Monk Needs a Complete Rework

[wereotter]

I'd actually point at Warrior's ARR/HW Wrath/Abandon Stacks as the prototype for most gauges rather than Chakra. Pretty much the entire baseline was there, they actively built in combat and you could spend them on a Single Target or AOE potency dump. It's much more similar to the gauges we see on many jobs.

The point of Chakra in Heavensward was fairly clear. It really wasn't a system to begin with, you never hit it in combat because it was always worse to use it over an actual weaponskill, it was just a downtime loss mitigation tool so Monk could have a big hit after losing it's stacks and coming back. It's more of a precursor to Samurai's Meditation or Dancer's Improvisation than it is towards actual job mechanics. The fact that it had Purification attached to it is more an aspect of Purification's terrible design than it is that they conceptualized Chakra as a system IMO. Most of its problems as a gauge now can be laid at it originally being a downtime mitigation skill that was lackadasically hacked into a Gauge while still trying to cling to it's roots as mitigating downtime loss which ultimately made it unsatisfying as a gauge skill and worse for downtime.

I never played Warrior in ARR and wasn't familiar with the job then... but I can see how that was an even earlier start to the system. Though I thought wrath stacks in ARR just provided potency buffs? I feel like I never saw warriors drop it in combat, but maybe I'm remembering incorrectly.

But it does feel like Monk ends up being the testing ground for job mechanics that get polished when moved to other jobs while monk keeps the klunky unrefined version. Greased Lightning and Chakras being the start, the Riddle of Earth being more the precursor to Improvisation and Meditation (although monk also got Anatman for that same type of situation)

[Caitsithhh]

In all honesty(been maining mnk since 2.2) besides the fun of the TK rotation...the current one is fun. It’s very fulfilling to line all your buffs and gcds correctly in say an 18 minute fight like TEA.

Most people I see playing monk play it so BADLY it hurts my soul. Doing the Anatman opener currently and keeping your gcds rolling lines up all your raid and personal buffs perfectly with your rotation. It’s the most un-clunky it’s ever been. Stacks are something no actually decent monk stresses about. The bigger stress is the twin snakes timer. Double True and the Skill Speed tier you must hit for Perfect Balance are the only complicated things for monk(NOT COMPLICATED JUST MILDLY ANNOYING) besides learning a fight.

It may hurt to hear this, but not every monk wants to play a brain dead class with a stupidly rigid rotation such as DRG/SAM in the melee tree. DRG has no variables and SAM’s only variable is how many filler gcd’s you use before hagakure...

Actual changes I hope for are of course less RNG, a timer buff/nerf to Twin Snakes, SSS and TK merged/merged-changed, and guaranteed meditation stacks granted just from doing your core rotation. The only good coming from traiting GL is no more super cold reopener on Perfect Alex. There’s other changes im hoping will be acceptable. Though I hope only the things I mentioned and the skills that are obviously useless after traiting GL are dealt with.

The trend of dumbing classes down and changing them multiple times an expansion needs to die. Please SE....

[Gameovers]

History suggests that the 5.4 rework will be a disaster. The only time SE has done a good rework for the job was when they did it by complete accident. But at least someone will be happy with it. I envy your faith, I really do.

I'm genuinely anxious that the rework will just make MNK the exact same job, but no Greased Lightning. But what of Anatman and Tornado Kick, the two moves that would be literally be broken without GL to work off of? I'm sure SE will find some backwards way to make them useless again, even with the golden opportunity to fundamentally change them. (By all means, if SE proves me wrong and makes those two skills into something substantial come December I'll gladly eat my words)

I apologise if it seems like I'm just doomsaying but Powercow is right. If SE thinks that GL was what needed to be changed after making it baby easy to keep then they still don't know why the job is struggling to outdo BLU with player numbers. The only good I can think to take from the rework is that maybe, just maybe, that by no longer having GL will force SE to make something that isn't pointless maintenance skills for future patches.

I think monk in HW was at it's best honestly. But I can see why they downed it down.. as they downed everything down from HW. As alot of the rotations - mainly the opener- were insane then. I trust them cause they made mch and ninja more playerable so I'm mostly expecting monk to be finally not a train wreck. Long as they fix TK and kill and never return to RNG and anaman I'll be so happy.

[SpeckledBurd]

I never played Warrior in ARR and wasn't familiar with the job then... but I can see how that was an even earlier start to the system. Though I thought wrath stacks in ARR just provided potency buffs? I feel like I never saw warriors drop it in combat, but maybe I'm remembering incorrectly.

But it does feel like Monk ends up being the testing ground for job mechanics that get polished when moved to other jobs while monk keeps the klunky unrefined version. Greased Lightning and Chakras being the start, the Riddle of Earth being more the precursor to Improvisation and Meditation (although monk also got Anatman for that same type of situation)

Warrior stacks were always spent on Inner Beast and Steel Cyclone. In ARR it was common for people to sit on them because they gave a 10% increase to Parry and it was before the average mentality for players shifted toward doing as much damage as possible.

[Noctisnine]

I would love to see something like, you do all your positionals correct for let's say 2 full rotations and then you unlock a free tornado kick stack, a bit like black mage. That would give us an extra motivation. Obviously anatman needs to be fully reworked.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Warrior stacks were always spent on Inner Beast and Steel Cyclone. In ARR it was common for people to sit on them because they gave a 10% increase to Parry and it was before the average mentality for players shifted toward doing as much damage as possible.

The original effect was a 2% crit rate buff per stack (10% at 5 stacks). This was changed to a +2% parry per stack in HW with Abandon stacks giving +2% crit rate per stack. Even when Wrath/Abandon stacks were a dps buff losing them all from using Inner Beast/Fell Cleave or a phase transition wasn't a major dps loss.

GL on the other hand started out as some like a ~30% damage loss if it dropped, creeped up to ~33% a loss in HW and SB and is now something like a 43% damage loss if dropped. I suspect losing GL wouldn't have been such a meme if GL had been something like +5% crit rate 5% increase in speed per stack rather than a 7% to 10% flat damage boost per stack in addition to the speed increase.

[Jirah]

Agreed, so far every time SE changes a job its usually for the worse or a complete lobotomy which my bets are on the latter. If Monks get that treatment i just wanna say i totally called it

As 5.4 is due to appear next month, This is still valid.

[Maffis]

I kinda wish they made the elemental stances more meaningful. Like switching between them gives different buffs that maybe allows us to use TK in Fire Stance without losing all GL-stacks. I want SsS to have a real purpose too since Form Shift already helps us keep GL-stacks and you can Meditate on downtime. SsS doesn't have a real purpose. But I have read a suggestion to allow it to be used at 15y range when in Wind Stance and I really like this one.

[Arrius]

The trend of dumbing classes down and changing them multiple times an expansion needs to die. Please SE....

I think most are just content with giving the Monk more breathing room regarding their self buffs.
Greased Lightning and Twin Snakes require a substantial amount of time to ramp up and to maintain compared to the duration they have.

On quite a few fights you lose out on both when you get into battles that incapacitates/fetters you for longer than 15 seconds, or even have transitions where you cannot hit them pre-Form Shift (Shiva and Leviathan springs to the mind).
That just really feels bad to start off again with -25%/-30% damage and need 12-15 seconds to get back 'up to speed', while dragoons and samurai can manage their +damage/skill speed buffs more easily with at least double the duration than Twin Snakes.

[Sqwall]

I think most are just content with giving the Monk more breathing room regarding their self buffs.
Greased Lightning and Twin Snakes require a substantial amount of time to ramp up and to maintain compared to the duration they have.

On quite a few fights you lose out on both when you get into battles that incapacitates/fetters you for longer than 15 seconds, or even have transitions where you cannot hit them pre-Form Shift (Shiva and Leviathan springs to the mind).
That just really feels bad to start off again with -25%/-30% damage and need 12-15 seconds to get back 'up to speed', while dragoons and samurai can manage their +damage/skill speed buffs more easily with at least double the duration than Twin Snakes.

I believe this is the plan to be fixed in 5.4, IF SE decides to trait GL instead of a ramp up. It would honestly make more sense to give a GL speed/damage buff at leveled amounts. GL I at 15, GL II at 45, GL III at 55, and GL IV at 75. This would allow monks to just naturally gain GL over the leveling process and also gradually stronger. SE should still make the pre 50 grind compelling, much like it felt leveling NIN pre 50, and just became very fluid afterwards. Speed and damage just come with natural leveling, currently being level 80 you are still punished by GL which is something we monk's should have mastered at 50! Alas, we still cut off our own legs and are forced to "ramp up" to GL IV. The current form of GL ramp up should be abolished and should have been done in Stormblood.

The broken record continues to skip over and over with monk concerning:
Anatman,
TK,
SSS,
Chackra RNG,
The forced crit melding,
choice of stances (but only Wind matters),
Riddle of Earth self harm for "True North" and still a heavy reliance on positionals,
awkward buff timers,
Perfect Balance still being used as burst phase instead of fast ramp up,
Form Shift undermines Anatman and SSS....the list goes on.

Monk used to be one of the best DPS in the game due to it's shear damage and versatility in raids. Now it's s SHADOW of it's former self which pales in comparison to SAM, NIN, DRG, BLM, SMN, hell EVEN MCH!

I have been playing monk form 2.0 to current and I will continue to say this "BRING on the RADICAL changes!", because anything changed can ONLY get better then the current garbage that is monk NOW.

This is rock bottom for monk...5.4 can ONLY go up.