Monks need a projectile!

[SpeckledBurd]

Meditation is your "can't hit the boss" button. It's approximately 200 potency / GCD. This is your fallback.

All other melee fallbacks are about 120-150 potency / GCD, and break combos.

Whether meditation / chakra should feature earlier in the leveling scheme is another discussion.

Monk's current design makes this extremely inconsistent though. With Chakra currently being RNG without overhead between it being capped and being usable is inherently at odds with Meditation being the projectile skill equivalent. Chakra amounts will vary when you disengage, so if you disengage with an empty or mostly empty Chakra gauge you can make good use of the downtime, whereas if you have to disengage with a nearly full bar or if your final GCD when you disengage caps you're severely limited or can't do anything at all.

It also leaves Monk without a means of spot pulling in solo content or leveling, which isn't important at end game but can impact the leveling experience or the ability to do side content like PotD solo.

They need to severely overhaul Chakra no matter what because it is definitely the worst designed gauge in the game and Meditation being Monk's answer to other Job's having actual projectile skills only contributes to that.

[Kabooa]

Monk's current design makes this extremely inconsistent though. With Chakra currently being RNG without overhead between it being capped and being usable is inherently at odds with Meditation being the projectile skill equivalent. Chakra amounts will vary when you disengage, so if you disengage with an empty or mostly empty Chakra gauge you can make good use of the downtime, whereas if you have to disengage with a nearly full bar or if your final GCD when you disengage caps you're severely limited or can't do anything at all

They need to severely overhaul Chakra no matter what because it is definitely the worst designed gauge in the game and Meditation being Monk's answer to other Job's having actual projectile skills only contributes to that.

Yes, this is a fair point. One might even speculate it's what prompted the design for SSS. There are a few band aids that could be applied here, but given where we are (and the lack of pressing need for further job adjustments, given no 5.5 ultimate), any and all adjustments outside potency for any job at this point is almost certainly not happening.

For what it is worth, for good or ill, there was mention at looking at melee disengagement moving forward. Whether this alleviates any frustration (and by extension, justifies bumping up the ranged more than a token amount), we'll see.