RIP MNK 1.x - 5.x

[wereotter]

A change made so that we can act "without having to dance back and forth between every skill" is not a change made for ease of play? Really?

We already did that with every form of Perfect Balance to date, including under tighter and more punishing constraints, and we did just fine. And it's not as if those two skills lost their positionals only during Perfect Balance; they're just plain gone.

Personally, I'm fine with True Strike losing its positional. Losing Twin, too, seems a bit overkill, but whatever. But let's not pretend that intent remotely matters to any iteration of job design save in that it may accelerate the next iteration. Whether they wanted this to somehow only be used for PB or not is irrelevant when their change was to remove it at all times, not just during PB.

Poorly worded I'll admit... but as it is now I mainly see people using True North in conjuction with the Perfect Balance burst.

My point was the removal seems to be to allow ease of use of blitzes even if it does nothing to change the positions we go to in the normal combo. It may just be muscle memory, but I can't see myself treating them as though they had no positional outside of blitzing since you still have the same requirements on the other four moves. Movement won't be terribly impacted by their loss. So when he complained that the removal of the positional changed nothing when he tested it as-is on a striking dummy, that to me seems like removing two without really changing anything about the core rotation of the job.

[Shurrikhan]

My point was the removal seems to be to allow ease of use of blitzes even if it does nothing to change the positions we go to in the normal combo. It may just be muscle memory, but I can't see myself treating them as though they had no positional outside of blitzing since you still have the same requirements on the other four moves.

I mean it's literally a free GCD per three-form-cycle by which to move from back to flank. If you used Boot, you've got an extra GCD to get in place for Snap. If you used Dragon, you've got an extra GCD to get in place for Demo. In certain rotations where it'd time out about the same anyways, it might not amount to much, but no positionals on ANY Raptor Form skill is still... pretty significant.

...I guess my main peeve with this change is that it doesn't fix the lead issue in that unlike in ToD and Fracture a la ARR/HW, these non-positionals aren't also Any-Form and therefore the advantage they grant is largely subject to luck of timing. If we wanted to actually fix the issue, the obvious solution would have been to give a formless short CD (probably with a couple charges) on a single GCD (unlike SSS) by which to use the given GCD and/or modulate the length of any rotational string or to simply offer a "safety" mechanic, such as building stacks over time by which our positionals would count as having hit successfully even if they don't (consuming that stack).

[Andy_T93]

Poorly worded I'll admit... but as it is now I mainly see people using True North in conjuction with the Perfect Balance burst.

My point was the removal seems to be to allow ease of use of blitzes even if it does nothing to change the positions we go to in the normal combo. It may just be muscle memory, but I can't see myself treating them as though they had no positional outside of blitzing since you still have the same requirements on the other four moves. Movement won't be terribly impacted by their loss. So when he complained that the removal of the positional changed nothing when he tested it as-is on a striking dummy, that to me seems like removing two without really changing anything about the core rotation of the job.

It's also telling that the two skills that lost their positionals are the middle skills in each combo/rotation so if you are opening with Dragon kick (flank) twin snakes (any) demolish (rear) Bootshine (rear) True Strike (any) Snap Punch (Flank) you can essentially execute Twin snakes and true strike while on the move moving from flank to rear and vice versa. Ultimately from a positional POV the opening rotation of the GCD is now:

F,A,R,R,A,F which means you only have to move twice, You could essentially go to the flank for dragon kick then move to the rear for twin snakes, demolish, boot shine and true strike moving back to the flank for snap punch. In other you can be F,R,R,R,R,F so only moving twice

These two skills were definitely picked to prick up the constant moving from one to another to allow players to get into position with more time

[Mikey_R]

I think it is too early to say whether removing only the 2 positionals was the right call. We need to get our hands on it to see if it was needed or not.

[dezzmont]

GL being gone makes sense, GL existed to give the monk a sort of positive identity, but it ended up being negative because the main 'good' thing about the job, attacking faster, was very conditional. It was ok as a trait but not very interesting.

Now, Blitz seems to be the new positive identity for Monk, and likely is replacing Chakras as a level 50 capstone and evolving over time. So now instead of getting faster attacks (which eats a bit into NIN and BRD), MNK is playing to get rewarded with awesome blitzes.

I think the intent is for Blitz to reward the main actual skill of monk: Being able to correctly flow through your combo, and removing the positionals is a mere placebo (because currently positional abilities don't matter except for bootshine anyway, and mostly exist to add to the 'information overload' issue of Monk).

Overall, it seems like its a good change and what monk needed: An identity based around 'unlocking' a cool attack, rather than having really limp basic attacks the whole fight and only having the opportunity to lose things, get overwhelmed, and mess up. Generally rotations based around trying to get something are easier to learn, even if they are more complex, because you are getting more concrete and instant feedback when you mess up, rather than feeling 'lost.' It also solves the 'I don't feel like I am dealing damage' problem: It is really hard to feel that way when you suddenly do a crazy blink strike attack.

We will see how Monk feels for monk vets, but it almost certainly is going to solve the 'New players try out monk or lord forbid start as one and think melee play sucks' problem.

[IruruCece]

We will see how Monk feels for monk vets, but it almost certainly is going to solve the 'New players try out monk or lord forbid start as one and think melee play sucks' problem.

'New players try out JOB and think ROLE sucks' is a problem that has affected this game since at least Stormblood. Between ill-advised button culls (followed with replacing them with buttons that more or less do what old buttons did, but "flashier"), and a focus on how the job will play at cap above all else, arguably every job in the game sucks before 50, some worse than others. And new players who don't choose to buy a boost will spend a lot of time doing content that is synced, so even if they are well above the level for an early story dungeon (happened to me on an alt), you're potentially having the majority of your kit locked away by the story, by the dungeons or boss fight instances, as you zip from quest marker to quest marker. They added an option specifically to allow players to enter leveling roulette for dungeons at or near their level, because it's pretty freakin' annoying to take a level 60+ job that's actually starting to feel like it's coming together, and get dragged into early ARR content.

I love FF14, but a well paced experience for newer players it ain't, and Monk is only one symptom of that problem. I recently decided to start leveling bard finally, and it's been so dull (its in the 50s now) that even when I ain't focused on classes, I don't even feel like logging in to level it. Summoner pre-60 is exceedingly dull. Black Mage feels stiff as heck early on and doesn't really come into it's own until roughly 60. Many DPS don't get proper AoEs for far too long. Healers have had considerable portions of their kits stripped away over the years to essentially force them to heal more and DPS less (while still placing the expectation that they DPS anyway). Every job feels like something is seriously wrong or missing until you get to the current level cap for one or many reasons, and that's pretty much on SE. It's been such a problem that there have been instances where they've needed to fix job quests to account for tools players once had being missing from the game now.

[ssunny2008]

'New players try out JOB and think ROLE sucks' is a problem that has affected this game since at least Stormblood.

Exactly.

By the looks of it, the Blitz mechanic is closer to Meikyo Shisui. You activate Perfect Balance> Execute Three Skills to collect sigils> perform a finisher, which unlocks a Light/Dark finisher chakra depending on which one you did. You have to execute two separate finishers to perform Starshower ala Shoha.

I´m actually sceptical about this and the loss of positionals. We get a new Meikyo Mudra mix, but it´s nothing new. It´s just more a copy & paste idea and we´ll have "must use" skills anyway. I can´t even believe that the job is becoming busier to justify less positionals. We just spam PB more often to perform a finisher and that with less off-GCD´s. Seriously we don´t need a 2nd SAM or NIN.

The new gapcloser is questionable too. If we have a look at the latest content, there is not even a need for so many movement and you rely on other players if you want it to use as an escape. I highly doubt that we´ll get content, which needs such an amount of movement, even if i hope so.

[SpeckledBurd]

I´m actually sceptical about this and the loss of positionals. We get a new Meikyo Mudra mix, but it´s nothing new. It´s just more a copy & paste idea and we´ll have "must use" skills anyway. I can´t even believe that the job is becoming busier to justify less positionals. We just spam PB more often to perform a finisher and that with less off-GCD´s. Seriously we don´t need a 2nd SAM or NIN.

It's also more than what Monk had this expansion mechanically since it comes up more frequently than Perfect Balance did, and it has more thought than just alternating Dragon Kick/Bootshine 6 times. At a glance this seems like this will be a bigger brain mechanic to use than Meikyo/Mudras, since its based on the Form Stance, so what you use will vary based on whether you've got Leaden Bootshine available, the duration of Twin Snakes left, and the Demolish timer. That said I agree that removing removing Raptor form positionals was unnecessary either since we've still got 3 charges of Riddle of Earth and 2 charges of True North, but more than anything Monk needed a new mechanic, and this is that even if there's some similarity with SAM/NIN.

The new gapcloser is questionable too. If we have a look at the latest content, there is not even a need for so many movement and you rely on other players if you want it to use as an escape. I highly doubt that we´ll get content, which needs such an amount of movement, even if i hope so.

I actually quite like it. It inherently does what you wanted Shoulder Tackle to do as a gap closer since it still targets enemies. Even if it isn't always necessary it's a net benefit to have added mobility that doesn't cost anything to use by being able to target the party with it. There's an additional charge so it can move even more. Plus it no longer has the annoyance of having to drop a Shoulder Tackle out of your burst phase if you need movement afterwards.

Overall its just an inherently more versatile skill.

[ssunny2008]

It's also more than what Monk had this expansion mechanically since it comes up more frequently than Perfect Balance did, and it has more thought than just alternating Dragon Kick/Bootshine 6 times. At a glance this seems like this will be a bigger brain mechanic to use than Meikyo/Mudras, since its based on the Form Stance, so what you use will vary based on whether you've got Leaden Bootshine available, the duration of Twin Snakes left, and the Demolish timer. That said I agree that removing removing Raptor form positionals was unnecessary either since we've still got 3 charges of Riddle of Earth and 2 charges of True North, but more than anything Monk needed a new mechanic, and this is that even if there's some similarity with SAM/NIN.

Yeah of course it´s atleast something. I might be even fine with it, if they wouldn´t get ride of positionals atleast. Imo it goes in the wrong direction for me. Playing melee becomes like "you´ve played 1 tank, you can play all tanks", because they all become way too similar, again! That AST will be a 100% WHM just with cards instead of ADPS is meeeeh too.

I don´t know why so many classes exists, when all subclasses gonna be the same. Maybe just create one roleclass and give us skilltrees or animations to choose? I don´t know... would bring atleast variation.

We need unique features and not just new animations with the same gauge on 3 other classes.

I actually quite like it. It inherently does what you wanted Shoulder Tackle to do as a gap closer since it still targets enemies. Even if it isn't always necessary it's a net benefit to have added mobility that doesn't cost anything to use by being able to target the party with it. There's an additional charge so it can move even more. Plus it no longer has the annoyance of having to drop a Shoulder Tackle out of your burst phase if you need movement afterwards.

Overall its just an inherently more versatile skill.

Yeah, gapclosers should´ve always been gapclosers and not just "extra damage skills". That´s great, but the escape mechanic is a bit questionable for MNK and i really just can hope for content, where we can make use of those dashes. That other gapclosers got little reworks, that sage has one and that scholar has a raidwide sprint gives atleast some hope for more than "move to marker A, move to marker B" stuff.

[Seraphor]

Everyone freaking out about two measly positionals, but ignoring the entirely new Blitz mechanic?
Is MNK a NIN now?