Thread: 5.0 MNK issues

In this post I plan on listing all the issues that I have with current MNK. I'm going to break it down into 2 sections. The first will be the problems I have with it and explanations of why I think they are issues. The second will be suggested adjustments to the job to fix or at least move MNK onto a better feeling path. This is all just my opinion, I'm not a developer of any kind so I don't know all the ins and outs of game design, just purely how I feel about the job. Let's get to it.

Problems

1) The first and foremost problem that I have with MNK is Tornado Kick and Six-sided Star. Before I get into them both specifically, the overall issue I have with them is that they are very situational skills and are also our most powerful skills.Starting off with Six-sided Star, I like that it is a GL refresh and has good damage. What I don't like is that it makes our GCD longer. Similar to the issues people had with Riddle of Fire in Stormblood (and even still now?) it's a forced slowdown. But, it is meant to be used during downtime. The problem with that is, the downtime has to be at LEAST 2 GCDs long. In a situation where you are going to be unable to hit anything for approximately 2+ GCDs, it is a DPS gain to use 6SS. Now, I wouldn't even have an issue with this if 6SS wasn't on the GCD so that now, on top of having to know precisely how long the downtime is, you must now know exactly how many GCDs you can squeeze in before having to use 6SS then move away or position for the next mechanic. It just feels like it counteracts what, at least I view as the path SE took with ShB, the simpler, more new player friendly route the game took. If I'm a new player and I see that I have a 400 potency skill and then look at all my other skills and see that this new skill is stronger than them all, but then I find out that using it makes it to where I can do nothing for 4-5 seconds, now I'm confused. Where does this skill fit in??? All of these sorts of things. I don't think 6SS is a bad skill, it just needs some tweaks.

2) Next up is Tornado Kek(Kick). I started playing MNK in 3.1 and at that time, TK was just a skill to use when it was impossible to maintain GL3. Okay, that's cool, at least now we have a really strong ending hit. Now, we move to SB. Tornado Kick can actually be used as a regular part of the rotation due to Wind Tackle and Perfect Balance?? To be honest, I was very intimidated and didn't like it when I first tried learning it, but it grew on me FAST Our most powerful skill was now something we could regularly use in our buff windows. It felt very rewarding to do correctly, especially with all the skills MNK had at the time. Dancing across my keyboard to click everything at the right times to fit everything in before TK then timing PB to get as much in as possible or just using Wind Tackle to get GL back felt amazing. What does ShB give us? TK, our most potent skill (the tooltip says 330 but iirc it's a glitch and is supposed to be 430 potency) went back to what it was in Heavensward. I will say, it's no longer just a "cannot keep GL stacks at all" (cause let's face it, that's like impossible at this point), and is now simply "cannot hit anything for 12ish seconds". But why is it that Monk, a DPS job, is also the ONLY job in the game whose most powerful skill is situational and not just a part of their rotation??? I understand that the theme of MNK is to attack fast and not necessarily hard (compare their potencies to all the other jobs in the game) but even still, why do we get this really strong attack that we only use maybe once or twice in an entire 9-12 minute fight (speaking for Savages)? NIN has Hyosho Ranryu and Bhavacakra, DRG has Stardiver and Nastrond(also High Jump), SAM has Hissatsu: Senei and Midare. BRD has Apex Arrow and Pitch Perfect (granted they are proc based, but they are still non-situational). MCH has Air Anchor and Drill (plus robot moves). DNC has Standard Finish and Technical Finish. BLM has Xenoglossy. SMN has Ahk Morn/Revelation. RDM has Scorch. WAR has Inner Chaos. PLD has Confiteor. DRK has Bloodspiller. GNB has Blasting Zone. (I wasn't going to list them all, but felt like it would be better to get the point across (Healers intentionally left out because their hardest hit are heals)) MNK is the only one who has situational skills that are a DPS loss to use outside of specific situations. I don't like having useless skills, more so when they are my strongest skills.

2) Finally moving on from those cause I could go on and on about them, I arrive at the loss of oGCD skills. Part of what made MNK feel so good was the amount of stuff I could click. I almost always had something I could click while waiting for the GCD to cycle. It felt very active. I was clicking stuff, positioning it hit my positionals, etc etc. Now there is just a big void of time where I'm only clicking GCDs. It feels empty and boring. I could be wrong but I think MNK was the oGCD spammy job of SB and now we only have 3, one of which is proc based. I feel like this slows down the job in a different way than just recast time as it makes it to where there is less to do. I can kind of understand why they removed them 'to make the job simpler for newer players' (even if it was just a 'we don't think you could click them under GL4') but from what I've experienced, I can still double-weave oGCDs if I click them fast enough, and even then single weaving would be fine imo. At least I wouldn't only be using GCDs and it would feel more active and fun.

3) The loss of Internal Release. To be honest, I would be fine without IR if the other parts of MNK were reworked, but because of the state of MNK at this current time I feel it necessary to put it in. Square told us that they wanted to reduce job synergy to any job can excel in any comp and clear content. So how does it make any sense to make MNK the only job that directly requires crit for its damage (Chakra procs) and then remove their personal crit buff so that now if they want to get as many TFCs in as possible they now need a SCH, DRG, and DNC with them. Additionally, in removing it they made it to where MNK only aligns with raid buffs every 3-6 minutes depending on your comp when it used to be that no matter what, MNK would have a powerful buff window every 3 minutes from IR and RoF+Brotherhood. It lowered MNKs burst windows to a fraction of what it used to be. Which also contradicts what Yoshi-P said during an interview with, I believe it was either GoldenTate or Drak, in which he stated 'Rather than bringing strong classes down, we want to find ways to bring the weaker classes up to their level'. But these changes seem to indicate that MNK was the exception to this mentality. That MNK was somehow way too overpowered to be left as is? I don't know, it just feels like such a slap in the face to lose our self-sufficiency.

4) Perfect Balance being a 120 second CD instead of 60, or even 90. Although, to be fair, I don't mind it being a 120 second CD too much, but I feel like in doing so it adds a lot more pressure to the job. Normally I'm okay with there being pressure and striving to do your best, but with current MNK and then looking at PB, if you use PB as a DPS CD to spam Leaden Fist, you better make sure you do not die before its off of CD or you're going to lose a metric ton of DPS. Additionally, in extending the CD they killed any potential of TK being used in a rotation, which I've already covered my issues with TK. This is one of my more minor complaints though as one of my suggested improvements would make 120 second PB feel nice and less punishing if you make a mistake.

5) Stances and traits. So, my issue here is that Fists of Fire is no longer the DPS stance because GL4 is tied in with Fists of Wind. Which is a stance to just run around cities faster since you can't mount. After 40ish levels of FoF being the DPS stance, the movement stance is suddenly the DPS stance? Why wasn't GL4 just an acquired trait like the rest of them were? It doesn't make sense to me.

6) The amount of GL maintenance abilities we have with no reward for maintaining them other than keeping their benefits. This may seem a little strange "the reward is dealing more damage". Yes, but let's look at BLM. They have Enochian which enable them to do more damage and if they manage to maintain it for long enough they are rewarded with the ability to use Foul or Xenoglossy. Where is the reward for MNK for maintaining its stacks? Especially when it doesn't have a way to quickly avoid an AoE (BLM has Aetherial Manipulation and Between The Lines), so I would argue it's a little harder for MNK to maintain GL in certain situations, but there is no pay off.

Possible Improvements

Firstly, let's look at 6SS and Tornado Kick. I feel like they would both be far more useful and rewarding if 6SS was an oGCD that when used cycles the GCD for the 3-5 seconds so that it can be weaved rather than waiting for a GCD to cycle, then using it, then running away. For Tornado Kick, I feel like literally just having it function like Foul/Xenoglossy would make it so much better (also fix the tooltip so it shows the accurate potency q.q ). It would give it more usability throughout a fight and it would reward MNKs for maintaining their stacks and it would make sense with the new abilities we got in ShB that heavily emphasize maintaining GL stacks. Even outside of ShB, from the point of getting it at 60 you would be rewarded for maintaining GL, then going into SB you'd get RoE which would help with maintaining them, then in ShB you get 6SS and Anatman to further assist in maintaining them.

Secondly, speaking of Anatman (I know I didn't list it in the complaints, but it's mostly because I think it's a great skill, and I just want this one change), please don't make it server tick reliant (if possible). It would be fantastic if it had a 0 second tick, so when you click it you immediately build a stack of GL. It would make it less RNG for the current best opener and would just feel so much better than just standing there waiting for a proc before you can click skills again.

Third, give us another oGCD to weave into our rotation. For me personally, I'd want One Ilm Punch to come back, be an oGCD with a 60 second CD and like a 300 potency, or a 30 second CD with 150-200 potency. Essentially I would want it to function like Steel Peak, but be One Ilm Punch for that sweet Bruce Lee reference. But, it would just make the job feel more active again. We'd have something else to weave into our rotation. It'd make our buff windows stronger. Just an all around QoL improvement.

Fourth, Either make GL4 a stand-alone trait like the other GL traits were or make Fists of Wind a 5% haste buff instead of a movement buff. I think I honestly like the idea of the latter more. It would give MNKs a bit of a damage boost at early levels, then FoF takes over until 76, then FoW becomes stronger simply because it's doing the same damage increase as FoF GL3, but is now attacking faster. It'd just make more sense to me for why FoW is the DPS stance and would be a decent QoL buff for early level MNK.

Finally, I feel obligated to put this in here because I do agree it'd be nice, but to be honest I don't really have an issue with it. Get rid of the slowdown on Riddle of Fire. I don't mind it, I just viewed it as you are putting forth more force into your attacks and are therefore attacking slower so that instead of breaking your enemy's bones over the course of 5 attacks, you're doing it in 1. That's just sort of how I justified it, but the slowdown does feel bad, I can't lie. So I feel like getting rid of it and making the CD of RoF and Brotherhood to 120 seconds and keep the 30% buff, or make it a 20% buff and make it a 60 second CD, or somewhere in the middle. I think I like the idea of it being a 15-20% buff on a 60 second CD would feel best. It would align for every raid buff in the game pretty much, and would give MNK more frequent burst and sort of make up for the loss of IR.

Well, thank you for reading all of this and let me know your thoughts! Am I a madman who just suggested MNK be ruined or was there a lot of good points I brought up? Let's have a discussion and hopefully Square will make adjustments before we get the raids, or at least before Savages drop!!!

You only have a text limit when you first create a post, you can go back and edit it to include the rest of what you want to say.

I glanced over your text, and it mirrors pretty much what everyone on this forum has been saying. It feels like we're all yelling down an empty hallway tbh.

The expectations for Monk, especially for the slow on RoF have been almost unanimous, loud and clear, but here we are, an expansion later not being heard. In an unofficial poll on reddit, Monk was voted as having the least satisfactory job changes 2nd only to scholar.