What I'd Like to See for Monk

[Shurrikhan]

Background Changes

• Critical Hit reworked as a stat. It now costs 125 stat per 1% increase to chance, down from 160 stat. Base Critical Hit damage multiplier increased back to +50% damage. This multiplier no longer increases with Critical Hit stat. Instead, all chances in excess of 100% increase the potency of their effects by that excess. A 120% chance to deal a Critical Hit, then, would do (100%+(50%x20%)), or 160%, damage. It is therefore no longer possible to "waste" Critical Hit or Direct Hit stat, nor is Critical Hit convoluted as all heck any longer.
• Critical Hit is thus a linear stat similar to Determination. Both Det and Crit now increase expected damage by 1% per 250 stat, just 4% less efficient than Direct Hit, though Crit will of course improve efficiency slightly as Direct Hit increases. Not also that this is a buff to Crit at most reasonable stat values, as it previously took 4373 Critical Hit to become more efficient per stat point than Direct Hit, assuming no Direct Hit with which to synergize. Additionally, Crit is more reliable on auto-crit jobs, which would here-after be increased (e.g. returning Kassatsu, Straighter Shot, etc to auto-crits now that auto-crits cannot 'waste' critical hit chance. So, on and all, it is far better stat than previous, but also a lot easier to calculate the value of.
• When replacing a given status effect on oneself or on the same target, the prior duration is duplicated onto the replacing application to a maximum of the lesser of the replacing application's duration or 3 seconds. E.g. if you clip a Demolish (normally 18 seconds) at 15 seconds (3 seconds left), the replacing application will last 21 seconds.
• The time at which animation lock (the time in which you are prevented from using other actions, not movement) should cease is now queued in addition the skill's actuation, cutting the effect of ping on each action by half. The second use of any oGCD during a GCD may now be queued if more than 600 ms remains before the would GCD refresh and animation lock will automatically cease before GCD refresh, cleared client-side. This further increases the ability to double- or even triple-weave.
• All skills now trust that they have the conditions required to perform an action after checking -- only the once -- upon the time of their actuation (release from queue). This means that as long as you still had Greased Lightning up when you hit Tornado Kick or as soon as it cleared the previous action's animation lock, it will go off; if you still had Dreadwyrm Trance up when you hit Death Flare, it will go off; if you started a spell under Thin Air or Astral Fire it will still be affected and permitted by those effects, etc., etc., you get the idea. If a skill looks like it should have gone off, it will go off (due to earlier snapshotting).
• You can now "Prioritize" certain buffs on your Status Bar, categorically and by name. You can also "Reserve Space" for Prioritized buffs, leaving the leftmost X icon spaces open for those particular buffs to appear, rather than their appearing and disappearing moving them or other buffs around.
• You can now "Prioritize" certain debuffs on your Target's Status Bar, categorically and by name. You can also "Reserve Space" for Prioritized debuffs, leaving the leftmost X icon spaces open for those particular debuffs to appear, rather than their appearing and disappearing moving them or other debuffs around.
• Far more modular customization added to Job Gauges, including redundancies/preferences for what should be shown on the Job Gauge, Status Bar, or both.
• * MP recharge rate reduced by 20% but now ticks GCD's time. Tick-based abilities like Anatman and Meditate likewise tick per GCD's time and will therefore grant their effects exactly per GCD (or rather, GCD's time spent off the GCD). This does not buff said abilities, but does make them more intuitive and consistent.
• * Variable CDs now dynamically recharge based on GCD rate with each GCD, rather than having their reduced CDs snapshotted based on their GCD speed at time of use.

Monk Changes (Simpler form, not comprehensive)

Condensed/Streamlined Version for those who just want to trim Monk's "irredeemable bloat"

• GL's power has been deemphasized, but its position solidified as a core mechanic.

• GL now increases Damage, Movement Speed, Attack Speed, and Defense by 5% per stack. Greased Lightning has been added as a trait at level 10. The actual traits, Greased Lightning I, II, and III now each increase your Damage dealt by 5% each.

• Damage is therefore unchanged, just less dependent on GL. (You have an innate 15% bonus at GL3, and 20% at Move Like Lightning, which replaced GL4, at level 76, while GL itself generates only a further 15% (20% at level 76) Damage).

• Duration reduced to 10 seconds, but now fades 1 stack at a time. Each time a stack fades, it refreshes to full duration one stack lower.
• Form Shift reworked, with significant trade-offs. It is now passive, as a means of form options QoL, but no longer refreshed Greased Lightning.

• Form Shift is now passive (now called "Fluid Form"). Every GCD's time you spend off the GCD gives you access to a further Form. These stack up to 3 times, giving access directly to Raptor, Coeurl, and Opo-opo, respectively (or one, two, or three forms further than wherever one left off), as unlocked by GL2, GL3, and the Fluid Form trait at level 52. You therefore no longer have to spam Form Shift before combat. That said, neither can you FS-spam your way to maintain GL forever in dungeons; it no longer refreshes Greased Lightning.
• During Perfect Balance, Fluid Form generates without interruption from weaponskills. Thus the skill made after Perfect Balance ends will always allow for any form, just as during Perfect Balance itself or any 3 GCDs since having attacked outside of PB.

• Stances revised.

• Fists of Earth, Wind, and Fire are now each granted at level 30, upon equipping Monk. Rockbreaker is now a Pugilist skill instead. Fists of Wind now grants your maximum Attack and Movement Speed regardless of GL level (5% per possible GL level before level 76; 6.66% each after). Fists of Fire now grants the full benefits of GL towards your Damage regardless of GL level. Fists of Earth grants the full benefits of your Defense regardless of GL level.
• Fists of Earth has two further effects:

1. Damage dealt during Fists of Earth generates Body of Stone in equal amount. This does not stack; larger instances of damage will replace previous, with a duration of 5 seconds. Body of Stone delays absorbs incoming damage, causing it to instead be dealt over 6 seconds. Overhealing taken will purge the remaining damage to be taken in equal value (2000 HP of overheal will clense 2000 HP of DoT damage left to be dealt).
2. Damage mitigated grants a variable duration (based on its value vs. your base HP at level) of "Earth's Reply", which negates positional requirements over the duration; use it before raid damage for free positioning for a while, or to mostly negate the need to position correctly while leveling.

• You cannot turn off stances, only swap between them. Each now drains MP over time while in combat, based on the amount of effect it's granting you extra. They therefore have no passive drain cost once you reach your maximum number of GL stacks. Using them to effectively ignore the costs of Tornado Kick, for instance, will quickly drain you, but you will have no problems using them to ramp up.

• GL4 replaced.

• Riddle of Wind trait replaced with Move as Lightning, which, like GL, GL2, and GL3, increases damage dealt by 5% but also increases the per-stack benefit of GL by 33% (to 6.66% per stack), for a total of +20% Movement Speed, Attack Speed, and Damage (or, 40% Damage if you include the passive bonuses). This adds a further cost to TK rotations, given the use of MP below.
• Once fully ramped up, you can retrigger your current stance or swap to the other in order to briefly double its related GL effect. They're literally just flexible mini-CDs at that point. They cost a hefty chunk of MP, so use is limited, but the flexibility should be nice. Fists of Fire has the highest cost and Fists of Earth the least, and each use of a particular stance increases its activation MP cost by 25% of its original cost, decreasing back to normal cost over 25 seconds. There are now distinct visuals for Fists of Earth, Wind, and Fire while their bonus effects are activated. (Note: because FoE mitigates for more in this case, it also grants a longer duration of Earth's Reply from the same attack.)

• Chakra system revised. It's now more bankable and has no more RNG than does damage-dealing.

• The Chakra system now allows for granular progress between points/stacks of Chakra, the maximum for which has been increased to 7. Deep Meditation now generates progress towards your next point of Chakra based on potency dealt, at roughly 1 Chakra per 1000 potency dealt, which Deep Meditation II accelerates to per 700 potency dealt. *Guaranteed Crits count 50% higher, but any RNG bonus damage is ignored. This, too, slightly buffs Speed as a stat.

• Various skills have been adjusted slightly to better suit the above changes.

• Brotherhood duplicates your Deep Meditation effect and splits it among all allies, whether from offensive spells, heals, or physical attacks. Because Deep Meditation works off raw potency, Monk (which has low raw potencies over time) is actually the worst generator of this effect, while a Ninja's full burst technically provides the greatest raw-potency benefit. You're no longer locked into all-physical compositions. To compensate for the Form buffs, its damage bonus has been removed. You're now a pure damage-dealer, apart from Mantra utility and being able to survive stronger hits than most can.
• Meditation no longer requires a button, allowing the button to be replaced full-time by a variable-consumption form of The Forbidden Chakra. Meditation continually charges towards your next point of Chakra at a rate of 2 Chakra per GCD. (Yes, you literally passively generate downtime potency of 150 ppgcd to a maximum of 3.5 GCDs at a time.) TFC spends all Chakra at 75 potency per Chakra and Enlightenment does so at 45 potency per Chakra.
• Anatman faintly revised: "Halts and reverses loss of Greased Lightning duration over time and generates a stack of Greased Lightning for every [GCD's time] spent channeling." Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds. As an intentional "bug", the GL-halting effect of Anatman takes an extra GCD to wear off. This should make its use more fluid.

• Tackle Mastery returned.

• Flame Tackle has been renamed Red Lotus, and now detonates your DoT damage on the target, instantly dealing half the remaining potency atop 100 base potency. (Use when you can soon refresh Demolish.)
• Wind Tackle has been renamed Galestrike and now applies the full potency and GL itself, with no need for Riddle of Wind.
• Earth Tackle has been renamed to Steel Peak and, when unable to move its target, will now launch you backwards the same distance, thereby offering a means of escape.
• While operating at maximum attack speed, one may now use Riddle of Wind (which does nothing but move you to your target) any time any form of Shoulder Tackle is on cooldown, once per Shoulder Tackle's cooldown. It thereby offers the full advantage of mobility with no damage compromise.

• Other changes to previously redundant skills:

• Six-sided Star buffed from 400 (roughly 73% of average ppgcd) to 530 potency, to fall only 20 ppgcd (40 potency total) below the typical Double-True rotation. As an intentional "bug" it also allows the Fluid Form to continue after its 1st GCD, thus offering a 2-GCD- or 1-GCD-delayed rotation at will. Modular control is therefore largely returned while it can also be used to capitalize on the burst provided by CDs or Fists of Wind/Fire.
• Riddle of Earth removed, now that its function is provided by Fists of Earth itself.
• Tornado Kick potency to be revised.

Long Version (In progress)

• The job gauge now presents your current Form in the center, turns golden and ringed when Leaden Fist is active, places a blue lightning-ish flame for Greased Lightning at the top of the gauge, then the bottom-right, then bottom-left, with its timer as a lightning-blue ring likewise going clockwise around the center of the gauge. Around this you will see a similar golden ring for Ki, (progress towards next Chakra). The pale-yellow, subtly-incense-smoked Chakra orbs later replace and then add on to the Greased Lightning flames.
• Both the GL timer and Chakra progress (aka Ki) can still be optionally moved to linear gauges. A numeric timer is shown for GL to the bottom until unlocking Chakra, at which point it is shown at the bottom right, with Ki's %progress on the bottom right like a decimal continuing off your integer Chakra count at bottom-center.
• To the left you have your Twin Snakes timer as an animated icon, kind of like two burning snake firecrackers intertwined, but subtle until nearly needing to be refreshed.
• To the right you have your Demolish timer on a similar animated graphic. The numeric timer of first target affected by Demolish will take the position to the right of the Demolish animated icon until pushed to the top-right of it by the next affected target's Demolish timer, if any, and the second the bottom-right until pushed into the center-right position by a third, which will take the bottom-right, etc, keeping an even space around the Demolish graphic and in chronological order from top to bottom. When the oldest fades out, the rest shuffle up and fill out the space. The timer of the current target will always be emboldened.
• Point being: you shouldn't have to look elsewhere for your main trackers.
  
  
  
• Form Shift removed as a button, replaced with the Fluid Form trait at level 20 and upgraded by Fluid Form II at level 40.
• Fluid Form "Allows you, over time equal to your global recast time of not having been under the global recast timer, to unlock access to your next Form's weaponskills and its Form bonuses without losing access to those under your current Form."
• Fluid Form II "Extends the function of Fluid Form to allow access to successive Forms until all three are unlocked."
• All this does, however, mean that you can no longer extend GL infinitely through carpal tunnel spam.
• Perfect Balance now also "allows Fluid Form to progress even while under the global recast timer." One therefore ends Perfect Balance with full access to every weaponskill.
  
  
  
• GL duration reverted to 12 seconds. (Note that there are no Form timers any longer past level 35, due to Fluid Form II.) However, GL now falls off one stack at a time. Each time GL 'de-levels', its duration is refreshed. Thus, no Form Shift spam but you again mostly want to push your tank to keep apace as per the Monk tradition.
• GL now simply increases Attack Speed, Movement Speed, Damage, and Reduction to Damage Taken by 5% per stack. To compensate, base damage is simply increased with each Greased Lightning trait, separately from the Greased Lightning mechanic, +5% base Damage and another stack available of 5% of everything. Thus, the faster you have to do your positionals, the faster you can move for them as well.
  
  
• Positional bonuses are back up to 30 potency, which amounts to a relative 45 potency at full damage (or 40 when accounting only for Greased Lightning and Twin Snakes).
• Dragon Kick - Leaden Fist nerfed. Dragon Kick reduced to 160/180 potency. Bootshine potency increased to 160 potency. The Leaden Fist effect increases its potency by only 80, down from 150, effectively equal to a Crit's bonus in itself. A DK-LF therefore does 540 potency (raw apart from the Crit) while a double-Bootshine does 480, giving it a rotational bonus of merely 60 potency or 30 ppgcd, alike to most non-Bootshine positionals. It's still very much worth doing, but far less do-or-die, allowing Perfect Balance to be saved for other things.
• Because DK-LF is no longer quite so brokenly powerful, PB is back to a 60-second cooldown. As not to be returned to an obligatory TK rotation, TK has been adjusted.
• Tornado Kick now varies with stance, Tornado Kick in Wind, Hellfire Kick in Fire, and Axe Kick in Earth. None of them consume GL. Each is charged by your raw potency dealt, making it rapidly available during burst phases, usually by the end of your Internal Release/Riddle of <Element>, but forces it to otherwise see use only about once per 90-second period between bursts. Can be used before fully charged.
  Axe Kick deals up to 300 AoE potency and silences, stuns, and pacifies all enemies within 6 meters without inflicting diminishing returns. Duration: 4 seconds.
  Tornado Kick deals 260 AoE potency and inflicts Buffet onto all nearby enemies, causing them to take 20 additional potency from each attack for 6 seconds. Pair it with Wind Spike and/or Shoulder Tackle via Echo of Wind (below) for heavy burst damage.
  Hellfire Kick simply deals 300 potency to the first target struck (your selected target, if in range) and 200 to each other target, but has a doubled Critical Hit multiplier, meaning that it could ultimately crit for over an effective 900 potency. It's the cackling glee skill, when one is lucky. Each variant is now a very strong capstone skill.
• Internal Release is back, and at its former level. It grants 30% Critical Strike chance, which (given the background changes) equates to +15% Bootshine damage. Lasts 20 seconds and has a 90-second cooldown. At level 68 it upgrades to Riddle of <Element>.
  
  
• You can no longer turn off your "Fists of" stances. You default, upon swapping to Monk, to Fists of Earth upon its acquisition, and Fists of Wind forever after its acquisition. The reason for not defaulting to Fists of Fire will soon be clear.
• Each stance "Increases the maximum <Attack and Movement Speed / Damage / Damage Taken Reduction > to be granted by Greased Lightning by a third, and generates half that maximum instantly with the remainder being distributed over each level of Greased Lightning." It may sound complicated, but it's just a "Focus on X, and get half of X free" stance. This allows you to rapidly accelerate into GL on a +10% base Attack Speed bonus or blow CDs early in a short fight via a +10% base Damage bonus, etc. You do 0/5/10/15% on unfocused effects and 10/13.33/16.66/20% on the focused effect. It's just a ramp-up QoL change, effectively, atop FoW now increasing max attack speed by 5% baseline instead of only via GL4.
• (It therefore takes at most only ~13 seconds, just over 5 baseline GCDs, from the start of combat to reach full speed when in Fists of Wind, and incidentally the Fists of Fire Damage buff does not stack multiplicatively with GL, as it merely affects GL's Damage buff. With Wind Spike, seen later, one can ramp up about 6 seconds faster (7 seconds total) if still beginning the climb with a Coeurl skill at the ready, or potentially without even losing speed after a Tornado Kick, the direct damage of which has been replaced continued Attack and Movement Speed, making it benefit far less from raid buffs and disrupt rotational pace even less. (It also increases passive Chakra generation, leaving it still relatively strong over melee downtime when unable to immediately continue.)
  
  
  
• Tackle Mastery is back, granted at level 64, but not quite as it was.
• Fists of Earth - The Breaker's Keel: Rushes target and delivers an attack with a potency of 100. Additional Effect: Knocks the target back for a distance based on its maximum HP versus damage dealt dealing up to 200 potency of damage to enemies it crosses and knocking them back as well. Additional Effect: Deals additional potency based on proximity, to a maximum of 200 additional potency total and applies Fractured. Fractured Effect: Guarantees positionals against the target. Duration: 6 seconds.
• Fists of Fire - Red Lotus: Rushes target and delivers an attack with a potency of 100. Additional Effect: Instantly consumes and deals the damage of your periodic effects on the target and inflicts the Red Lotus debuff to all enemies nearby. Red Lotus effect: Deals periodic damage based on that of the effect consumed by the initial Red Lotus attack, split among each enemy.
• Fists of Wind - Wind Spike: Rushes target and deals an attack with a potency of 150 to all enemies in a line to and 10 meters beyond the target. Additional Effect: Grants Greased Lightning. Additional Effect: Grants Featherfoot.
• Intended resultant priorities: (ST) Use Red Lotus soon after a buffed Demolish a buffed Demolish or to end Riddle of Fire (below). Use Fists of Wind with TK if you cannot use Tackle immediately after a buffed Demolish and/or can immediately replace lost GL without losing a DK-Bootshine pair in PB. Use Breaker's Keel if neither is possible or if you or your party need the positional bonus. (AoE) Use BK on targets of high maximum HP but at %HP if they can still be knocked back and you can aim them into very nearby enemies. Use RL soon after a buffed Demolish or to end Riddle of Fire. Use WS otherwise, especially during Riddle of Wind.
  
  
• Riddle of Earth is replaced by Echo of Elements, which has an additional effect which can be used once every 30 seconds. These available effects vary with stance.
• Clash of Earth (Fists of Earth) - While in Fists of Earth taking or avoiding damage greater which, if unmitigated, would have dealt more than 20% of your HP, will generate's Clash of Earth to enemies who attacked you or within 8 meters of you when you were attacked. Targets affected have positionals guaranteed against them for 6 seconds.
• Double of Wind (Fists of Wind) - While in Fists of Wind, your <Element> Tackle will be replaced with two charges of Double of Wind, which allows you the movement of Shoulder Tackle twice more, though at no potency, after using The Breaker's Keel, Red Lotus, or Wind Spike, using the same action key while the other is on cooldown. It's free mobility, if you don't need the anti-positional of CoE or the healing from RoF.
• Body of Fire (Fists of Fire) - While in Fists of Fire, Mantra is replaced after usage with Body of Fire, which causes you and those within 5 meters of you to heal for 25% of damage dealt for 8 seconds.
  
  
• Riddle of Fire is replaced by Riddle of the Elements, which replaces Internal Release with a further effect based on one's stance. Like Internal Release, each lasts 20 seconds.
• Riddle of Wind (from Fists of Wind) "Causes each attack you make against to cumulatively increase the potency of your every sequential damaging action by 30 potency, increasing by a further 10 with each damaging action used under Riddle of Wind." Use this in combination with a ton of oGCDs (including TFC), ideally timed to get as many auto-attacks in window as possible, and end with Tornado Kick for an extra damaging action. This is the only variant which, if performed poorly, could be worth less than the original Internal Release.
• Riddle of Fire (from Fists of Fire) "Causes your every weaponskill to duplicate and deal 15% of its direct damage over a further 9 seconds. Each attack under Riddle of Fire consumes this periodic effect, instantly dealing a tick of its damage." This is a noticeable increase from the ~15% damage buff of Internal Release, especially in that the damage rapidly ramps up, to almost double the direct damage in 9 attacks. End the period with a Leaden Fist or 6SS for ridiculous results.
• Riddle of Earth (from Fists of Earth) "Causes you to increase your Defense, Magic Defense, and Attack Power by 20%. Damage *absorbed over the duration further increases each. While active, you cannot benefit from positional bonus potency." This outperforms the other two only when tremendous raid damage is to be taken, usually from baiting mechanics. Immediately after, one can then quite possibly survive a minor tankbuster by taking a tether or the like. Par for the course, this Earth skill is utility-minded. It is not difficult to pull off, only rare in its ability to fully compete with the other two's optimal performance.
  
  
  
• Chakra now has a maximum of 7 stacks and, more importantly, now hold decimal values between its integer amounts. This limit increases to 14 after using TK or Anatman upon acquisition of Deep Meditation II.
• TFC and Enlightenment each now simply "Consumes up to 7 Chakra, dealing 75/45 potency per Chakra spent." One should still bank for raid buffs, but there is no excuse for letting it overcap, nor any RNG to make that a real threat (see below).
• Meditation removed as a button, replaced with the trait Meditation. This trait "Generates Chakra passively and continuously when not under the global recast timer, at a rate of 2 Chakra per time equal to your global recast time." (This is a faint nerf to generation under GL0, but a buff otherwise at 150 ppgcd. Incidentally, it noticeably reduces the cost of clipping. Note that this is truly, or as nearly as possible to, continuous, ticking at a .1 of Chakra every 20th of a GCD.)
• Deep Meditation now simply causes all potency you deal to progress you towards the next Chakra, at a rate of 1 Chakra's progress per 1000* raw potency dealt. Deep Meditation II increases generation to per 700* potency dealt. "Skills which guarantee a Critical Hit generate proportionately more progress." (*Exact values TBD.)
  This use of raw potency favors Fists of Wind and (Skill) Speed, especially during time between oGCD burst, balancing them far nearer to Fists of Fire and Critical Hit and Direct Hit, while largely ignoring the effect of any and all raid buffs on Chakra generation.
• Brotherhood now "Allows Meditation to continue even while under the global recast timer and duplicates the effects of your Deep Meditation to be split among you and your party, allowing your allies to generate potency towards unlocking further Chakra." This includes healing spells. Because Monk has the lowest raw potencies of any job (due to its huge modifiers), it is always better in 8-man play or among, ideally, a bursting tank (especially a DRK), a nuke-happy WHM with Afflatus, and a Bunshin-TCJing Ninja. Heck, a WHM could pad your Brotherhood by spamming AoE heals. Brotherhood's raid damage bonus is gone, replaced by additional pDPS. The party is here to pad us, not vice-versa.
• Anatman is again an Ability, not a Weaponskill. It not only prevents GL from ticking down, but causes it to continuously increase in duration ("ticking up") at twice that speed while doubling the effectiveness of Meditation and generating a stack of Greased Lightning once per GCD's time spent channeling not under the GCD. It also allows for the overfill of Chakra, to a maximum of effectively 14, turning the overcharged Chakra shadowy/celestial in appearance. These will turn back to their normal color as they are consumed. (Note that it still provides no Chakra or Greased Lightning until off the global cooldown, making it pointless to weave for "free" Chakra or GL. You can merely time it more flexibly, which can help with saving you from GL depletion.)
• As an intentional "unintentional" bug we'll never fix, 6SS doesn't actually stop the effects of Fluid Form over its second GCD, allowing combat to sync just one GCD off of normal rotation if one prefers. Moreover, its potency has been increased to 420 to compensate for the slight further cost to Chakra generation during downtime. Incidentally, this gives it a few more situations where it's worth using even without forced downtime.

Need to Fix:

• TK
• Stance swapping. (Too obligatory, due to the effects being overly direct. You'd want to be in FoW for all but your strongest GCDs (including what oGCDs occur over them), making swaps between FoF and FoW incredibly frequent.)
• Potencies. This put oGCD potency way up there. Monk has lost a 5% damage modifier overall (as GL has been reduced to 5/10/15%, compensated for only by a +5% Damage baseline, each, on acquiring the GL2 and GL3 traits), but it still might not be enough to compensate for the new Tornado/Hellfire/Axe Kick, Breaker's Keel/Red Lotus/Wind Spike, or Riddle of Earth/Fire/Wind. The passive Damage bonuses, too, may have to go.
• Anatman in progress.

Result of Changes:

• Large QoL buffs. No more Form Shift spam.
• Perfect Balance smoothed out and made more frequent.
• Tornado Kick less obligatory.
• A lot more free mobility. You move faster as you punch faster.
• TK is just... sigh... free potency.

Still want:

• Light/Dark Chakra.
• Superbeastmonk Chakra mode.
• A "Mile High Club" feel from more than just burst CDs.
• More control over pacing and macrorotational sync.
• More integral and variable stance play.
• To be able to Double-Bootshine again, ideally as a part of forking rotation.
• GL to be a real and integral resource.

[Shurrikhan]

Edits:

• Revised the dead thread when it came to my attention from being necroed half a year after its getting only a few responses.

[Vendalwind]

Hey, ive been busy lately but ive been intending to do a big look at what youve done at some point. My brief glance told me it looked pretty good but i havent had a chance to try to calculate your changes on a rotation level yet.

Also tbh i think most people burnt out on monk rework ideas via my thread sadly.

[Kabooa]

I can sum up what I'd like in a few basic changes.

Anantman: A 45 second cooldown that exchanges 5 Chakra for Maximum Greased Lightning.
Enlightenment: Reverted to Howling Fist on a 45 second cooldown. When 5 chakra are present, evolves into Enlightenment at much greater potency.
Tornado Kick: Mostly unchanged, but increased potency
Six Sided Star: Reduced to 2.5s recast like all other weaponskills. Deals approximately the same potency/skill as the mainline combos. Generates 1 Chakra.

Goals
A) Introduce some more Resource conflicts in the base kit. Having a competing use of Chakra between Enlightenment and Tornado kick. Forbidden Chakra being your "worst case but I still have to spend" option, in order to move away from the bog standard "Cap and dump".
B) Give Six Sided Star a true and unique purpose through on demand Chakra generation. It also now serves as a stop gap, much in the way Touch of Death used to.
C) Reduce "situational use" on most of the expansions of the Monk Kit. It's okay to have some, but not every single niche need representation (And immediate invalidation via Form Shift)

Personally i'd also revamp Fist and Riddles, but that'd be venturing in TLDR for a simple "I'd rather have this" response.

[DRKoftheAzure]

Burst combo; The Forbidden Chakra -> Tornado Kick -> Six-sided Star(does not consume Greased Lightning stacks at all but maintains them and maintains Twin Snakes buff and Grants Leaden Fist buff at the end) but you need 5 Chakra stacks that is consumed when you start the combo and need 3 or more Greased Lightning Stacks to actually use it.

Also bring back Howling Fist and Steel Peak.

[Haggenn]

I would be so happy with a monk rework. It was my main class since ARR but now it seems so strange, with useless stuffs, rhetorique etc.

Also, loved the ideas, people! If a CM see this thread it would be awesome.

[SpeckledBurd]

I'm all for Monk getting reworked, but this seems needlessly convoluted and probably introduces more problems to Monk than it solves (or actually reintroduces problems that existed before that were fixed).

[Ultimatecalibur]

Shurrikkan, I think your suggestions are really out of wack and don't really think they do anything to fix the major flaws with the Monk. Your Fist stance changes are in many ways untenable.

Your Fists of Earth effect is either pretty much useless (only effecting those debuffs that can be cleansed by Esuna) or potentially overpowered and would require SE go back through all debuffs and determine which ones are ok to halve. It might even require them to create new monk only versions of the debuffs.

The constant benefit of Fists of Fire self-heal effect would make them pretty much immortal and need no healing unless an attack would one shot them.

[Shurrikhan]

Well, that was an unexpected necro. I'd forgotten this thread even existed.

[wereotter]

I would be so happy with a monk rework. It was my main class since ARR but now it seems so strange, with useless stuffs, rhetorique etc.

Also, loved the ideas, people! If a CM see this thread it would be awesome.

I agree, the job needs it. Especially after this expansion with so many skills gutted (mainly the OGCD moves) the job just feels boring and hollow. I need more to do between combo moves than the occasional Forbidden Chakra. I've barely touched the job this expansion after maining it for four years because it feels so dull to play now.