Monk Needs a Complete Rework

[Ruiknao]

snip

Well, I can’t really argue with the points you made, other than maybe point 4 as the damage increase could happen in split intervals of 10 seconds, but I didn’t clarify that, which is my mistake. Honestly, the idea came to mind while playing FF7R and thinking to myself “Hm, I wonder if this is something that Monks can use?”. I could’ve put more thought into it and didn’t really consider the factors you brought up.

What you suggested is interesting though and would definitely fix a few things on Monk’s current design. In terms of keeping it simple, I think they could make Greased Lightning and Tornado Kick function similarly to DRG’s Blood of the Dragon or BLM’s Enochian. However, that could be too much copying and pasting, and people have been quite divisive on that. There is one idea I’ve seen people suggest on this forum that I like, which is the idea of a ‘Blitz’ system. From what I’ve read, it sounds like a variation of NIN’s Mudras that involves going into a ‘Perfect Balance’ state and using MNK’s attacks in certain orders to get different finishers, but I could be wrong. It sounds a little ‘copy-pasting’, but I like how it compliments MNK’s freeform style.

Honestly though, I just want MNK to feel like a class where its mechanics and abilities flow together, and designed in a way that makes sense. I’ve been playing MNK since ARR, and it’s frustrating seeing it turn into the confused mess it is now. I understand that the developers are busy with all of the other aspects of FFXIV, but I hope that they have taken notice of MNKs situation and do something about it, hopefully for the better.

[Shurrikhan]

Though I've only recently starting leveling MNK, it seems to be a job of contradictions. You build up Grease Light to improve DPS then spend it for a Tornado Kick. You stop DPS to push Mediate only to do a meh DPS attack. Just a weird way to do business.

In case those aren't meant just to be points where reality differs from appearance, you don't spend GL on TK except at the end of an instance or before 9+ seconds of forced downtime that you can spend immobile, and you don't use Meditate (your, effectively, Ranged attack) when you can still use melee attacks. Like Piercing Talon and the 5-Kenki variant of Hagakure, they are too weak to be used except in very niche situations. At least, unlike Higanbana Gaeshi, there is at least a situation or two in existence where they deserve to be used, but that's about all I can say for them.

If that was the purpose of those examples, I apologize and consider your point well made.

[Sora_Oathkeeper]

If they opt to go the route similar to how Tifa plays on FFVII Remake. They need to untie haste from Greased Lightning, that way we could have interesting mechanics attached to it and have it treated like a resource. Have the speed be a passive thing that is gained through traits. At all the levels MNK gains extra stacks of GL they could receive a trait that simply gives them a passive 5% haste too.

This way, GL would be a pure damage % modifier but would also give access to different oGCDs. For example, base Tifa has Whirlwind uppercut, 1 chi level grants her Omnistrike and 2 chi levels grants her Rise and Fall. Omnistrike I believe is the strongest, but Rise and Fall gives a bigger stagger % increase. The way in which MNKs could use this mechanic could replace the clunky RNG chakra mechanic and tie in with Greased Lightning. At 1 stack we could gain access to TFC, 2 stacks 6SS and 3 could be Tornado Kick etc... Each ability reduces stacks by 1, but the potencies are big to justify dropping. If we were to have a 2nd gauge, we could have it function similar to the ATB system in Remake wherein GL finishers and weaponskills could fill it. At 50 Gauge (Total of 100) we can use Anatman which grants one GL stack on a cooldown (45s?). We could also have the gauge allow access to a couple oGCDs too.

In this instance MNKs would still 'ramp up' for burst but the payoff would be a huge damage dump. I'd tone down the damage so that each GL stack gave 5% damage so that with each stack gone it wouldn't feel like we're hitting like a wet noodle after the burst. I really think the MNK job developer could learn something interesting from how Tifa plays in FFVII Remake. I'm not saying they should make a complete replica of her in this but at the very least I think the haste from GL needs to be passive and only the damage portion of it remains. It's the speed aspect which is clearly causing issues for them developing anything new because every time something is introduced to do with GL it either forces us to go slow or stand still because they just can't balance around the speed of it. Whereas if it the speed was passive then they could balance properly around it because the speed would be consistent and never changing. The devs could really do some interesting things with MNK if they chose to rework it properly instead of clamouring to this dated design.

[Ultimatecalibur]

1. Gonna disagree here, While it's true the GCD rotation is archaic it's not as bad as you might think it is.
Rotation wise we have 2 branches of skills; Damage + Buffs/Debuffs.
Damage: Bootshine, True Strikes, Snap Punch
Buff / Debuff: Dragon Kick, Twin Snakes, Demolish

Which is actual a degradation from the original Weaponskill lineup in ARR.

The forms each originally had (disregarding AoE) in ARR:
Sustained effects (i.e. Buffs/Debuffs/DoTs) - Dragon Kick, Twin Snakes and Demolish
Pure Damage - Bootshine, True Strike and Snap Punch
Utility - Arm of the Destroyer (Silence), One-ilm-Punch (Debuff Removal)

We have 2 rotations in use at current; Standard of Alternate Twin + True & Double True Strike.
So a rotation could look like this: (assuming mid-fight with all stacks of GL) DK ->Twin->Demo ->BS ->True ->Snap ->DK ->Twin ->Snap ->BS ->True ->Demo
or
DK ->Twin ->Demo ->BS ->True ->Snap->DK ->True ->Snap ->BS ->Twin -> Demo

Which pretty much existed that way since ARR (Double True was theoretical based on SkS, but unnecessary because of the inclusion of Touch of Death and Fracture), but then again the ARR version was more flexible based on needs of the fight. That mid-fight rotation might end up looked more like this based on the fight.

DK/AotD ->Twin/OiP ->Demo ->BS/AotD ->True/OiP ->Snap ->DK/AtoD ->ToD ->Twin/OiP ->Snap ->BS/AotD ->True/OiP ->Demo

And this was completely based on the current needs of the fight (few fights took advantage of this flexibility).

Looking at other classes

• NIN follows your 1-2-3/4 rotation
• SAM goes by 1-2-1-3-4-1-5-6
• DRG is 1-2-3-4-5-1-6-7-5-4 and can not deviate in the slightest without breaking combo.
• meanwhile MNK could follow 1-2-3-4-5-6-1-2-6-4-5-3 or 1-2-3-4-5-6-1-5-6-4-2-3

You are completely missing what I meant by the 1-2-3/4 combo system. Dark Knight, Dragoon, Gunbreaker, Ninja, Paladin, Samurai, Warrior, Machinist and Red Mage all used variations of the same combo system for their melee attacks. Weaponskill 1 combos into Weaponskill 2 which can combos into Weaponskill 3 or 4. Samurai and Dragoon might have the split occur during the second weaponskills in the combo and Dragoon might have also extended it to 5 weaponskills per combo but they are still using the same combo rules as the other 7 jobs on that list.

Monk has had a unique combo system where weaponskills 1/4/7 can all combo into weaponskills 2/5/8 which can all combo into weaponskills 3/6/9 which combo back into weaponskills 1/4/7 and you can temporarily interrupt the combo with other non-form based weaponskills without breaking the combo.

In theory the ShB Monk weaponskill rotation should have looked something like this as it evolved from ARR through HW and StB into ShB:

DK -> TwS -> DM -> BS/NewSkill1 -> TrS/NewSkill2 -> SnP/NewSkill3 -> DK -> NS4(No Form) -> TwS -> SnP/NS3 -> BS/NS1 -> TrS/NS2 -> DM -> etc. with the choices between BS or NS1, TrS or NS2, and SnP or NS3 being based on the current situation as that gcd comes up.

Perfect Balance's requirement that all form weaponskills must have their own buttons prevents this as there would be 10 individual single target weaponskill buttons which is far to bloated to be acceptable. If Perfect Balance was removed or replaced they could compress 9 form weaponskill into just 3 buttons with the systems that allow them to change the action a button performs based on currently active buffs.

2. Agreeance here, but it's not that bad just bloats buttons that could be fixed by making them traits or just combine all into one

Still that means they are a problem that needs to be reworked or removed.

3. I do wish that Chakras weren't as RNG as they are, but they're not detrimentally holding the class back

Yes, they are. If Chakra generation was more consistent there would be fewer complaints about the lack of ogcd actions. Currently, if you had a 30% chance to crit you are looking at about one use of Forbidden Chakra every 17 gcds (roughly 27 to 34 seconds). If chakra generation was closer to 5 Chakra every 10 to 12 gcds those complaints would likely be non-existent.

4. As said, They interact with Greased Lightning, if they didn't have that caveat they could be fleshed out and used more freely (Mainly TK + SSS)

Turning TK into a normal damage ogcd on a 30s cooldown would likely make it more useful but very boring.

I do appreciate you reiterating the abilities I listed, but you got some things wrong with them. Mainly:

• PB's CDs were 4 minutes to 3min to 1min up to the current 2min. And optimally speaking while it may open all your buttons, you're only going to be using it to spam Dragon Kick and Bootshine with 1 Coeurl move / RoE to refresh GL.

Seems my point went over your head

[*] Anatman is just bad even if thematically it would make sense. Why does it have the caveat of needing to stand still to maintain GL when every other class has ONE button they push to maintain their class buff. it being on the GCD doesn't help either since it just makes it clunky to use.

It is an ability more designed for pre-3.5 fights where there would be 15 to 30s worth of downtime to recover TP/MP in Extreme/Savage fights.

[quote][*] SSS is a, "I fucked up Perfect Balance and need to quickly fix my stacks." Button or a Finisher button along with TK[/LIST]Which are completely unintuitive, niche and possibly unnecessary uses of a capstone ability. Even if SSS didn't interact with GL it would still be a niche ability that doesn't fit in the rotation. No other job has a disengage weaponskill and none need one. At first glance I thought the purpose was to create a space to use Meditation to generate Chakra, but that can't happen because Meditation is tied to the gcd.

And MNK is stuck in ARR, with or without ToD / Fracture. Your core rotation doesn't change at all from Level 50 and you don't have the oGCDs to fill up space like other classes do or the intuitive gauges as they do.

Which is why I would want a rework to add 3 Form-based Weaponskills that interact with Chakra, and it turns out Perfect Balance is one of the major barriers to adding additional form-based weaponskills.

[Shurrikhan]

...

The odd part is these aren't even new ideas. As soon as 1.2 came out, people noted that "These 'combos' aren't even pretending to be combos. They merely create non-choices, enforcing bloat."

ARR came around and people noted much the same, with the exception of Monk, who, at the time, was spamming Impulse Drive during what open time it could because DoT damage didn't scale with Greased Lightning. It at least, in its "weird, eclectic" kit, had a sense of skills which independently synergize to create a series of sensible actions as one among multiple choices. But even it faced an obvious dilemma: Do we continue to waste two-thirds of our native weaponskills in any given GCD, or do we change how PB and/or GL works?

Given that everyone was okay locking out an increasingly high percentage of native weaponskills on any other class, though, what little part of the Monk community was pondering it before quickly lost interest. After all, it's good and well to have a worse designed job -- it's something to share job pride in simultaneously with self-pity -- but we couldn't have improvement in one job revealing fundamental waste in the others...

And by now? To even think of following such efficient or intelligent design as... not wasting most of one's weaponskills or allowing for multiple routes of rotation... is downright heretical.

"Given that I can't use either set of these 5 DRG skills without the skills immediately prior, why am I using up 10 keys to do what amount to at best two possible decisions?" --> 'He's trying to take away our complexity!!" --> Torches.
"Alternatively, couldn't we have skills that offer actual underlying advantages that other skills can play off of rather than arbitrarily defined sequences?" --> "Elitest!" --> Torches.

So, will we finally get an answer from the class formerly with the best combo system that might lead us to more interesting combos across the game once the devs realize they've basically exhausted their ideas for any positive change to Monk? Or will that whole section of changes be shut down anyways because it might push too much precedence they don't want to deal with? /shrug

[Seto_Mimyho]

... with the choices between BS or NS1, TrS or NS2, and SnP or NS3 being based on the current situation as that gcd comes up.

So what you're saying is, Designing niche GCDs to be used based on SPECIFIC situations they aren't applicable everywhere when we already have a bunch of Specific situational abilities currently in our kit. As Shurrikhan said,

These 'combos' aren't even pretending to be combos. They merely create non-choices, enforcing bloat."

Also, you seem to have forgotten our AOE rotation which could constitute 7/8/9 so you'd be proposing us having a fourth rotation of 10/11/12 Which is useless bloat and possibly confusing to people.

Yes, they are. If Chakra generation was more consistent there would be fewer complaints about the lack of good actions. Currently, if you had a 30% chance to crit you are looking at about one use of Forbidden Chakra every 17 gcds (roughly 27 to 34 seconds). If chakra generation was closer to 5 Chakra every 10 to 12 gcds those complaints would likely be non-existent.

Okay, Let's look at this shall we. Leading into Shadowbringers we lost quite a few abilities for seemingly nothing in return.

• Internal Release - oGCD that increased out crit chances which inadvertently lead to more Chakras
• Howling Fist - Line AOE oGCD. Got Replaced by Enlightenment a Line AOE oGCD based around Chakras. Making it useless in ST and only worth it in Multi-target.
• Steel Peak - 40s hit for free Damage button. Button Bloat but still an oGCD we lost
• One Ilm Punch - Stun GCD, kind of useless in almost ever thing outside Niche instances.
• Wind, Fire, Earth Tackle - Old Tackle Mastery got replaced and is now just a gutted Wind Tackle.
• Purification - our Reject of an enmity dump, costed Chakras to restore TP (when invigorate did it better)

Then they Nerfed PB from being a 1 Minute CD to a 2 Minute CD and due to GL4 made TK once again not worth it to use outside very niche situations. We lost a ton of abilities from Stormblood to Shadowbringers and no amount of Chakra generation will be able to fill this gap unless it was 1 Chakra per weaponskill. If they allowed us to overflow on Chakras then that'd be great. Such as being able to hold seven chakras, like our job quests, say we have, but only spend 5 at a time.

Anyways, as much as we'd like to go back and forth over the specifics of what we think is wrong with MNK, almost everything has been said by a multitude of people before us. You might see PB as the main issue, while I and others see GL as the main issue. I don't think I'll be able to convince you but I'm just going to try to get my point across with this. GL is single-handedly the worst designed static buff in this game. Without it, the MNK is useless and does no damage and upon getting it you never want to drop it, and losing it means death without dying.

[Shurrikhan]

As Shurrikhan said,

I also said that

[Monk's original take on 'combos'] at least, in its "weird, eclectic" kit, had a sense of skills which independently synergize to create a series of sensible actions as one among multiple choices.

The "non-choices" were in reference to, well, literally all the other uses of "combos" in this game.

That's not to say that the 3x3 grid Monk has, is, or ever will be a combo system, but at least the SkS breakpoints capable of varying between consistent double-True, double-Boot with split Frac/ToD per Demo, and alternating double-True with paired Frac/ToD per Demo, or ID spam prior to those, offered multiple choices of rotation with enough target-specificity to feel like the skills had individual use and particular synergies rather than just being parts of the same decision repeated ad nauseum.

Imo, you can consider a combo system as being one in which the individual parts feel like individual parts (i.e. they are modular) with specific contextual purpose or opportunities (synergies). If those synergies do not allow for choice, at the very least across varying speeds and levels of forced downtime, it's not a combo system, but rather tends towards bloat.

[Ultimatecalibur]

So what you're saying is, Designing niche GCDs to be used based on SPECIFIC situations they aren't applicable everywhere when we already have a bunch of Specific situational abilities currently in our kit. As Shurrikhan said,

No. They would not need to be niche, just usage based on existing resources. In my mind the 3 new abilities would be something like the following:

• New Skill 1 - Opo-opo form, Single target, lower base potency than Bootshine, gains 150 potency from Leaden Fist (same as Bootshine), generates a Chakra if you have fewer than 3. Deep Meditation procs would still apply as normal.
• New Skill 2 - Raptor form, Single target, base potency lower than True Strike. Gains potency if you have fewer than 3 Chakra open which would put it over True Strike.
• New Skill 3 - Coeurl Form, Single target, base potency lower than Snap Punch. Gains potency if you have 3 or more Chakra open which would put it over Snap Punch, but would still be lower than Demolish's total potency. Would generate GL

As you can likely figure out, use of these actions would be based on the current number of open Chakra and therefore conditional in use rather than niche in use. Forbidden Chakra would still be used when ever you got 5 Chakra (possibly delayed a single gcd when going into Coeurl stance if Demolish is still up so that you could get both NS3's enhanced potency and Forbidden Chakra), but would grant greater interaction with the Chakra system while adding back in a greater feeling of flexibility.

Also, you seem to have forgotten our AOE rotation which could constitute 7/8/9 so you'd be having us have a fourth rotation of 10/11/12 Which is useless bloat and possibly confusing to people.

Not really pretty much every job now already has a 2 or 3 button AoE rotation.

Looking at the other Tank/Melee Jobs, the current gcd action (i.e. weaponskills and spells) totals are:

• Paladin - 6 single target, 1 ranged, 1 utility, 1 heal, 3 AoE and 1 that is both single and AoE
• Warrior - 5 single target, 1 ranged and 3 AoE
• Dark Knight - 4 single target, 1 ranged and 3 AoE
• Gunbreaker - 8 single target, 1 ranged and 3 AoE
• Dragoon - 7 single target, 1 ranged and 3 AoE
• Samurai - 6 single target, 1 ranged, 3 AoE and 1 action that is 3 actions (2 single target 1 AoE) in 1.
• Ninja - 5 single target, 1 ranged and 2 AoE and the Ninjutsu system which is 4 buttons that are in effect 7 (3 single target, 2 AoE, 1 utility, 1 buff) gcd actions.

Having a total of 12 or 13 gcd actions isn't that strange or bloated as long as they are useful.

As much as we'd like to go back and forth over the specifics of what we think is wrong with MNK, almost everything has been said by a multitude of people before us. You might see PB as the main issue, while I and others see GL as the main issue. I don't think I'll be able to convince you but I'm just going to try to get my point across with this. GL is single-handedly the worst designed static buff in this game. Without it, the MNK is useless and does no damage and upon getting it you never want to drop it, and losing it means death without dying.

I don't see PB as the main problem just one of several problems that need to be solved in addition to GL, and yes, GL is problematic for the reasons you list. I'm not arguing that it isn't. I'm just not so naive to think that all the Monk's problems would be fixed by fixing GL. In fact I have had some ideas on how to solve the issues of GL, I just didn't feel the need to go over ground that is already well trod when discussion about other flaws would likely be more beneficial to the thread.

[Kolsykol]

I honestly don't feel like we need a rework, the main rotation feels good to use and is fine imo.
The main problem I have is Anatman and also I wish that either Tornado Kick and Six-Sided Star ( or both ) were involved in our main rotation.

I kinda hate how we get these new toys and then they're just totally situational...
It has bothered me for the longest time with Tornado Kick, it's such a cool ability but you don't rly get to use it. Even in PvP we have Axe Kick which looks and feels awesome but in PvE we don't really have anything that cool.

[SpeckledBurd]

I honestly don't feel like we need a rework, the main rotation feels good to use and is fine imo.
The main problem I have is Anatman and also I wish that either Tornado Kick and Six-Sided Star ( or both ) were involved in our main rotation.

I kinda hate how we get these new toys and then they're just totally situational...
It has bothered me for the longest time with Tornado Kick, it's such a cool ability but you don't rly get to use it. Even in PvP we have Axe Kick which looks and feels awesome but in PvE we don't really have anything that cool.

I kinda agree and kinda disagree.

On the one hand, I think that the fundamentals of the job, meaning the basic GCD loop, the basic concept of Greased Lighting, and form based combos are a solid foundation. They don't need to be reworked in the way that SB Machinist did where they threw the entire thing out and started over.

However the way they've handled not just action additions or new traits, but also adjusted existing skills such as Dragon Kick by adding Leaden Bootshine, has left the job with an expanded kit that's confused, utterly lacking in synergy, and unsatisfying to play. To make Monk players happy at this point I'd tentatively say that they need to outright replace Fists of Earth, Wind and Fire plus the two traits attached to them, and they need to either revise or replace Dragon Kick/Leaden Bootshine, Tornado Kick, Riddle of Earth, Brotherhood, Anatman, Six Sided Star, and Deep Meditation 1 and 2. That's 9 skills currently in the kit that need reworking and nearly every post ARR trait which basically encompasses everything to do with how its gauge works, how it builds resources, and how it spends that resource. That also isn't even touching on returning skills to it's kit that it would benefit from such as Touch of Death/Fracture which had significantly more utility on Monk than just being DoTs.

The amount of work it needs even if they keep the core is, frankly, depressing. There's no reason it should have been allowed to get this bad, but hey, they were very proud of it on launch.