Thread: Monk really is awful

I'm open to the idea that; I could be the one that's awful. But after playing over 100 matches, easy, here is what I've seen first-hand comparing it to only the other Melee Jobs.

-PART 1-

Mobility
Is the worst of the melee. I've seen Reaper, Dragoon, & Ninja be amazing with escape, kiting, and even sticking like glue to the target. With one Thunderclap less AND no Stun the 'best' I can hope for is a cheeky kill with a 12k poke in the back (literally less damage than one recuperate) Assuming you have a Thunderclap up, unless a team mate is there to rescue you, you can't use it to escape, and WHEN you do escape with it, you give them your tiny shield and usually end up dying anyway (just find giving someone else the shield when you're likely the one needing it more is bad design on top of the fact you can't be mobile without help)

Crowd Control
Um, it's gone, so literally nothing to talk about; it's just not a thing anymore.

Defensive Game
Monk, now, has same hit points and other classes. Every job has Purify and Guard. The ONLY thing unique to Monk is Earth Reply. So other jobs will get bulky shields or straight up mitigation like you take X% less damage. So even if they're stunned the shield is taking hits, or the damage reduction is soaking up hits. Monk, you just straight up die. Even more exciting is SO many times I've used it, then died, then saw the big 30k~60k heal pop-up over my body, but I'm already dead and it does nothing.

Burst
In a normal fight you engage the fight for a bit, then back off, and you keep doing that dance. IF you're teams is amazing and you're already winning, well THEN you can live long enough to build up your combo to do Phantom Rush. Like if you're forced to heal and forced to be defensive, you'll just NEVER get to use it; it resets way to quick. So all that leaves is your 12k fireball (assuming you buff it otherwise it's only 6k) and then your Limit Break.

-Part 2-

Limit Break
Of all the melee, this is the worst of them. Ninja can rack up kill streaks. Samurai can just do raw damage or go for the, lets kill a person or two gimmick. Reaper can literally drop an entire groups Shield and force them to run off cart and then begin comboing. Dragoon can become immune in the air then smash a group for some damage, and get a shield afterward.

Monk will Stun itself, and someone else.

I'll say that first part again, you Stun... yourself...

and then it will drop their shield, and do a massive 24k damage. (note that all classes got more health across the board AND you can't pressure-point onto the damage)

So unless they're 24k or less they'll just heal up from it like you did nothing.

I can't say enough different ways how horrible this limit break feels to use when comparing to the other melee jobs, you can only use it safely when you're already winning the fight and using it on someone that's forced to block and having a team pounding on them to begin with, if you want it to kill anything.

Monk's damage output is so low I find Warrior and Gun Breaker to be pretty much unkillable in a 1v1 and that's bursting my 12k tickle fireball into an Limit Break they just shrug it off. You can't even limit into a group on the cart, you just Stun yourself and die before the damage even comes out.

-Part 3-

tl;dr
Monk is supposed to melee (that's what SE has the archetype as on the site), but it is by far the worst melee to melee as.

So here's my question; I'm seriously asking.

If anyone in the community or someone on SE dev side would speak up.

What the hell are you supposed to do in a Crystal Conflict match with this Job??

Specifically, this melee job--Monk is the least:
Burst
Mobile
Defensive
Buff
Debuff

VS ALL of the other melee jobs.

So unless I've really missed the mark, is the ONLY reason to play it to impose a handicap to your other team members?

I'm asking, please add a PvP guide/description to the website that explains what useful unique reason there is to play Monk vs just playing a any of the other melee jobs that literally out perform this in every, some in multiple, categories.

Thank you,

Just play with your team

Mobility, SAM has it worse in melee DPS. Same for tanks, but they're tanks. But the loss of thunderclap charges somewhat harmed the job I think, especially with no crowd control, but at least there is still 2 charges remaining.
On Meteodrive I kinda disagree, this LB when used right can still punch above 50-60k damage with a delayed PR + phoenix buffs and oneshot people. Nin LB is overtuned right now but it also stuns the NIN for a while as well and I've seen a lot of them drop dead because they just went greedy with it. If anything I'm glad not many people play MNK right now because that stuff is still oppressive as hell when played well.

MNK will never be awful by virtue of having a "this guy is dead" LB on a 60 second cooldown. If you are using your LBs intelligently then the enemy team practically has to fight 4v5 for half of the game.

They just need to return hit registration back to the old version, and I think that itself will improve every job including MNK.

Originally Posted by SeaJae

You are highly undervaluing the job. Perhaps because much of the other kits capitalize on solo noobstomping.

I think your absolutely right.

I do often feel helpless trying to engage many of the other jobs in a 1v1 fight compared to before, with the old kit. I could actually kill bulkier Jobs, like Warrior, before from full health pretty reliably most of the time unless I got grouped up on piled on by others.

It's like going from, you got to play as the Batman, to now being Robin, the boy wonder--the new kit feels like, you're now playing as the sidekick.

I guess at the end of the day, Batman does need a Robin lol

You did give A LOT of super good info/advice, and I see a few things I hadn't thought about trying with the new kit--using the lag-system--the delay, to bring my Earth Reply to a group as it's going off is top of my list on something I'm going to start practicing into gameplay for sure; that's super kewl!

I also need to play with Phoenix and Wind/Fire; I've seen mixed answers and not sure what the right order they should be used with the new delays for it to come out best.

For this one:

Originally Posted by SeaJae

Speaking of Earth's Reply, yes, it got buffed. With all the cleave around point and the baseline added 2k potency, it's not uncommon to drop 16-20k bombs which is some of the highest non-LB damage in the game right now.

I'm not sure I understand the numbers, it says the damage is 1/4 taken, with a 2k potency. So to do a 16k AoE, I'd need to have taken 56,000 damage?

Does using Guard take away from this or do you have to actually have lost 56k+ health?

Also, thank you everyone for the helpful info and advice so far.