MNK Rework is a great start

[PangTong]

I’ve lost track of the amount of times that fists of earth has prevented a wipe in dungeons/raids/trials (including ex). It has uses, situational yes but situational skills give jobs depth, and some of them are more useful in synced content (very much part of the game) and I think that’s where SE fails by listening to the forum whiners too much, some people think that every skill you have should be used in end game raiding, or it’s useless and that’s just not the case.

Situational skills can be good and interesting additions, but the situations where they are useful actually need to exist with enough frequency to justify occupying a hotbar slot. I've played MNK for 5 years, and I could count the times where I got any use from Fists of Earth on one hand. It's a personal damage reduction on a non-tank job which doesn't have a raise. If you're being attacked as MNK in the first place, something is already going terribly wrong. You have to assume the tanks are dead and your enmity is high enough that the enemies are attacking you instead. But even in this case, Fists of Earth is only useful if it can prevent your death for long enough to revive the tanks. Since it's only a 10% damage reduction, you are probably going to die anyway. Essentially, by the time you're in a situation where Fists of Earth might be useful, a wipe is already nearly guaranteed.

Not every skill needs to be rotational, but skills which have no obvious use in normal gameplay and content can't really justify their existence.

[Sqwall]

Stances are remnants of an old system of DPS agro management. I believe the stances were a complete oversight by the Dev team and not recognizing the the lack of desire of coming out of one stance as a DPS. Reminds me of the ninja stances from YEARS ago that got the axe in HW I think?

The stances for mnk have and in of themselves always been trivial. Like you I can probably remember only ONE time I used fists of earth and it was when our tank died in Dazmel Darkhold on the 2nd boss due to standing in AOE. I flipped over to fists of earth and due to high DPS I held agro easily. Back then we had featherfoot and this accompanied with bloodbath, second wind, haymaker, fists of earth mnk could truly hold it's own in a tank situation until the tank was rezzed or until the mob was dead.

Where I think monk went off the rails was from 1.0 into 2.0. Monk has always been considered a tank from 1.0 and a lot of that carried over into 2.0 with bloodbath, second wind, haymaker, fists of earth and in 1.0 you also got Taunt (now provoke), but is no longer available on monk currently from 2.0 onwards.

Monk is a failed experiment of a former tank in 1.0 being turned into DPS while still holding onto a LOT of skills focused on tanking into 2.0. I totally believe monk could have been a tank in 2.0 if it weren't for the positional's. Which I feel were tacked on to put monk in the DPS category to make it compelling to play. If positional's weren't there and monk kept everything from 2.0, it would be a tank. My god your role + cross class allowed: Foresight (defense), Skull sunder (enmity generation), fient (slow enemies), keen flurry (parry chance), Bloodbath (HP regen), Not to mention featherfoot (evade chance), Haymaker (counter on hit ability that slowed), Fist's of Earth (damage reduciton), Mantra (increased healing), one ilm punch (removed buffs).

This ALL makes me believe and this held true in FFXI for monk. But Monk was going to be the 3rd tank in 2.0. There I said it.

Paladin - mitigation tank
Warrior - Life steal tank
Monk - Evasion/dodge tank (and without positional's this would have been AMAZING)

I truly believe monk with it's high DEX and Evade chance monk was a "dodge tank". Fist of Earth in 2.0 gave 10% damage reduction...Fist of Fire only gave 5% damage increase.

Haymaker was actually REALLY strong with 180 potency and a slow effect when a monk evaded an attack. Pretty reminiscent of Shield Swipe with pacify on block for a paladin.

The key here is positionals, and the unessicary need for them at ALL in this game. FFXIV didn't understand what it was until heavensward. After the complete overhaul of 1.0 and 2.0, heavensward was the real start of battle mechanics imo. Everything before it was something to get them started with the game. Monk was just a by product of an old system that nobody liked, and monk has been confused as to how it fit in the DPS world ever since leading up to 5.4.

[Ultimatecalibur]

...Snip...

Haymaker, Fists of Earth and Featherfoot were all Pugilist skills not Monk skills. Monk seems to have always been intended as a DpS what with Fist of Fire (damage up) and Dragon Kick (Blunt Resist down) being locked to the Soul Crystal. The "Tank" skills Pugilist had seemed to be more a sign that the alternate Pugilist job was planned to be a Tank just like how many of the Lancer's "tank" skills pointed to an alternative Tank job. The failure to properly balance Arcanist for both Scholar and Summoner killed a lot of plans, but I don't think Monk was ever a failed Tank in the making.

[Brandedblade]

Haymaker, Fists of Earth and Featherfoot were all Pugilist skills not Monk skills. Monk seems to have always been intended as a DpS what with Fist of Fire (damage up) and Dragon Kick (Blunt Resist down) being locked to the Soul Crystal. The "Tank" skills Pugilist had seemed to be more a sign that the alternate Pugilist job was planned to be a Tank just like how many of the Lancer's "tank" skills pointed to an alternative Tank job. The failure to properly balance Arcanist for both Scholar and Summoner killed a lot of plans, but I don't think Monk was ever a failed Tank in the making.

To add to this, iirc the general idea was that classes would be flexible with what they can do, and the jobs would sacrifice that generality to be more efficient at a given role, however, this being an mmo where efficiency is the only thing that matters, outside of some niche early pvp stuff that element of the system was rarely used.

[PurpleWolfborn]

I could not agree more. I had left monk as one of the last jobs to level to get the mount for leveling all jobs to 80 because, old monk was very unenjoyable to play personally. It just was to tedious to play but, the changes in 5.4 have made it one of my favorite jobs to play. I finally feel like a martial arts master with flying fists and kicks of fury. I cannot wait to get it to 80 and play the higher level content with it.

[ItMe]

Considering you get Fists of Earth at level 15, I'm pretty sure it's mainly for solo progression and FATEs and the like.

[Caitsithhh]

Its not a bad start but I feel this current iteration is only a base. It still needs another mechanic fleshed out next expac to its rotation. I’d like to see perfect balance falling off leaving you in formless stance, chakra rework, twin snake duration extended by 1-2 seconds, six sided star made into another ogcd, and a real disengage like Sam/drg/nin have. Chakra I’d rather when filled grant a small buff window, ie having 7 chakras to open up and after 5 is filled your next leaden bootshine does two hits. Or after 5 is filled it allows six sided star to be used without the gcd penalty. Current chakra system is clunky at best and ruins the more natural flow of the current rotation.