The Worst Iteration of Monk. What could be different?

[Carighan]

I can literally see the FFXIV dev team axing the six inputs we have and cutting them down to three, and giving it the VPR treatment

Yeah because Monk complexity was always a flat-out lie. It looks complicated until you actually play it. All they did in Dawntrail is make it so that you can understand the rotation from the game itself, instead of having to look it up on the internet. Same lack of complexity as before though. If the ants around buttons distract you, disable them and behave as before. Do 1:1, 1:1, 1:2 just as you remembered the ratios before so your eye didn't have to be glued to the buff.

Sorry, but I hate it when Monks pretend there was ever any depth to their combat system. This removal of smoke&mirrors is a really good change, as it exposes to everyone just how boring many jobs truly are once you remove the artificial complexity of the game not telling you how shallow it is. Maybe this can now finally lead to SQEX adding actual depth to the combat system.

[FlamboyantAsBurningInferno]

If the ants around buttons distract you, disable them and behave as before.

Wow! I can really do that?
Could you please tell me how to switch off the combo glowing?

[SomeGuy22]

Yeah because Monk complexity was always a flat-out lie. It looks complicated until you actually play it. (...) Do 1:1, 1:1, 1:2 just as you remembered the ratios before so your eye didn't have to be glued to the buff.

Sorry, but I hate it when Monks pretend there was ever any depth to their combat system. This removal of smoke&mirrors is a really good change, as it exposes to everyone just how boring many jobs truly are once you remove the artificial complexity of the game not telling you how shallow it is.

Old MNK always looked more daunting than what it actually was, but it wasn't just a 1-1-2 machine. If it was, optimal drift would not exist.

After the positional changes, my remaining enjoyment of the job came from adapting on the fly to downtime/when being forced to disengage from the boss, and refreshing timers earlier/later to make my burst hit harder. You didn't need to do those things, you could certainly beat everything in the game by strictly following the 1-1-2 ratio, but it was really cool to be able to find ways to squeeze more damage out of the job. There was depth, even if easy to ignore or not even that deep to begin with.

Now, you press the glowy. If not glowy, make it glowy. That's it.

[Eremite]

If the ants around buttons distract you, disable them and behave as before. Do 1:1, 1:1, 1:2

This doesn't actually work out in actual gameplay - the Opo-Opo stance tends to get out of sync with the Raptor stance after every other Perfect Balance window.

It's weird stuff like this that makes it feel like it wasn't play tested more than a cursory "good enough". I'm curious if there's anyone on the team that does job actions that plays MNK.

It does at least add a *little* bit of complexity if you want to play perfectly.

I'm actually fine with MNK as it is, but would still love to see Riddle of Fire cooldown shortened to 55s to fix the 2m drift problem.

Also a ranged attack - even if it's adding like a 15-20 yard range to Forbidden Chakra so I have something to do while I'm having to dip out for 5-10 seconds yet again because this tier hates melee.

I suppose my 3rd ask would be letting Meditate grant a Lunar + Solar nadi when out of combat. The double lunar opening is f***ing cursed and it would be nice to be able to do a big burst on pull like literally every other job.

[Eremite]

No changes at all to MNK in 7.1 -_-

We're the bottom of the barrel in terms of personal DPS (excluding phys ranged and the res-casters) but the other melee all get buffs.

Truly the forgotten job.

[Shurrikhan]

DT MNK is good actually. I want more 'build your own combo' systems like PB/Blitzes. Give it an ability that temporarily unlocks Greased Lightning IV.

PB/Blitz is good, yes, but... what all can be leveraged from them, and their relative value, has already been reduced with DT relative to EW. I would honestly have to say DT Monk is a disappointment largely because of (what it did to) PB/Blitz.

* Each step has four options:
* Default (2,0s GCD, full movement, no secondary effects but it gathers stacks for some other effects)
* Casted (3,5s casted, extremely strong, highest DPS, very immobile and slow and breaks rhythm since it doesn't align with the normal GCD)
* Augmenting (buffs and debuffs, most scale based on the stacks from the default attacks so you need to get a certain amount in)
* Supportive (group heals, self shields)

??? Why would we want Monk to be more of a caster than BLM has ever been? Or an even more problematically extreme version of an Augmentation Evoker, for that matter?

More importantly, though, this would be mostly incompatible with Perfect Balance, as you'd really have, in total, 12 ST (and, via toggle, 12 AoE) actions, up from 9, all to more than likely muddy or simplify rotation.

Remove the AoE, that's an oGCD now that flips all combo moves between their single and AoE versions.

This wastes the opportunity to offer some variance across 2|3|4 target situations. While it would reduce key-cost, I'd rather increase ST and AoE skills use cases each in the opposite situation.

This doesn't actually work out in actual gameplay - the Opo-Opo stance tends to get out of sync with the Raptor stance after every other Perfect Balance window.

It's weird stuff like this that makes it feel like it wasn't play tested more than a cursory "good enough". I'm curious if there's anyone on the team that does job actions that plays MNK.

Honestly, I prefer that such a desync exists and has to be played around. As you said, it adds a little bit of complexity, and I like that.

Also a ranged attack - even if it's adding like a 15-20 yard range to Forbidden Chakra so I have something to do while I'm having to dip out for 5-10 seconds yet again because this tier hates melee.

5-10 seconds forced melee downtime without also seeing forced downtime for everyone else? Starting from the GCD's having recovered from SSS? That seems unlikely.

Personally, I don't see a need for a ranged attack so long as we're given more agency over our Chakra count. A ranged tool is, in essence, any that supplies us with potency even when outside of melee range. Meditate gives 80p/second, increasable by later raid buffs. Until the recent ranged skill buffs, that was the actually the best of the ranged tools, at a nominal 200p-per-2.5s and the most granularity. The others have only just caught up.

For my part, I'd just like to see Meditate's GCD cost scale with GCD speed (thereby remaining half a GCD, rather than increasing its relative cost as one's global recast time decreases) and Meditate itself have a chance to crit for an extra Chakra.

I suppose my 3rd ask would be letting Meditate grant a Lunar + Solar nadi when out of combat. The double lunar opening is f***ing cursed and it would be nice to be able to do a big burst on pull like literally every other job.

Have to disagree. I like that at least a job or two can still actually have some delayed / not-automatically-and-instantly-synced burst.