IiPunch - Monk Guide

Monk Suggestions to make it more party-efficient and attracive
There's a lot of quirky things about MNK that don't really make sense, and some that need fixing. In short, I feel like MNK truly does not "play well" with other jobs. Actually, nothing they can currently do pairs well with any other job combinations, unless they are fighting with other MNKs or solo DPS. I think an effort should be made to adjust job abilities (or create new ones) so that they pair better with other players. Even better, enhance the job abilities so that they benefit the MNK more.

For instance, Chi Blast + Penance (or Plague from Shijin Spiral) really only benefits MNK's naturally high Subtle Blow if (a) they are the only melee/dps on the monster, (b) they are fighting with other MNKs rotating Chi Blast/Penance OR (c) they have other Subtle Blow users. The usefulness in this ability loses effectiveness where you start mixing in other combinations.




Suggestions:
Chakra – Area of Effect; Heals large amounts of HP, MP, and heals some Status Ailments
Counterstance – Increases chance to counter and grants bonus TP for each successful counter (5 MIN duration, 3 MIN recast)
Impetus – Enhances attack and critical hit rate with each successive melee attack you land, but greatly lowers your chance to counter an attack. [Remove the penalty for missing a consecutive hit; change this to a 'stance' JA] (5MIN duration, 3 MIN recast)
Chi Blast - Halt all TP accumulation by the target, effect decays over time. (Starts at 90% halt, decays to 50% over time)



Reasons for Job Adjustments:

Chakra: Does great on it's own with its short timers. It would be better if it also was Area of Effect, healing large amounts of HP to a group radius. I also think the range of status ailments able to be healed from this should be extended more with chakra+ enhancing gear, seeing as how it's on a timer anyways, and that's what most MNK use it for when in a group. So MNK in a party could provide an instant AOE heal along with status ailment removal, once every few minutes. Kind of neat, right? Something like this is useful enough to help out the party receiving the damage and status ailments in general, but also helps out the healer as well (even those WHM with Yagrush).

This also would pair well with MNK's natural high HP via Mantra, which the entire party benefits from. This suggested change to Chakra would add group utility to MNK in a way that is not exploitable due to recast timers. Just as a point of reference and lore: In past Final Fantasy games, Chakra also healed small portions of MP, which might be an interesting idea to include which would assist nearby magic users: BLU, DRK, PLD, RUN, or even backline mages.

Counterstance: I think this is a great ability as it also plays on the other very useful ability of MNK. However, it is largely flawed in that it's a huge liability if Counter fails to activate, due to the inherent defense loss. I would like to propose that the defense loss for Counterstance be removed (or changed to something less painful, like attack speed lowered), but add in a “Grants Bonus TP” to counters under the effect. I suggest this because the use of counterstance in group play with a standard party is limited; You can only counter if you are the subject of a melee attack facing front, which means you’d either have to (a) pull hate from the tank or (b) be the tank. Both scenarios are dangerous to use Counterstance, because you can basically die from one hit, which makes using this move completely useless. You also can’t counter TP moves, which make this move even less useful in any practical group scenario.

Since Counterstance can last for a full duration, it really makes sense to turn this ability to an opportunity for them to (a) protect themselves and (b) enhance their own DPS by means of a unique skill in "Grants Bonus TP to Counter". I feel like in this age of the game, the defense penalty is too harsh to even warrant using. That honestly needs to be done away with. The lowered attack speed suggestion (white damage) would inevitably lower their accumulated enmity, helping them to release hate back onto the tank, while the counters would protect them still to an extent. Since counters give no inherent enmity, it’s a safe way for MNK to still gain “TP” without accumulating any more of their hate. It’s a win-win ability. This stance can be used to rival “Impetus”, so that you can’t have both up at the same time; you would choose between “tanking” stance and “damaging” stance, just like the other Far Eastern job classes have. Basically, the MNK version of Innin&Yonin/Seigan&Hasso.

Impetus: This ability is already amazing for certain weaponskills and makes MNK very competitive. However, on any content that matters (even just fighting normal monsters in any zone), you will almost never be able to benefit from this, even with completely capped acc+empyrean body. This is due to the fact that you can never have a 100% accuracy rate, so you are always penalized for missing. I think that’s silly, because the penalties for Hasso/Seigan/Innin/Yonin are so minor and unrelated to the "stance" the job is taking, it hardly affects them in a meaningful way. But Impetus penalty is definitely unreasonably. Why exactly is MNK penalized for abilities that should be there to help them? I would think this would be an ideal candidate to change into a “stance” move. 5 minute duration, 3 minute effect, cannot be combined with Counterstance. Again, this would make it so MNK can only choose between one of the two at any given time, and can switch between them based on needs and circumstances. If you are not interested in removing the bonus penalty from missing a melee strike, at least change this ability to a full-time duration. That way, even when we miss, we still gain some effect all of the time, and can switch over to Counterstance if we need to become more defensive at a moment's notice.

Chi Blast - It's no surprise: Chi Blast currently only has one function nowadays: to trigger Penance. Since the changes to Boost, we cannot stack that with Chi Blast for any meaningful effect. This means that, without Penance meritted, it's a completely useless ability. Although you can inhibit the monster's TP gain, its still useless if you have a few other jobs whacking on the monster. You can test this very easily on any boss or monster, even something like Quetzacotl.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could completely shut down a monster from harming you for a short period of time? Monsters can do it to us in the form of Amnesia... You can keep the Relic+2(aug)/Reforged/+1/+2/+3 crown the same, which would provide a maximum of 100% TP inhibit effect on any monster for a short period of time. That would benefit everyone in the group, providing group survivability and mitigating damage during certain parts of a fight. Again, Chi Blast is not useful in current group play. This suggestion makes sense in order to make MNK play well with others.

I proposed this ability to have a "Inhibit TP effect" that decays quickly over time so that you can't abuse it with an army of MNKs forcing the NM to not use special moves, as that would be broken. But if Chi Blast did a short duration where it could inhibit the TP gain of an enemy greatly, would certainly be more useful.



New JA

Ressurrection - Raises ally from KO by forcing energy into party member. (Effect takes half of your current HP and grants it to your dead ally without weakness effect; 10MIN Recast, instant JA)

Resurrection - Wouldn't it be cool if MNK could get some unique ability like this? "Revive" has been a recurrent ability in previous Final Fantasy games. I think the thought of being able to sacrifice some of your spirit energy (cuz lore) would make sense in the form of a unique ability to raise without a weakness penalty. This wouldn't be something you could exploit to any advantage due to recast timer, but it would certainly benefit the entire party, assist healers. and even large groups where being able to recover very quickly is extremely important. I would love an ability like this and I'm sure it would certainly encourage more people to bring MNK along to things (I'm thinking of something like Kyou's Unfaltering Bravado move. Would really give an amazing utility if this were possible). I suggest the whole "convert half HP into party member" because nothing is worse than raising someone and watching them die to a 400 dmg tp move. At least if weakness were removed and they had a good amount of HP, they wouldn't die again right away and it would be helpful to use on occasion.

Hope you guys consider this, thanks for reading.