Monk Needs a Complete Rework

[VenKitsune]

The funny thing is that i enjoyed 2.0 MNK way more than the SB or SHB MNK. They do need to atleast look on how to improve it if nothing else.

[Ultimatecalibur]

The funny thing is that i enjoyed 2.0 MNK way more than the SB or SHB MNK. They do need to atleast look on how to improve it if nothing else.

One thing I've noticed is that the "core" Monk rotation has existed mostly unchanged since 2.0: Opo-Opo alternates between Dragonkick and Bootshine, Raptor alternates between Twin Snakes and True Strike, and Coeurl does a rotation of Demolish->Snap Punch-> Snap Punch. During ARR and HW getting the gcd down below 2.1 let you intermix a Touch of Death every 30s while maintaining everything else and you could replace True strike with One-Ilm Punch in the rare case you wanted an enemy's buff (such as stone skin) removed.

When Touch of Death was removed in the great DoT purge of Stormblood they really should have added in 2 "formless" weaponskills that could be intermixed into the core rotation. Instead Monkmostly ended up with a bunch ogcds which were "enhanced" versions of existing ogcds.

[Shurrikhan]

One thing I've noticed is that the "core" Monk rotation has existed mostly unchanged since 2.0: Opo-Opo alternates between Dragonkick and Bootshine, Raptor alternates between Twin Snakes and True Strike, and Coeurl does a rotation of Demolish->Snap Punch-> Snap Punch. During ARR and HW getting the gcd down below 2.1 let you intermix a Touch of Death every 30s while maintaining everything else and you could replace True strike with One-Ilm Punch in the rare case you wanted an enemy's buff (such as stone skin) removed.

When Touch of Death was removed in the great DoT purge of Stormblood they really should have added in 2 "formless" weaponskills that could be intermixed into the core rotation. Instead Monkmostly ended up with a bunch ogcds which were "enhanced" versions of existing ogcds.

To be fair, until 5.x, there were always distinct higher-speed rotational strings, such as via

• "Demo-drop" rotations in ARR (whereby DK was permitted to drop before Demolish and Twin before Dragon Kick itself to a loss of 36 bonus potency in exchange for 70 additional potency via an added Bootshine and True Strike per Demolish for a net gain of 34 potency minus 10% of any AAs or oGCDs that might occur over that period, making it effectively like any other positional, but in rotational form and requiring more foresight) and
• FracToD strings in HW to minimize clipping and delay on the 21s Demolish.

5.x is the first time we've been forced into just one one rotational string ad nauseum, let alone Double-True without including Double-Boot to make the repositioning far less awkward.

[Sora_Oathkeeper]

One thing I've noticed is that the "core" Monk rotation has existed mostly unchanged since 2.0: Opo-Opo alternates between Dragonkick and Bootshine, Raptor alternates between Twin Snakes and True Strike, and Coeurl does a rotation of Demolish->Snap Punch-> Snap Punch. During ARR and HW getting the gcd down below 2.1 let you intermix a Touch of Death every 30s while maintaining everything else and you could replace True strike with One-Ilm Punch in the rare case you wanted an enemy's buff (such as stone skin) removed.

When Touch of Death was removed in the great DoT purge of Stormblood they really should have added in 2 "formless" weaponskills that could be intermixed into the core rotation. Instead Monkmostly ended up with a bunch ogcds which were "enhanced" versions of existing ogcds.

One Ilm Punch or Six Sided Star (Maybe OIP could just upgrade to 6SS as a trait during leveling?) should have been reworked into a formless GCD with a recast of 30s or so with a decent potency attached. This would force it into the rotation but also alleviate the tightness of the forms by allowing a buffer between stances.
I'd then increase Twin snakes duration by 3s to allow for times in the rotation where OIP/6SS comes off CD. This would reinforce a 2x True per Twin but at least make things a little less strict

[SpeckledBurd]

One Ilm Punch or Six Sided Star (Maybe OIP could just upgrade to 6SS as a trait during leveling?) should have been reworked into a formless GCD with a recast of 30s or so with a decent potency attached. This would force it into the rotation but also alleviate the tightness of the forms by allowing a buffer between stances.
I'd then increase Twin snakes duration by 3s to allow for times in the rotation where OIP/6SS comes off CD. This would reinforce a 2x True per Twin but at least make things a little less strict

The One-Ilm Punch/6SS change would functionally be pretty close to Touch of Death from Heavensward except not as Dot effect, all they'd have to do is extend Demolish's timer a little to prevent drop off. I'd be pretty happy with that in all honesty, even if it isn't exactly job evolution so much as a de-regression and putting us back at our starting point.

[Ultimatecalibur]

To be fair, until 5.x, there were always distinct higher-speed rotational strings, such as via

• "Demo-drop" rotations in ARR (whereby DK was permitted to drop before Demolish and Twin before Dragon Kick itself to a loss of 36 bonus potency in exchange for 70 additional potency via an added Bootshine and True Strike per Demolish for a net gain of 34 potency minus 10% of any AAs or oGCDs that might occur over that period, making it effectively like any other positional, but in rotational form and requiring more foresight) and
• FracToD strings in HW to minimize clipping and delay on the 21s Demolish.

5.x is the first time we've been forced into just one one rotational string ad nauseum, let alone Double-True without including Double-Boot to make the repositioning far less awkward.

Those rotations, in my understanding, were more to cover flaws caused by lack of a 2nd viable formless gcd to fill in holes in the core rotation created by higher sks and GL. The rotation was fairly solid at 2.06 gcd (29 gcds per minute), but buffs and dots started clipping or falling off (depending on rotation) bellow that necessitating use of Cross-class weaponskills (of which Fracture being the best available at the time).

One Ilm Punch or Six Sided Star (Maybe OIP could just upgrade to 6SS as a trait during leveling?) should have been reworked into a formless GCD with a recast of 30s or so with a decent potency attached. This would force it into the rotation but also alleviate the tightness of the forms by allowing a buffer between stances.
I'd then increase Twin snakes duration by 3s to allow for times in the rotation where OIP/6SS comes off CD. This would reinforce a 2x True per Twin but at least make things a little less strict

I don't know if a Twin Snake duration change would be really necessary (or if anything a slight increase to 16s would be fine) and being on a 30s cooldown (even on a sks based one like GNB's Gnashing Fang Combo and DoT) is likely not enough. You would want to be using the filler gcd enough times every 15 seconds that TnS won't fall off.

[ValStormbreaker]

Sooooo... I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but as someone who has been out of the PvP loop since this past patch, I only just popped back over to the Wolves Den Pier to find my 5.0 MNK PvP hotbar had some skills removed, and when I went back to look at what was changed, I saw Axe Kick was not only reintroduced, but the way the skill works was completely different than how it was before.

And I have to say, potency numbers aside, it's exactly what PvE MNK needs right now. I mean, yes, I would agree that MNK needs a total overhaul, but in the short term, if no other changes were to be made to the job, giving it this one oGCD would make a huge difference in several respects.

For those of you who haven't seen it, 5.1 Axe Kick is now an AoE which gives a GL stack for each target hit. In a single-target fight, it would be swapped in where Anatman is currently being used in the Anatman opener, giving one stack instantly. However, since it's an AoE, it could be used in dungeons to help us get stacks back very quickly, which might even be preferable to something like Wind Tackle or burning a PB if you drop your stacks, as against a trash mob you can potentially max your stacks out right away.

With a tool like this, in addition to Anatman which can be used for things like phase transitions as it was intended, who knows, maybe having an accelerated way to get stacks back might wind up making a mid-rotation tornado kick viable again. Or maybe not, who knows until we test it out. But I love the idea of it being universal between the single-target and AoE rotations, and I would be more than willing to give up the very silly-looking form shift spam for this in dungeon situations and as a 2nd GCD replacement for Anatman in single-target openers.

5.x MNK has been lacking in oGCDs compared to SB MNK, and many players want one or two oGCDs put back. Axe Kick and Somersault were two I have suggested for SHB MNK since early access, and this is the best version of Axe Kick yet. If SAM could get an oGCD back, I think in the immediate short-term, this is the best thing we could all ask for, as it's unlikely at this point we'd get a full rework until 6.0. The best part is, its animation, icon, visual effects and job effects are already in the game, it just needs to be moved over, making it a realistic, quick, and cheap/cost effective thing to implement into PvE. The actual damage output of it could have a small potency, something like a formless Arm of the Destroyer (80 potency to all targets), or even less for all I care, it just needs to do its job with GL stacks and it's pretty perfect in both single-target and AoE/trash mob contexts.

[Shurrikhan]

Those rotations, in my understanding, were more to cover flaws caused by lack of a 2nd viable formless gcd to fill in holes in the core rotation created by higher sks and GL. The rotation was fairly solid at 2.06 gcd (29 gcds per minute), but buffs and dots started clipping or falling off (depending on rotation) bellow that necessitating use of Cross-class weaponskills (of which Fracture being the best available at the time).

The entire way Ninja played optimally for three versions of the game was likewise in large part called 'unintended'. That didn't stop it from being fun, though, or having far more rotational choice and complexity than it has now.

I might even go so far as to say that having "flaws", where a job is balanced both despite them and if/when having "fixed" them, is often better than an originally "perfect" rotation as it at least allows for choice and flexibility.
We saw this with early Chaos Thrust, Demolish in either timing, the excess duration on SAM buffs, and the duration of Shadowfang (itself, in SB, and alongside Mutilate prior to that): in ARR, a higher speed variant allowed for an additional Full Thrust per Chaos and in HW it allowed for the 'Geirskogul-abusing' 2.33s rotation that was so fun in cleave, even if inferior to the 2.40 for pure single-target; until ShB one could use uptime-loss counts from longer Ninjutsu uses to trim or delay Shadowfang, eventually allowing for another Aeolian per minute and decreased SF clip once per minute and decreased SF delay another time per minute via increased Fuma usage; the increasingly excessive SAM buffs likewise allowed for trims and potency shifts around Meikyo Shisui -- all things that increased both the flexibility or number of rotational strings available and the skill ceiling for each affected job.

Note also that none of these things were permanent changes except at very specific GCDs -- they didn't usually involve just swapping one rotation for another. Instead, they increased the number of rotational strings available. One string might go over the DoT timer, trying to reapply it just before the next global tick after it had faded, while the next might try to rush it out, preferring to waste some DoT duration than risk missing a global tick. Having different parts to align, by which to encourage adaptation and variance, is a powerful tool for gameplay. And pursuing above all a single "way it's supposed to work", rather than a sliding set of choices over varying SkSs (with still multiple choices over time for any given GCD) kills that design tool.