Thread: Monk Positionals 6.0

Originally Posted by Navnav

I remember what I said, but lets face facts, they removed four positionals. I did say four positionals. End of. I been saying that for a long time too, that they need to remove the positionals in favour of better mechanics to keep the job engaging. They are definitely on the right track. Crazy how devs can see obvious changes and make them, but you guys still whine on.

SE certainly did not add enough “better” mechanics to keep the job engaging though. Again I will compare it with Samurai which is the only other physical melee job I dipped my toe in. The current monk skillset is not even comparable to that of lvl 70 Samurai which has two secondary resources - Sen and Kenki to monitor at all time whereas Monk only has beast chakra that only needs to be managed during PB windows and a chakra system that requires almost no effort to manage so imo it doesn’t count. To make matter worse, monk has been stripped of 2 oGCDs so basically monks have nothing to keep them busy outside of burst windows. This is why many ppl on this forum said Masterful Blitz does not justify removing 4 positionals. Level 90 monk feels like an incomplete job that has a similar skillset of a level 70 job at the current state. All of these are non-issues if positionals are retained. However, if SE are to make such a drastic change to monk’s positionals, they should add more interesting mechanics to keep the job engaging, not leaving it half-baked like it is right now. My monk hotbars look hilariously empty right now which is so disheartening.

Monk life forever. It's all I've ever known. (Well, except for brief stints with Dragoon, Ninja, and Samurai. But I always end up going back to Monk.)

Originally Posted by SpeckledBurd

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1. Return our positionals and put the positional nullification effect back on Riddle of Earth. If you really want to take one let it be Leaden Bootshine since its disproportionate.

2. Modify Chakra generation so it builds at absurd levels at all time and give it overcap. Since our oGCDs are now blitzes and that's unlikely to change, let us just machine gun Forbidden Chakras at all times like how Stormblood Samurai machine gunned Shintens. Enhanced Brotherhood lets you open a chakra on every weaponskill in Brotherhood, but instead how about Monk just opens a chakra on every weaponskill forever.

3. Modify Blitzes so that Monk's cooldown kit is internally consistent and Phantom Rush aligns with Riddle of Fire and Brotherhood in the opener and every two minutes thereafter. Give us a third stack of Perfect Balance, or perhaps make Anatman be an oGCD that grants a random Beast Chakra if you have none or the opposite Beast Chakra if you have one. I'm not sure how to make the timers line up but the devs can work that one out.

4. Riddle of Wind... I'm not sure. Maybe it could grant an effect called "Flurry Ready" or something which allows you to execute a Six Sided Star without the double GCD penalty.

There are fixes that can be made, the ideas here are better than the complete lack of imagination that has been the foundation for Monk's issues with the previous expansions, and it isn't the absolute travesty that Shadowbringers/Stormblood Monk was on their respective launches. However it still needs workshopping I think.

I think all of these are great recommendations that will improve Monk gameplay drastically. On that note, I think generating chakra every weaponskill might be too much. I would make it so that every three weaponskills open one chakra or coeurl stance weaponskills open one chakra so that they become a mini finisher on their own which makes them more rewarding and dynamic.

I'll add a different perspective on the positionals:

They actually make the job easier. MNK main challenge to me before EW was doing your rotation correctly and not them being positionals themselves. Which is itself not an issue on all other melee jobs because they have very linear and short combos, but MNK's rotation was not only non-linear, but very long. 18 GCDs, 4 different 1-2-3's that you had to perform in a specific order was not super easy to remember and perform correctly on actual fights, to put it mildly. But what helped was the positional requirements, they not only gave the job something to do between CDs and fit within the fantasy of being a pugilist/monk, but that dance, that rhythm itself helped with remembering where you were on that massive rotation, specially when solving mechanics or dodging AoEs. It was kinda of a mnemonic device. Now that positionals are gone, you just camp the flank for almost half of your rotation - since that is the most efficient way to play him, and I was getting lost a non insignificant amount of times because of it. If positionals are seriously off the table, could we get job gauge indicators for like everything? Having to search by buff bars for things like Disciplined Fists or Leaden Fist (both orange icons) among the current form I'm at, Riddle of Fire/Wind and potentially even Earth and 2 (!) different Brotherhood icons (both orange icons as well) alongside any party buff on a job with sub 2s GCD makes finding out which next button I should press in case I forget way harder than it needs to - if Ninja can get an entire UI element for a 7060s attack speed buff, the 15s Disciplined Fists, Leaden Fists and maybe even the form I'm current at (the latter for flavor mostly) can get it too.

Beyond that I agree with everything said here. The job's progression is super static. You don't unlock anything that you'd be interacting consistently with after level 60. SSS and Anatman has very niche and super limited usages and everything else is damage boosts, extra stacks, long CD buffs (of which only 1 isn't a simple damage boost, but it's also on a 2min CD) and ability replacements/upgrades. The gameplay itself is also super static by the almost complete removal of oGCDs attacks and positionals. My suggestion here (alongside bringing all positionals back) is to use those lvl 80+ skills that right now exists simply to replace existing MBs, as oGCDs on a 60s CD that opens up each Nadi; it gives us oGCDs to use every once in a while (but not too much, as I assume that' something SE doesn't want to give us), it gives them interactions with the rest of our kit so they are not simply extra damage buttons, said interactions are new so the job/mechanical progression isn't as static AND it give us tools to use the big Blitz in the opener rather than having to wait for like 50s to do so. Oh, and maybe a 10s CD reduction on Perfect Balance.

Originally Posted by furinh0

I'll add a different perspective on the positionals:

They actually make the job easier. MNK main challenge to me before EW was doing your rotation correctly and not them being positionals themselves. Which is itself not an issue on all other melee jobs because they have very linear and short combos, but MNK's rotation was not only non-linear, but very long. 18 GCDs, 4 different 1-2-3's that you had to perform in a specific order was not super easy to remember and perform correctly on actual fights, to put it mildly. But what helped was the positional requirements, they not only gave the job something to do between CDs and fit within the fantasy of being a pugilist/monk, but that dance, that rhythm itself helped with remembering where you were on that massive rotation, specially when solving mechanics or dodging AoEs. It was kinda of a mnemonic device.

This reminds me of the findings from a friend who tried out a PvP-combos-in-PvE addon. He loved the bar space saved, especially for AoE combos that don't really need to align with much or mutually exclusive button choices without any particular flow like Blizzard IV <-> Fire IV, but he quickly realized how much feedback the button-flows were giving him on the time until his CDs or even to upcoming boss mechanics and ended up performing worse for it.

He did mention that even a "last action used" indicator and attack SFX being a bit more distinct from each other would probably mostly remedy the issues, but still, it's something we don't really notice the side-benefits of until we lose it.

Some ideas I've had floating around, with Bootshine and Shadow of the Destroyer both being Auto-crits, why not make Opo-opo the 'Crit' form. Give an Auto-Crit to Dragon Kick, you can then generate more chakra between PB windows. Of course, we are still adding positionals back in.

This next one is still a new thought for me, but changing how PB works. One thing that I see might spring up is the weird timings of your buffs/debuffs when you want to PB, you need to make sure Disciplined Fist and Demolish aren't going to drop, so this could help mitigate that issue. When you activate PB, you get a new GCD for Opo-opo, Raptor and Coeurl, which has the benefits of both attacks from the standard rotation. By that I mean:

Opo-opo - Uses Leadon Fist to make it stronger, but also gives you the Leaden Fist buff. Then, of course with my earlier suggestion, it would auto-crit as well.
Raptor - High damage but also refreshes the Disciplined Fist buff.
Coeurl - High initial potency but also refreshes Demolish. Now, this could come with a change to Demolish. Rather than just straight up replacing the Demolish debuff, have Demolish be extended duration wise to a maximum, like how Shadow of Death on Reaper, or Surging Tempest on Warrior. Changing Demolish to work like this is probably the thing I'm not 100% certain of but I do think it would benefit.

Issues I can see are, when you do the blitz for all of the same form, you are spamming the same attack rather than having it be varied between 2. I also do not know how it would interact with AoE attacks, should the AoE attacks not be affected, or should these new GCDs be AoE attacks themselves, meaning the whole Masterful Blitz Window is AoE.

Just some idle musings from someone who has a brain that's way too active when trying to sleep, but I would like to hear thoughts. It might not fix all problems, but it might help alleviate some of the pains.

Originally Posted by Mikey_R

Some ideas I've had floating around, with Bootshine and Shadow of the Destroyer both being Auto-crits, why not make Opo-opo the 'Crit' form. Give an Auto-Crit to Dragon Kick, you can then generate more chakra between PB windows. Of course, we are still adding positionals back in.

I'd be okay with DK being how Bootshine gets its auto-crit (in place of Leaden Fist) if DK were moved to an earlier level, but I see no need to make DK itself auto-crit; feels like that'd just cheapen Bootshine.

Same story with the ST Raptor form skills. Why would I ever use Twin if True Strike also refreshed Disciplined Fist?
And the Coeurl ST skills. Why would I use Demolish more than once per fight if Snap Punch could also refresh it?

Originally Posted by Mikey_R

This next one is still a new thought for me, but changing how PB works. One thing that I see might spring up is the weird timings of your buffs/debuffs when you want to PB, you need to make sure Disciplined Fist and Demolish aren't going to drop, so this could help mitigate that issue.

That's the whole point of the mechanic, though. It's what little skill ceiling remains and yes, it is absolutely manageable (and even offers varying optimal action paths depending on SkS and when you're likely to cap Chakra).

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Same story with the ST Raptor form skills. Why would I ever use Twin if True Strike also refreshed Disciplined Fist?
And the Coeurl ST skills. Why would I use Demolish more than once per fight if Snap Punch could also refresh it?

It would only do it during the PB window, so outside it your GCDs would act as normal. Definitely one of the more controversial changes I proposed, mainly due to a lack to knowledge of how the buff/debuff windows happen in the 60 second windows and whether everything will actually line up.

As for the Auto Crit on Dragon Kick, it would still have to give the Leaden Fist Buff, however, something I just thought of, why not give Bootshine the ability to give a 'Leaden Kick' buff which powers up Dragon Kick. You need to have a reason to use both abilities which is why Leaden Fist exists in the first place.