The problem with Monk isn't positionals (opinion piece)

[Silver-Strider]

No, please, to both of these.

Thunderclap is a fine replacement for Shoulder Tackle. We merely should have gotten back its apm elsewhere. (Technically, we did, via increased Chakra intake, but that still leaves necessary compensation for the apm lost from removing Elixir Field and the oGCD that carries the name and animation of what was TK.)

Six-sided Star is fine as a finisher and disengage. I'd rather have a situational tool than empty apm. That's not to say that I dislike APM; I'm just not willing to lose a single tool for it, especially when increased apm does not oblige the removal of decent tools. And, yes, SSS is a decent tool -- though no better than "decent" -- and certainly has more reason to exist as a given button than does Meditation or, especially, Form Shift.

Thunderclap has 3 charges specifically to be used as a means of engaging and disengaging from an enemy so I fail to see the need of SSS as another disengagement tool. MNK needs more than just niche or decent skills, it needs direction in its job design. Right now, MNK just has a lot of button bloat with no substance to them that either need to be reworked or just flat out removed and SSS is one of those skills that desperately needs something to make it actually usable rather than being another One Ilm Punch.

[Mortex]

It’s so dumb that you have no phantom rush in the opener so for max dmg you do a 2 solar nadi opener and delay phantom rush fits so it fits into the 2 minute raid cd window. But only on fights we’re you end it one 2 different Nadis……

[Xiaoki]

So wait SE simplified yet another job to the point it's no longer fun? I am shocked, I say. Shocked!

Yeah, Monk is so completely not fun that people are actually playing it.

Look at the FFLogs for the Endwalker Extreme raids and you see a lot of Monks.

In Shadowbringers you never saw Monks in progression raids because no one wanted them.

So, looks like the Monk changes worked.

[ssunny2008]

Yeah, Monk is so completely not fun that people are actually playing it.

Look at the FFLogs for the Endwalker Extreme raids and you see a lot of Monks.

In Shadowbringers you never saw Monks in progression raids because no one wanted them.

So, looks like the Monk changes worked.

You shouldn´t claim stuff just because... let´s face it:

- Monk has been played in Shadowbringers
- Monk and Blackmage had the lowest playercount via ff.logs in Shadowbringers

Now:

- Monk is played in Endwalker
- Monk and Ninja has the lowest playercount via ff.logs in Endwalker

So what changed?

- Ninja is less popular probably caused by the release of Reaper
- Monk didn´t changed in its popularity even if it has got a complete rework, meanwhile Summoner, who got a rework too, is one of the most popular classes right now. (Obviously because it´s easy and has bling bling.)

In the end...

The changes DID NOT work. The most ppl out there running and logging trials with Monk are old Monk mains for sure. They test it out, some of them (myself included) even hope that we get our positionals back within the next patch, so all this new practice incl. positional-play makes sense. But the overall popularity and playrate didn´t grow and if Monk stays in its current state, it´ll sink drastically in the future.

[IruruCece]

Yeah, Monk is so completely not fun that people are actually playing it.

Look at the FFLogs for the Endwalker Extreme raids and you see a lot of Monks.

In Shadowbringers you never saw Monks in progression raids because no one wanted them.

So, looks like the Monk changes worked.

This is a ridiculous take. People were playing Monks back in Shadowbringers as well. The problem that you conveniently overlooked is that Monk has the second lowest number of parses being submitted to FFlogs for Extreme raids. Only Ninja has fewer (which suggests that job also has issues, something that can be corroborated by the number of Ninja-related discussions on these forums).

Monk is one of the top five raid DPS in the game right now, yet has one of the fewest numbers of players taking it into existing endgame content. Other jobs with lower raid and personal DPS have considerably more people contributing parses to that site.

Monk was also one of the lowest played jobs in endgame in Shadowbringers. If nothing else, with the sheer number of people playing Endwalker, if the job changes actually worked to attract old players AND new ones, surely the numbers on FFlogs would reflect this. They do not. Other jobs, with lower raid or personal DPS, have more people pushing them into endgame content despite the removal of 4 positionals, despite the removal of Greased Lightning in Shadowbringers, and the addition of flashy animations for the Blitz system, AND the half-hearted return of old animations that the majority of Monk players will see only when they sync down and play the job when it is arguably even less engaging.

The Monk changes did not work.

[Burningskull]

I think MNK has a flow problem. Playing DRG or RPR or even my DNC everything tends to just flow together really nicely. MNK has so many buffs along with constantly gaining chakra on top of trying to figure out when the best time to Perfect Balance that the job doesn't flow very well.

I think they should either not tie Beast Chakra to Perfect Balance, or have it so that if you have no Nadi you get Elixer Field which gives Lunar, if you have Lunar you get Flint strike which then gives Solar, and then if you have both you get Tornado Kick. Raising Pheonix and Phantom rush respectively. Turn Celestial Revolution into an Upgrade to another move or something.

But that's just me I think.

[Shurrikhan]

I think MNK has a flow problem. Playing DRG or RPR or even my DNC everything tends to just flow together really nicely. MNK has so many buffs along with constantly gaining chakra on top of trying to figure out when the best time to Perfect Balance that the job doesn't flow very well.

Hate to say it, but... practice?

DRG's GCDs "flow" as you describe because it's nigh impossible to mess up so long as you follow your 10-step combo ad nauseum. For RPR, the same, but 3-step with CD-GCDs.

The last thing MNK needs is to lose choice of Nadi banking or for Blitz to be an effortless mechanic. '3-of-same-from', '3-of-different-forms' is not hard.

[wereotter]

I think MNK has a flow problem. Playing DRG or RPR or even my DNC everything tends to just flow together really nicely. MNK has so many buffs along with constantly gaining chakra on top of trying to figure out when the best time to Perfect Balance that the job doesn't flow very well.

I think they should either not tie Beast Chakra to Perfect Balance, or have it so that if you have no Nadi you get Elixer Field which gives Lunar, if you have Lunar you get Flint strike which then gives Solar, and then if you have both you get Tornado Kick. Raising Pheonix and Phantom rush respectively. Turn Celestial Revolution into an Upgrade to another move or something.

But that's just me I think.

I agree to a degree. The need to time blitzes around twin snakes is something that other jobs don't really have to worry about with their extra skills. Dragoon doesn't have to worry about losing their buff upon using Nastrond, Ninjas have a massively long window on Huton and don't need to worry about losing it while performing ninjutsu, and reaper has the duration on its enshroud mode long enough that you can reapply death's design in that mode without losing any DPS.

A few seconds extension to the duration of twin snakes would make a world of difference to being able to enter perfect balance when it comes up, especially since you don't really want to use your three of the same form blitz on twin snakes and two true strikes. This is even further exacerbated when your twin snakes buff isn't tracked on the job gauge and is equally jarring that they changed its icon this expansion. I can't tell how many times I've attempted to reapply twin snakes thinking I didn't have the buff simply because the icon changed, and I was trying to quickly identify a pink buff instead of a yellow one.

[ssunny2008]

I agree to a degree. The need to time blitzes around twin snakes is something that other jobs don't really have to worry about with their extra skills. Dragoon doesn't have to worry about losing their buff upon using Nastrond, Ninjas have a massively long window on Huton and don't need to worry about losing it while performing ninjutsu, and reaper has the duration on its enshroud mode long enough that you can reapply death's design in that mode without losing any DPS.

A few seconds extension to the duration of twin snakes would make a world of difference to being able to enter perfect balance when it comes up, especially since you don't really want to use your three of the same form blitz on twin snakes and two true strikes. This is even further exacerbated when your twin snakes buff isn't tracked on the job gauge and is equally jarring that they changed its icon this expansion. I can't tell how many times I've attempted to reapply twin snakes thinking I didn't have the buff simply because the icon changed, and I was trying to quickly identify a pink buff instead of a yellow one.

I can´t follow you here. When are you going to use Blitz without TS? Or when do you actually have to use stuff like "TS, TS, TS"?

The standard rotation fits very well into anything. You just don´t use the 3rd PB directly into the 2nd standalone RoF. You delay it until TS and Demo got resetted, then you´re going to start with DK/BS/DK into TK under the last moment of RoF. If you continue you´ll be at a perfect moment for your full burst with TS and Demo again.

Of course some boss-mechanics or downtimes could cause issues with it, but it´s something ppl always had to get used to and we just need to adapt and / or delay our burstphase.

[wereotter]

I can´t follow you here. When are you going to use Blitz without TS? Or when do you actually have to use stuff like "TS, TS, TS"?

The standard rotation fits very well into anything. You just don´t use the 3rd PB directly into the 2nd standalone RoF. You delay it until TS and Demo got resetted, then you´re going to start with DK/BS/DK into TK under the last moment of RoF. If you continue you´ll be at a perfect moment for your full burst with TS and Demo again.

Of course some boss-mechanics or downtimes could cause issues with it, but it´s something ppl always had to get used to and we just need to adapt and / or delay our burstphase.

My point is that with the buff's duration being short, and needing to watch a buff that's not on the job gauge to determine when it a smart time to use the skill feels, at least to me, like poor design, and it's very simple to fix. Moving the timer onto the job gauge so it's easier to watch can help immensely to knowing if it's not a good idea to enter that mode yet. And even with the addition of the new mechanic, they shortened the duration of the buff, so extending that back out to where it was can help if people make a mistake and start into the phase too early.

The other part was noticing that even the buff icon changed, and isn't even the same color as it once was, so if you're trying to quickly identify if you have your damage buff applied, what your'e looking for is very different than it was. Yes, this is just something you have to get used to, but I'm saying its made for a lot of mistakes for seemingly no reason when we went from that basic pink buff in our row of applied buffs representing the buff from twin snakes to a yellow one.

Additionally since you bring up the rotation, I'll say what I've said elsewhere that it feels like we as a community are being forced to do awkward things with the blitz mechanic just to make it work with raid buffs, even though the developers said explicitly they didn't want it to. Not saying it's bad to optimize like this, but it makes the flow of the job just feel awkward to me now, and a little like an older version of ninja. Very busy and lots to do during the 120 marks when Brotherhood is up, and relatively little to do inbetween. Ninja mains complained about the job being boring because of this, and now monk is basically that version of ninja, but with twice the time duration between those windows.