Is monk fun?

[Cythil]

I've heard they got a bunch of QoL improvements in 5.05. Especially in regards to Greased Lighting being easier to keep up. Being worried about keeping that up is one of the reasons I always overlooked the job. I always liked the look of the mechanic because it shortened the GCD, it was just worried about maintaining it. I also like the fact that they have a lot of positional, which I guess may seem weird because it just makes it more difficulty to deal optimal damage. It keeps you moving throughout the fight though which I like having to do because I naturally find it hard to keep my character still anyway.

Also I find the idea of looking at things like the primals and instead of using a sword or spear or magic just punching it. There is something innately satisfying in the idea of defeating powerful enemies through punches and kicks.

[Powercow]

If you've never played it before, it's OK. A lot of the complaints is that Monk has regressed significantly since its inception with almost nothing to show for it, but it's still satisfying enough to play on its own.

For people who've played it for the better part of a decade, it's essentially just a worse version of 2.0's monk. Or 3.0's. Or late Stormblood's. Puts out great numbers though. Honestly if Monk wasn't one of the strongest jobs in the game right now I don't think there'd be many people playing it at all.

[Drayos]

Well it started badly that’s for sure.

With GL forever lasting now thanks to form shift spam.

Positionals removed for 30 seconds with riddle of earth + 2 stacks of true north.

Riddle of flame no longer having a speed penalty

It’s become a lot more fun, stacks no longer irritate you and staying on 4 stacks forever is now completely viable.

I’d say monk has changed quite abit now into something much more enjoyable, although it is now considered more simple to play after 5.05.

If your interested in it I’d give it a go, a lot of people have now jumped on monk and it’s become a lot more popular then I’ve ever seen it, saying that I started the game just before SHB release.

[Rufalus]

I guess you could say the way it was QoLed to the extreme has had a bigger impact than any new abilities it received, so it's still fun but also same-old-monk a bit. Actually the only melee that I feel was changed in a significant way to improve fun was ninja but that job was also undertuned and headed for another significant rotational remake which may or may not reduce the fun.

[Shurrikhan]

If you don't mind a class even shallower than SAM with its core mechanics reduced into something a further QoL change away from complete removal, then I guess it could be okay.

[Silver-Strider]

If you don't mind a class even shallower than SAM with its core mechanics reduced into something a further QoL change away from complete removal, then I guess it could be okay.

If said mechanic had any depth to begin with, you might have had a point. In terms of class mechanics, that of GL and Huton are both meaningless in doing anything but allowing MNK and NIN to be on par with other classes; You could literally make both GL and Huton into Traits and it would not change a thing for MNK or NIN. Mechanics like BotD and Enochian on the other hand, have very clear reward for maintaining their buffs. You could argue that GL and Huton help to build up Chakra and Ninki quicker but considering that you can still get those rewards without those mechanics, its hard to make much of an argument that those core mechanics are pretty lackluster as a whole. The only time GL was actually something more than a "keeping up with the Joneses" type mechanic was during the Tornado Kick rotation period in which GL could actually be used as a build up mechanic towards Tornado Kick in a semi-similar fashion as Geirskogul (sp?) and Foul, even if there was more to it than either one of those skills, but that died off going into ShB. So a QoL improvement to something that is now back to nothing but a simple "maintain or you fail" mechanic is better than just watching as time and time again we are punished for not having the proper tools to maintain our core mechanic as our 5 maintenance skills all fail to do their damn job in a practical sense.

Do I come off as stand off-ish? Absolutely because these QoL improvements were long overdo but now everyone and their mother is swearing, hand to god, that MNK is OP and needs to be nerfed now when the issue is more of the lack of balance on SE's part since they never took into account MNK with near 100% GL uptime. I mean, had they reworked MNK with these QoL improvements in place prior to ShB's and had adjustment MNK's potency accordingly, MNK might have gotten some actual depth to its rotation rather than 1-2-3 with oGCD in between and to be fair, there's still room for improvement on MNK considering how niche SSS and Tornado kick are, to say nothing of Fist Stances as well.

[Shurrikhan]

The only time GL was actually something more than a "keeping up with the Joneses" type mechanic was during the Tornado Kick rotation period in which GL could actually be used as a build up mechanic towards Tornado Kick in a semi-similar fashion as Geirskogul (sp?) and Foul, even if there was more to it than either one of those skills, but that died off going into ShB. So a QoL improvement to something that is now back to nothing but a simple "maintain or you fail" mechanic is better than just watching as time and time again we are punished for not having the proper tools to maintain our core mechanic as our 5 maintenance skills all fail to do their damn job in a practical sense.

Then

1. Don't kill the TK rotation. Tune it so it's less clunky and less obligatory. GL can thereby actually be something more than a once-per-instance wind-up punishment for playing MNK.
2. Fix the maintenance tools themselves and don't remove tools by which to rapidly regain GL.

And look at that, no need or even significant temptation to reduce GL to a mere stain of a mechanic.

[Silver-Strider]

Then

1. Don't kill the TK rotation. Tune it so it's less clunky and less obligatory. GL can thereby actually be something more than a once-per-instance wind-up punishment for playing MNK.
2. Fix the maintenance tools themselves and don't remove tools by which to rapidly regain GL.

And look at that, no need or even significant temptation to reduce GL to a mere stain of a mechanic.

The Tornado Kick rotation was going to be DOA with the introduction of GL4 and realistically speaking, the only real change between ShB rotation and the Tornado Kick rotation is that PB went back to being a 2 minute CD and we lost Steel Peak and Howling Fist. Anataman replaced RoW in gaining an early GL stack in the opener and PB can still be used for the Tornado Kick rotation but the extra speed of GL4 is what makes it the DPS gain over Fist of Fire + GL3 and we can't really use the Tornado Kick rotation as a result, at least not optimally (personally not a fan of using PB for Dragon Kick>Bootshine spam but it is what it is).

Simply saying "fix the maintenance tools" is easy but actually doing it without streamlining GL is not. You can make RoE refresh GL upon activation in a similar method as BotD but then it just becomes a better SSS so then you need to rework that. There's no hope for Tornado Kick at this point as GL4 has completely killed that skill dead outside of the niche moments of impossibly long transitions (I'm looking at you Eden Prime) and it just needs a flat out rework as well. Anatamon on the move would be no different than Form Shift in its current state. How exactly would you fix GL maintenance in a way that doesn't simply boil down to it being MNK's Transpose given its current tools? SE had 6 YEARS to figure out something and they've ultimately admitted defeat and made it just Form Shift to maintain GL with skills that are now mostly filler until next Expansion sees them on the cutting room floor like so many skills before them.

[Shurrikhan]

...

You're trying to make it sound like TK's removal was unavoidable, but they went out of their way to kill GL, specifically changing it from costing 3 stacks to all stacks, on top of removing Riddle of Wind and doubling the recast time of Perfect Balance. They burned it, buried it, and nuked it.

Technically, the maintenance skills were all sufficient to the same extent as BotD was. Mere QoL improvements to RoE were all that were really useful. Don't require Fists of Earth and make RoE trigger on attack received rather than damage taken, such that it couldn't be screwed over by shielding. There. Done. Only two fights could cost me my GL3 in SB because of their lacking raid damage. They need only have each fight deal at least some insignificant amount over the jump as did all the other fights, and we've got GL from the fight's start to the fight's end.

"Replaced" really should be reserved for something that does at least half as good a job as the thing it's "replacing". When it comes to GL growth, Anatman does not. It's reliant on server ticks -- which you have only your HP bar to track, as player-benefiting server ticks are not timed precisely to DoT ticks -- and is available only half as often and at greater sacrifice.

"Only" likewise probably shouldn't be used for describing the loss of half of our rotational damaging oGCDs or core mechanics.

You're defending current design and admitting it needs a flat out rework in the same breath, all while acting as if GL can only either be completely lost to too great of punishment or reduced to the maintenance-spam it's become. Why?

[Rockette]

If you don't mind a class even shallower than SAM with its core mechanics reduced into something a further QoL change away from complete removal, then I guess it could be okay.

Ah, jaded monk friend. I recognize your name.

We fought, we got changes to Monk. It's still sorely lacking the care and attention other classes get every expansion but at least levelling will not be like dragging your own eyeballs over coal for new people like it was for us.

Is monk fun?
I think the person saying if you're new to it then probably - is correct. The rest of us have been hitting this same rotation for 6 years.