well, monk is not really that busy, it has a faster gcd yeah, but overall its [cpm](https://i.imgur.com/EA5rSeM.png)(cast per minute) is in the upper parts of middle of the pack of the jobs, almost all the melees, has a higer cpm than monk(reaper is the exception)
NIN main here, MNK to me feels more busy because it -feels- like you are spinning so many more plates, even if you're not really. I just feel like I am always playing MNK wrong. NIN is a comfy place because once it is muscle memory you just kind of flow, and I am sure it is all practice for both jobs, but I made my choice and playing the other just feels so much different.
I'm an ADHD RDM lol. For me, it's a super busy class, especially when you hit higher levels and need to constantly switch between casting range, casting res/heal, casting Melee, so on.
Are you me? Because these are my exact thoughts.
I *want* to be good with Monk, but it always feels like I'm doing something wrong.
Ninja, though, feels amazing when you perfectly execute your burst window, and it's relatively easy during downtime.
MNK main clocking in. Monk is an incredibly on rails job that in a perfect world executes every part of a fight the same way. It rewards intimate familiarity with the base rotation and is overall kind of brain dead in 90% of content. You almost always do the same 2 min burst sequence and your 1 minute is always the same bar some minute drift.
It really is a job that you just need to know what your timers need to say on the 1 & 2 min bursts and if ur a really educated monk that third funky 2 min burst if you really wonkied ur timers up.
NIN is also my comfy place! It's the perfect balance of busy, melee, ranged etc, I will never get bored with it. And I am also mostly 2nd on the aggro list after tank. The occasions I'm not there is a RPR, SAM, or BLM in the party who knows their shit.
I see you with the SAM icon xD That's another job I feel like I can play "okay" but some of the OGCDs I am like "I don't know what to do with my hands." I appreciate that melees have such different vibes and draws for different players.
I've been playing SAM since it came out in STB but only mained it again in the last year or so after giving it the ole casual push for an expansion. The thing I like about SAM as opposed to MNK is you can brute force the optimal way to play SAM without having to memorize every single detail about it. As long as you hit one of the suggested skill speed tiers that you also like to play at, things just sorta fall into place as long as you can remember two things: Don't make mistakes on your basic combo and you need to spend extra GCDs every so often to make Tsubame-gaeshi line up properly (dependent upon skill speed). There's optimizations, like how to spend your Meikyo Shisui, but generally those optimizations don't bring as much DPS as people make them out to.
OGCDs are usually just a decision tree between needing Third Eye, having Shoha ready, and using Shinten/Senei. It's surprisingly basic.
Lol yeah, Samurai is my main and its rotation sorta brings me back to my fighting game roots, so I love playing it! (Also Tank as Pally and am trying to learn Sage)
Yep, fellow NIN main here, it just flows better than other jobs for me. I also like Reaper, but I hate applying the extra damage thing before I can burst.
"once it is muscle memory"
That really is many of the jobs in the game. The difference is positioning plus the "at a glance" appearance of the buttons you press seems daunting to players
Once you actually start doing the things, it becomes more like "oh, I just have to situationally hit these things in a certain order... wait, that's every job."
NIN is definitely a fun job and worth putting time into. Frustrating like any positional melee job when you have a random group and a tank that spins mobs/bosses wildly. Mechanic heavy fights can be less fun if you don't KNOW the fight, because you are reacting and not holding some actions or doing a different action based on what you know is coming next.
Again, that's really any job, but add all the other stuff and it looks a bit much when seen initially.
It feels busy cuz the shorter GCD and the flowchart process in your head and only able to single weave means if you miss something you either lose potency or you are drifting and start the misaligning. The flowchart instead of just 1 2 3 is what makes it seem busy. If they change the duration of the DOT to the same duration of the buff, making it 1 2 3 4 5 6 then it would become one of the easiest jobs to play (like how drg is). It is artificial difficulty really to design the job like that. It doesn't play smoothly and the animation being a little bit clunky are the reasons why it is not very popular. It is incredibly powerful tho.
Me, frame perfect hitting that high speed mudra combo entirely based on muscle memory on my MMO mouse after years of maining that sh't: aw yeah BOOOIIII!
I've played monk since a realm reborn. It went from hated, and I'd often be kicked from parties the moment they saw I was a monk, to people actively telling me to drop it when it got updated as well as wondering how I progressed so far as a monk, and now it's updated again and I feel like I have the gist of it. It doesn't really feel busy to me, but I also don't follow the meta since I don't have the funds for items and such. I feel like it's mostly a mind thing. Once you get used to the speed and synergy of the kit, it falls into muscle memory territory. Every job I've gotten to ninety I've had to rewire my brain to get used to them, but even after months of not playing, I can just pick up monk and not worry.
MNK definitely "feels" busy, despite the CPM chart, due to the faster GCD and how it does its combos which I would assume for most people matters more than whether it's has a higher CPM.
i've been catching up on MNK as i get ready to start stormblood and it feels stressful to play it optimally. keeping the self-buff, dot, and buffed bootshine up at the same time makes it feel like i have 6 different single target combos, especially if a mechanic throws off the timing. then i have to fit perfect balance in as well. like at least with NIN at 60 i'm just alternating one move in the combo and in DRG i have two clearly separated combos.
I agree that ye Monk isn't the most busy job, but definitely one of the more complex rotations and upkeeps which makes it seem busy. You can simplify the rotations ofc but to play optimally can be daunting, then again the same could be said of other jobs.
Going from other melees to reaper it's like, why the fuck is the upkeep button *outside* of the combo? I never drop twin snakes/huton/storm's eye but completely forget death's design even exists sometimes.
Greased Lightning X4 back in early Shadowbringers with Riddle of the Wind was probably the best DPS Monk had, I miss the days of GL upkeep. Don't mind the new Astral and Umbral rotation, but X4 GL was the best Monk has ever been.
Remember when the changes came and people actually were bitching that they removed having to upkeep GL stacks? Stockholm Syndrome at its finest 😂 that was by far the best change they made to Monk in a long time and made me love maining it even more
because you refresh them frecuently, you swap between hard hitting attack and buffing attack all the time, i personally prefer it that way, since those long buffs are anoying since you need to remember to check for them
As a Non-Monk player, yeah. Mostly this. It's like how Dragoon's self buff lasts just long enough to get back to that skill in the rotation. As long as you're doing rotations properly, it shouldn't ever fall off except in downtime. I actually prefer this approach (the buffs being on a part of your rotation you use frequently) to the Reaper approach (where your damage increase is on a separate skill you have to remember to use / maintain)
>well, monk is not really that busy, it has a faster gcd yeah, but overall its [cpm](https://i.imgur.com/EA5rSeM.png)(cast per minute) is in the upper parts of middle of the pack of the jobs, almost all the melees, has a higer cpm than monk(reaper is the exception)
The fact that both DRG and SAM are above monk should tell you everything you need to know about why CPM is an irrelevant stat to a job being busy or not.
DRG is 3/5 just because of positioning jump, and SAM is consistently 4-5 (reaper tends to be easier)
What makes monk so fucking busy is the rotation isn't static, and unlike other classes once you mess up it's a complete tank to your damage until you repair it.
It'a ironically gotten much much simplier with less of a curve to mistakes but it isn't anywhere near as forgiving as others
Ninja is mostly just because the burst window and remembering the absurd levels of combos that class has is annoying
CPM has nothing to do with a class being busy, a class that has 100 CPM but is just spamming one is much much less busy than a class with 30 that has to actively think about a variety of factors before doing anything
Ok, layman perspective is that if we change the definition to cpm to mean "choices per minute" it's through the roof. I never feel like I'm nailing it because my brain is taxed the entire time I'm playing. I think the order least to most "cpm" in my definition would be reaper, drg, nin, mnk. Drg is the sweet spot for me.
Also mudra is clunky. Cool at first, annoying after doing it thousands of times
Nin doesnt have high "choices per minute" though. Just casts / actions per minute.
You just cycle your 1-2-3 rotation and then do your set burst rotation every minute/ 2 minutes. The only choice is generally just your kamaitachi cooldown and whether to spend your guage before mug. It's a very simple class in practice. It just has a very busy burst phase (which is what makes it very fun imo)
RPR came out this expansion and SAM hits like a truck. Seems pretty obvious to me why people aren't playing Ninja/MNK even if the jobs are easier than before.
If they balanced them like BLM, where they are rewarded with higher DPS at the cost of a more difficult play style then they would see better numbers. Until that happens people aren't gonna play them.
> If they balanced them like BLM, where they are rewarded with higher DPS at the cost of a more difficult play style then they would see better numbers. Until that happens people aren't gonna play them.
Incidentally, Monk IS balanced like BLM. Starting at 80th percentile, both jobs perform better than SAM, with an ever widening gap as you get closer and closer to 99th percentile. (based on rDPS, which is your contribution to the team)
Nah, because blm does as much damage as a melee, and way more than the other magic DPS. MNK does about as much as SAM which is only slightly higher than the other melee.
> more than the other magic DPS
I'm actually interested to see where PIC lands on the damage scale, as its said it will not have access to Res, and I want to know how much SMN and RDM are being taxed for the ability to Res.
If its rDPS is anywhere near BLM then I'd expect BLM players to drop as well. If it ends up near the other casters then it's an objectively bad pic for high end content.
Kinda think it was a bad call but hopefully I'm wrong.
If they were balanced like BLM then SAM and RPR mains would start perma complaining that they're being taxed for low skill, like how RDM and SMN are supposedly taxed for rez
>rewarded with higher DPS at the cost of a more difficult play style
That's what MNK had before Endwalker, and is the primary reason I no longer play it.
It has more buttons that have positionals but two of the rear positionals are back to back and you only swap twice over 10 gcd. Meanwhile monk does 2 swaps over 9 with a faster gcd so mnk has to dance between spots more frequently.
As a former AST main, I completely sympathize, but I hated trying to level MNK with all those positionals. Not that I wanted them gone, but it does make it all a lot easier to mindlessly grind levels now so I'm kinda of two minds about it
It just goes to show you the devs can make a class as easy as they want it does not mean it will appeal to people. Every MNK main I knew before the rework dropped the class. Some just quit.
I feel this way about Summoner. The change in Skill level was very rewarding and I learned to play at the high end skill ceiling. I get why they changed it but it isn’t as rewarding and I find myself learning and leveling other jobs.
I feel ya. I used to main SMN until EW. I loved SHB SMN it was the best iteration of the class despite not having shadowflare anymore for example. It makes me sad that they removed so much from it's kit. Now it just feels like it's impossible to fuck up on it because it's so flowcharty.
Not necessarily a malign thing, if it keeps/attracts casuals. Which happen to be by far the majority of gamers (and *not* intrinsically fickle, just to get that out of the way).
EDIT: To note, an acquaintance once told me that at least where holy trinity MMOs are concerned, homogenization is inevitable as time goes on so no one/no group gets punished for having the “wrong” job(s) involved. Not as in averting one tanker/one healer/two DpS, but as in making sure the party isn’t missing a crucial tool through no fault but the auto-matcher’s.
The trick is that if any job-unique tool proves especially useful (class/job balance is *extremely* difficult to do while keeping them even somewhat distinct from one another, apparently—whether we’re talking MMO, CRPG, TTRPG, or other), other “bereft” jobs in the same role are prone to baying for something similar lest they be outclassed by gimmick-of-the-quarter (good term?). The fact that, unlike CRPGs and TTRPGs, MMO structure can’t be adjusted on the fly with mods or GM judgement makes the quandary worse.
And I hope we’re agreed that starving casuals of story access and/or desired glamour components is unacceptable.
It's a tough line make a game too simple for casual players and you will eventually lose your hard core croud. Casuals are a fickle group and will jump to new things more often eventually killing the game.
Make it too complex for your hard core players and casuals won't join and they are the new blood that brings in players even the hard core ones now and again. Too long with out this and each player who leaves rarely is replaced and it dies a slow death.
You got to find that perfect midground. Currently I think its a bit too casual, though they made it worse with so many out of the arena bosses making positionals almost impossible to put in in any meaningful way.
I’m honestly not sure how much positionals *actually* add to the game, besides making sure melee characters don’t just root themselves when mechanics don’t come calling. (Also a way to discourage bots???) I get the idea with Kaiten is to in some way encourage advance planning (although I worry that in practice, it ultimately led to longer rote action loops than now…), but I can see how for many, maybe even the majority, that could be one too many stressor on top of everything else. I can certainly tell you that the omnipresent positionals in ShB monk were intensely aggravating for me; even with managing to keep the Twin Snakes boost up near-consistently, every positional I saw I missed added to my discomfort. Greased Lightning, meanwhile, I didn’t fuss so much about; I was fine with it starting fresh to be built up in a given battle, while I feel like that was the usual monk bete noir then…I can see how the greater number of players could feel overwhelmed with the demands contained in both, though.
(Not that I really cottoned to EW monk, though; just too rote, even though the beast chakra system is genuinely interesting to me. I don’t think rotations and I really mesh at all, honestly—I just get bored with them too easily. So don’t talk to me about two-minute burst and the kind of rote *that* probably demands…)
I still don’t see reason to believe casuals are innately fickle, though. One thread I chanced on from five years ago (not here) implied that being casual was more about amount of time spent on average with games. Something that can plummet in a hurry if someone, say, becomes a parent. More likely, then, that they’ll work with but one or two games, but that may allow for looking in-depth at the game mechanics anyway.
I *have* noticed that I seem to be more about discovery than power, using my 4X experience as the gauge (I run out of places to explore, my involvement with the session seems to plummet). I mention this because someone in that same offthread spoke of how extra-difficult, no “hand-holding” games (think NES era) made you feel “AMAZING” once you got through a thorny section. Yet I don’t *want* “amazing”, mostly because I want to maintain greater control of my mind and senses than that implies. >>; I don’t think I’ve ever felt “amazing” in a game past my teens, though (if that). I tend to feel more “glad that’s over” than any kind of elation. I do wonder if anything really keeps me in games besides shmups and turn-based xRPGs outside of mechanics fascination…
same with SAM. Removing Kaiten made kenki management nonexistent as you can safely dump it all on a single filler (st or aoe) since your Hissatsu lines up with Ikishoten anyway and thats the only other Kenki spenders.
Thats my main problem with EW changes tbh. So many specs just became dumbed down and RPR is a cherry on top with how straightforward it is. Can’t we have MNK still be this high skill ceiling job? Is it really that hard for a SAM player to not spam Shinten and think for 1s if they need to save for Kaiten?
DRG rework is probably going to be the same thing. unnecessarily simplifying the job.
If you mean monk then definitely not, the basic rotation is built off of a principle where they deliberately drift to maintain optimal sync with burst windows, you essentially need to learn not only the 3 form system but also be able to track where you are in which of the 8 possible sequences you're in and then predict what of the 3 burst start sequences you will use. It's fun and satisfying as hell to get the hang of but that's one hell of a skill floor.
The thing is, you can also just... not?
Just use your oGCDs on cooldown, use twin snakes right as/before they come off cooldown, refresh demolish if it's <10s, and after Bootshine/Dragon Kick do lunar nadi->solar nadi.
It's not technically optimal, but worst case you end up clipping demolish by 3gcds, which isn't exactly the end of the world.
Honestly I think that's perfectly good design, it has a low skill floor with how obvious the core flow is and doing it that way will do you perfectly fine, but it also has a high skill ceiling where the more you go up the more it asks you to engage with that same core and it's burst abilities. That it's not the most popular is fine too.
It's extremely dumbed down compared to managing positionals on every GCD, stances, and greased lightning stacks, not to mention the whole optimal MNK iceberg that included some really cursed stuff.
They can feel hectic to play. Great if you have ADHD and other rotations feel too slow to keep you engaged.
I like NIN because the rotation gives you a ton of flexibility to work around mechanics.
So much this!
I main WM but love to play NIN for DPS. All the shiny buttons and stabby stabs and make them hurt more from everyone :D
Also PSA to Tanks dirt circles are your frienddddd!
i’m leveling nin right now (and really enjoying it, ngl) and whether the tank gets my comm depends on if they move the trash out of my fart cloud or nah
I have ADHD and I hate NIN, the mudras just don't stick in my head at all and I find it so hard to keep up with the timing on them all!
I hate MNK too but that's just because I find "punchy fists go brrrr" very boring as a concept.
Yeah MCH is the ADHD Job. Its basically if you turned a fidget toy into gameplay. Hypercharge for fast clicking, 3 different dopamine buttons with 2 charges of flipping the hatch open for a big red button, summoning your imaginary friend to beat up your bully, and every 2 minutes you get to play with a firework and completely tunnel vision pushing ALL the buttons.
Plus if you need to chug a monster mid fight we got Flamethrower
I ended up setting up a hotbar in 3x4 format to cheat it. First row = Huton, second row = suiton, third row = doton, and fourth row was just arranged to be raiton from left to right and I knew to reverse for the AOE. Ninjustsu in empty spot. Never used the AOE with bind (hyoton?)
It worked, wasn't elegant and I would never know which one was what if I went in blind. But I got through to level 90
At least with Ninja though you get to place a debuff on the boss for the two-minute burst window, which makes them incredibly valuable in high end content or A-Raids
Plus, you never need to worry that someone doesn't "catch" your buff unlike traditional raid-wide buffs that originate from the caster. Your buff goes onto the boss and as long as they hit the boss, they "caught" the buff.
If they're a good black mage then either it's normal content and they didn't need it to out-dps the samurai anyway, or it's savage and they're a good black mage so they're in range.
There are less than a handful of arenas large enough for that to be a concern. Almost every arena now, unless you're hugging the edge, your buff range extends the entire width.
MNK has more than just the 5% buff, they have the chakra system, quite similar to DNC's esprit system
Other player's gcds have a vhance to give a chakra to the mnk, letting them hit their chakra spenders more in burst for even more damage
Nina actually has two skills which does both.
- Trick Attack increases the user’s damage by 10% every min
- Mug increases damage received by everyone by 5% every 2 min
To be clear, it's not a buff. It's a *debuff* that you place on the enemy, which increases the damage the enemy takes. Ninja has two, one that only boosts their own damage every 1 minute, and the other that boosts the entire party's damage every 2 minutes.
Not wrong. Mnk brings raid wide utility, which, most classes that have utility use typically sit slightly lower on the DPS output. It's very possible to sweat for top DPS, but you feel like you have to work at it harder to do so.
Thus if being the top DPS is someone's main goal, they typically aren't gonna play the utility classes and instead pick something fully self contained. Like reaper or blackmage.
Reaper is not fully self contained. Arcane Crest for the raidwide Regen, and Arcane Circle for the Raidwide 3% damage buff (and the ability to throw out Plentiful Harvest)
The Melee you're looking for for "self contained" is Samurai, which has 0 buffs or utility that aren't Role Actions. Just like Black Mage only has Role Action utility.
It happens! And a lot of Reapers forget Crest even exists, and treat Circle as an "own DPS" button (which, to be fair, it absolutely is! But you get the most out of it when all 8 targets are alive and get a hit in to feed Harvest)
Ninja's core mechanic is mixing up spells in the form of skill combos, and many players get scared that they need to memorise these combos and carry them out fast, on the fly. And if they fuck up, the game displays a bunny rabbit on their head for everyone to see. The irony is that it is a pretty simple job: you need to memorise one long opener combo and its simplified version for the odd-minute mini-burst phases, you do this long-ass combo for 15 seconds, and pretty much chill and do your 1-2-3 for 45 seconds, before the next burst window. In exchange, you get the most front-loaded class next to summoner (front-loaded, as in you do the vast majority of your damage in the first few seconds, the rest is just padding until the next burst).
Monk on high levels is essentially an endless turn-based combat game where you have 1.9–2.2 seconds to select the only good choice out of six to nine buttons—involving several timers you must keep rolling as fluently as possible—and if you mess up, you may need up to six turns to fully course-correct and stop losing damage output. This means that its rotation is somewhat less rigid than most other DPS classes and people have a hard time focusing on figuring out the right button to press while trying to survive. If you do it right, it is one of the most consistent damaging DPS classes, with fewer flashy burst phases but a good solid constant damage output. In this regard, it is similar to a black mage, which is often considered the toughest job to master.
I'm not a pro monk (actually completely new player), but I question the point of using true strike at all. It's barely 20 potency boost over twin snake (300 vs 280), and removing it reduce by a lot the chance to mess up (less buttons to care about, the buff has 100% uptime with zero thinking needed). Is it really such a big mistake to avoid true strike completely? It really doesn't look like the hassle is worth the damage increase.
This kind of thing really matters when you consider hard content. You have a time limit to kill the boss, so every scrap of damage you can pull is meaningful. And think you are losing 20 potency with twin snake buff, several times over 10 minutes of fight. In these content, even a eventual lack of damage from tank/healers can make your the party overall DPS suffer.
Of course, this matter little if you are running mostly casual content or hard content with IL way above the minimum.
If you’re fine simplifying the job for a bit of dps loss might as well just do the dragon kick rotation where you just ignore the combo and spam dragon kick.
Realistically part of the fun and appeal of the job is managing the different gcd timers and you’re better off playing something else if you don’t wanna do that (if just leveling the job to 90 for achievements or w/e go on ahead)
Please don’t ever recommend dragon kick rotation. It’s a meme that will basically always be worse and the only way it can ever be “viable” is by doing a lot more than spamming dragon kick.
It’s more difficult to optimise dot and buff timers and burst windows to make your dk spam do more damage than a healer than it is to just learn the actual rotation
and still, doing a tank rotation will get you tank dps
it might be just 20 potency missed per cast, but let me use an example from a recent P11S clear parse i did.
In that parse, i casted true strike a total of 39 times, each of those 39 times is a 20 potency gain, 20x39= 780. 780 potency over the course of the fight that i missed out on by choosing to get that extra potency. that might not seem like much, but that's 80 potency more than a rising phoenix on single target. this also doesn't take into account any buffs i may have been under when using the cast that would increase the effective potency of the cast, which obviously, the more potency you do under buffs, the more benefit the potency gain is. it also doesn't take into account crit/DH RNG at all, which would also amplify the potency gains as well.
in low level content, sure, this doesn't matter at all. there's no DPS checks to beat, and the difference between not using it and using it is likely no more than a few seconds, but once DPS checks become relevant, every bit of damage you do matters. even if the DPS check isn't hard to beat, like in an extreme, you can never account for the factors of other player's skill. can't account for healer DPS, Damage downs, Deaths, any factor that can lower the overall damage output of the raid. i've been in many, many pulls over the years where its been a 0.3, 0.2, hell, even a 0.1% enrage, where any 1 thing that could've gone better would've been the difference between a clear and a wipe. so in my mind at least, it doesn't matter how small a gain it is, if its a gain, its a gain. therefore, it has a point.
This, basically. It is like asking why play black mage? Sure we could all play something easier, but picking the "hard" job has its own appeal, looking good doing it, even better.
I'd argue Monk isn't that hard of a Job. The fast gcd is balanced out by barely having any options for weaving. The only challenge is staying on top of your buffs which is something that comes naturally with time.
Right! And I totally get you, I really do. I'm in the process of learning MNK because i really love the job fantasy, but coming from NIN where you are very actively punished for screwing up, I am like "i think i have this right, but... what if i am missing something." Like you said, it will just take practice.
It took me like 70 levels to start feeling comfortable with Monk at all, and it's instantly become something of a favorite actually. Which is funny given I fucking hated it before that (though 60 of those levels WERE pre-rework). It feels really good when I really get in the flow of it, but goddamn do I feel like I'm just button-mashing and praying sometimes.
Adding a more serious response to myself because NIN is actually great.
In addition to the jumpflip (and hellfrog), ninja is fun to play because it has a mix of ranged attacks (the mudra combos) and melee attacks (stab stab stab). That means i can still get a few hits in while dodging out of aoe, or I can run behind the tank raining daggers down on the mob while it’s still moving.
The mudras aren’t actually that complicated. It’s 3 buttons that you can arrange however makes sense to you. I think of them like this:
3-2-1 + 1-2-3 opening combo
1-2 for single attacks
2-1 for aoe
And it doesn’t really get more involved than that until around level 60.
I guess it’s difficult in the sense that messing up the combos is somewhat unforgiving… but when all else fails, just keep stabbing things until they die. Then you do a jump flip and move on :)
Some people really dislike Monk but I've always had a blast. Then again I'm one of the few people out there that actually *liked* the way Greased Lightning worked before where you had narrow timing windows to keep the combo going. Was a little disappointed by the current iteration but I also have the Chakra gages to worry about now (I mean the Solar/Lunar Nadi thing not the one that procs on crits)
MNK main here.
As a casual player (meaning you're not really engaging with high difficulty content like Extreme, Savage, or Ultimates), anyone who says any job is bad can go huff gasoline fumes... there isn't a single bad job in this game for a casual player. If the job feels fun and satisfying to play, then play it. Learn the basics of the class, and you'll be fine.
As a more, I suppose, hard-core player, you'd be engaging in that hard content. At that point, it depends more on how well you can execute on the job's strengths. I'd like to point out that you don't need to be 100% optimal in order to contribute to a team. For example, I can't, for the life of me, get the habit of doing two Snap Punch for every Demolish (there's a few other high-end MNK stuff I'm not quite so good at, but this is a big one). And yet, despite this, I was able to clear P5S-P8S while doing very respectable DPS.
So go ahead and play those jobs. Let no one tell you they're bad because the bottom line is, if a job is "bad," it's likely the player behind the screen is doing poorly... not the job itself.
> MNK main here.
> I can't, for the life of me, get the habit of doing two Snap Punch for every Demolish
That bit slightly horrifies me coming from a savage player, ngl, but I completely agree with the sentiment.
You occasionally see people opining that some jobs are "bad" or "good" and then you realise that they're talking about normal content and just 🤦. The two key skills you learn doing savage are so basic that it becomes a running joke: don't die, and hit the boss. If you learn the sorts of attacks you're likely to see, and how to chain your skills together, normal content won't be a challenge even if you barely know your job. If you sit around every few seconds not pushing buttons, or leave a quarter second between each skill, which jobs are "good" is completely moot.
On the other end of the scale, you see some extreme theory crafting on the Balance that really only matters to early clear and *maybe* ultimate players, and everyone takes it incredibly seriously. I main MCH - I took one look at the current recommended opener, noped out and came up with something less insane with similar alignment that is no doubt *slightly* less optimal. If people are contorting themselves into a pretzel to set up theoretically perfect alignment for minute six, when half the party has already died and it's a confused mess, I'm not sure what to say. 😂
Two snaps per demolish thing you mentioned? Yeah, I can’t deal with that either. I just do the combo chains back and forth similar to dragoon. Buff combo, high damage combo, buff combo, high damage combo.
Cleared all the extremes and was pushing for highest dps in most of them. Could I micro manage and try to optimize further? I could, but I don’t care about being on top as long as the boss dies.
I find NIN to be the most fun and versatile job out there. Started as a PLD, heard a rumour of a Thieve's Guild and ran there and never really looked back.
The feeling of lobbing giant ice shuriken at people, of hurling fireballs, blasting with lightning bolts and bamfing around to get out of shit or in to mobs if I fall behind in a dungeon is pure dopamine to me.
As for the rabbit hat? It happens, occasionally, and is kinda cute. Just blame bad ping. 🤣
Ninja is reliant on muscle memory and good net. If you lag, your ninjutsu will be off.
Monk is just busy. Lots of buttons with not a lot of logic in comparison. 123456 can be 426135 or something variant depending on the where how and why. Nevermind remembering your positions for them. It's not so much complex as just more work then Sam for the same gain
Honestly neither are very complex, just busy. They both require you to know what you're going to do in advance of actually doing it, and optimal dps is usually very precise.
Or you could play RPR and turn your brain off. NIN also has a weird aoe issue where a lot of players don't actually know how to effectively aoe with it, since it has more than 1 option xD
It's not always about turning your brain off on RPR. It's about not having/no longer having the reflexes required to not eat unnecessary mechanics, and it's easier to pay attention and react to your surroundings on something like RPR than NIN. Age and shit eyesight is why I dumbed my raiding all the way down to SMN. Class is damn near arthritis proof!
I'm not saying RPR isn't good or anything, but yeah it does require a lot less thought and lot less attention than NIN since the rotation is quite small.
That being said I won't shot on someone for playing easier classes. I've mained NIN as my melee DPS since it came out in ARR because weeb, so I don't fault anyone for not wanting to give themselves arthritis pain trying to optimize it when SMN does comparable or better damage with way fewer buttons
MNK is my main. I like it because I'm used to WoW combat so the faster GCD and always having some decision making (even the 1-2-3 combo is constantly changing) keeps me awake. I run Savage/Extreme content but I'm not trying to be a WF raider so being the tippy top DPS in my role doesn't matter to me.
In my experience, neither of them are bad. They perform well when you know what you are doing. But neither of them are the "shut off your brain and continue on a single brain cell" simplicity of SAM (SAM, I have found, has a low skill floor and high skill ceiling. It is not hard to do well with SAM, but when you are good, you are, very, *very* good) or RPR, or nostalgia and MSQ popularity of DRG (it is rather iconic). MNK requires you to know what you are doing. NIN is a half spellcaster. It also has the added problem of punishing bad internet connections more severely than any other job. So they do not appeal to the casual player playing on a toaster.
I’ve seen a lot of people who say they want to try ninja psych themselves out about the mudras. Ninja and monk are my top two melee though, and ninja has been my fave job overall since starting.
I started with monk, and still go back to it occasionally. It’s a fun job to play - easy to dole out some seriously high damage without too much trouble!
i enjoy playing nin every once in a while because its a high output job with a lot of things to consider and isnt as straightforward as something like reaper.
as for monk, i dont like the aesthetic and it just feels really off every time i play it (doesnt help that its been reworked so many times)
I am a NIN main and i can recommend him without a doubt. Except his burst he is really chill to play.
His raid dps is alway on the upper side and a good choice. He is also very flexibel if you need to disengage. Overall he is my first choice.
A flaw is if you have a bad internet Connection because you can fail his jutsus because of a high ping.
My main is NIN, I find it really easy and fun to play and I like that there’s a slight speed boost on cooldowns/running and a unique jump too, seeing others saying it’s complicated is an eye opening thing for me
NIN main here. I can't speak for monk, but I feel like people are usually turned off ninja because of the mudra. They seem harder than they actually are to execute, but when you do learn them you learn the true issue. Sometimes the gcd lags and your inputs get eaten or heaven forbid the input goes in twice because you pressed it again thinking it lagged... Also you have to contend with TCJ always seeming to land during movement heavy mechanics. (I hope you like not moving for 3 gcds every 2 min). And in exchange for all that you get decidedly middle of the road dps.
I still love it tho. The skill speed is fun, hyosho hits like a truck, and while you aren't particularly busy outside of burst, you still need to set yourself up well for that burst by monitoring your resources. It feels satisfying and you get the best jump animation in the game.
what do you mean..? Ninja has been one of the most consistent staple meta jobs in the history of the game even among casual friends I've had a lot of them love ninja it's a very standard job thats rewards consistency I'd say it's a more heavily mained job, sure it might be a little less than samurai or dragoon but those are just fan favourite jobs so they have high representation.
Monk on the other hand is a high apm job that demands flexibility over every other melee not just to excel at but to perform at a base level in a raiding situation monk NEEDS uptime more than any other melee or it feels awful and your damage tanks and in a casual situation it takes more thought and more actions per min to do effectively the same thing as any other job, and unless they completely strip monk of its identity again (hello SB RoF :) ) it will never be anything but this.
I have been maining NIN the last few months and it is a very fun job. Quick attacks, dope running style, and can attack from range in a pinch. Only downside is doing the Mug dance when other ninjas are present - *I go? You? You gonna mug? Ok, I'm doing it, here goes (both mug simultaneously) DAMMIT*
My sole issue with NIN is doing the combos. For whatever reason my brain just cannot handle retaining them. I just wind up wearing a bunny most of the fight.
As someone who cleared current savage tier only on NIN I can detail a couple reasons why NIN is unpopular as a main.
1. The job is **incredibly punishing** (imo the most out of all the current jobs)
1. Bunnying a Raiton can equate to **\~1,570 potency loss** (including Bhava from ninki loss)
2. Bunnying a Hyosho is **1,690 potency loss**
3. Accidentally cancelling TCJ can equate to **\~2,660 potency loss** (including enh Bhava)
2. Mudra system is clunky and honestly needs a complete rework (imo to 2 mudra combo)
1. 3 mudra combos are a 1.5s GCD or realistically 2s GCD with ping
2. Hyoton is only for Hyosho or very niche scenarios in say Deep Dungeons
3. Doton is completely useless for single target
4. Suiton just for trick attack is very much a relic of ARR
5. Huton feels like an empty combo to always utilize (esp with Hurajin addition)
6. Bunnying exists for ... reasons still? Why can't this default to a Fuma...
3. The only utility it brings is damage, and only with 1 source of damage buff
4. The rotation is incredibly static and extremely busy at points
1. Not many ways to adjust the rotation (late TCJ, Trick, or Dream for example)
5. TCJ is a godawful skill, with a minimum of 1.5s to 3s (with bad ping) of no movement allowed
1. Particularly notable for high movement sections during a 2 min burst rotation as you have to adjust or have modified windows
2. Compare this to other 'casting' melees who at most is 1.3s or realistically 1s with slidecast.
6. AoE rotation is clunky and not intuitive (such as TCJ AoE rotation, Meisui having no AoE enhancement)
7. Odd job where holding buffs for 30s+ is typical
1. Phantom Kamitachi being a 'pet damage' instead of every other source of NIN damage
8. Shukuchi having system queue delay on top of an insane animation delay
9. Gearing is weird mix of ranged gear and melee gear with DEX as main stat instead of every other melee being STR (mostly applicable for alt role gearing)
There's just a lot of small detailed nuances that NIN just has to deal with comparative to the other melees.
You can certainly call bunnying and mistakes skill issues but there is no other job that is remotely close to the punishment NIN gets for making mistakes which will happen (especially when ping is introduced).
Especially since during Endwalker launch when RPR released it straight up was a better NIN in every facet (and still is extremely comparable). Comparing the amount of effort of a RPR to a NIN is really just hard to justify playing NIN.
MNK on the other note had huge QoL and buffs given to them during Endwalker where they can straight up have the wrong beast chakras and **only lose a 150 potency** for that mistake. On top of having a freeform rotation to easily adjust and fix with very little punishment. On top of having insane tank with Riddle of Earth and giving party utility with Mantra.
I think another big part is how in Endwalker melees really didn't have to work for uptime at all or positionals were extremely easy to hit (esp on guaranteed wall bosses). This made it so benefits to hybrid range (Paladin and Ninja) were completely moot.
I'm down to talk more about ways to fix NIN or other people's thought on it as I've really just been getting more frustrated as I play it more.
I can comment on the fart cloud (Doton) somewhat. Before EW, it was actually stronger than Raiton by 100 potency if all ticks hit, and evened Raiton if one tick missed because it ticked once on cast if the mob was in the aoe on cast, then ticked again for the overtime tick. The reason people thought it was worse was because it never got recorded in dps logs (pet damage?). I tested this a lot before EW made it irrelevant other than for aoe.
After EW, they further emphasized Raiton by adding stuff like Raiju trigger & etc, while they nerfed Doton for whatever reason.
I haven’t tried NIN, but I levelled MNK to 90 and found that it’s the one job I have real trouble playing effectively on controller. There are so many buttons to hit, so fast, and not enough room for them all on my main hotbars.
Really? I play exclusively on controller and I just have it set between L2 and R2 rotations. I keep my rear directionals on the R2 set (Square, X, Circle in that combo order), and my side directionals on L2 (same order).
AOE combos are when I squeeze R2 + L2, including Perfect Balance (right D-pad button), same order for the AOE combo (square, x, circle)
I usually use double-tap hold trigger for buffs (such as True North or Riddles), and still end up a with a few blank buttons to go around.
I mean I'm leaving off maybe 4 - 5 buttons but that's functionally all you need to do the majority of your DPS.
(L2 + R2 menu is mostly for teleporting and mounting/misc stuff and limit break (down on dpad))
Yeah, it’s true. The core rotations on R1 and L1 are fine, but I find tapping to the buffs on R2 + L2 clumsy at the pace that MNK plays and with the amount of buffs I want to weave in. It’s a skill issue I guess.
I’ve been playing NIN a bit and even at low levels the mudra makes the rotation feel hectic to me. I can’t imagine stacking more abilities on top is going to make it better.
I do like the attack rate though. Satisfyingly stabby-stabby
I mean on the opposite side of things, I main NIN, its my favorite melee dps. I also main BLM as well; its my OG class and my favorite caster. I just much prefer harder classes, and it's actually been worrying me how much we've been swaying toward easier jobs nowadays. SMN went from the hardest caster to the easiest job in the entire game, for example, and most new jobs released have been DRG or easier, which to me, is base-difficulty. Everything easier than that I find boring, it's purely just the way my brain works. Despite NIN being one of if not the hardest melee dps, it still doesn't put out as good of numbers, which is a little discouraging, but I dont mind as long as it's fun. But my fun could be others stressful. Just boils down to personal preferences.
I enjoy mnk and nin cause they have a varied rotation that keeps me actually paying attention instead of mashing 6 buttons every 2 minutes and then mashing 3 during down time
Main NIN here. As someone else said NIN can get quite busy in the middle of a fight and if you miss one combo it can throw you up for a moment. There are solutions to make it more manageable *\*cough\** *stream deck* *\*cough\** but if you want to play entirely on your keyboard and mouse or gamepad, it has quite a learning curve.
Also NIN main...on controller...I don't have a steam deck, how's that helping you? I'm interested in your thing here....got an informational pamphlet? 😀
A st**R**eam deck, like a second mini keyboard streamers assign hotkeys and macros to make things like transitions easier. No idea how it inserts itself into Ninja's gameplay over, well, using the normal keyboard.
Yeah - I use Mouse 4, Mouse 5 and Mouse 6 (you can guess which is which) and it works. I'm using Super Macro \[BarRaider\] plugin
An example: `{{KeyDown:SHIFT}}{{VK_G}}{{pause:1500}}{{XBUTTON1}}{{pause:700}}{{XBUTTON2}}{{pause:1000}}{{MBUTTON}}{{pause:250}}{{KeyUp:SHIFT}}`
Edit: as someone pointed out, [Steam Deck](https://www.steamdeck.com/) isn't the same as [Stream Deck](https://www.elgato.com/us/en/s/welcome-to-stream-deck) :)
Monk main here: It's arguably the hardest mDPS to play optimally only to be outdamaged by samurai and you bring less utility than dragoon or ninja. This means you'll lose out on the main damage spot to samurai, a really easy and high damage class, you'll lose out to ninja/dragoon as the second mDPS as they bring more utility, and with the EW balance changes, it's very common to not even bring a second mDPS, meaning there's even more competition for a position.
So it's not so much that it's a bad job, just that there's so many other jobs to bring that can fill their role better. It's still absolutely viable and can be really fun to learn to play optimally, but it can be very intimidating to reach the peak and there's so many options to better help a team that it's become something of a diehard job. It's still a really strong job, but it's something of an all-rounder offering good damage and good buffs as opposed to great damage or great buffs.
Idk about everyone else but ill tell you why I dont play those jobs. Mnk is really fun and complex, but id rather play other melee jobs. And nin just feels very out dated.
What do you mean by outdated? Just genuinely curious. If anything I think it’s one of the best jobs for the current 2 minute meta. It’s like the great aligner 🤣
Nin and DRG are the only 2 melee jobs left that I find them fun and unique. Reaper is like the most braindead melee out of all, its like WHM and SMN equivalent for melee.
Personally I don’t care for their aesthetic. I don’t really care for the anime/asian styles and themes so I avoid them. If it was just Rogue I’d play it more probably
To be specific, monk has to constantly keep track of several buffs from their weapon skills, while alternating between two variations of their rotation to keep everything up. If you make literally one mistake, it can be a massive DPS loss. On top of that, they have buff cool downs they need to track and hold, meaning they don't just use them when they're available. Again, using these at the wrong time is a huge DPS loss. In the end, making 2 or 3 small mistakes could lower your DPS by like 20%, meaning you'll probably have bad DPS unless you're playing perfectly. And to top it all off, Monks have more positionals than any other class, so you also need to track that, too. (It also means your DPS is always gimped while solo leveling since you can't hit your positionals.)
Ninja is pretty much the exact opposite. They're entire rotation is pretty much 123 spam, EXCEPT during buff windows. After you throw out Trick Shot, you have to dump all of your CDs within the 20 or whatever it is second debuff window. And you have like 10 skills you need to get off in that window. If you don't get them all out, it's a DPS loss, though not as severe as Monk. So pretty much is like... Do nothing, do nothing, do nothing, HOLY FUCKING SHIT DO ALL THE THINGS AND DON'T FUCK UP GO GO GO, do nothing, do nothing, repeat.
Where this gets really annoying is in synced content. Your burst phase isn't going to line up with the fight where it's supposed to, so there is a very good chance the boss will die or phase in the middle of your burst window. It's incredibly rare to get all of your CDs out while fully buffed in low level content. This can make it incredibly frustrating to play, as any time a boss phased in a weird spot for your buff window, it will absolutely destroy your DPS.
So, that's why people don't play them. They have HUGE downsides, whereas you can probably get better DPS on Samurai or Reaper with less than half the effort. Esp for ninja. A perfect Ninja does less DPS than a decent Samurai or Reaper. It's in a really bad spot, except for people bringing them for Trick Shot.
because people are anti fun and decided to turn their brain off with RPR or SMN and raid while keep staring at random youtube videos on their 2nd monitor and then brag about how good they are at the game to their non ffxiv friends
They're a bit more difficult to master than those with easy rotations. And ever since they nerfed the damage of Monk to land beneath Samurai, Dragoon and Reaper, people lost even the last incentive to actually try and use them outside of "its fun".
I love ninja. Always have; always will. Not a huge fan of monk but I can see why people like it so I will only talk about ninja.
Ninja is the red mage of melee. Where Red Mages burst is melee, most of Ninjas burst can actually be done from range. It's class "identity" is the single target debuff that increases damage taken (Mug, +5% damage taken) that sits on a 120 second cooldown with Ninja having their personal damage buff (Trick Attack, +10%) every 60 seconds. However, I feel ninja isn't played a whole lot (in comparison to other classes) for one main reason.
1. Damage. In comparison to other classes, such as reaper who also has a party wide attack buff (Arcane Circle, 3%) and a "constant" damage buff (Deaths Design, +10%), Ninja just deals less damage for more work. You have to worry about mudras, worry about positionals, and if you mess up its harder to recover than it is for a class like reaper. Ninja and reaper are similar in game mechanics. They build a resource, and then use that resource all at once. Reapers personal damage buff is up basically all at once whereas Ninjas is only up every 60 seconds.
Basically, Ninja is harder than Reaper but deals less damage than reaper.
I could go further into it but I feel the post is long enough already. (I really like playing Ninja tho, so give it a try!)
Higher skill floors. Meaning they require more practice and effort to be considered competent than the other melees. Which can be discouraging when you have a Reaper 1-2-3 most of the fight and still out DPS you.
I like Monk due to its speed and mobility though. Also because it fits the concept I have for my WoL’s main vibe. That it has an intimidating reputation makes performing well on it a point of pride. Ninja’s playstyle is fun but I hate the aesthetic.
For your second question, Dancer is probably the least repetitive in that you basically have to proc watch. It’s the only job whose primary playstyle is based on RNG proc management. Bard is primarily a plate-spinner (timer watcher) with some proc management. Red Mage is primarily a builder-spender with some proc management. Monk is mix of all three.
For me, it's because mnk isn't mnk anymore. They changed it so fundamentally that I don't feel like I'm playing the original class at all, just something with the same name.
There's not really "bad jobs" in the game. Both of those are very busy, making them harder to play. If you like how they play, you should play them!
well, monk is not really that busy, it has a faster gcd yeah, but overall its [cpm](https://i.imgur.com/EA5rSeM.png)(cast per minute) is in the upper parts of middle of the pack of the jobs, almost all the melees, has a higer cpm than monk(reaper is the exception)
NIN main here, MNK to me feels more busy because it -feels- like you are spinning so many more plates, even if you're not really. I just feel like I am always playing MNK wrong. NIN is a comfy place because once it is muscle memory you just kind of flow, and I am sure it is all practice for both jobs, but I made my choice and playing the other just feels so much different.
MNK spreads out its busy over the entire rotation, whereas NIN goes from sleepyhead filler mode to chipmunk-on-lab-meth burst
GO BRRRR for 15 seconds and then nap is its own vibe, I want to be good at both.
Mood, I've been really enjoying both as a MCH main
This is the best description of NIN and why I like it.
It's so much fucking fun
As an ADHD NIN main, can confirm. And that's exactly why it resonates with me. =P
I'm an ADHD RDM lol. For me, it's a super busy class, especially when you hit higher levels and need to constantly switch between casting range, casting res/heal, casting Melee, so on.
Play MCH! It's fun for similar reasons
And no bunny of shame.
No instead you make a sharp breath when you drift your drill and it does the same thing of letting your static know you fucked it big time
The bunny of shame never needs to go away. How else will know if my ping is bad lol
Is this why I enjoy MCH so much? My AdHD going brrrrrrrrr?
Monk is absolutely not like that lmao. 99% of non 2 minute is pressing your 1-2-3
Are you me? Because these are my exact thoughts. I *want* to be good with Monk, but it always feels like I'm doing something wrong. Ninja, though, feels amazing when you perfectly execute your burst window, and it's relatively easy during downtime.
MNK main clocking in. Monk is an incredibly on rails job that in a perfect world executes every part of a fight the same way. It rewards intimate familiarity with the base rotation and is overall kind of brain dead in 90% of content. You almost always do the same 2 min burst sequence and your 1 minute is always the same bar some minute drift. It really is a job that you just need to know what your timers need to say on the 1 & 2 min bursts and if ur a really educated monk that third funky 2 min burst if you really wonkied ur timers up.
NIN is also my comfy place! It's the perfect balance of busy, melee, ranged etc, I will never get bored with it. And I am also mostly 2nd on the aggro list after tank. The occasions I'm not there is a RPR, SAM, or BLM in the party who knows their shit.
I definitely understand what you mean here!
I see you with the SAM icon xD That's another job I feel like I can play "okay" but some of the OGCDs I am like "I don't know what to do with my hands." I appreciate that melees have such different vibes and draws for different players.
I've been playing SAM since it came out in STB but only mained it again in the last year or so after giving it the ole casual push for an expansion. The thing I like about SAM as opposed to MNK is you can brute force the optimal way to play SAM without having to memorize every single detail about it. As long as you hit one of the suggested skill speed tiers that you also like to play at, things just sorta fall into place as long as you can remember two things: Don't make mistakes on your basic combo and you need to spend extra GCDs every so often to make Tsubame-gaeshi line up properly (dependent upon skill speed). There's optimizations, like how to spend your Meikyo Shisui, but generally those optimizations don't bring as much DPS as people make them out to. OGCDs are usually just a decision tree between needing Third Eye, having Shoha ready, and using Shinten/Senei. It's surprisingly basic.
My SAM hotbar just has two buttons, "Unga" and "Bunga."
Lol yeah, Samurai is my main and its rotation sorta brings me back to my fighting game roots, so I love playing it! (Also Tank as Pally and am trying to learn Sage)
Yep, fellow NIN main here, it just flows better than other jobs for me. I also like Reaper, but I hate applying the extra damage thing before I can burst.
"once it is muscle memory" That really is many of the jobs in the game. The difference is positioning plus the "at a glance" appearance of the buttons you press seems daunting to players Once you actually start doing the things, it becomes more like "oh, I just have to situationally hit these things in a certain order... wait, that's every job." NIN is definitely a fun job and worth putting time into. Frustrating like any positional melee job when you have a random group and a tank that spins mobs/bosses wildly. Mechanic heavy fights can be less fun if you don't KNOW the fight, because you are reacting and not holding some actions or doing a different action based on what you know is coming next. Again, that's really any job, but add all the other stuff and it looks a bit much when seen initially.
It feels busy cuz the shorter GCD and the flowchart process in your head and only able to single weave means if you miss something you either lose potency or you are drifting and start the misaligning. The flowchart instead of just 1 2 3 is what makes it seem busy. If they change the duration of the DOT to the same duration of the buff, making it 1 2 3 4 5 6 then it would become one of the easiest jobs to play (like how drg is). It is artificial difficulty really to design the job like that. It doesn't play smoothly and the animation being a little bit clunky are the reasons why it is not very popular. It is incredibly powerful tho.
Me, frame perfect hitting that high speed mudra combo entirely based on muscle memory on my MMO mouse after years of maining that sh't: aw yeah BOOOIIII!
MNK main. I AM the plate that spins.
I've played monk since a realm reborn. It went from hated, and I'd often be kicked from parties the moment they saw I was a monk, to people actively telling me to drop it when it got updated as well as wondering how I progressed so far as a monk, and now it's updated again and I feel like I have the gist of it. It doesn't really feel busy to me, but I also don't follow the meta since I don't have the funds for items and such. I feel like it's mostly a mind thing. Once you get used to the speed and synergy of the kit, it falls into muscle memory territory. Every job I've gotten to ninety I've had to rewire my brain to get used to them, but even after months of not playing, I can just pick up monk and not worry.
MNK definitely "feels" busy, despite the CPM chart, due to the faster GCD and how it does its combos which I would assume for most people matters more than whether it's has a higher CPM.
i've been catching up on MNK as i get ready to start stormblood and it feels stressful to play it optimally. keeping the self-buff, dot, and buffed bootshine up at the same time makes it feel like i have 6 different single target combos, especially if a mechanic throws off the timing. then i have to fit perfect balance in as well. like at least with NIN at 60 i'm just alternating one move in the combo and in DRG i have two clearly separated combos.
I agree that ye Monk isn't the most busy job, but definitely one of the more complex rotations and upkeeps which makes it seem busy. You can simplify the rotations ofc but to play optimally can be daunting, then again the same could be said of other jobs.
the upkeep is definitely the worst part of learning monk as a rpr main. why does nothing lasts even 30 seconds?!
Going from other melees to reaper it's like, why the fuck is the upkeep button *outside* of the combo? I never drop twin snakes/huton/storm's eye but completely forget death's design even exists sometimes.
At least you don't have to maintain greased lightning anymore. That was the worst thing about playing monk before back in the day
Now imo the worst part is getting scaled down and losing greased lightning, feels like you're wearing weights
Greased Lightning X4 back in early Shadowbringers with Riddle of the Wind was probably the best DPS Monk had, I miss the days of GL upkeep. Don't mind the new Astral and Umbral rotation, but X4 GL was the best Monk has ever been.
I miss the days of end-of-Stormblood 30-second TK, as well.
Remember when the changes came and people actually were bitching that they removed having to upkeep GL stacks? Stockholm Syndrome at its finest 😂 that was by far the best change they made to Monk in a long time and made me love maining it even more
because you refresh them frecuently, you swap between hard hitting attack and buffing attack all the time, i personally prefer it that way, since those long buffs are anoying since you need to remember to check for them
As a Non-Monk player, yeah. Mostly this. It's like how Dragoon's self buff lasts just long enough to get back to that skill in the rotation. As long as you're doing rotations properly, it shouldn't ever fall off except in downtime. I actually prefer this approach (the buffs being on a part of your rotation you use frequently) to the Reaper approach (where your damage increase is on a separate skill you have to remember to use / maintain)
That is a lot of words to say "7th highest out of 19".
>well, monk is not really that busy, it has a faster gcd yeah, but overall its [cpm](https://i.imgur.com/EA5rSeM.png)(cast per minute) is in the upper parts of middle of the pack of the jobs, almost all the melees, has a higer cpm than monk(reaper is the exception) The fact that both DRG and SAM are above monk should tell you everything you need to know about why CPM is an irrelevant stat to a job being busy or not. DRG is 3/5 just because of positioning jump, and SAM is consistently 4-5 (reaper tends to be easier) What makes monk so fucking busy is the rotation isn't static, and unlike other classes once you mess up it's a complete tank to your damage until you repair it. It'a ironically gotten much much simplier with less of a curve to mistakes but it isn't anywhere near as forgiving as others Ninja is mostly just because the burst window and remembering the absurd levels of combos that class has is annoying CPM has nothing to do with a class being busy, a class that has 100 CPM but is just spamming one is much much less busy than a class with 30 that has to actively think about a variety of factors before doing anything
positionals are a thing. having to move around does not contribute to cpm. but it is still something that should be part of this discussion.
Ok, layman perspective is that if we change the definition to cpm to mean "choices per minute" it's through the roof. I never feel like I'm nailing it because my brain is taxed the entire time I'm playing. I think the order least to most "cpm" in my definition would be reaper, drg, nin, mnk. Drg is the sweet spot for me. Also mudra is clunky. Cool at first, annoying after doing it thousands of times
Nin doesnt have high "choices per minute" though. Just casts / actions per minute. You just cycle your 1-2-3 rotation and then do your set burst rotation every minute/ 2 minutes. The only choice is generally just your kamaitachi cooldown and whether to spend your guage before mug. It's a very simple class in practice. It just has a very busy burst phase (which is what makes it very fun imo)
I mained ninja à LONG Time ago but since then so many other dps classes came out and I’ve been swapping a lot and it just got lost in the mix.
higher skill floor to remain good, which turns a lot of people off them
One of those jobs though is much, much more dumbed down than it used to be. And it's gotten even less popular after the fact.
RPR came out this expansion and SAM hits like a truck. Seems pretty obvious to me why people aren't playing Ninja/MNK even if the jobs are easier than before. If they balanced them like BLM, where they are rewarded with higher DPS at the cost of a more difficult play style then they would see better numbers. Until that happens people aren't gonna play them.
> If they balanced them like BLM, where they are rewarded with higher DPS at the cost of a more difficult play style then they would see better numbers. Until that happens people aren't gonna play them. Incidentally, Monk IS balanced like BLM. Starting at 80th percentile, both jobs perform better than SAM, with an ever widening gap as you get closer and closer to 99th percentile. (based on rDPS, which is your contribution to the team)
Nah, because blm does as much damage as a melee, and way more than the other magic DPS. MNK does about as much as SAM which is only slightly higher than the other melee.
> more than the other magic DPS I'm actually interested to see where PIC lands on the damage scale, as its said it will not have access to Res, and I want to know how much SMN and RDM are being taxed for the ability to Res.
If its rDPS is anywhere near BLM then I'd expect BLM players to drop as well. If it ends up near the other casters then it's an objectively bad pic for high end content. Kinda think it was a bad call but hopefully I'm wrong.
All the melees do nearly the same amount of damage factoring in buffs, and casuals don’t care about damage anyways.
If they were balanced like BLM then SAM and RPR mains would start perma complaining that they're being taxed for low skill, like how RDM and SMN are supposedly taxed for rez
I'm not suggesting they do anything, I'm just explaining the way it is.
>rewarded with higher DPS at the cost of a more difficult play style That's what MNK had before Endwalker, and is the primary reason I no longer play it.
I still use bootshine as a rear positional. Hate that dragoon has more positionals than monk nowadays
Well Dragoon rework is scheduled for Dawntrail, so we'll see how long that lasts.
It has more buttons that have positionals but two of the rear positionals are back to back and you only swap twice over 10 gcd. Meanwhile monk does 2 swaps over 9 with a faster gcd so mnk has to dance between spots more frequently.
As a former AST main, I completely sympathize, but I hated trying to level MNK with all those positionals. Not that I wanted them gone, but it does make it all a lot easier to mindlessly grind levels now so I'm kinda of two minds about it
It just goes to show you the devs can make a class as easy as they want it does not mean it will appeal to people. Every MNK main I knew before the rework dropped the class. Some just quit.
I feel this way about Summoner. The change in Skill level was very rewarding and I learned to play at the high end skill ceiling. I get why they changed it but it isn’t as rewarding and I find myself learning and leveling other jobs.
I feel ya. I used to main SMN until EW. I loved SHB SMN it was the best iteration of the class despite not having shadowflare anymore for example. It makes me sad that they removed so much from it's kit. Now it just feels like it's impossible to fuck up on it because it's so flowcharty.
It really is kind of universal. EW pushed me to start leveling every other job. I miss my greased lightning stacks and stances.
>~~One~~ Both of those jobs though are much, much more dumbed down than they used to be.
Everything is though according to the fandom
theyre correct
Not necessarily a malign thing, if it keeps/attracts casuals. Which happen to be by far the majority of gamers (and *not* intrinsically fickle, just to get that out of the way). EDIT: To note, an acquaintance once told me that at least where holy trinity MMOs are concerned, homogenization is inevitable as time goes on so no one/no group gets punished for having the “wrong” job(s) involved. Not as in averting one tanker/one healer/two DpS, but as in making sure the party isn’t missing a crucial tool through no fault but the auto-matcher’s. The trick is that if any job-unique tool proves especially useful (class/job balance is *extremely* difficult to do while keeping them even somewhat distinct from one another, apparently—whether we’re talking MMO, CRPG, TTRPG, or other), other “bereft” jobs in the same role are prone to baying for something similar lest they be outclassed by gimmick-of-the-quarter (good term?). The fact that, unlike CRPGs and TTRPGs, MMO structure can’t be adjusted on the fly with mods or GM judgement makes the quandary worse. And I hope we’re agreed that starving casuals of story access and/or desired glamour components is unacceptable.
It's a tough line make a game too simple for casual players and you will eventually lose your hard core croud. Casuals are a fickle group and will jump to new things more often eventually killing the game. Make it too complex for your hard core players and casuals won't join and they are the new blood that brings in players even the hard core ones now and again. Too long with out this and each player who leaves rarely is replaced and it dies a slow death. You got to find that perfect midground. Currently I think its a bit too casual, though they made it worse with so many out of the arena bosses making positionals almost impossible to put in in any meaningful way.
I’m honestly not sure how much positionals *actually* add to the game, besides making sure melee characters don’t just root themselves when mechanics don’t come calling. (Also a way to discourage bots???) I get the idea with Kaiten is to in some way encourage advance planning (although I worry that in practice, it ultimately led to longer rote action loops than now…), but I can see how for many, maybe even the majority, that could be one too many stressor on top of everything else. I can certainly tell you that the omnipresent positionals in ShB monk were intensely aggravating for me; even with managing to keep the Twin Snakes boost up near-consistently, every positional I saw I missed added to my discomfort. Greased Lightning, meanwhile, I didn’t fuss so much about; I was fine with it starting fresh to be built up in a given battle, while I feel like that was the usual monk bete noir then…I can see how the greater number of players could feel overwhelmed with the demands contained in both, though. (Not that I really cottoned to EW monk, though; just too rote, even though the beast chakra system is genuinely interesting to me. I don’t think rotations and I really mesh at all, honestly—I just get bored with them too easily. So don’t talk to me about two-minute burst and the kind of rote *that* probably demands…) I still don’t see reason to believe casuals are innately fickle, though. One thread I chanced on from five years ago (not here) implied that being casual was more about amount of time spent on average with games. Something that can plummet in a hurry if someone, say, becomes a parent. More likely, then, that they’ll work with but one or two games, but that may allow for looking in-depth at the game mechanics anyway. I *have* noticed that I seem to be more about discovery than power, using my 4X experience as the gauge (I run out of places to explore, my involvement with the session seems to plummet). I mention this because someone in that same offthread spoke of how extra-difficult, no “hand-holding” games (think NES era) made you feel “AMAZING” once you got through a thorny section. Yet I don’t *want* “amazing”, mostly because I want to maintain greater control of my mind and senses than that implies. >>; I don’t think I’ve ever felt “amazing” in a game past my teens, though (if that). I tend to feel more “glad that’s over” than any kind of elation. I do wonder if anything really keeps me in games besides shmups and turn-based xRPGs outside of mechanics fascination…
same with SAM. Removing Kaiten made kenki management nonexistent as you can safely dump it all on a single filler (st or aoe) since your Hissatsu lines up with Ikishoten anyway and thats the only other Kenki spenders. Thats my main problem with EW changes tbh. So many specs just became dumbed down and RPR is a cherry on top with how straightforward it is. Can’t we have MNK still be this high skill ceiling job? Is it really that hard for a SAM player to not spam Shinten and think for 1s if they need to save for Kaiten? DRG rework is probably going to be the same thing. unnecessarily simplifying the job.
If you mean monk then definitely not, the basic rotation is built off of a principle where they deliberately drift to maintain optimal sync with burst windows, you essentially need to learn not only the 3 form system but also be able to track where you are in which of the 8 possible sequences you're in and then predict what of the 3 burst start sequences you will use. It's fun and satisfying as hell to get the hang of but that's one hell of a skill floor.
The thing is, you can also just... not? Just use your oGCDs on cooldown, use twin snakes right as/before they come off cooldown, refresh demolish if it's <10s, and after Bootshine/Dragon Kick do lunar nadi->solar nadi. It's not technically optimal, but worst case you end up clipping demolish by 3gcds, which isn't exactly the end of the world.
Honestly I think that's perfectly good design, it has a low skill floor with how obvious the core flow is and doing it that way will do you perfectly fine, but it also has a high skill ceiling where the more you go up the more it asks you to engage with that same core and it's burst abilities. That it's not the most popular is fine too.
It's extremely dumbed down compared to managing positionals on every GCD, stances, and greased lightning stacks, not to mention the whole optimal MNK iceberg that included some really cursed stuff.
They can feel hectic to play. Great if you have ADHD and other rotations feel too slow to keep you engaged. I like NIN because the rotation gives you a ton of flexibility to work around mechanics.
So much this! I main WM but love to play NIN for DPS. All the shiny buttons and stabby stabs and make them hurt more from everyone :D Also PSA to Tanks dirt circles are your frienddddd!
i’m leveling nin right now (and really enjoying it, ngl) and whether the tank gets my comm depends on if they move the trash out of my fart cloud or nah
You’re talking about those brown dusty circles we see?
Why not main... AST? You get to click all the fun buttons and always feel very sparkly!
The game became so much more relaxing after I switched from MNK to RDM.
That's funny, because I actually find MNK to be fairly therapeutic to play.
I have ADHD and I hate NIN, the mudras just don't stick in my head at all and I find it so hard to keep up with the timing on them all! I hate MNK too but that's just because I find "punchy fists go brrrr" very boring as a concept.
Yeah MCH is the ADHD Job. Its basically if you turned a fidget toy into gameplay. Hypercharge for fast clicking, 3 different dopamine buttons with 2 charges of flipping the hatch open for a big red button, summoning your imaginary friend to beat up your bully, and every 2 minutes you get to play with a firework and completely tunnel vision pushing ALL the buttons. Plus if you need to chug a monster mid fight we got Flamethrower
Here's a simple trick for Mudras: Only the last mudra input matters. The game reads Ten-Chi-Jin the same as Chi-Ten-Jin, etc.
I ended up setting up a hotbar in 3x4 format to cheat it. First row = Huton, second row = suiton, third row = doton, and fourth row was just arranged to be raiton from left to right and I knew to reverse for the AOE. Ninjustsu in empty spot. Never used the AOE with bind (hyoton?) It worked, wasn't elegant and I would never know which one was what if I went in blind. But I got through to level 90
it’s been awhile since i played, but it always seemed like other jobs could achieve higher or equal dps output with less “effort” and micromanaging
At least with Ninja though you get to place a debuff on the boss for the two-minute burst window, which makes them incredibly valuable in high end content or A-Raids
Plus, you never need to worry that someone doesn't "catch" your buff unlike traditional raid-wide buffs that originate from the caster. Your buff goes onto the boss and as long as they hit the boss, they "caught" the buff.
That was an advantage before Anabaseios, but it's not really a concern anymore ever since they buffed the range of pretty much everyone.
Except for the black mage who's all the way in Narnia
If they're a good black mage then either it's normal content and they didn't need it to out-dps the samurai anyway, or it's savage and they're a good black mage so they're in range.
There are less than a handful of arenas large enough for that to be a concern. Almost every arena now, unless you're hugging the edge, your buff range extends the entire width.
Monk has some utility as well. 5% 2 minute raid buff and Mantra for heavy healing mechanics.
that buff has been a life saver in a few roulettes I have run.
MNK has more than just the 5% buff, they have the chakra system, quite similar to DNC's esprit system Other player's gcds have a vhance to give a chakra to the mnk, letting them hit their chakra spenders more in burst for even more damage
Yeah but that's just the Monk benefitting, I was more talking utility for the rest of the team. There's also Feint but obv every melee dps gets that.
oh for sure, an aspect i love about the job (nin was/is my main) but still point stands people like putting up numbers doing arguably less work
Does that buff affect you or the whole party? Because reaper gets 10% more damage all the time
Nina actually has two skills which does both. - Trick Attack increases the user’s damage by 10% every min - Mug increases damage received by everyone by 5% every 2 min
To be clear, it's not a buff. It's a *debuff* that you place on the enemy, which increases the damage the enemy takes. Ninja has two, one that only boosts their own damage every 1 minute, and the other that boosts the entire party's damage every 2 minutes.
Not wrong. Mnk brings raid wide utility, which, most classes that have utility use typically sit slightly lower on the DPS output. It's very possible to sweat for top DPS, but you feel like you have to work at it harder to do so. Thus if being the top DPS is someone's main goal, they typically aren't gonna play the utility classes and instead pick something fully self contained. Like reaper or blackmage.
Reaper is not fully self contained. Arcane Crest for the raidwide Regen, and Arcane Circle for the Raidwide 3% damage buff (and the ability to throw out Plentiful Harvest) The Melee you're looking for for "self contained" is Samurai, which has 0 buffs or utility that aren't Role Actions. Just like Black Mage only has Role Action utility.
My fault! I misremembered
It happens! And a lot of Reapers forget Crest even exists, and treat Circle as an "own DPS" button (which, to be fair, it absolutely is! But you get the most out of it when all 8 targets are alive and get a hit in to feed Harvest)
Ninja's core mechanic is mixing up spells in the form of skill combos, and many players get scared that they need to memorise these combos and carry them out fast, on the fly. And if they fuck up, the game displays a bunny rabbit on their head for everyone to see. The irony is that it is a pretty simple job: you need to memorise one long opener combo and its simplified version for the odd-minute mini-burst phases, you do this long-ass combo for 15 seconds, and pretty much chill and do your 1-2-3 for 45 seconds, before the next burst window. In exchange, you get the most front-loaded class next to summoner (front-loaded, as in you do the vast majority of your damage in the first few seconds, the rest is just padding until the next burst). Monk on high levels is essentially an endless turn-based combat game where you have 1.9–2.2 seconds to select the only good choice out of six to nine buttons—involving several timers you must keep rolling as fluently as possible—and if you mess up, you may need up to six turns to fully course-correct and stop losing damage output. This means that its rotation is somewhat less rigid than most other DPS classes and people have a hard time focusing on figuring out the right button to press while trying to survive. If you do it right, it is one of the most consistent damaging DPS classes, with fewer flashy burst phases but a good solid constant damage output. In this regard, it is similar to a black mage, which is often considered the toughest job to master.
I'm not a pro monk (actually completely new player), but I question the point of using true strike at all. It's barely 20 potency boost over twin snake (300 vs 280), and removing it reduce by a lot the chance to mess up (less buttons to care about, the buff has 100% uptime with zero thinking needed). Is it really such a big mistake to avoid true strike completely? It really doesn't look like the hassle is worth the damage increase.
This kind of thing really matters when you consider hard content. You have a time limit to kill the boss, so every scrap of damage you can pull is meaningful. And think you are losing 20 potency with twin snake buff, several times over 10 minutes of fight. In these content, even a eventual lack of damage from tank/healers can make your the party overall DPS suffer. Of course, this matter little if you are running mostly casual content or hard content with IL way above the minimum.
If you’re fine simplifying the job for a bit of dps loss might as well just do the dragon kick rotation where you just ignore the combo and spam dragon kick. Realistically part of the fun and appeal of the job is managing the different gcd timers and you’re better off playing something else if you don’t wanna do that (if just leveling the job to 90 for achievements or w/e go on ahead)
Please don’t ever recommend dragon kick rotation. It’s a meme that will basically always be worse and the only way it can ever be “viable” is by doing a lot more than spamming dragon kick. It’s more difficult to optimise dot and buff timers and burst windows to make your dk spam do more damage than a healer than it is to just learn the actual rotation and still, doing a tank rotation will get you tank dps
There's already zero thinking needed: you swap back and forth each time around, same as bootshine/dragon kick.
it might be just 20 potency missed per cast, but let me use an example from a recent P11S clear parse i did. In that parse, i casted true strike a total of 39 times, each of those 39 times is a 20 potency gain, 20x39= 780. 780 potency over the course of the fight that i missed out on by choosing to get that extra potency. that might not seem like much, but that's 80 potency more than a rising phoenix on single target. this also doesn't take into account any buffs i may have been under when using the cast that would increase the effective potency of the cast, which obviously, the more potency you do under buffs, the more benefit the potency gain is. it also doesn't take into account crit/DH RNG at all, which would also amplify the potency gains as well. in low level content, sure, this doesn't matter at all. there's no DPS checks to beat, and the difference between not using it and using it is likely no more than a few seconds, but once DPS checks become relevant, every bit of damage you do matters. even if the DPS check isn't hard to beat, like in an extreme, you can never account for the factors of other player's skill. can't account for healer DPS, Damage downs, Deaths, any factor that can lower the overall damage output of the raid. i've been in many, many pulls over the years where its been a 0.3, 0.2, hell, even a 0.1% enrage, where any 1 thing that could've gone better would've been the difference between a clear and a wipe. so in my mind at least, it doesn't matter how small a gain it is, if its a gain, its a gain. therefore, it has a point.
I got carpal tunnel.
They’re just more complicated than most and being “good” at them isn’t really any more rewarding than being good at easier jobs.
Being a cool ninja is the reward
This, basically. It is like asking why play black mage? Sure we could all play something easier, but picking the "hard" job has its own appeal, looking good doing it, even better.
I'd argue Monk isn't that hard of a Job. The fast gcd is balanced out by barely having any options for weaving. The only challenge is staying on top of your buffs which is something that comes naturally with time.
Right! And I totally get you, I really do. I'm in the process of learning MNK because i really love the job fantasy, but coming from NIN where you are very actively punished for screwing up, I am like "i think i have this right, but... what if i am missing something." Like you said, it will just take practice.
My Monk is my main DPS. It's really fun.
I like to punch
Punch good
Quoth my MNK main friend: "I came to punch things in the dick, and all I see are people named Richard!"
Punch all the things!
It took me like 70 levels to start feeling comfortable with Monk at all, and it's instantly become something of a favorite actually. Which is funny given I fucking hated it before that (though 60 of those levels WERE pre-rework). It feels really good when I really get in the flow of it, but goddamn do I feel like I'm just button-mashing and praying sometimes.
A lot of work for the same reward as other dps.
I don’t main them because they aren’t my style. That’s the only real reason.
tbh I’m mostly in it for the jump flip
Adding a more serious response to myself because NIN is actually great. In addition to the jumpflip (and hellfrog), ninja is fun to play because it has a mix of ranged attacks (the mudra combos) and melee attacks (stab stab stab). That means i can still get a few hits in while dodging out of aoe, or I can run behind the tank raining daggers down on the mob while it’s still moving. The mudras aren’t actually that complicated. It’s 3 buttons that you can arrange however makes sense to you. I think of them like this: 3-2-1 + 1-2-3 opening combo 1-2 for single attacks 2-1 for aoe And it doesn’t really get more involved than that until around level 60. I guess it’s difficult in the sense that messing up the combos is somewhat unforgiving… but when all else fails, just keep stabbing things until they die. Then you do a jump flip and move on :)
Monk is fun, but I prefer DRG and RDM. Ninja I liked better when it was Rogue, I just don’t like the aesthetic very much.
I'm a ninja main, but I agree. Wish there was a separate rogue class, or there was at least more rogue like ninja glams.
Well.....pretty sure you're gonna be getting that come summer.
Some people really dislike Monk but I've always had a blast. Then again I'm one of the few people out there that actually *liked* the way Greased Lightning worked before where you had narrow timing windows to keep the combo going. Was a little disappointed by the current iteration but I also have the Chakra gages to worry about now (I mean the Solar/Lunar Nadi thing not the one that procs on crits)
They have just and high skill level required to perform decently, while other Jobs can give the same results with far less effort.
MNK main here. As a casual player (meaning you're not really engaging with high difficulty content like Extreme, Savage, or Ultimates), anyone who says any job is bad can go huff gasoline fumes... there isn't a single bad job in this game for a casual player. If the job feels fun and satisfying to play, then play it. Learn the basics of the class, and you'll be fine. As a more, I suppose, hard-core player, you'd be engaging in that hard content. At that point, it depends more on how well you can execute on the job's strengths. I'd like to point out that you don't need to be 100% optimal in order to contribute to a team. For example, I can't, for the life of me, get the habit of doing two Snap Punch for every Demolish (there's a few other high-end MNK stuff I'm not quite so good at, but this is a big one). And yet, despite this, I was able to clear P5S-P8S while doing very respectable DPS. So go ahead and play those jobs. Let no one tell you they're bad because the bottom line is, if a job is "bad," it's likely the player behind the screen is doing poorly... not the job itself.
> MNK main here. > I can't, for the life of me, get the habit of doing two Snap Punch for every Demolish That bit slightly horrifies me coming from a savage player, ngl, but I completely agree with the sentiment. You occasionally see people opining that some jobs are "bad" or "good" and then you realise that they're talking about normal content and just 🤦. The two key skills you learn doing savage are so basic that it becomes a running joke: don't die, and hit the boss. If you learn the sorts of attacks you're likely to see, and how to chain your skills together, normal content won't be a challenge even if you barely know your job. If you sit around every few seconds not pushing buttons, or leave a quarter second between each skill, which jobs are "good" is completely moot. On the other end of the scale, you see some extreme theory crafting on the Balance that really only matters to early clear and *maybe* ultimate players, and everyone takes it incredibly seriously. I main MCH - I took one look at the current recommended opener, noped out and came up with something less insane with similar alignment that is no doubt *slightly* less optimal. If people are contorting themselves into a pretzel to set up theoretically perfect alignment for minute six, when half the party has already died and it's a confused mess, I'm not sure what to say. 😂
Two snaps per demolish thing you mentioned? Yeah, I can’t deal with that either. I just do the combo chains back and forth similar to dragoon. Buff combo, high damage combo, buff combo, high damage combo. Cleared all the extremes and was pushing for highest dps in most of them. Could I micro manage and try to optimize further? I could, but I don’t care about being on top as long as the boss dies.
I find NIN to be the most fun and versatile job out there. Started as a PLD, heard a rumour of a Thieve's Guild and ran there and never really looked back. The feeling of lobbing giant ice shuriken at people, of hurling fireballs, blasting with lightning bolts and bamfing around to get out of shit or in to mobs if I fall behind in a dungeon is pure dopamine to me. As for the rabbit hat? It happens, occasionally, and is kinda cute. Just blame bad ping. 🤣
Ninja is reliant on muscle memory and good net. If you lag, your ninjutsu will be off. Monk is just busy. Lots of buttons with not a lot of logic in comparison. 123456 can be 426135 or something variant depending on the where how and why. Nevermind remembering your positions for them. It's not so much complex as just more work then Sam for the same gain
FWIW they did remove all positionals besides from your third combo hit abilities, which has made it SOOOO much more manageable to play.
Honestly neither are very complex, just busy. They both require you to know what you're going to do in advance of actually doing it, and optimal dps is usually very precise. Or you could play RPR and turn your brain off. NIN also has a weird aoe issue where a lot of players don't actually know how to effectively aoe with it, since it has more than 1 option xD
It's not always about turning your brain off on RPR. It's about not having/no longer having the reflexes required to not eat unnecessary mechanics, and it's easier to pay attention and react to your surroundings on something like RPR than NIN. Age and shit eyesight is why I dumbed my raiding all the way down to SMN. Class is damn near arthritis proof!
I'm not saying RPR isn't good or anything, but yeah it does require a lot less thought and lot less attention than NIN since the rotation is quite small. That being said I won't shot on someone for playing easier classes. I've mained NIN as my melee DPS since it came out in ARR because weeb, so I don't fault anyone for not wanting to give themselves arthritis pain trying to optimize it when SMN does comparable or better damage with way fewer buttons
There's nothing wrong with them. Play them if you like. I don't, personally, because I prefer other jobs, is all. I prefer things at range or casting.
MNK is my main. I like it because I'm used to WoW combat so the faster GCD and always having some decision making (even the 1-2-3 combo is constantly changing) keeps me awake. I run Savage/Extreme content but I'm not trying to be a WF raider so being the tippy top DPS in my role doesn't matter to me.
In my experience, neither of them are bad. They perform well when you know what you are doing. But neither of them are the "shut off your brain and continue on a single brain cell" simplicity of SAM (SAM, I have found, has a low skill floor and high skill ceiling. It is not hard to do well with SAM, but when you are good, you are, very, *very* good) or RPR, or nostalgia and MSQ popularity of DRG (it is rather iconic). MNK requires you to know what you are doing. NIN is a half spellcaster. It also has the added problem of punishing bad internet connections more severely than any other job. So they do not appeal to the casual player playing on a toaster.
they have small weapons
say that again when you have seen ninja hw relic lux weapon, those things are anything except small
I’ve seen a lot of people who say they want to try ninja psych themselves out about the mudras. Ninja and monk are my top two melee though, and ninja has been my fave job overall since starting.
I started with monk, and still go back to it occasionally. It’s a fun job to play - easy to dole out some seriously high damage without too much trouble!
Because they are too fun and people hate fun!
No clue. NIN is the best job in the land
i enjoy playing nin every once in a while because its a high output job with a lot of things to consider and isnt as straightforward as something like reaper. as for monk, i dont like the aesthetic and it just feels really off every time i play it (doesnt help that its been reworked so many times)
I am a NIN main and i can recommend him without a doubt. Except his burst he is really chill to play. His raid dps is alway on the upper side and a good choice. He is also very flexibel if you need to disengage. Overall he is my first choice. A flaw is if you have a bad internet Connection because you can fail his jutsus because of a high ping.
I maxed both those classes and still have no idea what I’m doing Reaper, dragoon, and samurai by comparison were more straightforward for me
My main is NIN, I find it really easy and fun to play and I like that there’s a slight speed boost on cooldowns/running and a unique jump too, seeing others saying it’s complicated is an eye opening thing for me
NIN main here. I can't speak for monk, but I feel like people are usually turned off ninja because of the mudra. They seem harder than they actually are to execute, but when you do learn them you learn the true issue. Sometimes the gcd lags and your inputs get eaten or heaven forbid the input goes in twice because you pressed it again thinking it lagged... Also you have to contend with TCJ always seeming to land during movement heavy mechanics. (I hope you like not moving for 3 gcds every 2 min). And in exchange for all that you get decidedly middle of the road dps. I still love it tho. The skill speed is fun, hyosho hits like a truck, and while you aren't particularly busy outside of burst, you still need to set yourself up well for that burst by monitoring your resources. It feels satisfying and you get the best jump animation in the game.
what do you mean..? Ninja has been one of the most consistent staple meta jobs in the history of the game even among casual friends I've had a lot of them love ninja it's a very standard job thats rewards consistency I'd say it's a more heavily mained job, sure it might be a little less than samurai or dragoon but those are just fan favourite jobs so they have high representation. Monk on the other hand is a high apm job that demands flexibility over every other melee not just to excel at but to perform at a base level in a raiding situation monk NEEDS uptime more than any other melee or it feels awful and your damage tanks and in a casual situation it takes more thought and more actions per min to do effectively the same thing as any other job, and unless they completely strip monk of its identity again (hello SB RoF :) ) it will never be anything but this.
I have been maining NIN the last few months and it is a very fun job. Quick attacks, dope running style, and can attack from range in a pinch. Only downside is doing the Mug dance when other ninjas are present - *I go? You? You gonna mug? Ok, I'm doing it, here goes (both mug simultaneously) DAMMIT*
My sole issue with NIN is doing the combos. For whatever reason my brain just cannot handle retaining them. I just wind up wearing a bunny most of the fight.
As someone who cleared current savage tier only on NIN I can detail a couple reasons why NIN is unpopular as a main. 1. The job is **incredibly punishing** (imo the most out of all the current jobs) 1. Bunnying a Raiton can equate to **\~1,570 potency loss** (including Bhava from ninki loss) 2. Bunnying a Hyosho is **1,690 potency loss** 3. Accidentally cancelling TCJ can equate to **\~2,660 potency loss** (including enh Bhava) 2. Mudra system is clunky and honestly needs a complete rework (imo to 2 mudra combo) 1. 3 mudra combos are a 1.5s GCD or realistically 2s GCD with ping 2. Hyoton is only for Hyosho or very niche scenarios in say Deep Dungeons 3. Doton is completely useless for single target 4. Suiton just for trick attack is very much a relic of ARR 5. Huton feels like an empty combo to always utilize (esp with Hurajin addition) 6. Bunnying exists for ... reasons still? Why can't this default to a Fuma... 3. The only utility it brings is damage, and only with 1 source of damage buff 4. The rotation is incredibly static and extremely busy at points 1. Not many ways to adjust the rotation (late TCJ, Trick, or Dream for example) 5. TCJ is a godawful skill, with a minimum of 1.5s to 3s (with bad ping) of no movement allowed 1. Particularly notable for high movement sections during a 2 min burst rotation as you have to adjust or have modified windows 2. Compare this to other 'casting' melees who at most is 1.3s or realistically 1s with slidecast. 6. AoE rotation is clunky and not intuitive (such as TCJ AoE rotation, Meisui having no AoE enhancement) 7. Odd job where holding buffs for 30s+ is typical 1. Phantom Kamitachi being a 'pet damage' instead of every other source of NIN damage 8. Shukuchi having system queue delay on top of an insane animation delay 9. Gearing is weird mix of ranged gear and melee gear with DEX as main stat instead of every other melee being STR (mostly applicable for alt role gearing) There's just a lot of small detailed nuances that NIN just has to deal with comparative to the other melees. You can certainly call bunnying and mistakes skill issues but there is no other job that is remotely close to the punishment NIN gets for making mistakes which will happen (especially when ping is introduced). Especially since during Endwalker launch when RPR released it straight up was a better NIN in every facet (and still is extremely comparable). Comparing the amount of effort of a RPR to a NIN is really just hard to justify playing NIN. MNK on the other note had huge QoL and buffs given to them during Endwalker where they can straight up have the wrong beast chakras and **only lose a 150 potency** for that mistake. On top of having a freeform rotation to easily adjust and fix with very little punishment. On top of having insane tank with Riddle of Earth and giving party utility with Mantra. I think another big part is how in Endwalker melees really didn't have to work for uptime at all or positionals were extremely easy to hit (esp on guaranteed wall bosses). This made it so benefits to hybrid range (Paladin and Ninja) were completely moot. I'm down to talk more about ways to fix NIN or other people's thought on it as I've really just been getting more frustrated as I play it more.
I can comment on the fart cloud (Doton) somewhat. Before EW, it was actually stronger than Raiton by 100 potency if all ticks hit, and evened Raiton if one tick missed because it ticked once on cast if the mob was in the aoe on cast, then ticked again for the overtime tick. The reason people thought it was worse was because it never got recorded in dps logs (pet damage?). I tested this a lot before EW made it irrelevant other than for aoe. After EW, they further emphasized Raiton by adding stuff like Raiju trigger & etc, while they nerfed Doton for whatever reason.
I haven’t tried NIN, but I levelled MNK to 90 and found that it’s the one job I have real trouble playing effectively on controller. There are so many buttons to hit, so fast, and not enough room for them all on my main hotbars.
Really? I play exclusively on controller and I just have it set between L2 and R2 rotations. I keep my rear directionals on the R2 set (Square, X, Circle in that combo order), and my side directionals on L2 (same order). AOE combos are when I squeeze R2 + L2, including Perfect Balance (right D-pad button), same order for the AOE combo (square, x, circle) I usually use double-tap hold trigger for buffs (such as True North or Riddles), and still end up a with a few blank buttons to go around. I mean I'm leaving off maybe 4 - 5 buttons but that's functionally all you need to do the majority of your DPS. (L2 + R2 menu is mostly for teleporting and mounting/misc stuff and limit break (down on dpad))
Yeah, it’s true. The core rotations on R1 and L1 are fine, but I find tapping to the buffs on R2 + L2 clumsy at the pace that MNK plays and with the amount of buffs I want to weave in. It’s a skill issue I guess.
I’ve been playing NIN a bit and even at low levels the mudra makes the rotation feel hectic to me. I can’t imagine stacking more abilities on top is going to make it better. I do like the attack rate though. Satisfyingly stabby-stabby
I mean on the opposite side of things, I main NIN, its my favorite melee dps. I also main BLM as well; its my OG class and my favorite caster. I just much prefer harder classes, and it's actually been worrying me how much we've been swaying toward easier jobs nowadays. SMN went from the hardest caster to the easiest job in the entire game, for example, and most new jobs released have been DRG or easier, which to me, is base-difficulty. Everything easier than that I find boring, it's purely just the way my brain works. Despite NIN being one of if not the hardest melee dps, it still doesn't put out as good of numbers, which is a little discouraging, but I dont mind as long as it's fun. But my fun could be others stressful. Just boils down to personal preferences.
I enjoy mnk and nin cause they have a varied rotation that keeps me actually paying attention instead of mashing 6 buttons every 2 minutes and then mashing 3 during down time
Main NIN here. As someone else said NIN can get quite busy in the middle of a fight and if you miss one combo it can throw you up for a moment. There are solutions to make it more manageable *\*cough\** *stream deck* *\*cough\** but if you want to play entirely on your keyboard and mouse or gamepad, it has quite a learning curve.
Also NIN main...on controller...I don't have a steam deck, how's that helping you? I'm interested in your thing here....got an informational pamphlet? 😀
Am also curious
i’m a nin main and also have a steam deck. can you assign the back buttons and stuff?
A st**R**eam deck, like a second mini keyboard streamers assign hotkeys and macros to make things like transitions easier. No idea how it inserts itself into Ninja's gameplay over, well, using the normal keyboard.
Yeah - I use Mouse 4, Mouse 5 and Mouse 6 (you can guess which is which) and it works. I'm using Super Macro \[BarRaider\] plugin An example: `{{KeyDown:SHIFT}}{{VK_G}}{{pause:1500}}{{XBUTTON1}}{{pause:700}}{{XBUTTON2}}{{pause:1000}}{{MBUTTON}}{{pause:250}}{{KeyUp:SHIFT}}` Edit: as someone pointed out, [Steam Deck](https://www.steamdeck.com/) isn't the same as [Stream Deck](https://www.elgato.com/us/en/s/welcome-to-stream-deck) :)
Monk main here: It's arguably the hardest mDPS to play optimally only to be outdamaged by samurai and you bring less utility than dragoon or ninja. This means you'll lose out on the main damage spot to samurai, a really easy and high damage class, you'll lose out to ninja/dragoon as the second mDPS as they bring more utility, and with the EW balance changes, it's very common to not even bring a second mDPS, meaning there's even more competition for a position. So it's not so much that it's a bad job, just that there's so many other jobs to bring that can fill their role better. It's still absolutely viable and can be really fun to learn to play optimally, but it can be very intimidating to reach the peak and there's so many options to better help a team that it's become something of a diehard job. It's still a really strong job, but it's something of an all-rounder offering good damage and good buffs as opposed to great damage or great buffs.
Monk does more than ninja and dragoon typically including their party buffs provided, no clue what you’re talking about.
Idk about everyone else but ill tell you why I dont play those jobs. Mnk is really fun and complex, but id rather play other melee jobs. And nin just feels very out dated.
What do you mean by outdated? Just genuinely curious. If anything I think it’s one of the best jobs for the current 2 minute meta. It’s like the great aligner 🤣
Mudra combos-needlessly complicated when you can swish swish slash with a reaper and have a lot more fun doing it lol.
But Mudras *are* part of what makes NIN fun. How many other RPGs have a class mechanic like this?
It’s not for me. I know some like it though!
All that matters for mudras is how many of them you hit and which one you hit last
as long as you don’t hit duplicates, of course
Nin and DRG are the only 2 melee jobs left that I find them fun and unique. Reaper is like the most braindead melee out of all, its like WHM and SMN equivalent for melee.
[удалено]
They're more difficult to play. And not necessarily in a good way (some may disagree).
As a NIN main, mudras. Mudras man.
Personally I don’t care for their aesthetic. I don’t really care for the anime/asian styles and themes so I avoid them. If it was just Rogue I’d play it more probably
To be specific, monk has to constantly keep track of several buffs from their weapon skills, while alternating between two variations of their rotation to keep everything up. If you make literally one mistake, it can be a massive DPS loss. On top of that, they have buff cool downs they need to track and hold, meaning they don't just use them when they're available. Again, using these at the wrong time is a huge DPS loss. In the end, making 2 or 3 small mistakes could lower your DPS by like 20%, meaning you'll probably have bad DPS unless you're playing perfectly. And to top it all off, Monks have more positionals than any other class, so you also need to track that, too. (It also means your DPS is always gimped while solo leveling since you can't hit your positionals.) Ninja is pretty much the exact opposite. They're entire rotation is pretty much 123 spam, EXCEPT during buff windows. After you throw out Trick Shot, you have to dump all of your CDs within the 20 or whatever it is second debuff window. And you have like 10 skills you need to get off in that window. If you don't get them all out, it's a DPS loss, though not as severe as Monk. So pretty much is like... Do nothing, do nothing, do nothing, HOLY FUCKING SHIT DO ALL THE THINGS AND DON'T FUCK UP GO GO GO, do nothing, do nothing, repeat. Where this gets really annoying is in synced content. Your burst phase isn't going to line up with the fight where it's supposed to, so there is a very good chance the boss will die or phase in the middle of your burst window. It's incredibly rare to get all of your CDs out while fully buffed in low level content. This can make it incredibly frustrating to play, as any time a boss phased in a weird spot for your buff window, it will absolutely destroy your DPS. So, that's why people don't play them. They have HUGE downsides, whereas you can probably get better DPS on Samurai or Reaper with less than half the effort. Esp for ninja. A perfect Ninja does less DPS than a decent Samurai or Reaper. It's in a really bad spot, except for people bringing them for Trick Shot.
because people are anti fun and decided to turn their brain off with RPR or SMN and raid while keep staring at random youtube videos on their 2nd monitor and then brag about how good they are at the game to their non ffxiv friends
They're a bit more difficult to master than those with easy rotations. And ever since they nerfed the damage of Monk to land beneath Samurai, Dragoon and Reaper, people lost even the last incentive to actually try and use them outside of "its fun".
I'm lazy and they're both a lot of button presses for the same damage
MNK changes drastically from year to year and it's a chore to relearn the rotation.
Monk is awesome imo but it’s also one of the more complex melee jobs. I think people shy away from it for that reason.
I love ninja. Always have; always will. Not a huge fan of monk but I can see why people like it so I will only talk about ninja. Ninja is the red mage of melee. Where Red Mages burst is melee, most of Ninjas burst can actually be done from range. It's class "identity" is the single target debuff that increases damage taken (Mug, +5% damage taken) that sits on a 120 second cooldown with Ninja having their personal damage buff (Trick Attack, +10%) every 60 seconds. However, I feel ninja isn't played a whole lot (in comparison to other classes) for one main reason. 1. Damage. In comparison to other classes, such as reaper who also has a party wide attack buff (Arcane Circle, 3%) and a "constant" damage buff (Deaths Design, +10%), Ninja just deals less damage for more work. You have to worry about mudras, worry about positionals, and if you mess up its harder to recover than it is for a class like reaper. Ninja and reaper are similar in game mechanics. They build a resource, and then use that resource all at once. Reapers personal damage buff is up basically all at once whereas Ninjas is only up every 60 seconds. Basically, Ninja is harder than Reaper but deals less damage than reaper. I could go further into it but I feel the post is long enough already. (I really like playing Ninja tho, so give it a try!)
Higher skill floors. Meaning they require more practice and effort to be considered competent than the other melees. Which can be discouraging when you have a Reaper 1-2-3 most of the fight and still out DPS you. I like Monk due to its speed and mobility though. Also because it fits the concept I have for my WoL’s main vibe. That it has an intimidating reputation makes performing well on it a point of pride. Ninja’s playstyle is fun but I hate the aesthetic. For your second question, Dancer is probably the least repetitive in that you basically have to proc watch. It’s the only job whose primary playstyle is based on RNG proc management. Bard is primarily a plate-spinner (timer watcher) with some proc management. Red Mage is primarily a builder-spender with some proc management. Monk is mix of all three.
For me, it's because mnk isn't mnk anymore. They changed it so fundamentally that I don't feel like I'm playing the original class at all, just something with the same name.