Proposed fixes to Monk

[OneIlmPunch]

Here are the great ideas from others, credits to their posters;

ZyrinMisharuji:
1) Tornado Kick functions like Foul. Maintain GL for x amount of seconds and you proc TK (we'll say 60 seconds even though Foul is 30 seconds?).

2) Make 6SS an oGCD that when used procs the GCD (keeps the same CD). I'm okay with 6SS being used for downtime if TK gets reworked, especially since 6SS is far more useful than TK as things stand right now.

3) Give Anatman an instant tick. That's literally all it needs.

4) Give us another oGCD to weave into our rotation. Personally I want One Ilm Punch to come back as a 60 second CD with like 300 potency or something. A nice hard hitting oGCD that gives us some nice burst.

5) I could do without IR if they change what I've listed above, but admittedly I do want RoF to lose the slowdown, especially since we lost like all of our oGCDs and IR to augment our chakra gain. I'd like to see RoF become a 60 second CD, 10-15% damage buff, no slowdown. Then to keep it where it aligns with Brotherhood I'd make Brotherhood a 120 second CD and boost the proc % for chakra from 30 to 50%.

Xau:
anatman rework sugestion of mine:
make what when you use it it frozen your form and gl timers until your next action, and if you stand still it generates chakra stacks, seriusly, monk is too spammy on downtime

Takiwaki:
TK needs to be changed to a disengage ogcd that basically freezes GL and resets timer untill you start attacking again. Can add the SSS timer penalty to avoid spamming. This will give us breathing room for mechanics and fix dungeon issues between pulls.

SSS needs to just be a replacement of internal release. With how much of our dps focuses on crit rng, its stupid that SE took away any control we had over burst phases. Make it be 100% chakra on crit for a few seconds. This is be awesome in dungeons and during burst phases. Give it a long enough cooldown for balance

Riddle of fire needs to be changed, reduce the dmg increase but but an increased crit rate and get rid of the slow down. This way our burst phase with brotherhood and riddle will be filled with FB spamming fun since we lost all other ogcds

Drayos:
I think it’s about time, we came off crit to proc things and a flat rate, they did this for bard but not us, I’d also like brotherhood to gain a chakra per second instead of being Nicht dependent on your team having physical dps.

I’d like to see tornado kick come away from GL and be utilised as a full OGCD, maybe give it 3 stacks allow each successful combo to reduce the CD of tornado kick.

[Irisdina_Wiloh]

The problem with giving Anatman an instant tick is that this will again push the gap between the top level players and the average player. The Anatman rotation already exists and is apparently ahead in DPS by a fair amount. If you give it an instant tick, you can bet people will then stand around and wait for the next tick too because it's faster than manually gaining another stack of GL. The best way to fix Anatman right now is to remove it's ability to generate stacks. Whilst this may be an unpopular opinion, it would kill the Anatman rotation and besides, I've found very little time to be able to use SSS + TK and then use Anatman to regain all 4 of my stacks.

I've said in other threads that TK just needs to become a 60s ogcd that is locked behind you having max stacks. It doesn't eat your stacks on use but it gives you something else to press every 60s which is nice and solves the problem of TK being useless.

SSS is pretty much fine as it, but it should be ogcd because it can be very hard to judge when you can use it and often times by the time your gcd rolls around, it's either too late to use it or you can't use it with TK because of the damage.

Finally, please put PB back to 60s. Right now it absolutely sucks if you die on monk and have no PB because it takes forever to get back to max stacks. This isn't like other jobs who have stacks since they can get theirs back very quickly, our damage comes from GL, if we die and lose it all, we hit like a wet noodle. I don't understand the reasoning in putting PB back to 2 minutes.

[OneIlmPunch]

Those are all interesting concepts, thank you for your contribution to the thread!

[Wirhelmina]

I'll have to disagree with Anatman's suggestion (instant stack) as well, right now everyone is using it at their openers even if takes a full server tick to get the next stack, because even then, it's still a DPS gain. Just like Irisdina said, it won't change anything, people will still do it to wait for the next server tick, (from 2nd stack, to 3rd stack).

Some of my thoughts:

1- Perfect Balance should have its cooldown reduced and become a buff that just gives 2 or 3 stacks while in combat, with no need to attack. The main problem (and I think this is why devs decided to increase it to a 120 seconds cooldown) is that people were using it as a damage buff, and not as a utility buff, in raid scenarios mostly. It was always mainly used to push more DPS, by allowing the usage of the stronger GCDs with form restrictions, instead of being used as it should, a utility tool to replenish stacks fast. Either that or make it something like: "Allows the usage of Demolish/Snap Punch/Rockbreaker for 10 seconds, regardless of current form", this would prevent DPS cheese with Dragon Kick > Bootshine.

2- Make Twin Snakes' buff duration decreased (from 15, to around 11~10 seconds) while having it's damage buff increased ( from 10%, to maybe 15%) once you reach level 76 (this would be a trait). At level 76 we get GL4, which makes our GCDs considerably faster, fast enough that creates the possibility of using 2 True Strikes before reapplying Twin Snakes, this basically creates a "meta" build for Monk, with no diversity choice, now we have a skill speed threshold that MUST be met (1.92 at GL4). The buff increase from Twin Snakes would compensate for the loss of that 2nd True Strike.

3- Just make forms' duration permanent, you change to them, they stay. This would be more helpful during casual plays, while doing normal dungeons, then you don't have to be a psychic, time you form changes, then predict if the tank is going to instantly pull packs/bosses or if they're gonna re-evaluate their life choices for a couple seconds before pulling. It would also help a bit in raid scenarios when you disengage and either have time to recharge chakra OR change forms (usually short pauses).

4- Make something with Fists of Earth, it's about time they revamp this thing, we can't even use it as a panic button to survive an incoming hit, because we would lose GL4 from Fists of Wind. Maybe make AoEs GCDs deal more damage, more than GL4 would do. AoE stance lol.

Agreed:
SSS rework to become oGCD while keeping all it's other current effects.
TK like Foul.
Anatman just freezing everything and giving chakras, NOT stacks.
Removal of RoF slowdown, but only if we're not getting more oGCDs back (gotta balance). This would also be nicer if we had some changes on how to get chakras during Brotherhood, then we could spam Forbidden during RoF window, with no need of extra oGCDs.

Feel free to correct my thoughts if they are too demanding/wrong.

[OneIlmPunch]

More great suggestions, thank you for your time. This is what I was hoping for when stepping forward. Complaining and demanding total revamps of a Job aren't very constructive, it's ideas like these that make much better sense to come forward with.

[ZyrinMisharuji]

I'll have to disagree with Anatman's suggestion (instant stack) as well, right now everyone is using it at their openers even if takes a full server tick to get the next stack, because even then, it's still a DPS gain. Just like Irisdina said, it won't change anything, people will still do it to wait for the next server tick, (from 2nd stack, to 3rd stack).

Some of my thoughts:

1- Perfect Balance should have its cooldown reduced and become a buff that just gives 2 or 3 stacks while in combat, with no need to attack. The main problem (and I think this is why devs decided to increase it to a 120 seconds cooldown) is that people were using it as a damage buff, and not as a utility buff, in raid scenarios mostly. It was always mainly used to push more DPS, by allowing the usage of the stronger GCDs with form restrictions, instead of being used as it should, a utility tool to replenish stacks fast. Either that or make it something like: "Allows the usage of Demolish/Snap Punch/Rockbreaker for 10 seconds, regardless of current form", this would prevent DPS cheese with Dragon Kick > Bootshine.

2- Make Twin Snakes' buff duration decreased (from 15, to around 11~10 seconds) while having it's damage buff increased ( from 10%, to maybe 15%) once you reach level 76 (this would be a trait). At level 76 we get GL4, which makes our GCDs considerably faster, fast enough that creates the possibility of using 2 True Strikes before reapplying Twin Snakes, this basically creates a "meta" build for Monk, with no diversity choice, now we have a skill speed threshold that MUST be met (1.92 at GL4). The buff increase from Twin Snakes would compensate for the loss of that 2nd True Strike.

3- Just make forms' duration permanent, you change to them, they stay. This would be more helpful during casual plays, while doing normal dungeons, then you don't have to be a psychic, time you form changes, then predict if the tank is going to instantly pull packs/bosses or if they're gonna re-evaluate their life choices for a couple seconds before pulling. It would also help a bit in raid scenarios when you disengage and either have time to recharge chakra OR change forms (usually short pauses).

4- Make something with Fists of Earth, it's about time they revamp this thing, we can't even use it as a panic button to survive an incoming hit, because we would lose GL4 from Fists of Wind. Maybe make AoEs GCDs deal more damage, more than GL4 would do. AoE stance lol.

Agreed:
SSS rework to become oGCD while keeping all it's other current effects.
TK like Foul.
Anatman just freezing everything and giving chakras, NOT stacks.
Removal of RoF slowdown, but only if we're not getting more oGCDs back (gotta balance). This would also be nicer if we had some changes on how to get chakras during Brotherhood, then we could spam Forbidden during RoF window, with no need of extra oGCDs.

1- The thing is PB will always be a damage buff skill no matter what they do with it. Right now it's being used to squeeze in a few extra Leaden Fists to boost DPS, especially under buff windows. From what I've heard it's because we were using PB to be able to actually use TK and they didn't like that because it wasn't intended, even though it felt great (at least imo it did), so rather than just make TK function like Foul and leave PB alone they decided to wreck PB and in doing so we get to where we are now with TK/PB. They would have to rework it to be something like "grants a stack of Greased Lightning on your next 3 weapon skills" and maybe keep the formless thing. This would make it so it's no so much a window as a way to quickly get GL and if you're at maxed GL it's useless (though I abhor useless skills/niche skills), but if TK became something that was just part of our rotation (Just have it function like Foul so there is a reward for maintaining GL and maybe rather than needing max stacks have it gain more potency the more stacks you have [100 for GL1, 250 for GL2, 400 for GL3, and 550 for GL4 or something]) that way if something happens where you lose stacks and the boss is about to disappear for a bit you can throw out TK for added potency, sort of like SAM's Meditation/Shoha(?) interaction, instead of being an engage after downtime it would be a disengage potency gain which would also make it similar, but also unique to its brother/sister job.

2- Rather than having them touch Twin Snakes, though I think it's a decent idea and would dampen the SkS tier MNK needs to hit right now for optimal DPS, I'd rather they just make GL4 a stand-alone trait like the previous GL's and also make the stances traits so FoF gives a permanent 5% damage buff (becomes 10% at 74 like it does now?), FoW gives a permanent movement speed (or haste % pls!), and FoE gives a permanent 5% damage mit. This could be a bit OP, but I feel like it would make the stances useful and streamlined so you don't have to worry about turning on a stance every time you're level synced or just log-in, etc. Plus it'll clear up a little bit of hotbar space.

3- While I agree that would make things more friendly for dungeons and stuff, I feel like it would severely nerf the challenge of MNK and kinda break the theme. The idea is to quickly attack and move from stance to stance and the timer pushes you to do so and really try to optimize your uptime. I know they want to make things friendly to newer players but I want some sort of challenge aside from general movement (waiting til the last possible second to move out of an AoE), but I could be overthinking it and removing the stance timer may do nothing to impact MNK's challenge.

4- If they moved all of the Fist stances to traits I feel like it would fix it. To elaborate more from the 2nd point, I feel like it's silly that we spend almost 40 levels with FoF as the defacto DPS stance only for FoW to take over at 76(?), especially when all FoW gave us beforehand was a movement buff to run around areas we couldn't mount inside of. It's just weird and the only way I can kind of see it is by thinking "faster movement = unlocking faster attacks???" but it would make way more sense if FoW was a 5% haste buff but because of GL, FoF is stronger until 76 when GL4 is unlocked via FoW. But this would also make GL4 a 10% haste increase over GL3 instead of just 5% so there may be a balance issue there which is why I'd rather just see the stances moved to traits, FoF 5% damage, FoW movement speed, FoE 5% damage mitigation. Then GL4 being a normal trait like the previous GL's would give MNK a 45% damage boost and a 20% haste boost at max stacks (unless they let us keep Enhanced FoF, then 50% damage boost). Maybe I'm just crazy, but I feel like this is the best option.

As for the others, I completely agree with 6SS. Anatman I like the idea of it freezing all buffs (GL, Twin Snakes, etc) and generating Chakra instead of GL (maybe keep the refresh as well to lead into stronger burst afterwards? Not needing to reapply buffs and such, but fine if not because balancing stuff).

As for RoF and Brotherhood. Personally I think the magic would be give us 1 additional oGCD, but give it a 60 second CD. Then, depending on balance either keep RoF as is (maybe a small nerf to the damage) and remove the slowdown, or reduce RoF to a 60 second CD that gives 15% damage buff and make Brotherhood a 120 second CD and increase the chakra chance to 50%, and maybe give the MNK an extra effect of weaponskills/crits have a 100% chance to open a chakra while under the effect of Brotherhood. This way we can get consistent Chakra by ourselves, and others still pitch in for the potential for PHAT forbidden Chakra usage and really let us feel that change to TFC's cooldown, because as it stands I feel like I'm getting slightly fewer TFCs under buffs than I used to (mostly because R.I.P. IR) so I feel like I can't make use of the 1 second CD. But again, I may just be crazy.

[ZyrinMisharuji]

More great suggestions, thank you for your time. This is what I was hoping for when stepping forward. Complaining and demanding total revamps of a Job aren't very constructive, it's ideas like these that make much better sense to come forward with.

I agree, the conversation here has been pretty good so far.

[DomitriShokoi]

Anatman freezing all buffs instead of generating GL would be a welcome change.

at this point moving stances to traits because the benefits are so minimal outside certain situations, if they were more significant, like old tank stances back in 4.0. eg, different stances with change different actions eg. earth mantra ( 10 % reduction for party), fire mantra ( 5 % dmg for everyone), howling fist ( earth enlightenment, adds slow/stun, dmg down), enlightenment ( fire enlightenment, adds dots to all mobs hit in a line), squall ( wind enlightenment, circle aoe, buffs ss of nearby party members.

TK not consuming GL stacks, 30 Seconds, 100 based, 100 additional potency per gl stack.

bring back IR, or ditch crit rng chakra generation.

other rewards for keeping GL stacks or chakra overflow. eg. attacks done in couerl form after gl 3/4 reduce cds of ogcd skills ( 5 seconds of pb cd,). chakra overflow - give chakra charges, or excess chakra buffs up mnk and party more up to 5% extra dmg or healing orbs lol.

Remove slow down on RoF, SSS.

SSS, 60 second cd, refreshes all buffs on hit, scales with chakra. 200 pot, 100 pot per chakra.

[KanameYuuki]

What if 6SS and TK changed places alongside a rework.

Six-sided Star - Learned at level 60
Ability.
Additional Effect: Overloads Greased Lightning duration and current form to 30 seconds. Upon execution, the recast timer for weapon skills will be increased to 5s.

Tornado Kick - learned at level 80
Ability High recast time
Kinda like Foul but correct use of positional further reduces recast time. Ideally you will want to use this skill every 60s.

Internal Release upgrades to RoF at level 68
+ Critical chance
+ Damage dealt (not as high as 30% ofc, I have no idea what the math could be so it would around the same damage for the duration without the slowdown)

And just so we can reduce button bloat

Mantra Upgrades to RoE at level 64
+ Hp Recovery
+ Minor damage reduction for party

QoL improvements for Chakra

Chakra can now hold 7 charges, so we finally have some leeway on it and avoid overflow.
Deep Meditation now learned at 54, whats even the point of having TFC be useless until 8 levels and 1 expansion later. Since I assume they don't want to "break any balance" for old content then make TFC be weaker at 54 and then stronger with a trait at level 62.



Last but not least, give me a backwards jump SE, please.

[ZyrinMisharuji]

What if 6SS and TK changed places alongside a rework.

Six-sided Star - Learned at level 60
Ability.
Additional Effect: Overloads Greased Lightning duration and current form to 30 seconds. Upon execution, the recast timer for weapon skills will be increased to 5s.

Tornado Kick - learned at level 80
Ability High recast time
Kinda like Foul but correct use of positional further reduces recast time. Ideally you will want to use this skill every 60s.

Internal Release upgrades to RoF at level 68
+ Critical chance
+ Damage dealt (not as high as 30% ofc, I have no idea what the math could be so it would around the same damage for the duration without the slowdown)

And just so we can reduce button bloat

Mantra Upgrades to RoE at level 64
+ Hp Recovery
+ Minor damage reduction for party

QoL improvements for Chakra

Chakra can now hold 7 charges, so we finally have some leeway on it and avoid overflow.
Deep Meditation now learned at 54, whats even the point of having TFC be useless until 8 levels and 1 expansion later. Since I assume they don't want to "break any balance" for old content then make TFC be weaker at 54 and then stronger with a trait at level 62.



Last but not least, give me a backwards jump SE, please.

I would personally like for TK to remain the level 60 skill and be introduced as our most powerful skill. Then as we proceed to level we get more stuff that make it easier to maintain it, so it looks like we got loads of QoL as we level from 60 to 80. 6SS can remain as it is because it's good damage and it fills the niche of doing a final hit before downtime and allows us to refresh GL while we wait for adds to spawn, boss to teleport, etc. so we can keep TK at full potency (assuming they make it an oGCD proc like Foul with increasing potency based on current GL stacks). The only change 6SS needs is to be an oGCD that cycles the GCD when used, this way we can do like Twin Snakes > 6SS before downtime with Anatman if needed to freeze buffs.

As for IR/RoF. I feel like that would be a neat change since they do Enhanced versions of skills via traits. Enhanced RoF could even be used to remove the slowdown (they can keep the slowdown initially to keep balance for old content, but when we get Enhanced RoF it gets removed) and they could have it to where Enhanced RoF: Adds 10% Critical Hit Rate for the duration. This would give MNK insanely strong burst windows and if they keep the current CD of it and Brotherhood it would be fine since MNK doesn't align with raid buffs as often as other jobs. But this would also require potency adjustments to keep MNK from just dwarfing everyone in DPS.

For Mantra, that'd be a decent change but I don't think it's necessarily needed. The 20% increased healing is already pretty strong imo.

Chakra having 7 stacks would be a blessing and they could give us a new oGCD that uses 2 stacks or 1 stack or something so we have some extra weaving capability like WAR, but at the same time, why use your 1 stack ability when the 5 stack is way stronger? It'd be a weird balance they'd have to achieve with it to make it worthwhile to spam the oGCD (if added) over using TFC. Cause other than that I don't see what difference 2 extra stacks would make if the only thing Chakra is used for is TFC. Sure, it'd give leeway if you want to hold it for a few GCDs while you wait for a buff to come off of CD and you don't want to overcap on Chakra, but idk. What are you guys' thoughts?

As for a backwards jump, honestly I'm fine without it. We're badasses because we don't need it. We do our 200 IQ calculated GCD squeezing without getting clipped cause we're FREAKING. COOL. AF. Bruce Lee would be proud of us, but not of SE.