MNK feels dismal to play and it's not anything that can be fixed with a simple patch.

[Tobalito]

-Lets go one step further on an expansion where several resources are now tied to combat only (AST seals, AF Scholar and Summoner, etc.) now they don't even need to open with a Blizzard 3 + 4, just press that Umbral soul to your heart content, its even instant cast.

Hardcore players aren't pleased, Casual players like me aren't pleased, JP and western players aren't pleased, how anyone approved this is beyond me.

This, this is the thing that annoys me. You forgot to add that their Foul is now Xenogolssy on ST and has basically 2 charges on a instacast. Theiinstacart. Is now longer allowing for more movement between fights. At this point, I'm willing to say Samurai has a harder time and should be higher than BLM. BLM gets the QoL that monks crave for but for some reason mnk has to jump through hoops for their upkeep.... it's rather annoying. Worst part is, PvP form change is literally just a better ability, akin to Umbral soul.

I'm a Dragoon main but I feel for my MNK rivals at this point lol

[osutin]

I'm a little bit confused by what I've been reading lately: MNKs seem to be doing really well in the new raid (the best melee dps, period). Are the complaints people have entirely to do with the *feel* of the class, unrelated to their performance? I'm really struggling to choose a main and, although I have been leveling MNK, I am discouraged by all the complaints I've read lately.

[Powercow]

I'm a little bit confused by what I've been reading lately: MNKs seem to be doing really well in the new raid (the best melee dps, period). Are the complaints people have entirely to do with the *feel* of the class, unrelated to their performance? I'm really struggling to choose a main and, although I have been leveling MNK, I am discouraged by all the complaints I've read lately.

Numerically, Monk is doing great. This might hurt Monk's chances of getting interesting changes, because that'd involve having to re-balance them.

The concerns center almost entirely around the gameplay. That being said, if you like Monk, go for it. None of us know which jobs will be the "meta" in the future (really who would have predicted WHM not getting any DPS utility and being *the* meta pick for healers?) so just play what you like. FFXIV does a good job of making sure no spec is ever left so far behind that it's useless.

[SpeckledBurd]

I'm a little bit confused by what I've been reading lately: MNKs seem to be doing really well in the new raid (the best melee dps, period). Are the complaints people have entirely to do with the *feel* of the class, unrelated to their performance? I'm really struggling to choose a main and, although I have been leveling MNK, I am discouraged by all the complaints I've read lately.

Monk is more or less in the exact same spot as it was in during Stormblood where it's damage and performance is fine. The problem is we've had none of our problems addressed coming into Shadowbringers, our kit is cluttered with a bunch of overly Niche Greased Lightning utility skills, and we've got some mechanical jank going on courtesy of Anatman just as the cherry on top.

[osutin]

Numerically, Monk is doing great. This might hurt Monk's chances of getting interesting changes, because that'd involve having to re-balance them.

The concerns center almost entirely around the gameplay. That being said, if you like Monk, go for it. None of us know which jobs will be the "meta" in the future (really who would have predicted WHM not getting any DPS utility and being *the* meta pick for healers?) so just play what you like. FFXIV does a good job of making sure no spec is ever left so far behind that it's useless.

Thanks for your reply. I began leveling SAM first, but found that it got a bit stale pretty quickly. Now I'm bouncing around between MNK (fun, cool animations/sound design, but worrying complaints on forums), NIN (fun, cool animations/sound design, supposedly not very strong at 80), and RDM (cool, great animations/wacky sound design, but have heard it gets very easy/stale towards the end). Being able to switch jobs on the fly has put me in a state of choice paralysis - I don't know what to stick with! MNK is super cool and is strong in the raid, but the gameplay problems pointed out by experienced players make me think that I will be disappointed when I reach 80.

[Erudito]

I agree with so much of what’s posted here.

I am pretty dense when it comes to optimizing jobs unless I am controlling it for a while but during the first reveal of the level 80 ability, I knew something was off. Then I saw that you can only get a 4th stack of GL on Fists of Wind and my brain gave me an alert.

Come expansion I immediately read the final tool tips and I see why it didn’t feel right. It’s a buff rotation nightmare. It’s full of opposites and restrictions. And worse off, they got rid of all the free OGCDS that I liked to weave so much.

Can something even be done at this stage? I don’t think it’s fair to have to wait until another expansion to fix the flow and direction of the job.

[KanameYuuki]

I agree with so much of what’s posted here.

I am pretty dense when it comes to optimizing jobs unless I am controlling it for a while but during the first reveal of the level 80 ability, I knew something was off. Then I saw that you can only get a 4th stack of GL on Fists of Wind and my brain gave me an alert.

Come expansion I immediately read the final tool tips and I see why it didn’t feel right. It’s a buff rotation nightmare. It’s full of opposites and restrictions. And worse off, they got rid of all the free OGCDS that I liked to weave so much.

Can something even be done at this stage? I don’t think it’s fair to have to wait until another expansion to fix the flow and direction of the job.

As much as I hate to admit it and if history is anything to go by, we will only see potencies changed, and MNK is perfectly fine so not even those, took them 2 years to remove casting from BRD and MCH.

I got screwed big time, I love ShB but the DPS I like the most: MNK is disappointing and don't make me get started on my main class AST.

I'd say everything depends on the next live letter, if they mention us 3 : SCH, AST and MNK, maybe there is hope, but they will probably just, again, mention potency changes and eventually on a major patch some band aid like it was GL stack on RoW.

[SpeckledBurd]

As much as I hate to admit it and if history is anything to go by, we will only see potencies changed, and MNK is perfectly fine so not even those, took them 2 years to remove casting from BRD and MCH.

I got screwed big time, I love ShB but the DPS I like the most: MNK is disappointing and don't make me get started on my main class AST.

I'd say everything depends on the next live letter, if they mention us 3 : SCH, AST and MNK, maybe there is hope, but they will probably just, again, mention potency changes and eventually on a major patch some band aid like it was GL stack on RoW.

There is a chance for Monk to see more extreme changes in 5.05, 5.1 and possibly 5.2 but beyond that it's a lost cause. 4.05, 4.1 and 4.2 all included more substantial changes for certain jobs, some of them even reintroducing skills they'd pruned. If they'll do it or not is increasingly less likely as time goes on though.

[KanameYuuki]

it would be pretty funny if they decide to bring back SP or HF and keep RoF slowdown.

"Players are not happy with ShB MNK, so let's bring back SB MNK!!!"

[XValenusX]

People harp on SB monk but to be fair it had a very mellow rotational "flow" to its opener and rotation. If you knew the class back to front then everything lined up beautifully. You essentially never had to feel like you were waiting for something to come off cd in order to be able to effectively play your role to its fullest. TK had its niche use as transition enders and big hits at the end or beginning of burst windows. In conjunction, using it like that also gave you an engaging way regain stacks lost. Even under RoF slow, using cd's at the right time and place in an opener made every buff you had fall off neatly.

Fast forward to ShB monk. The rotational flow of the job (more so in the opener than anything else) feels extremely off, for lack of a more vulgar term. The anatman opener specifically feels like a mad scientist experiment gone wrong and the scientist saying, "meh it's good enough since it gives the best overall numbers" (which cannot be denied since the math has been done already). The PB changes feel kind of rough also since having that 60 sec cd in SB allowed for "mini burst" windows when IR and RoF were in-between their cd alignment and you could TK and re-open with PB at virtually no loss of rotational flow.

I hope that the class gets addressed with some reversions if possible, but as my friend Kadu says to me all the time, "gotta grin and bear it.

I'll stick with my old opener and grin muahahaha