Monk Needs a Complete Rework

[Ultimatecalibur]

I was musing about the idea of turning the combo skills into some sort of hybrid of NIN Ninjutsu and CoH's Dual Blades powerset.

Like, remove Demolish and replace it with a new direct damage Coeurl skill. (Possibly also alter Twin Snakes away from being a mere maintenance buff)

Then, create a combo system where each unique progression of skills can create a different bonus effect on the Coeurl skill. Such as, Demolish DoT, Twin Snakes damage buff, True North-esk buffs etc.

Creating a more dynamic flow of combos, as opposed to the current rotation where you basically alternate Bootshine/Dragon Kick and Twin Snakes/True Strike with the occasional Demolish replacing a Snap Punch.

It is a cool concept, and funnily enough MNK originally started out doing something similar. Back in ARR, Arm of the Destroyer silenced and One Ilm Punch removed buffs on the target. The Monk was able to replace a Bootshine or Dragon Kick with AotD to interrupt casts and replace Twin Snakes and True Strike with OIP to remove buffs such as Stoneskin, damage/crit up, and def/evade up. It doesn't really work in application due to how fights are designed now.

Back during BCoB progression in 2.0/2.1, as long as someone else interrupted ADS's first High Voltage (which would paralyze everyone if it wasn't prevented), a Monk was fully capable of interrupting every following High Voltage. The Monk also had a distinct advantage when facing things such as FATE Bosses that regularly applied Stoneskin. The Boss would get a 10% hp shield that would take about 45 seconds to remove normally but a Monk could remove it the next time they entered Raptor.


The MNK's combo priorities were like this during ARR:

• Opo-Opo:
  • 3+ Targets or Interruptible ability? Arm of the Destroyer
  • No Blunt Resist down debuff? Dragon Kick
  • Touch of Death DoT not up? Touch of Death
  • Anything else? Bootshine
• Raptor:
  • Removable buff up on target? One Ilm Punch
  • Twin Snakes buff down or about to fall off? Twin Snakes
  • Touch of Death DoT not up? Touch of Death
  • Anything else? True Strike
• Coeurl:
  • 3+ Targets? Rockbreaker
  • Demolish DoT not up? Demolish
  • Touch of Death DoT not up? Touch of Death
  • Anything else? Snap Punch

Starting with HW (and maybe even as early as 2.1) few fights were designed with abilities that could be interrupted every 15s (the Yeti A rank in CWH is one of the few) and few bosses had buffs that were removable with OIP.