Please add positionals back to Twin Snakes/True Strike on Monk! Now is the best time!

[Shurrikhan]

Spending Chakra and pressing other CDs are actual gameplay mechanics with feedback.

So are and have positionals.

Even generating Chakra even though it’s mostly passive, you’re still doing something to generate it and have a little control over its rate.

That "doing something" is normal rotation. Since you can't bank Chakra anyways outside of Brotherhood (at which point you want to spend it inside that raid buffs' window anyways), rotation outside it would play out identically. Heck, you don't even need the Chakra Gauge shown to use it optimally, as one could just tap Forbidden/Enlightened Chakra in each GCD-gap prior to the weaponskill queuing period (the last .5s of that gap).

Chakra and its spenders' only novel consideration is in sharing oGCD-weave space with what you had before. All else can be done automatically and has zero impact on surrounding gameplay.

On the other hand, positionals offer that same consideration (via True North where it's useful) and more, all without any unique button cost.

I just don’t think positionals ever added anything to MNK because buffs and debuffs didn’t depend on it in the past (Dragon Kick’s debuff may have at one point, though I’m pretty sure it didn’t).

Both Dragon Kick and True Snakes' buff did for a brief-lived time, yes, iirc. Just as Bootshine until Endwalker only auto-crit from the rear. That's largely irrelevant though.

Ultimately, such positionally dependent bonuses (or their opportunity costs in missing them) simply affect relative potency (in that case, the +10% direct blunt damage taken by the enemy and +10% damage dealt), just as direct potency gains from successful positionals do. Just as the fact that Bootshine/Leaping Opo guarantees a point of Chakra (worth 80 potency, and therefore granting %crit chance * 80 extra potency over other ST weaponskills) likewise just adds to its relative potency, it's ultimately still just damage. It always has been. Always will be.

Our combo never depended on positionals to function period.

Again, damage. Every function has some amount of relative potency (-> added damage) thereby caused or else it has no point.

And our damage most certainly has historically depended on positionals to be competitive, even in the rare moments where Monk had the highest theoretical rDPS+aDPS.

Aside from a potency difference (which again, can’t really be eyeballed) they never really influenced gameplay or flow.

I don't really have trouble eyeballing a 17% damage difference, personally, and certainly didn't have trouble eyeballing auto-crits (and thereby guaranteed Chakra generation, about the only thing giving Chakra any sense of interaction, now gone) vs. my normal 15-28% crit chance over a given expansion.

More importantly, though, movement definitely does affect the buttonflow of the job. Until Endwalker, it was roughly half of our button-presses. Its only recently, with Dawntrail, that it has ever fallen so low -- to a minimum of 2 button press per 24 seconds pre-SkillSpeed (now 2 per 18s).

If positionals did more for MNK than a simple potency bump then I would feel differently.

Again, though, let's put Chakra to the same test:

Each positional is worth 60 potency. Each point of Chakra is worth 80 potency, but is generated only from critical strikes, which we are unlikely to push much above 25% chance in a given expansion. For each GCD you risk wasting a point Chakra to be worth as much as a missed positional, you would need a 75% crit chance.

That is, at BiS Crit values, each positional missed marks an opportunity cost of nearly three times as much potency as each Chakra wasted. One can be content missing them, certainly, but there's no value in worrying about not wasting one's Chakra at that point.
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Tl;dr: I can understand players being less than impressed with positionals are they are now, but it's absurd to accept such reduction(ism)s for one thing without applying the same warrants to similar systems, especially ones that ultimately offer theoretically less and/or make their offerings at greater cost (e.g., requiring 2+ new unique buttons to provide complexity less than what another can with no added unique buttons).

[velswen]

So are and have positionals.


That "doing something" is normal rotation. Since you can't bank Chakra anyways outside of Brotherhood (at which point you want to spend it inside that raid buffs' window anyways), rotation outside it would play out identically. Heck, you don't even need the Chakra Gauge shown to use it optimally, as one could just tap Forbidden/Enlightened Chakra in each GCD-gap prior to the weaponskill queuing period (the last .5s of that gap).

Thank you for giving such well thought out answers to people so I don't have to!

I want to make it clear, positionals DO add something else to think about to all jobs they are present on. They do add something else to engage with. Any claim that they don't add anything is bogus. It is fine for people to personally not enjoy them, but that is an entirely separate issue from the idea that they don't add anything that some people are adding in this thread.

In my eyes, Monk DESPERATELY needs another layer with its current iteration. With us no longer having to manage DoTs or buffs, all we need to manage is Chakra, 2 positionals, our cooldown timers, and our Formless Fist buff. Adding a couple positionals back is exactly what the job needs.

Hell, maybe even add a (shorter) version of the positional ignoring mechanic to Riddle of Earth as middle ground!

[Shurrikhan]

In my eyes, Monk DESPERATELY needs another layer with its current iteration. With us no longer having to manage DoTs or buffs, all we need to manage is Chakra, 2 positionals, our cooldown timers, and our Formless Fist buff. Adding a couple positionals back is exactly what the job needs.

Tbf, we still ought to get back our DoT and buff regardless, as those are exactly the kinds of things with which Reply of Fire and Reply of Wind could generate interesting friction (just as positionals before made Chakra have at least a tiny bit of substance), but yes, having more engagement through positionals would go a long way in improving the lulls between Blitzes (even if Perfect Balance itself were to give positional guarantees in compensation or the like).

That all being said, I do think positionals are currently handled poorly (largely due to lack of client predictive animation for drawing units' angles and positions nearer to as the server sees them, and certain fights' gimmicks such as jumping to the arena's edge) and I would love to see some additional features added accordingly -- most of them under-the-hood and the rest skills and/or passives meant to forgo the need for an action as reductive as True North (or needing to muddle a defensive with such, especially if it continues to be a bit more infrequent or limited than most jobs').

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A spitball example:

Goals:

Improve the combat UI gamewide through simple but effective changes, thereby making essential (de)buff tracking a non-issue; revitalize lackluster actions; trim unnecessary constraints and buttons without opening rotation to ill or degenerative effects; and, in doing so, inadvertently make Monk more open to nuance and unique.

Highlights:

• Forms no longer required. Monk retains the same flow as before, but via softer means, allowing for exceptions at ends of windows, as a final blow, or for emergency burst.
• Any excuses for trimming gameplay instead dealt with at the level of systems/UI polish.
• Reply of Wind and Reply of Fire now innately more synergetic/interactive with surrounding rotation.
• Positionals returned, but with some concessions.

Details:

DEALING WITH (DE)BUFFS:

• Status Effects can now be placed separately and/or at separate sizes for one's own debuffs and Target Status Effects may now similarly be customized into chosen layouts of icons per row / total number of rows, left or right aligned. You may now customize the order of different types of status effects, including separately by self, party, and others.
  
  
• By default, timers for core debuffs, specific to each job, are now tracked directly below or to either side of enemy nameplates, with an icon, faded icon, small icon, or just the timer; said timer may be given as a bar beneath the enemy health bar, a number, or both. You can customize this to remove these timers or permit more effects to be tracked. Enemy nameplates may be further customized to reduce seemingly unnecessary information and now carry further information by default, such as interruptible casts, stunnable special actions, level of threat, and whether one is out of range, etc.
  
  
• HUD Layout has been revamped to include Gauges, Targeting, and Groups as separate categories. Additionally, many more pieces of UI have become separable and show this by default; UI elements with separable parts, including these new ones, now list each potentially separable element indented below the name for the combined form of that UI element.
  
  
• Most gauges and parameter bars are now separable in this way, including the Mana Bar, Song Gauge: Codas, Soul Voice, and Song Progress; Beast Chakra Gauge: Blitz Progress, Nadi, Forms, Leaden Fist, Disciplined Fist, Demolish, Perfect Balance Stacks; Balance Gauge: Black Magic, White Magic, Mana Crystals; Elemental Gauge: Elemental Timer, Elemental Counter, Umbral Hearts, Astral Soul, Polyglot Timer, Polyglot Counter, Paradox; etc.
  
  
• Twin Snakes and Dragon Kick potency reduced by 20 and True Strike, and Demolish potency increased by 20. This significantly increases the punishment of using simplified Dragon Kick rotations (from about 92% to ~86% of regular damage).
  
• The level 94 trait now also extends Disciplined Fist to a 16-second duration.

DEALING WITH LACKLUSTER ABILITIES:

• Riddle of Wind now, for 10 seconds, increases you auto-attack and movement speed by 40%, allows auto-attack critical strikes to generate Chakra, and causes the use of single-target and multi-target attacks with Form to replace The Forbidden Chakra and Enlightenment, respectively, allowing you to use that skill again as an ability. Brotherhood and Riddle of Wind now both allow your Chakra to overcharge, up to a total of 10 Chakra.
  
• Anatman now grants 1 second of Riddle of Fire, Riddle of Wind, and Riddle of Earth for each second it is channeled. These durations do not begin to fade until the channel ends.
  
• Reply of Wind now starts at 400 potency and gains an additional 50 potency per second of duration generated of Riddle of Wind (e.g., if you use Anatman for 1 second to gain access, it's only 450 potency; if you use a regular Riddle of Wind, it's the normal 800 potency.
  
  
• Greased Lightning has been returned in a rehauled state. It now reads, "The damage of your Opo-opo, Raptor, and Coeurl skills are increased by 20% and their recast times reduced by 20%. Outside of Perfect Balance, each Form that benefits from these effects cannot benefit again for (3 GCDs' time)." Moreover, all Form Bonuses have been removed, their benefits rolled into the original abilities, but the bonus damage from Leaden Fist has been reduced to 80 potency and Snap Punch potency has been increased by 20 in its stead.
  

  This causes optimal play to follow the same rotations as before, as one can only get full value out of the form every but makes Form Shift unnecessary.

• Revamp the default Beast Chakra Gauge, having it instead by default show the three forms, Opo-opo, Raptor, and Coeurl, from left to right, with each losing its glow and shrinking upon consuming the effects of Greased Lightning, gradually restoring to normal size and glow over 3 GCDs' time to mark when it will again have full power. By default, the remaining time on Leaden Fist, Disciplined Fist, and Demolish (on your current target) are shown as a radial timer around and a numeric timer below the Opo-opo, Raptor, and Coeurl nodes.
  
  While in Fluid Form, all are shown again at full size and glow (since Fluid Form guarantees the effects of Greased Lightning) regardless of recent progress, and a stacking chevron appears above reused forms.
  

  This, in effect, maintains the same general rotation as before, but without need for windup (beyond Disciplined Fist) nor for a single direction of progression (O->R->C->), nor the bloat of Form Shift in order to begin from a different point in that set order. Essentially, for fewer buttons, you get a Monk who is more uniquely Monk, and by removing the need for set Form bonuses, you more nuanced use of Forms is now available.

• (Steeled/Forbidden) Meditation (and Inspirited/Enlightened Meditation) has (have) been removed, though Chakra spenders remain and can now be used at three or more Chakra for a fifth of their current potency per stack. Instead of needing an active button-press, you generate 1 Chakra per half of a global cooldown's time that you have not been under the global cooldown. Progress towards this the next Chakra granted in this manner is saved and accumulated and is now tracked just above your Chakra counter by default (and is separable).
  

  This provides roughly the same Chakra generation over time but without the need for a separate button press, therefore allowing more flexibility among Chakra spending and reducing the chore of use between fights.

RE-ADDING POSITIONALS (AND CONCESSIONS):

• As a general change, whenever a non-player unit performs a forced/scripted movement or turn, they leave a ghosted sub-unit for a quarter-second. If your attack would be successfully in range and position of either the lingering sub-unit or the actual unit as located by the server, the positional will succeed.
  
  
• Certain boss skills or movements that would otherwise make their rear and/or flank positional inaccessible will cause the boss to become Exposed. This status effect shifts their positional hit-ring, replacing frontal area with rear and/or flanks to reallow access to positional skills.
  
  
• Positionals returned, for 60 potency on Dragon Kick, Twin Snakes, and Snap Punch and 30 potency on Bootshine (worth 45 due to auto-crit), True Strike, and Demolish, but Monk holds up to 3 stacks of Breaker's Fist, guaranteeing a positional should it otherwise have failed. These recharge over 6 GCDs' time, reduced by a further second for each successful positional landed.

[GrizzlyTank]

I miss the 1-2-3 pattern...

[Amh_Wilzuun]

You don't even need to add more positionals. Take away the coeurl positionals and put them on your Opo GCDS instead. You use these moves so frequently that opo spam actually becomes skill based somehow.

[velswen]

You don't even need to add more positionals. Take away the coeurl positionals and put them on your Opo GCDS instead. You use these moves so frequently that opo spam actually becomes skill based somehow.

This is actually another good idea. I'd be happy to see this as well. Anything to add a bit more movement and thought into my general gameplay!