I miss monk positionals

[A_moth_called_rose]

There I said it. Monk positionals were a fun bit of skill expression that you could micro optimize outside of perfect balance and RoE/TN windows and I miss them dearly.

[Rongway]

You can still do them if you miss them that much.

[YeBunny]

Go back to being a statue in limsa

[butchersblock]

You can still do them if you miss them that much.

Very helpful and insightful.

[Fireon999]

Very helpful and insightful.

and this graphomaniac wrote 3119 posts.

[Eorzean_username]

I feel like SE tends to fundamentally misunderstand, or at least mishandle, feedback. Possibly just due to having too much to do under too much constraint, but either way, the end result can be disappointing, or just weird.

I think that players had grown to hate positionals not because of the literal gameplay itself, but because of the constant obnoxious disconnect between Class Design and Encounter Design philosophies.

ie, in isolation, on a striking dummy, I am going to reach out and assume that most players had no issue with pivoting around to do Flanks / Rears.

But the rest of the game was designed by people that don't play Melee, or... something... I don't know. Like you have all these cool positionals to constantly insert into your rotation, right? And then the game flat-out refuses to let you use them while Questing / Storying / Soloing. Does it literally matter for completing content? No because you could have your Chocobo or Thancred do most of it for you. Does it still feel irritating? Yeah.

And then in instance encounters, Positionals were something that was often taken out of the player's control. Oh, you have one of those Spinny Tanks? Goodbye positionals. Oh, this encounter is heavily-randomized and the boss likes to spin suddenly to target players on the other side of the room? Goodbye positionals. Oh, you haven't memorized every last millisecond of this encounter timeline? Goodbye positionals. Oh, your Tank pulled 0.250s early? Yep, goodbye positionals.

I'm exaggerating some of that for emphasis, but the point that I'm trying to make is that what makes Positionals irritating for people is that it's a personal gameplay element which is often controlled by your surroundings and teammates, rather than your own decisions, and in a lot of cases, there's just nothing you can do about it. That feels... bad. And it leads to frustration.

Even Black Mage, the lord of ranged inconvenience, doesn't have to sweat it if the Tank likes to pivot unnecessarily, or the encounter's strat necessitates ending up in front of the boss, or in a constrained position.

But rather than addressing these fundamental design issues — possibly because it's just way too complex and difficult to do that — the response has been to just peel off Positionals in general. Which, yeah, at least solves the headache of "Oh, the Tank suddenly spun the boss into my Bootshine again, cool", but also pulls away some of the aspects that made Pugilist/Monk have that "shifting/dancing martial artist" feeling.

I think that it would be a better system if Positionals no longer based themselves on your target's hit circle, but instead, on your own location when you execute them.

For example, using a Positional attack marks the target visually at the location that you used the attack. Using the next Positional at a different location from the marked point grants bonus damage. This way, you maintain that traditional Melee feeling of dancing around your target looking for openings, but in a way that is no longer confounded by the exact facing of the target.

Alternatively, mark the ground below you in a 1 or 2 yalm radius when you make a Positional attack. Making your next Positional attack from a location outside that marked ground deals bonus damage.

It's... not exactly the same as actually seeking out the target's own Flank and Rear, which has a more "immersive" fighting quality, and keys in to traditional RPG combat design more. But, it would be a system that is far more flexible and consistent across all types of content, all types of Tanks, all types of encounters, and so on. And at least it would feel more active again than the "weirdly chill" activity state that Coeurl-only Monk has ended up in.

[Ransu]

Very helpful and insightful.

I mean...he's not wrong. I still do it out of habit when I hop onto monk. Positionals are kind of whatever at this point anyways and are likely going to be gone come 7.0.

[Sqwall]

I mean...he's not wrong. I still do it out of habit when I hop onto monk. Positionals are kind of whatever at this point anyways and are likely going to be gone come 7.0.

They were always kind of whatever to me. Hell on Dragoon I flat out refuse to do them on a target dummy....and I STILL passed the DPS check. Now I find doing DRG's positionals hands down much easier to complete then MNK's as the job has a natural flow to it. Where MNK you actually need to know where you are in your combo, and what buff/debuff you need. For me it's such an insignificant amount of potency...unless you're one of those "parse fanatics" that only cares about a colored number.

It's not about being lazy or down right defiant to the positionals. I just could not care less about them...I have even mentioned this to my static and other members of the FC. I'm not going to go out of my way so that I can feel a "form of identity" or put myself in harms way so that I can get that extra 20-40 potency. When I run P3S as my WAR it's ALWAYS a SAM, RPR, MNK NOT using true north and picking up a tank buster tether.....then I grab it from them...then they COME BACK in to get the flank positional....and they steal the tether away and RUN BACK to the party to nuke them....Then it's my fault? Again....the potency is NOT worth the hassle of potentially throwing a run. If you can...great....but if you can't hit postionals....SMASH the hell out of true north!

I mean...good god.... P4S has got to be a nightmare to hit EVERY positional....so the design of savage content has just thrown postiaonls out the damn window, and P2S also...the hit box is non-positional. Thanks.

Monk was just one of the classes that "stuck with it" for so long that nobody wanted them to go. I echo the comment that in 7.0....they just get the axe. I would pretty just go... "Huh....anyway...." and move on like it's not a big deal.

[Canadane]

You can still do them if you miss them that much.

Honestly speaking, I still do.
After years of a flank combo and a rear combo it's hard to break the habit.

[butchersblock]

I mean...he's not wrong. I still do it out of habit when I hop onto monk. Positionals are kind of whatever at this point anyways and are likely going to be gone come 7.0.

I'm excited for the 8.0 Melee DPS rotation consisting of 123 and one oGCD every 120 seconds