Monk Needs a Complete Rework

[Satarn]

However there was another issue with the TK rotation for people that you're forgetting, using TK drops Greased Lightning which has a very tangible feeling on your gameplay. That feeling of losing your stacks has been ingrained into Monk to be awful and tantamount to failure of playing the job correctly. I'd actually say it is the single most awful buff to lose in the game because of it, and it was arguably a biggerer big reason that the TK rotation didn't feel good to use for many than having to do four weaves for one oGCD. This is the primary reason why I and many others fundamentally disagree with the idea of Greased Lightning being a resource to spend rather than a buff to be maintained: losing Greased Lightning is a terrible feeling pretty much by design, and any use of Greased Lightning as a resource is going to cause that to occur regularly.

Further, Greased Lightning 4 being the principal addition to Shadowbringers' Monk exacerbates the feeling of losing your stacks, and therefor that particular unpleasant aspect of the TK rotation in two ways.

I think that's where the matter of taste part really comes into play. I do understand why some people could not like dropping GS, as it's kind of similar to the now removed slow-down on RoF, which was widely disliked(by me as well). I felt however that with PB and RoW, rebuilding GS was fast enough that it didn't feel bad and even thematically was kind of like the MNK taking a quick breather-break after their burst window, before going right back to GS3 speed. I don't really get the part where it felt like "doing something wrong", since you were intentionally dropping those stacks at points when you could regain them quickly.

You are absolutely right that GS4 would be a concern if TK rotation was to make a return of course. Either TK cost would need to be just 3 stacks rather than all of them(although that'd be kind of awkward I guess) or the regain mechanics would need to account for an extra stack - perhaps by making the new RoW replacement a double tap skill like it's predecessor, but with a stack on each hit this time.

However, I'm not really sure if GS4 was even a good addition in the first place tbf. I feel like a higher number of abilities in SB at a slightly higher gcd length, did a better job at making the job feel fast and active as ogcds always have lower input gaps between them than any gcd. Not to say that the speed buff isn't important - they both play parts in making jobs feel fast-paced - but at gcd below 2 seconds weaving becomes an issue, hence why SE pruned MNK's ogcds in SHB which ironically makes the job feel slower.

All that said, it's just pointless rambling at the end of the day. I highly doubt SE would go back on big job changes and "admit their mistake"(not referring to TK or GS4 specifically, just MNK design in general), we'll probably just get another bunch of completely new alterations in 6.0. I'm honestly just insanely jaded and fed up with the design direction in SHB at this point.