Monk rework/dmg nerf idea.

[Vendalwind]

*EDITED AND TWEAKED SLIGHTLY* to accomodate for some of the discussion in this thread and make some things clearer
PLEASE read through the segment that discusses changes to the rotation.

GOALS: 1 Nerf Damage Slightly. 2 Streamline the kit. 3 Return Positional Identity. 4 Resurrect Dead Moves.

-Resurrect Tornado Kick from the dead. TK gives a 5 second buff window, during which if Anatman is used within that window Anatmans effect will be enhanced. Lock TK behind Fists of wind and GL4. TK still removes all GL stacks on use

-Anatman when used Immediatly increases GL by 1 and chakra by 1. If channeled for a long duration while in combat increases GL and Chakras further, 30 seconds for complete charge from 0. The immediate effect of Anatman if used when under TK's 5 second buff raises GL by 3 and chakra by 1.

-If Anatman is used out of combat it's cooldown is reduced to 5 seconds.

-Twin snakes buff lasts 1 second longer. This accommodates the 5% loss of speed during the burst phase, AND accommodates the mild slowdown from Tornado Kick, Anatman usage.

-Riddle of Fire again locked behind Fists of Fire. Fists of Fire becomes the dedicated burst phase mode. Leaving Fist of Fire early ends Riddle of Fire early

-I'm removing my changes to form shift, they were clearly un-popular.

-Mantra is now locked behind Fists of Earth, So is Riddle of Earth. Mantra enhanced to a team wide 20 second bloodbath from MNKs attacks +5% heals received. Now they can't be used as a negative balancing point because they inflict a dps tax upon use themselves.

-Fists of Earth is now a stance that can facilitate the recovery of a raid group after a healer dies, but at a significant dps loss for the duration it is sustained. Leaving Fist of Earth Early Ends Riddle of Earth and Mantra early.

-Brotherhood no longer opens chakras by chance on friendly weapon skill, becoming less team dependent. Now it just further boosts the rate of your own chakra buildup by 30% (ie 100% on crit)

-Nerf potency on many of the combo moves mildly. -10 on all but twin snakes. -20 to six sided. Keep leaden fist bonus at 300 tho. Hopefully thats enough, and not too big of a nerf. This nerf amount could be adjusted

*NEW*
I didn't discuss what would change rotation-ally because of my rework, I wanted people to think through that themselves. So going to do a walkthrough of what it would effect now.

The current MNK opener uses Fire Stance. This wouldn't change, you would just be in fire stance for longer and return to fire stance for 20 seconds out of 90. That time segment, is your brotherhood, PB burst phase with an extra 20% dmg at a loss of only 5% speed. (which on average will be a loss of about 60% of a single GCD once every 90 seconds when mathed out) PB wont always align with it tho (it didn't in the first place anyways) So the opener would remain largely exactly the same, except anatman would be moved to prepull, and the shift to Fists of Wind would happen later.
Opener would be ->

Anatman(unchanneled) ->Meditate->Fists of Fire-> Form Shift X3 -> true north -> Shoulder Tackle -> Demolish ->Dragon Kick, weave POT -> Twin Snakes, weave Riddle of Fire(20second burst begins) -> Demolish, weave brotherhood -> Forbidden Chakra -> Bootshine, weave Perfect Balance (GL is already at 3 so move straight into Leaden burst -> Dragon Kick, weave Elixir Field ->Bootshine, weave shoulder tackle -> Dragon Kick -> Bootshine ->dragon kick ->Bootshine ->Snap Punch(Snap punch is moved to sustain GL mid PB)->Dragon kick->Bootshine,weave Forbidden Chakra (its guaranteed by this moment, but could have proc'ed earlier due to my brotherhood changes)->Twin Snakes, weave Fist of Wind-> Demolish (grants GL4)->Dragon Kick, weave Shoulder tackle
Opener complete. Player is now in riddle of wind with 4 GL and almost ALL play resumes as normal

*Changes to the rotation*
None to the basics of it. player can still choose to do the Double True rotation, or the standard Rotation depending on their ability to handle positional dancing.
Once every 60 seconds a TK->Anatman combo becomes available. Performing this combo works as follows:
GCD,weave TK->GCD (greased lightning absent), weave Anatman -> GCD (GL returns to level 3)

Optimally This would occur with Bootshine or Dragon kick as the first GCD, thus Twin snakes or True strike (even more optimally Twin the least powerful hitter) would be the GCD that loses GL bonus, Then after Anatman a finisher Demolish or Snap punch would be used to return IMMEDIATLY to GL4
But optimal may not always work. This is a big potency gain getting back the 430 oGCD Tornado kick with limited downsides. This loss of speed on two GCDs could probably be nearly equivalent to a lost GCD (every 5*60 seconds) so one lost GCD every 5 minutes in exchange for a TK and a chakra.

Occasionally the TK-Anatman combo would have to be delayed for FoF phase. Since its unavailable in Fists of Fire there is no reason to try to align it with Fists of Fire's burst phase. Thus it adds very minimal complexity, just returns use of TK, and Perfect balance still maintains its burst ability to always deliver Leaden Fisted Bootshines.

Other changes: Riddle of earth weave is gone from the standard rotation, Positionals have to be maintained with more skill again.
Double true rotation should remain uneffected by the speed nerfs when in Fists of Wind because speed is only dropped for 1 GCD via the TK Anatman combo.
Six Sided Star and Meditation are still used for disconnects, and works as a safety net to maintain GL.
AOE rotation and Chakras are untouched, just augmented to be a bit more self reliant, and slightly more dependable during burst phase as crit hits during that burst phase will guarantee a chakra opening.

So you see my changes don't screw up the rotation really at all. They DO re-instate the slow down of FoF/RoF, but only for 20 seconds and at a very big 20% dmg+ net gain during that phase.
They also add three weaves to the rotation, one to shift into Fire, one to Shift our of, and 1 to TK
And they make Earth's mantra utility a factor that can't be held against the class balance wise since it self balances by hitting the MNK dps hard while in use.

Final note that was pointed out to me. Additionally this would almost line up the TK anatman hit with NIN's trick attack, which is interesting. To facilitate this its Anatman's cooldown would need to be reduced to maybe 55, such that it can always be timed appropriately for tricks window, as the opener would literally place it in the second AFTER trick attack ends. But with that subtle change it could be Trick attack aligned for the rest of the fight, ignoring occasional offsets Fists of Fire might incur.

-

[Ramura_Sono]

No. We want to get rid of fist stances. Not lock more skills behind them to try to justify their existence.

What monk needs is for it's situational skills (anatman, SSS, TK, etc) to recieve conditional additional effects such as Anatman granting a number of chakra if used at max GL stacks or SSS having an effect that negates putting every GCD skill onto it's recast if TK is used immediately after it with TK not eating stacks (or less of them) if used within SSS's recast window.

The easiest way to nerf monk is to remove the rng nature of chakras and reduce it's permanent uptime buffs (twinsnakes, or GL itself) rather than trying to force us out of Fists of Fire.

-remove form shift. Unlock all aoe moves from needing a target. Allow them to switch form without hitting and refresh, but not add to, greased lightning stacks. Thus anatman CANT be used with a 3 minute prepull to have 4 greased lightning on opener. Aoe moves now can function in place of form shift. Goal 2/4

So...instead of hitting 1 skill 3 times you have to hit 3 separate skills? I'm...not sure how this streamlines anything. If you wanted to streamline anything with regards to forms it would be far more sensible to give Formshift an additional effect of "refreshes GL timer and moves to coeurl form outside of combat" We'd no longer have to hit it 3 times to prepare our opener and not have to spam it in dungeons to refresh GL between pulls either.

[Vendalwind]

I get why youd want fist stances gone.
Imo removing them would make the class more boring. Especially if earths reply remained.

To me even tho they have always been flawed from the start, elemental fists have always been part of monks identity.

Tk and sss would probably need some sort of cooldown if you wanted them the way you describe
And anatman would still be server tick/latency dependent if used as you describe.

And my proposition above would jave someone in wind stance effectively 70 out of 90 seconds. Making fire stance a burst phase event rather than just ised for the opener as it is currently.

The idea behind removing form shift was to just free up hotbar space. Pressing one button every gcd is boring and not pleasant. And monk already has enough buttons.
Another alternative would be to allow movement during anatman and just have it fill the same purpose.

Going through the motions warm up like is very stylistically monk as they prepare for combat. To me having extra pointless buttons on the hotbar was the greater sin of form shift. Thus enabling its removal seemed better and everyone is already gonna have the aoe moves on hotbar anyways.

Im not saying my ideas perfect. (Its not anywhere close to) But i definately think removing all 3 elemental stances and other aspects connected to them would make the class boring as hell. It was a thought experiment. Guess no one likes it so oh well.

[giwaman]

I say we just wait for 5.1 I'm definitely positive changes are coming.
don't think any drastic nerfs will happen maybe nerf leaden fist but fix Anatman into insta Gl1 and not tic reliant or nerf truestrike or theyll just change it back to how sb used to be on dps order.
Blm>Sam>Smn>Mnk>Drg>Nin>Mch>Brd>Rdm>Dnc.

[SpeckledBurd]

Making Monk switch back to Fists of Fire to use Riddle of Fire is basically just adding a weaker version of the slow that everyone hated back to the job with extra steps.

The elemental Fists aren’t part of Monks identity, they’re bloat. You could remove them completely at any point in Monk’s history and add whatever damage Fists of Fire had directly to Monk and you wouldn’t notice a thing.

[Vendalwind]

Making Monk switch back to Fists of Fire to use Riddle of Fire is basically just adding a weaker version of the slow that everyone hated back to the job with extra steps.

The elemental Fists aren’t part of Monks identity, they’re bloat. You could remove them completely at any point in Monk’s history and add whatever damage Fists of Fire had directly to Monk and you wouldn’t notice a thing.

I dont disagree that that is how it has been. But the devs have kept fists of* since the beginning. To me that says even tho the stances have largely failed to do anything significant they are a part of the stylistic identity of monk. When i mained monk back in ARR pre NIN release i loved the idea of them but thought they were indeed pointless.

Idealisticaly all three fists would mark a phase change or style change in play, but to do that properly would cause button bloat likely. Unless certain buttons or moves just transformed when switching active fist. But making so many new abilities would not ever happen in the near future.

I just dont see them diseappearing. Mechanically they are useless, but mnk mains have wanted them gone since ARR and welll.... they havent gone yet. So i personally would like to see them be given a purpose. Ie fists of wind as the basic, fists of fire as the burst, and earth as the recovery/defensive. Since NIN released i havent played monk again seriously so i really dont know "what monks want" but i do know what would make me inspired to play the class again.

[Vendalwind]

Also in general extra steps arent a bad thing. They make gameplay more satisfying and skillful. But that bias definately comes from a nin main that doesnt want ninjutsu to just become cd moves. I like the extra steps mudra creates.

[Kurando]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in Stormblood using Riddle of Fire and Riddle of Earth would force you in to their respective Fist stance though that has since been changed in ShB. The Fists also had unique Shoulder Charge effects which was also changed, so it begs the question in the current iteration is there any need in the stances or at least could one be removed or upgraded at later levels to something else (Fists of Earth)? Like the fists could be kept but they could be built in to current actions or one or two be changed in to traits. We keep Fists of Fire active most of the time, switching to Fists of Wind once GL4 is unlocked (and that if a little OP as well but not sure how to adjust it if it should be).

[Ramura_Sono]

I'd much rather fist stances be changed like so:

Fists of Wind becomes a trait that increases movement speed
Fists of Fire and Fists of Earth consolidated into one skill and made into a Single Target and AOE stance
Fists of Earth Changes bootshine, twinsnakes, and snap punch into Arm of the Destroyer, Four-point Fury (which now grants the twinsnakes buff instead of refreshing it), and rockbreaker respectively.

That would justify fist stances existing, while also having the benefit of reducing hotbar clutter.
Heck, with a single target and AOE stance monk could get many of it's lost skills back with things like Steel peak and howling fist interchanging depending on the stance.

[Noctisnine]

As a Monk main I can't agree with you suggest, now I do think riddle of earth positional nullifier should be nerfed because 30 seconds is just too much, maybe 15 seconds would be better. I would love some changes to Tk, make viable to use during our normal rotation just like it used to be during stormblood.