Quote Originally Posted by Satarn View Post
The blunt debuff has been changed most likely because "well, we're removing piercing and slashing, so leaving this would be weird", but yeah, that's a really dumb reason. Leaden Fist doesn't just make MNK's gcd rotation more static, it's also responsible for the whole Anatman opener issue, due to making Leaden Bootshine spam in PB optimal.
Its also weird that while each expansion has seen positional value decrease, DK-LF then offers us roughly some 200 potency over not using it at every opportunity. Using DK in place of BS is, in a sense, a positional. You previously could delay DK refresh (Flank) with an overextended rotation, at little potency cost (except where oGCDs are coming back up) at low SkS tiers or faint bonus at mid and a then-typical positional bonus at high SkS tiers. Having the choices of double-Boot (or "Demo-drop" where you let DK fade only for itself, Demolish's mere 70 potency, and at worst an auto-attack, at lower SkS) and full DK maintenance so close in potency for so many SkS tiers allowed for flexible positioning -- a (risky) 25-60 potency bonus to use, generally on par with a typical positional. Now, we're obliged to do the opposite, at some 3 to 8 times the potency at risk. Instead of allowing for the skills themselves to give us freedom of positioning, and the closest we had to freedom to align ourselves to our CDs, internal balance was replaced with "80+% of all your positioning impact is now in a single skill and a core mechanic is nullified half the time." That's horrible design.

And the sad thing is that Leaden Fist doesn't need to strip us of that positional freedom, but with so many already redundant tools, there's scarcely anything else Monks would have to look forward to in their blow-by-blow rotation. Our frequent damage CDs are mostly removed, PB's cooldown was doubled, we lost our earlier core CD and synergy with our Deep Meditation procs, and GL is no longer a resource to maintain, gamble, or work around (only to build once and then leave, essentially, a non-mechanic).