Windwalker & Brewmaster, how happy are you currently?

[Yhcti]

I can't really say much about raids from personal experience. But it seems all the top guilds were benching their WWs for the entirety of mythic progress. Sidenote: Not all kills are logged with 20 people on WoWprogress, so this may be inaccurate until the last few people are added in the lists.
Though I only looked through the top 3, further down there usually is still more variance. To me it seems WW is viable for more or less anything. But if one really wants to nitpick about the last few %, it doesn't seem to be at the same level of other classes/specs for raids.

I actually (which could be a nice thing) find it hard to nail down which spec seems to be dominating at the moment. You seem to have a mixed bag per fight. Ret #1, Fire #1, WW is #1 on a few fights.. hell at the moment, WW is #2 on Ursoc :O...!

I feel a little sad that my 2 classes are Havoc and WW, we only seem to shine on AoE/Cleave fights.. Though the thing I enjoy, from a casual PoV, is that both Havoc and WW have INCREDIBLE opening DPS. They both seem to easily be capable of hitting the 750-1mil dps mark on an opening fight. So I guess I'm happy... Quality of life for me seems better on Monk and DH than any other class ive tried, and especially when if, worst case scenario, I have other options like tank/healer.

[Deleted]

Sure, I mean I watch several streams of guys farming Mythic+.. Verdisha, Rikh & Fragnance and the WW Monk is always top. Very rarely do they ever lose. And these guys run with Mages, Rogues, DK, DH etc... I dunno. I guess each to their own.

last I checked Fragnance was always running with a Rogue and a Mage as dps.

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95th percentile
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/10#dataset=95
Just sayin...

that statistic does not really say much, here is boss dps and Monk ranks 13th of 24 damage specs and that does not even include the last patch where ret paladins were massively buffed.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...metric=bossdps

Here is the boss dps for the last day, 95th percentile. Monks are 7th worst.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...ssdps&sample=1

only Survival Hunter and Frost DK are worse.

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hell at the moment, WW is #2 on Ursoc :O...! .

3rd and 867+BIS legendary

Also noteworthy to say that the next best monk is 35k dps lower and the 3rd best 60k dps lower and 4th best 80k dps lower.

Fight time was exactly so he could benefit 4 times from Serenity.

There is probably something else going on for him to reach that dps, probably the randomness of Memento buffs of something
He got 8x Mastery, 9x Haste buff and 5x Crit from Memento

11% uptime of Stormlash, Shaman Buff.

or the boss not charging (seen this happen before).

[Thelxi]

Brewmaster is horrible, mechanically speaking. I see many people talk about the drunken panda fantasy but I got nothing to say about that. It needs a serious overhaul. When no one cares about a niche it's not a niche it's terrible design. They should start by making them not as reliant on healers. Like the ridiculous passive that makes healing on you have a chance to do more should be transformed into a passive that you can control yourself. They should overall have more self-healing and control over their own survival.

The core mechanic of managing staggered damage is good imo, but it should feel rewarding instead of the only reward being a degree of efficiency. Self-healing in whatever way would make it feel more rewarding. Currently it is just a matter of to what degree are you being (in)efficient.

The spec reminds me of moonkin, and how for YEARS they had to deal with a mechanic that very very few people enjoyed (eclipse bar), and it took Blizzard YEARS to finally change things in a way that was suggested from the very beginning! I hope they won't let BM rot away to obscurity for years before considerably changing things.

[AleDangerous]

Before the last patch WW was fine and after it WW is still better, we are currently Top Dps on EN.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/10

That's a realistic statistic, not sims.

As I can see, WW performs very well in every single fight, even not being top 1 in every fight, which would be unfair, we still perfom great.
Our dps, as well, come from many skills, which makes our rotation dynamic, as we don't get to spam the same ability over and over.

[Yhcti]

last I checked Fragnance was always running with a Rogue and a Mage as dps.

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that statistic does not really say much, here is boss dps and Monk ranks 13th of 24 damage specs and that does not even include the last patch where ret paladins were massively buffed.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...metric=bossdps

Here is the boss dps for the last day, 95th percentile. Monks are 7th worst.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...ssdps&sample=1

only Survival Hunter and Frost DK are worse.

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3rd and 867+BIS legendary

Also noteworthy to say that the next best monk is 35k dps lower and the 3rd best 60k dps lower and 4th best 80k dps lower.

Fight time was exactly so he could benefit 4 times from Serenity.

There is probably something else going on for him to reach that dps, probably the randomness of Memento buffs of something
He got 8x Mastery, 9x Haste buff and 5x Crit from Memento

11% uptime of Stormlash, Shaman Buff.

or the boss not charging (seen this happen before).

So basically he got similar to an Outlaw Rogue getting 6 buffs... It seems Rogue only does well if it can proc a decent number of buffs, is that correct also? I seem to see Rogues doing top 3 dps every 2-5 pulls when I watched some of the guys live stream

[WindigoEJ]

The thing is, all tanks only have one real defensive cooldown anymore. Ardent Defender (which replaces Divine Protection, and increases the cd by 60 sec - thanks blizz...), Shield Wall, Fortifying Brew, Vampiric Blood, etc. We're intended to scream for an external healer cooldown if our single cooldown can't cut the mustard. I suppose pallies are special in that they technically get three, though - Lay on Hands (10 min cd, why is it still in the game), Divine Shield (requires a talent if you don't want the raid boss to immediately start munching on the raid, assuming they can even be taunted), and Ardent Defender.

I think Celestial Fortune is intended to compensate for us taking more damage overall (which itself is balanced by that damage being very smooth rather than spiky), but I agree we could probably use at least a little more armor or something.

I think Brewmasters definitely need some work. They're functional in their current state, but functional doesn't necessarily mean "fun." It seems like a lot of these fixes, most of them being just quality of life, would be easy to do so it's depressing there's been no mention of it for 7.1. I'll be pretty sad and maybe just suck it up and level my Paladin while main spec'ing Fistweaver if 7.1 arrives and there are no QoL fixes for Brewmasters.

Paladins -
Light of the Protector - 15s cooldown, reduced by haste, self heal on demand for % of missing health.

Ardent Defender - 2m cooldown, 20% damage reduction for 8 seconds with cheat death mechanic.

Guardian of Ancient Kings - 5m cooldown, 50% damage reduction for 8 seconds.

Lay on Hands - 10m cooldown, full health heal, also usable on other raid members.

Eye of Tyr - 1m cooldown artifact ability, hits all targets around the paladin, reducing damage taken from those targets by 25% for 9 seconds.

Divine Shield - 5m cooldown, prevents all damage for 8 seconds, can talent into the aoe taunt as well, but still useful for ignoring mechanics as off-tank without the talent (eat up brambles on Cenarius when running - sit in the shield and flash heal yourself, etc)

Monk
Healing Elixir/Dampen Harm/Diffuse Magic - you get one of these. Want the healing of Light of the Protector on a longer cooldown without artifact abilities to make to better? Take healing elixir! Want magic reduction? Diffuse Magic for 60% magic only damage reduction for 6 seconds on 2m cooldown. Want 30% reduction from 3 attacks that hit you for 15% of your health on a 2m cooldown? Dampen Harm. But you don't get the reliable heal with the reduction. You get one or the other.

Fortifying Brew - 7m cooldown reduced by keg smash/tiger palm (if you can hit a target the whole time, reduced to around 4m) increases health by 20% and stagger by 20% (not mitigation, you still have to purify that extra stagger off) with artifact traits that add dodge and increased stagger to it.

Zen Meditation - 5m cooldown - 60% damage reduction for 8 seconds. Until you move. Or get hit by a melee attack.

Exploding Keg - 1.25m cooldown - prevents melee attacks from hitting for 3 seconds.

[Saverem]

Hi all,

I'm just being a little curious on general thoughts on these specs.

Windwalkers Monks - how happy are you currently with the spec? I'm asking for a World Content, Raid and Mythic+ point of view. Does it seem you're pretty stable? From what I can see the spec seems great in all aspects, great mobility, single target seems fine and aoe/cleave looks amazing.

Brewmaster Monks - where are you all hiding???!! I mained this spec in MoP and WoD and found it more fun than any other tanking spec by a country mile. Is this still a viable tank? I'm assuming you're bottom of the list at the moment as I rarely see a BrM Monk in any group I'm in.. How do you cope with the above? World Content, Raids, Mythic+?

WW happy with rotations, fun to play. Still run across occasional time where I have nothing to hit because I don't want to fuck up combo breaker. For the most part, very fun spec with fun mastery. People sing its praises in PvP, but I found it not really that great in PvP. Classes like UDK, Wars, Dru, Rets wreck them. They're good against casters though.


BrM, this was my original main and planned to make it my main in Legion... Didn't pan out. Not because I didn't find them fun or weak, but because OTHERS have a negative impression of them and think they are weak. So couldn't find a single guild wanting to recruit one as their tank. Can't really blame them when they can just a Prot War/Pal or BDK which are superior tanks. So I just quit mine and now am exclusively a MW for raiding and WW for everything else.

[PizzaSHARK]

Paladins -
Light of the Protector - 15s cooldown, reduced by haste, self heal on demand for % of missing health.

Ardent Defender - 2m cooldown, 20% damage reduction for 8 seconds with cheat death mechanic.

Guardian of Ancient Kings - 5m cooldown, 50% damage reduction for 8 seconds.

Lay on Hands - 10m cooldown, full health heal, also usable on other raid members.

Eye of Tyr - 1m cooldown artifact ability, hits all targets around the paladin, reducing damage taken from those targets by 25% for 9 seconds.

Divine Shield - 5m cooldown, prevents all damage for 8 seconds, can talent into the aoe taunt as well, but still useful for ignoring mechanics as off-tank without the talent (eat up brambles on Cenarius when running - sit in the shield and flash heal yourself, etc)

Monk
Healing Elixir/Dampen Harm/Diffuse Magic - you get one of these. Want the healing of Light of the Protector on a longer cooldown without artifact abilities to make to better? Take healing elixir! Want magic reduction? Diffuse Magic for 60% magic only damage reduction for 6 seconds on 2m cooldown. Want 30% reduction from 3 attacks that hit you for 15% of your health on a 2m cooldown? Dampen Harm. But you don't get the reliable heal with the reduction. You get one or the other.

Fortifying Brew - 7m cooldown reduced by keg smash/tiger palm (if you can hit a target the whole time, reduced to around 4m) increases health by 20% and stagger by 20% (not mitigation, you still have to purify that extra stagger off) with artifact traits that add dodge and increased stagger to it.

Zen Meditation - 5m cooldown - 60% damage reduction for 8 seconds. Until you move. Or get hit by a melee attack.

Exploding Keg - 1.25m cooldown - prevents melee attacks from hitting for 3 seconds.

Light of the Protector isn't a defensive cooldown, it's a heal button. Purifying Brew is effectively the same thing since we're removing a potentially enormous portion of damage with each use, especially at high levels of Stagger. I guess Expel Harm/Ox orbs are meant to be our equivalent, but they fucking suck ass for a multitude of reasons so I'm pretending they don't exist. I'd rather Brewmasters just get Afterlife like WW gets and then our Ox orbs talent becomes something like Impending Victory (can use Expel Harm once per X seconds to heal for the amount of one Ox orb, will also consume any Ox orbs already produced.)

Ardent Defender is their weaker defense cooldown. We don't really have an equivalent. I guess our artifact skill? Guardian of Ancient Kings is their big defensive cooldown, like Fortifying Brew, Shield Wall, etc.

Lay on Hands is definitely something pretty much no one else has. It's one of numerous examples of one class getting a button that other classes don't really have an equivalent for. Should be Holy only and be a ~5 min cooldown, equivalent to Life Cocoon, Guardian Spirit, etc.

Divine Shield isn't really usable as a tank unless you take the appropriate talent and even then it's not usable unless everything nearby can be taunted. In most cases you'll use a macro to cast Divine Shield to block an incoming spell or remove a nasty debuff and then immediately kill it with /cancelaura so you don't lose aggro. I guess Zen Meditation is our equivalent since it can largely only be used to partially block an incoming spell or ability, or maybe to tank through a nasty dot when nothing's hitting us.

I'm not sure what your point is. Paladins aren't any tankier than Brewmasters; Brewmasters will show more damage taken on charts, but charts leave out a lot of things and don't take smoothness of incoming damage into account, which Brewmasters are unparalleled at. Pretty much the only issue Brewmaster has is pathetic DPS relative to other tanks and some QoL stuff. The DPS issue could probably be solved by just having Blackout Strike natively increase the damage of your next Keg Smash, Tiger Palm, or Breathe Fire by a certain amount (50%/100%/50%?), stacking with Blackout Combo if that talent is chosen (so Tiger Palm would hit for +300% damage instead of +200%, for example.)

[AetherMcLoud]

Light of the Protector isn't a defensive cooldown, it's a heal button. Purifying Brew is effectively the same thing [...]

While I agree with most of what you said, it still does feel kinda strange when they said they want tanks to rely on external healing, while only making Brewmaster (and to a much lesser extend Prot War) have to actually rely on external healing, while the other tanks (Vengeance, Blood, and to a lesser extend Pala and Guardian) are still heavily based around selfheals as rotational abilities.

[PizzaSHARK]

While I agree with most of what you said, it still does feel kinda strange when they said they want tanks to rely on external healing, while only making Brewmaster (and to a much lesser extend Prot War) have to actually rely on external healing, while the other tanks (Vengeance, Blood, and to a lesser extend Pala and Guardian) are still heavily based around selfheals as rotational abilities.

Welcome to what happens when you design by committee. The people in charge of blog posts may not be in charge of all development.

[Deleted]

While I agree with most of what you said, it still does feel kinda strange when they said they want tanks to rely on external healing, while only making Brewmaster (and to a much lesser extend Prot War) have to actually rely on external healing, while the other tanks (Vengeance, Blood, and to a lesser extend Pala and Guardian) are still heavily based around selfheals as rotational abilities.

They still require more external healing. They use selfhealing instead of mitigation.

[Deleted]

Before the last patch WW was fine and after it WW is still better, we are currently Top Dps on EN.


That's a realistic statistic, not sims.

As I can see, WW performs very well in every single fight, even not being top 1 in every fight, which would be unfair, we still perfom great.
Our dps, as well, come from many skills, which makes our rotation dynamic, as we don't get to spam the same ability over and over.

Yeah, I'm happy with my monk, but I'm a bit afraid of the nerf bat. I just hope Blizz doesn't overnerf WW monks in the future.

[Deleted]

As a brewmaster, I'm very happy with how the spec plays, not so happy with its performance. Never fun to feel like a potential liability as the tank of all people.

I really hope Blizzard doesn't cave in to the whiners on the official forums asking for a redesign or bringing back guard. All the spec needs is some tweaking to the numbers.

[JaoStar]

I like them better than in WoD so they are headed in a better direction than previously. To be honest I'm starting to fall out of love with dps melee classes as you don't have to worry about defensive stats as much in general. BrM is nice, although I started messing around with a VDH and really like it much better as a tank. The changes to BrM was much needed but seems like it had a few more iterations left to really get to where it can really shine. Monks need better choices in talents overall. I don't know I think I may swap over to DH, I was all ready to hate in them, being the new class in all but they are hella fun and have really cool lore. Spent a lot of time on my monk and hate to switch mains again, but who knows.

[LovesToSpooge]

Im a windwalker and I havent been happy with my spec ever since the legion prepatch. Blizzard just had to ruin an amazing and unique dps spec. My dps is alright atm but I dont really care anymore I just want the old windwalker back.

[Mcbenchpress]

Did anyone actually enjoy pooling for Chi Explosion?

[jearle]

WW: Ton of fun, very effective, great all around right now.

BrM: Fun, but the thought of, "My group and healer in particular would likely be a lot happier if I were something else." is constantly in the back of your mind, all while you feel like you're doing twice as much work as some of those other tanks. I want to like it, but even my wife has told me not to play it.

Agree completely, I main WW and I love the spec and how it works in dungeons and raids.

BM feel like alot of work to be mediocre and I hope they do something to fix it.

[Yhcti]

Level 109, haven't hit 110 yet, kinda scared to. I got my first legendary today on my outlaw rogue, very fun to play with in 5 mans though the dps varies so much due to rng of rolling. I'm kinda scared to gear my monk in case it doesn't compare to my havoc or outlaw toons, though all I'll be doing is mythic+, from what I hear ww is in the meta comp for this with ele sham due to the high aoe and stun.

I find the rotation fun but yeah I get now about the waiting to not break the mastery. Happens a few times.

Out of curisosity how do you ww open up a trash fight or boss fight? I'be yet to use serenity. Also, is it me or do our legendwry items look underwhelming? Look at fire mage for example, they have 3 amazing items.. and assassination has 1 that turns their bleeds into mini executes when boss is sub 35.

[LavenderBee]

Damn happy with every spec monk have, honestly.

WW PVP - 10/10 most fun i had since ferals in cata. Great pvp utility, can easily outplay people who do crucial mistakes 2v1 (like mages blinking forward in my stuns), feels a bit OP, but FOF nerf in 7.1 will kill the spec, so gotta have fun till it is good.
WW PVE - 9/10, a little bit wonky with the new AOE mechanics, but i pull great numbers and mastery keeps me from being bored most of the time. I feel the spec in this current state feels pretty rewarding. Also beastly cleave in mythic+.

BRM PVE - 8/10 tanked EN heroic ursoc, felt a little weak, compared to warriors, but felt really good in mythics and soloing other content. A little buffs to surv would be nice.

MW PVP - 9/10 spec feels unique and extremely powerful in every arena scenario. Is nodoubtely OP, hoping it wont get overnerfed in future patches.
MW PVE - 7/10 probably least favorite, but i'm actually a bad pve healer, and had really low AP in my weapon. Don't like low-haste cast times on abilities, and spam casting feels really wonky (you keep breaking channeling).

I would HOPE blizzard keeps their promises to not nerf/change classes much. But seeing 7.1 changes my hopes are slim. Definitely a great start of the expansion tho.

[halfawake]

WW is in a great spot atm. Artifact traits like Transfer the Power are really nice to play with. I just got it and I'm not sure how best to use it yet but I'm glad we have something like that. Fists of fury hits like a truck at 10 stacks and it'll be fun to try to stack it up for bigger pulls or using it for touch of death.

Brewmaster is completely viable but honestly it makes my hands hurt. Probably need to rebind a few things but the spec feels kind of chaotic. On hard hitting content I am praying for enough brews. I have to train myself to continue my rotation even when I'm panicking because I know that's the only way to get brews back. I only have 13 points in brewmaster but I feel like I take way more damage than other tanks and work a lot harder than them too. Tanking +4 and 5 is very stressful to me. I often resort to kiting mobs. Looking at my warrior friend taking a fraction of the damage and doing a fraction of the work is demoralizing. I don't mind working harder but I think we should get more benefits for doing so. Personally I think purify needs a buff, not stagger. We already rarely purify because of how smooth ironskin brew makes damage intake. If you opt to let ISB fall off and try to just purify you're not gonna last as long as if you kept up isb and relied on your healer or orb procs imo. Maybe it feels better with more crit and haste? I'm at about 20% crit and haste and 28% mastery... I like BoC more than HT but I'm experimenting with HT in mythics more now. I just hate how starved for brews I feel. I usually try to get isb upx4 or x3 with a purify before BoxB into isb or purify and continue rotation but stagger gets so high so fast that I start to run out of brews and it gets so hectic as your stagger shoots up and you only have one charge at a time til finally BoxB comes back and you can breathe for a bit again. Also Celestial fortune proc on orbs or healer can make the difference between panic and comfortable health. Do artifact traits for brewmaster make a big difference? I have up to Obstinate determination and damage reduction on breath of fire.