Monk Adjustment Feedback 5.1

[gintokiygo]

With the change to Anatman coming in 5.1 Monk is becoming even more clunky then it has been previously. Anatman now requires both the Enmity tick and Server tick to be used successfully in the opener requiring silly pre-pull shenanigans.

This isn't the only issue that Monk faces, it's rotation is stale and it's toolkit is filled with redundant skills that just put bandaids over them. Six Sided Star and Tornado Kick are essentially the same skill but with different end results they both the same issue as Shoha prior to 5.1 (downtime skill) with little use throughout a fight, and for some reason the Development Team isn't doing anything with either of them.

The purpose of this post is to receive Monk feedback in an effort to get the Development Team to see the concerns of the Monk community.

I know there are a few other issues that Monk has but I'm not fully aware of what they are as I am but a simple Samurai main upset with how the Development Team has treated Monk expansion to expansion.

[ZyrinMisharuji]

I mean, in my opinion, they just need to rework 2 skills currently and MNK would feel pretty solid throughout 5.X.

Firstly, Anatman needs to just become an oGCD (maybe with charges) that grant a stack of GL upon use. It would eliminate the clunkiness of the opener and no one would need 3rd party software to optimize it.

Secondly, Tornado Kick NEEDS to be reworked to function like Foul/Xenoglossy on BLM, at least in my opinion. In Stormblood being able to use 2 TKs roughly every 30 seconds felt amazing and almost every MNK loved it. Square felt it was too much and killed it and made TK less viable with the GL management skills we now have. So, by doing this suggested change MNKs could get actual use out of our highest potency move (and it's a reward for maintaining GL). Additionally, for newer MNKs, as they level and get to 60 they'll only have Form Shift for GL upkeep but then as they progress they'll get more and more skills so that they never lose GL and therefore never lose uses of TK. Makes sense, linear progression and all. Furthermore, this would add value to Anatman as we wouldn't need to use it to regain stacks since we shouldn't ever be losing stacks, and in this way Anatman and Form Shift no longer blend their jobs together so each skill will feel unique and serve a specific purpose.

[inhaledcorn]

I mean, in my opinion, they just need to rework 2 skills currently and MNK would feel pretty solid throughout 5.X.

Firstly, Anatman needs to just become an oGCD (maybe with charges) that grant a stack of GL upon use. It would eliminate the clunkiness of the opener and no one would need 3rd party software to optimize it.

Secondly, Tornado Kick NEEDS to be reworked to function like Foul/Xenoglossy on BLM, at least in my opinion. In Stormblood being able to use 2 TKs roughly every 30 seconds felt amazing and almost every MNK loved it. Square felt it was too much and killed it and made TK less viable with the GL management skills we now have. So, by doing this suggested change MNKs could get actual use out of our highest potency move (and it's a reward for maintaining GL). Additionally, for newer MNKs, as they level and get to 60 they'll only have Form Shift for GL upkeep but then as they progress they'll get more and more skills so that they never lose GL and therefore never lose uses of TK. Makes sense, linear progression and all. Furthermore, this would add value to Anatman as we wouldn't need to use it to regain stacks since we shouldn't ever be losing stacks, and in this way Anatman and Form Shift no longer blend their jobs together so each skill will feel unique and serve a specific purpose.

I do like the idea of letting TK being more like Foul: Have your GL upkeep for a while, then get to use a super-powerful attack.

I think Antaman should build Chakra while also freezing GL, but that's just basically combining two different buttons into one. Whether or not that's what MNK needs is up for debate, though. I do like your idea for Six-Sided Star. I would also like to see a disengage for MNK because it doesn't have any ranged attacks, so having higher movements/uptime should make up for it.

[Shurrikhan]

Secondly, Tornado Kick NEEDS to be reworked to function like Foul/Xenoglossy on BLM.

It really doesn't.

Simply seeing a skill more often by turning it into a stackable CD (and yes, that's all Foul/Xeno is, as there is no way you're ever going to drop AF/UI) does little justice to what it could uniquely do or how it could uniquely play.

My reasoning for saying that Anatman was terrible as implemented wasn't because it wasn't superior to Riddle of Earth, it absolutely was. The reason it's terrible as implemented is because of how much worse it was than the buff upkeep skills for other Jobs for one of the shortest buff durations. Dragoon could refresh BotD with a hit of the button in Stormblood and the duration was extended in Shadowbringers (with the coming patch making it basically permanent), Black Mage could refresh Enochian with Transpose in Stormblood and got Umbral Soul in Shadowbringers which was even better, and Huton for Ninja is the longest buff in the game and it could be refreshed with Mudras twice over if the phase happened to take long enough for it to fall off. All of these allowed them full mobility and the only requirement was to hit a button.

So it was terrible as implemented for not turning GL into a non-mechanic as AF/UI (cannot drop unless stunned for 6+ seconds just before Fire), BotD (refreshes for more duration than its own CD), and Huton (costing only 40 potency per minute to maintain) were? Should all three just turn just turn into permanent effects, or even traits so they stop using up our gauge space? At least we later got the Form Shift buff to bring our mechanic down to par.

[ZyrinMisharuji]

It really doesn't.

Simply seeing a skill more often by turning it into a stackable CD (and yes, that's all Foul/Xeno is, as there is no way you're ever going to drop AF/UI) does little justice to what it could uniquely do or how it could uniquely play.

While I agree with you that there are potentially more interesting things to do with it (none that I can think of admittedly) having it function similar to Foul/Xenoglossy is probably the easiest thing they could do to make the skill viable and kind of give us the feeling we had back when we could do like 2 TKs every 30 seconds or so. I don't want the devs to spend a bunch of resources on somewhat easy solutions. If they're gonna overhaul a job it's better to do it on the patch for an expansion rather than mid-expac in my opinion. Right now I feel like getting Anatman fixed so it doesn't feel awful to use should be their number 1 priority. After that I feel like most people can agree they want TK to be more usable as it's the strongest move we have but it also contradicts pretty much our entire kit, so that should be their 2nd priority to get fixed. After that they can look at everything else in the job and plan overhauls for 6.0

Honestly, if Anatman was just, for example, an oGCD that gave a stack of GL (maybe give it 2 charges or something) so the opener wouldn't feel awful to use and if TK functioned like Foul/Xeno would anyone really so dissatisfied with the job that they'd heavily prefer other jobs to MNK (as I know a lot of people swapped from MNK at 5.0 and are pretty angry about new Anatman so they'd rather play something like DRG that takes less effort, feels less clunky, and does comparable DPS)? Could you be content with MNK until 6.0 if those changes occurred or would you still want a bunch of other changes before being content with it?

[Shurrikhan]

While I agree with you that there are potentially more interesting things to do with it (none that I can think of admittedly) having it function similar to Foul/Xenoglossy is probably the easiest thing they could do to make the skill viable and kind of give us the feeling we had back when we could do like 2 TKs every 30 seconds or so. I don't want the devs to spend a bunch of resources on somewhat easy solutions. If they're gonna overhaul a job it's better to do it on the patch for an expansion rather than mid-expac in my opinion. Right now I feel like getting Anatman fixed so it doesn't feel awful to use should be their number 1 priority. After that I feel like most people can agree they want TK to be more usable as it's the strongest move we have but it also contradicts pretty much our entire kit, so that should be their 2nd priority to get fixed. After that they can look at everything else in the job and plan overhauls for 6.0.

Okay, so just a band-aid fix. That's fair, then.

Honestly, if Anatman was just, for example, an oGCD that gave a stack of GL (maybe give it 2 charges or something) so the opener wouldn't feel awful to use and if TK functioned like Foul/Xeno would anyone really so dissatisfied with the job that they'd heavily prefer other jobs to MNK (as I know a lot of people swapped from MNK at 5.0 and are pretty angry about new Anatman so they'd rather play something like DRG that takes less effort, feels less clunky, and does comparable DPS)? Could you be content with MNK until 6.0 if those changes occurred or would you still want a bunch of other changes before being content with it?

I'd still prefer it be done a little differently (in a way that feels a bit more uniquely part of the Monk toolkit, specifically, through synergies and priorities therein), but I think we're be looking at similar scopes of change, at least. I'd need more, but not much more for within the expansion. By the next, though...

I feel like many of the Anatman changes are going to rely on some readiness to accept TK back into macrorotation, however. That, or TK's going to have to largely be scrapped and/or Anatman left redundant. Neither seems an acceptable outcome to me.

I feel we shouldn't be content with changes that still fail to make use of GL as a resource, and not just a (free) maintenance (non)mechanic, or at least double down on GL's maintenance aspects to make that an actual engaging part of play. Similarly, Chakra should feel like a more integral part of play instead of just RNG bonus damage, Perfect Balance should likely be smoothed just a bit (e.g. Chimera stance for first attack after ending), and our positional bonuses and concerns shouldn't be 70-80% just Leaden Fist; the ppm strength of that skill should be spread out a bit.

[ZyrinMisharuji]

Okay, so just a band-aid fix. That's fair, then.



I'd still prefer it be done a little differently (in a way that feels a bit more uniquely part of the Monk toolkit, specifically, through synergies and priorities therein), but I think we're be looking at similar scopes of change, at least. I'd need more, but not much more for within the expansion. By the next, though...

I feel like many of the Anatman changes are going to rely on some readiness to accept TK back into macrorotation, however. That, or TK's going to have to largely be scrapped and/or Anatman left redundant. Neither seems an acceptable outcome to me.

I feel we shouldn't be content with changes that still fail to make use of GL as a resource, and not just a (free) maintenance (non)mechanic, or at least double down on GL's maintenance aspects to make that an actual engaging part of play. Similarly, Chakra should feel like a more integral part of play instead of just RNG bonus damage, Perfect Balance should likely be smoothed just a bit (e.g. Chimera stance for first attack after ending), and our positional bonuses and concerns shouldn't be 70-80% just Leaden Fist; the ppm strength of that skill should be spread out a bit.

I can agree to that. I would prefer that Anatman and TK be reworked first then have them move on to other parts of our kit and maybe slowly overhaul MNK over the course of 5.X. I do want TK to feel unique and not a copy-paste of another skill, but my worry is that they'd spend too many resources trying to completely transform the skill this expansion instead of devoting those resources to fixing other parts of the job/other jobs. I would rather deal with TK being a copy-paste from 5.1 or 5.15 until 6.0 than not see it get any change until either really late in this expansion or until 6.0, wouldn't you agree?

As for making use out of GL as a resource, I feel like there isn't much you can do to make it feel like an actual resource (but I'm not too creative of a person). I feel like a way to make it feel a little more impactful is by reworking the stances. In my earlier post I mention making GL4 a normal trait like the previous GL increases then reworking the stances to where FoF is stronger in burst (buff) windows and FoW stronger for sustained DPS between those windows. Would kill two birds with one stone in my opinion as GL would interact with more skills and make them useful in different situations rather than what it currently is of, sit in FoW forever and never drop GL4 if you can help it. It wouldn't be a direct involvement of GL as a resource but it would still make it more involved than it currently is.

[SpeckledBurd]

So it was terrible as implemented for not turning GL into a non-mechanic as AF/UI (cannot drop unless stunned for 6+ seconds just before Fire), BotD (refreshes for more duration than its own CD), and Huton (costing only 40 potency per minute to maintain) were? Should all three just turn just turn into permanent effects, or even traits so they stop using up our gauge space? At least we later got the Form Shift buff to bring our mechanic down to par.

Yes more Niche skills on one job that already has a ton of Niche Skills for the exact same purpose is bad. And it's actually worse when other Job mechanics can easily be worked around with powerful broadly useful skills.

I know you love screaming about "Muh job diversity" but Job diversity can shove it when all it works out into in actuality is one job is being arbitrarily lacking functionality because its activation requirements for abilities are asinine. It was stupid with Riddle of Earth in Stormblood needing you to take a hit as your only means of refreshing stacks and no one else had to, doubly so when you were actively punished for taking those hits by Vuln Stacks or other debuffs and it would be just as bad if our other option was having to stand in place while no one else was even mildly inconvenienced.

By all means, keep Greased Lightning as much of a Non-factor to upkeep now forever, because at least in the future I can hope for some new skills that I actually get to use rotationally instead of more terrible upkeep skills. Maybe they'll trim some of the ones we have and give us some of the other utility we lack like a damage free movement skill that I don't have to cram in my burst phase!

Probably not because the devs continue to prove they neither know what to do with Monk nor particularly care, but I can hope!

[ZyrinMisharuji]

Yes more Niche skills on one job that already has a ton of Niche Skills for the exact same purpose is bad. And it's actually worse when other Job mechanics can easily be worked around with powerful broadly useful skills.

I know you love screaming about "Muh job diversity" but Job diversity can shove it when all it works out into in actuality is one job is being arbitrarily lacking functionality because its activation requirements for abilities are asinine. It was stupid with Riddle of Earth in Stormblood needing you to take a hit as your only means of refreshing stacks and no one else had to, doubly so when you were actively punished for taking those hits by Vuln Stacks or other debuffs and it would be just as bad if our other option was having to stand in place while no one else was even mildly inconvenienced.

By all means, keep Greased Lightning as much of a Non-factor to upkeep now forever, because at least in the future I can hope for some new skills that I actually get to use rotationally instead of more terrible upkeep skills. Maybe they'll trim some of the ones we have and give us some of the other utility we lack like a damage free movement skill that I don't have to cram in my burst phase!

Probably not because the devs continue to prove they neither know what to do with Monk nor particularly care, but I can hope!

I don't even think it's a diversity thing so much as having a job with a cohesive kit. Additionally, with RoE in SB I didn't mind it because it offered a way to maintain GL during downtime since generally unavoidable damage would go out prior or during the downtime, so you'd pop it to keep GL through it (if possible, if not just TK).

I just want MNK to not feel terrible in the opener and not have skills that completely clash with one another. SSS clashes with Anatman now because it further delays getting GL procs. TK pretty much just clashes with our entire kit. Anatman also clashes with Form Shift. Then we have RoE that also refreshes stacks + the 30 seconds of True North. It's just a cluster of skills with no thought put into them and how they interact with the rest of the job's skills. It's sad when MNK is one of the OG jobs but probably has the least cohesive kit in the entire game.

[Shurrikhan]

I know you love screaming about "Muh job diversity"

Expecting that when a mechanic is implemented and has historically been vital to the job it should not then be reduced to the only the pretense of a mechanic (outside of potentially costing a GCD of PB's DK-LF spam) =/= "screaming about job diversity".

It's a Chekhov's gun situation. Why have the mechanic at all if it amounts to nothing but a wind-up penalty at the beginning of a fight and create a 3-step (SSS, TK, Anatman) means of mitigating downtime loss where it could, at this point, have carried roughly the same nuance with only a single key?

Our difference is only in that I'd rather use what we've had effectively, without bloat. Meanwhile, you'd apparently rather use... anything divorced from forms, stances, and GL--all things that allowed for an enjoyable experience prior to convenience- and utility-bloat--just because you so hate the idea of, say, using GL as a resource instead of merely maintenance? That's the only difference here. I want something cohesive that doesn't have to abandon what has already been shown to work, trimming the bloat and fleshing out the functional parts instead of kneecapping them. You want something cohesive with... an entirely different set of legs?