Monk 6.0 - My own hopes/suggestions

[PangTong]

Monk has been my main job since I started playing in Heavensward, and I love lots of things about it, but it's had quite a troubled history and has never been in a state I would consider "perfect".

I like to think about how I would improve the job and condense my thoughts into pseudo patchnote-style changes. This design represents what I would think of as an ideal state for Monk, and encapsulates the kind of changes I would like to see. Things like exact numbers and names are all just theoretical and placeholder. If you don't like it, that's fine. This is all just for funsies anyway and I don't really expect any of this to actually make it in to the game.

My 6.0 Monk:

• The chakra cap is increased to 10. You can only build to 5 chakra with Meditation, because after that the Meditation button changes into The Forbidden Chakra. Any additional chakra beyond 5 can only be gained with procs from Deep Meditation or Brotherhood.
• The chakra gauge now has a rate limit of 1 chakra per second. If you earn more chakra than this, the game "stocks" them and then applies them to the gauge gradually at a rate of 1 chakra per second.

This is just addressing a long standing complaint about not having a buffer for chakra, causing you to frequently overcap without being able to do anything about it. Now, even if you're getting tons of chakra, you should have the time to use them all.

• Riddle of Fire is removed.
• Brotherhood's duration is increased to 20 seconds.
• Anatman is removed.
• Tornado Kick is removed.
• Fists stances are removed.
• Riddle of Earth is renamed to Iron Fists.

This is removing what I feel are unnecessary or uninteresting skills to make room for new ones. Anatman is pretty self-explanatory. The Fist stances could potentially be interesting if you had a design which revolved around them, but I decided this might end up too complicated and went with something else. They've never really managed to make the Fist stances work on their own, and they're taking up button space which could be used for better stuff.

Tornado Kick is okay but a bit boring, the main reason I'm removing it rather than changing it is because you can't even see the entire Tornado Kick animation in its current state, it just gets cut off by your next weaponskill.

Riddle of Fire is not too bad but is a bit boring because it's just flat +damage on a simple cooldown. It also creates a design where Monks desperately want to stock all their cooldowns for use inside the RoF window, which limits what you can do with the rest of the job design, since people will complain if all their skills don't line up nicely with their burst window. There's still Brotherhood, but since the buff is only 5% it's not as big of a deal. Lastly, since the Fist stances and all other Riddles have been removed, it seemed incongruent to still have a skill called Riddle of Earth, so it's changed.

• Six-Sided Star is redesigned. It is now an oGCD ability that causes you to jump 10 yalms back from your target. It deals 400 potency damage but also afflicts you with a debuff that prevents you from using form-based weaponskills for 4 seconds. You can still use Meditation.
• New Skill: Howling Fist. A GCD weaponskill not tied to any form. It deals 150 potency damage (single target) and has a 15 yalm range. Howling Fist can be used during the Six-Sided Star pacification debuff.

This addresses what I feel is the problem with Six-Sided Star. Being on the GCD makes it awkward to use without extremely strong fight knowledge, and the speed buff doesn't really help that much. The long GCD also feels paralyzing when MNK already has things they want to do when away from the boss (i.e. charge chakra).

This new design gives MNK some much needed mobility (which it lacks compared to the other melees), without compromising too much on the original design of the ability and without forcing you to just wait out the long GCD. The ranged attack also gives MNK something to do if they're temporarily out of range, and brings back Howling Fist's animation.

• New Skill: Awakening - An oGCD attack. Deals 480 potency damage and costs 5 chakra. 60s cooldown, 2 charges.

This represents the replacement for Tornado Kick but in a more interesting form. There's not much to do with chakra at the moment, so this gives you a priority attack which makes the chakra system just a little more deep. Having 2 charges helps eliminate the problem of having a cooldown require an RNG resource like chakra. If you don't have enough chakra to use Awakening when it comes off CD, no problem, you've got another 60 seconds to get enough chakra while the other charge builds up.

• New Skill: Touch of Death - A GCD attack not associated with any form. Applies a 40 potency DoT effect lasting 30 seconds. Reapplying Touch of Death extends the duration of the effect up to a maximum of 60 seconds.
• New Trait: Fist Mastery - Upgrades Bootshine into Dragon Rush. Dragon Rush deals 230 potency damage (400 potency with Leaden Fist) and always crits when used in Opo-Opo Form, regardless of direction. When executed from behind the target, Dragon Rush extends the duration of Touch of Death by 5 seconds.

Remember Touch of Death? Well it's back. It's an out-of-combo GCD DoT which gives MNK something else to keep track of. This time though it's a little more forgiving because it can be extended and therefore doesn't have to be refreshed at exactly the right time.

The change to Bootshine addresses what I feel is a problem with the Bootshine positional being too punishing. Missing out on the guaranteed crit is a pretty serious damage loss. This change not only makes the positional less punishing, it also provides an additional way to help maintain the new DoT, as well as giving an excuse to upgrade the Bootshine animation into something more flashy.

• New Trait: Bodhi - Every time you use The Forbidden Chakra, Awakening or Enlightenment, you gain a stack of Bodhi (displayed on chakra gauge). At 5 stacks of Bodhi, The Forbidden Chakra and Enlightenment change into Transcendence.
• New Skill: Transcendence - oGCD ability. 550 potency plus 50% damage to enemies within 5y of the primary target. Costs 5 chakra.

There's no particular logic behind this one. It does help make chakra a bit more of an involved system, but it's mostly just to have a new flashy attack for Monk to use.

• New Trait: Focus - Introduces the Focus Gauge. Correctly landing a positional weaponskil (or using any AoE weaponskill increases the Focus Gauge by 1. The maximum value of the gauge is 100.
• New Skill: Nirvana - an oGCD buff ability. Costs 80 Focus Gauge. Increases weaponskill crit chance to 100% for 15 seconds.

A new mechanic and gauge to help cover the foundation the job lost with the (rightful) removal of Greased Lightning. Brings in a fun new buff with the super saiyan aura everyone has always wanted. The reason why Nirvana only affects weaponskills is because if it affected all attacks, it would encourage really annoying minmax gameplay of trying to line up all your cooldowns with Nirvana which would be annoying and unfun due to the semi-random nature of chakra and the fact that can't always guarantee that you can build Focus at a constant rate.

• New Trait: Fist Mastery II - Upgrades Snap Punch into Rising Phoenix. Deals 300 potency damage (330 from the flank) and increases the Focus Gauge by 2.
• New Trait: Fist Mastery III - Upgrades True Strike into Silent Roar. Deals 290 potency damage (320 from the flank) and increases the Focus Gauge by 2. Also upgrades Rockbreaker into Hurricane Kick, which deals 180 potency damage.

Some upgrades to the base rotation, bringing in some nice new animations and making up for some of the damage lost by the removal of fist stances and Riddle of Fire. The added bonus of guaranteed Focus means that no matter how bad you are at hitting positionals, you will always get enough Focus to use Nirvana eventually.

• New Skill: Furious Fists - An non-weaponskill GCD. Deals 100 potency damage per second to all enemies in a frontal cone (8y radius) for up to 10 seconds. Moving cancels the attack. 60s cooldown.

Lastly, just a fun new skill to help round out MNK's AoE rotation. It works essentially the same as MCH's Flamethrower, just with you throwing a billion aetherial punches in a huge arc.

That's everything! Feel free to leave your own ideas or wishes too.

[VentVanitas]

I'm not entirely sold on this Focus gauge idea. It just seems too similar to existing gauges already, even if the method of filling it is different. Rewarding players for hitting positionals is an awesome idea, but using it for more oGCDs just seems unsatisfying to me since that's basically what Chakra does already. Additionally, Nirvana is too similar to WAR's Berserk. Let's not make MNK even more similar to WAR, Perfect Balance is already bordering on being an Inner Release clone as it is.

MNK should have something more interesting to do to spice up/break up the rotation rather than just having an additional gauge to spend oGCD filler damage with if you ask me. Other than that I find some other changes interesting like having a follow up attack for SSS. (though I don't think the suggestion would solve its mobility issue since the back-step pretty much achieves what the currently existing speed boost already does.)

[PangTong]

I'm reluctant to do anything to make the basic rotation significantly more complex since the impression I get from other players is that MNK is fairly difficult to grasp just with its current setup. From the perspective of someone who has been playing Monk for years I totally get the desire to add something that changes what you're doing moment to moment but I'm concerned it might make an already unpopular job even less accessible. Touch of Death was my compromise here.

As for focus, I'm open to the idea of changing what Nirvana does or how it works. It's hardly the only gauge which is only used for 1 skill, but I've also considered other things like an ability which has its cooldown reduced by 1s every time you land a positional. 100% crits just seemed like an obvious thing since Monk revolves around crits so much already, besides just more damage it means you're getting guaranteed chakra on every weaponskill which ties back into its other actions. I feel like there's limits to what you can do with the base rotation without starting to get really complex, and Perfect Balance kind of already covers the obvious possibilities. I'm kind of at a loss for what else to add in terms of changing up the basic form cycle skills.

Personally I feel an oGCD backstep is a significantly better mobility tool than the way SSS currently works. Most of the time when I want to use SSS I find I can't because I have to move before my GCD comes back up. You really need to know the fights like the back of your hand to use it properly.

Thanks for your reply, I appreciate that someone actually bothered to read my pointless wall of text lol.

[Sqwall]

This feels like.... a lot of bloat tbh. I like the ideas. I just don't know how this would all fit with everything you left on the table. You removed 4 skills and added 6 and a new gauge to manage.

With the current playstyle of monk it's already breakneck. I don't know where I would weave any of this in.

That being said.

I like the SSS change. All to often I find myself waiting for my GCD to refresh so I can use SSS....then run away. This skill needs to be oGCD, maybe a jump back or a +50% speed bonus for 3 seconds? Like "Lost Swift" from bozja?
I like the fire/fist mastery traits. Put's a fresh coat of paint on the 10 year old skills and this would make higher level monks feel progressively stronger with newer flashy skills.
I like the ToD Dot brought back. Monk desperately needed a dot on a longer timer other then demolish. I honestly don't know why this was removed in the first place.
I like the Furious Fists skill. It reminds me of One-Hundred Fists. This would be flat out broken with your Nirvana skill of 100% crit chance, but would make you cap out on chackra in snap which I would have to break the channel to prevent from capping.

All good thoughts and ideas and SE needs to take note of just how much Monk has SO much potential. The board is set, and they need to start moving the pieces to win the game.

Ultimately I want monk to be FUN. #1 goal should be FUN no matter what. If it's not fun i'm ditching it for Reaper as I have missed my FFXI Dark Knight aesthetic and Reaper will fill that void. (pun intended).

6.0 is a perfect opportunity to start fresh and make monk what it should have been all along. Fast, Furious, Bruiser, Crit Machine, that has the fluid design of NIN. Well I feel NIN is pretty smooth...that's just me I suppose.

[Morzy]

It was in a stable state. Monk was perfect and by god necessary in 2.2 when you couldn't survive Turn 13 without the -10% INT debuff that made the raid-wide magic AOE survivable. The only real issue was that you were kind of screwed if you didn't pop your Invigorate in a timely fashion and One-Ilm Punch being the most useless lvl 45 ability in existence. The job only became unstable in HW because, frankly, it was tough to build upon.

I am sure that you spent a great deal thinking these changes over, but it feels like it is too much both in power and change to the job itself.

Riddle of Fire is not too bad but is a bit boring because it's just flat +damage on a simple cooldown. It also creates a design where Monks desperately want to stock all their cooldowns for use inside the RoF window, which limits what you can do with the rest of the job design, since people will complain if all their skills don't line up nicely with their burst window.

But using abilities inside 'windows' is what MANY jobs including Monk do/did. In the past we had Internal Release and Blood for Blood which served as an opener which basically defined how well you played the job in how much damage you outputted. There have always been people who hate on the job, there always will be, and I don't think making them happy by changing things is necessarily the right way to go.

Tornado Kick is okay but a bit boring, the main reason I'm removing it rather than changing it is because you can't even see the entire Tornado Kick animation in its current state, it just gets cut off by your next weaponskill.

TK isn't the only ability that suffers from this, though, and I think its animation fits it well given the name and damage output. Though arguably the animation fit better when it consumed your GL (even if it was terrible and super niche).

This new design gives MNK some much needed mobility (which it lacks compared to the other melees), without compromising too much on the original design of the ability and without forcing you to just wait out the long GCD. The ranged attack also gives MNK something to do if they're temporarily out of range, and brings back Howling Fist's animation.

Howling Fist was not a ranged attack and its range was 10 yalms not 15. I don't think we need a ranged attack. The only mobility we need is what we have in the form of Shoulder Tackle. The debuff is also totally useless because the obvious decision after retreating like this is to use Shoulder Tackle. The whole design of monk is to GET ENGAGED and stay engaged, not to retreat and use a ranged ability (and I don't buy the 'ranged ability for convenience sake')

Lastly, just a fun new skill to help round out MNK's AoE rotation. It works essentially the same as MCH's Flamethrower, just with you throwing a billion aetherial punches in a huge arc.

I think our AOE rotation is perfect. The AOE chakra was icing on the cake.

[PangTong]

I think it might just seem overwhelming but in practice there's actually not much difference in overall complexity. In reality, this only increases the number of buttons in Monk's single target rotation by 1, that 1 being Touch of Death. You gain Awakening and Nirvana but lose Tornado Kick and Riddle of Fire. Transcendence is an automatic button change that is basically just a buff to every 6th chakra skill you use, so it doesn't really make the rotation more complex. Howling Fist is situational, and Furious Fists is part of the AoE rotation (its potency isn't high enough to be worth using single target) which doesn't have much complexity to begin with. The gauge only controls one skill, so it can be thought of as being similar to a cooldown that refreshes based on your ability to do positionals rather than time, there's little need to actually "manage" it in the way that say a Warrior might manage their gauge.

Furious Fists is also an ability (as in not a weaponskill), so it doesn't generate chakra even though it's on the GCD. It's functionally identical to MCH's Flamethrower.

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MNK still technically has a window in this design in the form of Brotherhood, it's just no longer as important to squeeze everything into that window. I get why people like burst windows and don't think they're necessarily bad things. The issue I have with RoF on Monk is because Monk has a resource system based on RNG (chakra), it creates a situation where the total amount of damage you can put into that window will vary based on your luck, which is something I find that people generally dislike in this game. It also means that it's difficult to expand on the chakra system without changing it to be consistent rather than RNG-based, because the more damage you tie to chakra, the more important it becomes to get good luck inside your burst window. I don't mind chakra as an RNG-based system since it's fairly unique among the jobs in the game, so I did want to keep that, but Riddle of Fire's huge damage buff felt like it was restricting chakra from becoming more interesting.

As an example if you have some kind of priority cooldown attack that costs chakra and does more damage, you're obviously going to want to use it under your massive +25% damage buff, but this could lead to awkward situations where you don't get the procs and you miss the window, or where you deliberately overstock on chakra and have to let yourself overcap to make sure you can use it in the window. That kind of thing I think is just generally unsatisfying and the devs have gradually removed instances of this in the game over time (for example, Bards no longer have to hope they have a Refulgent Arrow proc ready to go when Barrage comes off CD. Warriors no longer have to make sure they have full gauge to get the most value out of Inner Release)

As for Tornado Kick, I'm not married to the idea of removing it and frankly I don't think they will. It's just kinda lame that most of its animation always ends up getting cut off and I figure if it's gonna be like that, they may as well just use a new animation.

The point of Howling Fist is that it gives you something to do when you can't approach the boss, such as when it's charging up a big circle AoE. The other melees all have a ranged attack that is for this purpose (plus pulling when solo I guess), but MNK has never gotten one presumably for flavour reasons. I don't think Monks really NEED one, especially if you can charge chakras while waiting for the SSS cooloff, but it's just a "nice to have" sort of thing. I doubt they will bring back Howling Fist in a different context, so it's also just a way to bring back an animation that I thought was cool and was a bit sad to lose.

MNKs also are lacking in mobility, I feel, at least compared to the other melees. MNK is the only melee (for now, we'll have to see how Reaper turns out) that doesn't have a skill which lets them quickly disengage from a boss. All the melees have a gap closer, but only MNK lacks a "gap maker". The speed buff of SSS is meant to serve this purpose, but being on the GCD makes it much more difficult to use effectively compared to just an ogcd you can press to quickly jump out of an impending AoE.

[Amh_Wilzuun]

Fist stances could maybe work if ROF was changed to an actual utility skill and then you could actually strategically switch between the three stances depending on the situation. If it's a dps increase then people will always choose that.

Many people have suggested rewarding positionals somehow and I agree with that. Previously I have proposed having two successful rear leaden bootshines proc a higher potency and flashier move. This change can fit neatly into the current rotation giving it something to build towards. It would end your PB burst with a satisfying animation and you could get two of this attack off during downtime (everything would line up and not drift if PB resets your stacks of this new mechanic). This has been criticized for leaning harder on bootshine however. If you wanted to address this then you could also have to land other positionals to successfully proc this ability, although that is more punishing and the devs would need to rework PB to accommodate it.

Basically I wanted to make a suggestion that I could actually see them implementing, since tbh I do feel people ask for really sweeping overhauls which are cool and creative but not very practical.

[PangTong]

I'd be okay with the Fist stances if they were purely utility and didn't have a direct impact on DPS (I've thought that Fists of Fire could be self-healing or 1 yalm of extra range on your attacks), but ultimately if they remain then they're taking up button space that I think could be used for more fun stuff. Ninja used to have a similar system of "utility stances" in the form of poisons but it ended up getting removed because it was just taking up space and had basically no impact on the way the job played.

The alternative would be to fully integrate Fist stances in the rotation i.e. have some kind of design where you have to switch between stances regularly to deal maximum damage. I've seen a bunch of different ideas for this, like a system whereby switching into a new stance gives you a long buff that you maintain by switching stances when the buff is about to fall off, or a new gauge where you build up three different meters depending on which stance you're in, with some kind of super buff/attack when you max out all three. That kind of stuff could be fun but I ultimately felt it overcomplicates the job, is kind of unnecessary if the stances don't actually change your gameplay, and is a bit too similar to the way Bard songs work.