How is monk after the rework?

[Yokubo]

As somebody who has played Monk from ARR, I've got to say Monk peaked for me in ARR. The use of Touch of Death (DoT off combo rotation) and Fracture (Cross class DoT) made the class feel fun and interesting. I would actually think through the combo and juggling the 3 DoTs (3 including Demolish). The use of the OGCD (Off Globals) was fun weaving in.

I didn't read all the pages but I saw a couple people complaining about too many OGCDs currently. Honestly I think that is super insane and don't know what you mean. Aside from the personal buffs (RoF, Brotherhood, PB, Potion), there is only Shoulder Tackle, Elixir Field, and TK. Weaving in Role skills and defensives shouldn't be part of the 'rotation' but you can still use those in between your weaponskills. Going into Shadowbringer Monk got gutted hard and the only thing that Monk has been given as an actual useful skill is Four-Point Fury (AoE rotation) and Enlightenment (AoE balls). The same 6 skills have been used since ARR which isn't necessarily a bad thing as I think the main combo itself isn't TERRIBLE, but I would like to see something more than just passive buffs and situational skills given to the class.

The removal of GL is another QoL change, but completely makes Anatman useless. The best use of Anatman is to refresh Twin Snakes in dungeon pulls or delay having to use it in rotation 1 of a re-engage. In the previous expansions I said "The day Monk gets GL4 is the day they rule the world!" and then we got it, but it was such an underwhelming addition. They buffed Fists of Fire at level 72, and then gave us GL4 at 76 via Fists of Wind. When they removed GL it just turned into a % damage increase so we can stay in fists of fire, but those are just passive changes to the class which was previously something to manage. Now the only thing left to manage is Demolish and Twin Snakes, which is literally every other combo or every 3.

I jokingly said this with my FC but ever since I've been really wanting it, and I truly think it could breathe life back to the class, that if they added a Combo Counter (Similar to GL increasing Skill Speed only) but it stacks endlessly (or to a high value) upon landing successful positional until you fail to get a positional bonus. Even if SE continues to hate Monk and gut and give nothing in return, this could make the class fun to have something to manage and rewards players who are going for those positional bonuses [Which should be everybody]. It's just currently Monk does not feel rewarding to play because the lack of a class identity or like a purpose/goal.

Also I have been seeing a lot of very good recommendations or ideas for Monk. I truly truly hope that SE considers some of these ideas, because we who have been playing monk have first hand experience of what we would like to see changed because we've been dealing with the same class for so long, and I think we collectively can offer great ideas that would make the class more fun or rewarding.

[Powercow]

I was kickin' around an idea, it aint perfect but it'd be a damn sight more interesting than what we have now.

The Forbidden Chakra, Enlightenment, Tornado Kick, Perfect Balance, Shoulder Tackle and Anatman are all redesigned. The Fist of Element abilities are removed because they're useless. Make Fists of Wind a passive if it's so important.

So Chakras get split into the Light and Dark chakras from our job quests. Also we have a max of 7. (Why did they make such a big deal about 7 chakras of Light and 7 of Dark and then give us 5 of Yellow? Ugh.)

Every time you land a positional, or if you use an on-GCD aoe skill and hit 3+ targets, you get a Chakra of Light. 5 light chakras is Enlightenment.
Every time you land an autoattack, you get a Chakra of Dark. 5 of these is The Forbidden Chakra.

Anatman is now a 3-minute cooldown. Using Anatman takes 5 Light and 5 Dark. It's on the GCD and is essentially your power-up phase (accompanied by a cool animation and sound effect). After activation, you gain a huge buff for 20 seconds: no positional requirements, +50% movement (so Sprint), +30% damage, and +30% haste. However, you can no longer generate chakras for the duration. This prevents an overflow on oGCDs and keeps this phase from getting too out of hand, while still keeping it super fast and powerful. And since you don't need to sweat positionals during it, you can focus on just beating the everliving hell out of your enemy. Re-activating Anatman during its duration will use Tornado Kick, which is now on the GCD and deals a much greater amount of damage (and we can actually see the cool animation), but ends the effect. Sorta similar to Confiteor for Paladin in that it ends a damage mode, and can be used early if there's a phase transition or a need for some immediate burst.

Perfect Balance is redesigned so that every 90 seconds, for 15 seconds, autoattacks also generate a Chakra of Light, and positionals also generate a Chakra of Dark. Let the oGCDs floooow. (Also it fits thematically methinks, balance between light and dark and all that.)

Shoulder Tackle no longer deals damage, just closes the gap. This will slightly slow down oGCD usage, since you're gonna be using a lot of Chakra abilities. Also you'll always have it available if you need to get off a boss for a bit.

With 7 max chakras you should never theoretically overcap unless you're neglectful on spending them, and you generate them so frequently that you'll be weaving in an absolute buttload of oGCD abilities. Might be a few too many, in all honesty. Ah well.

Lastly, re-add Riddle of Wind as its own button, a 2 minute cooldown that increases the range of your melee weapon skills to 20 yalms for 10 seconds. The ultimate disconnect move to make up for the inability to generate chakras off a target. Your autoattacks will not continue if you move out of range, and your oGCDs most likely won't reach, so you're still losing a lot of damage but you're not entirely helpless. Or add Chi Blast which gives 1 chakra of each, but that feels way too similar to Ninja and Samurai's generic ranged filler move. SSS will stay more or less the same as-is, but now it has a more distinct role without manual chakra generation. Riddle of Earth could do with some tweaking but I'm not sure on how to get that working. Personally I'd remove the no-positionals thing and just make it a pure defensive skill of some sort, but I know a lot of people want it to keep the anti-positionals functionality it has now.

[waterboytkd]

I was kickin' around an idea, it aint perfect but it'd be a damn sight more interesting than what we have now.

The Forbidden Chakra, Enlightenment, Tornado Kick, Perfect Balance, Shoulder Tackle and Anatman are all redesigned. The Fist of Element abilities are removed because they're useless. Make Fists of Wind a passive if it's so important.

So Chakras get split into the Light and Dark chakras from our job quests. Also we have a max of 7. (Why did they make such a big deal about 7 chakras of Light and 7 of Dark and then give us 5 of Yellow? Ugh.)

...

Lastly, re-add Riddle of Wind as its own button, a 2 minute cooldown that increases the range of your melee weapon skills to 20 yalms for 10 seconds. The ultimate disconnect move to make up for the inability to generate chakras off a target. Your autoattacks will not continue if you move out of range, and your oGCDs most likely won't reach, so you're still losing a lot of damage but you're not entirely helpless. Or add Chi Blast which gives 1 chakra of each, but that feels way too similar to Ninja and Samurai's generic ranged filler move. SSS will stay more or less the same as-is, but now it has a more distinct role without manual chakra generation. Riddle of Earth could do with some tweaking but I'm not sure on how to get that working. Personally I'd remove the no-positionals thing and just make it a pure defensive skill of some sort, but I know a lot of people want it to keep the anti-positionals functionality it has now.

I'm really late to this conversation, but I think these are really cool ideas. I would only have a couple of changes:
- Riddle of Wind: I'd like this to just be a 10-yalm skip back.
- SSS: I think this should replace Form Shift. Reduce the potency to 270 (or buff it to 280), give it a normal GCD recast, and then it gives a single stack of Formlessness. You can open with it, use it as filler to prevent oGCD drift, etc.
- as far as ranged attacking goes, the Fist Stances could stay but change to the following: Air stance could increase the range of your melee attacks from 3y to 10y, for when you're forced back; Earth stance gains "You ignore positional requirements against enemies for which you have enmity", becoming the stance for solo play; Fire stance remains unchanged, still being the default stance you want to be in. The idea here is that Air and Earth stance become niche.

But I REALLY like your Light and Dark Chakra idea, and really like the notion of overcap protection.

[Amh_Wilzuun]

I'd like something to build towards like Polyglot or Shoha, especially in regards to positionals, but if it's just a bigger/stronger Bootshine, then no.

More emphasis on Bootshine is the last thing MNK needs. If the job receives a mechanic like this then it'd be better off as a separate weaponskill entirely.

Furthermore, your PB suggestion implies that you're doing nothing but Bootshine, no thanks, PB is already too similar to Inner Release.

MNK is gonna have an emphasis on bootshine unless you want to radically redesign the job from the ground up. This just makes the current gameplay more satisfying. Also I don’t know what you read but my PB suggestion was just to prevent misalignment. You are still alternating DK and BS. If you want to de-emphasize bootshine then you could do a mechanic like this on other forms. I originally tried to think up a version of this with your couerl form third combo buttons, but it was much harder to align everything while also fitting it into the burst window.

I just like my current suggestion because it wouldn’t change up the flow of the rotation too much which I actually quite like, just make it meatier with a little less margin for error.

[SpeckledBurd]

MNK is gonna have an emphasis on bootshine unless you want to radically redesign the job from the ground up. This just makes the current gameplay more satisfying. Also I don’t know what you read but my PB suggestion was just to prevent misalignment. You are still alternating DK and BS. If you want to de-emphasize bootshine then you could do a mechanic like this on other forms. I originally tried to think up a version of this with your couerl form third combo buttons, but it was much harder to align everything while also fitting it into the burst window.

I just like my current suggestion because it wouldn’t change up the flow of the rotation too much which I actually quite like, just make it meatier with a little less margin for error.

You really don't have to radically redesign the job from the ground up to take the emphasis off of bootshine, you just have to change Dragon Kick back to an effect that slightly buffs every action instead of hyper charging one. That's functionally what it was as the blunt debuff, and if Dragon Kick were just a 10% Crit or Direct Hit buff to the Monk then it would do that without the need for a phase where you spam Leaden Bootshines.

There's been a lot to dislike about Shadowbringers Monk and while Leaden Bootshine isn't the worst thing about it, I still don't care for it. It's still part of the continued trend where Monk's original design has been weakened by implementing system wide changes to Monk when the job's form based combos made it work differently. I'd rather they change it back to something more similar to what it was pre-Shadowbringers rather than lean into Shadowbringers errors any further.

[Ceasaria]

They should just let the guy who designed Tifa gameplay from FFVII remake to do the design for 6.0 MNK.

[Amh_Wilzuun]

You really don't have to radically redesign the job from the ground up to take the emphasis off of bootshine, you just have to change Dragon Kick back to an effect that slightly buffs every action instead of hyper charging one. That's functionally what it was as the blunt debuff, and if Dragon Kick were just a 10% Crit or Direct Hit buff to the Monk then it would do that without the need for a phase where you spam Leaden Bootshines.

There's been a lot to dislike about Shadowbringers Monk and while Leaden Bootshine isn't the worst thing about it, I still don't care for it. It's still part of the continued trend where Monk's original design has been weakened by implementing system wide changes to Monk when the job's form based combos made it work differently. I'd rather they change it back to something more similar to what it was pre-Shadowbringers rather than lean into Shadowbringers errors any further.

This sounds less satisfying and fun than the current iteration of the job where you work toward bootshine as the big damage attack. MNK already has a damage buff they maintain during their combos and another one to maintain sounds boring compared to the leaden fist buff. I also don’t see how it makes the monk more about the form based combos since there’s still gonna be an optional rotation to stick to, just without the satisfying bootshines. And if you don’t like perfect balance, suggest a better version of a burst phase. Saying it’s just spamming bootshine is still kinda disingenuous, but if you wanted to make it more complex to build towards a big attack that could be cool.

[Shurrikhan]

This sounds less satisfying and fun than the current iteration of the job where you work toward bootshine as the big damage attack.

That depends on how it's situated. Personally, I found Dragon Kick in the context of ARR and StB gameplay (due to Demolish's duration at those times allowing for Dragon Kick to be dropped just before Demolish and its own reapplication in exchange for a Bootshine and True Strike to notable net potency gain) more interesting than the current Leaden Fist combos.

I also don’t see how it makes the monk more about the form based combos since there’s still gonna be an optional rotation to stick to, just without the satisfying bootshines.

Again, the past (and especially the StB Riddle of Fire slow-down) has done this part better, as optimal play then often tended to itself rotate between different rotations, while further changing more or less on the fly based on add spawns, number of DoT targets being maintained, and forced downtime.

And if you don’t like perfect balance, suggest a better version of a burst phase. Saying it’s just spamming bootshine is still kinda disingenuous, but if you wanted to make it more complex to build towards a big attack that could be cool.

For my part, Perfect Balance was a plentifully interesting mechanic back when it offered distinct advantages in AoE, utility, and ST throughput, and especially when those throughput affordances depended on one's other abilities and starting form (e.g. Riddle of Wind, Coeurl form). If anything, it was the siphoning of AoE potency from Rockbreaker to other (new) AoE GCDs, the loss of our utility, and the removal of our core mechanic so devalued that pinnacle ability, not any flaw in the concept itself.

But, of course, I'm the in the apparent minority who actually liked Greased Lightning as a mechanic, perhaps most especially when it was a challenge to maintain (e.g. Brayflox HM speedruns, T10, etc., back when it had only a 10s duration), and would rather not have had the job's core mechanic gutted rather than revised and polished, let alone on a vague hope that, contrary to all recent job designs, we'd get something interesting in its place.

That said, it's not disingenuous to say that PB is currently Leaden Fist spam. Optimally used under an ideal GCD length, it is.

They should just let the guy who designed Tifa gameplay from FFVII remake to do the design for 6.0 MNK.

Sadly, I doubt much of the spectacle of that system would carry over to one where it's very obvious you're just punching vaguely in the direction of a generic cylinder unaffected by your actions, in place of VII-R's in which the actual timing and geometry matters.

[Amh_Wilzuun]

That said, it's not disingenuous to say that PB is currently Leaden Fist spam. Optimally used under an ideal GCD length, it is.

It's literally not though, and it's not close to being like Inner Release.

[Shurrikhan]

It's literally not though, and it's not close to being like Inner Release.

It is literally prep Leaden Fist, spend Leaden Fist, prep Leaden Fist, spend Leaden Fist, prep Leaden Fist...

What is that if not Leaden Fist spam?

As for something else Perfect Balance could be: Blitzes. I said this during the 90 page Monk Needs a Rework thread, but Perfect Balance could be used to tie the Form Based combos into the Blitz System. You activate Perfect Balance and will be able to do a short string of Weaponskills in an order that would correspond to a given sequence of Opo Opo, Coeurl, and Raptor skills. The correct sequence would allow you to use some sort of finishing move like Suplex, Dolphin Blow, Rising Phoenix, or Phantom Rush. Unlike Dances or Ninjutsus, you'd still execute the skills during your Blitz period rather than just doing some other animation.

With the old being hacked to pieces, this at least seems a worthy successor as something new but related.