New MNK is too reliant on staring at an UI element

[koko-on-da-forumz]

Could it just be that, since you aren't used to looking at your hotbars, or a different UI element, it is just throwing you off? Fundamentally, it is the same concept, just displayed differently.

That's part of it, definitely.

But it's also worth accounting for the fact that the buffs and debuffs are integrated into the rest of the combat UI. Your hotbars are layered ontop of that with bulky flashing skill icons. Either you place them somewhere that covers important visual cues or you have to look away from important visual cues to look at your hotbar.

Personally, I wouldn't mind the change so much if they took away the glowing hotbar and forced us to rely on the job gauge. But as is, looking at the job gauge is one step abstracted from literally telling you what button to press next, so it's hard to force myself to not just look at the glowy button in the heat of things.

[Krakatoa]

I agree with you here honestly. I actually have been enjoying the new monk and feel like I'm staring at UI elements slightly less than I was before. It's really not all that difficult to glance at the fury bar before every 3 hit and mentally note, okay the next two 2nd hits are going to be X, the next 3 third hits will be Y. Your 1 button changes every time so it's not like you need to really keep track of it all that often to begin with.

[Hazusu]

My point is that the rotation was so much simpler back then that you didn't need to stare at the buffs and debuffs with a reasonable amount of time on the job. Remembering to alternate your 1s and 2s was very easy, and the most taxing part on your mental stack was remembering to fit demolish after two True Strikes, but even that was a normal ask. For comparison, the old DRG filler rotation was 10 GCDs long; MNK's was 12 . At even a somewhat moderate level of playing MNK, you likely did not need to stare at your buffs.

My point is that doing that has become a lot harder, now that the sequence has tripled in size. You now need to basically check your UI element at the beginning of every 1-2-3 GCD loop, as memorization of the entire rotation (as in, the 12 repetitions of the 1-2-3 GCD loop, ergo, the 32 GCDs) has become something only accessible to MNK players that are a lot higher on the skill spectrum. No other job, as far as I'm aware, has this long of a filler rotation.

I posit that having your BASIC rotation being this hard to memorize and thus being dependent on you checking on a UI every few seconds is worse design. I know they aren't bringing the timers back, which is why I proposed that they just make the rotation smaller by adjusting the amount of fury granted by each of the setup weaponskills.

[Ramiee]

My compete opinion on new monk is meh it's fine, yet another monk rework.
Honestly they should look into adding auras to characters to fix ui staring issues. When you switch stance have you glowing or something to show you should use your enhanced moves or something.
I don't think it's a major problem because as I get used to monk I can glance at my beast bar and memorize the next few combos. But yeah it could be handled better.

[GrizzlyTank]

My compete opinion on new monk is meh it's fine, yet another monk rework.
Honestly they should look into adding auras to characters to fix ui staring issues. When you switch stance have you glowing or something to show you should use your enhanced moves or something.
I don't think it's a major problem because as I get used to monk I can glance at my beast bar and memorize the next few combos. But yeah it could be handled better.

Could move the resource bar to the middle of the screen. Or move skill bar to the center to see the highlighted abilities.

[Mikey_R]

My point is that the rotation was so much simpler back then that you didn't need to stare at the buffs and debuffs with a reasonable amount of time on the job. Remembering to alternate your 1s and 2s was very easy, and the most taxing part on your mental stack was remembering to fit demolish after two True Strikes, but even that was a normal ask. For comparison, the old DRG filler rotation was 10 GCDs long; MNK's was 12 . At even a somewhat moderate level of playing MNK, you likely did not need to stare at your buffs. ...

The problem is you are thinking about how log it takes to get back to the start and treating it like a rotation, however, since Monk doesn't follow the rotation like normal jobs, it isn't a fair comparison.

Monk only has 1 'combo' (using that term loosely here), and that is Opo-Opo > Raptor > Coeurl. Each of these has 2 attacks which you use based on what buffs you have. This gives you 8 possible permutations for possible combos, you just need to use the right ones.

However, on the topic of '36 GCD combo strings', you wouldn't even get a chance to go through the whole thing anyway. 36 GCDs, at 2 seconds per GCD, is 72 seconds, which takes you through PB phases, which is going to misalign you from the '36 GCD string' you want to follow anyway.

Again, this is just you thinking about the job wrong. Rather than following a set GCD pattern, you need to adjust on the fly, think ahead, just like old Monk. Which also ties in with Dragoon, I don't think you memorise the full 10 GCD rotation, you, in your head, think Chaotic Spring combo, Heaven's Thrust combo and muscle memory takes it from there.

As an aside, here is the full 36 GCDs in number form, 1 is buff, 2 is spend:
111
222
122
212
121
222
112
222
121
212
122
222

I have similarly highlighted the differentGCD strings that appear more than once. In total, of the 8 possible permutations, only 6 different ones are actually used, missing 211 and 221. This doesn't mean they will never be used as the PB windows can scramble this as I have previously mentioned, which again highlights the importance of adapting to the situation rather than just following a static GCD loop.

[Ramiee]

Could move the resource bar to the middle of the screen. Or move skill bar to the center to see the highlighted abilities.

Yeah that's an okay way to fix it but still the beast chakra is connected to the lunar solar thing so it's a pretty big bar, pretty bad if you have a small screen.

[Mikey_R]

Yeah that's an okay way to fix it but still the beast chakra is connected to the lunar solar thing so it's a pretty big bar, pretty bad if you have a small screen.

Ideally, they would split the Beast Chakra and the Fury gauges into 2 separate elements so that they can be moved independently, however, I don't think any job has more than 2 elements to their job gauge, so I suspect there might be a limit to what they have allowed jobs to have. Howe easy it would be to change that, I'm not going to comment on.

[Ramiee]

Ideally, they would split the Beast Chakra and the Fury gauges into 2 separate elements so that they can be moved independently, however, I don't think any job has more than 2 elements to their job gauge, so I suspect there might be a limit to what they have allowed jobs to have. Howe easy it would be to change that, I'm not going to comment on.

This is the same game that took 11 years to put a countdown on your effects on the party bar. I don't even think they know how to change UI stuff within a reasonable amount of time.

[ArcadianGenesis]

because I have to look at my fury gauge too often.

I don't understand why you would ever need to look at the fury guage when the hotbar literally tells you which button to press next for optimal damage. To be fair, I kind of agree which your overall conclusion, because I find myself looking at the hotbar more often now, and sometimes that makes me get hit by a boss mechanic. But I almost never look at the fury guage.