Monk needs a rework in the sense how Machinist received one.
The whole skill design is out of touch with the job's lore to begin with.
First off should Monks have 7 Chakras, not 5 with their skills being properly balanced around this fact.
Secondly should get their weapon combos skills reworked into three different chain combos, using the pvp system for that to reduce 9 skills to just 3, so that the 6 freed up slots can be used to make the Monk more interesting in the aspects of combat support, more than just only mantra n' brotherhood.
They should be made also together with Ninja the most mobile and fastest attacking Jobs in regard of Auto Attacks by having skills to significantly increase temporarely their attack speed or instant recharge specific attack skills to deal more Burst Damage in short time, if having done some right preparations before
The monk gameplay in FF14 should be more like being Son Goku of Dragonball Z, crushing foes with your supernatural strength, tearing them apart into 1000 pieces, smashing enemies into other enemies like a bowling ball into pins to cause collision damage, instead of this permanent silly circling around position dancing, which is already the dragoon's gameplay and fits to it also alot better, because the Job has more range and is currently more mobile, than the monk is and has more Defense, so it can stay longer close ranged as well.
Grammar Correction to this point, written first on IPhone with dumb Auto Correction on xD
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The monk just feels not right, its missing its potentials to feel being well designed with skills that just feel not being pointless or in combat counterproductive to use to to jou losing dps, just for a laughable inferior burst skill, which only feels good, if you are lucky to direcly hit critically with it to have a chance at dealing like 50-60k damage blows with a TK, whle for example a Machinist needs just to press only 2 buttons to get this and can do it from range outside of any danger, while monks have to encircle their targets like idiots permanently in closest rang, just to be able to deal their best possible damage, even if that means for them taking the risk of face tanking a lethal Aoe Attack, just to get that best burst attack out when yo have just your chance to do it, hoping than no disturbing enemy attack comes, when you decide to go all out with a optimal positioned TK, whil BH is on, dps stance on, fire enigma on ect to get the most out of your GL sacrifice n dps loss, until its maxed again.
Instead of using GL should cost TK just Chakra 1 to seven and based on how much Chakra you have at your disposal, should gain TK more potency.
Base Potency 300, every Chakra used for TK increases TK by 100 Potency, so at 7 Chakra should hit TK with 1000 Potency, making it worth it to wait on getting max Chakra, before doing burst damage with your nost powerful kick attack Monks have that shout send hit targets flying doing collision damage to targets in line of sight letting you feel being really powerful in a way only monks can feel like.
That second new max chakra skill we got that kind of looks like a Mini-Kamehame Ha definetely needs more range, like kind of double its range and monks should get a trait that reduces the chakra skill costs from 5 to 2, so that these skills can get used for a burst phase multiple times, before running out of chakra, so max 3 times to more times with brotherhood active gaining chakra with the help of others for a longer lasting chakra burst phase for you.
Skills to look at:
Arm of the Destroyer > Should slow hit targets to make this skill useful and competitive again.
Rockbreaker > should evolver under max chakra to Groundbreaker, dealing guaranteed critical damage with bleeding dot to 5 targets.
Demolish > should evolve to Devastation under max Chakra for a stronger and faster DoT effect
Fist of Stances > Should get Fist of Water Style added for a gentle fist style that attacks enemy chakra points to weaken and interrupt them.
Tackles > should gain back their elemental stance based effects
Mantra > should get merged with the old Purification kind of but instead make temporealy immune to all but negative effects, except combat design coded ones, and merge it with the skilk that makes u immune to pulls, pushes that is currently a role skill - role skills should get merged for all jobs into thei individul skills - theres no reason for it why something obsolete like role skills should exist, when their effects could be all part of an individual skill of the jobs.
Howling Fist should get reimplemented as an chakra basecd upgrade of Snap Punch to hit all targets in line of sight.
Formshift/Perfect Balance > just remove formshift, replace it with a skill that increases your attack speed drastically and change Perfect Balance to a charge skill with 2 changes, no need anymore for Formshift then
Dragon Kick > should get based on stance a different effect to makes its use more versatile and interesting as opener or as combo bridge skill between chain combos
Meditation > should get a trait that makes it do more than only charging chakra, like gaing bach some health and losing conditions, cleansing your mind and body when you meditate, makes sense, with the heals becoming with more chakra slightly stronger.
Elixier Field > for the love of god, rename this skill xD so totally unfitting, unless it would be an aoe heal skill, but its a dps skill dealing aoe damage, for more front combat support it would be even very good if monks would have 1 aoe heal to heal themself and othee close range buddies , call it then Energy Share and change its animation to look less stupid attacking the ground under your feet >_>
Riddle of Skills > add the missing Riddle of Wind and Water Skills for that would be space there when the 9 weapon skills get merged to 3 pvp like chain combos.
Anatnan and 4th GL, change 4th GL to be 4th GLand stopping the GL timer for all stances and Anatnan is just the activator mode, using Anatnan as a Mode Skill should come then with pros n cons, so that players also will want to deactivate it
Pro: Grants all Stances a 4th GL and no GL timer so it can't run out with later skills added that requre 4 GL to use on the way to Lvl 90 in the future for 6.0
Con: Activating Anatnan should decrease your defense significantly and conditions on you can't be cleansed while its on, turning you more into a glass cannon that dies quicker in this mode for its increased dps gain.
Six Sided Star > should be a more powerful version of TK (up to 1500 potency) that should only be useable if you landed a full sequence of all 3 chain combos and a TK without being hit bey AoEs in between, with the positive side effect of recharging all your skills by a certain amout of seconds helping them to recharge faster so that skills like brotherhood, mantra n the riddles can be reused quicker under a perfect skill sequence without being hit by something that wasn't directly targeted at you. If you get hit by AoE, begin from new with the first Chain Combo to build up the perfect momentum for Six Side Star as ultimate Chain Combo Finishing Move. ( Giving you the Xell Dincht vibes when perfoming his chain combot limit finishing it with an ultimate move at the end, or like the same feeling with Tifa, when you do a perfect combo to crush your victim at the end with an almighty Premium Heart into the ground letting it see the radishs from below the ground xD )