MNK Feedback (long)

[Shurrikhan]

Some spitball ideas for RoE, RoF, and a new RoW that I feel would better fit the Monk aesthetic and offer deeper gameplay:

Background Changes:

• The level 66 trait, Tackle Mastery, has been replaced with a new ability, Riddle of Wind.
• Riddle of Wind, Fire, and Earth now share a slot, seen in the Actions & Trait menu as Riddle of the Elements, by default, adapting to your current Fists.
• Riddle of Wind, Riddle of Fire, and Riddle of Earth may still be assigned separately in order to force their change in stance.
• Riddle of Wind, Riddle of Fire, and Riddle of Earth now persist for 3 seconds after leaving their related stance.
• The animation durations for Fists of Wind, Fists of Earth, and Fists of Fire have been greatly reduced.
• The recast times for Fists of Wind, Fists of Earth, and Fists of Fire have been reduced to 1.5 seconds.
• The recast time of Meditation now scales with Attack Speed.
• The recast time of Tornado Kick now scales with Attack Speed.
• The recast time of Purification has been reduced to 30 seconds.
• The recast time of Perfect Balance has been reduced to 120 seconds.

Fist of Wind, Earth, and Fire have been revised substantially.

• Fists of Wind now increases movement speed by 15%, attack speed by 5%, and reduces recast times of damaging abilities by 10%.
• Fists of Fire now increases damage by 5%, critical strike chance by 5%, and critical strike bonus by 5%.
• Fists of Earth now decreases damage taken by 10%, reduces the rate at which positive status effects fade by 33%, and increases the rate at which negative status effects fade by 33%. (These effects do not snapshot.)

Riddle of Earth: Duration - 20 seconds. Activates Fists of Earth. Refreshes Greased Lightning. Causes your damage-increasing effects to enhance the effectiveness of Fists of Earth. (In other words, with Twin Snakes and Greased Lightning III active you gain 50% mitigation and your refreshed Greased Lightning may last up to 27.7 seconds, Twin Snakes, Dragon Kick, and Internal Release may last up to 26 seconds, and status effects against you to fade 73.3% faster. This effect does not snapshot.)

The Breaker's Resolve: Instant. 5 yalm range. Returns the damage absorbed by Fists of Earth over the course of Riddle of Earth upon your target. Damage to be dealt will not exceed half of your maximum HP. Consumes Riddle of Earth.

The idea here is simple. You get a better Fists of Earth (see above), which itself has synergy with other aspects of gameplay. And then you get to punch people with it.

Riddle of Fire: Duration - 20 seconds. Activates Fists of Fire. Refreshes Greased Lightning. Causes all attacks to deal an additional 15% of their damage as a periodic effect, Fury of Fire, over 6 seconds. All attacks against an affected target consume the entirety of this periodic effect for bonus damage, with which to create further periodic damage. Auto-attacks and other sources of periodic damage augment Fury of Fire by 15% of their damage without consuming the effect.
Additional Effect: Changes to Crimson Lotus upon activation.

Crimson Lotus: Instant. 2-GCD recast time. 5 yalm range. Detonates any Fury of Fire effect on the target for 115% of its damage to the target and all enemies within 5 yalms thereof. Does not generate Fury of Fire.

The idea behind this is ramping and gambling. The more high-damage hits you can chain together, the more that 15% damage bonus ramps up. You'd generally want to go ahead and blow it, though, via Crimson Lotus before a rotationally low-damage hit (e.g. Demolish).

Riddle of Wind: Duration - 20 seconds. Activates Fists of Wind. Refreshes Greased Lightning. For every 5 relative potency of damage dealt, you generate a count of Windform. Windform: Your next ability of potency equal to or less than your Windform will be ready to recast 50% more quickly and will consume no resources. Potencies higher than Windform will have a chance to generate this effect proportionate to the difference. Abilities with potencies lower than your Windform will be ready to recast proportionately sooner. Each ability consumes Windform equal to half its potency.

Double of Wind: Instant. 2-GCD recast. 5 yalm range. Duplicates your last weaponskill dealt as an ability for half its potency.

This is the trickiest of the three, probably involving the most risk, and quite likely the most reward. At best, (at 330 Windform generated) it can even guarantee that Tornado Kick may be used without consuming GL3. The trick here is that attacks which consume Windform still contribute to Windform, and there's a good 50+% difference between relative potency and base potency. For instance, let's say you take advantage of the 3 seconds of lingering time on Riddle of Fire after changing to Fists of Wind (so, both Riddles up simultaneously) to Tornado Kick into a Snap Punch into Perfect Balance to recover that GL3. That's 594 relative potency already, multiplied if Critical, giving ~120 Windform, meaning that you can already blow a Shoulder Tackle for a 36% recast time (.5 * (100/120)*.9 from Fists of Wind) which itself can generate 30 more Windform at the cost of 50, made nearly free by any given weaponskill. As you become more able to afford higher potency oGCDs, you can start throwing in stronger and stronger abilities for free, or save up for a free Tornado Kick, etc. *Yeah... still working on this one.

[PangTong]

personally i wish what they make elixir field use chakra stacks...

I agree that having an AoE ability that spends chakra would be nice, it feels like something MNK is lacking. However I don't know if changing Elixir Field would be the way to do this. Firstly because it would subtract an ability from MNK's already simplistic single-target rotation. And secondly I think people would react badly to the change, if Elixir Field suddenly had a cost when it used to be free. So ideally an AoE chakra-spender would be a new action. Tornado Kick could potentially fill this role since it's largely unused at the moment, most people would welcome a change which makes it more usable.

I've said it before but they need to switch monk damage to piercing. Slashing debuff helps 5 jobs, Piercing helps 4 (rdm I guess), blunt helps mnk and mele casters I guess. At least if mnk had piercing they would be part of the conversation. "Do we run nin/sam or drg/mnk?" Mnk should be the Sam of piercing comps. At the very least, do something to boost caster comps.

You know those debuffs don't stack, right? The only jobs the slashing debuff really helps are PLD and DRK, since all other slashing jobs have the debuff as part of their rotation. Adding the piercing debuff to MNK wouldn't really help anything. The only change is that groups could choose between taking either a MNK or a DRG to boost a BRD/MCH. This is admittedly an advantageous trait, but it's not really what I'm talking about. Again, I'm not particularly concerned with MNK's power, or its utility, or its position in groups, or how useful the raiding community thinks it is. Balance is ephemeral. I just want the job to be more fun to play.

MNK's core design probably hasn't been touched since ARR launch because it is so solid and doesn't need adjustments. etc

I have a hard time believing the Tornado Kick is worth using rotationally due to Riddle of Fire. Examining the play of top level monks, none of them use it in this way and continue to use it the way it has always been used, to dump stacks before a phase transition or right at the end of a fight. Were this true however, I still feel as though it wouldn't improve MNK gameplay much since you'd then be stuck building back up to GL3. That's kind of the reason they nerfed Tornado Kick before Heavensward released, it was a DPS gain to use it rotationally when they didn't want it to be.

As for Riddle of Fire, the fact that I occasionally miss an ability is not the reason why I don't like it, merely something annoying that occurs as a result of using it. Most of the time I never miss skills. The reason I don't like it is because it feels bad, and it goes against what I think the MNK job is (or should be) about: Fast, flowing combos.

For 68 levels, the feeling and importance of Greased Lightning is drilled into you, and then suddenly you are given an ability which effectively takes that away, but you still have to use it because it's a damage boost. It's like if you gave NIN a stance which greatly boosted their damage but prevented them from using Ninjutsus. It makes you more powerful, but goes against the "unique experience" of the job, something the devs seem to be interested in preserving. I suspect that Riddle of Fire was implemented the way it was not because of any careful consideration of MNKs rotation or their ability to weave oGCDs (which they could already do), but because they needed a damage buff to replace Blood for Blood and wanted to give it some kind of "extra" effect so it's not boring as hell like say, Raging Strikes. Well, they at least succeeded at that much. Riddle of Fire isn't boring, but only in the same way that stubbing your toe isn't boring.

And as for MNK's oGCDs, more buttons does not equate to better design. Having a bunch of oGCD attacks that you mash as soon as they become available might make the job "active", but it doesn't make it interesting or fun. In fact most jobs got changes which reflect this idea, downplaying the importance of simple oGCD attacks in favour of more abilities which interact with the job's core rotation and resources. I don't feel that MNK is going too slow, although it can feel a bit slow during RoF sometimes, but rather it's the disruption to the job's combo rhythm that is annoying.

Well here's the issue: MNK is performing very well and play style is objective. I like current MNK. I agree they have some issues with useless abilities but other than that the core mechanic (to do damage) is good with MNK. So regardless of what you say I don't see them changing it much for now.

Sadly I think you're right. While MNK definitely has room for improvements, it is unlikely they will happen during the middle of an expansion's patch cycle. As long as the job is "balanced", there is little incentive for the dev team to try and improve on its gameplay when there are so many other things they could be addressing. Unfortunately, I do not expect to see any real changes until 5.0, however long that is away. But I can at least make my thoughts known and potentially influence those future changes. Nothing can change if nothing is said.

[Xau]

I agree that having an AoE ability that spends chakra would be nice, it feels like something MNK is lacking. However I don't know if changing Elixir Field would be the way to do this. Firstly because it would subtract an ability from MNK's already simplistic single-target rotation. And secondly I think people would react badly to the change, if Elixir Field suddenly had a cost when it used to be free. So ideally an AoE chakra-spender would be a new action. Tornado Kick could potentially fill this role since it's largely unused at the moment, most people would welcome a change which makes it more usable.

said elixir field because people obtains it after meditation, and if they change either the percentage of chakra generation trough crits, change the way chakra generates from deep meditation trait(to make it less unpredictable and rng dependant), or change the way we get chakra stacks from brotherhood(like make spells give chakra stacks too) could make this a better idea as well(the idea of make elixir field use chakra stacks), and at this point, i don't tink SE could try to make a new animation for a new aoe for monk, instead they could just change it to cost chakra and change some potencies here and there to balance the lack of a ogcd aoe, also, maibe could be a bit unpopular, and regardless we do not have that many ogcd anyway to make a big complaint, because at the very least monks could have something to do on mass pulls(since every tank/healer i meet on df loves them) rather than the tipical run out of tp because arm of the destroyer/do single targets until you can use rockbreaker


and as you can guess, what makes me suggest this is what tanks/healers loves mass pulls to death(i hate them as monk for obvious reasons), in that situations i am rather useless because either more sooner than later i run out of tp because of arm of the destroyer while doing a crappy aoe dmg(especially if the other dps don't do aoes), or i hardly affect the total aoe dmg because i am using 2 single target attacks to do after a aoe, and there is the problem what rockbreaker is a cone aoe, if the pull is to massive(like after the first boss of ala mhigo, pull all the dogs and what is after), i can't hit all the targets, a dps what can't aoe properly is a dead weight to clear something fast, yes, the dev team could just buff aotd, but i prefer they use chakra for this since it gives more depth to chakra usage, rather than the now chakra is always used on tfc whit the odd time where you need to use purification for tp on heavy aoe situations

the only other way what i can tink to make monk feels less uselsss on aoe situations is what the dev team makes a punishment for mass pulling(like if you pull 3 packs of enemies the party gets a rather strong def down debuff), and i believe this could be far more unpopular

[Mysticdraggon]

i completely agree that some features of the Chakra system makes the recourse itself uninteresting. its only uses are two oGCD abilities and one of them does not share as much use as the other.

it should have been modified to be similar to other DPS resources presented in 4.0. perhaps add statistical buffs depending on the amount of chakra you currently have?

i would also like it if there where more than two ways to obtain the recourse. similar to what you have suggested, Arm of the Destroyer looks like a meditation animation, so why not give the player chakra upon its use? another good idea would be allowing the player to build up Greased lightning then trade it for chakra (1 level=1 chakra) and vise-versa.

[TheRedMage]

Can someone please post the math for using TK at end of RoF?
I wanna know which of the following situations it's a dps increase, normal hit, direct hit, crit and direct crit and what the potential dps loss is compared to regular rotation.

[Hexxon]

Never felt the need to post until now. It's true that MNK does very good damage (easily can be 1st without a good SAM around), no one is arguing that. However, it's also true that the class design leaves much to be desired. Too many poor ideas implemented, with too many poor excuses accompanying them as we get shot down at every request for change. By far the most annoying being "you already do good damage, get over it." I almost feel like I'm playing WoW with how the devs treat this class (i.e Warlock).

It's not about doing good damage. The class is DULL and a total snoozefest. 123, 456, weave ogcds. Forever. There's no thought in it. It's literally more braindead than RDM, except RDM is at least very fun to play and has at least a few different things you can do and tons of versatility. MNK though? There's nothing to manage, no procs, no combo extensions, no dots other than the one that comes *automatically* with the combo you're already doing, nothing. GL3 is a joke to maintain now, and chakra is a simple matter of "push TFC when you hear the ding". Yawn.

There are so many design choices they could have made to hugely improve the class. Players suggest tons of ideas they just ignore. 4.0 MNK can't possibly be the best you can come up with considering the huge amount of time in-between expansions. It just makes people feel like no one at the top really cares.

It's easy to come up with ideas. Balance is a simple matter of changing numbers. Here's a few ideas:

1) Tornado Kick

- 5-Chakra AOE. Grants GL4. Why not? We need more uses for chakra.

OR (this one's better)

- 5-Chakra Single Target, grants GL4 for 15sec. Allows the use of one Expanded Combo and then drops to GL3. Raise cd of TK to 30-40sec or something.

2) Expanded Combos

After Snap/Demo, you may use the following abilities while under the effect of GL4 only:
- One Ilm (with largely buffed potency), AotD (also largely buffed), Mantra (45% effect instead of 30% and does a x-potency group heal)

And then follow it up with a special finisher, based on Sabin's Blitz:

- SUPLEX (huge single target potency), Fire Dance (large aoe potency), Bum Rush (requires another 5 chakra, but does more than Suplex if you can get it)

3) Tackle Mastery
- Just remove it

4) Riddle of Earth/Wind
- Create an actual Riddle of Wind, and, as many have said, refresh on use instead of on hit. This would make it useful on phase jumps where no damage is involved. Remove the refresh from Riddle of Earth and instead just do a flat, one-time 30% damage reduction.

5) Other Ideas:
Speaking of Blitz, have you considered an actual Blitz system? Sorta like Mudras but with directional input like the original? Ehh maybe a little overkill here but it sounds fun.

Can probably come up with a ton of other things but I'm sure you get the point.

[ray1108]

I couldn't agree more with the whole thread. Even if everyone said it already: Noone is complaining about the dps.
All we want is to change the 5+ completely useless skills(+ tackle mastery). I could not remember any job that have that many skills which are really never used or atleast so extremely situational that the chance is as high as winning the EuroMillions jackpot!!

Should Stormblood not be "our" Expansion? Atleast for that, there should happen something to MNK. Like they did to DRG from 2.0 to 3.0 in their expansion.

[Sora_Oathkeeper]

I agreee with pretty much everything. The only thing i'd like to add is that despite not being the top dps anymore we are still punished extremely heavily in downtime compared to nins and sams. Monk had such punishing downtime because they were top of pDPS and managing gl3 was what seperated us from the goods and bads. And other things like chakra management, form shift, optimal TK usage etc you get the point


I feel like in unavoidable downtime we are still the most punished melee dps, losing what, 50% damage upon gl3 and all our buffs and debuffs gone. Perfect balance on at least 90s could alleviate this somwhat. Or even 2 mins. 3 mins on PB could maybe be justified when we were actually at the top but we arent anymore so there is no need for us to suffer like we used to now that jobs like blm have enochian on 30s, sam only has combo timers to keep track of and even they are 30s. And drg's botd is 30s too so i find it hard to justify the reason that GL3 is a pitiful 16s and PB is on a 180s cd

Since TK is optimal in RoF at the last second before coeurl form. We actually have around 27s of slowness. Thats 1m going fast and 27s going slow. And its painful.

and yeah to put more emphasis on it. Monk isnt doing bad dps not by any means we arent asking for more we want to just not be so slow and have our actual utility be utility for everyone

[Leonus]

snip

I don't quite agree with the notion that Mnk is the most punished melee dps anymore. 9 GCDs to get back to GL3 and have all dots and buffs up, 7 if form shift is properly utilized. Mnk has ramp up time, but it's not that bad or slow Unless you are chosen for every mechanic in the fight or every minute there is a phase change where the boss leaves for an extended period of time.


Also, I understood why people called HW the Drg expansion but I always thought that it had more to do with the theme of the expansion. HW was not really for Drgs, just like SB isn't really for Mnks. It's just the theme of the expansion being ala mihgo. How boring would the trailers be if he stayed archer throughout each expansion?

[TheRedMage]

I don't quite agree with the notion that Mnk is the most punished melee dps anymore. 9 GCDs to get back to GL3 and have all dots and buffs up, 7 if form shift is properly utilized. Mnk has ramp up time, but it's not that bad or slow Unless you are chosen for every mechanic in the fight or every minute there is a phase change where the boss leaves for an extended period of time.


Also, I understood why people called HW the Drg expansion but I always thought that it had more to do with the theme of the expansion. HW was not really for Drgs, just like SB isn't really for Mnks. It's just the theme of the expansion being ala mihgo. How boring would the trailers be if he stayed archer throughout each expansion?

Which job would you argue is more punished than MNK?