Soooo... Shadowbringers Monk

[EbonySeraphim]

I haven't seen how the other DPS jobs changed relative to Monk, but it seems like 5.0 Monk got buffed in a way that no one is pointing out since the 5.0 patch notes are out. Bootshine got a massive buff from 150 -> 300 potency with Leaden First. On top of this, Leaden Fist lasts 30 seconds so you can get 4 Bootcrits on while it's active and you don't have to worry about dropping it briefly because Leaden Fist only matters for the Bootshine buff. This weaponskill buff becomes the undisputed strongest, direct damage weaponskill for Monk even if the others (True Strike and Snap Punch) also crit. I don't count critical Demolish because you wouldn't spam it even if you could. To me, it seems that Monks now want to spam Bootshine with full buffs during perfect balance and exit with Six-Sided star to keep GL3/4. This may explains why Perfect Balance was bumped up to a 120s cooldown. If it was 60 seconds, then every other Leaden Fist buff you could use PB just to spam Bootshine. At level 80 Anatman can be used effectively to maintain GL3/4 during any fight and Perfect Balance is soley used for DPS burst.

I think the other reason I'll enjoy Shadowbringers Monk more is because they put more of the damage on the weaponskills rather than normal attacks and oGCDs (removal of Howling Fist). Monk sort of lost 10% potency across the board without blunt resistance from the Dragon Kick change, but this was more than put back into substantial weaponskill potency increases. We will be regularly seeing skill damage numbers that aren't too far behind other single target heavy hitters I think, but ours will happen more often.

[lyndwyrm]

I haven't seen how the other DPS jobs changed relative to Monk, but it seems like 5.0 Monk got buffed in a way that no one is pointing out since the 5.0 patch notes are out. Bootshine got a massive buff from 150 -> 300 potency with Leaden First. On top of this, Leaden Fist lasts 30 seconds so you can get 4 Bootcrits on while it's active and you don't have to worry about dropping it briefly because Leaden Fist only matters for the Bootshine buff. -snip-

I'll find out in a few minutes, but I was under the impression Leaden Fist was removed after doing Bootshine. Also, it seems like a lot of jobs had a lot of potency boosts. Looking at DRG for example, True Thrust (lv1) went from 160 to 290 potency and Vorpal Thrust (lv2) went from a combo potency of 250 to 350. So I don't feel like monk is really getting a buff from this. And then everyone loses some abilities, buffs, oGCDs so it's kinda a toss-up unless you dig down into it

[ValStormbreaker]

It is removed after Bootshine, you're correct.

As for potency boosts, remember that they said in the live letter that the entire underlying math of the game is different now, so they warned not to freak out over the appearance of potency changes because the numbers have no frame of reference to pre-5.x potency numbers. The real reasons you're seeing people clear Alliance Raids so quickly is because more of the really good players who know their rotations are flooding back into the game trying to power-level in roulettes, so you're seeing what pre-5.x roulettes would be like if you had more players who knew their rotations, were doing their positionals properly, etc. At first I thought it was just potency buff stuff until I started noticing how on-top of things all my party members were, and how snappy they were to react to everything, including healers who were actually adjusting like total bosses. [insert "hell has finally frozen over" joke here] XD Best Labyrinth run ever btw, wish I could have commended all my party members for how awesome a job they did.

Unfortunately, the potency buffs can make MNK as strong as they want for 5.x content, but don't make up for all the things MNK lost. It doesn't quite feel fun to play anymore, and just feels clunky and clumsy. Of course, I'll reserve some judgment until I get to 80 but I'm getting the feeling that a lot of MNK mains will abandon the job for Dancer for this reason, and all the former ARR/HW MNK mains who have this fantasy of MNK being a faster sustained DPS like the pre-SB incarnation of the job will find they're not quite getting what they want, either. IMHO it really needs an extra oGCD that gives a stack of GL, and that would fix 95% of the issues right there. Could still use yet another oGCD on top of that so the rotation can feel more fun, smooth and rhythmic like it was before, but if I could only get one, I'd vote the one that grants a GL stack.

The most fun it is... I guess you can say it feels nicer to deal with trash mobs with the new AoE skills, but that doesn't make up for its performance issues with single-target combat. It's strong, sure, and that's all fine and said... but it's just not fun to use anymore, which is the problem. Half of it is they removed more than they replaced, so it feels clumsy to use. The other half of it is... well... it's just boring to play now. It doesn't feel as actively engaging as SB MNK.

We'll see how it does at level 80 but right now I'm not super optimistic, considering it's only one more single-target skill and a measly 5% speed increase from GL4.

[Physic]

It is removed after Bootshine, you're correct.

As for potency boosts, remember that they said in the live letter that the entire underlying math of the game is different now, so they warned not to freak out over the appearance of potency changes because the numbers have no frame of reference to pre-5.x potency numbers. The real reasons you're seeing people clear Alliance Raids so quickly is because more of the really good players who know their rotations are flooding back into the game trying to power-level in roulettes, so you're seeing what pre-5.x roulettes would be like if you had more players who knew their rotations, were doing their positionals properly, etc. At first I thought it was just potency buff stuff until I started noticing how on-top of things all my party members were, and how snappy they were to react to everything, including healers who were actually adjusting like total bosses. [insert "hell has finally frozen over" joke here] XD Best Labyrinth run ever btw, wish I could have commended all my party members for how awesome a job they did.

Unfortunately, the potency buffs can make MNK as strong as they want for 5.x content, but don't make up for all the things MNK lost. It doesn't quite feel fun to play anymore, and just feels clunky and clumsy. Of course, I'll reserve some judgment until I get to 80 but I'm getting the feeling that a lot of MNK mains will abandon the job for Dancer for this reason, and all the former ARR/HW MNK mains who have this fantasy of MNK being a faster sustained DPS like the pre-SB incarnation of the job will find they're not quite getting what they want, either. IMHO it really needs an extra oGCD that gives a stack of GL, and that would fix 95% of the issues right there. Could still use yet another oGCD on top of that so the rotation can feel more fun, smooth and rhythmic like it was before, but if I could only get one, I'd vote the one that grants a GL stack.

The most fun it is... I guess you can say it feels nicer to deal with trash mobs with the new AoE skills, but that doesn't make up for its performance issues with single-target combat. It's strong, sure, and that's all fine and said... but it's just not fun to use anymore, which is the problem. Half of it is they removed more than they replaced, so it feels clumsy to use. The other half of it is... well... it's just boring to play now. It doesn't feel as actively engaging as SB MNK.

We'll see how it does at level 80 but right now I'm not super optimistic, considering it's only one more single-target skill and a measly 5% speed increase from GL4.

it definitely feels off and not as entertaining at 70, maybe at 80 it will be fun again. But at the same time it has nothing super exciting that's new, so its just a question of whether it will get back to its former thrills

[ValStormbreaker]

it definitely feels off and not as entertaining at 70, maybe at 80 it will be fun again. But at the same time it has nothing super exciting that's new, so its just a question of whether it will get back to its former thrills

Yeah that's a big part of the problem. It's nice that Four Point Fury replaces One Ilm Punch, so the AoE rotation is much better. Other than that... the only thing we get for single-target weaponskills is Six-Sided Star, which can't even be unlocked until after the MSQ is done. Kind of makes going through the story on your main a pain in the rear, and I kind of feel that it defeats the purpose of maxing out your main if it's not fun to use. Since one of the new skills is just a replacement for something they took out and not an additional toy to play with, and the one truly new one is a line AoE you'd never use in single-target situations, it basically means

Even if they gave Perfect Balance a second charge, that wouldn't fix the issue. I really feel like MNK had too much taken away, resulting in it being slow. People kind of oversold the 4 GL stacks because it's just a measly 5% which isn't much. The result of removing the oGCDs is that it feels slower and more boring. It also makes using it to go back to Level 70 content (especially for those of us who didn't quite get to finish the Alphascape raids and still want to unlock UCoB and can't yet do those unsynced) practically unplayable with MNK because of how it is right now.

The perfect solution would be two new oGCD weaponskills, one of which gives a stack of GL and doesn't need to be powerful, and the other can be whatever. I know that there's a cost factor involved with the development of new animations and whatnot, so it's unlikely we'd get brand-new ones, BUT... if they could recycle old, deprecated skills that looked cool enough (because let's face it, Howling Fist and Steel Peak didn't exactly have the coolest animations to behold), and just tweak the tooltip, that's be fine enough for me. My personal votes are Somersault and Axe Kick, two skills from PvP which looked great, have icons and animations already made and tool tips that (with some obvious tweaking to their tooltip descriptions for a translation into PvE) would pretty much make SHB MNK perfect without changing anything. Also it never hurts to have more kick moves. :P

I do feel though that it is certainly two oGCDs too few for single-target purposes. SSS's situational usage doesn't make up for the loss of two other things, but maybe Somersault and Axe Kick would alleviate some of the strain on what made SB MNK fun to play.

Otherwise it feels like one step forward, two giant leaps back IMHO.