[Senna]

Back like we never left-

Monk class has been falling off, like a lot lately. While I understand Koonie has made a thread on a Monk rework, I'd suggest something else a bit smaller. Nothing too major to help Monk and Martial Arts keep up with the others.

Now the problem with Monk is this. The FP cost, the skill options, and how much damage it does compare to stuff like Boxer and Verglass. Monk's specialty is to use Ki awoken and gather FP. It's good but other classes can do that exact thing, but better. The status Ki Awoken gives, while large, is heavily affected by Diminish returns. This means it gives you a very small bonus but you're using a lot of HP for it. This is part of the reason not many people use this outside of gimmick builds.

Skills, Monk has the same problem boxer had. They have too many high SP costing skills and too taxing FP wise for the damage that doesn't add up. While the other two classes have ways to set up their own combo, Monk on the other hand doesn't.

If anything, Monk is outdated.

Martial Arts is somewhat in the same boat however that class probably only starts from the lack of SP to spend after getting the important techniques within the class.

A rework/Adjustment is greatly needed.

Here's my suggestion: A light adjustment, without the need for a complete rework.

A good way to look at it? I'll display a simple page I use for Monk, display the damage/combo difference between it and something like Verglass. The screenshot talks for itself.






(I can get screenshots for the scaling as well if you want)

Verglass standard scaling being 140% (Higher otherwise)
Monk standard scaling being 120% (Highest being 140% but burns out all the users Ki and the other being Setting Sun at 100% but increase on size. Strong but easy to avoid via walking out of range.)
Boxer standard scaling being between 120%-140% but, it increases base on Sturm.



If we're talking about Ki awoken, It depends on what your building, it can be okay or completely useless for you. If you're already high enough in the diminish effect, you'll find yourself not getting enough out of Ki awoken whatsoever to make up for the HP lost. While the bonus stats are quite helpful, but only if you plan on using this technique as a core part of the build.

Otherwise, your bonus will seem like this:












Bonus with simple as simple as a Cherry tree or any Knighting bonus:

Before:



After


Remember, Ki awoken is a skill that hurts the user each turn and the self inflict increase greatly per a turn yet the bonus is similar to something that doesn't hurt or offer large draw back.


Let's not even get into the bonus Boxer and Verglas classes offer once we get into their core. It puts monk on the back-burner. Just a class people will use for either two attacks or just Power up/Golden aura. Nothing else.

It's safe to say, MONK is underwhelming outside of FP recovery.


Monk Firstly

Dense Thunder - From 5 max to 3 max. Slightly lowered FP cost. (Optional: From 120% Scaling to 140% Scaling)
Sky Chariot - From 5 max to 3 max. Increase the Ki cost on the Knockdown effect. Slightly lowered FP cost.
Dragon Gale - From 5 max to 3 max. Allow it to gain an elemental impact. Wind: Air shaft, Lightning: Light Shaft, Earth: Rocks,  Ice: Ice tiles, Fire: Fire tiles. Slightly lowered FP cost. (Optional: From 120% Scaling to 130% Scaling) 
Terra Strike - From 5 max to 3 max.
Setting Sun - If Ki awoken/Golden Aura is active (One out of the two can gain this effect), after two rounds after the Sun is set on the battlefield, the user is able to Drop the Sun at 1 momentum after using a Monk ability. (Setup Something like, Movement, Dense Thunder into Sun drop which would be 7 momentum)
Body of Isesip - From 5 max to 1 max. (Noone puts any more than 1 point into it)
Backflip - From 3 max to 2 max. 5 FP cost and 0 FP cost.
Aid - From 5 max to 3 max. At max rank, I'd suggest the Healing Mult be increased to 250% with extra mods since it's scaled off will. Ain't none gonna have that much will to make it worth abusing. As well as it already has a CD.
Power Up - From 5 max to 3 max.
Ki Awoken - Due to how underwhelming it is, I had three suggestions in mind. Choose one out of the three-. One was to lower the HP drain and let it cap out at a certain % of HP. The second was to let half of the stats affect base instead. And the final was to let it increase damage output by Ki amount in percentage.
Suppress Ki - From 1 max to 2 max. Two points; the last being similar to DH's passive, letting the user equip without taking up a slot at 2 SP.
Golden Glow - From 5 max to 3 (Or 1) max.

What about the Martial arts part? Well, they also fell under the SP situation. While this shouldn't matter too much, their technique also directly affects monk's offensive capability as well. You'll find yourself with just enough points for one or maybe two offensive skills. Three if you choose to not get cleanse or just have the skill for utility. This is a lot worse if you choose to use empty palm and the other passive.

Example here:



Now for Arts:

Heaven Kick: From 5 max to 3 max.
Peddling Wheel: From 5 max to 3 max.
Light Tomahawk: Scaling increase from 100% to 110% or 120% (It isn't exactly worth having over Heaven kick outside of the guard break. It doesn't help the fact it 1 tile range, or can only reach up to 3-4 tiles with Shukuchi (So 1 extra momentum) with subpar damage)
Kit up: From 3 max to 1 max.

Perhaps this would be enough so Monk is worth more than just a support class or stop people from simply using stuff like Demon Hunter class as an excuse for martial arts since Monk and martial class is subpar.

[RedtailPinny]

Well, from my impressions on the Monk class, all I see people really use it for are Kadouha and Power Up and sometimes Terra Strike (if tank). Maybe Ki Awoken if they can make good use of it (like a ghost/monk). Every other skill is extremely niche.

For example, a monk/demon hunter only uses Monk for Kadouha and Power Up. Everything else about the character relies on soldier and demon hunter skills. Oh, and maybe Meditate from martial artist.

[iStabOreos]

Here's another suggestion that's been on the back burner in my mind for quite some time.

I like all of these suggestions, but gonna focus on one, Ki Awoken.

Because it should sound and feel like a last resort kind of deal but it ain't, so my suggestion here would be to keep the ones that Senna suggested to begin with, but spice it up.

All of these will be my own personal suggestion how I think Ki Awoken could change up a certain skill:

Dense Thunder: With Ki Awoken activated it has a further knockback, or it has the Domino effect but without the KD.

Kadouha: It's already based on Street Fighter make it a bigger explosion, ala Shin Hadouken.

Dragon Gale: Gets a star pattern like Sanguine Star to max tiles.

Terra Strike: It gets it's stupidly long-range back, or the dragon stuns for one turn for the increased ki.

Setting Sun: I don't really have much on this one actually. 

Sky Chariot: Same with this.

Bottom line is I agree with these changes that Senna brought forth.

[Fern]

Kip Up is pretty good, so I'd be fine with it staying at 3 Ranks tops instead of being a single point investment. The recovery penalty on knockdown being ignored is a very, very good thing, which is why I don't think Kip Up should be buffed. It's fine where it is IMO.

I'm of the opinion that the idea of Ki Awoken affecting most Monk offensives is an exciting one to play with. I do agree in that Kaioke-- Ki Awoken doesn't feel rewarding for the impression it gives off. Which is "last resort, time to give in my everything at the cost of my body" to my understanding. The rewards you normally do get from it are very small in comparison to its drawbacks.

People often use Monk for utility rather than its offensives. Adjusting it for the better wouldn't only make the class more fun to play, but facilitate more character concepts by making them more viable.

[Sawrock]

Ki Awoken could cost 0M, but be unable to be turned off until the fight ends.

[Senna]

Ki awoken getting some bonus sounds pretty nice, sure.

I'm not with it being unable to turn off though since it's supposed to be like Kaioken.

I'll add to Airide's Ki awoken bonus post.

ALL MENTIONED BELOW ARE WITH KI AWOKEN ACTIVE.

Dragon Gale: How about they ride the dragon? And hop off once they arrived at the targetted location. (1 tile from the location but leave the user airborne) Though who got hit while the Dragon travels to the location with the user is pushed aside, if they were airborne, it knocks them down.

Terra Strike: I'm okay with it getting a much longer range or, why not have it inflict Magnetize with a slight (half the travel tile) pull effect. A nice way to set up Setting Sun combos.

Setting Sun: With Ki awoken, it ignores evasion, armor as well as Cobra.

Sky Chariot: Gains a dash startup (Increase the range in a line, 5 tiles long. Movement skill). It affects the first mob it collides into. (Similar to Chaser, just with Sky Chariot effects when it collides)

Backflip: Launch the user airborne at the end of the flip.

Aid: Increase healing by Ki%. It becomes Ki% plus missing health percentage if the users it on themselves.

What wasn't mention, I pretty much agree with completely in Airide's post.

Allowing the class to synergize with itself better around Ki Awoken, similar to Verglas with Ice point guard and Boxer with their Sturm charging. Granting the class an identify outside of providing FP with one/two off abilities.

A nice little way to help set up combos and link into each other. And make Mono Monk worth using.

[sadbot]

I can agree that monk is a little underwhelming in some regards, but I certainly don't think it can't be strong. I think some part of how it seems that not an awful lot past power up, kaduha and other staples see use is that it's a very common sub class rather than main.

One thing I agree on 100% though is the ki awoken stuff, as well as some of the suggested changes from op and comments. As it stands right now, ki awoken is comically bad, utterly unusable even with gimmick builds that are built for it. This really sucks when it's one of the monk's signature skills and is thematic and flavorful as hell. To put it in perspective without getting down into the nitty gritty with damage numbers and diminishing returns, in order for you to just break even on value when using it, you need to do additional damage and/or get additional value out of the extra ki, etc equal to the 3m you spent plus the % of hp you're losing every turn. Even for gimmick builds that choose their stats to deliberately avoid diminishing returns on the stat boosts, it's very difficult to just break even on value using it for 1 turn and then turning it off before the 10% loss. Anything past that, anyone and everyone is just worse off for using it. And we're talking just ending up no better or worse off for using it here. Actually gaining anything by using it, as far as I can tell anyway, is 100% impossible in its current state.

I think increasing damage amount by ki % while active is the only suggestion I've seen that could make up for the heavy hp cost when you also consider that you kinda need to make up for the 3m you spend on activating it. The suggestions of adding extra effects to other monk skills probably comes close. The only other suggestion I could add is to keep the hp loss effect, and possibly even the same numbers behind it, but just substitute it for fp instead. It still limits how long you can keep it active and doesn't allow for any mega fp pool shenanigans if it remains a percentage, while also making it accessible for those without a lot of fp. Making some portion of the boost ignore diminishing returns is also a really good idea, as that majorly limits its usefulness for most if not all people even ignoring the inability to get any value out of it as is.

[Snake]

Those bonus interactions should all be default in my opinion. I think I posted somewhere that Monk's Dragon skills could be enhanced in melee range like they were before the rework.

- Dragon Gale inflicting a knockback then a single instance of magic Wind damage based on a higher percentage of Wind ATK. (200%)
- Terra Strike becoming an AoE when you target yourself, similar to Boxer's Felsmanege, bigger range, but with a pull effect tied to it.

I would rather Ki Awoken to be reworked into something more simple but effective:

- Ki Awoken consumes all Ki when used.
- Can only be used if you have at least a multiplier of 5 for Ki. (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30).
- For every round active, the effects of Ki Awoken are reduced by half. (Statistic bonuses only, HP consumption stays.)
- Each Ki level will multiply Ki Awoken's effects, as well as a bigger aura per level:
> Ki Awoken.
-- Increases all damage done and reduces all damage taken by 5% and drains 1% of your maximum HP every round until turned off.
> Ki Awoken x2.
-- Increases all damage done and reduces all damage taken by 10% and drains 3% of your maximum HP every round until turned off.
> Ki Awoken x4.
-- Increases all damage done and reduces all damage taken by 15% and drains 5% of your maximum HP every round until turned off.
> Ki Awoken x10
-- Increases all damage done and reduces all damage taken by 20% and drains 7% of your maximum HP every round until turned off.
> Ki Awoken x20
-- Increases all damage done and reduces all damage taken by 25% and drains 9% of your maximum HP every round until turned off.
> Super Ki Awoken.
-- Increases all damage done and reduces all damage taken by 30% and drains 11% of your maximum HP every round until turned off.

And finally.

- If Monk is your Main and Sub-Class, Ki Awoken's effects won't be reduced over rounds, and the HP depletion only happens once per three rounds.
or
- If Monk is Main and Sub-Class, effects are doubled, HP depletion is halved.