Thread: Media Tour - 6.0 Monk Changes feedback

Just before I go into anything I'm gonna drop the disclaimer that yes, I know that tooltips are not final and that things could change between now and release. But things could also NOT change, so all feedback is given with the assumption that changes will go live as they appear (since that's usually what happens anyway).

All tooltips I'm referencing can be viewed here:
https://gamerescape.com/2021/10/13/f...-on-with-monk/

Generally I think the Monk changes are positive particularly regarding the Blitz system and the new Thunderclap movement skill. But there's a number of baffling choices and seemingly glaring oversights that I just can't in good conscience stay silent about until they go live.

1. No increase to chakra cap
Retaining the max cap of 5 chakra means we are still going to be losing LOTS of chakra during Brotherhood when it flows in randomly from other player's attacks due getting more chakra than we can hold before we can spend it. This is especially true now that Brotherhood is upgraded with a trait that increases the chance to get a bonus chakra from our OWN attacks to 100%.

2. 30 second duration of Perfect Balance will lead to long prepulls.
By using Perfect Balance 23 seconds before pulling the boss, your first charge of Perfect Balance comes back up 17 seconds into the fight, meaning you can do three blitzes early on, not only getting Phantom Rush in the opener but also guaranteeing you get Phantom Rush in every 2 minute window thereafter. I'm having a hard time believing this is intentional.

3. Anatman is still a functionally useless ability.
Anatman is unchanged which means there's still virtually no use for it in any form of content. Refreshing your form is useless when Form Shift exists, and the only effect of pausing Twin Snakes is that maybe you can use a different GCD instead, which is an incredibly minor increase in potency. Considering how little opportunities there are to even use Anatman at all (a lot of extended fight downtime stuns you in a cutscene where you can't use any abilities now), it's honestly baffling that this skill wasn't changed or removed.

4. The new Celestial Revolution attack is also functionally useless
Based on potencies shown in the tooltips, you NEVER want to use Celestial Revolution as it's simply flat out less damage than any of the other blitzes while also not hitting in AoE. When I first saw the design for the Blitz system my assumption would be that there would be a AoE Blitz (Elixir Field) and a single target blitz (Celestial Revolution) for the Lunar Nadi. Instead it appears that Elixir Field is the intended attack for both AoE and Single Target, and Celestial Revolution is instead just a "consolation prize" blitz if you screw up Perfect Balance? It assures that you open the other Nadi but at the cost of significantly less damage.

I just don't understand why they'd implement an attack that you never want to use and is instead is only usable if you make a mistake. It seems like a total waste of the potential of the Blitz system. Is Celestial Revolution, a brand new attack, really just mean to be the equivalent of Monk "bunnying" their mudra-like system? I really think they should reconsider.

5. Riddle of Wind is uninteresting and uninteractive
The new Riddle of Wind cooldown only affects autoattacks, which means that there's really no other considerations to be made as to when you press it or what you do after you've pressed it. With normal damage buffs such as Riddle of Fire, you are at least rewarded with more damage for trying to use other strong skills during the buff window, but there are no actions in the game that synergize with autoattacks. Riddle of Wind is an exceedingly simple button that you press, and your damage goes up for a bit. It doesn't make the Monk rotation any more interesting, it's only value is maybe a cool animation and seeing lots of numbers pop up for a bit. Abilities like this seem like a waste, especially since over the years they've gradually cut back on simplistic flat damage skills that you just use on cooldown.


There's a few other things I could say that have to do more with the overall philosophy of Monk as a job and some of its systems like chakra, but these 5 things are the most urgent issues in terms of how fun the job will be to play in 6.0, especially the first 3. I strongly urge the developers to examine these issues as soon as possible before 6.0 releases, or as soon as possible.

Yeah, overall is good, but there are still some glaring issues that im worried about, moreso when other jobs lack glaring issues of that caliber.

Celestial revolution might be the ninja bunny "oops you missed your rotation heres a consolation" though

Originally Posted by Bhearil

Yeah, overall is good, but there are still some glaring issues that im worried about, moreso when other jobs lack glaring issues of that caliber.

Celestial revolution might be the ninja bunny "oops you missed your rotation heres a consolation" though

Yeah I think thats exactly what it is realistically you never want to be using it, will always be elixir field for Lunar and Rising Phoenix for Solar

I'm still positive about the changes but yeah, I don't disagree with any of your points and I can already guarantee that the second one is going to piss off a lot of the top Monk players and anyone who plays with them - no one wants long pull timers, especially not during prog. Not to mention that you can throw that right out of the window in many/most PUGs and 24s.
If they really don't want Phantom Rush to fit into our burst windows, why not just make PB only usable in combat? Hardly a perfect solution but design-wise it'd be better than this.

Overall pretty happy with this, Blitz makes sense, so basically do 3 of the same forms and perform elixir field then on next PB do 3 different forms and perform rising phoenix then on 3rd PB do whatever you like and finish with Phantom Rush, seems pretty straight forward.

Disappointed that Anatman is still pointless, Disappointed they didn't do anything about 6 sided star

Haven't had a chance to compare potency changes to main skills but wondering if they offset the damage lost by not having the fist of fire anymore

Originally Posted by Andy_T93

Overall pretty happy with this, Blitz makes sense, so basically do 3 of the same forms and perform elixir field then on next PB do 3 different forms and perform rising phoenix then on 3rd PB do whatever you like and finish with Phantom Rush, seems pretty straight forward.

Disappointed that Anatman is still pointless, Disappointed they didn't do anything about 6 sided star

Haven't had a chance to compare potency changes to main skills but wondering if they offset the damage lost by not having the fist of fire anymore

Six-Sided Star is another issue I forgot to bring up, although it's more a matter of opinion I think since I have seen people who think it's fine. SSS is basically meant to be Monk's equivalent to a ranged attack, something to do when you have to disengage from melee range. But unlike a ranged attack, it can only be used BEFORE leaving melee range, which makes knowing the timing of when to use it pretty difficult. Even 1 second can mean the difference between being in or out of a boss AoE when it goes off, so you have to know in advance whether you have time to wait for your GCD to come back up to use SSS or whether you need to leave immediately. If you need to leave immediately then theoretically you should have used SSS on the previous GCD, but too late for that now. If you use it 1 GCD early but didn't have to, you've kind of just wasted its benefit. It's a skill that demands almost perfect knowledge of the fight timeline to use effectively.

I would be okay with SSS if it was oGCD and had some other penalty to prevent you from pressing it on cooldown. Otherwise I'd prefer if they just swapped it out for an oGCD backstep like the other melees get, or a ranged attack like the other melees get.