What I would like to see in future monk!

[wereotter]

Just locking specific moves behind the fist stances sounds like keeping them around as unnecessary bloat IMO, especially if it's going to lock skills from a new subsystem like Blitzes (I'm assuming there'd be some button input requirement there). Further it would just be annoying if they don't fundamentally change from what they are now and we had to slow down from GL4 to go into fire stance, or lose 10% damage and speed to go into earth stance.

Making a single stance the AOE stance also just strikes me as trying to keep the fist stances around just to keep them. Monk has an AOE loop independent of the stances already, there's no reason to tie Monk AOE unless you're only goal is to keep the Fist Stances for the sake of keeping them.

The Fist Stances should go, there's no point in keeping them around because they might have potential if that potential is never realized. I'll even go so far to say that the fist stances actively detract from the job's development at this point by continuing to get traits that do nothing, when traits could easily be added to other aspects of the job that also have potential.

You're assuming that they keep everything the same and only implement additions of this system that is so roughly conceptualized by me, that it's not even clear how they would add it. So if the job gets a total revamp, then there's no reason to assume that GL4 is still tied to fists of wind, especially if your OGCD moves are dictated by your fist stance. If this type of system is added as a button input (which is also like the system another person suggested in copying Zell's limit break) then either GL has to go, or its timer could to be frozen when you go into entering your combo.

People want fist stances to mean something, and there's only really a couple ways you can do this. You can make the different stances do different things that are viable in different situations, which is how they approached the Ifrit/Garuda situation on summoner, or you can force the monk to cycle through their stances akin to bard songs. The latter really does just have stances maintained for the sake of keeping them while the former does at least give some rationalization of keeping them.

If there are better uses or things that the stances can do, I'm all in favor of it. But I do think that there needs to be something to make them viable rather than just deleting them entirely.

[Mikey_R]

The question is, why do people want fist stances to mean something? If it's just going to be a system where X is better than Y, it's no better than what we have now, if you rotate between them, it is just copying Bard. If they are more situational, then isn't that counter productive to what people want to achieve? We want less situational skills and a more complete kit and with that, when thinking of a rework/redesign, don't think about how you can try and force them in but think of a system and see if they CAN fit. If they can, sure, add them, if they can't, then don't force them in.

A quick way you can keep the fists in, is have them be cooldowns and have them upgrade to the riddles at a higher level. Have Fists of fire be a 20 second 10% damage buff, which is upgraded to Riddle of Fire to give the current 20 second 25% damage buff. With Fists of Earth, you have the defensive side, then when you get Riddle of Earth, it adds Earths Reply and the GL refresh to the effect. I can't quickly think of a use for Fists of Wind/Riddle of Wind, unless it's a GL generator, which could make Tornado Kick useful, however I would prefer them remove Tornado Kicks reliance on GL stacks altogether.

[Shurrikhan]

Further it would just be annoying if they don't fundamentally change from what they are now and we had to slow down from GL4 to go into fire stance, or lose 10% damage and speed to go into earth stance.

Isn't all this kind of like assuming that "TK had a potency bug in SB, so it must always have a potency bug in all future expansions as well"? Stances have interacted with GL, and seemingly for no reason other than to avoid actually making the stances interesting in their own right, for all of one iteration out of 5. And it has not been well received. Why assume that, of all things, must stay in the context of so much larger changes as suggested above?

[Shurrikhan]

The question is, why do people want fist stances to mean something?

A few likely remember that 1.x Monk could outright tank in FoE (though not quite so well vs. heavy tankbusters as a cross-classed Pugilist), could kite in Wind, and dealt top-tier damage rotating between Wind (which increased Attack Speed and reduced its CDs and was therefore used over each mini-burst, because getting an extra mini-burst in between main bursts was faintly more efficient than buffing each of fewer mini-bursts, especially since the increased Attack Rate more than afforded that extra mini-burst's TP costs, back when AAs generated TP) and Fire (which was still just a straight damage buff). Arguably, Monk back then was overpowered in its versatility, but it was definitely a fun time to be Monk, among that lineup.

In other cases, because deliberate action, and restyling oneself to set up for those actions, is fun.

The problem is merely that it's done so little to act as a deliberate action or setup for a broad set, or "style", of actions.

With ARR, Fists of Fire was halved and Fists of Wind had its Attack Speed and Recast Speed components removed making it purely a DPS-negative situational minor movement speed increase, for instance. Why? With those components, Wind had sufficient reason for rotation alongside Fire. Without it, it was a situational skill AND too weak of one to be worth using (a mere 10% movement speed buff... when you have access to Sprint-Invigorate and can't swap back to Fire for 3 seconds) in most situations that would otherwise call for it.

The outcry of "But they've tried so many different ways to fix it!" since ARR is disingenuous. They've tried at most two, and only if you count tangential changes as attempts to fix stances.

The first was Tackle Mastery. It, and the TK rotation it obliged in Crit comps, especially at lower SkS levels, had mixed reception. I loved it despite being among those most screwed over by it. Most Monks I've met in game with under 100 or so ping miss it badly. Burd apparently hated it and has insisted that the vast majority of Monks did likewise despite that even on this forum it's had pretty good reception.

The second is the GL4 we have now, which has even less to do with the stances themselves and more a matter of "Well, we can't rightly get rid of RoW when we still have RoF and RoE, so let's just finally give them that GL4 they've been bitching for and lock into to Wind for thematic 'reasons'."

And so we've had all of two tangential changes and use this as proof that stances can never, will never, be fixed despite that their very first iteration, back in 1.x, allowed for multiple styles of play by, apart from a few key moments, making the difference between stances small enough that as long as you followed through on your setup, you could play in roughly optimal fashion and true optimal play required precise rotation between stances that was not merely limited to "use A for 30 seconds, then B for 30 seconds, repeat" as a Bard's would be.

[Kabooa]

In other cases, because deliberate action, and restyling oneself to set up for those actions, is fun.

All I want for Christmas is my Burning Crusade Protection Warrior stance dancing playstyle back.

[Ramura_Sono]

...

So, "The outcry of "But they've tried so many different ways to fix it!" since ARR is disingenuous."? But pointing to a version of the game that existed more than a decade ago and played vastly differently as an example of fist stances working isn't?

"The fist stances totally worked in this failed version of the game!" is not a good argument for keeping the fist stances. The devs have had 7 years to make the fist stances into something meaningful or with actual choice, elected to do nothing for the first 4 , and then when they actually made attempts, failed, and then failed to learn from the first failure. When the choices are 'do nothing', 'failure due to not learning from previous failures' and 'success' it's hardly surprising people don't want to give the devs another attempt. Being stuck with bloat fist stances for another two years because the devs once again failed to put thought into making them meaningful or an actual choice isn't something I and many others are willing to take a chance on. Especially when we seem to be eternally on the bottom of the priority list for dev attention.

Can the fist stances be made to be interesting and facilitate actual choices? Yes
Do I trust the Devs to put in the time, thought, and effort to successfully, purposely create such a thing? No. Especially not without it resulting in other issues being left unresolved or creating whole new issues.

[wereotter]

So, "The outcry of "But they've tried so many different ways to fix it!" since ARR is disingenuous."? But pointing to a version of the game that existed more than a decade ago and played vastly differently as an example of fist stances working isn't?

Nit picking here... but you realize the game from 1.0 to now isn't more than a decade old, yes?

1.0 launched in September 2010 and ARR came out in August 2013. So none of these systems are "more than a decade ago"

[Shurrikhan]

So, "The outcry of "But they've tried so many different ways to fix it!" since ARR is disingenuous."? But pointing to a version of the game that existed more than a decade ago and played vastly differently as an example of fist stances working isn't?

The idea has been there have been multiple attempts since ARR to fix stances, and thus there must not be any way to fix it. There have been no further adjustments to the stances themselves since ARR except to adjust the % damage on Fists of Fire, which they'd already left as the 24/7 stance, equitable to a mere damage aura buff to Monk when they don't want to bother with individual potency buffs.

At the same time, the only other take on stances, by which Fists of Wind affected all matters of speed (Attack, Recast, and Movement), accomplished the very things people are adamant can never be accomplished.

When you call something singular (ARR-ShB's version of stance) multiple, and ignore the literal half of all other versions (pre-ARR) to make your point, yeah, that's disingenuous.

There's nothing about the game state that allowed for FoW at that time to exist as a combat stance competing with FoF. It was the simple fact that it offered offensive benefits comparable to FoF.

Version 1: Attack, Recast, and Movement Speed. (This therefore has benefit for oGCDs--especially those such as Steel Peak, which would otherwise fall out of sync with raid buffs, allows for differing rotations, and is optimal over FoF during low-potency GCDs.)
Version 2: Movement Speed.

See the difference?

All these expansions since ARR, and they've never once tried to tie offensive benefits to FoW or FoE themselves, only to either lock GL generation or GL states to it. And we wonder why it fails to compete with the only stance with offensive benefits... for offense?

:: Also, this game hasn't been out for a decade yet, even if counting from 1.x. Heck, since ARR it's been fewer than 7 years.