MONK is to confusing / annoying of a class now

[Navnav]

The amount of hypocrisy in the post is staggering, you are literally describing yourself, honestly I cringe every time I see you have posted your latest nonsense

I aint no saint true. But I am also not degrading people... He does it in almost all his posts. Also pay attention who I respond to when I do get offensive, it is definitely not towards anyone that hasn't gone out there way to attack me first. Tit for tat, i dont care. However this guy does it to people who just say they enjoy MNK. Don't join the bandwagon mate, you will often find it's full of people with nothing else to do.

[Valence]

I am not gonna argue about tastes and subjectivity here. I have played monk casually on the side since HW pretty consistently, although always as a second job rather than main. I love the job, but I never could completely optimize it 100% because it becomes way too galaxybrain for me. I feel this expansion has taken the cake for that though. Now difficulty and tastes will vary, so I'll talk about what I find problematic on a relatively high level in terms of rotation and/or usability:

- Having to keep up a short dot, a very short self buff, and a leaden fist upgrade buff, all at once at literally all times, is a LOT of layers to keep track of. The disciplined fists buff could really benefit from a gauge, easy to track, timer. Losing it is extremely punishing, especially during blitzes, which leads to...
- Blitzes are extremely restrictive in how to set them up, they need to take into account disciplined fists, demolish, and leaden fist. How you enter them and exit them, and when to use them properly, is not intuitive at all and full of novice traps.

Now for the rotation itself:

- The current monk rotation doesn't work above 1.95s (ish) on the GCD because Riddle of Fire is too short (why do we still have timers when we could just have stacks those days??), and suddenly allows for an extra GCD past that speed threshold. The optimal speeds make the rotation out of a proper loop and it becomes extremely galaxybrain to play if you don't want to go for a suboptimal rotation that tries to realign it every 2min (cf the "braindead rotation" on the balance). The rotation loops back again at 1.88s, which becomes suboptimal in terms of stat effectiveness.
- MNK is a crit addict job, which means getting too much speed means sacrificing crit, and staying at low base speed means potentially giving up good crit gear that also has skill speed (on top of not being able to get the 11th GCD under RoF). This means that the job is played optimally at speeds that clash hard with the design of the rotation/job itself: nothing aligns.
- The elephant in the room: we are seeing already double solar nadi openers because they prove more powerful than a standard lunar/solar, and I really, really doubt that it was intended by the designers. They made it so that phantom rush could not be used in the opener (only 2 perfect balance charges), and yet people are still finding ways to realign it on the 120s cooldowns because it's just better. This feels just wrong to overwrite nadi and still getting the most optimal numbers out of it.

MNK at high level is left in a very awkward spot were you just have to pour so much flawless effort into it that it feels kinda depressing. Maybe it's by design though, and it's meant to be like this. But the problems I quoted above are hard to look past objectively.

[ssunny2008]

- The current monk rotation doesn't work above 1.95s (ish) on the GCD because Riddle of Fire is too short (why do we still have timers when we could just have stacks those days??), and suddenly allows for an extra GCD past that speed threshold. The optimal speeds make the rotation out of a proper loop and it becomes extremely galaxybrain to play if you don't want to go for a suboptimal rotation that tries to realign it every 2min (cf the "braindead rotation" on the balance). The rotation loops back again at 1.88s, which becomes suboptimal in terms of stat effectiveness.
- MNK is a crit addict job, which means getting too much speed means sacrificing crit, and staying at low base speed means potentially giving up good crit gear that also has skill speed (on top of not being able to get the 11th GCD under RoF). This means that the job is played optimally at speeds that clash hard with the design of the rotation/job itself: nothing aligns.
- The elephant in the room: we are seeing already double solar nadi openers because they prove more powerful than a standard lunar/solar, and I really, really doubt that it was intended by the designers. They made it so that phantom rush could not be used in the opener (only 2 perfect balance charges), and yet people are still finding ways to realign it on the 120s cooldowns because it's just better. This feels just wrong to overwrite nadi and still getting the most optimal numbers out of it.

MNK at high level is left in a very awkward spot were you just have to pour so much flawless effort into it that it feels kinda depressing. Maybe it's by design though, and it's meant to be like this. But the problems I quoted above are hard to look past objectively.

With more than 1,95s you could plant RoF behind the first Demo. It´s not like you gonna lose 1000 DPS because you adjust the rotation a little bit. The stuff on balance is calculated with programs to get the best out of the class of course. But since crit, direct hit, RNG mechanics and even a Ping exists in this game, it should be negatable. If you´re more comfortable with something adjusted, you should give it a try.

The DPS difference in kind of the openers are a joke so far too. Given to their messures there is no real difference without raidbuffs, but a 15 DPS difference with some. It´s something for those who play for parses, but overall not really needed. On top you´ve fights like the current primals, where you swap from EF / RP burstwindows into PR / RP thx to the downtimes between the phases. So far i wouldn´t care about that much and just pick the own preference again, unless you want to go for the 100.
Within the Lunar / Solar rotation you could even go for TS - Demo - DK - RP - BS. So you gonna play the standard rotation without any curious interuption like TS - DK - Demo - RP - TS . All you´ve to do is to delay the next RoF about 1s and your rotation will continue flawless. The damage loss is pretty much non existent.


Just my personal note, but we had to keep up Demo and TS for a long time now, meanwhile playing around positionals and spamming BS / DK since PB has become a thing. All this is nothing new and MNK got way easier to play without positionals and oGCD´s. I´m pretty sure if you wouldn´t have played it just casually, keeping up both would´ve become a no-brainer for you. It has been part of the rotation you got used too and once achieved, you would rarely check them.

SMN rework made them so ridiculously popular that they are almost on par with RPR, before SMN was in no way was that much popular, heck you see now more SMNs than frigging RDMs. On the other side Monk got reworked and its an unpopular as it was before and boy they were bare bones on ShB.

People have different tastes but when a job has been so hugely unpopular for so long, means that something is real wrong with it. Not like martial artist classes are so widely unpopular on other games so its not mainly an aesthetic issue. BLM a "niche" job as you call it stands on a healthy midddle tier job popularity wise. Or we can mention how Ninja a very beloved and useful job is now bottom of the barrel popularity wise being even rarer thank Monk (but they did not get a rework as Monk had)

Dozens of ppl, especially more casual orientated players waited for a SMN rework like this. Ofcourse it´s going to be popular in is first instance, but i´m also sure it´s gonna drop for raiders with its current output in savage.

BLM battled about the last place with MNK in Shb even when it was super strong. Some little changes mixed it popularity imo ofc. NIN was way more popular before, but you shouldn´t forget that we´ve RPR now and a bunch of melee - players ofc check it out until it gets boring. But since it´s easy to play like SMN and the strongest DPS on top, why should they?

No, that something is not that popular is no issue, even over 10 years or so. It would be an issue if the reason is, that the class underperforms hard, but that isn´t the case here. The most players in FF14 clearly don´t want to get punished for missplays, are too lazy to play positionals or need so hardhitting pew pew mechanics to feel satisfied. MNK punished them with the loss of GL, so it got removed. Positionals got drastically reduced and yes we got those burst skills. So what´s the issue now? Is the 123 456 rotation too hard to perform? Who knows... they took so much of the job away and it´s still at the end of popularity. What is it if not just "glam and animations" or "because it´s a melee which needs more input than 123 gauge". ?!
The most ppl just rely on classes they can easily get used to, just look at DNC or SAM, even SMN now. MNK had always a loyal playerbase and just because 2-3 classes aren´t that popular in a MMORPG with 20 classes overall, doesn´t mean there is an issue.

EDIT: It has nothing to do with gameplay so far, but Rhoegadyn aren´t very popular as characters. Should we get ride of them or change them? Maybe we should add some cat-ears and shrink them down to 80cm? Being niche is no issue. It´s higly welcome for ppl who don´t run around with a mainstream-mind.

[Valence]

With more than 1,95s you could plant RoF behind the first Demo. It´s not like you gonna lose 1000 DPS because you adjust the rotation a little bit. The stuff on balance is calculated with programs to get the best out of the class of course. But since crit, direct hit, RNG mechanics and even a Ping exists in this game, it should be negatable. If you´re more comfortable with something adjusted, you should give it a try.

The DPS difference in kind of the openers are a joke so far too. Given to their messures there is no real difference without raidbuffs, but a 15 DPS difference with some. It´s something for those who play for parses, but overall not really needed. On top you´ve fights like the current primals, where you swap from EF / RP burstwindows into PR / RP thx to the downtimes between the phases. So far i wouldn´t care about that much and just pick the own preference again, unless you want to go for the 100.
Within the Lunar / Solar rotation you could even go for TS - Demo - DK - RP - BS. So you gonna play the standard rotation without any curious interuption like TS - DK - Demo - RP - TS . All you´ve to do is to delay the next RoF about 1s and your rotation will continue flawless. The damage loss is pretty much non existent.


Just my personal note, but we had to keep up Demo and TS for a long time now, meanwhile playing around positionals and spamming BS / DK since PB has become a thing. All this is nothing new and MNK got way easier to play without positionals and oGCD´s. I´m pretty sure if you wouldn´t have played it just casually, keeping up both would´ve become a no-brainer for you. It has been part of the rotation you got used too and once achieved, you would rarely check them.

I wouldn't know what the actual loss is, would need to calculate it, but even a 1% difference for example, is already a problem imo (unlike a 0.1% difference). All in all i'm always open to alternatives that don't trounce through my damage, which the balance seems very frigid about giving to people.

[ssunny2008]

I wouldn't know what the actual loss is, would need to calculate it, but even a 1% difference for example, is already a problem imo (unlike a 0.1% difference). All in all i'm always open to alternatives that don't trounce through my damage, which the balance seems very frigid about giving to people.

Just check this out, there is a chart under the opener section with the 3 rotations. It´s actually far away from being 1%. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...h.iepwpbj7nu5d
Of course you want to align with your party. But how many of the players out there perform well? If we all would play our rotation perfectly, why is there such a big difference in parses? As long as you´re not going to be top DPS in farmgroups, such light adjustments won´t matter that much seriously.
I don´t want to motivate you or others to not to give your best. But if you´ve problems to play something properly down, it´s sometimes better to find an own comfortable way, even if it means that you´ve to sacrifize 200 DPS or so. It´s better than failing or dieing, because you stare at your hotbar. If you´re not able to double-weave caused by the ping, you´ve to adjust on several classes anyway too.

[Shurrikhan]

(why do we still have timers when we could just have stacks those days??)

Because a job that's thematically been about constant uptime shouldn't need to hop aboard the train for "let's have three times the duration needed to actually use the originally intended number of globals -- oh, and let's make sure SkS is even more terrible."

MNK is a crit addict job, which means getting too much speed means sacrificing crit

The only crit interactions are with weaponskills, which are on the GCD and are therefore just as affected by SkS as Crit. (More actually, as the rate of GCD decrease is greater than the rate of crit chance increase, iirc, since part of the value of Critical Hit goes instead to increasing the crit modifier.)

[Valence]

Because a job that's thematically been about constant uptime shouldn't need to hop aboard the train for "let's have three times the duration needed to actually use the originally intended number of globals -- oh, and let's make sure SkS is even more terrible."

If you're using three times the duration needed you're doing something wrong.

The benefit of stacks isn't to have "three times the duration needed" but to allow less rigid rotation theorycrafting, allow more rotational alternatives and more generally a good amount of freedom. Which in the case of RoF would be a godsent, because current RoF completely conflicts with the current rotational loop/design. Fortunately doing some dumb unoptimal realignments doesn't seem to hurt the damage much. But the main issue remains: by sticking to rigid timers you're by design restricting the amount of alternatives and different types of playstyles, which I something for example I appreciate on BLM where you'll find all kinds of different builds, some with speed, some with crit, some in between, depending your taste and preferences, all performing well.

The only crit interactions are with weaponskills, which are on the GCD and are therefore just as affected by SkS as Crit. (More actually, as the rate of GCD decrease is greater than the rate of crit chance increase, iirc, since part of the value of Critical Hit goes instead to increasing the crit modifier.)

Getting one or two more GCDs per 120min cycles will obviously net slightly more potential crits but you'll have to remember that those are also affected by crit rate. Crit rate, is also on a threshold/tiering system, which can't be compared to raw percentage values, and also affects crit damage. You're essentially trading more chances to crit on all your GCDs (but bootshines), harder crits as well, in exchange for a chance of more crit from a limited amount of additional GCDs.

[Shurrikhan]

If you're using three times the duration needed you're doing something wrong.

Yet that tremendous leniency in duration is literally the design of every stack system. Delirium needs ~4 seconds (2 GCDs + the [half-second plus twice one's ping] animation lock of Delirium itself and the final GCD as to fit in a third). It has a 15 second duration. Inner Release is identical. Bunshin needs 9 seconds and has a 30-second duration. Requiescat needs 12.5 seconds and has a 30-second duration. Sword Oath needs 7.5 seconds and has a duration of 30 seconds.

That is the precedent of what you're asking for.

Fortunately doing some dumb unoptimal realignments doesn't seem to hurt the damage much.

And those realignments, be they dumb or clever, are exactly what differs content from merely hitting a striking dummy and I much prefer that.

by sticking to rigid timers you're by design restricting the amount of alternatives and different types of playstyles

You realize stacks do exactly the same thing, just arguably worse, while further devaluing stat choice? The only redeeming grace for such would be that Twin Snakes at least would still be on a real-time duration.

for example I appreciate on BLM where you'll find all kinds of different builds, some with speed, some with crit, some in between, depending your taste and preferences, all performing well.

Those options exist because, like current Monk, there is no free (non-action-scaled) oGCD damage, only small amounts of purely time-supplied damage, and Ley Lines is NOT on a stack system. Move LL to stacks and SpS suddenly becomes that much less desirable. Just as RoF being on stacks would nuke the competitiveness of SkS on Monk.

Getting one or two more GCDs per 120min cycles will obviously net slightly more potential crits but you'll have to remember that those are also affected by crit rate. Crit rate, is also on a threshold/tiering system, which can't be compared to raw percentage values, and also affects crit damage. You're essentially trading more chances to crit on all your GCDs (but bootshines), harder crits as well, in exchange for a chance of more crit from a limited amount of additional GCDs.

SkS is also on a threshold/tiering system. Anything without infinite decimal points will have specific stat value tiers. No stat uses a true percentage curve.

What percentage of your rotational Chakra-contributing actions will SkS affect the rate of generation from? 100%.
What percentage of your rotational Chakra-contributing actions will Crit affect the rate of generation from? 83.3% in ST and 66.7% in AoE (reduced in practice due to Perfect Balance).

Whether SkS puts out higher damage overall per stat point spent or not is another issue entirely, but in a pure uptime fight, SkS will more greatly affect Chakra generation TFC damage over time than will Critical Hit.

[Valence]

Yet that tremendous leniency in duration is literally the design of every stack system. Delirium needs ~4 seconds (2 GCDs + the [half-second plus twice one's ping] animation lock of Delirium itself and the final GCD as to fit in a third). It has a 15 second duration. Inner Release is identical. Bunshin needs 9 seconds and has a 30-second duration. Requiescat needs 12.5 seconds and has a 30-second duration. Sword Oath needs 7.5 seconds and has a duration of 30 seconds.

That is the precedent of what you're asking for.

You're completely missing the point but okay. They could reduce the timer of those stacks it would not change the point. The point twofold:
- Leniency for latency players
- More viable alternatives for theorycrafting which is something monk could benefit from

And those realignments, be they dumb or clever, are exactly what differs content from merely hitting a striking dummy and I much prefer that.

You're also doing them on a dummy anyway.

You realize stacks do exactly the same thing, just arguably worse, while further devaluing stat choice? The only redeeming grace for such would be that Twin Snakes at least would still be on a real-time duration.

They don't. If they make an awkward loop obsolete, then good riddance. At worst you lose as many builds as you gain, at best you gain more than you lose. Problem on MNK is the weight of crit, therefore still making a looping 1.88s build improbable, but still keeping the current builds possible for the simple reason that crit/sks gear would still be valuable due to the crit value.

Those options exist because, like current Monk, there is no free (non-action-scaled) oGCD damage, only small amounts of purely time-supplied damage, and Ley Lines is NOT on a stack system. Move LL to stacks and SpS suddenly becomes that much less desirable. Just as RoF being on stacks would nuke the competitiveness of SkS on Monk.

That makes literally zero sense. LL be them on stacks or a timer, still multiply your speed by haste, which is demultiplied by speed no matter the duration system.

What percentage of your rotational Chakra-contributing actions will SkS affect the rate of generation from? 100%.
What percentage of your rotational Chakra-contributing actions will Crit affect the rate of generation from? 83.3% in ST and 66.7% in AoE (reduced in practice due to Perfect Balance).

That math makes no sense either. It's too simplistic and doesn't account for stat tiering, specific substats formulas behind each stat, brotherhood buffs (hugely biased toward crit and not sks), and the general rotations of the job. And it's not even taking into account the crit damage scaling.

So please, if you're to pull up actual math, at least be serious about it.

[Andy_T93]

Monk is awesome, I love it, people need to build a bridge and get over their issues