Monk Needs a Complete Rework

[Kalise]

No, those are merely the parts that came up specifically in this conversation with you and Mahrze which should have signalled to you that I was not a fan of leaving the stances as is.

Nevermind that ignite mechanics can set up tremendous nukes or that the relative potency from said nukes could allow you to not only survive extreme risky uptime mechanics but be paid back in damage for having done so or else lead into periods of extreme haste. Nevermind that you have Riddles, stance-dependent skills and not yet used concepts to tap into. Sure, any stance is inherently boring and will only ever be that. You know, like Jump, or a button to build a specific resource and a button to spend any said resource. Pure unimaginative waste. It's not like we ever got Nostrond or TCJ off those things. /s

But the parts that came up where all that I was privvy too.

You can say "Oh but they're just the foundation for X, Y and Z" but how am I supposed to know what X, Y and Z could be if all you've given is a rehash of current stances just with more words and no more actual meaning.

You should at least infer how your said changes are supposed to actually invoke something new and interesting, rather than briefly outlining 3 different "You do X more damage" variants.

That's why I'm calling them boring. Since, from where I'm stood, there literally is no reason why I'd ever swap. There's no inherent mechanic there that I want to exploit. It's just "Pick which of the three gives more damage" and stick with it.

You talk about an "Ignite" mechanic, but how will that function? Do you mean like a literal copy/paste of WoW's Fire Mage Ignite mechanic? Where every skill can build up a DoT that stacks and then you can use Conflag to get huge burst damage based on that DoT? (Or if you want to go old school, no Conflag, just a DoT from crits, no stacking and only the highest damage one sticks I.e. Pyroblast)

Why should I ever care about Wind? Given the only skills with CD's are oGCDs and actual CD's? Why would I want to use a weaker version of my oGCD's and how would that impact my rotation?

These are what happens when you assume people can read your mind and know what you envision even when you don't actually say anything about them. Heck, the fact that I didn't even know these were STANCES and not simply effects of consuming Ki should clue you in to how terribly you're describing these systems. Let alone how this is supposed to be you acting in defiance of the current stances.

One may be slightly dominant, one slightly situational in rotation as a "per CD, use to rush or delay rotation slightly for setup", and one more fight-dependent, yes, but that in no way equates to the 99/1/0% usage we see now.

But HOW.

You've not provided me with any information to suggest anything of the sort. The only difference between what I've seen and the current 99/1/0% current usage is that from what I can gather from your poorly expressed descriptions is that your system would be a 100/0/0% system instead.

Because that's not simple when you have to swap twice within 3-4 GCDs at a GCD length that doesn't allow for most players to double-weave even when in merely FoF. Again, you'd be getting only 2 embonused oGCDs out of the bargain, at most. Maybe you're playing at 10 ping and zero bonus SkS because you despise everything to do with the Double-True rotation, but for anyone else that's just not a viable use of resources, not because the effects of the stances are so little but because of the gap-uptime punishments for swapping at all.

By comparison, if even just one of those stance-swaps are dropped, such as during a one-tick Anatman opener, FoF is used for all oGCDs. That's all it takes, one oGCD gap less of penalty.

By extension, when the penalties for doing so are less, no oGCDs need be wasted, and the method of pulling off the technique is far more convenient, one would expect it would be wholly usable.

What you're saying amounts to much the same as claiming that TK wasn't viable in late StB. You're completely ignoring the contexts by which its costs were so greatly reduced, or, in this case, so much of the costs and annoyances being removed entirely.

BUT THIS IS WHAT YOU WERE IMPLYING WOULD HAPPEN:

There are only three ways such a system could go:

1. There are too few restrictions on stance changes to prevent someone from merely using high-damage-low-speed on each high damage-per-GCD skill and low-damage-high-speed on each skill with low damage-per-GCD (not including buff effects), forcing one to swap stances as often as possible to better juice Demolish and Bootshine.
2. The stances are too restricted to have any useful additional effects, and likely thwart gameplay that, too any player, would seem an obvious use of the stances, making them feel unnecessarily bloated.
3. Some miraculous hybrid of the two that manages to axe either side's issues -- possible, but horribly unlikely.

YOU were implying that stance swapping en masse would be a possibility.

YOU implied that "making them only a stick shift for speeds will end up with a Cataclysm-era Warrior debacle (whereby every skill was just macro-bound to a stance-change)"

YOU'RE the one who was trying to use "Oh but people will be swapping stances all the time" as a basis for an argument.

Now all of a sudden you're now actually considering the reality of the situation that would alleviate that concern, after being presented with the fact that a SkS + Damage shift stance dance is already available in the game and is not utilized, due to the fact that simply having stances that change SkS/Damage doesn't mean that they're necessarily able to be swapped that freely when optimizing.

When the devs are insisting that everyone gets IR and anything but IR equivalents should be purged, it is not productive to suggest solely what is within the scope of what the devs want to do. It is by then productive to complain and to set a higher bar. Anything less is, by degree but inevitably, just giving up on the game's combat systems as a whole.

There's a difference between setting a higher bar and being delusional though.

If the devs only want to give everyone an IR, then it's still setting the bar higher to simply suggest an alternative.

One doesn't need to ask for preposterous dreams to be aiming for a higher bar.

I'm asking for a higher bar from the devs with my "Simple" suggestion, because I'm using suggestions that are within their scope along side suggestions that push their limits.

Rather than asking for like 15 things that are blatantly never going to be considered by them. Which, yes, is still asking for a higher bar, but is far beyond too high a bar to set.

Maybe once they've actually set their bar a bit higher with suggestions along the lines of what I've done, I'll start asking for new things that set the bar a bit higher. Then again, and again. Until maybe, just maybe, we reach a point where they can actually consider some of the actual depth and complexity I'd wish they'd provide.