Monk Needs a Complete Rework

[Powercow]

Everything Speckled said was true, but I want to focus on one little detail plaguing Monk job design: we have nothing new.

Let's look at Monk's main mechanic: Greased Lightning. Monk is all about GL, keeping it up and wailing away at the enemy. Monk also used to be all about positionals but that's been nerfed into being barely noticeable for the most part. Monk has not one, not two, not three, not four, but *FIVE* damned abilities all tied to the expenditure or maintenance of GL outside of a normal combo, which combined with the longer GL duration means we have tons of leeway on that anyway. We have:

1 - Tornado Kick, which is used as a farewell gift to bosses if we need to disengage.
2 - Six Sided Star, which is used as a farewell gift to bosses if we need to disengage.
3 - Riddle of Earth, which is used if we need to maintain stacks on a boss who we can't target during a phase transition, etc.
4 - Anatman, which is used if we need to maintain stacks on a boss who we can't target during a phase transition, etc.
5 - Form Shift, which is used if we need to maintain stacks on a boss who we can't target during a phase transition, etc.

And these. Are all. Monk. Has gotten. Since. ARR. Outside of an oGCD with Elixir Field all the way back in HW and an AoE second step in our basic combo, everything monk has now was present in ARR, just under a different name.

1-The Forbidden Chakra, the single-target oGCD? You mean Steel Peak? Oh wait that was removed.
2-Enlightenment, the line-AoE oGCD? You mean Howling Fist? Oh wait that was removed. (Also since this shares Chakra with TFC it means it never sees use in single-target situations, so we actually lost an oGCD for most fights.)
3-Tornado Kick being used as an execute (instead of a Greased Lightning spending mechanic)? You mean Mercy Stroke? Oh wait, that was removed.
4-Riddle of Fire and Brotherhood, the DPS-boosting cooldowns? You mean Blood for Blood and Internal Release? Oh wait, those were removed. At least Brotherhood buffs allies slightly, even if it is janky as all hell.
5-[SKILL NOT FOUND], you mean Touch of Death or Fracture? Oh wait we never even got something to replace those. I'm not even going to mention Invigorate or Impulse Drive being useful.

Monk hasn't evolved, if anything it's more basic than at launch.

I liked having to watch my TP on longer fights, knowing when I'd have a chance to rest and restore some, timing Invigorate so I didn't waste any. I liked being able to delay my combo slightly with Fracture and ToD so I could line up a Rockbreaker to come out right when the adds did.

The most clever I ever felt in FFXIV was back during T9, when Nael would jump away sometimes. If you timed a Coeurl stance move just before he jumped, you'd have *just* enough time to do another combo and keep all 3 stacks of GL. This meant that the optimal way to maximize DPS was to actually *not* hit your button for a couple of seconds to line this up. It felt great to do, like I was really drawing every drop I could from the class mechanics. Now if a boss jumps away I have all the options in the world, none of which really matter because Form Shifting 3 times is always the easiest and least costly thing you can possibly do.

I also miss positionals being absolutely painful if you missed them, you had to get super greedy and coordinate with the tanks to turn bosses slightly sometimes to help you out. Now? Well if somehow both charges of True North are on cooldown I also have Riddle of Earth, which *thank heavens* I don't have to think if I might need it to keep my GL stacks and I can just mash it whenever. And if all of those aren't available, oh well, positionals (with the exception of Bootshine, look forward to that being made brain-dead soon too!) aren't as big of a loss anyway these days. Back in ARR if you were going to miss a positional you'd want to use Fracture or even Rockbreaker on single target, assuming your TP could handle it... is the Bard likely to sing a TP song soon? How's the warrior doing, when's Invigorate coming back up, is the boss almost dead, am I going to have a lengthy break to restore TP? LOL NVM I CAN JUST HIT SNAP PUNCH WHO CARES LOL

Now you can argue these mechanics weren't great. They certainly weren't always handled well, like TP during Heavensward was kinda butts. But monk has had *nothing* to replace any of them. Everyone* else has something new. Sure they might have had stuff removed from time to time, and the new thing isn't always super exciting, but damn it it's *something.*

*Does not include Red Mages. I feel bad for them too but at least they only have one expansion cycle to stagnate.

[SpeckledBurd]

Everything Speckled said was true, but I want to focus on one little detail plaguing Monk job design: we have nothing new.

Let's look at Monk's main mechanic: Greased Lightning. Monk is all about GL, keeping it up and wailing away at the enemy. Monk also used to be all about positionals but that's been nerfed into being barely noticeable for the most part. Monk has not one, not two, not three, not four, but *FIVE* damned abilities all tied to the expenditure or maintenance of GL outside of a normal combo, which combined with the longer GL duration means we have tons of leeway on that anyway. We have:

1 - Tornado Kick, which is used as a farewell gift to bosses if we need to disengage.
2 - Six Sided Star, which is used as a farewell gift to bosses if we need to disengage.
3 - Riddle of Earth, which is used if we need to maintain stacks on a boss who we can't target during a phase transition, etc.
4 - Anatman, which is used if we need to maintain stacks on a boss who we can't target during a phase transition, etc.
5 - Form Shift, which is used if we need to maintain stacks on a boss who we can't target during a phase transition, etc.


And these. Are all. Monk. Has gotten. Since. ARR. Outside of an oGCD with Elixir Field all the way back in HW and an AoE second step in our basic combo, everything monk has now was present in ARR, just under a different name.

1-The Forbidden Chakra, the single-target oGCD? You mean Steel Peak? Oh wait that was removed.
2-Enlightenment, the line-AoE oGCD? You mean Howling Fist? Oh wait that was removed. (Also since this shares Chakra with TFC it means it never sees use in single-target situations, so we actually lost an oGCD for most fights.)
3-Tornado Kick being used as an execute (instead of a Greased Lightning spending mechanic)? You mean Mercy Stroke? Oh wait, that was removed.
4-Riddle of Fire and Brotherhood, the DPS-boosting cooldowns? You mean Blood for Blood and Internal Release? Oh wait, those were removed. At least Brotherhood buffs allies slightly, even if it is janky as all hell.
5-[SKILL NOT FOUND], you mean Touch of Death or Fracture? Oh wait we never even got something to replace those. I'm not even going to mention Invigorate or Impulse Drive being useful.

Monk hasn't evolved, if anything it's more basic than at launch.

I liked having to watch my TP on longer fights, knowing when I'd have a chance to rest and restore some, timing Invigorate so I didn't waste any. I liked being able to delay my combo slightly with Fracture and ToD so I could line up a Rockbreaker to come out right when the adds did.

The most clever I ever felt in FFXIV was back during T9, when Nael would jump away sometimes. If you timed a Coeurl stance move just before he jumped, you'd have *just* enough time to do another combo and keep all 3 stacks of GL. This meant that the optimal way to maximize DPS was to actually *not* hit your button for a couple of seconds to line this up. It felt great to do, like I was really drawing every drop I could from the class mechanics. Now if a boss jumps away I have all the options in the world, none of which really matter because Form Shifting 3 times is always the easiest and least costly thing you can possibly do.

I also miss positionals being absolutely painful if you missed them, you had to get super greedy and coordinate with the tanks to turn bosses slightly sometimes to help you out. Now? Well if somehow both charges of True North are on cooldown I also have Riddle of Earth, which *thank heavens* I don't have to think if I might need it to keep my GL stacks and I can just mash it whenever. And if all of those aren't available, oh well, positionals (with the exception of Bootshine, look forward to that being made brain-dead soon too!) aren't as big of a loss anyway these days. Back in ARR if you were going to miss a positional you'd want to use Fracture or even Rockbreaker on single target, assuming your TP could handle it... is the Bard likely to sing a TP song soon? How's the warrior doing, when's Invigorate coming back up, is the boss almost dead, am I going to have a lengthy break to restore TP? LOL NVM I CAN JUST HIT SNAP PUNCH WHO CARES LOL

Now you can argue these mechanics weren't great. They certainly weren't always handled well, like TP during Heavensward was kinda butts. But monk has had *nothing* to replace any of them. Everyone* else has something new. Sure they might have had stuff removed from time to time, and the new thing isn't always super exciting, but damn it it's *something.*

*Does not include Red Mages. I feel bad for them too but at least they only have one expansion cycle to stagnate.

I agree with your first points completely. Five skills that act as "Button to hit after the boss disengages to maintain stacks" is way too many, and the fact that Form Shift didn't gain the effect it got in 5.05 in Stormblood when Black Mage could upkeep Enochian with nothing but Transpose was absurd. The devs adding another one of those skills in Anatman (and arguably two since Six Sided Star has that effect also) was insulting when Black Mage got something as good as Umbral Soul. The trend of Monk losing low level skills and either getting nothing to replace them or only to have something otherwise identical added back to the top end is a problem as well. I was a big fan of Fracture buffering, especially with a high skill speed build.

TP though, I'm indifferent to its loss. There wasn't any additional thought that went into managing it other than "Hit Invigorate at 600 then eventually go dry" while BLM never ran out and Summoner was seemingly MP Neutral at least. Positionals being a pain in the ass is something of a double edged swords, it severely undercuts an aspect of Monks gameplay, but its an aspect of its gameplay that also severely penalized Monk if certain fight mechanics locked you into placed. I'd have preferred if they'd just kept the Damage penalty toned down, but then they made Bootshine's positional the single worst one to miss by an enormous margin.

I also wouldn't say that the other jobs got anything to replace those mechanics so much as they just had their existing mechanics iterated on. Dragoon has Jump as its defining characteristic, so it gets Blood of the Dragon to boost their power and give them a buff to keep in Heavensward, and in Stormblood using those jumps during BotD allows it to enter Life of the Dragon, incentivizing the good play through hitting Jumps on cooldown and promoting upkeep of BotD. Black Mage casts spells, so it gets Enochian to give them more powerful spells incentivizing Enochian upkeep in Heavensward, and in Stormblood Upkeep is further rewarded for doing so with Foul. Further, both jobs get useful, powerful tools to keep those buffs up such as Umbral Soul or enhanced BotD allowing a full refresh. That's good iterative design on existing mechanics, rewarding good play with satisfying skillls.

Monk has never had that good iterative design. It's had Greased Lightning, forms, and many positionals from the beginning which basically made Monk a more complete job than the other in ARR, but while other jobs changed and were iterated on Monk wasn't. We've never gotten further incentive to keep GL like a Foul or a Life of the Dragon. It's only gotten weak skills for GL upkeep that are at odds with each other that were practically designed to inevitably leave situations where upkeep is impossible (Until 5.05 happened and someone on the dev team actually played Monk once). We have satisfying looking skills in Tornado Kick and Six Sided Star, but their use cases basically make them Noob traps to lure people into trying to use them even though they're damage losses outside of narrow circumstances. Satisfying Design for skills like Tornado Kick and Six Sided Star would be gaining effects that let us use the former after upkeeping GL for 45 seconds and the later after hitting a certain number of positionals. The same philosophy should be applied to Deep Meditation, by refreshing Greased Lightning with a Coeurl Form skill it should open a Chakra, rewarding good play rather than leaving us with a bunch of skills that see no use 99% of the time.

Healers: "First time?"

Cute, but Monk had to put up with this nonsense since before the beginning of Stormblood, where as I recall most of the healers were relatively happy except for White Mage and Lilies as they were initially designed. Save the snark until you've kept your problems for a full expansion, let alone nearly 3 years.