Monk Needs a Complete Rework

[Shurrikhan]

A brief plug:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-NuMonk-Rework

[meowmaou]

I think MNK was closer to finding its groove near the end of ShB, before the EW changes. Some of the EW changes are nice, but they definitely overshot it by removing positionals and oGCDs.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

positional requirements aside, as Monk players can and will argue about that until the cows come home, I feel like, what are to me at least, the more important problems, are what need to be dealt with first... I know that other Monks have already been to talk about it, but I may as well add my opinion onto the pile.

Monk needs more oGCDs than just Chakra RNG, as their is no such thing as to rely on The Forbidden Chakra to be constant enough. Monk feels slow, now, because without oGCDs and regular weave, the illusion of speed has been lost.

Blitz also needs some tweaks. The obvious tweak is to reduce the CD of Perfect Balance down to 30 seconds, and I have seen several Monks say this, which I agree with, and then there is the issue of GCD versus oGCD; with which that I have seen several other Monk players all agree on that Blitzes should be oGCDs. I am not certain about that one, myself, but I trust the word of my fellow Monks.

these two bigger issues aside, I personally think that the Chakra resource itself needs a redesign, to make Chakra more interactive and more of interest(I have a extensive redesign concept for this already written. :Pc), and I also have the controversial opinion that the original Greased Lightning needs to come back.

I also think that Anatman should be given a redesign, Six Sided Star I think is only up for debate, since it is a fair disengage tool, and uh.. Riddles of Earth and Wind? are you two alright? first, Riddle of Earth is kind of awkward, now... I think that for the stacks to be lost when a WeaponSkill is used, should be removed from it.

And Riddle of Wind, I just find to be a terrible bore, and do not see the point of it, all that much. It could at least have a CD of 60 or 120 seconds, just for starters, while I would like to see it either do some thing more of interest, or have a additional effect aside from to increase the frequency of auto-attacks, so that it does some thing more than just that.

[Shurrikhan]

positional requirements aside, as Monk players can and will argue about that until the cows come home, I feel like, what are to me at least, the more important problems, are what need to be dealt with first... I know that other Monks have already been to talk about it, but I may as well add my opinion onto the pile.

Monk needs more oGCDs than just Chakra RNG, as their is no such thing as to rely on The Forbidden Chakra to be constant enough. Monk feels slow, now, because without oGCDs and regular weave, the illusion of speed has been lost.

I'm not sure it needs more oGCD skills. I was initially super pissed about the loss of rotational Elixir Field, as I was about Steel Peak, Howling Fist, and the like back in the day, but after playing without them I've noticed that the number of oGCD presses itself matters far more to me than the variety of oGCDs to separately track. And at this point it does feel, mostly via BS and SotD (and later Brotherhood), that we do have decent control over Chakra intake -- even to the point I'd have no issues with their RNG if our weaponskills just resolved (dealt their damage and gave their Chakra) at more consistent pace.

I don't see why TFC should need to be "constant". Having it being "reliable", on the other hand, only requires a banking margin. If Chakra, for instance, had a maximum of 7 while TFC still cost 5, or if TFC spent 3+ Chakra, it'd be reliable.

I also think that Anatman should be given a redesign, Six Sided Star I think is only up for debate, since it is a fair disengage tool, and uh.. Riddles of Earth and Wind? and you two alright? first, Riddle of Earth is kind of awkward, now... I think that for the stacks to be lost when a WeaponSkill is used, should be removed from it.

I just want to see Anatman and SSS smoothed out. Make SSS an oGCD that adds a GCD's time to your existing time until GCD-refresh.
Take Anatman off the GCD and give it two charges but nerf it slightly to compensate (have it simply inverse drain on Discipline Fist and forms, increasing their durations until they hit maximum, while generating a stack of Meditation per second completed after GCD refresh).
Remove the action-based cap from RoE.
Riddle of Wind... maybe put it on a 45s CD instead --so it at least feels like it's adding apm, if not impact-- or rework it entirely.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

Blitz also needs some tweaks. The obvious tweak is to reduce the CD of Perfect Balance down to 30 seconds, and I have seen several Monks say this, which I agree with, and then there is the issue of GCD versus oGCD; with which that I have seen several other Monk players all agree on that Blitzes should be oGCDs. I am not certain about that one, myself, but I trust the word of my fellow Monks.

Update to that opinion: I have read some debates about 30sec CD Perfect Balance versus 3rd charge Perfect Balance, and now I agree with the Monk players that say that the 3rd charge idea is a bad idea. I think that the CD reduction to 30 seconds is the better idea for Monk, now. Here are a pair of quotes, that put to words why the 3rd charge idea is a bad idea.

3rd charge of PB would 100% be a big mistake. People are complaining about there not being enough to do between Blitzes right now. If PB had 3 charges, you would use all 3 charges in the opener and then wait 2 full minutes to regenerate all 3 charges so you could blow them all at once again during raid buffs. Keeping it at 2 charges ensures you Blitz at least once a minute. At best I think maybe they could reduce the cooldown of PB to 30 seconds, but this would greatly increase the total damage you get from Blitzes, so they would need to be weakened as a result, or Monk's damage would have to be nerfed in other places.

3 charges allows you an incredibly crowded opener with a delayed RoF that fits PR into raid (de)buffs, sure. But you've then 2 minutes til the next full raid window and only 90s til you're capped, forcing you towards the very same extra Solar as before if you want PR under full raid buffs. What's so wrong with just having a (30s CD, 2-charge) macrorotation of Either-Other, Double-Either; Other-Double, Either-Other; Double-Either, Other-Double; etc. Double (Phantom Rush) will still fall within full buffs two-thirds of the time.

It's worth noting here that Yoshida already mentioned that he didn't want Monk's burst to fall solely within raid windows and that Monk was balanced accordingly, no? I'm plenty happy with that identity; it's largely just a matter of then being overtuned in informal and low-man / light-party content. I merely want Blitz a bit more frequent (30s CD) because I enjoy its interactions and a 40s CD extends past both the maximum and theoretical durations of two Demolishes, around which we could otherwise flex PB use a bit more.

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I'm not sure it needs more oGCD skills. I was initially super pissed about the loss of rotational Elixir Field, as I was about Steel Peak, Howling Fist, and the like back in the day, but after playing without them I've noticed that the number of oGCD presses itself matters far more to me than the variety of oGCDs to separately track. And at this point it does feel, mostly via BS and SotD (and later Brotherhood), that we do have decent control over Chakra intake -- even to the point I'd have no issues with their RNG if our weaponskills just resolved (dealt their damage and gave their Chakra) at more consistent pace.

As for that, to be honest.. I see three possible options to sort of fix the APM issue, and restore Monks' illusion of speed. One option is for Monk to be given new oGCDs that have short CDs, a second option would be to make the Blitzes oGCD, while the third option, as you say, would be better Chakra resource generation, that the Monk can rely on to be more consistent, outside of BrotherHood, so that Monks use The Forbidden Chakra more often... I also do not care all that much which one of these options happens, any of them would work.
I just want for Monk to have higher APM again, and regain the illusion of speed that it has lost, so that Monk feels faster, and feels high speed again.

[Marxam]

I'm gonna get my MNK to 90 today (89 atm) if I manage to get in but here are some things I noticed:

-Bosses move and turn a lot making positionals more annoying to achieve and using TN only band-aids the problem
-Removal of positionals is mixed. Personally I would have kept it but removed the chance of gaining chakra via cirts/bootshine and move it to hitting positional exclusively (no potency increase). That means that if you hit those positionals you get one charka regardless of crit removing the RNG of chakra gain entirely, outside of brotherhood.
-Riddle of Earth is questionable since it suggest that MNK should be eating pointblank aoes since the dmg reduction is very strong (60% at 3 stacks). I guess greedy MNK's will appreciate it and healers adjust.
-Thunderclap is my only real complaint. It needs a target to dash to but if that target is out of range then you have no dash. IMO it should work like DNC dashes because atm its clunky, especially on controller where in full parties its very hard to target a party member to dash to.
-Perfect Balance being on 40 secs is bad since your opener is scuffed. It either needs a 3rd charge or 30 sec cd to line up with RoF.
-Six-sided Star is still terrible to use.
-Anatman needs to be on a shorter cd or do something else like reduce PB recast timers while in anatman.

These are the only issues I see with the class so far in majority of content, i.e. dungeons, MSQ, open-world, etc. I'm sure it will change slightly in the 6.05, or at least I'm hoping, but thunderclap is really my only issue with the job. I've been in countless dungeons where the tank is mass pulling but is so far ahead that I can't dash to them. Yes you can dash to the adds in most cases but you will still be behind. If they changed it to work like DNC it would be much easier to stay in the mobs and aoe rather than at the rear where you will only hit one mob.

[wereotter]

-Perfect Balance being on 40 secs is bad since your opener is scuffed. It either needs a 3rd charge or 30 sec cd to line up with RoF.

I agree that it's stupid that as-is you'll never align phantom rush with 120 second raid cooldowns, but this is as intended. The developers explicitly stated they designed monk so that it woudn't align with raid buffs. Personally I think this is a really questionable decision since monks have historically been underrepresented in savage groups that preferred taking jobs with more utility and buffs you can stack, so to have monk be such an outlier will only hurt the job more.

I worked out a bandaid to this, but really we shouldn't have to try to adjust the whole job just to make it work. If you do your first three masterful blitz as rising phoenix, then every phantom rush will happen in riddle of fire, and align with every 120 burst window from that point on. I only mathed it out based on the potencies of the blitz attack plus the bonuses from riddle of fire, though, and it won't be until the 6 minute mark that you're actually doing more overall damage by delaying.

Personally I hope this is just something they realize was a bad decision since the community is doing everything we can to figure out how align the big attacks to the buffs from the rest of the team.

-Removal of positionals is mixed. Personally I would have kept it but removed the chance of gaining chakra via cirts/bootshine and move it to hitting positional exclusively (no potency increase). That means that if you hit those positionals you get one charka regardless of crit removing the RNG of chakra gain entirely, outside of brotherhood.

This one sounds good on paper, but the thing I had to go back and check, every chakra stack currently is worth 68 potency. Gating your chakras entirely being hitting positional attacks, and assuming they were returned for all 6 of the rotation skills, means that you're actually punished more for missing one than you were before. Snap Punch right now has a 60 potency difference between hitting from the flank and not.

[RocciaSolida]

12-01-2019: Monk needs a complete rework
12-12-2021: it still does

[Shurrikhan]

-Removal of positionals is mixed. Personally I would have kept it but removed the chance of gaining chakra via cirts/bootshine and move it to hitting positional exclusively (no potency increase). That means that if you hit those positionals you get one charka regardless of crit removing the RNG of chakra gain entirely, outside of brotherhood.

That's a worst of both worlds, I would think. It'd be greater potency loss (one-fifth a TFC, 68 potency) per missed positional, and would more tangibly affect gameplay such that one feels starved of a core resource if they can't successfully hit all the positionals.

I agree that it's stupid that as-is you'll never align phantom rush with 120 second raid cooldowns, but this is as intended. The developers explicitly stated they designed monk so that it woudn't align with raid buffs. Personally I think this is a really questionable decision since monks have historically been underrepresented in savage groups that preferred taking jobs with more utility and buffs you can stack, so to have monk be such an outlier will only hurt the job more.

I do not understand this community's fixation on getting everything to align under raid buffs even if something is clearly already balanced around not doing so.

To instead balance around that would just make the job more restrictive and essentially axe any benefit in light-party content (in which damage bonuses are fewer anyways and thus being balanced for missed bonuses in 8-man content effectively overpowers one in light-party content, where it does not matter) and remove points of decision for when forced downtime brings one near enough to alignment for it to be potentially worth it over n cycles remaining in the given fight. If you're going to be balanced around the strictures of 8-man content regardless, being purposely desynced merely removes a particular constraint.

That's not to say that constraints are bad--they are, after all, what makes for much of any job's gameplay--but a 'moment of decision' is generally preferable to a mere rigid 'check', at least imo, and here we've more decisions available to make as a result of desync than if it constrained to RoF cycles (especially if with further downtime between).

The issue with the 40s CD, on the other hand, is merely that we so rarely get to see Blitz. A 25, 30, or 35s CD, etc. (or even cooldown-reduction from other skills as to give less power to its opener alone, since you'd essentially enter with fewer than two charges) would therefore be preferable, imo, but not for any need to sync it to RoF or raid (de)buffs.

[wereotter]

I do not understand this community's fixation on getting everything to align under raid buffs even if something is clearly already balanced around not doing so.

In harder content, you want to be able to squeeze out every bit of damage you can. It has a lot of benefits, including making sure you don't hit the enrage timer, but also potentially allowing you to skip certain mechanics. So as a monk, ideally you'd want your hardest hitting move to align with a trick attack, embolden, brotherhood, battle litany, or whatever other buffs the party is throwing out. Since all the buffs stack, you get a lot more out of it if you can get your 1,000 potency phantom rush attack in that window rather than, as the developers designed the job, a 700 potency rising phoenix. It's free damage you're losing out on by playing the job as intended, and if we as a community find a way to get that damage back, it often forces the developer's hand to adjust jobs so that we get that damage.... or they end up nerfing the job so we don't. (see also wind tackle, tornado kick rotation)