Soooo... Shadowbringers Monk

[Shurrikhan]

I agree with... about half of this.

For me, the biggest downgrade between HW and SB Monk was the lost of control and the reduced value of downtime. It just felt like someone who didn't even play Monk looked at the opinions of those who hadn't even finished leveling the job and figured, hey, we don't need X, and we may as well give Y, when in fact X was essential to any high level of play in the job, and Y was painfully unpolished.

ToD and, especially, Fracture previously allowed two low-efficiency-bump means of delaying stance timings or the need for proper positionals. They also gave decent cleave power, though that was a minimal gameplay concern and could even be seen as a chore when put to best use. In their place, where we had an almost constant degree of control if skillful, we got True North to outright negate positional concerns for a time and positionals themselves simply mattering far less.

The other was the value lost on TFC. When it was charged solely by downtime, it could of course remain stronger. And while it was nice seeing additional uses of the skill, it annoyed me that there was zero attempt to scale downtime skills with the improved uptime impact on Chakra generation. Meditation remained exactly as it had been when almost solely a mid-jump or between-fight tiresome reload. I'd have preferred to see it scale with Attack Speed and Critical Strike chance.

I'll admit, Riddle of Wind went from useless to an obligatory annoyance (given my ping). I couldn't understand why they'd take a skill that you'd want to enter for as little time as possible and then make it take two steps to generate its most valuable effect and its potency, especially when the latter step was weirdly slow to queue other skills during its animation.

In-combat Chakra generation was fine. Riddle of Fire slowing us down I would say actually gave us back some of our lost control, and I enjoyed the variance it brought. Tornado Kick rotations were fine apart from their failure to scale, again, with Skill Speed or Attack Speed buffs in any way. Riddle of Earth obviously should have allowed its effect to be triggered on attack taken, not merely damage taken (thus being thwarted by shields reducing damage taken to 0). Brotherhood shouldn't have been limited to just physical GCD attacks. But each of these were, essentially, simple polish issues. Had they been fixed, I've no doubt Stormblood Monk would have been one of those class designs I can point back to as "the good old times" when all else has turned to dross.



On the other hand, there is not a single change or addition I like about Shadowbringers so far aside from maybe Six-Pointed Star. Virtually everything else fits the non-examples of how I'd have liked to see Monk improved upon. It feels like we got the "or really anything but..." appendix of a suggestion post of any experienced Monk, or the idle thoughts of a level 68.

Yoshida mentioned that Shadowbringers Monk was the first time they went into a job design having thrown out all roadmaps or ideas for difficulty curves or accumulation of skills, instead just giving straight up what they thought players most wanted. And it shows. It has the good highlights. It has the gives the obvious, but ultimately superfluous, GL4 mechanic. But it again saps identity, forgoes polish, and doesn't improve upon a single core issue.

Monk isn't JUST attack speed. For me at least, it's decisions, versatility, flexibility, and--sometimes--decisive pursuit of one of many particular outputs as to achieve a certain fit for one's timings and maintain momentum. That means things like "Fists of" stances not just remaining being lip-service throw-ins. That means doubling down on their distinctions and balance, not just throwing them to the wind and obliging one as the wind-up stance and the other as literally all but the first 3 GCDs of combat. That means making something like GL4 an actual stance-related decision, rather than merely feigning added decisions or power when in fact simply (massively, if you include the loss to our oGCD damage) reducing our burst and extending our low-power ramp-up period. We're going to be balanced around GL4 basically 24/7; its presence only decreases our GL1-3 damage. And if attack speed really were the concern, the solution would have long since been simple: design need only stop shitting on Skill Speed as a stat through its inherent imbalances and its competition with stats like Critical Hit (given traits like Deep Meditation). Or, heck, do something with Fists of Wind at all times, rather than merely at GL3, or even bring GL back to 5% Damage and 5% Attack Speed per stack, with the rest of the damage coming from base potency. That would allow your extra 5% Attack Speed just fine, but in the hands of player decisions.