7.1.5 and 7.2 monk changes to come.

[Ryanite]

Everyone else is freaking out about potential changes to their class so I figured I'd ask what we are expecting (hoping for or dreading) for BrM, MW and WW in patches to come.

I think an obvious one for me is WW's Storm Earth Fire either fixed or potentially changed to just help us tag mobs on a short cd and serenity baseline.

[AetherMcLoud]

Really hoping for some brewmaster raid/party utility.

[thesmall001]

Brewmaster
Honestly, I feel we're mostly solid and the design feels balanced and I keep seeing buffs and low representation and hearing negative opinions and I'm just like "Bwuh?", so I think that's more of social phenomena than anything concrete about our performance. Our special snowflake design makes us wonderfully unique and I feel my BrM stands out vs. my Paladin/Warrior, so far. That sounded sarcastic but it really wasn't! Anyway, here's a list of problems I've ran into and have with the rough edges that need smoothing.

Small Stuff

Our first tier talents probably needs some love. There's not a lot of gameplay options for them right now. Small things like the relative potency of Chi Wave, the lack of versatility in how you apply EotT (like, it should provide a tab-target maintenance style) so those become more viable vs. Chi Burst.

I'd like to see Gift of the Mists re-worked slightly to be more of a "little and often" option for Oxrbs or possibly add a HoT component to help counteract the impact of Stagger DoT. I don't feel it's super useful in situations where we need it and the other two options have been buffed whilst Gift has mostly been left alone. I swap to it occasionally in world content but it always feel lacklustre.

Healing Elixir proc % overlapping with Obstinate Determination (trait) can lead to a double-burst of healing when you don't always want it. I like to have control at those %s of HP. Maybe bump it down 5% to act as a back-up to our back-up, when OD doesn't keep us sustaining. (Although that might be too potent anyway. I live in fear of the OD nerf.)

Dampen Harm probably needs to work in synergy with Stagger better. Or something. I never use it over the other two.

A Blackout Combo for RJW, when it is selected, would be much appreciated. Right now it's very hard to fit RJW into the rotation because I could combo something in that GCD. It's the bad kind of DPS trade-off, where I usually can't afford to sacrifice the mitigation/smoothing when I would otherwise benefit from RJW. Anything will do, really.

Oxrbs should maybe scale with HP and not AP. They proc at %s of HP and so, in situations where HP increases, the flat heal they do relative to the flat damage required to pass those breakpoints becomes disproportionate.

Our HP, relative to other Tanks, is probably still a little bit low given the gradual flow of our damage taken and our susceptibility to burst.

More Mediumy Stuff
Dragonfire Brew is still pointless. One of the worst Major Traits of any class. A mild DPS increase that doesn't affect or play into gameplay or rotation at all. It offers no utility or defensive bonuses. I still haven't taken it because literally any other trait is more useful.

Weird things start to happen at high haste levels. My hand-eye co-ordiantion is not stellar so I start running into Blackout Combo clashes and energy caps. Maybe I just need to gitgudder but I think I might actually prefer if BoS had a fixed CD. Not sure. Would make choosing BoCs more important. Kind of asking for a nerf here though, so might make it feel bad. Up for debate.

Parry is still a thing for us, right? I get the fantasy of all these Dodge mechanics (and I love it! #Capoeira) but between our Mastery's functional DR and Dodge's usual DR -even though % Dodge ignores DRs- the mechanics are all kind of stumbling over one another. Maybe swap one out for Parry chance? Just to untangle the mess a bit and break the animation monotony.

Level 60 Talents need work. I never, ever use RoP in any content: If I'm in melee range of a caster they're already silenced or CC'd. RoP just moves them out of my control radius. Ox Statue is iconic and should be a base-line utility, really. It's one of the buttons they removed for the sake of removing buttons unless you opt into it. Return it for free and put a more offensive control option there. I miss the disorient on BoF, so maybe return that as a talent or move RJW there because...

Level 90 Talents need even more work. I've probably spent no less than 20 hours this expansion doing nothing but AoE farming mobs for skinning so, at this point, I pretty much hate Special Delivery for all eternity. We don't need 3 options of doing AoE damage slightly differently. I'm okay not having a baseline sustained AoE. KS/BoF is almost always up when I need it. Ox statue does its job well. This row is just superfluous. The only option that has anything interesting about it is the Taunt/Pet utility for soloing and stuff. Keep that, for sure, but put 2 diverse talents either side of it. This would be a good place to address some of the bigger issues via talents.

Big Picture Stuff
There's a common conception that Brewmasters take the most damage, due to the fact that many Brewmasters... take the most damage and even a good Brewmaster will be subject to high sustained damage periods. That's our weakness, and it's okay because we're so versatile, but it damages the perception of us as Tanks since most Healers can't appreciate the subtitles of our versatility; instead focusing on the fact we're hard to keep topped up. Something quite major and baseline is probably needed to cover that weakness a bit. Probably Mastery is the best place to look, or another stat scaling rate.

I get the problem with our old Mastery scaling out of control but our new Mastery scales itself to death. It gets less relevant as we use cooldowns, trigger passives and gear up. We have a lot of bad-luck protection built into our mechanics and what we don't really need is more of that in our Mastery. Some baseline mitigation would be better here. Perhaps something that interacts more linearly with our Stagger clearing? Tone down those sustained damage windows a bit.

I feel like the fantasy of Brewmaster has become a bit watered down. (Just like our Brews, amma'rite?) We have more abilities that throw good brew away than we have that involve brewing and consume that brew. This ties back into my hatred of Special Delivery, it makes KS and XKeg feel less special. I'd rather have a few more abilities that involve actually brewing, consuming and maybe sharing our Brews. You know the Brewfest Trinket that let you throw out a stein? A targeted skill-shot utility would be great fun. Nothing majorly game changing but a bit of fun. A brewing CD similar to Roll the Bones combined with Seraphim could be a cool talent, something like: 3 charges, 45s recharge, 15s duration; Each charge grants a random buff from a pool of bonuses and you can either mix them or supplement your rotation with them. (I'd probably put a rare few dud/op buffs in there to make it exciting.)

Try to get more people excited about our fantasy. Make changes that improve how we look to the community. Don't rely on just buffing us, as that is a band-aid, and we're already very strong at what we do.

[Entyice]

For WW I doubt they will change SE&F or make Serenity baseline. I expect the only change to tier 100 talents is an improvement of chi orbit to make it a viable option. They will likely make hit combo baseline tho and it is hopefully replaced with a strong option in tier 90. I would also expect a better balancing of the tier 15 talents.

[Will]

Our susceptibility to burst? Really? We must be playing entirely different specs then!

[thesmall001]

Our susceptibility to burst? Really? We must be playing entirely different specs then!

Specifically those windows where ISB might run off or we rack up too much Stagger but can't spare a PB (especially if we know there's a spike incoming) or we've undergone a sustained period of heavy damage; we become susceptible to spikes. We have a lot of low HP survival tools but sometimes a particularly large blow will get through and kill us before those mechanisms can save us. Which may well suggest that I'm worried that we are physically possible to kill, I appreciate it might not be the worst thing to worry about :P

[Creatinebrah]

did they say when we should expect 7.1.5?

[Xahz]

Specifically those windows where the player takes a lot of damage without mitigating any of it

Yea, that's called you fucking up. What a ridiculous complaint.

[thesmall001]

Yea, that's called you fucking up. What a ridiculous complaint.

So, not really. Part of the grander problem with Monks is that we're seen as, and portrayed as, the "very high skill cap" Tank with hard to master gameplay that yields very small returns for that effort. I love that part and have few problems in any content I face, but it drives away potential players; they might want to try Monk but get deterred. Eventually this lack of representation backfires against even skilled players; as groups start echoing that they don't want to work with Brewmasters because we're "not easy to heal" or "least viable".

As such, we could stand to be a little bit more forgiving to learn and casual to play. I appreciate that's not what most Monks -who've stuck through it all- want to hear. But it may be critical to the specs long term health.

[AetherMcLoud]

Oh I almost forgot: The Healing Elixir Talent Row needs quite some work. Dampen Harm is abysmal and Diffuse Magic isn't that great either and Healing Elixir probably should be baseline, for tanks at least.

Also making effuse actually usable for tanks and ww would be nice.

[Woxbc]

For Brewmaster specifically:

Serious Things-

• Large rotational changes: The current rotation feels really awkward (to me anyways) with how you are forced to wait for a bit every other gcd to maximize boc value, it just really lacks the smoothness the rotation had in wod. One fix would be to just lock the cooldowns of bos and keg smash and retune the abilities, which might make haste terrible again but whatever. Alternatively they could give us a 1.5s gcd and make our gcd scale with haste (please don't do this). What I'd really like to see though is the return of chi, though I'm not sure what the best way to do that is without reworking the entire spec. One option might be to make bos apply isb and return purify to costing 1-2 chi with no cd.
• Orbs: I really dislike orbs as a mechanic even though they're kind of fine with expel harm. I'd like to see orbs gone and expel harm back to the way it used to be (energy cost ~= tiger palm, heals you with no conditions) so you are choosing between reducing brew cds and getting immediate healing.

Minor things-

• RJW/SCK: I'd like at least one of these to be baseline just for the sake of having a complete kit. Not having a solid way to pick up adds without delaying keg smash or dropping a large dps increase talent kind of sucks. There's always statue, but you give up leg sweep and using statue isn't always realistic due to the risk of pulling extra stuff.
• Statue: Make this baseline.
• Blackout Kick: Just as a personal thing, I really miss blackout kick. It makes a satisfying sound, has a cool animation, and feels very 'monk-like'. BoS feels more like a warrior skill than a monk one.

[Bags]

Hoping hit combo becomes baseline for WW, SEF bug fixes, removal of weird hit combo noisse added in 7.1

[AetherMcLoud]

For Brewmaster specifically:

Serious Things-

• Large rotational changes: The current rotation feels really awkward (to me anyways) with how you are forced to wait for a bit every other gcd to maximize boc value, it just really lacks the smoothness the rotation had in wod. One fix would be to just lock the cooldowns of bos and keg smash and retune the abilities, which might make haste terrible again but whatever. Alternatively they could give us a 1.5s gcd and make our gcd scale with haste (please don't do this). What I'd really like to see though is the return of chi, though I'm not sure what the best way to do that is without reworking the entire spec. One option might be to make bos apply isb and return purify to costing 1-2 chi with no cd.
• Orbs: I really dislike orbs as a mechanic even though they're kind of fine with expel harm. I'd like to see orbs gone and expel harm back to the way it used to be (energy cost ~= tiger palm, heals you with no conditions) so you are choosing between reducing brew cds and getting immediate healing.

Minor things-

• RJW/SCK: I'd like at least one of these to be baseline just for the sake of having a complete kit. Not having a solid way to pick up adds without delaying keg smash or dropping a large dps increase talent kind of sucks. There's always statue, but you give up leg sweep and using statue isn't always realistic due to the risk of pulling extra stuff.
• Statue: Make this baseline.
• Blackout Kick: Just as a personal thing, I really miss blackout kick. It makes a satisfying sound, has a cool animation, and feels very 'monk-like'. BoS feels more like a warrior skill than a monk one.

Great ideas. Would love if Expel Harm worked that way. And I feel the BoC rotation would feel a lot of smoother if BoS simply had no cooldown. I don't see why it needs one for Brewmasters in the first place. Oh and I like the strike since I like having an attack that swings the keg. But there really should be a glyph to make it blackout kick. There should be way more cosmetic glyphs anyway.

Just like there should be a glyph to make Tiger Palm use your weapons - while making fist weapons moggable to swords and such at the same time.

[God8010]

Chi wave should be baseline and the three talents on the first row can be replacements for it. Also need to allow interrupt and paralysis to act as a different ability and keep hit combo active. Anything that kills the dead spot in WW rotation where you have to CJL just for another blackout kick would be welcomed as well.

[Ryanite]

did they say when we should expect 7.1.5?

They said 7.1.5 would be on the ptr shortly after blizzcon but I'm not sure how many changes will be included. Anything big will probably be in 7.2.

I think ptr patches usually go on for a month or two depending on the content.

[Jaigar]

I would like a little bit better utility personally. Such as reducing boss magic damage while under the effect of Explosive Keg by 20% or something.

[Steelangel]

For Brewmaster specifically:

• Statue: Make this baseline.

THIS.

I am so annoyed at having to swap between leg sweep and statue all the damn time.

[Raakel]

Brewmaster...

• Let Provoke silence none player NPC for 3 seconds or give Spear Hand Strike some range
• Make 'Dave' baseline again

That's realy all that BrM needs from my experience.

[Deleted]

Do you think WW will get somekind of ST dmg buff ?

[Xiaojin]

Windwalker:
Overall I'm pretty happy with the spec. SEF could use some redesign so that it once and for all works properly with all procs/buffs/debuffs. The Lv45 and Lv90 talent rows need some rebalancing. Agility should become more important compared to secondary stats (to make high ilvl items better even if their secondary stat distribution is worse). But as I said, overall I'm happy with it.

Brewmaster:
As a BrM I often feel kind of helpless. Slowly withering away to Stagger damage with little that I can do other than hoping my healer will eventually get around to healing me. I like the shared brew resources, I absolutely hate GotO (orb spawn mechanics in general are awful IMHO as they don't work well with raid boss tactics). I also think that our mitigation (Stagger + purifying) scales weirdly. BrMs appear to be bad when incoming damage is low as they barely mitigate a thing but their mitigation works extremely well when incoming damage is high. Last but not least, some artefact traits could use some work.

Without going into too much detail I'd suggest something like this to fix all of the above: rename Expel Harm to Gift of the Ox, take it off the GCD, remove energy cost, remove damage. Increase the amount of GotO orbs that spawn, e.g. by turning Celestial Fortune into "every time you're healed there is a chance equal to your crit that you gain that healing as progress toward your next GotO orb" or by turning Brew-stache into "when you purify Stagger you gain the purified amount as progress toward your next GotO orb". This way you gain more orbs, the orbs are easier to use, giving you a bigger sense of agency: you can do stuff to help you survive.

Also, I'd change other traits, maybe Staggering Around, to something like "Every GotO orb you consume reduces your Stagger by an amount equal to 0.75/1.5/2.25% of your maximum health". This hopefully shouldn't clear too much Stagger to make PB irrelevant in M+ dungeons or Mythic raids but help with feeling tanky (by mitigating damage) in easier content such as Heroic dungeons. Might push PB out of your "rotation" in easier content but I think it's fine to have slightly different gameplay in dfferent difficulty levels.

EDIT
My estimate of what's going to happen in 7.1.5 is: not much for WW except some numbers tuning; maybe smaller changes for BrM but nothing to the degree described above (unfortunately).