Windwalker Monk Guide

[Yorgl]

Ok. Too bad :-/
They could have implemented a AoE utility to the aoe taunt of the Ox Statue.

[Deleted]

>Jab costs 40 energy and generates 1 chi baseline, but 2 for Windwalkers due to Muscle Memory. <
That explains why my Windwalker is so crap now, they've removed Muscle Memory and I generate 1 Chi for each Jab, which I then have to use on Tiger Palm, or stand there and get hit whilst my energy builds up for another jab. Ok I have Chi Brew and Energizing brew, but at 1.5min and 1min cooldown they don't change the rotation very much. jab, jab , tiger palm, tiger palm, jab, tiger palm, wait, jab, tiger palm, jab, tiger palm, wait etc etc.

[Xifangbaihu]

>Jab costs 40 energy and generates 1 chi baseline, but 2 for Windwalkers due to Muscle Memory. <
That explains why my Windwalker is so crap now, they've removed Muscle Memory and I generate 1 Chi for each Jab, which I then have to use on Tiger Palm, or stand there and get hit whilst my energy builds up for another jab. Ok I have Chi Brew and Energizing brew, but at 1.5min and 1min cooldown they don't change the rotation very much. jab, jab , tiger palm, tiger palm, jab, tiger palm, wait, jab, tiger palm, jab, tiger palm, wait etc etc.

This is a bug on the beta with the change they made putting the extra chi generation on our stance instead of in a passive in our spell book. What you need to do to fix this bug is get an offspec in one of the other two specs (Mistweaver/brewmaster). Once you are in the spec, swap to that spec's primary stance (Ox/Serpent) then swap back to Tiger stance. Once that is done swap back to your windwalker spec and the two chi per jab mechanic will be back. So breakdown time:

1) Swap to offspec
2) Change to offspec's stance, then swap back to tiger stance (stance dance!)
3) Swap back to windwalker spec.

[Deleted]

Cool you are correct. thanks.

Also like the animation of the skill going into the action bars as you swap specs :-)

[Xifangbaihu]

Cool you are correct. thanks.

Also like the animation of the skill going into the action bars as you swap specs :-)

Yes I noticed that as well. I don't know when it was that they added that in, but it makes swapping specs a lot more interesting. Currently on live, it's just a flash of the spec page and an icon change on your buttons.

---------- Post added 2012-05-09 at 03:08 PM ----------

One thing on the beta that concerns me about the spec is the lack of haste increasing energy regen. I am sure at some point it is intended to be a part of the spec (since haste would be low on the totem pole as it would only increase auto-attack frequency), but there isn't an energy regeneration stat in the character page where it would be for a rogue or a feral druid in cat form. Right now on dungeon bosses, once you get to using black out kick sub 50% with it's current two chi cost, our resources start to fall behind our need for ability uses (Demand outgrows Supply). Things aren't as bad when energizing brew is up, but it is just a concern at this point for longer pve fights.

Note: I have only done a little testing on the beta with the new patch changes to our current abilities so things may be different for the bigger longer fights. Our "rotation" or flow is much different than it was before in the previous iteration of the beta.

Another added note is that currently on the beta, agility does not give is any dodge. My passive parry and dodge percents are just a 3% (no buffs) and 11.8%. I hope this is something to be changed in the future, otherwise we will be taking a good majority of hits straight on and our armor is not very high as is, being leather wearers.

[Drifted]

I would add Nifflevar Bearded Axe to recommended heirloom list even thou it's not a true heirloom. At level 71 when you can equip the axe it has 312-580 damage range when heirloom weapons got 190-353. Also if you really want to put effort you can enchant them with Berserking as they are ilvl 226 (equal to Kel'thuzad epics from Naxx25). If you have high level archeology on any character it is very easy to get. You can also use 2 of them but that means you need to discover them on two different character.

[Deleted]

will it be viable to go for the JP agi sword and the HP extra swing sword?
which enchants would be best to use on all heirloom items?

[Xifangbaihu]

Note: I have only done a little testing on the beta with the new patch changes to our current abilities so things may be different for the bigger longer fights. Our "rotation" or flow is much different than it was before in the previous iteration of the beta.

After doing the testing with the new mechanics and resources costs, windwalkers are still lagging behind in resources sub 50% between blackout kick costing 2 chi, rising sun kick's 2 chi cost, and needing to refresh tiger strikes with tiger palm's 1 chi cost. We go from a fast paced fist fighter to waiting and watching for when our energy slowly fulls back up for one more jab. Maybe with higher mastery this problem will become smaller and smaller, but it just does not fell right to be fast paced prior to 50% and then have a huge slow down in pacing sub 50%.

Also sub 50%, we get into the area of the awkward one chi, where we don't need to use it to refresh our armorpen buff and it's not enough for a blackout kick, so we end up jabbing (3 chi total), BoKing (1 chi total), jabbing (3 chi total), BoKing, (Jab) then power strikes procs (4 chi total) and we can RSK and Bok. Just something funny I have noticed. It feels odd, but that just plays into chi costs between our two primary finishers being even and odd numbers.

I like the idea of how tiger's brew works as a buff to be monitored and used appropriately, but having it take over 80 seconds to build to a full stack seems like a bit of a drawback. Just on observation at this point. Not sure what the raw numbers are for the buff and it's potency, but it just seems like something should be changed a bit to make it a bit more on demand.

[sinisterwyvern]

Yeah the change to tiger palm makes it just that much more complex I think. The priority list just gets even longer than it already was. We'll see what happens I guess.

[Yorgl]

First, I'd like to stress that what follows is mainly empirical and is based on thoughts I had while experimenting the spec. Note that I'm 89 and have done a lot of quests so my gear is kind of ok for my level.
Maths and tools like Simcraft will probably provide reliable information when 90's datas are available, but meanwhile it's still fun / interesting to mess around imo.

Stats :

It's hard to be 100% sure without a spreadsheet but we can assume that we should have our hit and expertise caps (ie 3%, iirc).
For the other secondary stats, here's what I would imagine being optimal : Crit > Mastery > Haste. Here's why :

• Without gemming or reforging to haste, I feel like swarming into ressources and already have difficulties exploiting every proc and speding enough Chi / energy without overcaping one of those. So even if we lower our haste, I'm pretty sure we won't have many times with nothing to press.
• For the same reason as above, having too much Mastery could lead us to have to many procs without being able to use them all, or spend enough chi / energy.
• Therefore, maxing our crit might boost our DPS and still leave us with no downtime.
• Note that regarding haste, I might underestimate its value due to Way of the Monk / Tiger Strikes. If this is the case, we might reconsider and swap Mastery and Haste, leaving us with less procs but more energy to spend (and therefore more TP, basically).

Single target priority :

Note : for simplicity's sake, I'll assume that Ascension is selected into the talents. (Obviously, it's not clear that it'll be the more optimal but from my experience, it's at least the more comfortable ^^)

• Tigereye Brew at 10 stacks
• RSK on CD
• FoF on CD (preferably while low on energy)
• Zen Sphere up
• Combo Breaker proc
• TP if 4 or 5 Chi
• Jab (or Expel Harm if necessary)

For Zen Sphere, I'm not totally sure, I don't have access to the game right now so I can't check if Dmg(ZS) > 2 x Dmg(TP). :-/

[Deleted]

So I finally managed to play the beta and I've noticed something about Windwalker monks: their major glyphs are completely worthless... is this intended? I understand they are trying to walk away from the whole "obligatory stuff" but make them at least of a little use...

[alarondruid]

All, apologies for being slow about revising the OP. I'll get to it when I can; had RL catch up to me last month. In the meantime, the guide on my blog is up to date, so give that a look.

[Deleted]

Do you guys think the BK DoT will eventually stack? Or does it already stack (using BK when the target already has your BK DoT)? To me, currently it looks like the new BK DoT overwrites the old one, resulting in a *maybe* waste of chi because the damage of the overwritten DoT part is nullified. Can anyone confirm this?

[Deleted]

Do you guys think the BK DoT will eventually stack? Or does it already stack (using BK when the target already has your BK DoT)? To me, currently it looks like the new BK DoT overwrites the old one, resulting in a *maybe* waste of chi because the damage of the overwritten DoT part is nullified. Can anyone confirm this?

I'm very very interested in this as well, even though I guess it shouldn't be hard to test simply by checking the dot damage.

I'd do this myself but I can't log in :/

---------- Post added 2012-06-18 at 09:10 PM ----------

Sorry for the double post but I just got to test this:

MY STATS
Level 90
10874 AGI (115 STR)
Damage 16k/24k
DPS 8k/4k
Atk Power 22k

• 1 BoK non-crit = 73k; DoT damage = 3k plus or less.
• 2 BoK non-crit = 68k, 71k; DoT Damage = 4,5k plus or less.
• 3 BoK non-crit = 64k, 69k, 61k; DoT Damage = 4,8k plus or less.

The DoT itself can crit, and (obviously) BoK crits increase the dot damage. It also seems to tick very, very fast and I don't have much haste (2899) so I'm guessing it does not scale with it.

[Xifangbaihu]

So I have not had a chance to play on the beta for a while, but I am wondering what people's thoughts are on the flow and rotation of the spec. Have the new changes made it more fun? Do things still feel a bit goofy? Is our resource system still lagging behind itself after 30 seconds of fighting? Is energizing brew still on the GCD?

[Deleted]

So I have not had a chance to play on the beta for a while, but I am wondering what people's thoughts are on the flow and rotation of the spec. Have the new changes made it more fun? Do things still feel a bit goofy? Is our resource system still lagging behind itself after 30 seconds of fighting? Is energizing brew still on the GCD?

The rotation seems to be where it is supposed to be, but yes it still lags behind after a bit. You start going too low on Energy after a while and have to use Energizing Brew pretty much on CD. But it still feels much more fluid than before. And yes Energizing brew (and Tigereye Brew, too, for some dumb reason) is still on the GCD.

This latest patch seem to have thrown a huge hit at my DPS going from 77k to 67k on dummies. I have no other level 90 toon so I have no idea if either is balanced anyway, but still.

Xuen has had its damage increased (went from 2k dps by itself to 5,5k) and Zen Sphere is still dumbly overpowered. The thing I dislike the most from the last beta patch is that our AoE was unjustly nerfed. It was terrible before, but now it's even worse and when Zen Sphere will be properly nerfed it will be simply nonexistent. They need to do something with FoF, because right now it's good only for cleaving :/

Also, slightly off-topic: is anyone else having the issue that Rising Sun Kick animation is the same as Blackout Kick? It seems to be only happening to Male Pandaren to me...

[Deleted]

So Windwalker got a flat nerf of almost every ability (even Jab), excluding Rising Sun Kick. I think it's justified, last time i checked i was doing like 82k DPS (with excessive Zen Sphere use) + the 2k'ish DPS from Xuen, but you can never be sure because we don't know how well other classes are doing... but it seems to be too much.

The only thing i really don't understand is why they left the most OP ability in the Windwalker's arsenal untouched. Maybe they're OK with Zen Sphere ticking for 40k-55k damage every 2 seconds. Did anyone mention this in the official class balance thread? I can't post US forums.

[Deleted]

Anyone else tested the better enchants available right now before Raid Testing? I'm sure the agility one will be the winner when it's craftable, but, yeah... I was looking for actual numbers but found none on the internet, so I decided to test them myself!

I tested Landslide, Windsong and Elemental Force as of right now, when dual-wielding and by looking at the proc rate + numbers I've found out that Windsong is the clear winner.

At first I was skeptical because I realized that an 1k (2k) atk power buff would be better than a secondary stat increase or simple damage, but then I remembered that 1k atk power is much less strong in MoP when you have 25k.
Anyway, Elemental Force is p. much useless. It has the same ICD and proc rate of landslide, but does like 3.5k damage MAX, so not even worth the 500g you find it in the AH. Windsong, instead is actually pretty damn awesome. Not only it has no ICD, but all the three buffs can be active AT THE SAME TIME! The proc rate is something like 5%-10% though (guesstimated) and of course more if you have it on both weapons. The weapon effect is also rather nice, especially if you are used to the ugliness of Landslide.

[Xifangbaihu]

So one of the blue posts recently was about the dead time in our rotation and flow and from what it sounds like, it's intentional. To be honest, that doesn't sound very fun. I'm sure the problem would get better with gear (more haste and mastery), but if it is expected that 20-30% of the time is to be spent doing nothing, it doesn't really fit the idea of the fast paced playstyle RPG monks are known for. Anyone's thoughts on this?

[Koohii]

Ok, I don't see the "When target is above or below 50%" on BoK or TP. Did they take that out when they gave WW Monks the 20% damage from behind buff to BoK? What would our new rotation be then if BoK gets more damage?

Just so many changes and no updates, maybe pass it on to someone who's not so busy to update the main sticky?