Monk Quality of Life Pass

[BucklesTrespen]

Hey folks,

Do you think Monk will be granted a QoL pass before 5.0? It seems we missed the 4.0 QoL boat - most notably when Ninja's were alleviated of having to apply a poison every time they changed classes but Monks still have to apply Fists of Fire.

I assume they left them in because of the train wreck that is Tackle Mastery but would it not be far better and make far more sense to eliminate the three fist stances? We're in Fists of Fire 99.9% of the time so why is this still treated as a choice we have? Also if Fists of Fire becomes a trait then it'd stop the ridiculous need to use Riddle of Earth - wait for damage - then use Fists of Fire. I mean, wasn't this expansion about removing bloat? The Fists, in my opinion, are bloat.

I've seen many suggestions on the DPS Roles forum and honestly many suggestions go too far and would change the class too much and that absolutely won't happen until 5.0 or beyond. Also, I think we're in a good place DPS wise and so I don't think we need a buff but we certainly need a QoL fix because we're bogged down in 2.0 crap that was removed for other classes in some great QoL improvments.

My thoughts are:

-Fists of Fire becomes a trait.
-Fists of Earth just goes away since it's already baked into Riddle of Earth. Yes, we'd lose an on demand 10% damage reduction but we don't really use it nowadays since when a boss jumps for damage we're likely to pop Riddle of Earth and receive this bonus anyway.
-Fists of Wind should honestly just go away as it's only use is/was in towns and Titan EX back in the day. If it needs to stay then it could just be baked into Riddle of Wind same as Fists of Earth is baked into Riddle of Earth - only with a larger speed buff since it's duration-based.

Also, while I'm here, I'd like to suggest that Riddle of Earth resets the GL timer on use and when we're hit. If a boss jumps before we can get a GL refresh move off then I'd say we've about a 30-40% chance of losing GL3.

Tackle Mastery also should just go. Not because I am suggesting removing the fists but because it's crap. In PVP it is good, fun and logical but for PVE it's a bad idea poorly implemented. They said to wait until savage came out to suggest any more about our toolkit - well savage is out and it will shock no one to find that Earth Tackle is not required. Neither is Wind Tackle.

[JinRoSul]

Personally, I think SE has a lot of unnecessary skills for MNK to try to make it less boring that people think it is. As many posters have stated the job has not had many significant or viable changes since ARR -though FC and Elixir Field are nice.
My guess is the fist stances are in there to make monk more interesting but it's obviously backfired because no one sacrifices FoF for the others for a prolonged period of time.
If you really look at monk's skills and traits and break them down, SE seems to have zero clue in developing the job which is quite sad.
But what I do think is, those who main monk and play the job passionately make the best of what they have and still do well in more challenging content.

[Svabodnik]

I've more or less grown accustomed to the uselessness of Fist Stances/Tackle Mastery at this point. It's there, it doesn't really come into play as much as perhaps it should, but eh. My short bit, which probably echoes some of what I've seen before:

-Remove weaponskill recast time increase from Riddle of Fire, reduce damage bonus (maybe down to 10% or 15%) to compensate. The sudden drop in speed at GL3 makes our rotation feel incredibly clunky.
-Apply full Brotherhood effect on MNK on using it - both damage bonus and personal Chakra proc chance. As it stands right now, MNK DPS is quite good - if you're in an 8-man with plenty of other physical jobs. In a 4-man with your other DPS being a caster though? Brotherhood then becomes a pretty pathetic excuse for what is supposed to be our Stormblood capstone ability. Damage bonus from RoF can be gauged to compensate for this change, since the two abilities share the same cooldown anyways.
-Change Elixir Field to be an AoE use of our Chakra - the animation certain fills the bill of what makes a Chakra ki-energy ability, and will give us another use for Chakra stacks. In exchange, make Tornado Kick a free OGCD damage ability to take place of Elixir Field's former spot in our rotation.
-Change One Ilm Punch to be usable regardless of stance, for ~160 potency, with a reactivation cooldown. That may it can both double as an on-demand stun if needed, as well as be introduced into the rotation as a positional-free 'filler' if we want to delay our rotation by a GCD for whatever reason (avoid clipping, can't access a face of the boss for a second or two, etc.)

Of course, I don't actually think there's a snowball's chance in hell that SE will enact any of this, even if it's only intended to make the class more fun to play, rather than harder-hitting.

[JinRoSul]

-Eh, I'd say leave RoF as it is but let it give us 100% chance for chakra stack on a Crit Hit and Direct Hit during its duration. Or some similar buff to our deep mediation trait.
-I'm fine with Brotherhood as it is but would like the raid utility extend to OTHER monks and any other jobs classified as dps -blm and brd. That's all it needs honestly.
-I don't want to use chakra for EF, but I think EF could get a little bit of a buff or compound it's potency at the end of a certain form. I don't want to add to button bloat if I can help it.
-Tornado kick should be a pressure-sensitive ability. Light press -uses 1 stack of GL for a decent damage move, medium press, even more, hard press to blow all your stacks so the best time to use it when you know you're gonna lose GL stacks or PB is up and ready to go. You're right though as TK is seriously needing an overhaul.
-Get Rid of Steel Peak and make One Ilm Punch a lone stun move or drop One Ilm Punch and make Steel Peak revert to what it was before it changed in 4.0.

[Silver-Strider]

Riddle of Earth needs to be reworked to provide the extra mitigation upon activation. The mitigation buff is completely worthless AFTER taking substantial damage and since the majority of players would immediately reapply FoF after the hit is over, it sees no real use either. The GL refresh has situational use but at the same time it encourages bad play habits by making players WANT to be damage to maintain their buff and that's not a good habit to enforce on any class, much less a DPS. If anything, I would like this to double the max duration of GL upon activation, instead of when damage was taken. It would serve the same function without the negative effect of encouraging taking needless damage.

One Ilm Punch and Arm of the Destroyer need so many improvements. Situational effects are terrible enough as is but to add to this is the problem that these effect can only occur during very specific moments in our rotation (correct form) and they become borderline useless. Remove the stun and silence from each of these skills. Up the potency of AotD so that it's just a flat out damaging AoE that is actually useful and add a DoT to One Ilm Punch to make it actually worth using and keeping up (reduce the TP cost as well since it shouldn't be needed now that the skill is going to be included in a standard rotation instead of a situational one).

Return the Stun to Steel Peak.

Tornado kick needs to do more than be just a big attack that we use whenever mechanics dictate we are going to lose GL anyways. It's in direct contention with Riddle of Earth in how we use our GL and as such, I feel I could live with Tornado Kick being more of MNKs raid utility by adding vulnerability or reducing the damage the target does. Extend the cooldown of TK to 90 seconds if you need to to prevent abuse but I really feel that if MNK needs to throw away a large portion of their damage on a single attack, that attack should be worth more than just a simple damaging attack.

Purification should be altered to provide 100 TP per chakra. While MNK isn't TP starved anymore, with my suggested changes for One Ilm Punch, it might not be a bad idea to maintain the TP restore of this skill, just as a precaution.

Riddle of Fire needs the slow effect gone, even if it meant lowering the potency of the buff. It goes against everything that has been established for MNK as a fighter that hits fast, not hard. It just doesn't fit into the theme of MNK at all and needs to be changed.

I want to know who gave the ok for Brotherhood to go out as it was because I want to slap them. A 5% damage buff that occurs once every minute and a half that only affects physical damage, not including the MNK themselves, vs an AoE balance that grants a 5% damage buff to ALL damage types and affects the AST that cast it as well. This is why MNK lost the majority of its damage for? A crappier version of Balance? Really? Come on SE, including everyone in the skill to gain 5% more damage is not going to break the game.

Tackle Mastery. Delete it. It's a pointless trait that should have never been conceived in the 1st place. I'd honestly take a CD reduction passive whenever a Riddle is activated over what Tackle mastery currently offers because at least it would be more practical than what it currently is. I mean honestly, a knockback? On a Gap Closer? On a Class without a single ranged attack whatsoever?

The Fist stances should just be traits at this point. Fist of Fire is on 99% of the time with Fist of Earth only ever seeing use because of Riddle of Earth. Fist of Wind is a movement speed buff is only used in town realistically and thus utterly pointless.

[BucklesTrespen]

Cool suggestions but they're not QoL changes, they're buffs or skill reworks. I was just curious if anyone knew if SE ever throw out QoL patches and, if so, when to expect them?

[Silver-Strider]

Cool suggestions but they're not QoL changes, they're buffs or skill reworks. I was just curious if anyone knew if SE ever throw out QoL patches and, if so, when to expect them?

As far as I'm concerned, anything to fix my MNK is a QoL improvement

[Svabodnik]

Cool suggestions but they're not QoL changes, they're buffs or skill reworks. I was just curious if anyone knew if SE ever throw out QoL patches and, if so, when to expect them?

You're going to have to clarify what you're expecting "QoL changes" to be - the example you gave with NIN was a mechanics change, as depending on what poison you had up, you had different effects on either Mug or Jugulate. Since those extra effects went away, there was no reason to keep a distinction between different poisons, so they were applied as a general trait. Monk fist stances, regardless or how often they're used or not, likewise give different effects. In contrast, your proposed change to RoE is a buff, and any skill removal (i.e. Tackle Mastery) is a rework. So, not exactly sure what you're asking here.

[OmegaStrongtan]

Fists of fire should be a passive trait. Fists of wind auto activate when 5 seconds out of combat. And then rework fists of earth in a AoE damage reduction skill for 5 seconds.

Riddle of you may keep your stacks if the boss decides to attack in time should be changed to 'grants 3 stacks' or SE just reduce the Perfect Balance Cooldown.

Tackle Mastery: somewhat reduce cooldown + potency increase if large distance is covered.