Monk Needs a Complete Rework

[Shurrikhan]

I like the idea of making leaden fist not requiring a positional.

That was the opposite of his idea, though? He wanted all positionals removed except for Leaden Fist/Bootshine.

Personally, I see positionals as core to the Monk experience.

I'd sooner sacrifice the rigid sequence of forms, with a (softer) rotation impelled in other ways that nonetheless allows us to adapt our rotation to the positionals we can presently use. That way we'd also always have access to our 9 form-based weaponskills, rather than wasting two-thirds of their buttons at any given moment when outside of PB.

Voila, you've got 24/7 positionals apart from SsS, but the greatest flexibility of any job by which to deal with them. Identity remains. Frustrations mostly gone. Remove Riddle of Earth and True North as they're no longer needed. You get access to 6 more of your (previously locked out) buttons and 2 others are no longer necessary; that's a massive increase to button-efficiency.

Honestly, if I were allowed something more ambitious, I would likewise remove positionals entirely. They don't make sense. But I would not remove dancing around the target as a consequence of other mechanics, namely force and focus. If you kick a humanoid's legs out from under them at the same time your ally swings a greathammer through their helmet from the opposite side, dude's gonna spin. If the enemy's focused on an ally to his left, and he's got a gap in his armor accessible from his right with certain attacks, those attacks are going to be effectively twice improved because you're ideally getting through his armor and he's not noticing you well enough to shift his stance and turn it into a glancing blow. But that requires undermechanics beyond units just being cylinders whose primary metric you eventually deplete -- not really the goal of XIV and its barebone systems.

Actually, the only way to be optimal on Monk is to be padded by half your party by making them go specific comps. With or without positionals, we're always disadvantaged to other DPS because they don't have to be handheld by a DRG, DNC or SCH just to access their basic resource gauge.

No reason we can't just fix that too.

Change Chakra to relative potency-based generation, say... every 3k potency dealt generates a point of Chakra with DM1, and that's reduced to 2k with DM2 (spitball figures). Progress towards the next point of Chakra is shown via a bar. This includes the effects of Determination, Twin Snakes, Greased Lightning, and so forth in addition to critical and direct hit multipliers, so while it'd favor damage buff multiplicity from raid buffs like every other job, it won't favor critical or direct hits any more than any other job.

As per the QoL improvement mentioned last page, you can now use TFC at any time; Meditation is purely passive, generating a Chakra's worth (3k, then, sadly, down to 2k) of "Chakra-potency" per half-GCD, generated continuously (i.e. if the server tick is 20 Hz, then 150 or 100 Chakra-pot per tick) starting from the moment you're off the GCD. (It's still obviously worse than using each GCD as soon as possible, as two Chakra per GCD nets you under 150 potency, whereas Twin does 170 and has vast additional value through its damage bonus.)

Now, have Brotherhood duplicate your Deep Meditation mechanic and spread it over all allies in range. Doesn't matter whether it's healing or damage, physical or magical. They unload their shit and you get to unload yours in spades. Heck, if you really wanted to cheese the meters, you could have your WHM spam (AoE) heals during it for its sheer raw potency (and to align the fight end to everyone's CDs).