Controversioal Changes to Monk

[IruruCece]

Positionals de-emphasized every expansion?

For monks? Absolutely. Potencies for positionals were basically poured into Bootshine, making it the only relevant one to the job for most players. True North used to allow for longer periods where you could ignore positionals, and combined with Riddle of Earth, there were definitely multiple fights that I could just ignore positional requirements for extended periods of time shortly after the first raid-wide went out.

E3 - The whole fight doesn't need positionals.
Diamond Weapon - 2/3 of the fight positionals don't matter.
Ruby Weapon - 1/2 the fight positionals don't matter (aside from ravens images)
Titania - a portion of the fight positionals don't matter (mustard seed, peace blossom)
Delebrum - ALL the fights positionals aren't required
Dalriada - ALL the fights positionals aren't required
Castrum -ALL the fights positionals aren't required
Zadnor - ALL the fights positionals aren't required
Bozja - ALL the fights positionals aren't required

List all the fights where players need to consider them.

Honestly, everything in Bozja should be roundly ignored when it comes to encounter design or combat balance, just as most of Shadowbringers rightfully ignored Eureka. The combat in these areas is designed to be run by mostly uncoordinated and unbalanced groups, which has no bearing on actual endgame content and group compositions. They're casual zones for people like me to grind for relics that don't even matter to actual endgame raiders who are pushing content well before the last 6 months of an expansion.

The fights in them are also not particularly interesting, especially Delebrum, which is just "mess up twice and die" coupled with fights that mostly take too goddamn long even with raids that are bringing essences. Content designed to be run with groups of six Healers (none of whom are actually healing), 1 DPS, and a Tank, if you so desire it, shouldn't be held up as a gold standard for the rest of the game to follow, unless you want the rest of the game to fail.