Whats the Point of Zen Mediation?

[Jaigar]

So today I got the monk legendary that makes Zen Meditation last 3 melee attacks, making me remember that it still exists in the game.

But I don't understand the point of it.

In WoD it had its uses for eating boss mechanics. I could alleviate healing on fights like Fel Reaver when targeted by Artillery, or any large mechanic that I needed to eat.

Its been nerfed so heavily that I don't understand its role. If I had to choose between an ISB charge and Zen Meditation, I'd take the Brew charge almost anytime.

In terms of immediate damage, having an ISB up is better than Zen Meditation. You also can't keep ISB up the entire duration even if you wanted to.

Theres a couple scenarios I'd find it useful. First would be a missed taunt. I MIGHT be able to survive a fail Ursoc or Spider boss taunt using this, but I also have to keep a brew charge in reserve. Even then, Fort Brew functions the absolute best with the ability to get over 100% stagger and 20% damage reduction/health. The second is raw magic damage because stagger only 50% effective on magic damage.

The PvP trait, Guided Meditation, makes it an amazing CD. It forces all harmful effects onto you, which is pretty nifty. I wish some raid utility could be offered baseline


Am I missing something that makes it a useful skill?

[Zephirdd]

Just as you mentioned fel reaver, you can see it's use on ToV. Odyn has his spear mechanic on phase three that you can mitigate with ZM; you can also mitigate Guarm's breath or fang attack with it, since they are predictable.

Outside of those I can see it being used to tank Cenarius' spear, nythendra's rot explosion(albeit not very necessary, it's a mitigation nonetheless), possibly taking a third Nightmare Horror's Eye of Fate, or simply surviving an extra hit longer than you would otherwise.

It's not an amazing, BoS-like damage mitigation, but it has its uses.

[Jaigar]

Ah ok, but it still makes the legendary useless, since you use it to eat 1 mechanic, then typically end it.

Though I've been experimenting with it on bosses in dungeons since a lot have a slow swing timer, its alright, just not great.

[jearle]

It pretty much sucks outside of a few specific instances where it can be useful. Needs a rework to be made useful imo.

[Zephirdd]

It pretty much sucks outside of a few specific instances where it can be useful. Needs a rework to be made useful imo.

"It pretty much sucks outside of the times it does not suck"

uhhh...

That's kinda what a situational ability is. Maybe its 3min cd is too high for its limited usefulness, but it is not something to be used on every situation ever.

[Deleted]

Maybe its 3min cd is too high for its limited usefulness

It's 5 minutes, although maybe they should think about making 3.

[WintersLegion]

It pretty much sucks outside of a few specific instances where it can be useful. Needs a rework to be made useful imo.

Interrupts suck except for the times where it can be useful. Stuns suck except for the times they can be useful.

[AetherMcLoud]

Interrupts suck except for the times where it can be useful. Stuns suck except for the times they can be useful.

Bullshit. Stuns are useful in every single M+ pull, just like interrupts. You probably won't find a handful of uses for Zen Med though. It's such a bad cooldown, it has 4 different downsides with no real upside.

[Raiz]

Bullshit. Stuns are useful in every single M+ pull, just like interrupts. You probably won't find a handful of uses for Zen Med though. It's such a bad cooldown, it has 4 different downsides with no real upside.

In case you didn't know, he was being sarcastic. You don't have to take everything literally

[Jaigar]

Update:The Zen meditation legendary is arguably the best new BrM legendary with 7.1.5 change. CD gets halved, you can move, and melee attacks no longer cancel when hit

[DesMephisto]

Fundamental Observation - New effect: Zen Meditation has 50% reduced cooldown and is no longer cancelled when you move or when you are hit by melee attacks

[Deleted]

And then it got updated and its all of a sudden really really good

[Deleted]

And then it got updated and its all of a sudden really really good

If you should be so lucky as to get that legendary it suddenly looks very good indeed

[Deleted]

Even with the new legendary effect, it doesn't sound that good to me.

"New effect: Zen Meditation has 50% reduced cooldown and is no longer cancelled when you move or when you are hit by melee attacks."

It still means you can't take any other action for 8 seconds other than moving? Cant do damage, cant pop brews etc, or am I missing something?

It definitely improves it a lot and gives it more uses but still would be nice to be a full shield for 8 sec while being able to attack.

[Saverem]

Just as you mentioned fel reaver, you can see it's use on ToV. Odyn has his spear mechanic on phase three that you can mitigate with ZM; you can also mitigate Guarm's breath or fang attack with it, since they are predictable.

Outside of those I can see it being used to tank Cenarius' spear, nythendra's rot explosion(albeit not very necessary, it's a mitigation nonetheless), possibly taking a third Nightmare Horror's Eye of Fate, or simply surviving an extra hit longer than you would otherwise.

It's not an amazing, BoS-like damage mitigation, but it has its uses.

Spear mechanic is physical damage and barely tickled me with my ISB up when I ran it last night on heroic. All it does is make your stagger go up to the 3rd level and you just purify it.

I'd save Zen Med for high damage spell attacks over anything physical. So like when he shatters the spears and does high raid damage.

- - - Updated - - -

Even with the new legendary effect, it doesn't sound that good to me.

"New effect: Zen Meditation has 50% reduced cooldown and is no longer cancelled when you move or when you are hit by melee attacks."

It still means you can't take any other action for 8 seconds other than moving? Cant do damage, cant pop brews etc, or am I missing something?

It definitely improves it a lot and gives it more uses but still would be nice to be a full shield for 8 sec while being able to attack.

Yep, it'll still be channeled ability if I'm reading it right. I mean, you can last 8s without doing any damage and still having aggro, so it's not too bad. Also, it'll provide MUCH needed spell damage mitigation. It's just dumb that we are reliant on a legendary to fix a broken ability tho...

[Dakiri]

Even with the new legendary effect, it doesn't sound that good to me.

"New effect: Zen Meditation has 50% reduced cooldown and is no longer cancelled when you move or when you are hit by melee attacks."

It still means you can't take any other action for 8 seconds other than moving? Cant do damage, cant pop brews etc, or am I missing something?

It definitely improves it a lot and gives it more uses but still would be nice to be a full shield for 8 sec while being able to attack.

There's no need to purify when you have Zen Meditation up. It reduces all damage done to us by 60%. That's not just the initial hit, but also every single stagger tick. We basically never get to see this happen to us because there's basically never a time on live when we can channel the whole cast without getting meleed or having to move. But with the legendary in 7.1.5, you can keep it up for the full duration.

If you get meleed for 100 damage with ISB and ZM up, you take 8 damage initially, and then 32 damage over 10 seconds. But while ZM is up, you don't take 3.2 damage from each tick, you take 1.28 damage. Now take into account how this math happens on every single hit and every single tick of stagger Depending on how much magic vs physical damage you're taking, my quick napkin math says ZM becomes a 70-75% damage mitigation CD. You'll want to make sure you 8 seconds of ISB available before you use it, of course. But mitigating the whole time means that it's more effective than purifying.

Edit: Ok, probably less than 70-75% since you won't be able to dodge (I believe) during the cast, so depending on boss attack speed that's an extra 3ish attacks you'll be taking that you wouldn't anyway. So oof, not as happy as I thought. Still think it's pretty great, and will be game-changing against heavy magic damage.