.

6. Emphasize Monk's speed rather than slowing it down with Riddle of Fire. Monk isn't a hard hitter, it's a fast hitter. My idea of a good Monk cooldown would be something like Thousand Fists which would reduce your damage dealt by 40% but double all weaponskills, auto attacks, and abilities for the cooldown's duration. Mathematically, it's functionally identical to a 20% damage up (though it's interaction with Demolish would be weird due to the way DoTs snapshot), but the way it approaches it is more in line with Monk's aesthetic. Tackle Mastery should be scrapped as a trait in favor of something entirely different since all "Fist" stances pale in comparison to Fire, possibly something like "Positional Mastery", which would grant you a stacking buff for correctly hitting your positionals that would give you a small amount of bonus damage for 10-15 seconds when it reaches a certain count (say, 15-30). That works towards the devs stated goal of rewarding good play while not making the difference between less capable players and the top percentage a sheer cliff.