Game Mechanics Make Flying Kick an Optional Node (or change the momentum cancelling)

FLYING KICK IS A FRUSTRATING ABILITY TO BE FORCED INTO IN THE CONTEXT OF BATTLE MONK
Battle Monk is an archetype all about spell combos and fluidity in it's gameplay loop, emphasized by charge + aerodynamics and whirlwind strike being able to keep you airborne and you move around enemies. Using proper movement and it's AOE abilities centered on the player is central to its playstyle.

And nothing brings all of that flow to a screeching halt to me more than being essentially stunned after hitting a mob with flying kick.

After hitting a mob, you are knocked slightly up and back, losing all of your forward momentum until you cast another charge. I like the ability to go full frontal assault charging into enemies over and over, and I understand that this ability gives charge a lot of damage and can be an element of the movement/aerial focus of battle monk. I think it's a great option for a battle monk playstyle focused on charging headfirst and throwing out spells in an enemy's face.

However, the stun effect feels absolutely horrible when you are just trying to move around, especially surfing around enemies with all of warrior's other spells. The hitbox is extremely jank, and it feels like it reaches WAY further below the player than it should, so you can be above an enemy's head and still get stuck by the recoil. If you are surrounded by multiple mobs, you simply can't move. Even worse if all the mobs have CCI, so the same mob and stop you from ever retreating or moving. In crowded areas, movement is horrendous, as I can try to move around mobs I want to kill/evade, but end up cancelling my momentum on some random block mob on the ground and die from becoming a sitting duck. An example of such an area is the Coalescing Cave, where attempting to maneuver in there has multiple times lead to my death repeatedly because I can't move with charge at all. Other places with high-density mobs also have this issue.

Battle monk is the archetype focused on mobility, yet it has a required node that has built-in anti-synergy with freeflowing movement. I desperately want it to be an option to take to maximize damage or reworked entirely. In fact, I do have some ideas to make it more engaging and more fun to use. The main sticking point is that there is no way to avoid having to take it if I want the ability to use all of battle monk's abilities for smooth, aerial AOE combo combat.

This is also slightly off-topic, but collide feels useless with the amount of CCI present with a lot of mobs, and having most not being able to be thrown into walls due to their position. Especially bosses. Like, why use it ever in the end game.


IDEAS FOR CHANGES:

• Make it an optional node
• Flying kick is an interesting ability that meshes well with aggressive charge usage, but meshes terribly with being a movement spell. Moving it to an optional node with collide being either attached to it or later in the tree as-is. For example, you can place it so you can either take it or cheaper war scream in order to progress in the ability tree. This way you can choose what kind of combat you want to do, full frontal assaults or mobile AOE damage

• Make flying kick "bounce off" the enemy
• This is my mechanical change idea for flying kick, instead of applying recoil to the player, the player could bounce off the enemy instead, sending the enemy back as you continue forward and up slightly. What this does is enable even better combos, as you can now follow up against an enemy you hit with charge and continue comboing them with your other abilities. This would possibly require some number tweaking, however, this would make battle monk combat incredibly fluid, being able to keep airborne and attacking their opponents with their spells. For example, you could potentially ladder combo an opponent by whirlwind -> kick -> whirlwind -> kick, so on and so forth. It would open up a new dimensionality to battle monk combat and make it even more fun.
• In addition to that idea, an idea tacked on is to give collide the same interaction as original flying kick. "Flying kick gains additional knockback and enemies explode on contact with a wall dealing additional damage, however lose momentum on contact." Flying kick gains much stronger knockback in order to up the chance of an enemy being knocked into a wall, but will halt your momentum. This change would really lean into the frontal assault of maximum damage that flying kick currently occupies. In addition, CCI mobs could take collision damage after a brief delay to make the ability somewhat useful in the end game, but not absolutely spammable with repeated charges, which also synergizes with battle monk's abilities needing to complete in full before recasting them.

This ability has been bothering me so much for a long time, and has also gotten me killed a good number of times for simply trying to move. I love how battle monk plays, and I just want the option to lean into that smooth, aerial playstyle without being forced to take an ability that I know will sometimes be a detriment when moving. I hate being stuck in the air and ruining the flow. I feel like just a small change of moving it optional would make it feel so much better as a "deal more damage with movement" spell.

 

I remember some member of the CT saying that skill is obligatory as a downside of Bmonk.

Wonder if that changes now that Bmonk was very nerfed.