MONK is to confusing / annoying of a class now

[BucklesTrespen]

I love the new Monk refresh personally. Blitz works really well with practice, and I'm still practicing. Yes, our combo isn't super linear anymore but I see that as a good thing allowing for more fluid and reactionary gameplay. I'm finding my 3x same Beast Chakra really just lands me ready for a leaden BS after a Blitz and the 1 of each Beast Chakra lands me on a Dragon kick to get the leaden buff nearly all the time. But occasionally I can refresh demo or twin depending on fight mechanics and I like that flexibility.

My main gripes really are that they gave us two new animations in Flint Strike and Celestial but they are either immediately replaced or an animation for a skill we don't want to use. How cool if Leaden Fist inherited the Celestial animation like how Dragoons combo starter changes. Also don't appreciate them changing the +damage buff from purple to orange so got to retrain my brain. SSS still being on the GCD and Anatman meme which I've used ONCE this expansion because I was bored on a trial. Honestly, PB makes Anatman almost useless since Anatman really just winds up being able to use True over Twin after a disengage... But those are silly gripes. On the whole I am very, very happy with Monk.

I see EW MNK as a far better springboard for our class moving into future expansions since now they can build up from the Blitz mechanic rather than what we had for years building on the GL and fist stance mechanic.

Also Thunderclap is the best ever and I love it and don't ever take it away.

[Yokubo]

I love the new Monk refresh personally. Blitz works really well with practice, and I'm still practicing. Yes, our combo isn't super linear anymore but I see that as a good thing allowing for more fluid and reactionary gameplay. I'm finding my 3x same Beast Chakra really just lands me ready for a leaden BS after a Blitz and the 1 of each Beast Chakra lands me on a Dragon kick to get the leaden buff nearly all the time. But occasionally I can refresh demo or twin depending on fight mechanics and I like that flexibility.

My main gripes really are that they gave us two new animations in Flint Strike and Celestial but they are either immediately replaced or an animation for a skill we don't want to use. How cool if Leaden Fist inherited the Celestial animation like how Dragoons combo starter changes. Also don't appreciate them changing the +damage buff from purple to orange so got to retrain my brain. SSS still being on the GCD and Anatman meme which I've used ONCE this expansion because I was bored on a trial. Honestly, PB makes Anatman almost useless since Anatman really just winds up being able to use True over Twin after a disengage... But those are silly gripes. On the whole I am very, very happy with Monk.

I see EW MNK as a far better springboard for our class moving into future expansions since now they can build up from the Blitz mechanic rather than what we had for years building on the GL and fist stance mechanic.

Also Thunderclap is the best ever and I love it and don't ever take it away.

I used Celestial Revelation once just to see the animation and I wish it was a more important part of the rotation. Like honestly the fact that it's a gimp skill is bogus. The one new skill we sorta get and it's not even going to be used. Jeez, does that sound familiar, anybody?

Flint Strike takes same animation from one of the PvP skills I believe. Axe Kick?

[Gemina]

It's a combination of things that are making it feel wonky, but I think PB is what has really derailed MNK in 6.0; possibly always. The timing of it along with how Blitz works just makes everything all janky.

RoF reduced to 60s: Good
Brotherhood increased to 120s: Cool
PB split into two charges with a 40s CD each: Bad. Really bad.

Now what they have to do is go in and make all kinds of adjustments to get MNK back to feeling good again. Currently, I don't have any suggestions. I am still playing MNK every time I can log on because I want to be in the thick of this transition and these issues. I'm really glad I picked up MNK in ShB. A bit late, but at least I got to experience how it was before the EW changes.

PB's overall mechanic needs to be looked at. I am just not even sure if MNK needs what it does. I honestly think it can be nuked completely.

From my limited experience, MNKs flow seems to come from transitioning from form to form, and executing its positionals. Giving MNKs the ability to be free from these restrictions does not liberate its playstyle; it just makes it feel janky.

MNKs should be rewarded for proper positioning with bonus damage, and flowing through their forms to reward additional effects and beast chakra. If I am to make a suggestion, I would nuke Perfect Balance. I think this skill has been a bane to MNK for a very long time now, despite my limited time playing the job. I think MNK should always have access to all of their skills like any typical melee job, with one form unlocking the next. Then just make it so that executing the appropriate skill while in that form grants bonuses such as additional effects and a symbol for the Blitz gauge. I think positional requirements can make a return on skills that don't have an additional effect. Under this system, only Demolish and Twin Snakes would be free of positional requirements.

That said, I just think they are trying to do too much, and really need to focus on what makes MNK work instead of trying to redefine it every expansion.

[VentVanitas]

Eh, I don't think PB is exclusively the problem outside of its janky timing, the freedom you have with the inputs is one of the very few joys I've been having with 6.0 MNK. Limiting Blitz purely to PB however, is what I have issue with.

As for the oGCD drought, I don't see what's stopping SE from making Phoenix Rising available from the get-go and just make Flint Strike an oGCD attack. (Or Steel Peak/Howling Fist for that matter)

[Gemina]

Eh, I don't think PB is exclusively the problem outside of its janky timing, the freedom you have with the inputs is one of the very few joys I've been having with 6.0 MNK. Limiting Blitz purely to PB however, is what I have issue with.

What freedom are you referring to? That freedom is an illusion because PB just locks you into doing certain skills. Currently, only the solar Nadi allows you to move through all three forms, which is what you're always doing anyway; and the lunar restricts you to just one form, which will always be your Opo-Opo skills. There is nothing liberating about PB. It's only use currently is to gain beast chakra, which can be gained simply by executing a skill from the form you are currently in, and this skill is dictated by your current situation (need to refresh Demolish/Discipline Fist, leaden fist is active, etc.)

I just don't see a need for it at all. Seems like a bag of bricks to me.

[Noraiga]

I used Celestial Revelation once just to see the animation and I wish it was a more important part of the rotation. Like honestly the fact that it's a gimp skill is bogus. The one new skill we sorta get and it's not even going to be used. Jeez, does that sound familiar, anybody?

Flint Strike takes same animation from one of the PvP skills I believe. Axe Kick?

Celestial Revolution is an old pvp skill also ! I don't remember well but it was in Stormblood or Heavensward !

What bother me a lot is the animation ( beside many other problem... Like the compleat mess that is our rotation ) of skills, like True Strike, Snap punch... At least they should do something like DRG putting the same system who reward you for doing the right positionals or something and also we got basically just 2 new skills, it's freaking lazy.

I wouldn't not complaint if MNK had evolved from all previous expansion, they had to rebuild MNK and we can feel it, MNK still feel kinda rusty because of the REALLY too old animation and the lack of mech.
At release we had DRG and MNK (NIN didn't come right away ), if we compare them in term of progression it's Heaven and Earth.

[Oextra]

You just have to give it some time. I really didn't like it at all the first few hours of messing with it due to the random decision to only give us 2 stacks of PB instead of 3. But now that I worked out my rotation better, I can make due with the 2 stacks, and now mostly like the changes.

It's still a bit weird but you can do 3 PBs every other minute (essentially), which is what I'm thinking they intended for it. I just wish it was more straight forward.

Outside of the clunkiness of the MB system (can't use PB outside of combat, only 2 stacks at 40 sec cd, etc.), I do really like the idea. Giving combos an ender or super is a great idea. It just needs better execution.

At first I really felt that MB should be an oGCD, but that was mainly because it uses 2 moves that were once oGCD and that's simply how I saw them. Now that I see it as a "combo ender" and am use to how it is in my new rotation, and those moves technically do more damage than they did when they were oGCDs, I think it's fine.

Thunder clap is amazing, but I wish it worked on allies. It would also be nice if it could work while not targeting something. Like maybe it could have shorter range if not targeted on something and keep the range it already has when targeting. This would mainly be nice for controller users since I imagine it's not a problem to use at all on MnK.

Lastly RoW needs to have a shorter cd. Considering they wanted every burst to either be 1 or 2 minutes, I don't get why this has a 90 sec cd.

[Silver-Strider]

I don't find it confusing but slower.

When Riddle of Fire was 1st introduced, one of the main issues was that MNK didn't have enough skills to weave during the slow effect of RoF and thus brought the class to a crawl, which is happening again just under a different circumstance; We don't have anything to weave during our rotation and the class feels slower as a result. The Chakra System alone is not sufficient enough to maintain the same level of speed that previous iterations of MNK had and it shows.
With our positionals also being removed, there's much less incentive to actually move around as before so we're stuck on the enemies rear for the most part doing he same attacks with very little to do while we wait for a PB window to open up again.
Masterful Blitz being on the GCD doesn't help the matter either since now we have to account for a 4th GCD between refreshes of Disciplined Fist/Demolish timers, which can be problematic since it now requires you to start off with Snap punch on occasion to align with those timers and preventing a premature refreshing of those timers.
Finally, the awkward timing on our Buffs (PB on 40s, RoF on 60s, RoW on 90s and Brotherhood on 120s) really messes with the flow of the job as a whole.

Overall, my impression is that this iteration is even worse than the SB variant.

[wereotter]

The blitz system definitely feels clunky to use, and honestly a bit jarring, especially considering how smooth the rotation on the job was before. Now I find myself getting lost in the rotation more frequently when coming out of a blitz, especially since leaden fist and disciplined fist aren't buffs in our job gauge. Bringing back GL1's part of the job gauge as a timer for disciplined fist would at least fix the latter and let us see the timer left more easily.

Also I feel like having masterful blitz on the global cooldown is just another part where I stumble. You activate perfect balance OGCD but execute the actual blitz on it, so changing all 6 blitzes to OGCD moves would help restore some of the rotational flow of the job.

But I do agree that even then overall the job just feels a bit like a mess, and still needs a lot of attention in order to make it fun to play.

[Shurrikhan]

Monk is so bad now.

What do you guys / gals think?

It's only a little ways off the mark, imo. They just need to reduce the cooldown on Perfect Balance a bit further, speed up Chakra gen slightly, and fix some clunk (e.g., having consuming the last stack of PB grant Formless Fist itself, rather than the Blitz doing so, and some Meditation/Form Shift QoL).

If I had my druthers, though... https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-NuMonk-Rework