Monks need a projectile!

[VentVanitas]

Monk honestly has better disengage mechanics with Meditation and Six-Sided Star than just having a (terrible) ranged attack. If the disengage is long enough and chakra is maxed, then there's always Enlightenment followed by Meditation spam, or Anatman refresh buffs and keep them active.

Other than the point on person mentioned about the niche of solo pulling mobs in PotD, Melee ranged attack weaponskills suck. They do minimum potency, and more importantly they interrupt combos. Monk would of course benefit the most from a basic ranged attack because they would suffer no combo interruption because their combos are based on form buffs. Then again, do we really need to give Monk another skill that is only useful during disengage (alongside Six-Sided Star, Anatman, and Meditation)?

If anything, we should be fixing the problem with how bad melee (and tank) ranged attacks are currently. For Hyadelyn's sake, remove the combo interruption aspect of ranged attacks! I would LOVE to fill boss disengage time with low-potency ranged attacks without fear of losing my current combo.

To answer the topic: No, Monk does not need a low-potency, basic ranged attack when they already have three skills devoted to disengage.

But, since the range pulling thing for Deep Dungeon piques my interest, here's a solution: change The Forbidden Chakra to Chi Blast, a single-target ranged attack with the same potency as TFC (like dezzmont mentioned on page 5). Simple, easy, and doesn't increase bloat. Can even fire it during boss disengage.

Under no circumstances should you be using Enlightenment in a disconnect situation lol, a considerable portion of damage contribution comes from Forbidden Chakra and wasting it on Enlightenment is always a DPS loss in a single target scenario. (Also it's only like 10 yalms so if you're close enough to use Enlightenment then you can probably greed TFC.) No disconnect in the game is long nor specific enough to warrant wasting 5 whole Chakras over Enlightenment.

[Pyitoechito]

Under no circumstances should you be using Enlightenment in a disconnect situation lol, a considerable portion of damage contribution comes from Forbidden Chakra and wasting it on Enlightenment is always a DPS loss in a single target scenario. (Also it's only like 10 yalms so if you're close enough to use Enlightenment then you can probably greed TFC.) No disconnect in the game is long nor specific enough to warrant wasting 5 whole Chakras over Enlightenment.

Yeah, I honestly can't think of one either. The only thing I can think of (which never happens) would be a significant disengage followed by boss transition where it becomes untargetable for a long enough time, but at that point TFC should have been used beforehand anyway (and that situation never happens).

Or.... if it's meant to be a movement tool, they could take the damage potency off of the skill, maybe let it have a stun effect so that it mirrors the spine shatter name, and increase the potency of other skills to compensate.

Dragoon already has a no-potency backflip, and most gap-closers deal damage and have charges nowadays.

Another (albeit dumb) idea, what if LNC/DRG had slightly wider attack range for all their melee skills simply by virtue of the fact that a lance/spear is a long weapon?

[SpeckledBurd]

Dragoon already has a no-potency backflip, and most gap-closers deal damage and have charges nowadays.

Another (albeit dumb) idea, what if LNC/DRG had slightly wider attack range for all their melee skills simply by virtue of the fact that a lance/spear is a long weapon?

If the topic is mobility, that's something that Monk needs more help with than a ranged attack frankly. Right now it's solidly the least mobile melee since it's the only one that lacks any sort of DPS free or even neutral movement skill. Dragoon can elusive jump even if Spineshatter and Dragonfire are down, Ninja can basically Shikuchi whenever it needs to, and Samurai has Gyoten and Yaten which recoup their Kenki cost as long as you're using them properly (Yaten would be better if enhanced Enpi shouldn't break combos and had a higher potency though IMO). Monk doesn't have anything nearly that flexible, it can Shoulder Tackle but there's a major incentive to use both charges in Riddle of Fire, and its disengage is ultimately just a sprint that requires perfect GCD timing.

Frankly I think it should have something like En Evant for a completely free movement action. A flash step directly forward would perfectly fit something that's supposed to be a high speed martial artist like Monk.