Spitballing Ideas for MNK

[Silver-Strider]

I'm terrible at intros so I'm just going to get straight to the point; SE screwed MNK in SB. From a DPS standpoint, we're fine but the abilities we gained coupled with the virtually non existent removal of button bloat for MNK and just the feel of MNK in general was not exactly well conceived IMO and I don't believe I'm the only 1 that feels that way. So, I just wanted to post some of my own ideas on how to improve MNK, by getting rid of button bloat to an extent and just making some skills/traits better in general.

I know a lot of people want Fist Stances to be turned into passives, similar to NIN's poisons, and I support that as well but if SE is determined to keep them as active abilities then something needs to be altered to make them actually useful enough to warrant being skills. As such, I've been thinking about having your stance change Bootshine, True Strike and Snap Punch and how our oGCDs function, thus allowing Stances to work in certain situations better than others.

1) Fist of Earth would now lower the TP cost of abilities.

• Bootshine becomes Arm of the Destroyer (Removed silence for higher potency)
• True Strike becomes One Ilm Punch (Changed into a Line AoE like Howling Fist)
• Snap Punch becomes Rockbreaker
• Shoulder Tackle - Conal AoE on impact.
• Steel Peak - Stun.
• Elixir Field - On top of the initial damage, purify the ground, granting allies a small resistance buff.
• Howling Fist - Apply heavy to targets
• Tornado Kick - AoE damage attack at a slightly reduced potency
• Riddle of Earth - Reduce damage of nearby allies by 10% (20% on MNK) for 30 seconds. Grants Enhanced Tornado Kick, allowing for Tornado Kick to be used without consuming GL. Effect ends upon use.

Fist of Earth is now our AoE Stance

2) Fist of Wind extends the effects of Dragon Kick, Twin Snakes and Demolish to 20 seconds

• Bootshine becomes Dragon Kick
• True Strikes becomes Twin Snakes
• Snap Punch becomes Demolish
• Shoulder Tackle - Increased Range
• Steel Peak - Silence
• Elixir Field - Remove Negative effects from nearby Allies
• Howling Fist - Reduce CD
• Tornado Kick - Damage Down Debuff on enemy for 10 seconds
• Riddle of Wind - Increase Movement Speed of self and allies by 5% for 20 seconds. GL Refresh on activation.

Fist of Wind is now more of a Utility stance that we'll need to go into once every 20 seconds or so, with the odd change for any utility we might need.

3) Fist of Fire is unchanged and thus does not alter Bootshine, True Strike or Snap Punch

• Shoulder Tackle - Increased Potency
• Steel Peak - Remove 1 Buff from target
• Elixir Field - Leaves ground a smoldering waste and deals DoT damage (Upfront potency reduced to make up for the DoT)
• Howling Fist - Increased Potency
• Tornado Kick - Increased Potency
• Riddle of Fire - Temporary GL4

Still just a flat out damage stance

These suggestions condense a lot of button bloat by reducing the total number of skills we have to literally just 3 skills per stance instead of 9 skills bloating up the Hotbar. Of course, the level of which we acquire these skills would need to be altered so that the whole leveling experience isn't entirely devoid of any skills at all (like level 40-50 MCH currently is) but that really shouldn't be too difficult to sort out.

Tackle Mastery needs to die since Stances would already do what it failed to do. As such, I suggest it to be replaced with Deeper Meditation that allows a Chakra be granted on every GL refresh.

Edits:
Removed SkS/SpS buffs from Riddle of Wind
Replaced Vulnerability Debuff from FoW Tornado Kick with a Damage Down Debuff
Howling Fist effects changed for FoE and FoW. FoE now applies heavy instead of reduces CD and FoW now reduces CD instead of a Damage Down Debuff
FoF Steel Peak now removes 1 buff from enemy target.