Monk suggestions

[wereotter]

Or to simplify, like a manual transmission on a car for you to rev up or down. Though keeping TK as an all-burner with its current potency still feels niche, but the rev up/down is indeed an idea I can see on MNK.

I like the idea, but I feel like getting too much Greased Lightning would make the job less engaging and more difficult. It would be hard to weave in a Steel Peak, for example, if GL IV made skill speed so high as to make weaving skills a DPS loss.

I've heard of the concept of implementing GL IV as a reserve stack as opposed to an active one. This would mean you could, in theory, have GL IV, use Tornado Kick which puts you down to GL I, and immediately execute a Demolish or Snap Punch, and be back to GL II, effectively making the skill less of a punishment to lose.

Also an idea that occurred to me while tying this out that would be a huge quality of life improvement for maintaining monk stacks, is have each individual stack time out on its own. So say a boss jumps and you have 10 sec of GL left, if you would not be able to refresh it otherwise, rather than lose all three stacks, you go to two stacks with now 16 seconds to gain back your third stack or go back to one stack. This would put the buff more in line with Huton giving you effectively up to 47 seconds to execute a Corel Stance move before losing all your stacks while still putting you back if you can't maintain it fully. This would be even more improved if the fourth reserve stack was a thing. So if the jump was more than 16 seconds and you wouldn't be able to utilize Riddle of Earth, you can still potentially have two or three stacks when combat resumes.

[Shurrikhan]

Or to simplify, like a manual transmission on a car for you to rev up or down. Though keeping TK as an all-burner with its current potency still feels niche, but the rev up/down is indeed an idea I can see on MNK.

TK would likely need some sort of carry-over. For instance, if downtime meditation were removable (as most people do not seem to enjoy spamming their key as soon as downtime begins, hoping like hell they'd only recently been able to cap and spend Chakra as not to waste the downtime potential, and since the devs seem unwilling to empower manual Meditation to any point of during-uptime situational viability for modular control), it could source Chakra in a way that cannot be overcapped, allowing then for uses of abilities that may accelerate its way back up to a typical GL level or provide enough relative potency to help maintain a burst phase.

Alternatively, TK could, in addition to its damage, cause the next x strikes to consume GL as its penalty rather than removing the stacks outright, such that it (1) lingers briefly, aiding the return ramp-up, and (2) has no additional penalty during downtime.

Or any combination of whatever to make it feel smooth, viable, and intuitive for the purpose it's meant to fill.

I like the idea, but I feel like getting too much Greased Lightning would make the job less engaging and more difficult. It would be hard to weave in a Steel Peak, for example, if GL IV made skill speed so high as to make weaving skills a DPS loss.

Ideally, Monk would need the same QoL improvement that DRKs, NINs, MCHs, BRDs, and DRGs have also always needed: for their animation times to scale with their current GCDs.

[wereotter]

Ideally, Monk would need the same QoL improvement that DRKs, NINs, MCHs, BRDs, and DRGs have also always needed: for their animation times to scale with their current GCDs.

It's not so much the animation times I'm worried about as much as human reaction times. If your GCD gets too short as a result of having a 4th stack of greased lightning, trying to execute skills within your combo might lead to clipping your GCD and potentially be a DPS loss overall. Animations will already clip into each other if you execute one skill before the animation for the one before it completes. I see this happen a lot with Elixir Field already. and with several ninja skills as well.

[Mahrze]

I've heard of the concept of implementing GL IV as a reserve stack as opposed to an active one. This would mean you could, in theory, have GL IV, use Tornado Kick which puts you down to GL I, and immediately execute a Demolish or Snap Punch, and be back to GL II, effectively making the skill less of a punishment to lose.

Also an idea that occurred to me while tying this out that would be a huge quality of life improvement for maintaining monk stacks, is have each individual stack time out on its own. So say a boss jumps and you have 10 sec of GL left, if you would not be able to refresh it otherwise, rather than lose all three stacks, you go to two stacks with now 16 seconds to gain back your third stack or go back to one stack. This would put the buff more in line with Huton giving you effectively up to 47 seconds to execute a Corel Stance move before losing all your stacks while still putting you back if you can't maintain it fully. This would be even more improved if the fourth reserve stack was a thing. So if the jump was more than 16 seconds and you wouldn't be able to utilize Riddle of Earth, you can still potentially have two or three stacks when combat resumes.

That concept for GL IV feels so lazy if that's their plan I'm flipping tables. MNK has too many "micro-gimmicks" that adding more would stray away from simplification, specially when we have to consider that for the development team, the whole fists thing is a thing.

TK would likely need some sort of carry-over. For instance, if downtime meditation were removable (as most people do not seem to enjoy spamming their key as soon as downtime begins, hoping like hell they'd only recently been able to cap and spend Chakra as not to waste the downtime potential, and since the devs seem unwilling to empower manual Meditation to any point of during-uptime situational viability for modular control), it could source Chakra in a way that cannot be overcapped, allowing then for uses of abilities that may accelerate its way back up to a typical GL level or provide enough relative potency to help maintain a burst phase.

Alternatively, TK could, in addition to its damage, cause the next x strikes to consume GL as its penalty rather than removing the stacks outright, such that it (1) lingers briefly, aiding the return ramp-up, and (2) has no additional penalty during downtime.

Or any combination of whatever to make it feel smooth, viable, and intuitive for the purpose it's meant to fill.

I agree that TK would need a rework because like you mention its a carry over. But obviously MNK would be a bit jarring with all this speed focus when it has a skill suite that is flat or counter-intuitive within itself. But I also feel putting TK on GL is a bit hollow when we also have another resource (chakra) with its own limited usefulness so shifting TK to Chakra usage with it's preq being you being on GL4 status would be pretty nice.

I like the idea, but I feel like getting too much Greased Lightning would make the job less engaging and more difficult. It would be hard to weave in a Steel Peak, for example, if GL IV made skill speed so high as to make weaving skills a DPS loss.

Ideally, Monk would need the same QoL improvement that DRKs, NINs, MCHs, BRDs, and DRGs have also always needed: for their animation times to scale with their current GCDs.

And like a souffle, it all falls flat xD

[Eugene_Kirigaya]

For fixing the job, I think the first step is to remove Riddle of Fire, either outright, or with Greased Lightning IV as its replacement. That will make the job fun again, and solve the fluidity issues. Beyond that, I think adjustments to Brotherhood to impact the whole party, and by extension the Monk via the stack generation, would be one good step towards that. I think the bigger issue, though, is not so much that we don't bring enough, rather it's that Dragoon and Ninja have too much synergy with the other jobs in the game, with their Piercing/Slashing debuffs and their AoE Internal Release for Dragoon and Trick Attack (Better Brotherhood) on Ninja. Ninja also gains added synergy with Tanks through their ability to influence aggro, allowing them to use their damaging skills more often.

Even if Monk were to ever be buffed to a point of being able to outstrip the boosts those jobs offer via their utility, I still think we would be second pick to them due to their ability to make the other members in a party feel/perform better via their ability to directly inflate the parses of people around them in a multitude of significant ways.

I only ever see that changing if:
1.) They add more jobs using Blunt damage to the game. (Not an option for 1.5+ years, possibly until there are as many Blunt jobs as there are Piercing/Slashing ones)
2.) Make all physical resistance debuffing skills debuff all physical damage (least favorable option as it leads to arguing over which player has to lose DPS to refresh it for the party.)
3.) Remove those buffs from all physical jobs (not ideal as we then have skills that do less potency with no reason to use them unless they retool the skills heavily)
4.) Mantra is replaced with some form of AoE crit buff akin to Battle Litany, and/or Brotherhood is made more impactful for other party members.
5.) Ninja has its aggro management tools taken away, leaving us still equally less favorable over a Dragoon, but making Ninja overall more balanced in having only two major means to influence party DPS, equal to Dragoon's number, rather than double it, and quadruple Monk's. (I don't like the idea of taking toys away from other jobs so I can be shinier/feel more speshul. However, I think this is the only way to remove Ninja from being mandatory in God Comps for things such as speedkill, prog, and parse parties.)

I think any one of those would do. I don't know which is best for us, or best for the community, but those are my thoughts.

[MauvaisOeil]

Armor crush can only be put on the same step as coeurl form attacks.

It requires a target and a 3rd step weaponskill, just as gl or botd (which is 4th and 5th combo steps).

There is no way to refresh huton outside of battle except wasting a ninjutsu or the 3rd step of ten chi jin.

Just correcting, the remaining is true and accurate.

[SpeckledBurd]

Armor crush can only be put on the same step as coeurl form attacks.

It requires a target and a 3rd step weaponskill, just as gl or botd (which is 4th and 5th combo steps).

There is no way to refresh huton outside of battle except wasting a ninjutsu or the 3rd step of ten chi jin.

Just correcting, the remaining is true and accurate.

Yes but it also refreshes for 30 seconds and Huton has a maximum duration of 70. It's so powerful that you literally don't need anything else.

[MauvaisOeil]

That doesn't make it a managing skill like clicking botd / enochian / transpose.

The mnk also automatically refresh his buff in his cycle while nin AC is a decision to take or to delay.

While mnk GL are too long to get and too easy to loose, and RoE a very bad designed ability for very niche encounter design, the comparaison doesn't really stand.

However, in 20s+ boss jump, nins can manually refresh huton with a ninjutsu and that is something worth comparing to the poorness of RoE and GL maintain.

[Mahrze]

That doesn't make it a managing skill like clicking botd / enochian / transpose.

The mnk also automatically refresh his buff in his cycle while nin AC is a decision to take or to delay.

While mnk GL are too long to get and too easy to loose, and RoE a very bad designed ability for very niche encounter design, the comparaison doesn't really stand.

However, in 20s+ boss jump, nins can manually refresh huton with a ninjutsu and that is something worth comparing to the poorness of RoE and GL maintain.

I think the comparison is that MNK has a make or break decision on their self buff where as the other three examples are much more forgiving.


NIN doesn't need to use armor crush 3 times to get the full Huton benefit.
BLM doesn't need to press Enochian every 3 spells to get its full benefit (without going into the icing in the cake that is Foul).


DRG is a different issue but DRGs BotD is much more forgiving in contrast to GL.

[Sora_Oathkeeper]

That doesn't make it a managing skill like clicking botd / enochian / transpose.

The mnk also automatically refresh his buff in his cycle while nin AC is a decision to take or to delay.

While mnk GL are too long to get and too easy to loose, and RoE a very bad designed ability for very niche encounter design, the comparaison doesn't really stand.

However, in 20s+ boss jump, nins can manually refresh huton with a ninjutsu and that is something worth comparing to the poorness of RoE and GL maintain.

I think speckledburd is mainly focusing on the amount of time a nin has on huton. 70s compared to GL3s 16s, Losing huton is losing 15% haste and a ninjutsu. Losing GL3 is losing 15% haste and 30% attack power. GL is certainly more punishing. A monk only needs 16s of downtime to lose GL3, RoE grants us a total of 32s AT BEST. there's a 1/3 chance to go into a phase transition with GL3 having just refreshed. But the refresh requirement sucks. Also if you take no damage due to a scholar's crit adlo, you no longer get the proc to trigger the refresh. If a monk is already losing GL3 at 16s tho due to no attacks happening, then a nin in a similar situation is only 4seconds away from casting huton anyway. Which is much easier to establish. And Armor Crush while yes, being tied to the GCD can increase your huton timer by such a substantial amount and the max huton time is so huge, literally 1 minute and 10seconds means that a skilled ninja will never lose huton. Whereas a skilled Monk will always be forced to lose it. It's that comparison of buff maintenance which is completely unfair. A monk NEEDS to have PB back. I don't really like using trials for examples because i prefer balancing around endgame raiding. But Shinryu for example is abysmal for GL upkeep because there's so many long breaks in the fight that means a ninja can breeze through it. And DRG doesn't lose much either due to both jumps being back to regain the eyes you lost during phase transitions. GCO in V4S is another example of a Monk not being able to keep up GL3, while DRG and Nin can go into it and come out with both resources still in tact. Monk's have to wait 5 minutes into the fight before they can use PB again. If they use it for min maxing when it comes off CD then it becomes a DPS loss later. It is unfair and overly punishing