The First Thing I Did As A Level 80 Monk Was Level A Different Class

[Yokubo]

"Oh no, not another negative post about Monks!"
My original thoughts composed on this post was almost 6,000 characters, which is too long. I want you all to know I elaborated much more on these ideas originally.

Greased Lightning IV:
Was introduced to us, and I about lost my mind when I saw it in the Job Actions. When HW was announced, I told my FC "If I get GL4, Monks will rule the world!" A couple expansions later and the prophecy has came true, or so I hoped. GL4 was added to us in a way that barely made it a buff. Going from Enhanced Fire to Wind, you only actually gain 5% SS.

Six-Sided Star
For an attack to put everything on a 5-second timer, this attack better be really good. Unfortunately, it isn't. I have yet to find a use for this besides a gamble on blowing up a 1% mob, or if the boss is about to go into some weird intermission/run phase. I find the worst thing about this ability is that it really contradicts it's counterpart ability Tornado Kick. Yes, you can use Tornado Kick + SSS consecutively, but at the cost of basically everything... If you can time it perfectly before an intermission phase on a boss, you'll look like a stud and pull off a composite 730 potency burst (Which doesn't seem much compared to other classes)

Biggest Complaints
So here's my favorite part about being 80 Monk, not playing Monk and playing Dragoon. Why is it so unbearable now? The real killer for me, is the gutting. Most of the fun for me was the threading of abilities throughout the combo, which is probably why I enjoy Dragoon now. Monk already plays really fast, and weaving in OGCD abilities really made the class have an extra gear of speed. But once you remove all those OGCDs, all that's really left is the same 6 abilities we've been using since ARR. There have been no changes to the class since it's creation besides the added layer of chakra balls, which are RNG generation based. Lets look at progression of abilities is for Shadowbringers:
72: Enhanced Fists of Fire
74: 20% improvement to ball generation & Enlightenment
76: Enhanced Fists of Wind - GL4
78: Antman into my butthole because I've only gotten traits so far
80: Why use this ability?
The only big gain there is the buff to the passive factors to the class. At the end of the day, it's still the same 6 attacks, just gutted of all the extra things to bring out the fun of it. I pray that this thread finds the eyes of a game dev, or somebody who cares about the future of Monks, because as it is right now, I would much rather play anything over Monk. And that's a shame, because I've found this class to be my absolute favorite since the beginning, and for the changes to be that hard-hitting to change my mind of the class, is a tragedy in it's own.

[Takiwaki]

I am sorry you dont like monk. While I do agree there can be some improvements. I can def see what the devs were going for.
Whenever there is a stat reset due to expansion things feel wonky. 3.0 was that way. 4.0 was also the same.
The one thing I do like is that I can see gearing up making a huge difference mnk due to SKS and CRIT making a difference in how monk acutally feels when played. I do look forward to this.
SSS is a tricky one. I use it constantly when doing mechanics that make me lose a couple gcds of dps cus I have to move away from the boss. I do wish it was on ogcd.
Anatman is actually very good. def a life saver in trials. love having full gl ready after transitions.

It does seem that the additions to Monk was aimed at endgame raiding and trials which is unfortunate cus lower end content like dungeons suffer from constant loss of stacks betwen pulls etc.

Even though many of the new additions are situational they do each have its purpose although I do wish we did not lose a way to gain backs gl stacks quickly beyond PB.

[GuntherGrass]

Petition signed. I do think though that this is the single target rotation they've intended for lvl 80: Once you've filled your greased lightning, presumably the only time you'll ever have to... 1. Execute SSS. Wait 5 seconds. 2. Execute SSS. Wait 5 seconds. 3. Execute SSS. Wait 5 seconds. 4. Boot Shine. 5. Twin Snakes. Then repeat steps 1-5. Every other rotation you throw all, um 2 of your OGCD's into that Boot Shine, Twin Snakes combo (fits perfectly). And every 4th? rotation you put Brotherhood/Riddle of Fire up as well. Then when boss is at .1% you finish them off with Tornado Kick.

[stormiekni]

While I agree with the majority of what you are saying. SSS is actually a very useful skill and is definitely not the problem that is making Monk feel bad.

The problem is the removal of oGCD GL stack skills paired with PB doubling in CD also crit RNG reliance for oGCDs without any way of modifying our crit chance. Some small changes could make the class feel great again. I see most people centering their complaints around SSS and that it is so underwhelming to get at 80, well it is more because everything monk gained this expac was pretty underwhelming.

[Rockette]

I agree about SSS. It needs to be off global or - something-.

Just a heads up, you need to remove cuss words or the mods here will just straight ban you without warning.

[ValStormbreaker]

I've been saying this and will continue saying this. All MNK needs for the problems to go away are the following:

1) It needs two more oGCDs. Right now MNK has more forced slowdowns with nothing to do during those windows due to the lack of weaving opportunities. This makes MNK boring.
1a) One of these oGCDs needs to give a stack of Greased Lightning. I get why Wind Tackle was removed; programming-wise, it's difficult to give multiple charges to every gap closer in the game AND allow for one job to have them as combo actions. What we needed was an oGCD to compensate for this. Nobody likes having to use Anatman and rely on server ticks and the DPS loss mid-rotation for that second GL stack. That, and with RoE and SSS, Anatman is not only redundant, but not as useful to use. Anatman can be scrapped in favour of something else.

2) Put some skill speed onto the weapons. SAM has SkS on its weapon. MNK does not. Whomever made this decision needs to be informed that MNK mains want to go fast, and the allure of 4 GL stacks was to go faster than SB MNK. Instead we need to go through an entire rotation just to catch up to the same speed as SB MNK because the end-game gear has been slowed down too much.

Even with some of the earlier gear in SHB where we could have a skill speed of 2300+, MNK is still boring because it still has slowdown windows with nothing to do during them. Just give us the two oGCDs and that will literally fix most of the problems. That's all it needs.

[ReiMakoto]

I have no stake in monk at all, im just here to say its a lot more than 730 potency if you SSS into tornado kick because both are effected by the GL buff/fists so pulling it off when you know youd lose stacks otherwise is pretty spicy

[ValStormbreaker]

I have no stake in monk at all, im just here to say its a lot more than 730 potency if you SSS into tornado kick because both are effected by the GL buff/fists so pulling it off when you know youd lose stacks otherwise is pretty spicy

You're looking at numbers in a vacuum. The number fluffing was to compensate for all the things that were removed so it's not a true performance increase. SSS into TK is no longer viable because there's no recovery rotation anymore and it takes longer to get going again. So what you think looks spicy is actually akin to just shooting MNK in the foot for no reason. You need to understand that.

[Yokubo]

Don't get me wrong, the Quality of Life changes we got this expansion are nice, but to me it feels Monks lost more than we gained. Reviewing my post it seems more of complaint forum, and yeah that's part of my intention, but my initial goal was to frame the class in the way it's flawed to hope to reveal some possible ways for the class to be fixed.

So my question to my fellow Monks who may not completely like the changes as well, or to those who have completely dropped the class in general, what could be changed, or what is it we could hope to have gained?

It's hard to answer because honestly I was super content with Monk in HW and Stormsblood despite the RNG to ball generation. My raid groups favorite quotes from me playing Monk is when I pop Brotherhood and I yell over comms "GIMME YOUR BALLS!"
Yes for me, I got GL4 what I had wanted for years, but as I said it wasn't added as a straight buff for Monks, but just a slight gain from Fists of Fire.

Something I hope to see get changed not only the trimming of the abilities, but would be an addition to the main rotation. It's hard since it's been so cookie cutter since the beginning of time, but at the very least it would be nice to have SOMETHING new to the class besides more AoE

[Rockette]

Don't get me wrong, the Quality of Life changes we got this expansion are nice, but to me it feels Monks lost more than we gained. Reviewing my post it seems more of complaint forum, and yeah that's part of my intention, but my initial goal was to frame the class in the way it's flawed to hope to reveal some possible ways for the class to be fixed.

So my question to my fellow Monks who may not completely like the changes as well, or to those who have completely dropped the class in general, what could be changed, or what is it we could hope to have gained?

It's hard to answer because honestly I was super content with Monk in HW and Stormsblood despite the RNG to ball generation. My raid groups favorite quotes from me playing Monk is when I pop Brotherhood and I yell over comms "GIMME YOUR BALLS!"
Yes for me, I got GL4 what I had wanted for years, but as I said it wasn't added as a straight buff for Monks, but just a slight gain from Fists of Fire.

Something I hope to see get changed not only the trimming of the abilities, but would be an addition to the main rotation. It's hard since it's been so cookie cutter since the beginning of time, but at the very least it would be nice to have SOMETHING new to the class besides more AoE

Hope to have gained would be a progression on the rotation. We gained a Tornado Kick burst phase in Stormblood which was swiftly removed and we are back to 2.0 rotation, except less dots and ogcds. Six sided star is clunky and should really be ogcd. Why does Tornado kick exist, it is clearly designed to never be used. Anatman is useless in casual content.

Death or rotational mistakes / boss jumps after PB is now super punishing. There are no quick recoveries anymore. Monk just keeps losing more and more out of its core rotation and nothing gets given back.

Aoe rotation is nice so uh... there's that.