Thread: How should Monk 4.0 have been done?

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.

Originally Posted by Deithwen

I don't really understand your question. You mean, your rotation changes slightly every 0.04 GCD, but to the core, at least on a dummy, your rotation won't change a bit if you want to play optimally. I don't think there is a rotation to be the least affected by being forced out of melee range, because if done properly, you can come back in a GCD, so you can continue your rotation where you stopped it, and if you can't you just stack a few chakras until you can get back to the fight.

The rotation is pretty much set in stone : opener, refresh DK, refresh TS, refresh demo is needed or Snap punch then Bootshine, true trike, refresh demo if needed rince repeat. The only thing that differentiates top level monks right now is uptime (being able to deal max damages and do mecanics, need perfect timing), CD management and AOE management (oh and ast giving balance).

As your modular varies (the amount by which you would have to clip or delay DK/Twin/Demo/ToD/Fracture at 15/18/21/30s), the relative value of DK and Twin, especially, change, such that it can be more worthwhile to let either fade for a certain amount of time than clip them. For example, at a single GCD lost, DK/Twin fade costs 29 potency; allowing this to fit in an additional Boot/True per DK/Twin window instead of clipping 2 GCDs early (to avoid 1 GCD delay) awards ~83 and 55 potency. The priority system remains, and where manipulable the goal is for your GCDs to align with a given duration's fade (reapplying instantly before server leniency removes the effect from the reapplying strike), but ultimately as attack speed changes and through the use of stanceless skills per DK/Twin/Demo, what is optimal will vary between clipping and delaying. Every .04 GCD, you will see at least one GCD necessarily shift per BFB in order to better match your windows, and an additional rotational variant becomes viable (though some are dependant on multi-DoTing, such as rotations that would drop DK from Twin, Demolish, and the following DK at 44 potency cost for an extra 83 potency via Bootshine which must fall outside one's oGCD refresh timings).

Even on a dummy, these make differences visible across either your rotational strings themselves or in GCD sync with your CD windows, adjusting what is optimally applied within. It's not much, but it does happen to be more than any other class by the mere fact that Fracture is so TP-inefficient that it must be used sparingly and therefore can be fit to the duration, neither it nor Touch of Death break your combos, and your combos themselves have shorter intervals than most. (Compare to DRG's 5 per effective combo until a 2.33 or 2.22 rotation.)

To clarify though (and I will revise it in a moment), I meant this hypothetically: When WOULD the rotation feel different, to you.

For me, it feels faintly different about every 20th of a second second, as this still provides an extra hit per burst cycle, and significantly different after a fifth and quarter of a second. But, I'm hung up on fine details.