The Worst Iteration of Monk. What could be different?

[Wilford111]

I used to never play MNK due to how hard it was for me to keep track of all the buffs/debuffs. Now it's one of my favorite jobs. /shrug

[Shurrikhan]

A Mostly Minimalist Wishlist:

• The former Master's Gauge component of the Beast Chakra Gauge can again be separated from the Beast Chakra Gauge. Its three central nodes are also now shown only during Perfect Balance and peripheral nodes for Lunar and Solar Nadi shown individually and only when they've been generated.
  
  
• Form Shift removed. In its place, introduce the Flowing Fists trait, which increases the damage of your Form skills by 40%, but --outside of Perfect Balance-- loses half this bonus for each time that form has been used within the last {2 GCDs' time}. Initial potencies reduced by ~28.6% in compensation.
  
  This maintains the same rotation as before except perhaps as a finishing blow while Leaden Fist is readied, but allows one to start from any form without needing a preparatory Form Shift and slightly increases the value of Six-sided Star.
  
  This does also inadvertently mean that Blitz does not have to give Formless Shift and that one can follow a new skill order (O-C-R or R-O-C or whatever) upon coming out of Perfect Balance or Six-Sided Star; the mere fact that you had two+ GCDs that did not constrict Flowing Fists means that you have complete freedom on return, while Blitz itself could be used to spread a given Form just 2 GCDs apart, instead of 3.
  
  
• The Beast Chakra gauge now dims the icon of the form most recently used, fading over 2 GCDs' time, and highlights form(s) not used within the last 2 GCDs' time. The whole gauge outline now also has an optional glow for the forms highlighted form, with the further option of varying the color if the non-penalized form(s) lacks Fury.
  
  This should ease tracking which form one is in, making that visible even peripherally.
  
  
• An Action Change setting for Perfect Balance to Masterful Blitz is now available. Note that Masterful Blitz may still be activated via a separate key.
  
  With that, we're up to a total of 2 waste keys trimmable.
  
  
• Meditate recast time reduced to 40% of a GCD instead of a fixed 1 second. Howling Fist / Enlightenment may now also Action Change from Meditation.
  
  In this way, Meditate no longer causes fractional drift for those carrying Skill Speed. Not that it's had any relevant in at least two expansions outside of boss jumps that'd cause greater desync anyways.
  
  
• Twin Snakes still grants only 1 stack of Raptor's Fury, but Raptor's Fury now stacks up to 2 times. Demolish still grants only 1 stack of Raptor's Fury, but Coeurl's Fury now stacks up to 3 times.
  
  This allows for a more flexibility and rotational facets over time with additional optimization to be had in trying to hit exactly max stacks just before a Riddle of Fire burst as to minimize builder usage during burst. The ability to reorder one's trio of skills after PB or SSS should play into this a bit.
  
  
• Riddle of Wind revised to feel more impactful. It now allows for Chakra to overcharge, increases auto-attack speed and crit chance by 60%, allows all your attacks' critical hits to generate Chakra, and causes Enlightenment to deal double damage to its main target, The Forbidden Chakra to dash-strike up to 20 yalms (if more than 5 yalms away on activation and splash nearby enemies for 50% damage, and for both to inflict a Mark of Wind on their primary target that will detonate for 80 potency to all nearby enemies once Riddle of Wind completes. Marks of Wind do not stack.
  
  At present, Riddle of Wind itself is worth little over 200 potency. On a 90s CD. It's... pretty pathetic. Now it can at least out-damage a simple Chakra spender and can carry some utility value. Honestly, any sort of change would be fine here so long as it feels more noticeable.

Slightly More Ambitious Addendums (cumulative):

• Positionals returned to all form based skills but alongside a new trait, Disciplined Fist. The Disciplined Fist trait allows you to generate up to 3 stacks of Disciplined Fist. Would-be failed positionals consume a stack of Disciplined Fist, if available, to instead count it as a success. You generate a stack every 20 seconds, with this time reduced by 4 seconds per naturally successful positional.
  
  
• Riddle of Earth, Fire, and Wind now cost 40% of your available MP, with max duration and bonus effects varied based on MP spent. Length of use (to a max of 20 seconds) determines the strength of their Echo and their cooldown (double use time). Using any element's Riddle will decrease the costs of the other elements' Riddles by half, stacking up to two times (50% cost, 25% cost). We regenerate 4000 MP per minute, so this is self-sustaining if appropriately cycled or using only Riddle of Fire.
  
  
• Riddle of Fire increases damage dealt by 15%. Riddle of Wind now decreases auto-attack and weaponskill delay by 15% by up to 20 seconds and movement speed by 40%, fading over up to 20s. Riddle of Earth now decreases damage taken by 30%, fading over up to 20s, and cumulatively increases your Strength based on damage thereby reduced to fade over up to 20 seconds from when the bonus was generated.
  
  
• While Riddle of Fire is active, Bloodbath may be used even if on cooldown without refreshing its cooldown, for half of what Riddle of Fire cost. While Riddle of Wind is active, Bloodbath may be used even if on cooldown without refreshing its cooldown, for half of what Riddle of Wind cost. While Riddle of Earth is active, Second Wind may be used even if on cooldown without refreshing its cooldown, for half of what Riddle of Earth cost.
  
  
• Meditation removed. You now simply gain a point of Chakra for every half-GCD spent not off the global cooldown. (Rate tripled while out of combat.) Maximum Chakra increased to 7. You may now spend 1-7 Chakra at a time for 70|145|225|310|400|485|565 potency total (70|75|80|85|90|85|80 potency per Chakra spent). In this way, the sweet spot remains 5 Chakra, but we now have more control over Chakra expenditure.

[ColaXIV]

I used to never play MNK due to how hard it was for me to keep track of all the buffs/debuffs. Now it's one of my favorite jobs. /shrug

I struggled with keeping up with the timers before DT too - the way I have my hud setup had the boss debuffs and my character buffs far away from each other and I had to work hard to constantly check. I liked monk in casual content because the job itself just kept me busy.

At the start of Dawntrail though... I felt like SE was forcing me to stare at my hotbars and react with every gcd. Which was a problem because I like to plan and figure out what I'll be doing over the next few gcds. Yes there is the beast gauge but it was still a struggle to take my eyes off the hotbar. I figured out a solution:



Which made me think... MNK would be improved so much if they just made the beast gauge glow depending on what form you were in. It would fix the gauge and make it actually useful. I'm not sure if its been suggested before but I know people have their gripes with the gauge, me included.

[Azurarok]

One thing I really want them to do is add some color coding to the skill icons and the beast gauge and chakras (wanted it with the bootshine/twin snakes buffs in EW too). My short term memory's bad enough that I often forget which buttons I've pressed for the Solar combo.

[Carighan]

One thing I really want them to do is add some color coding to the skill icons and the beast gauge and chakras (wanted it with the bootshine/twin snakes buffs in EW too). My short term memory's bad enough that I often forget which buttons I've pressed for the Solar combo.

There's this thing where even DAoC back in the days had "common icon elements", like tickmarks in the corners or circles in the bottom to indicate certain effects like "This is an AoE centered on you" or "This is a smart party buff" etc. Shame modern games no longer do that.

As an idea, they could bake the "balls" into the skills if the icons showed us doing an attack on the normal move, and that same icon (yes, the dreaded autocombo, autocombos are 100% superior, debate me bro, etc) shows us wreathed in flame if we have charges, respectively shows both us and the background in flames for Pouncing Coeurl, first use the background drops back to normal, second our flame wreath in the icon disappears. More intuitive way of doing it than a specific UI element.

[Cyrtip]

On the bright side, it's been checks calendar at least one patch since the last monk rework, so we're due for another at any minute! It can't possibly get any worse, right? right?