Monk - Greased Lightning :(

[digita1dog]

I just came back to FF14, and what have they done to my monk? I really missed the actively stacking version of greased lightning... It felt so good to ramp up in speed as you fought... Sadge.

[Neoyoshi]

Monk's changed a lot.

I think one thing I'm certain of, is I don't miss the TP management, I recall how the way greased lightning used to work drained TP fast, like really fast. xD

[Kolsykol]

Part of me kinda misses it too, MNK feels a bit too basic but MNK has been a problem for years now with useless abilities and weird mechanics.

Hopefully in Endwalkers it improves and we get a rework.

[Kahnom]

This is the reason I ditched MNK.I main the job since 2.2 but have to reluctantly changed my melee main in 5.4.
Funny thing is by patch 5.4, The only bozjan weapon I have is MNK weapon.
And because of that I have to upgrade weapon to i535 for the job which I didn’t play anymore.
So ironic, I can literally only laugh to myself like an idiot.

[VentVanitas]

I miss the days of Double TK, three GL stacks and 60 second Perfect Balance, but alas the damage from ShB has already been done. Though I don't agree with SE's methods of "if we can't make it work then we'll just friggin delete it," them not wasting time on GL is for the better because they utterly mishandled every attempt to expand on it.

Now we can hope for a better implementation of Chakra, which they definitely won't screw up. And they surely won't tie anymore useless skills to the fist stances or reimplement old skills with way more limitations! This time for sure r-right guys?!

[silverdragontyr]

Monk is likely in the middle of a massive rework. Endwalker will likely see the class remade from the ground up. Greased Lightning was really fun, until it didn't fit the game. Every transition or unhittable phase and your damage is gone and it became a lot less fun. So right now it looks bad, with many skills that are very niche or straight up never used, but hopefully September we'll get a peak at what they're planning and fingers crossed it's good.

[Jirah]

Removing GL was overkill, I was perfectly fine with the changes to Form shift and perfect balance and Tornado kick.

[silverdragontyr]

It was unfortunately outdated with how they design fights now. More and more fights have sections where you just can't hit the boss for 20+ seconds and some you can't even move for Anataman. Even then, it requires an ability slot to be taken by an ability whose only purpose is ensure 30% of your damage doesn't drop during things beyond your control. It also becomes this issue, if you're adding 2,3,4 skills that extend or prevent your GL from dropping, and a Mnk literally always wants it up, why not have it as a permanent trait? It's the same logic that caused them to remove the Protect spell.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the concept of GL. A class that just gets faster and faster the more aggressive they play? That's awesome to me. That's my playstyle in a lot of action games. Hell make GL have 100 stack cap and harder to maintain so good skill play is rewarded by faster and faster damage. Encourage greedy aggressive play and make Mnk really get good at weaving between attacks. I'd love that. But from a design standpoint in current game I get why they removed it.

[Lilyth]

I miss the green/lightning aura so much!

And MNK was my very first class too, but removing such a core concept like GL was too much, it literally killed the class to me.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

The reason why Greased Lightning stacks were removed is obvious, and it was.. a fix, to the problem, but I still much do not like it.
I do not like that Greased Lightning is now a passive trait... It could have been fixed, rather than deleted.

Any person can look at my join date and see that I am new to the FFXIV forums, I was not around here before patch 5.4 was a thing, but I did have a idea, for a rework to Greased Lightning stacks, that may or may not have fixed it, back before patch 5.4...

My idea was thus: third action of a combo still grants a stack, but stack duration is now up to a maximum of 45 seconds, and the third action of a combo will neither grant the full 45 seconds, nor refresh the duration to the full 45 seconds; as instead, the first third action of a combo grants only 10 seconds to Greased Lightning stack duration, while the third action of a combo after the first, will extend the duration of Greased Lightning stacks by 10 seconds, up to a maximum of 45 seconds.

keep in mind that even at super slow 2.5 GCD, that would be 7.5 seconds to gain 10 seconds, so as long as the Monk keeps combos in flow, it would be easy to build up to and stay at the 45 second maximum, and this would be essential, for Greased Lightning stacks to not be lost when ever bosses can not be attacked.

in most cases, those moments when bosses go away last around 20 to 30 seconds, so 45 seconds would persist through, and that fixes the loss of stacks problem, while this design will make it not BrainDead easy/straight-forward to maintain Greased Lightning stacks and the Greased Lightning stack duration, as well.
while, in the case of 10 seconds every combo being "too generous" or "too easy", it could even be just 7 or 8 seconds, to make the stack maintenance, and to reach the maximum duration, a little more difficult.

Alas.. we have boring and dull Greased Lightning passive traits, these days.. that part of Monk's literal identity was deleted.. pre-monk Pugilist story even still explains Greased Lightning as stacks for some reason, RIP.. and I doubt that Monk would ever revert to Greased Lightning stacks, but I still want to share what my idea was, even though it is far too late.