Monk Needs a Complete Rework

[Kolsykol]

I'd appreciate Greased Lightning getting a serious duration buff. Stop Monks from rushing off ahead of the tank in dungeons because they can't bear the thought of losing those stacks, and proceed to royally screw me over in trying to pull.

I'd also appreciate a savage nerf to greased lightning, something like "need to build six stacks for half the effect, and only lasts 7 seconds". But that's probably me being exceptionally bitter at the moment over a Monk rushing ahead of me in a dungeon because he couldn't bear the thought of losing stacks, and proceeding to royally screw me over.

Wtf lol why are people rushing ahead?
You can easily keep stacks up with Form Shift.
Unless it's lower level dungeons and you don't have Form Shift and the tank is really slow.

GL is becoming a passive in the rework.

Edit: You're really minimizing the whole losing GL stacks thing tho.
I can tell you that it's really annoying too to have a tank that takes forever to pull inbetween groups when you play Monk at lower levels, it's not like we enjoy it either.
Having to constantly build up stacks with every pull isn't just annoying but also messes up our damage.

I tank too and Monks when I tank don't have to do this.

[Sqwall]

I'd appreciate Greased Lightning getting a serious duration buff. Stop Monks from rushing off ahead of the tank in dungeons because they can't bear the thought of losing those stacks, and proceed to royally screw me over in trying to pull.

I'd also appreciate a savage nerf to greased lightning, something like "need to build six stacks for half the effect, and only lasts 7 seconds". But that's probably me being exceptionally bitter at the moment over a Monk rushing ahead of me in a dungeon because he couldn't bear the thought of losing stacks, and proceeding to royally screw me over.

I think you were just with a "bad" monk player. Form shift is very simple to keep you GL up, and I generally use Anatman while I wait for the tank to pull...right into shoulder tackle, and gas peddle on the floor.

[Sqwall]

I'd also appreciate a savage nerf to greased lightning, something like "need to build six stacks for half the effect, and only lasts 7 seconds". But that's probably me being exceptionally bitter at the moment over a Monk rushing ahead of me in a dungeon because he couldn't bear the thought of losing stacks, and proceeding to royally screw me over.

This is wrong direction for monk, for those that main it this would be abysmal and all but put the job into perma-shelf category. You just had a bad monk with you or pre form shift.

[SpeckledBurd]

I'd appreciate Greased Lightning getting a serious duration buff. Stop Monks from rushing off ahead of the tank in dungeons because they can't bear the thought of losing those stacks, and proceed to royally screw me over in trying to pull.

I'd also appreciate a savage nerf to greased lightning, something like "need to build six stacks for half the effect, and only lasts 7 seconds". But that's probably me being exceptionally bitter at the moment over a Monk rushing ahead of me in a dungeon because he couldn't bear the thought of losing stacks, and proceeding to royally screw me over.

Even if it was a terrible Monk pulling ahead of you I genuinely don't understand how you're getting screwed over by anyone else trying to pull. It's not hard to establish aggro if someone accidentally or even intentionally pulls for you with how high aggro generation is now and there's so many walls in dungeons that it's nearly impossible to have more than two packs of adds at a time.

[Ekimmak]

Even if it was a terrible Monk pulling ahead of you I genuinely don't understand how you're getting screwed over anyone else trying to pull. It's not hard to establish aggro if someone accidentally or even intentionally pulls for you with how high aggro generation is now and there's so many walls in dungeons that it's nearly impossible to have more than two packs of adds at a time.

I'll give you that it's not difficult, but there's a lot of little things that add up into one major frustration. When someone else dashes ahead and takes the alpha:
1) I do not have a full grip of the aggro list. Everyone is aggro'd onto them, so I can't at a glance tell if I have full threat.
2) My Snap Aggro ability no longer works. Because I do not have a full grip of the aggro list.

Now, these aren't exactly "going to wipe the run" problems. But they are things I have to work harder for. Which could be avoided if the damn Monk would just wait half a second. "No! And don't blame me, blame Square Enix for designing greased lightning that way!"

This was on my DRK. Which has it's own problems, mainly in that everything I have has a 15 yalm range, which is outranged by Shoulder Tackle. And because I live in Australia, I have server latency, meaning that everyone is actually further ahead than I am, and so even when I look like I'm neck and neck, they're actually a few yalms ahead, and already grabbing the alpha strike.

I dunno, I think it's more the principle of the Monk refusing to curb themselves on "the tank can deal with it" that makes me incredibly angry, than any inconvenience it actually caused.

[Heidrek]

I dunno, I think it's more the principle of the Monk refusing to curb themselves on "the tank can deal with it" that makes me incredibly angry, than any inconvenience it actually caused.

I feel like this issue is independent of anything this game does or does not offer.

Here’s what I’m imagining: Anatman instantly grants max GL stacks.

GL stacks as we know it are going away.

[Sqwall]

I dunno, I think it's more the principle of the Monk refusing to curb themselves on "the tank can deal with it" that makes me incredibly angry, than any inconvenience it actually caused.

Hmmm I don't have this issue so much when I play Monk, and that's quite a bit. I use the tools that are there to keep my stacks up before every encounter. And if I lose my stacks I have tools to get them back pretty fast. Although I would say that I am guilty of this but only when I play with friends and nobody cares who pulls as that's what makes it fun.

May I ask what duty/dungeon you were in and level? Reason i'm asking is I would like to emphasize we don't need to further ruin the job just to prevent monks from pulling first to keep the GL timer moving. Pre 50 this could be another story as no Form Shift or Perfect Balance. That's why i'm asking.

[SargeTheSeagull]

Here’s what I’m imagining: Anatman instantly grants max GL stacks. Perfect balance puts you into fists of fire (I’ll get there). Let’s assume GL just speeds you up and all weaponskill potencies are increased. Lets also say GL4 is default and doesn’t change based on fists stance. Let’s also say the chakra gauge has say 14 chakras instead of five, which makes more sense in the lore. Meditate is on a 55 second cool down or so and fills the chakra gauge in or out of combat. You start the fight in Fists of Earth. Going through all three forms allows you to use forbidden chakra which consumes some of your chakras, grants you a damage buff and puts you into Fists of Wind for the next few seconds. Forbidden chakra turns into tornado kick during fists of wind. Going through all three forms twice during fists of wind let’s you use tornado kick, granting you another damage buff and consumes around half of your chakras and puts you into Fists of Fire. TK turns into Six Sided Star. Going through all three forms three times in fists of fire lets you use SSS consuming all of your chakras and has absurd potency. Like Hyosho Ranyu level potency. After that it starts over.

[IruruCece]

The news that Greased Lightning is essentially going away makes me even less interested in returning to current Monk, lol

I want to be hopeful. Because so many of the new tools SE gave us in ShB were based around maintaining GL, this change alone is probably the first time the dev team has forced themselves to take a hard look at the entire toolkit of the job, and they might actually do some interesting things with it. Unfortunately, my expectations at this point are pretty much rock bottom.

Ideally, this would be the perfect opportunity to finally and utterly remove the elemental stances from the game and replace them with OGCDs we've lost over the years. In practice, I think what we can expect is an extreme streamlining of the job, which might make it "feel" better to play at the cost of some of its identity. I've started playing Machinist more, and I have a blast with it, but I've heard people with far more experience with the job from its introduction complain that the job's identity took a hit with ShB, making it almost too simple and straightforward to play.

My worry is that they go ham in de-emphasizing positionals in order to cater to players that bounced off the job years ago and never came back to it. One of my favorite parts of the current monk "feel" is the need to be mobile in order to get the best performance out of every strike. Even though I've had fun with other jobs in the game, no melee DPS had that same "dance" next to the mob, and it would be disappointing to see it go away for me.