Monk Needs a Complete Rework

[SpeckledBurd]

COUGH BUMP THIS TOPIC IS TOO GOOD TO NOT SEE MORE DISCUSSION.

Ahem.

Unfortunately, there's little that can be said at this point that I haven't already said ad nauseum in this thread or in other threads. Monk feedback has been ignored for so long that it feels like providing it is a waste of time to many players.

Something that I don't think has been touched on yet is PB's cooldown. 120 seconds seems a bit excessive when you consider skills like Kassatsu and Meikyo/Ikkishoten. Thoughts?

EDIT: Especially since this is the ONLY other way to ramp up quickly. I think we've already covered why TK's design is bad, so I'll leave that sleeping dog alone.

The unfortunate thing is Perfect Balance's cooldown actually was 60 seconds between 4.2 and 5.0. They nerfed it because people were using it for the Tornado Kick rotation, so rather than adjusting Tornado Kick, an underused skill that people want to use, they decided to make Monk miserable to play in dungeons on launch by utterly shredding our ability to recover stacks and creating more problems instead of solving them.

Salt Aside, Perfect Balance is currently plagued by a problematic design where it's supposed to be our Blood of the Dragon/Enochian skill that grants us our buffs, but the actual way it functions makes it more like Meikyo Shisui in practice. Tornado Kick is obviously at direct odds with the design of it as a buff granting skill, but the new Leaden Fist buff really breaks PB as being used as something other than a pure utility skill. Before DK granting Leaden Fist was a thing, using PB to do GCDs out of order was a small potency gain at best because our weaponskills didn't really fluctuate too much around their average. You could spam True Strikes for a little extra damage but you'd have to refresh your buffs and lose a Crit Bootshine, so as gains went it was small. Leaden Fist Bootshine sits so far out of the normal average of Monk's weaponskills that using Perfect Balance to get more is a huge gain. Given their history with the job, I'd be surprised if this is intentional on the devs part rather than a total accident. The only way to fix it is to change Tornado Kick fundamentally so there's no incentive to burn stacks and to either rework Leaden Bootshine or rework Perfect Balance.

This is just another example of the many reasons Monk is in need of a rework.

[3ureka]

Ahh. Yeah, I could've sworn I was still around during SB when they fixed PB to be 60 seconds. Thought I was going crazy lol.

And you're right. TK definitely conflicts with PB (and MNK's design) on a fundamental level. When the whole philosophy of the job is to build and maintain stacks of GL, why would anyone ever think it a good idea to find a way to expend that resource? Maybe I'm the odd man out on this, but using TK as a "finishing" move doesn't feel at all satisfying or rewarding. Even if TK was changed so that it was an ogcd (with a maybe 30/60 second?) cooldown that was only available with max GL stacks, it wouldn't be very engaging; that, plus we all know how SE feels about pure dmg ogcds (RIP Steel Peak and Howling Fist).

Also, in regards to my previous post, it could be argued that Anatman is another way to "quickly" ramp up, but I'd counter with the fact that you have to literally stand and wait while building stacks suggests otherwise. Perhaps a fairer criticism would address drawing that comparison to begin with; looking back at it, using Meditate (outside of combat) is more akin to Ikkishoten. I think the whole "generate resource only while out of combat" design might be outdated; the reason I say that is because of skills like Ikkoshoten and MCH's Barrel Stabilizer (which just gives you a flat 50 heat for free), both of which require you to be in combat.

Even in my limited DRG experience, it seems like for them, they can just pop BotD at the beginning of an engagement and, so long as there's no disconnect more than 30 seconds in length, they should be able to upkeep their buff 100% of the time (where their challenge is making sure to use High Jump on cooldown and to align buffs properly).

Definitely in agreement with what you said, just disappointed and frustrated - but I repeat myself.