What is windwalker's niche and weaknesses?

[Verain]

Like, what kind of fight would you want to stack windwalkers on?

I'll do this for rogue, though I'll miss stuff:

->If the fight has a sustained flurry phase, a rogue going combat can bring the beat down.
->If the fight has a sustained aoe phase, a rogue going mutilate can stack up the poisons.
->If the fight has an execute, a mutilate rogue can really hurt.
->If the fight is sustained and melee friendly, a rogue will probably be your best bet by a narrow amount over other melee, and presumably over everyone else.
->If the fight has a lot of aoe damage, a rogue can mitigate a lot of it.
->Great "sustained burst"-> damage over about 10->30 seconds, with low cooldowns.

Weaknesses:
->You can't do much from range.
->Multiple target fights where the targets are far apart, the rogue is not so great.
->You change target poorly.
->Poor burst damage over the course of a couple seconds.
->No seriously amazing long cooldowns with massive effects.
->Poor burst aoe, and some specs lack aoe entirely.


The first two weaknesses are true of melee in general. The last point will be different in mop.



I could do a similar thing for dps DKs, or ret, or warriors, or cats- even enhancement. Obviously, all these hybrids have an advantage of being able to be brought for entirely different reasons besides being dps, but this isn't about that- the simple fact is, if your boss pulses damage, that will help warriors by giving them free resource (not in mop), if you need to zip around, that helps warriors, if you can absorb stuff with AMS that will help DKs, if there's a great spell to copy, that will help DKs, if there's something like an elementium bolt that a DK can wipe out with like three obliterates, that is a fight where you want that to happen, etc.




So, what will monks be GOOD at? When will you say, gosh, I wish we had another windwalker here?



And what will monks be BAD at? When will a monk player wish he had some rogue tricks, or warrior tricks, or ret ability?




I'm not on the beta, I honestly don't know. What's the pluses and minuses to the dps spec?

[BombeNissen]

I dont think there's a possible answer to that question as of yet. Its simply too early to talk balance, dps and roles for the Windwalker in a raid setup. It has some interresting mechanics, but the class is still very much in development, and the monk we will see at release could end up being miles away from what we see now. I am not saying that its gonna happen tho...

[Taalyn]

Windwalker is good at AoE damage with Spinning Crane Kick, Fists of Fury, and Tigereye Brew. SCK is similar to Whirlwind and it is a low chi cost no CD ability. FoF is your normal AoE, high chi cost, 45 sec CD. Tigereye Brew is essentially Blade Flurry but only works with your "finishers" low chi cost 1.5min CD.

Windwalkers have an interesting set of execute abilities. Two of our finishers deal equal damage when a condition is met. One deals more damage on targets above 50% health, the other on targets below 50% health. So while the one ability is technically an execute, it isn't necessarily labeled as an execute. Another ability we have instantly kills a target that has less health than you. It is a high chi cost ability with a decent CD. It definitely wont work on raid bosses but it does work on a few dungeon bosses. This could be considered an execute as the boss is likely at 25% health when you can use it but again isn't labeled as an execute.

Windwalkers have a variety of interrupts, stuns, and gap closers. You wont really find an issue with target switching or add control.

Windwakers also have a few raid CDs and self CDs for survivability.

About the only fight you wont want a Windwalker on is a melee unfriendly fight. You might not stack 20 Windwalkers but you certainly wont ever be denied a raid spot based on the classes abilities, only boss mechanics.

[sethg]

As of right now, Windwalker is SUPER MOBILE MELEE DPS... much more so than warriors imo. They have amazing Sustained damage and are very "fast paced". What I mean by that is you always feel like you are using abilities/finishers and not chi generators as opposed to rogues where you spend the majority of time building up to finishers. Due to super mobility, Monks also have amazing AoE dps/burn. Using Rising Sun kick into Fists of Fury, Spinning Crane Kick and Chi Torpedo results in staggering amounts of damage. Only complaint I have about Monk AoE is Fists of Fury is a very small cone in front of the monk and easy to miss.

That being said, I believe they fall short in reliable defensive cds and "burst" damage. They do not really have any abilities/cool downs that accentuates Bursting dps. The rotation/priority for a monk is static and consistent throughout a fight but this makes it relatively underwhelming during burn phases. I believe it needs some sort of design that builds up to a CD or Empowerment that allows us to use creative and interactive play. There currently is no threat dump for monks and I am constantly pulling aggro in dungeons. With no really "reliable" defensive CD's or threat dump I usually will die if the healer isn't on the ball.

those are my thoughts as of the current build for windwalker monks.

[levandor]

Well, first of all, i would say windwalker is the least finnished of the 3 trees, at last it seems so while playing.

But i have to agree with Sethg, consistent damage seems to be the strength of the windwalker, paired with some "nice on paper" stuff (health globes, fortifying brew)

and yes, hes super mobile, even more then warriors, but it seems windwalkers will be super hardware/reflexes dependant, roll/flying dragon kick from a to b could easily be messed up by some lag spike.

I have somewhat the feeling, the actual version of the windwalker is more or less experimenting with "lets see how placing stuff in the gameworld and playing arround it works out"

and in the end, we will see a total rework before MOP goes live.

btw. what does make you think Touch of Death wont work on Raid bosses? as far as it seems we will face arround 500 Million Hitpoints on bosses, and i dont see use going far above 2-300 K Hitpoints, if a boss is THAT far down on Hitpoints, it hardly matters if you can instant kill him, it may make a difference every 1 out of 1.000 fights
considerring will might see DPS arround 100K thats not even one second of Raid DPS and you would even be able to handle it without that skill in most cases.

about negative Points, well, i could be FAR more interestting to play windwalker as of now, there is nearly no thinking involved, no planning, you run barely ever out of ressources, but then, its only questing and dungeons so far, and yes, a feint of sorts would be nice, because windwalkers simply start out at 100% possible DPS without any ramp up time, equal classes (rogue, hunter) which can start with high damage have tools to dispose of initial threat.

So all in all, i would call the actuall iteration of the windwalker, a medicore, average melee DPS, without real place amongst the melee classes, but on the plus side, without any real disatvantages

[sethg]

So all in all, i would call the actuall iteration of the windwalker, a medicore, average melee DPS, without real place amongst the melee classes, but on the plus side, without any real disatvantages

I disagree. I did some number crunching and each NORMAL HIT of the windwalker's Spamable abilities do equivalent damage to a Low end Crit for other classes main abilities. Tiger Palm Crits do 2x the damage of a Sinister Strike crit. Rising sun kicks do the same damage as Eviscerate. Monks passively get massive attack speed which enables us to use 2x 2.6 weapons that swing as fast as 1.8 weaps but do double the damage.

Windwalker monks bring massive damage, extreme mobility and awesome aoe to a raid. In my raid, If I needed an extra melee... I'd bring a windwalker.

please note that windwalker has terrible defensive CDs at this point in time.

[Deleted]

I disagree. I did some number crunching and each NORMAL HIT of the windwalker's Spamable abilities do equivalent damage to a Low end Crit for other classes main abilities. Tiger Palm Crits do 2x the damage of a Sinister Strike crit. Rising sun kicks do the same damage as Eviscerate. Monks passively get massive attack speed which enables us to use 2x 2.6 weapons that swing as fast as 1.8 weaps but do double the damage.

Windwalker monks bring massive damage, extreme mobility and awesome aoe to a raid. In my raid, If I needed an extra melee... I'd bring a windwalker.

please note that windwalker has terrible defensive CDs at this point in time.

Yes, you see big number fly. But if you compare it with a combat rogue, like you're doing, you can't do one-on-one ability comparisons. Jab hits like wet noodle, white hits are very low. Yes tiger palm, blackout kick and raising sun do all big numbers. But Rogues have rupture, poisons and finishers.

I entered two min of a combat log on a 85 target dummie and the average dps is 22k. it's good, for that level of gear don't get me wrong, but in current content, what would you bring?

Spine of DW: definitely a rogue for CD lining up and feint. *definitely*
Madness of DW: again, probably a rogue for CDs burning.
Warlord: actually probably a monk for Meditation.

Other fights are easy so it doesnt matter.

Now for the AOE... I don't think it's such a hot stuff to be honest. Spinning crane is ok, but it's on AOE diminishing return. it's above average at best. Firsts of fury is REALLY hard to use in PVE...the cone of teh ability is static and really small, and you can't move.
IMO they should tone down the "regular" damage and add a short CD and a medium CD that changes the "rotation" a bit, because so far the only exceptional thing windwalkers have is being boring: *jab* one ability lights up, use that. Otherwise use raising sun on CD. Otherwise use tiger palm > 50%, blackout kick < 50%. You're basically drawning in resources so you want to radically reforge away all haste, and even mastery just gives resources... so it's crit crit crit. Overall, needs some work. A lot of work.

[Hijiri]

It's still way to early to tell.

Something some monks are doing that rogues won't benefit from is getting mats from an alt/buying on ah to speed rush through inscription for Bind on Pick up staves.


http://www.wowdb.com/items/79342-ins...ost-iron-staff
http://www.wowdb.com/items/79343-inscribed-tiger-staff