Controversioal Changes to Monk

[dezzmont]

Imagine coming to the official forums to suggest changes to monk when you don’t understand the class at all… and I thought monk had the lobotomy

Remember that every job needs to work not just for the people who already like it, but people who want to get into it, either just because they like the thematics, or think it is interesting at low levels. Often times the criticism made by people who are 'bouncing off' the job misses the point, but its important to keep in mind those people still have correctly noticed an issue with the job and any fix not only has to make the job engaging and fun for its current users, but ALSO make the job exciting for people who like the look of it and be fun to learn.

SAM, for example, is the gold standard of this, with I would say BLM a bit behind. Meanwhile MNK and especially SMN are REALLY bad at the 'fantasy' aspect of the job.

The fact that one of the job's most important dps buttons is BOOTSHINE really speaks to how little the devs have actually cared about Monk going into and throughout Shadowbringers.

It is truly wild to me that the auto-crit bootshine and the correctly applied tornado kick don't get alternate flashy animations when you are using them to A: make it more clear that you probably went through rotation effectively, and B: makes perfect balance bootshine spam actually fun, akin to getting TO GO HAM WITH FELLCEAVE.

If Crit Bootshine had a cool mechanic I am sure that 'Monk is bootshine the job' would be far less of a common complaint, because it would more resemble a traditional burst window in terms of gamefeel where you suddenly get to spam your coolest attacks really really fast.

Of course flashy animations aren't a panacea, especially if over-applied and not related to any sort of 'reward' mechanic, as MCH shows us quite clearly.