Monk Needs a Complete Rework

[Shurrikhan]

"Riddle" effects are instead baseline Fist buffs that apply from using them. You balance the need to maintain Fist Elemental buffs with the need to input a certain string for your Blitz command.

As per the questions directed at TK, Perfect Balance, Stances, and the like... are the multiple choices of playstyles in any given moment in pursuit of this balance (between longer-term maintenance and the Blitz command most effective at the moment) an acceptable point of potential confusion along the path to mastering the job?
How does it avoid the fundamental issues faced by, say, making use of GL as anything more than maintenance or having choice in one's Stance (if ever balanced)?

Just asking as a means of probing, to be clear. I really like the idea, especially as anything that feels more like "maintenance" puts more emphasis on the penalties of loss than the benefits of reaching the given effect, and I feel your suggested system puts emphasis far more on the positives than any negatives, so long as the different Elemental buffs don't end up as just a checklist of 'keep up A, B, and C'.

[Kabooa]

How does it avoid the fundamental issues faced by, say, making use of GL as anything more than maintenance or having choice in one's Stance (if ever balanced)?[/I]

It's generally a matter of whether or not we would accept the possibility of things not overlaying or fitting together perfectly.

I, personally, don't see jobs that auto-correct themselves as necessarily well designed (Paladin/Gunbreaker come into mind), nor ones that require manual correction.

I think Greased Lightning should be a resource, and Chakra should be more of one, though for a quick answer and overall revamp wouldn't fit neatly into this, so for now we'll focus on the fists and their buffs.

By creating Blitzes based on inputs, we curtail some of the need for each fist to mathematically be equal in terms of potency output when it comes to their buffs - They're more the bonus than the reward, though it does create potential blitz buffs and command rotations that would be 'optimal'.

To perhaps make them a bit different, we make them OGCDs that rely on the Monk's stance. This also has the fundamental benefit that they can only take up one button. Opo Opo for Earth, Raptor for Fire, Couerl for Wind.

Fist of X
ability
Recast: 15
Effect: Deals Y potency, beginning or building upon a Blitz strike. Requires [This] Stance. Advances into [that] stance.

This allows for a trait to provide the 'Riddle' bonuses later on.

Riddle of Elements
Trait
Effect: Fist of Fire, Earth, and Wind provide additional bonuses upon use for 18 seconds.

The bonuses we choose here can ideally avoid being potency based, but lets try "Greased Lightning is a resource" as a background change so we can toy with that some. As a design idea, Greased Lightning's benefit is unchanged but comes at breakpoints on a 0-100 bar, and every 25 grants the bonus that a stack does now. The monk's gauge extends at the same break points when leveling up, so the 25, 50, 75, 100.

Fist of Wind: Extends the Greased Lightning Gauge to 125. New cap doesn't grant more bonus, but more resource to play with.
Fist of Earth: Reduces damage taken, removes conditional requirements on Opo Opo skills.
Fist of Fire: Increases Greased Lightning skill costs and potency.

We also create an additional, if not more, meaningful place for Six Sided Star - Similar to old Touch of Death by linking Fists to Stances. It becomes a corrective GCD. We can also reduce it down to 2.5s recast so it's not silly. I think we could add Chakra generation here, but for the scope of this post it can be left out.

I believe with this we have a solid foundation for priority conflicts.

[Shurrikhan]

<Directly Above>

Thanks. Solid explanations.

[Solmyrk]

I'm far from a veteran or expert, so ignore me or take this as "new player" feedback since I'm only recently back after not playing since 2.0 but after seeing Ranjit in game and the SB cutscenes I'd hope for a style overhaul. Monk should also be one of the more mobile DPS with a flying kick and a fireball, especially since it has the most positionals to deal with. Personally I can't stand switching between flank and rear for combos, this should be simplified to at least letting the rear also count as flank. The animations need to flow into each other better for combos too and look like martial arts instead of some combination of flower gardening and eighth grader physical education exercises.

I think the original theme was best overall: build speed to achieve high dps, and if you lose it start over. However there should be an insurance pool mechanic to either allow you to start from scratch more quickly, or burn it on a big dps combo if you have capped/more pool than you might need for insurance/boss gaps.

I'm predisposed to like monk as a dps class because I love the theme but seeing the current combo animations at a high level plus everything everyone is saying after scouring forum data on it is putting me off the class, esp with the bad feeling flanking mechanic and tanks spinning items every which way (at least in speed clears of dungeons so they can mitigate more on big pulls) in addition to natural boss movement.

Regarding the stances, esp. earth stance it seems you could use it as a mini tankbuster eater style buff (just not enough to eat a real tankbuster, or be on a very long cooldown if so) and build an insurance pool type mechanic buff for taking the risk of eating an attack. Sort of like a martial arts counterstrike or parry absorption theme thing similar to The Blackest Night. If RDM, SMN can bring a raise, cure and back healers a bit, this doesn't seem to outside of the realm of utility for monk to back tanks a bit and is in keeping with the FF monk style. Fists of wind would be your default builder stance, and Fire would be your insurance pool dump buff for burst. If you are confident enough to dump all your pool because you know you won't mess up to start your GL stacks from scratch, then you dump the entire pool. Ordinarily you might keep 1 restart buff in reserve.

[Mahrze]

The animations need to flow into each other better for combos too and look like martial arts instead of some combination of flower gardening and eighth grader physical education exercises.

Glad someone agrees with it too.


To add to this since I replied just before leaving work. Its one of the things that I am definitely amused by, most "combo step" animations for MNK are cool and all, but are so detailed that you clip them more often than not due to weaving, I'd rather see the job get animations for their "combo steps" that look like... you know, actual combo sequences.

[Renkei]

Both Monk and DRG Need some Skill Ceiling added into their kit in order to make up for positionals, I like what they did with Samurai and Third Eye to Seigan, I think MNK AND DRG should have Similar abilities, as for MNKS Anatman it should be reduced to 10 seconds to increase flexability or change it all together, Currently Melee is punished hard for having positional attacks not rewarded. SAM makes up for this with having Seigan and Third Eye,

DRG : Feint > Fleche
MNK : Counter Stance > Counter

Change Cross Class Feint to Constraint or Restraint.

[SpeckledBurd]

Both Monk and DRG Need some Skill Ceiling added into their kit in order to make up for positionals, I like what they did with Samurai and Third Eye to Seigan, I think MNK AND DRG should have Similar abilities, as for MNKS Anatman it should be reduced to 10 seconds to increase flexability or change it all together, Currently Melee is punished hard for having positional attacks not rewarded. SAM makes up for this with having Seigan and Third Eye,

DRG : Feint > Fleche
MNK : Counter Stance > Counter

Change Cross Class Feint to Constraint or Restraint.

Monk had the prototype to that interaction prior to Stormblood. It was Featherfoot>Haymaker. It's just that Haymaker only worked on a Dodge and Featherfoot was 25% with its trait, so the odds of it proccing were insignificant.

Samurai just took that particular design concept and actually made it functional instead of near worthless. I don't necessarily think it would work well on Monk or Dragoon either. Part of what makes it so good for Samurai is that it's more kenki efficient but not so kenki efficient that it's an enormous loss to miss a proc while you're learning a fight. Dragoon's eyes doesn't work as a meter with any thought on how to spend it and the way Monk's Chakra builds isn't conducive to even having Chakra in whatever window you could use that Proc.

[SpeckledBurd]

Also here's a fun check in that everyone loves to hear, now that the clear rates for jobs week to week for Savage have normalized, Monk is once again the least played job in everything other than TEA. Not because it's weak, but because its design in Shadowbringers kept its problems and pleased basically no one.

[Mahrze]

Also here's a fun check in that everyone loves to hear, now that the clear rates for jobs week to week for Savage have normalized, Monk is once again the least played job in everything other than TEA. Not because it's weak, but because its design in Shadowbringers kept its problems and pleased basically no one.

Which is no surprise from the census back in feb from Lucky bancho? Isn't MNK the least played overall barring BLU? And even then not by much in difference?

[Sora_Oathkeeper]

I'm never surprised that MNK is the least played in all content (barring some Ultimates). I'm certain MNK has been the least played DPS job since HW minus a brief moment in SB where it was slightly above MCH. The job's become stale since HW as no interesting mechanic has been introduced. DRG got BotD upkeep which is rewarded with LotD, while not much of a mechanic is at least a gauge that ramps up and allows a decent burst phase. NIN has Ninki management and while not the most intuitive at least has some decent skills attached to it. Ninjutsu feels engaging and is super nice when you can chain Ninjutsu together when out of melee range. I haven't played SAM since SB but my wife has it leveled and even that seems somewhat improved rotationally.

There's nothing engaging about GL or Chakra stacks 6 years (4 for chakras) after their inception. To me personally neither feel like a mechanic, I have no control over chakras and GL is so easy to maintain now that there's no thought needed. If you lose GL it's because 1) The fight forces you too. 2) You died. Or 3) you fell into the trap of using TK when you shouldn't have. Neither 'mechanics' have evolved in the slightest. Keeping GL has been made easier but outside of that there's almost no interaction with the gauge itself. The job is just boring now which pains me to say because I love martial artists in other games because the aesthetics resonate with me. It almost feels like they've palmed all 'engagement' into the same positionals we've been doing for 6 years and given up on any other form of engagement. I think MNK's numbers are as high as they are currently because they're at least still really good DPS wise. Just a shame that after 6 years MNK has had next to 0 evolution.

Rework when please SE?