Quote Originally Posted by Shurrikhan View Post
If you're going to insist that I accept your purposely reducing or removing mechanics is necessary for future mechanics (essentially, that an X that is known and could be easily reworked to be highly lucrative as a base for A, B, and C must be removed to make room for an unknown Y), shouldn't you at least keep the same open mind towards those you're talking with?
Except, my stances suggestion was complete in of itself. The fact that it lends more theoretical room for devs to add complexity elsewhere doesn't change the fact that my stance suggestion was complete and shows their effect.

That being, you pick a stance. You get either full damage, some damage and some speed or full speed. So that you can pick your preferred "Flavour" of Monk.

That's it. I've never tried to make these stances something to dance between. As I don't think that is particularly necessary as it merely adds difficulty to balancing them when trying to shoehorn in reasons to actually change stances without simply just breaking the entire system and making 1 stance superior.

The entirety of my stance suggestion is, really just that simple. Take the speed and damage from GL stacks. Put it into the stances. Adjust numbers accordingly and try to get each stance balanced closely to one another.

What effect does this have? It means GL management no longer affects damage or speed when building and expending stacks. It means that people who can't play at high speeds don't have to. It allows people who have different takes on what being a "Monk" should be, whether they strike with precision and damage (Something like Quivering Palm style), some kind of Pugilist style brawler or a speed demon (Something like Flurry of Blows style)

Thus, it offers freedom in GL management systems, because no longer does this system have to balance every single thing against the passive benefit of GL stacks. Meaning I could design something more interesting using GL stacks. You know, if I didn't have to keep coming back to talk about stances every post...

Except, there is. And unless you didn't mean "imply" just there, I not only implied it, but I gave express examples.
But I still have no context for any of what you've said.

How much damage are we talking about for Earth stance (Percentage? Flat?)? How is the defence built up? How is it consumed? How often can it be consumed?

Why should I ever care about Wind? What purpose does its CD bypassing at lower potency aspect serve? Especially when nothing with a CD actually makes a difference in Monk rotations other than weaving?

How does Fire work? Is the DoT percentage of the skill used? A flat amount? How does it stack? Can the engine even comprehend a single DoT that has multiple "Stacks" of a DoT within it that Ignite uses? Is there a Conflag skill that consumes it or not? How much damage does this provide? How does it compare to the damage that Earth provides (Especially in the sense that if it's simply Ignite then it's not as if you have to save it specifically for burst windows because the DoT continually stacks)

This all goes back to how Mahrze and I were discussing how Monk would be more interesting if it had burst periods owed to decisions it makes between main CDs, more alike to a brawler who can own mid-fights rather than just following the peak and lulls gameplay we see from so many jobs.
Again, how exactly does your stance suggestion actually work towards that?

Then, how do you balance something like that so people don't just sit on these burst periods to align with main CD's? Given that CD windows are only 60s apart.

Given that currently, the only job that I can think of that does any meaningful amount of burst outside of a 60/90s CD window, is GNB with its Blasting Zone + Gnashing Fang every 30s.

Maybe RDM with their melee combo? I dunno, I haven't got much experience with high level RDM play to know how their melee combos line up with buff windows.

This, on the other hand, has no set contextual meaning. Correct me if I'm misinterpreting, but I'm going to assume that you mean that all stances would 'significant' (metric pending) see use over a given a fight.
You're misinterpreting, you implied that one of the 3 outcomes from stances being SkS/Damage toggles would be:

"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."

People swapping stances constantly, to buff different CD's with high damage while using high speed otherwise.

Which is counter to the points you make about how people don't do that now due to how trash weaving stances is for gameplay.
I did not only imply, it; I expressly stated it. And I stand by that statement.
And yet, we have a system that is more or less a stick shift for speed and no-one uses stances like that because of the downsides inherent to actually utilizing them like that.

This is with the damage stance also affecting oGCD's as well as Demolish (While the SkS does not)

Even with things like raid buff windows and potential TK usage (Which would limit the detriment of needing to rebuild the 4th stack upon returning to FoW, as well as being buffed by FoF itself), people don't stance dance.

Yet, as soon as I propose the changes to stances, all of a sudden everyone and their Miqo'te are swapping stances nigh every other GCD?

For now, though, you've gone out of your way to make simple suggestions far more complicated than they need be and insisted on contextual details while being unwilling to give any of your own and ignoring most of those given to you (yes, I screwed up once in kind).
Had you posted things with any clarity, it would have made it much easier to note suggestions.

Also, in what little I have suggested, I have provided enough detail within the confines of the suggestion at hand. Given that the suggestion is not predicated on a "Big picture" like all of yours seem to be (Yet, still, no information has been given about what the big picture actually is, only that all your suggestions not only combine but also require some yet unmentioned additional suggestions)

Given that at base, I have only made a single actual suggestion within this thread and the other 95% of my responses here have been answering to a grilling from yourself about how poor a suggestion it is compared to your own, whilst barely getting any information about your more complex design of the same skills.

As my simple suggestion goes, it's merely Earth = no speed, more damage. Fire = middle ground of speed and damage. Wind = more speed, less/no damage.

It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out how this will work, even without such specifics like actual numbers (Which would be TBD via testing and a bunch of math I can't be bothered to do in a thread where I'm merely spitballing ideas rather than actually sitting down to design something)

Yet I'm still unsure on so many details about your suggested stances, as I've noted above. I can't comprehend how they will work, especially in the way that you suggest, where all 3 stances will see use during an encounter. Even if you do use terms that I'm familiar with (Such as "Ignite", which in of itself, has had dozens of incarnations and has a plethora more potential incarnations)

I'm frankly a bit tired of talking about stances at this point and, if only try something else as to get us outside this muck, would prefer to talk about things outside the fundamentals and work backwards from those endgoals or further points of interest
Sure.

How about the Chakra system then?

Given its current implementation is about as bad as could be conceived, what with being somewhat lacklustre payout for RNG based build up and the asynchrony with job quests.

Personally, I like the idea of 7 Light and 7 Dark Chakra, which upon opening gives us the super saiyan mode - As is the basis of the entire expansion of job quests.

The question comes down to, how to open the Chakra and then what to make The Forbidden Chakra mode actually do?

My initial thought would be something like Coeurl skills opening Chakra, but that would likely hinge on having a secondary DD Coeurl skill to use during Demolish uptime... Which could be possible, it just would need to serve a purpose in its own right within the rotation.

A straightforward, but boring answer would be making it Dragon Kick, but for buffing Snap Punch. Probably not ideal, but it's serviceable enough when the main purpose of this particular musing is the Chakra system itself (Looking at the combo skills in finer detail is something I'll probably do later)

So, if that is the build up, 14 full combos (That can be sped up with PB usage to spam Coeurl skills) to lead into TFC. But now what could the effect of TFC be?

Boring answer would be simple damage buff, thereby making it just yet another CD to use alongside every other CD (Though, to be fair, that's likely the outcome of every suggestion for such a skill, given how much the game revolves around CD stacking)

Perhaps, changing combo skills into new, higher potency attacks? Ones with more pizzaz where you're punching and kicking and waves of Chakra energy are sent flying through the air, with skills using Light colour and Dark colour energy.

Another thought, is having access to a Quivering Palm skill, which would function similar to MCH's Wildfire.

Final thought would be something like making it a maintenance buff that requires re-opening the Chakra consistently, though it probably has too much of a wind up for that (Unless you could idk, meditate before combat to open the 14 Chakra) and probably wouldn't be very interesting outside of any time you might use PB to spam non-Coeurl skills and thus have a period where you aren't moving through the stances regularly.