Monk has too many Positionals

[SpeckledBurd]

I wouldn't eliminate positionals, they're one of the three core pillars of the job as it's designed and there really isn't anything wrong with them. However I wouldn't mind a revamp of how positionals on Monk work in the vein of certain positionals being tied to chakra and others being tied to potency. Bootshine sort of has this on a technicality since the auto-crit also proccing a chakra every time, however that's actually an issue at the moment. There's so much potency on it that it actually needs to be toned down some since missing it causes you to lose ~260 potency which is like missing every single positional a Dragoon has going through both of it's combos.

However other than that, Monk is fine with positionals. If you want less positionals, play Ninja.

[Ariel_Valmont]

Monk is hot topic...

Removing GL is like like BLM crying about how it’s too hard to keep enochian up and they constantly lose it to cut scenes.

Any BLM knows it is integral, GL was integral, and was as easy to keep up as enochian.

[Saefinn]

I know you Monk mains out there will likely flame me for wanting to see it changed, but for ease of access for everyone shouldn't it be?

I'm gonna say "no". The problem is this game attracts people of varying levels of skill and interest, for some simpler forms of gameplay are better for others more complicated forms of play are better.

We accommodate the former in all jobs we fail to accommodate the latter. This is exactly what they've done to healers and tanks in this game where you had jobs that were technical like DRK and AST and used to have more engaging DPS rotations like SCH. As somebody who loved SCH, DRK and AST as they used to be, it's a mentality I can't get behind. I am an advocate for different jobs to represent different difficulties of play. The advantage of having multiple jobs for each role is that you can accommodate more playstyles. SAM I feel exists as a simpler MNK alternative, as an example. Heck they have just made MNK simpler by removing Greased Lightning.

The view I've always had is: if a job doesn't fit your needs try a different job. I can understand changing things if they are broken and complaining if a job has changed so you enjoy it less, but is a job you play.

MNK's positionals to me is a part of the fun. And I've lately picked it up again after its fixes and I think it would be sad to lose positionals on it. I just practice against a training dummy to get used to my positionals and rotations.


From an accessibility point of view, I have a new player in my FC who is currently learning to play MNK, they're new to MMO's too and MNK is their first melee and they struggle at some solo instances in the game and are still learning much of it. They have not felt MNK inaccessible, it has confused them at first but they just wanted to learn to get better at it and not change the job because they enjoy playing it. I sat with them a couple of days ago to help them get into the flow of it against a training dummy and it helped. The game is VERY forgiving, you can screw up your positionals until you get them right long before you get to a point where it's important.

I feel if anything the better solution if accessibility is a concern, the emphasis should be on better tools to learn than making things easier.

[Garet]

I'm gonna say "no". The problem is this game attracts people of varying levels of skill and interest, for some simpler forms of gameplay are better for others more complicated forms of play are better.

We accommodate the former in all jobs we fail to accommodate the latter. This is exactly what they've done to healers and tanks in this game where you had jobs that were technical like DRK and AST and used to have more engaging DPS rotations like SCH. As somebody who loved SCH, DRK and AST as they used to be, it's a mentality I can't get behind. I am an advocate for different jobs to represent different difficulties of play. The advantage of having multiple jobs for each role is that you can accommodate more playstyles. SAM I feel exists as a simpler MNK alternative, as an example. Heck they have just made MNK simpler by removing Greased Lightning.

The view I've always had is: if a job doesn't fit your needs try a different job. I can understand changing things if they are broken and complaining if a job has changed so you enjoy it less, but is a job you play.

MNK's positionals to me is a part of the fun. And I've lately picked it up again after its fixes and I think it would be sad to lose positionals on it. I just practice against a training dummy to get used to my positionals and rotations.


From an accessibility point of view, I have a new player in my FC who is currently learning to play MNK, they're new to MMO's too and MNK is their first melee and they struggle at some solo instances in the game and are still learning much of it. They have not felt MNK inaccessible, it has confused them at first but they just wanted to learn to get better at it and not change the job because they enjoy playing it. I sat with them a couple of days ago to help them get into the flow of it against a training dummy and it helped. The game is VERY forgiving, you can screw up your positionals until you get them right long before you get to a point where it's important.

I feel if anything the better solution if accessibility is a concern, the emphasis should be on better tools to learn than making things easier.

I think a balance is good where it can be accessed by a lot but at the same time not making it too easy or too similar to other jobs. I agree that aside from having multiple jobs to choose from, having variety to choose what suits u more is good. Like if this one jobs seems to hard for you then there is other jobs with different styles that might be more suited.

I also think positionals suits monk since it feels like we are dancing around the enemy while hitting them which is fun. I like that GL became a trait though.

[Saefinn]

I think a balance is good where it can be accessed by a lot but at the same time not making it too easy or too similar to other jobs. I agree that aside from having multiple jobs to choose from, having variety to choose what suits u more is good. Like if this one jobs seems to hard for you then there is other jobs with different styles that might be more suited.

I also think positionals suits monk since it feels like we are dancing around the enemy while hitting them which is fun. I like that GL became a trait though.

Oh yes, I love variety too. And the thing is, if one job is too hard, learning another might help you on the path to that other job. Even that said, there's so much wiggle room in this game to learn things that I don't see a requirement for people to be efficient until much later.

I too like that GL is a trait now, it removes one of the biggest annoyances that had me side more with SAM and is now probably making MNK more attractive to me, yet I also get why it is missed, although it was something broken on MNK I can get the desire for a fix that keeps GL.

[IruruCece]

The problem with it being "something" that was "broken" on Monk is more that this problem has been building literally since 2.0, alongside of MULTIPLE other problems with the job's kit, coupled with SE's growing tendency to break up boss fights with extensive cutscenes that also affected other buffs and mechanics on other jobs negatively.

They had multiple opportunities to do something about it, and did NOTHING to change how GL works at any point in time until Shadowbringers, and the best they could come up with was just to remove it. They could have offered some means to ramp it down incrementally, so that missing a refresh didn't take the whole dang thing away. They could have offered us something that made it REWARDING to maintain over an extended period of time, similar to Enochian (and it wouldn't even be the first time they've taken design cues from other jobs). They could have made it another resource that interacted with our kit beyond the self-buff to our speed and power. They could made Anatman a full GL refresh on a long cooldown (but allow us to shorten that cooldown for successful combo-initiated refreshes of GL). People have been throwing around suggestions on how to change GL for the better for years, and none of it reached SE, ever??? None of those ideas are my own, they probably aren't even close to the best ideas people have thrown around for it!

They didn't do anything but give up, on a job and a mechanic they've continually screwed up with every expansion, as a means to appease a shrinking number of Monk players that have been begging that something, anything be done, all in service to another set of players who didn't even like playing Monk in the first place, in raids or dungeons. It's frustrating to me that this is supposed to be considered a "good start" when they turned Anatman into a Twin Snakes refresh, of all the bloody insipid decisions they could have possibly made! This is supposed to be a "good start" when once again we're sitting in one elemental fist forever and we don't even have a legitimate reason to switch off of it. Even the start of ShB managed to half-heartedly offer Monk a reason to switch from Fire to Wind!

But hey, at least we can use our former capstone skill in the middle of an awkward burst phase.

If Black Mage players were more vocal about losing Enochian to cutscenes/boss disengages, SE would have shut the servers down to hotfix it in 24 hours or less. Meanwhile, they've left Monk to languish for years simply because it could still do damage in spite of their best efforts to clamp down on what harder working and better players than myself have tried to extract out of this confused mess of a kit, and I expect nothing better from them at this point. Fortunately, there's other jobs to play, and I do play them, but everything surrounding how Monk has been "fixed" from Heavensward to Stormblood and now Shadowbringers really ticks me off.

[Garet]

Oh yes, I love variety too. And the thing is, if one job is too hard, learning another might help you on the path to that other job. Even that said, there's so much wiggle room in this game to learn things that I don't see a requirement for people to be efficient until much later.

I too like that GL is a trait now, it removes one of the biggest annoyances that had me side more with SAM and is now probably making MNK more attractive to me, yet I also get why it is missed, although it was something broken on MNK I can get the desire for a fix that keeps GL.

This is off-topic but I see that you have most jobs at 80. Am currently undecided which to main since loving most jobs haha. I just returned to game from heavensward so mostly have only lvl 60 jobs. I am choosing between monk or dragoon at the moment, which do u find more fun at lvl 80?

[Saefinn]

This is off-topic but I see that you have most jobs at 80. Am currently undecided which to main since loving most jobs haha. I just returned to game from heavensward so mostly have only lvl 60 jobs. I am choosing between monk or dragoon at the moment, which do u find more fun at lvl 80?

Funnily enough, I've been struggling to settle on a melee job to play myself. I am the kind of player who tries to pick a focus for each role, because I like to mix it up sometimes for variety. And melee DPS is the only one I've struggled with this time around, because I like all of them and none stand out above the others. So I can understand the difficulty of choice.

DRG is in a better place design-wise from what I understand, but I'm disadvantaged from the perspective of optimised play, because I've not tried to perfect my rotations on either. But I am aware that there are still bigger MNK problems from that perspective, but not as bad as pre 5.4.

But in terms of fun? I like MNK's aesthetic as I used to do martial arts I have a bias (especially as I feel MNK gamifies some concepts, that makes me like it more) and I like the heavier focus on nailing positionals and how your rotation can be reactionary, in that you can change your rotation halfway though, EG: if you're in your AoE rotation and you're down to 1 enemy you don't have to make your next move an AoE. Or if you open from the rear and AoE moves you to the flank, you can follow with an attack to the flank. So that's something that feels better to me. Every other job either has me finish a specific rotation or start a new one, MNK lets me adapt it.


And I like MNK's AoE rotation, because it flows and all-but-1 of my abilities don't need me to target anything. Coming from a DNC background it's a preference, because I can spam a little more mindlessly rather than re-target when my targeted enemy dies and I don't have to think about where I'm facing except for Enlightenment.

But I think DRG is flashier and has some cooler abilities, it's always satisfying to use the jumps & dives IMO and it feels quite bouncy to play. Whilst it's not as heavy on positions, it will still reward you for them, especially in that doing them successfully will allow you to use Raiden Thrust when you learn it. So you get something noticeable out of doing it right. And it's AoE rotation still flows well and is consistent, so I have no complaints about it.

A couple more comparisons: I think DRG gets the better level 80 capstone. It's cool looking, it's ripped straight from the Niddhogg fight and you build up to it.

MNK's is not as satisfying and is a DPS loss unless you use it when enemy dies or just before a phase transition.

But Brotherhood is a lot less effort than Dragonsight. Dragonsight requires you to be close to who you used it on, Brotherhood buffs everybody. So that could be appealing or it might be considered an inconvenience (depends on your perspective). Plus you need to target a person, Brotherhood you set & forget.

DRG's gameplay gets an evolution between 60 and 80 whereas MNK at 80 is barely different to what it is like to play at 60. So if you have MNK at 60, you've got a pretty good idea of what it's going to be like maxed out. DRG will flesh out what you with Blood of the Dragon between 60 and 80, which offers a new dynamic to your rotation.

So if you've got them both to 60, it's probably a good place to start comparing how they feel in testing them out.

[Garet]

So if you've got them both to 60, it's probably a good place to start comparing how they feel in testing them out.

Yes they are both at lvl 65 plus now haha. You are correct that monk is so versatile because of the forms. Like you I like that we can weave into aoe and single target skills easily unlike other jobs wherein we need to finish or restart a single or aoe combo string from the very beginning.

What about Bard and Machinisit? any thoughts?

[Saefinn]

What about Bard and Machinisit? any thoughts?

I think it'll be hard for me to compare fairly. I've not got MCH to 80 and my experience of ShB MCH (which is very different to the older version) is exp grinding. I enjoy it, it flows well and you have a few different focuses to keep it from getting too monotonous, as you have your shooty shooty rotation, your tools, your wildfire rotation and your robot friend. Wildfire has its appeal in trying to squeeze as much as possible in short space of time trying to achieve the most damage out of a wildfire you can. And I know there's a challenge to timing your wildfire to get the most out of them. I have a couple of friends who main MCH who love it and rate it highly.

BRD, I know it gets its complaints and I am one of the people who likes ShB BRD. It's a late bloomer, which I know a few people have found off putting to level. I like that it provides support and that my focus changes based on the song I have up (and I rotate songs, which I felt was a cool idea) because each song has a different mechanics. Some people don't like it because it's too RNG focused and some don't like it because they're in a weird balance where they have to be in the middle of DNC and MCH in terms how its weighed as a support job and its personal DPS contribution, this means some find its support side lackluster and its personal DPS side also lackluster. But me, I like the juggling of actions and the song benefits to you and it ends up feeling like a very busy job, especially when you're dealing with more than one enemy (as your procs are based on DoTs, more DoTs = more procs). But until you're in that level 70 to 80 stretch bard can feel like it doesn't do a lot and is kinda dull and lackluster.

And I'd like to throw in a special mention for DNC. It's my chosen ranged DPS and it was what I mained for all content before I swapped back to healing for my group, it's very fluid and the RNG is inoffensive and you get a decent weave of oGCD's and the steps can be satisfying. There's a lot of movement too as part of your rotation has you move into melee range and En Avant is a life saver...though it can make you too dependent. I learned that when I took over as my group's healer again, which was when we were still learning Ruby EX, I found my timing of dodging certain mechanics was based on using En Avant...and that was my hard way of learning to not become dependent on it. And the Technical and Standard Steps can be fun. And ngl there is a novelty to being able to break 200k damage in a single skill (a crit direct hit Technical Finish). It's also a simple job, yet, despite being simple I've not grown bored of it (like I did RDM). It's because of things like that DNC despite being job with the lowest personal DPS (because of its support DPS) you still feel like you're dealing heavy damage.

And when you get Saber Dance, you have a codependence with your Dance partner as they will build your Esprit gauge. People with high APM will help build that faster. And when you Technical Finish, your whole party can generate it and can sometimes mean you get out some Saber Dances back-to-back.