Monk Identity and Blitz ?

[VentVanitas]

I would prefer that they do away with Leaden Fist entirely and give Dragon Kick a maintained buff/debuff. Leaden Bootshine just sucks and it's not fun to play around with because it ruins any kind of potentially interesting interaction the job would have with Perfect Balance or Form Shift.

Either that, or just make our weaponskills function differently whilst under PB so using it strictly to set up Leaden Fist spam isn't optimal.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

Your idea is better than the currently existing Leaden Fist, but lets be honest, the bar is literally laying on the ground, and you have the decency to not have brought a shovel to dig under it. I do like the idea, speaking personally, because it resolves one of the problems with Monk's overall design by making the combos more meaningful. Part of this is also addressed (potentially) by the existence of Blitzes.

Sure, I prefer honesty. To be honest, I need to set the bar on the ground, and let some other person set the standard, because my personal standards are too much for FFXIV to handle. I would set the bar too high for the poor game to even be able to reach...

As for Blitzes, that is my hope, at least. Leaden BootShine spam needs Perfect Balance to even function, so if the Monk spends all Perfect Balance on Blitz, under the assumption that Blitz is good and always worth it to spend Perfect Balance on, there goes Leaden BootShine spam straight out of the window.

The reason why bootshine spam is part of our burst phase is that it's way too damn strong. Your idea would have to come with a dramatic rework of potencies for our combos across the board. Rather than front loading our damage, I'd prefer having the finishers be where the money is. Ideally, we'd reward proper execution of our basic mechanics (postionals, we still have 4) with even more damage. Ideally we'd also flat out ignore everyone who whines that being asked to move a little to the left or right of a clearly marked place next to the boss is "hard", there's plenty of other jobs they can play.

I already thought about the potency issue and made some theoretical changes to potencies across all actions, albeit that does not account for Blitzes...
The concept exists only in a world where Monk will remain ARR Monk Mark IV(ShB Monk), so I chose to not copy-and-paste all of that deeper stuff, since I plan to re-do all of that once I know what the Blitzes are worth and how Monk will change...
I have found it fun to re-design ARR Monk Mark IV(ShB Monk), but since HW(EW) Monk is about to be a thing...I will need to re-design my re-designs, around the all new HW Monk. ...Which is another reason why I chose to post my re-design idea for Leaden Fist, with the bar on the floor... Almost all of the current risen-bar effort that I put into it, is liable for change, except for the BackBone of the concept, so I chose to share just the skeleton, the part that is not liable for change.

That said, I can dance to your tune... What if the Leaden Fist buffs have positional requirements, or buff the positional requirements that already exist, then? As for finishers, that will have to wait for more Blitzes information, since those should fit that bill, if their design turns out to be done well.

Since I seriously doubt SE's ability to fix Monk, they probably are going to leave Leaden Fist more or less as is. The best move they're probably capable of, IMO, is to straight up remove it from the game.

To be honest, I also doubt, yeh... At this point, I wonder if the bad job design is just Squeenix has given very specific orders to them...
Aaaaaany waaaay... As for to delete Leaden Fist, that would.. be way too easy to do. Just set BootShine base potency to 370 and call it a day... That would more or less be the same ScapeGoat that they took with Greased Lightning... Just delete the problem, instead of to fix it, and make what the old thing did permanent... -_- I would hate that so much, though.

Regardless, there is absolutely no good reason why our level 1 dps move should have the level of outsized importance it currently enjoys. Bootshine should serve as a starter, not a goal of any sort, not as a centerpiece of our damage when we're fully buffed. We're literally the only melee in the game with that problem, and it begs the question why.

And I do agree with that BootShine should not be so important... to be literal, Leaden BootShine hits so hard that only Demolish hits harder, across a duration, and Tornado Kick hits harder once every 45 seconds... (sarcasm warning)At this point, they may as well at least switch Dragon Kick and BootShine. It is obvious that Leaden BootShine is the real Lv50 skill, so we may as well start with Dragon Kick, and then get BootShine and Leaden BootShine at Lv50.

I would prefer that they do away with Leaden Fist entirely and give Dragon Kick a maintained buff/debuff. Leaden Bootshine just sucks and it's not fun to play around with because it ruins any kind of potentially interesting interaction the job would have with Perfect Balance or Form Shift.

Either that, or just make our weaponskills function differently whilst under PB so using it strictly to set up Leaden Fist spam isn't possible.

A buff or debuff to maintain, hmn... The first thing that came to mind 5 seconds after I read that, would be if Dragon Kick is like Twin Snakes, a second damage buff to maintain as a side thing... That would be kind of a bore, though. I would prefer either a idea of interest that takes more than 5 seconds to think up, for a more of interest re-design of Dragon Kick itself, or a re-design of Leaden Fist to make at least that more of interest.

[IruruCece]

That said, I can dance to your tune... What if the Leaden Fist buffs have positional requirements, or buff the positional requirements that already exist, then? As for finishers, that will have to wait for more Blitzes information, since those should fit that bill, if their design turns out to be done well.

In general, I'm for positionals actually providing a noticeable indicator to the player that they've successfully pulled them off. Whether it's a damage increase to that specific move, or a buff that benefits the combo later down the line, both would resolve another problem people keep bringing up: a lack of feedback from the job. A lot of newer players apparently complain that it doesn't "feel" like they're doing a lot of damage on monk, or they're struggling to determine if they're "doing things right".

Part of that issue, again, lays directly on current Bootshine/Leaden Bootshine's doorstep. As you point out, outside of Tornado Kick and Demolish's full DoT duration, Bootshine's the most significant numbers a player is going to see, the most immediately obvious indicator that they "did something right." It was so significant that you could say it encouraged players to say it's "good enough" to only hit your Bootshines. That simply should never have been the case, ever.

Positionals should ideally be a significant enough damage increase that lazy monks won't cut it in hard content, and they'll be lagging behind other DPS that are playing better, especially behind a better monk. The reward for playing the job well should put those players more than 10-15 percent ahead of a dude that's only landing their rear positional. In your concept, tying leaden fist buffs to landing positionals does solve that, so I already like it better than the existing implementation.

I'm leaning more towards Vent's idea of just up and removing Leaden Fists entirely, however. It's too connected to an existing problem (Bootshine being too important), and Vent also brought up how it's tied to Perfect Balance. Tweaking how Leaden works means we also have to address Perfect Balance, because the last thing I personally want to see is that it gets used to spam a specific weapon skill when we're in our burst phase.

[Nyarlha]

As it stands, when using PB to ready Blitz, 2 of your 3 hits will probably always be DK-BS, except when you go for Rising Phoenix which needs 3 different forms.

Still way better than current PB.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

I'm leaning more towards Vent's idea of just up and removing Leaden Fists entirely, however. It's too connected to an existing problem (Bootshine being too important), and Vent also brought up how it's tied to Perfect Balance. Tweaking how Leaden works means we also have to address Perfect Balance, because the last thing I personally want to see is that it gets used to spam a specific weapon skill when we're in our burst phase.

Perfect Balance... I am not quite certain what to do about, to be honest. Unless how Perfect Balance itself functions, is what changes.. I can only see that Monk players would just continue to poison themselves through optimization obsession. The issue of the use of Perfect Balance to spam a single action, is a bane that the player-base does to themselves...
Let us say BootShine is made to be weak... The player-base will just choose some other action as the next "best" action, and spam that, instead. The only way to solve that issue, that I can think of, is a heavy-hand balance of Monk actions, to make no action better than any other action, just enough that Monk players lose any reason to spam any one action... Alas, to cull player-made meta is neither easy, nor always a good idea...

That said, I hope that Blitzes will solve this problem... If the design of Blitzes comes out well enough, and monopolize the use of Perfect Balance, then the use of Perfect Balance to spam a single action, will for the most part not be a thing, any longer; except in the case of the three/all same blitz... And then there is my concern about Blitzes in and of themselves... Just how shallow and dull will the Blitz mechanic end up to be in the reality... Perhaps as dull as only three Blitzes, similar to Iaijutsu...

As it stands, when using PB to ready Blitz, 2 of your 3 hits will probably always be DK-BS, except when you go for Rising Phoenix which needs 3 different forms.

Nyarlha has a good point here, and it will disappoint me... If Blitzes are as shallow as we spam one Blitz in the same manner that Samurai spams Midare Setsugekka... Albeit that would be a improvement, twould be not much of a good one in my perspective, because then Blitz will be a bore of a burst, and the use of Perfect Balance to set that Blitz up, will not be interactive or much of interest, since it would be static, just the same thing every time.
If Blitz ends up like that, I will end up just to re-design it in the same manner that I re-design Iaijutsu and Mudra, and then wallow in disappointment, after the thrill of the new toy wears off... ...Albeit that it is not that I do not enjoy to play Monk, or will not, as I do like to play as Monk, and perhaps more-so in EW...

I just love complexity more than aught else, but wherefore is complexity in FFXIV? no where, so I am easy to disappoint... >.<

[VentVanitas]

As it stands, when using PB to ready Blitz, 2 of your 3 hits will probably always be DK-BS, except when you go for Rising Phoenix which needs 3 different forms.

Still way better than current PB.

Is it though? Until we learn everything about the mechanic we don't know that. For all we know, what we do with PB is the exact same. I can very easily see PB being [BS -> DK -> BS -> Elixir Field -> DK] or [DK -> BS -> DK -> Elixir Field -> BS] with the current information we have.

If Leaden Bootshine remains as it currently is then I don't see any reason to not use it in PB. Not even a 650 potency attack in Rising Phoenix would outdo the crit damage and Chakra gain from two/three Bootshines which is where my concern lies. I'm concerned that we won't be using Blitz for Blitz, we'd be using them because it's Form Shift with a potency behind it. I really don't want this to be the case and I hope there's some information we don't know yet that proves me wrong.

[Absurdity]

and give Dragon Kick a maintained buff/debuff.

Funny you mention that, it's exactly what Dragon Kick did prior to ShB. It applied a "Blunt Resistance Down" debuff to the target which basically just meant you did more damage to it since Monk was the only job that benefitted from it. (iirc technically also WHM & BLM since the staff dealt blunt damage but you're not really sitting in melee and whacking things with your staff on those jobs)


Unfortunately it got pruned together with all the other "resistance down" debuffs, which made sense for all the other jobs since you essentially needed a Dragoon for the piercing resistance debuff if you had a Brd or Mch in your party.

It wasn't entirely necessary on Monk since you pretty much just buffed your own damage.

[Shurrikhan]

...I have a idea about Leaden Fist...thought about it two days ago. I thought about the Leaden BootShine issue, and what to do about it.

I could see Leaden Fist being a stacks-style passive, similar to how Perfect Balance and Riddle of Earth function, of which buffs the next three actions that the Monk uses, both WeaponSkills and abilities.
In most cases, the Monk would either spend Leaden Fist on one GCD and two oGCDs, or two GCDs and a oGCD, which would also get rid of it before Dragon Kick activates it again; under the assumption that the Monk is going through a normal 1-2-3 GCD rotation, any way...

For a bit of elaboration, Leaden Fist would still buff BootShine, but it would also buff other actions, which may or may not exclude kick actions, while the intent behind this.. is that those buffs are relevant enough.. to not just use BootShine three times and ruin the intent of this change.

What do the rest of you think about this? Any thoughts, suggestions about buffs, or alternate suggestions to fix the issue?

Kind of like a more interesting, multi-charge Life Surge? I'd take it over the current version, sure.

That being said, I do kind of hate how something like this and the new "Perfect Blitz" would work together to make the standard rotation feel largely irrelevant, with only oGCDs (especially this and PB) giving any real punctuation to the job. Of course, I'd actually rather delimit Blitzes (or rather, find a different way to make Perfect Balance useful to them, rather than Blitz just outright subsuming Perfect Balance) than not bother with this over the current Dragon-Fist mechanic.


Food for thought:

Way back when... maybe in ARR, I had wanted to make to make MP not just be UI bloat for Monk, and I had planned to do that through our various stances, wherein each stance would consume increasing amount amounts of MP per second while in combat (albeit with certain ways to also generate back MP -- Fire from the DoT damage it inflicts, Earth from absorption, resistance, and counterattacks, and Wind passively). Such would force a soft rotation but also, more importantly, provide a centerpiece for Internal Release (an old 1-minute hefty crit buff CD that you'd often try to align Bootshine away from so long as it wouldn't force desync), which caused you to consume hugely more MP over time to double (or triple) that stance's effects and could be hit again to instantly spend even further MP on stance-based effect for the following GCD. Gimmicky, but it seemed a fun idea at the time.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

[...]I do kind of hate how something like this and the new "Perfect Blitz" would work together to make the standard rotation feel largely irrelevant, with only oGCDs (especially this and PB) giving any real punctuation to the job.[...]

A fair concern... I had to think for several minutes, to think through a good response.
My answer to that would be my re-design of Greased Lightning stacks, which would replace the current Greased Lightning traits... the concept fixes the Greased Lightning stacks old duration issue, also makes the upkeep and maintenance of Greased Lightning stacks both more demanding and interactive than Storm's eye, DarkSide, or Huton; and even makes if the Monk fails that upkeep, less of a harsh loss...
While.. since the only way to gain Greased Lightning stacks, is to go through the normal combos and do proper form-to-form shifts, this would make the standard rotation and normal combos important and relevant, so I hope that it would resolve your issue and ease the concern.

If you want, I can post my re-design concept of the Greased Lightning stacks, for you to examine and evaluate.

[Shurrikhan]

A fair concern... I had to think for several minutes, to think through a good response.
My answer to that would be my re-design of Greased Lightning stacks, which would replace the current Greased Lightning traits... the concept fixes the Greased Lightning stacks old duration issue, also makes the upkeep and maintenance of Greased Lightning stacks both more demanding and interactive than Storm's eye, DarkSide, or Huton; and even makes if the Monk fails that upkeep, less of a harsh loss...
While.. since the only way to gain Greased Lightning stacks, is to go through the normal combos and do proper form-to-form shifts, this would make the standard rotation and normal combos important and relevant, so I hope that it would resolve your issue and ease the concern.

If you want, I can post my re-design concept of the Greased Lightning stacks, for you to examine and evaluate.

Though it'd come at risk of someone telling you that any and every possible iteration of GL is a concept beyond redemption, sure, feel free to share.