Soooo... Shadowbringers Monk

[Aomine1992]

Honestly as a non MNK main who was trying to pick it up, it just seems like MNKs job mechanics are just to punishing or had skills that just didn't fit like riddle of earth. The slowing down from riddle of fire and the loosing stacks from TK is just too weird to do to a job that literally lives and dies by it's specific speed.

[Shurrikhan]

Honestly as a non MNK main who was trying to pick it up, it just seems like MNKs job mechanics are just to punishing or had skills that just didn't fit like riddle of earth. The slowing down from riddle of fire and the loosing stacks from TK is just too weird to do to a job that literally lives and dies by it's specific speed.

It... doesn't, though. It lives or dies primarily by its damage buffs. We can only get up to 15% additional speed, but up to a constant 50% additional damage (a relative 88+% during CDs, depending on existing Crit pre-IR). And unless running a specific Skill Speed build, there is zero specificity to GL speed either.

Unless you're at a tight rotational breakpoint from heavy speeds, you can use the same rotation in GL0 as GL3. It's just the first 3-4 GCDs and then... you simply play with a lower GCD than others; if not for Tornado Kick being too overtuned to be a balance option at low Skill Speeds the system wouldn't impact the gameplay itself except, again, at specific breakpoints. (That and tools like Riddle of Earth becoming important and in that skills like Tornado Kick and Riddle of Fire can actually hard where they could not if left without compromise (be it in base potencies or those skills themselves).)

Personally, I like playing with and around a mechanic, rather than just treating it as an intro to gameplay to be suffered through. Without RoW-TK, whilst now leaving TK underpowered compared to Anatman (assuming they fix Anatman's current massive design flaw), we don't have a unique and core mechanic in Greased Lightning any more than, say, Shifu or Jinpu are together a "unique and core mechanic". At this point the only time you'd get a sense that GL even really exists -- the only time it would alter what you do -- is when punished for death or stupidity.

If we're going to do so little with the mechanic... why have it? We've been saying the same of Fist Stances for years, so why is GL some strange exception, especially when we've already gutted any alternative use for PB by squishing ppgcd deviation, across ST and AoE combat both, between different forms' weapon skills. It now exists only, and only sort of, in Anatman. Why? Why isn't it being expanded upon instead of further trimmed away?

[hijifa]

Sorry but the suggestions here are very bad.

Its an easy fix tbh, put back in the 2 oGCD skills, PB back to 60s and tackles in wind will grant GL.

So like this TK rotation still exists, big burst with RoF is gonna be really good with SSS, and there is a new burst phase with GL4

[reyre]

Sorry but the suggestions here are very bad.

Its an easy fix tbh, put back in the 2 oGCD skills, PB back to 60s and tackles in wind will grant GL.

So like this TK rotation still exists, big burst with RoF is gonna be really good with SSS, and there is a new burst phase with GL4

That doesnt sound better, in fact sounds worse. Your "fix" is probably the worse one here.

[Insertcoins]

It'll been better if they removed all the fist stances and only made one of them work, removing the riddles would be nice too since they have the same issue as the fist stances do. None of them are useful but one, and riddle of fire slows you down to slo mo levels when you're posed to be sonic. TK needs to be deleted or changed to just be an OGCD and NOT steal the stacks. Seriously what's the point of that move when no monk uses it cause why would you when it takes off all your stacks. And I know about the TK rotation but that's mute since PB is going to be back to 120 seconds so guess what just got back to being useless?

I'm still gonna wait til 5.0 to try it all out but I'm not liking those changes and lack of changes to monk here. Hopefully it plays will.... got a week to find out I guess.

[Burningskull]

How I would change MNK. (Please note this is how "I" would enjoy it more.)

Fist of Earth: Ability: Reduces damage Party receives by 1% for each GL stack. 2min CD
First of Wind: Ability: Increases your movement speed. Duration: 30s 1s CD
Fist of Fire: Ability: Increases self and party members within range damage by 1% for each GL stack. 1min or 2min CD

Fist mastery Trait: Upgrades First of Earth, Fist of Wind and Fist of Fire to Riddle of Earth, Riddle of Wind, Riddle of Fire.

Riddle of Earth: Ability: Reduces damage party receives by 2% for each GL stack. 2min CD. DOES stack with Troubadour, Tactician or Shield Samba
Riddle of Wind: Ability: Increases party movement speed. Duration 30s 1s CD
Riddle of Fire: Ability: Increases self and party member within range damage by 2% for each GL stack. 1min or 2min CD

Howling Fist: Bring it back. 30s CD reduced potency

Perfect Balance: CD 60s

Form Shift: Changes your Forms. When going from Coeurl to Opo-opo will refresh GL but not grant GL stacks.

Meditation: Replace with a trait that grants Chakra stack when performing Demolish, Snap Punch or Rock Breaker. 5 stacks Grants access to Forbidden Chakra and Enlightenment

Tornado Kick: Make it an upgrade to Demolish with a Martial Arts Mastery trait gained at the same level.

Brotherhood: Removed and replaced by Fist of Fire and Riddle of Fire.

Anatman: Upgrade to Perfect Balance: Removes Form and Positional requirement.

Six-sided Star: Upgrade to Dragon Kick through new trait Martial Arts Mastery II gained at same level.

Fist and Riddle abilities do NOT consume GL btw.

[Rufalus]

I saw that reddit post where a pro monk came up with a +5% better dps opener in a simulator that requires a certain popular addon to pull off consistently. I've never used addons before and play just like a console player so I've been mostly ignorant of its features. I knew that it could read data packets coming from the server and warn its users of things before the game does, or things they aren't supposed to know. But this is the first I've heard that it also manipulates packets being sent by the client to enhance your dps by aligning moves with the server ticks, helping to consistently weave things between gcds and fit more gcds into buffs windows etc. I know its users usually defend it as just a parsing tool which helps them learn, but it seems that isn't entirely true or not the extent of what everyone uses it for anyway.

Those concerns aside, I don't think the monk changes look entirely bad but some things are a bit confusing like Tornado Kick vs Six-sided Star, and GL4 being exclusive to Fists of Wind. Maybe somebody could explain to me, does that mean staying in Wind is now more powerful than Fists of Fire, or does the GL4 stack persist when you switch back into Fire so that you rotate both of those stances? I should probably watch a video on Monk to see how that works.

[Pyitoechito]

Maybe somebody could explain to me, does that mean staying in Wind is now more powerful than Fists of Fire, or does the GL4 stack persist when you switch back into Fire so that you rotate both of those stances? I should probably watch a video on Monk to see how that works.

You can only maintain GL4 in Fists of Wind. If you go back to Fists of Fire you lose the 4th GL stack.

[Saix027]

Sadly i fear Monk will be ignored due dancer beeing o nthe spot now aswell, it feels like only one guy works on a all classes at once or so.
I mean Stomrblood the Monk and Ala Mhigo Addon barely had Monks in it and and felt more like the Samurai and Doma Addon, it feels like they focus on to much and the wrong things at once.

They really need reworks in between addons, not just when the next Addon hits, hotfixes and balance are improtant all the time and should not just feel pushed away with other things in focus again.
You know like not wasting time on the failed Bluemage becasue community demanded it or the for me atleast out of place Automata raid that coems up, personal opinion but that is besides the point.
Overall i wish they would do more and more focused and not just roll with changes like this without seemingly thinking about it.

[wereotter]

Black Mage is also getting Umbral Soul which will grant Umbral Ice and one Umbral Heart. If you're in a phase transition then just hit Transpose to pop over to Umbral Ice and then spend some GCDs on Umbral Soul to keep Enochian active and start off the next phase with a full stack of Umbral Hearts. It's an instant cast too so you aren't standing around like with Anantman and it doesn't require a target like Six-sided Star. It's amazing how bad the GL management tools are in comparison.

It’s almost like important and influential members of the development team main black mage.... and I would suspect no one there plays monk seriously. This is why they never really seem to know what to do with the job and why it’s nearly identical to this day to what it was in 2.0