Endwalker Monk — Feedback, suggestions, etc.

[Eorzean_username]

Thread purpose

I think that EW Monk seems to be in a pretty okay place. It's... kind of the same Monk as always, with some gimmicks glued on, but at least it still feels like Monk, and the gimmicks are reasonably fun.

So, I don't personally have any kind of "overhaul pitchforks" to rattle about Monk. I just think there's some minor issues and rough edges that could be adjusted.

You know: "Monk is good... but it can be better!"

Positive feedback section

Because I feel like positive feedback must be healthy for the devs to see at least sometimes...

I actually really like the new "Riddle of Wind". It's nice to have a cooldown that actually does something mildly different. I like that it basically turns me into a living DOT for 15s.

I think that "Thunderclap" feels great to use. I like that the lack of Potency means that it's not required to be mashed mindlessly on-cooldown. And I really enjoy how flexible it is with targeting — I feel like a sentient gust of wind, sailing through outdoor zones, or zipping around boss arenas by targeting allies.

"Six-Sided Star" isn't new in EW, but I still like it a lot because it's one of the most distinct 'disconnect tools' that I've encountered in this game. I almost actually don't mind being briefly forced off-targets as Monk, just because trying to learn to time and use Six-Sided Star properly in each situations feels satisfying to me.

The Monk 'core loop' isn't doing anything new or revolutionary since... ARR, but it still feels pretty smooth and satisfying overall, with only some minor jank points that could be smoothed out a little.

Monk overall sticks to its concept and fantasy like glue. It's a spiritual/meditative hand-to-hand brawler and it punches and kicks things in big ways. That's it. And I like that. It stays on-point and I feel like I get what I expect whenever I load up Monk.

Beast Chakra are ultimately kind-of pointless and unnecessary from a design perspective, but they're relatively undisruptive to the traditional Monk playfeel, integrate reasonably-well with the core loop, are fun to execute, and look cool. As far as tacked-on Job changes go, I feel like these are pretty successful.

[Eorzean_username]

Explanations of perceived issues
Skip this section if you don't care about my explanations and just want to see what changes I'm actually suggesting. Those are all in the next post.

Leveling / Downsync gripes

Every once in a while I just boggle at a certain FFXIV design decision, and I can't really find any objective perspective where I can understand it.

That is how I feel about the following facts:

• Monk unlocks Arm of the Destroyer, the first step of its AOE, at Level 26.
• Monk unlocks Rockbreaker, the third step of its AOE, at Level 30.
• Monk unlocks Four-Point Fury, the second step of its AOE, at Level 45.

...Why. Why are you like this?

This feels awful because:

This makes a Job insert the 2nd step of its ST combo into the middle of the 1st and 3rd steps of its AOE combo whenever it gets thrown into duties in the 30-44 range.

This makes maintaining Disciplined Fist, Monk's top rotational priority, require constantly punching a single target in AOE situations.

By putting the actions in this order, it fails to make use of an opportunity to teach leveling Monks about using Demolish to multi-target because Rockbreaker is given at the exact same level as Demolish.

It's also mildly annoying that Opo-Opo only becomes the 'preferred' AOE form at level 82+, leading to having to re-train AOE muscle memory specifically for downsynced duties.

Separate to the AOE issue, it also just feels pretty bad to get dropped into any Level 50 / ARR duty, due to lacking two major and important tools:

• Form Shift to open encounters cleanly with Dragon Kick into Leaden Fist
• Formless Fist after ending Perfect Balance to cleanly flow back into the loop

Skill Speed instability

The Monk rotation feels like it becomes counterproductive with too much Skill Speed, but it also doesn't quite seem to loop properly with too little Skill Speed, especially once Blitzes come into the rotation.

So getting synced down, or even just getting 'imperfect' gear, feels janky and strange — and this is exaggerated even more by the various tiers of Greased Lightning Traits that ping-pong my GCD around as I get synced up and down.

Like, uhm... Monk feels like its traits are designed to make it SUPER-FAST? ...But then you're still slightly not fast enough. It's... weird, somehow.

I don't know exactly how to fix this. And having awkward Speed tiers is not a problem unique to Monk (but it does feel exaggerated on Monk due to the speed traits). And as problems go, this is not a very high priority.

But for posterity, I think that it feels weird.

Poor communication of important information

Well, this isn't new, it's a problem that's plagued Monk for as long as I can remember... but I feel like it's being exaggerated by the new Perfect Balance / Beast Chakra system.

Monk is a Job that relies on knowing buff/debuff information constantly in order to make keypress / rotation decisions. Yet Monk is forced to have that information floating around in a bloated row of non-essential information that's constantly expanding and contracting, creating a visually-cluttered mess to sort through, especially during distracting encounter situations.

This is especially confusing to me because Director Yoshida touted Gauges in Stormblood as the opportunity to communicate important information to players and give them 'hints' about how to play their Job effectively.

So... why are the following 'mission-critical' effects not somehow separated out from the clutter of other personal effects?

• Current Form
• Leaden Fist existence and duration
• Disciplined Fist existence and duration
• Demolish existence and duration

For example, look at Black Mage. It has most of its critical information packed into a single efficiently-designed Gauge.

But even despite getting a 'mini overhaul' for EW, Monk still has to squint at the generic blob of status effects to pick out important information that's fundamental to the rotation.

And separating out just Leaden Fist with the new Conditional Enhancements setting introduced in EW, while leaving Forms and Disciplined Fist stuck in the generic effects swarm, is like offering to sell someone 50% of a kitten.

No Phantom Rush in opener

Something just feels wrong to me about not getting to use the big capstone Level 90 attack when opening an encounter.

For me, this isn't a "numbers" problem, or a balance issue, or anything like that... it's just, less fun. The opening of an encounter is usually that part where you get to unload everything in a big flashy burst sequence, and building 2 Nadis and then — just having to... trail off... and stop... feels like the personification of a "damp squib".

"Forbidden Chakra" is frustrating

I like the concept of "Forbidden Chakra", and "Enlightenment" is a fun button to press.

But, in actual practice, I have to admit that I honestly dislike the basic Chakra system, because it quickly becomes frustrating.

The problem for me is that Monk is given a super-fast GCD. This makes double-weaving on Monk difficult without resorting to ahem certain hypothetical things that only terrible people would know about.

But I can gain Chakra pips from any action. And other people's actions, during burst windows.

So every time Chakra fills up, and I don't immediately use Forbidden Chakra, I'm uncomfortably-aware that I'm potentially throwing away damage.

But Monk also has other OGCDs to weave that can't really 'wait'... like Feint, Mantra, Riddle of Fire, Perfect Balance, Bloodbath, Sprint, True North, etc.

So I'm frequently forced to either clip my GCD by double-weaving with Forbidden Chakra (which I'm guessing quickly negates any gains), or just sit on full Chakra for a GCD or two, and imagine all those pips I'm not generating.

It's... not even about whatever the numerical loss is, it just feels unfun.

Especially because I had a nightmare in which a faerie of the Unseelie Court told me that wicked children who use "third-party tools" can potentially bypass this limitation and comfortably double-weave Chakra with other actions. So I almost feel like I'm being nudged by FFXIV's own design into misbehaving in order to have the Job play properly. ...But I would never actually do that, of course!

Timing clashes of Beast Chakra / Perfect Balance / Masterful Blitz / Riddle of Fire

The Blitz system kind of feels paper-thin if I look at it too closely... but I don't really care that much about that, because it still looks cool, and it's fun to do.

My only real issue is that it gets extremely awkward and janky to try to keep re-aligning the 'drifty' Monk Form loop with the rigid Riddle of Fire timer, due to the pressure of trying to keep Blitzes inside Riddle of Fire without dropping Disciplined Fist.

I think that it's a little weird and annoying to be able to end up in a 'car crash' of a burst window if a Monk sometimes fails to psychically anticipate certain factors about the competing Riddle of Fire, Disciplined Fist, and Demolish timers.

Then there's also the fact that it stings a bit to have to spend the post-Blitz Formless Fist on anything but an Opo Form action due to the huge potency differential of Leaden Fist Bootshine, leading to a lot of additional pretzel-shaped convolution to try to ensure that Formless Fist never needs to be sacrificed to a Twin Snakes or Demolish.

And I also think that it's a little janky that Monk can end up in so many different entry and exit patterns every 60/120s, especially since it can become even more volatile as a result of even small changes in encounter conditions from pull to pull, KOs, etc.

Looking forward: Does Twin Snakes / Disciplined Fist constrain Monk's design space?

I don't have a personal issue with Twin Snakes on its own, and the alternating rhythm of True → Twin → True feels fine to me.

But, zooming out to the design level, I see Twin Snakes as a problem in the sense that it puts a tight cap on the Monk GCD loop, locking out room for adding any additional GCDs to the rotation in the future.

Even Blitzes have to "tip-toe" around the Disciplined Fist timer, and sometimes just demand intentionally clipping Twin Snakes in advance in order to be able to finish a Blitz properly. That feels... pretty inelegant to me.

At first glance, Monk seems like a flexible, super-fluid job... but then in actual practice, it's kind of not, in the sense that you're under tight pressure to repeat the same basic loop just-so without variation — fundamentally due to Disciplined Fist being a narrow timer that undermines every other action if it falls off.

Since Monk is also constrained to looping through the Forms, it can't insert new ideas without all-but-guaranteeing falloff from the hard Disciplined Fist timer.

But Monk's zippy-fast GCD, combined with the ever-present pressure of Chakra procs, also means that adding more OGCDs is also bumping up against a wall.

I think that doing something heretical with Twin Snakes might help break open Monk's design possibilities.

I don't consider this is a 'critical issue' for Monk or anything like that, it's just something I've been thinking about when considering how Monk could possibly expand in the future, and why the Monk design has stayed so limited for so long.

[Eorzean_username]

Suggestions and possibilities

Leveling / Downsync

Swap the order at which Monk gains AOE actions:

• Level 26 — Arm of the Destroyer
• Level 30 — Four-Point Fury
• Level 45 — Rockbreaker

Adjust effects for Opo-Opo AOE actions:

• Current Arm of the Destroyer — 100 potency. If in Opo-Opo Form, 110 potency.
• Suggested Arm of the Destroyer — 100 potency. If in Opo-Opo Form, guaranteed Critical Hit.

Adjust the rotational flow of ARR / Level 50 Monk:

• Learn Form Shift by level 50.
• Apply Formless Fist after consuming the last stack of Perfect Balance, rather than after using a Blitz.

Communication of important information

I feel like it would be easier and more comfortable to make moment-to-moment rotation decisions on Monk if it had a Gauge devoted to displaying and tracking these effects:

• Current Form
• Leaden Fist existence and duration
• Disciplined Fist existence and duration
• Demolish existence and duration

Phantom Rush and openers

This probably isn't changing during the 6.x patch cycle, but I would really like it if Monk eventually had some way to generate an extra Nadi during its opening sequence, so that the opener could include Phantom Rush.

Forbidden Chakra / Chakra Gauge

I think that the basic Chakra system would feel a lot better if Forbidden Chakra still consumed 5 pips, but the Chakra Gauge could accumulate a maximum of 10 pips.

Alternatively, if the Chakra Gauge was converted to the standard numeric gauge with minimum 0 and maximum 100, generated 10 Gauge per proc, and Forbidden Chakra consumed 50 Chakra Gauge at a time.

Beast Chakra / Perfect Balance / Masterful Blitz

I would personally prefer it if the Perfect Balance / Blitz windows had some buffer built-in to make them feel smoother, more consistent, and more focused on just punching things bigly.

For example:

• Activating Perfect Balance refreshes the duration of Disciplined Fist.
• Striking a target with any Form Weaponskill while under the effect of Perfect Balance refreshes the duration of Demolish on that target.

That's 'refreshes', not 'applies'. I think that it's reasonable to be punished for allowing Disciplined Fist and Demolish to drop off completely, but I also think that it would be more fun if tediously micro-managing those timers wasn't an inherent part of the Blitz experience.

Twin Snakes / Disciplined Fist design constraint

I think that there's no reason to delete the alternating rhythm completely. The issue isn't that Disciplined Fist exists, but that the timer is tight enough relative to loop length that it keeps the rotation in a design vise.

For example, Monk would immediately have a lot more breathing space for Blitz/burst timings and additional rotational GCDs if Disciplined Fist's duration was increased to match the Demolish timer.

Alternatively, Disciplined Fist's damage boost could just be passively baked into Monk's actions, and Disciplined Fist could be turned into the Raptor version of Leaden Fist, boosting the potency of True Strike.

[VentVanitas]

Don't change Twin Snakes' duration. Just lower the potency of the attack and change the buff from 15% back to 10%. Double True Strike would allow more flexibility to the GCD loop and make Twin Snakes slightly more forgiving. Otherwise, don't touch it.

But Monk's zippy-fast GCD, combined with the ever-present pressure of Chakra procs, also means that adding more OGCDs is also bumping up against a wall.

No idea what's making you think this, MNK's CPM is actually the 2nd lowest of the melee, barely outdoing AST- a Healer. Chakra should never, ever be pressuring you outside of Brotherhood. The problem with too many oGCDs to cram into bursts with ShB MNK lied entirely with the design of Chakra (and by extension Brotherhood) itself, not because of the presence of having oGCDs themselves. (Riddle of Earth was also a minor contributor, but now that positionals are all but meaningless this problem does not exist anymore) Otherwise the lack of oGCDs (or really anything to do) in between bursts makes the job feel dull and boring.

As for no Phantom Rush in opener... It really does not matter. It changes nothing other than your damage. I would much rather make Blitz a more frequent and prominent job mechanic than just have more Phantom Rushes.

[Eorzean_username]

No idea what's making you think this, MNK's CPM is actually the 2nd lowest of the melee, barely outdoing AST- a Healer.

Oh, I'm not saying it's a CPM issue, I'm saying that because Chakra has no breathing space for delay, when it 'clashes', it feels really bad. This is entirely a subjective rather than numerically-objective complaint.

When Monk has more OGCDs, it has more opportunities for a hard cooldown (like the old Elixir Field) to crash into a 5th Chakra pip, and have to choose between either risking lost Chakra pips or letting a CD drift. For me anyway, that always felt frustrating.

I'm not personally opposed to Monk having more OGCDs to use and I personally miss having things to mix in like Steel Peak, Howling Fist, etc, but it seems like Forbidden Chakra is a hill that the Job Design team will die on, so without the ability for 'mere mortals' to comfortably double-weave on Monk, it seems like the OGCD design space is effectively locked out.

[Amh_Wilzuun]

Definitely agree that chakras are overdue for an adjustment. Many people have suggested having a way for pips to overflow which would alleviate having to always press it immediately. Taking elixir field and tornado kick off of your oGCDs and the removal of shoulder tackle helped with this a lot as well and an overflow system would put the chakra system in a good spot while keeping what is unique about it. This will make it easier for Monk to get more oGCDs too since overcapping is less of an issue

I definitely see them adding a cooldown that lets you use PR in the opener like BLM’s amplifier. It could just give you both Nadis or the one you don’t have. I think I would prefer it giving you both nadis since that would align things up better. You would do PR for your first blitz in the opener and then get the solar nadi for the second blitz. You then get the lunar nadi with opo spam in odd windows like before and PR is ready again for even windows. What would be tricky about this is what would happen when it comes off cooldown. It would be have to be used after a phantom rush to not loose a nadi, meaning you would do two phantom rushes in a row. However this would mean you would leave your even windows with no nadis, messing up your rotation. The only solution I can think of is to instead make this cooldown a buff that makes the next perfect balance window end in phantom rush regardless of if you did a combo for a lunar or solar nadi. If you do the CR combo it’s still a failstate with no phantom rush at the end. This way it doesn’t disrupt the flow of your nadis. However it would need to be a very long cooldown. If it was 2 minutes you would never see rising Phoenix again. They could make it 4 minutes which is definitely longer than the team usually makes any cooldown for DPS. I don’t think that would be a bad thing because a double PR burst window is worth the wait but you could also make it a 3 minute CD so that it alternates in replacing an elixir field in the odd window and a rising Phoenix in the even window and eventually you get a double PR window, kinda like bloodfest on GNB (my math might be wrong but its a buff so there could be some flexibility there with how long it lasts). One thing really cool they could do is make a lunar PR have an aura effect and a solar one have flame effects to prevent animation fatigue and make this cooldown feel more special. Would make for a great level 100 capstone skill or your 96 skill wink wink

[Amh_Wilzuun]

Timing clashes of Beast Chakra / Perfect Balance / Masterful Blitz / Riddle of Fire

The Blitz system kind of feels paper-thin if I look at it too closely... but I don't really care that much about that, because it still looks cool, and it's fun to do.

My only real issue is that it gets extremely awkward and janky to try to keep re-aligning the 'drifty' Monk Form loop with the rigid Riddle of Fire timer, due to the pressure of trying to keep Blitzes inside Riddle of Fire without dropping Disciplined Fist.

I think that it's a little weird and annoying to be able to end up in a 'car crash' of a burst window if a Monk sometimes fails to psychically anticipate certain factors about the competing Riddle of Fire, Disciplined Fist, and Demolish timers.

Then there's also the fact that it stings a bit to have to spend the post-Blitz Formless Fist on anything but an Opo Form action due to the huge potency differential of Leaden Fist Bootshine, leading to a lot of additional pretzel-shaped convolution to try to ensure that Formless Fist never needs to be sacrificed to a Twin Snakes or Demolish.

And I also think that it's a little janky that Monk can end up in so many different entry and exit patterns every 60/120s, especially since it can become even more volatile as a result of even small changes in encounter conditions from pull to pull, KOs, etc.

I disagree with some of the sentiments here personally.

Although twin snakes and demolish must be kept up in the monk rotation and that is strict in of itself (as well as keeping ROF on cooldown), the chakra system itself is very flexible. Depending on the status of demolish when you enter your burst phase, perfect balance allows for multiple different burst phases. Mainly the three main types of 2 mins burst phases with minor differences from there (the odd window also has variations). This is great skill expression in my opinion and sets the job part in a good way since not a lot of jobs have this many variations in the rotation. Ironically the timers and CDs being more rigid challenges the player to make greater use of the more flexible tools in their kit. It’s a … perfect balance between the two.

I do agree with what you say later on wanting more GCDs in the future since monk is a very GCD focused job. Having disciplined fist last longer could lead to maybe a third raptor GCD for example. This would be similar to what SAM has going on where the jinpu and shifu buffs last long enough that you have the leeway fir a third combo: the yukikaze one. I wouldn’t want monk to just become a SAM clone or anything though.

[Shurrikhan]

Another well thought-out post. There's a fair bit I disagree with, but I greatly appreciate the thoroughness.

I'm between shifts, so I will be brief:

ALL IN ONE HUD
The all-in-one job HUD that'd include both form and our core timers would be hugely appreciated. All for this.


TWIN SNAKES / DISCIPLINED FIST
Twin Snakes deserves at most a second's more duration and reduced potency in and of itself (that potency being traded to True Strike), as to quicken the SkS threshold for double-True for those who want it. Or, increase the maximum duration of Disciplined Fist to 20 seconds, even while keeping its duration generated per use at its current duration.

However, please do not turn it into just another every-other-of-X-form upgrade. DK->LF is bad enough. Due to the potencies at play, this is actually the least flexible Twin Snakes has ever been, as you could at least net some greater potency per Demolish before by letting it briefly drop. We should aim to increase its flexibility and its surrounding use cases thereby allowed for, not to just more smoothly slot it into a single application. Similarly, do not give Disciplined Fist the Inner Release duration-because-I-can't-be-bothered-to-manage-my-core-buff treatment, especially seeing as PB already has two charges by which to deal with that.


INCREASING CHAKRA CAP
Having a greater Chakra maximum than TFC and EnL consume has it's own problems, primarily in terms of giving Monk less to look out for and play around. It would make things easier, yes, but easier isn't always better.

Let's be clear from the start though: If you overcap on Chakra outside of Brotherhood, that's on you. Unlike managing the polyrhythm of Mage's Ballad procs before Endwalker's massive increase to Bloodletter caps, outside of Brotherhood, Chakra generation is all on the GCD. Brotherhood is the ONLY time you should be feeling any real "Chakra pressure". There is no point outside the opener where you'd feel compelled to weave two oGCDs inside precisely the same gap; non-TFC oGCDs are few and far between and our Role Actions can be delayed or advanced by a GCD to keep room for an immediate TFC upon reaching the 5th chakra (such merely requires us to look and plan slightly).

I wouldn't be totally opposed to consuming less than the maximum number of Chakra, thus leaving banking space, but it wouldn't be a pure gain (or necessarily even a net gain), either. Given the deletion of subtle management mechanics across most jobs, I'd be very, very wary of this.


FORMLESS FIST
Absolutely. Formless Fist should indeed come after completing Perfect Balance, rather than only after Blitz. It is worth mentioning that such is an advantage even to endgame rotation, but that is fine. Perfect Balance should absolutely not waste a GCD's form bonus over its ability to reorder 3 GCDs.

I'd argue, though, that Formless Fist Form Shift may be button bloat. Especially now that we have Deep Meditation basically from the start and soon gain Enlightenment, complicating the simple build-to-max-and-spend-max loop of Meditation/TFC, you could easily have Meditation fulfill this function and give it at level 50 instead. EDIT: Note that you'd have to separate Meditation already if you could use TFC at lower than the maximum number of Chakra.

Or, you could make Formless Fist outright passive. Have each half-GCD's time off the GCD offer access to a further form.


BLITZ DRIFT RELATIVE TO ROTATION
This sounds more like an insufficiency of practice or Skill Speed. I do not have this problem (or, rather, it seems easily managed, and I enjoy that process of optimal drift management), and I am therefore wary of making job-wide changes to offset whatever particular circumstances are causing that for you.


MAKING PHANTOM RUSH USABLE IN THE OPENER
That sounds like bad gameplay implications for something that'd ultimately just be a tuning change. Hard no on this. The last thing I'd want is to have even less to do in between even minute burst cycles or otherwise purposeless resource-generating oGCDs that exist only to undo more nuance-capable mechanics (like our choice of openers to waste a Nadi over the fight for our raid buff alignment if that'd be favorable).

[Shurrikhan]

My personal wishlist, just by way of (I hope) relevant alternative suggestions:

Gamewide Changes

• (De)buffs roll over a portion of their former durations when refreshed early. The amounts are bracketed out, as not to require higher calculation costs, but roughly follow the square root (except at 1 second or below, for which they are just linear).

I shouldn't need to point out how huge a boon that can be for opening up SkS tiers, especially for Monk.

Further Timer Adjustments

• Twin Snakes and Four-Point Fury now grant 16 seconds of Disciplined Fist, up from 15. This also means that if a skill happened to, say, double-strike, you'd immediately have 20 seconds' (10 GCDs) duration. Foreshadowing done.

Positionals

• Bring them back. Fully.
• Offer an over-time and/or over-successes passive leniency mechanic for them, up to 3 charges. Enter the instance and rez with full charges.

The "Meh Strike" Problem

• Make True Strike less terrible.
• Trade 20 potency from Twin Snake to True Strike.

The "DK Spam" Problem

• Prevent the "Dragon Kick spam" rotation.
• Trade 20 potency from Dragon Kick (~3.33 ppgcd) to an extra 5 periodic potency (30 total potency) on Demolish (also worth ~3.33 ppgcd).
• This would also happen to increase Demolish to over 4x, up from just under 4x, the average ppgcd of your AoE combo and over 3x of Shadow of the Destroyer, increasing the value of multi-DoTing and offering a Coeurl-Lunar use case in 2-to-4-target scenarios.

Making Certain Bloat Skills Passive to Open Space for Further Nuance

• Form Shift's effects have been replicated passively to reduce button bloat. Each half-GCD spent off the GCD just unlock a further form (up to all 3 becoming usable). This effect continues and is banked over Perfect Balance, thus causing PB to end, effectively, in Formless Fist.
  
  
• Meditation's effects have been replicated passively to free up its button, benefiting Chakra spender control. Each half-GCD spent off the GCD just grants a Chakra. Visual effects from generating a Chakra in this way still apply, but without the player animation lock. Most importantly, though, this frees us up for variable Chakra spending and accordant ability usage.

Additionally, we'll go ahead and have Deep Meditation generate a Chakra each time you or your party defeats an enemy you're engaged with. (Yes, this means no more focusing down one FATE target, refreshing to full Chakra in a single second, bursting down another, and so on, but the net benefits to the Chakra system itself should be pretty big; see below.)

Allowing for Variable Chakra Spending and Variable Chakra Spenders

• Rather than Chakra spender skills just being upgraded, we'll increase the maximum Chakra count from 3, to 5, to 7, and we'll have the Chakra spender used now depend on the number of Chakra consumed.
  
  For instance, 1 Chakra generates Free Strike, 2-3 generates Steel Peak, 4-5 generates The Forbidden Chakra, and 6-7 generates Enlightenment. Steel Peak and TFC gain very mild falloff AoE damage in a short semi-circular area.
  
  At level 90, ST(AoE) potency per chakra could thereby look something like this:

• 1 Chakra - Free Strike - 60(0) potency - 60(0) PPC.
• 2 Chakra - Steel Peak - 110(70) potency - 55(30) PPC.
• 3 Chakra - Steel Peak - 180(105) potency - 60(35) PPC.
• 4 Chakra - Forbidden - 280(120) potency - 70(30) PPC.
• 5 Chakra - Forbidden - 350(150) potency - 70(30) PPC.
• 6 Chakra - Enlighten - 360(210) potency - 60(35) PPC.
• 7 Chakra - Enlighten - 385(280) potency - 55(40) PPC.

With that, we'd actually end up with different "sweet spots" for our given purpose, which could offer us more of interest in our Chakra management even while requiring fewer buttons.

Make Riddle of Wind interesting.

• For instance, let's say it gains two charges, each at a 45-second recharge time, with reduced duration but a bundled movement speed increase and increased visual flair (double of wind appearing to do the bonus auto-attacks, auto-attack animations changed, and/or the old Greased Lightning VFX, or near to it, over the duration).
  
  Or, we can go further, and give it a bit more mechanical flair, too, such as via...

Riddle of Wind
Grants 3 stacks of Riddle of Wind, each stack increasing your movement speed by 30% and causing your next weaponskill to generate a double of wind, duplicating your attacks, to the target and all enemies nearby, for 20% effect. Damage-over-time effects have their duration reduced instead of their potency.
Duration: 7 seconds.

※This effect is superseded by lower remaining durations of Riddle of Fire and Riddle of Earth and will not benefit you while either is active at a lower duration.

With that, we could then tie a couple more effects in for thematic cohesion...

Tying in Monk's Miscellaneous Skills for Fun and Thematic Cohesion

• SSS gives a stack of Riddle of Wind, still with 7s duration. But... let's go ahead and switch its animation and name with Tornado Kick as to keep to that wind theme (and let us actually still see the cooler animation at endgame). Voila, this slightly increases its potency, giving it further value especially before LF, Twin, or Demolish, and lets our disengage skill look and feel way cooler.
  
  To do that, though, we'll need to switch up some names and animations (not the effects): SSS replaces Elixir Field, to better pair against Flint Strike. Elixir Field replaces Tornado Kick as the big explosion ability. Finally, Tornado Kick's name and animation replaces that of SSS, making TK, again, our execute/disengage ability.
  
  Oh, also, we'll buff its potency to 620, since Monk runs about 363 ppgcd normally, outside of PB/Blitz, so 320 ppgcd will at least reduce the penalty from using SSS from ~176 potency to ~106, which could also give it niche use under sufficient ppgcd especially when paired with an immediate Anatman (which has been made an oGCD again, below).
  
  
• Next, make Anatman oGCD again and have it generate Chakra, Disciplined Fist duration, and Riddle of Wind stacks over time (in combat). If started while in combat, instantly generates a second of DF, a Chakra, and a RoW stack, then a further second of DF per second, Chakra per half-GCD, and RoW stack per full GCD. Those durations do not fade while you're still channeling. Voila, it now has mild mid-combat use cases and is actually kind of cool, seeing as you come out of it sprinting with full Chakra, Disciplined Fist, and up to GL3's worth of VFX.

In summary

• More flexible SkS tiers.
• Anatman, RoW, and SSS should actually feel good to use.
• More interesting Chakra gauge management.
• Removed bloat frees up more granular and nuanced options in places said bloat directly abutted before. (Side-effect: PB grants Formless Fist itself.)

Ideally, if I were to continue this, I'd probably buff RoE as well and give further across-kit impacts of RoW, RoF, and RoE.

[VentVanitas]

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Having Chakra function somewhat similarly to BRD's Pitch Perfect would be a welcome change to me. Instead of overflow frustrations, it'd be about knowing when to best cut your losses and optimize gains under buffs. It would be cool however, if Chakra further fed into another resource or skill (like a damage refund), but that's just me.

I was a bit hesitant at the RoW idea because on paper it looked too Bunshin-y at first glance, but in practice I can see how it'd behave differently on MNK by being more of a mini RoF so you'd be more thinking about what weaponskills should fall under its buffs. I could see it having some interesting applications and optimization if it was real.

I'm 100% all for the SSS change though, it always bothered me that it looked like a Chakra skill (because of the yellowish fiery effects that Enlightenment and Forbidden Chakra have) instead of a wind-adjacent attack like Tornado Kick. The extra bonus definitely makes it more interesting though, the speed boost bonus always felt a bit superfluous to me now that we have Thunderclap.