Thread: How should Monk 4.0 have been done?

Extension on Fist Stances

I didn't say much on Fist Stances above since from my point of view most of it would complicate the job further. On the other hand, there is a lot that can be done with the Fists. As it's been since 2.0, FoW is really the only stance I want to be reworked, since I'm not sure whether I've ever benefited from it. Part of that problem being its marginal benefits, and the other part being clarity of its effects (ie. whether I benefited from it in an instance of using it or not). So first I'd probably rework FoW to be an attack speed bonus (4% when under GL3 is just under 5%, 5% would be about a 6.25% damage boost under GL3).

If they did something very much like Tackle Mastery, tying a side effect to some oGCD ability we already have, then literally anything other than Shoulder Tackle would've been better. I'll use Elixir Field as an example. It would be underpowered by simply adding heavy/slow/blind for Earth/Wind/Fire or interrupts (3 of stun/silence/pacify/knockback) for E/W/F, so I'll avoid interrupts and minor debuffs. The "Aura Pulse" Shurrikhan mentioned would be interesting; Elixir Field (or a new oGCD) spreading the effect of your current fist to the party, and this would have the potential to add all the raid damage and utility we could need. It could also be debuffs like reduced damage dealt by 1-10% on boss/increased chance to Crit/DH boss by 1-10%/increased damage taken by boss by 1-10% for E/W/F. Because of Elixir Field's short CD, they could be small numbers with relatively high uptime, or larger numbers that last 5s or less.

If they made the stances focused on a resource of somekind, 3 options come to mind: TP, chakra, or an elemental gauge of some sort.

For TP, they could make FoW a fair speed bonus, 10% or more, and expect you to burn through TP, then switch to FoF to regain it or just sustain it at a low level. This would probably (read most definitely) put Monk as the neediest DPS, but would have the potential for Monk to be the top DPS in the first 2min. and drop off later. While the DPS from this could be balanced over the course of a long fight, it would be more powerful in shorter fights (dungeon bosses), fights with more downtime, and early dps check fights. FoF would also probably require a TP cost reduction if it became the "TP regaining" stance. While I enjoy the thought of 6 monks burning something down at the speed of light with Invigorate, Goad, and Purification, I don't see something like this flying with how the game has been balanced so far.

For Chakra, meditate could give you a temporary buff in battle depending upon the stance you're in when you use it. This could just increase the effect of your current stance for 15-60s, and give you a reason to use meditate in combat occasionally. This doesn't synergize with Deep Meditation well, but also isn't negatively affected much. They could make the buffs not stack, end when stance is changed, or the opposite to encourage switching stances frequently. We could also get a new CD that consumes chakra or alter the effect of the Forbbiden Chakra to have differing effects depending upon stance. Something like 10s 20%+ damage reduction/60s 5% attack speed up/20s 15% damage up for E/W/F on a 60-180s cooldown.

They could also go the other direction with chakra, and make chakra generation depend upon stance (e.g. 30% of crits in FoF, 10% of total hits in FoW, and 10-50% each time hit in FoE). Chakra could also be switched to a gauge like just about everyone else got, 0-100, where Meditation generates 10-20 and abilities cost 50-100. This could solve overhead generation and increase possible granularity (i.e. generate 3 chakra per crit, instead of 10 on 30% of crits), and by increasing granularity increase consistency.

An Elemental Gauge could get incredibly complicated incredibly fast but could also remain simple. Using the new UI as reference, they could add a new light above each GL light to represent stored elements. Each time you refresh GL, it adds a light of the stance you're in. Once you have 3 lights, you gain the ability to consume them with a separate cooldown, not unlike Samurai's Sen. The effect however could be determined by the makeup of the lights, or only trigger when you have one of each. If it depended on the lights, then it would just up the effects of those Fists. If it was even more like Samurai's Sen, i.e. there was one light for each fist, and you could only use it once you have all three for [any reasonable skill to have on an 18s CD]. Most of this seems pretty forced though, it just becomes part of the rotation. On the more complicated side of things, they could add 3 gauges 0-100, one for each elemental Fist, and make any number of skills that consume any assortment of elemental points from each gauge. But that by itself is as or more complicated than Red Mage. Now that I've thought on it most stuff things using an elemental gauge seem to be either needlessly complicated or would be a job in itself.

Of all these, an Aura Pulse-type ability and the buffs from consuming chakra based on stance are the ones I find realistic and likable.

It's only partially off-topic, but for clarity
Fists of Wind is +10% speed
Swiftsong is +20% speed (sprint is likely 20-25%)
Mounting up is +50% speed
Data:

X:15.5, Y:33.0-39.0 Sagolii Desert
dX~0.2, percent increase in distance for that 0.05%
time error dependent upon stopwatch press accuracy, likely less than 0.25s
units in seconds

Normal
N to S
1: 50.22
2: 50.14

S to N
1: 50.32

Fists of wind
N to S
1: 45.63

S to N
1: 45.96

Swiftsong
N to S
1: 41.70

S to N
1: 41.93

Mount
N to S
1: 33.61

S to N
1: 33.68

distance/speed=time

time/timeFoW = SpeedFoW/Speed
N to S ratio: 1.0997
S to N ratio: 1.0948

time/timeSS = SpeedSS/Speed
N to S ratio: 1.2034
S to N ratio: 1.2001

time/timeMount = SpeedMount/Speed
N to S ratio: 1.493
S to N ratio: 1.494