[MNK] Bring back Endwalker Monk

[Jsbugatti]

The title is a summary of what I want to see happen. EW MNK was simultaneously one of the most forgiving jobs in the game, with the option to make decisions on the fly (and as importantly, not have making the wrong decision be super punishing), while also having a lot of little things to improve upon once you understood the fundamentals. It was a job I loved and loved improving at it, and hoped to raid with in Dawntrail.

DT MNK, meanwhile, is a changeling left by the devs after they kidnapped EW MNK. Your entire rotation is Simon Says with a cheat sheet that's up at all times and where making a mistake is far more punishing than the previous version. The fact that they didn't even mention the fact that this job was getting such a massive rework baffles the mind and makes me think that none of the job designers or play testers actually play this job beyond what's required to at work. Not only is the previous cadence from before gone, replaced by an altogether new one, there's only a clearly defined (and what's correct will always be highlighted, even under Perfect Balance and Formless Fist) right or wrong answer instead of a nuanced one.
Even the supposed reason for the rework, that being that it helps you recover quicker, is hogwash for anyone who actually started to learn the quirks of playing the job. On death, the only thing you really lost as MNK was your Nadis, and you'd just adjust your rotation and future Riddle of Fire windows. On res, you'd just Dragon Kick (or Form Shift first) and reapply Disciplined Fist and Demolish. Unfortunate, but still salvageable. Granted, dying during a burst window could sort of brick you if it's early into said window, but that's the case for literally every job in this game, not just MNK. As for downtime, Anatman may have been an emote with limited use cases, but Form Shift was basically free. Plus there were some semi-cursed techniques involving a 3-Blitz re-opener if the downtime went on for long enough due to the fact that your AoEs always generated Beast Chakra.

On the subject of Blitzes, the rework to MNK made it so leveling it is cursed, because there is zero reason to use any Blitz besides Elixir Field until you get Rising Phoenix at 86. Who on earth thought that an 800-potency hit on a skill that already had you alternating your strongest hits to use would be anything other than the best (and if you read tooltips and compared the damage you'd lose from doing a Solar, only) possibility, especially since this is a timer-free existence where you no longer need to worry about Demolish or Disciplined Fist dropping?If the fact that the designers didn't consider this job reworked was a suspicion that none of them play it, this might as well be confirmation. This takes a job that was functionally complete at 60 or 70 (depending on how strongly you feel about Riddle of Fire and Brotherhood in relation to making your rotation align) and makes it only feel correct at 86 or 90.

[Jsbugatti]

If I were the one tasked with adding things to this job for 7.0, I would've just given skill upgrades for most of the main loop (besides Demolish) and an upgrade for Elixir Field to have it match Phoenix's potency. I'd then have the capstone be Hundred Fists, and either make it repeat your last Blitz (think Tsubame Gaeshi on Samurai), or have it double the hit count of your next skill or skills.

As for what little I think the devs did right, I like the SSS change to make it have use cases outside of a getaway button once you've learned a fight's timeline, and I like that Brotherhood now has overcap protection, because that was a pretty massive problem in EW.

I think the Hadoukens (Wind's Reply and Fire's Reply) are slapping a bandage on a bullet wound, though. Those can get lost.

[ChaunceyDlamini]

I don't know who this rework was made for. Yes, some people found EW monk difficult to learn, but it was pretty universally praised by those who did so. If we're trying to get more people to play it, this is not the way...

Instead of looking at your timers, you're looking at 5 different elements on various hotbars. It's lost its flexibility, lost the on-the-fly decision making, and is more punishing of mistakes. If you really wanted to get more people to play monk, your effort would have been better spent replacing some of these crusty animations that have been around since ARR.

And if the goal was to have players look at the job guage instead of their buffs, I think most monk players would agree that limiting demolish to a single target so it could be accurately represented on the guage would be the lesser of two evils after seeing this version of monk.

[CocoLove]

The new Monk feels miserable to play. I enjoyed EW Monk a lot, having taken it through all of Pandaemonium Savage and some Ultimates.

Thanks to the removal of the buff/DoT timers in opt of the new fury proc system, we can now safely ignore all Raptor and Coeurl attacks in our burst windows. Yes, all you need to press now during the Brotherhood burst is Dragon Kick and Leaping Opo. This is also thanks to the Elixir Field upgrade making it more desirable to do than Rising Phoenix.

Our 2-minute burst window/opener is laughably ridiculous. The weaponskill sequence is something like this:

Opo > Opo > Opo > Opo > Blitz > Opo > Flame's Reply > Opo > Wind's Reply > Opo > Opo > Opo > Blitz > Opo > ...

Where Opo is either Dragon Kick or Leaping Opo depending if you have Fury or not. I don't even know how you can fix this with potency changes unless you either gut Elixir Burst or buff Rising Phoenix. Nerfing the Opo weaponskills will just mean we'll move to the next best thing, like purely Coeurl attacks during the burst instead. I look to all the other melee DPS jobs and I wonder where they were going with this.

And why on earth are we going with 1-2-3 for Fury proc stacks (in order of the forms)? In EW, everyone was playing with the equivalent of 1-1-2 and it felt good; there wasn't an excessive amount of dancing around your weaponskills as currently. With 1-1-2, we would go through a full rotation of our GCD sequence in 18 GCDs. Now with 1-2-3, that is doubled to 36. I would argue this promotes staring at your hotbar/gauges MORE than before when we went off of our buff/DoT timers. Furthermore this means standing on the flank for positionals for 9 GCDs in a row while playing Simon Says with the new gauge. Or, who am I kidding, the hotbar which tells you exactly what your next weaponskill should be. Way to kill the Monk identity (and give it to Viper).

Finally, Monk is broken with the Fury system. I mean actually broken, not "it needs a nerf" broken. Dragon Kick receives no bonus from being in Opo form and gives all of its benefits and potency when casted raw. What does this mean? It means that with the current optimal rotation, you can skip a Raptor > Coeurl attack and go straight back to Dragon Kick.

Like...

Opo > Raptor > Coeurl > Opo > Opo > Raptor > Coeurl > Opo > Opo > ...

To be fair all SE has to do to fix this is make it so DK only gives Fury in Opo form, but this tells me that SE does not know what they are doing with Monk.

This is the first time in nine (ten?) years I've ever made a post on the official forums. I've been through all the reworks and this is by far the worst one. EW Monk was perfectly fine and all it needed was some QoL.

"The job will feel mostly the same" they said during the job change Live Letter. It now feels lobotomized, less flexible and excessively clunky.

[Shurrikhan]

The main things I wanted to see from Dawntrail Monk were simply...

• Riddle of Wind to feel impactful in some way beyond mere damage. Perhaps via a built-in sprint, or Chakra generated from AA crits, better SSS weaves, or what have you.
  
  
• Anatman to feel impactful in some way and to be a bit more flexible in its cooldown, such as perhaps gradually building up duration (e.g., 1s duration per 1s of channel) of Riddle of Earth, Wind, and Fire to count down only after its channel ends.
  
  
• SSS buffs to give it use case at end of windows, or just generally be more compelling and more frequently of value.

  If they needed additional accessibility here, they could do that by SSS an oGCD that extends one's time until the GCD refreshes by 1.5 GCDs. This would have as much sense of delay but reduce the gamble-risk of whether one could get in an extra GCD before disengaging or would be caught just short.

• Leaden Fist deemphasized and/or Dragon Kick nerfed, their potency siphoned towards other actions except True Snakes.
  

  This reduces the disproportionate reward (relative to any other consideration/optimization) of alternating DK and BS and prevents degenerate DK rotations.

• True Snakes and Four-Point Fury nerfed slightly, their potency siphoned towards True Strike and towards other AoE GCDs, respectively.
  

  This makes True Strike actually worth having on one's bar (was previously worth less than 200 potency per minute to optimize use of the skill, less than a single missed Leaden Fist).

• Form Shift to be made unnecessary (and to be therefore pruned) without allowing for degenerate rotations.

  For instance, our Greased Lightning buff could instead be...

  "Skills of your respective forms (Opo-opo, Raptor, and Coeurl) deal 20% more damage and incur a 20% reduced cast and recast time. This bonus is lost if the given Form is re-used within the last (one GCD's time) and halved if used within the last (two GCD's time).
  Perfect Balance guarantees the effects of Greased Lightning and skills made during Perfect Balance do not count as uses of any Form."

  In this way, no form lockouts, nor Form Shift, would be necessary, but you still wouldn't be able to maintain degenerate rotations, only perhaps end a fight with an early Leaden Fist just before an SSS.

Instead, Monk got a lobotomy. RIP.

At present... Endwalker / Late Stormblood Monk >>> Heavensward Monk if TP weren't a thing and PB were a shorter CD >> Shadowbringers Monk >> HW Monk / Early Stormblood Monk > ARR Monk >> Dawntrail Monk.

* Note, preferences based around how each played at ridiculous amounts of Skill Speed, which may rotate quite differently than normal. For instance, I already did 2 True Strikes per Twin Snakes. I have a need for speed, sorry.

Final Note: At least ARR Monk still had positionals to manage, a Rockbreaker that hit comparatively hard for its time, CC, two separate damage amp windows, more oGCDs, more uptime management requirements from typical content, etc. That Dawntrail Monk feels flat by comparison is... well, iconic modern XIV, I guess?


______________


Tangent: If I wanted something actually new from Dawntrail though, though...

I'd go ahead and revamp Earth, Wind, and Fire to each be an offensive + utility 60s CDs with charges (with Fire having the least utility but the least situational damage contribution) that we were encouraged to make use at least 2 different among per 3 minutes. Earth would allow for counter-attacks and massive Leaden Fists, Fire for good overall damage, and Wind perhaps oGCD repeats of GCD skills or just ludicrous attack speed for as long as one has the Chakra (drained over time) to maintain it.

Or, for good measure, have Chakra regenerate one third of a GCD off the GCD, passively, in place of Meditate, and then have a variable spender that upgrades from 1 (say, Quivering Palm), 2-3 (Steel Peak), 4-5 (The Forbidden Chakra, with slight splash damage), and 6-7 (Enlightenment, but with higher primary target damage) Chakra with an ST sweet spot at 5 for ST and 6 for AoE.

And, while we're at it, a better Master's Gauge. Starting from the same graphic, during regular rotation, the gauge will now shrink and dim the nodes of the Form you most recently used (restored to full size and glow over 2 GCD's time) to show which Forms would still be at full power. The Opo-opo, Raptor, and Coeurl nodes now each also has a radial gauge around it and a timer below it, tracking Leaden Fist, Disciplined Fist, and Demolish (on current target), respectively. While in Perfect Balance, each turns silver and then lights up in its own color upon use. Reusing the same node (i.e., moving towards Lnuar) will shrink the others and using a different node after the first (i.e., moving towards Solar) will grow the final unused node while shrinking the others). There. Everything easily and intuitively tracked.

And for final bits and bobs... Allow us to customize enemy nameplates, including by placing our debuff timers on them, with a full icon (square or circle), faded-edge icon, or just the timer. And give Monk a trait that allows up to 3 seconds of (de)buff duration that would other be wasted by a reapplication to extend the duration of the reapplication beyond its normal maximum. Such immensely increases Skill Speed flexibility.

[Katelynn_Aumar]

As a stormblood and shadowbringers monk enjoyer, first time?
Monk being altered in such a way its old player base starts to dislike it, is as predictable as the current expansion formula.

[ChaunceyDlamini]

As a stormblood and shadowbringers monk enjoyer, first time?
Monk being altered in such a way its old player base starts to dislike it, is as predictable as the current expansion formula.

Sounds like we should keep giving our feedback then.

[Keichi]

I dont know what you have.
I dont had the time to play the monk yet. But, from the test i did at the puppet, is the monk feeling nice.

EW monk was mostly following 2 lines of combos (at last from how i understand him).
The same looks to be the same with the new monk. Difference is only, that whe dont need to press the dot and buff skill each second round (similary to the drg). But, would need to keep track on, when to use the strenghtening skill. Except, that the progs are telling you, when you has to press it.
They sayed, the new monk should feel relativly the same. And from the test, do it looks like that to me. + they added some quality of life thing.

I only dont know, what to do with 6 Star Kick.
Even with its buffs and new mechanic, do that skill feels useless, because it Set up his DC to every other skill you have. I dont see, how you can integrate it in the rotation (the same was with Shb and EW monk).

[Exiled_Tonberry]

The cursed Monk rotations continue for another expansion, because they literally have no idea what to do with Monk.

It’s because they’re hellbent on making the job easier when all of Monk’s systems were designed from the ground up to be flexible and free flowing to accommodate their advanced style of gameplay.

By next expansion I wouldn’t be surprised if we just turned into RPR/VPR clones at this point.

[Bananarama]

I dont know what you have.
I dont had the time to play the monk yet. But, from the test i did at the puppet, is the monk feeling nice.

EW monk was mostly following 2 lines of combos (at last from how i understand him).
The same looks to be the same with the new monk. Difference is only, that whe dont need to press the dot and buff skill each second round (similary to the drg). But, would need to keep track on, when to use the strenghtening skill. Except, that the progs are telling you, when you has to press it.
They sayed, the new monk should feel relativly the same. And from the test, do it looks like that to me. + they added some quality of life thing.

I only dont know, what to do with 6 Star Kick.
Even with its buffs and new mechanic, do that skill feels useless, because it Set up his DC to every other skill you have. I dont see, how you can integrate it in the rotation (the same was with Shb and EW monk).

In my experience, you can only get away with playing MNK like its Endwalker version for so long. As soon as you gain Wind Reply and especially Fire's Reply, it pretty much goes out the window. I haven't worked out the optimal rotation, but personally it just feels really bad to play at all levels now. I want my DOT and Buff management back. I could do without the blitzes or any other gimmicks if I could at the very least have that back. My expectations were low, but I'm still disappointed. (I'll keep playing because it's the job I'm best at out of all the others)