The Teachings of Xuen: A Windwalker PvE Guide

[Psykewne]

Is there any legitimate reason Windwalkers shouldn't bring Attack Speed buff? It always seemed anti-thematic for us not too and would make us slightly more desirable for raid groups.

I feel like Blizzard really went hardcore about not giving monks anything that might make them desirable from a composition perspective, hence we got stats buff that already popular classes bring and we get crit from windwalker which is also readily available. It's the same when you look at the absence of solid raid utility in any of our specs too. Blizzard was very careful about not making another deathknight scenario. I imagine by the end of the expansion we might see something cool come our way, remember shaman didn't have spirit link totem at the start of cataclysm so it's possible for quite radical and powerful abilities to be introduced mid expansion. I'm expecting ultimately that some other class is going to get another copy of heroism/bloodlust some point soon, most likely a hybrid since right now it's still a little awkward for a 10 man to bring all the buffs whereas 25 man can basically bring whatever they like now and be sure they end up with everything somehow.

[TheWindWalker]

Mehh we have crit? lol

Shamans bring three buffs and we don't have raid cooldowns while they do. Attack Speed as a static buff would be nice.

[Deleted]

Yes. DW is best DPS.

1. Claws of Shek'zeer (H) + Claws of Shek'zeer (H)
2. Claws of Shek'zeer (H) + Gara'kal (H)
3. Gao-Rei (H)
4. Gara'kal (H) + Gara'kal (H)
5. Claws of Shek'zeer (REG) + Claws of Shek'zeer (REG)
6. Claws of Shek'zeer (REG) + Gara'kal (REG)
7. Gara'kal (REG) + Gara'kal (REG)
8. Gao-Rei (REG)
9. Gao-Rei (LFR)
10. Gara'kal (REG) + 463
11. Claws of Shek'zeer (LFR) + 463
12. Gara'kal (LFR) + 463
13. 463 + 463

Where does the 489 weapon from Spirit Kings fit into this?

[Ujio]

Where does the 489 weapon from Spirit Kings fit into this?

somewhere between 8 - 10 depending on if you want to gem LFR gao-rei or not - prolly a waste if you have full access to normals though unless you have plenty of gold to spare.

[Deleted]

I've been thinking about this a lot recently as I've just switched to windwalker permanently (was brewmaster main spec and windwalker on some fights).

Ibasically I think the 6000 haste soft cap is too much I think.

Here's my parse from heroic gara'jal from last night -

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/2...?s=8147&e=8469

Go to buffs gained. Once I used energizing brew because I was energy starved. 3 times I only had time to use fists of fury. Now the 3 prerequisites for using fist of fury are, 1.) stay on the boss while it channels, 2.) rising sun kick isnt about to come off cd and 3.) you won't energy cap. Out of those 3 it's almost always going to cause energy cap I find, rather than the other 2 coming into play.

Now I have to bring Windsong into this as I'm too cheap to get it on both weapons, so only using one dancing steel.

BUT, basically I'm wondering if 6,000 haste is too much (perhaps with windsong). I theorise that having less than 6,000 will equal more crit obviously, but making more use of energy brew and fists of fury. Fists of fury is perfect for gaining energy back as it's channeled and the best damage per combo point ability (as long as the conditions are met), thus more DPS. Perhaps the whole purpose of fists of fury is as a chance to regain energy back, this would also make our 2 piece set bonus more uselful.

I'm horrible at the maths behind it generally, well mostly lazy, but I propose this theory to you all and would like to hear your thoughts on it

If anything perhaps 6,000 haste isn't suitable for anyone who uses windsong.

Cheers, DS

[Psykewne]

DScythe, there's quite a few posts already made on this subject here and on elitist jerks that I think might help you but i'll summarise and then let you use the search function for some greater detail.
FoF is a damage increase even if you energy cap a bit now so should be used more liberally as much as a fight allows. You can safely use it anytime that you wont delay a RSK (so it needs 4 seconds or more left on cooldown) and you won't cap more than around 30 energy or so and you tiger power won't run out.

6000 haste with ascension is alot of regen and you won't find much space to do anything but rsk and bok spam, even mastery procs might cause you to cap a little. This isn't a totally bad thing as some fights don't lend themselves greatly to FoF use.

The best guideline for haste is to experiment and find the right amount for you and your playstyle and then stack crit from there. Myself I have gone between 3k - 4.5k haste back and forth a bit trying to find the best spot. You are also correct that having windsong will skew desired haste levels quite a bit and most high level people posting data will be using dancing steel on both weapons.

You do have the option to drop ascension of course and keep the 6k haste and take chi brew which can allow you to deliver some controlled burst in tandem with tigereye brew which is something we aren't able to do alot given how flat our damage delta tends to be.

Now a few bits of math for you that I found while messing with simcraft. After 4k haste the benefit of haste seems to drastically tail off, it remains slightly stronger than crit but not by much. I think this is because at this point you start seeing energy capping during heroism/bloodlust and things like that so you aren't always getting the full benefit. Also after 4k haste and 4k crit, the difference between adding another 2k haste or another 2k crit is within about 500 dps of each other which can easily be ignored by having good or bad luck with crits.
Really this means that quibbling over stats is not as effective as improving your performance in fights with movement etc.. and using things like touch of karma which can easily be worth up to 6% of your damage if used correctly on some fights. Find the right level of haste so things feel right and go from there.

[Deleted]

DScythe, there's quite a few posts already made on this subject here and on elitist jerks that I think might help you but i'll summarise and then let you use the search function for some greater detail.
FoF is a damage increase even if you energy cap a bit now so should be used more liberally as much as a fight allows. You can safely use it anytime that you wont delay a RSK (so it needs 4 seconds or more left on cooldown) and you won't cap more than around 30 energy or so and you tiger power won't run out.

6000 haste with ascension is alot of regen and you won't find much space to do anything but rsk and bok spam, even mastery procs might cause you to cap a little. This isn't a totally bad thing as some fights don't lend themselves greatly to FoF use.

The best guideline for haste is to experiment and find the right amount for you and your playstyle and then stack crit from there. Myself I have gone between 3k - 4.5k haste back and forth a bit trying to find the best spot. You are also correct that having windsong will skew desired haste levels quite a bit and most high level people posting data will be using dancing steel on both weapons.

You do have the option to drop ascension of course and keep the 6k haste and take chi brew which can allow you to deliver some controlled burst in tandem with tigereye brew which is something we aren't able to do alot given how flat our damage delta tends to be.

Now a few bits of math for you that I found while messing with simcraft. After 4k haste the benefit of haste seems to drastically tail off, it remains slightly stronger than crit but not by much. I think this is because at this point you start seeing energy capping during heroism/bloodlust and things like that so you aren't always getting the full benefit. Also after 4k haste and 4k crit, the difference between adding another 2k haste or another 2k crit is within about 500 dps of each other which can easily be ignored by having good or bad luck with crits.
Really this means that quibbling over stats is not as effective as improving your performance in fights with movement etc.. and using things like touch of karma which can easily be worth up to 6% of your damage if used correctly on some fights. Find the right level of haste so things feel right and go from there.

Thanks a lot for the thorough reply, greatly appreciate it, I frequent this forums a bit and read as much as I can and wasn't awhare this is been talked about before.

I will say I wasn't awhare that using FoF even if you will slightly energy cap is a dps increase. I didn't think crit and haste would come line with each other as far as ep is concerned. I guess haste is still valuable even with energy capping because of faster attack speed = more tiger strike procs.

Is there anyone reason you can think off that crit ends up being on par with haste after 4k rather than being stronger? It just feeel thans crit should be stronger as we'd be using our skills to the most (and set bonsus) with lesser haste numbers.

I guess coming from having a rogue main since TBC, always worries me seeing energy potientially capping as much as it does. And the data in this guide should perhaps be updated?

I've been getting ranked parses more or less every boss kill, but I think thats more to do with a lack of a bigger pool of windwalker monks on WoL than me being exceptional. I had hoped this "revelation" of mine would push us all a little bit further up the dps ranks (even though we're doing more than fine imo).

I'll test some lower haste ratings, I don't think swapping out of ascension will benefit at all really as you'll need an extra jab to then use FoF, if you get what I mean.

But yeah Like i said, cheers for the reply man ^^, interesting to say the least.

[Psykewne]

Really it all comes down to the fact that without any mastery procs and with FoF and energizing brew on cooldown it's possible to use up quite alot of energy, so when looking at sims haste can have quite a randomly fluctuating value throughout a fight, similarly with how during heroism/bloodlust we see ourselves capping more. Because of this while it does lose value it's important to understand that it is not us reaching a point where the haste is capping because we can't use it up fast enough, it's actually us reaching a point where when other things happen THEN we cap. The point at which haste is really crippled is the point where you regen 40 energy or more during 2 global cooldowns (jab + bok/rsk), at this point we simply can't make or energy drop since the 40 from the jab is recovered during the global cooldown and the following chi ability.
It probably is worth reiterating that the ultimate issue with our stats is because we have a random proc that directly devalues haste when it occurs we never get a uniform rotation and are constantly looking at the value of stats under a variety of situations and then taking an average of worst and best case scenarios to give a true value.

[Tatuin]

Right, wep question. Gao-Rei normal staff OR garja fist hc + normal? would need to get out as much dps as possible for garalon hc progress :S

And what haste to go for? im at 6549 haste atm. Bit to much i think? Energy regen is 13,27/s

[Psykewne]

Right, wep question. Gao-Rei normal staff OR garja fist hc + normal? would need to get out as much dps as possible for garalon hc progress :S

And what haste to go for? im at 6549 haste atm. Bit to much i think? Energy regen is 13,27/s

It's often quoted that with dual wield you can have a mainhand equal to a staff in item level and your offhand only needs to be with 26 ilevels of your main hand in order for dual wield to be equal. If you go by this logic then without the legendary gem the dual wield is definitely better. The question will be if 500 agility is enough to bring the staff ahead given it's a few item levels below the heroic fist to begin with. My feeling is that the difference is going to be negligible.

For haste that does seem awfully high if you have ascension which by that regen i'm guessing you do.

Something to think about is that Garalon moves between giving you boosted damage on legs to normal damage on body and back again throughout the fight, this might have an impact on how different mechanics will function for you but ultimately this is a complex thing to discuss and you'd need to do your own research and look at how your raid handles the fight to truly understand.

TLR

Drop some haste for more crit, the weapon choices are probably equal, concentrate on your individual playing rather than gear to give you the edge here.

[Malanoma]

Right, wep question. Gao-Rei normal staff OR garja fist hc + normal? would need to get out as much dps as possible for garalon hc progress :S

And what haste to go for? im at 6549 haste atm. Bit to much i think? Energy regen is 13,27/s

Just sim the weapons and find out which one is better. And I gem and reforge crit, and I have only around 4k haste. I never run out of energy on most fights.

[Deleted]

Any idea if there's still some bug with Tigereye Brew charges? I've noticed that on a target dummy sometimes I have to do 4 Blackout Kicks (using up 8 chi) to get one charge. Sometimes I get 1 charge from 2 Blackout Kicks (4 chi). This is with no Mastery procs for Blackout Kick, and all the kicks are connecting.

This seems to happen when I have an unused Tiger Palm Mastery proc. So Blackout Kick is only generating 1/4th of a charge when it's active. Can anyone else confirm?

EDIT: The same seems to apply to all abilities. RSK and FoF only generate 1/4th of a charge with Tiger Palm Mastery active.

[Saltycracker]

Updated my Windwalker Spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...0TktDUEE#gid=6

Notes:

-We scale with haste until a haste/mastery plateau, and then mastery > haste. Basically we have more chi than we can spend with BOK.
-RSK > FOF > BOK > TP > Jab. Everyone should be using FoF as much as possible and prioritizing it over BOK. The bug fix in 5.1 made it great again.
-Ascension > Power Strikes until you can get 4pc and use them perfectly (3 FOF/min, being a robo-monk with your rotation) otherwise Ascension is the way to go.

To do:
Crit > Haste w/ power strikes?

[Knough]

Ascension currently adds an energy regen increase as well as the 1+ chi limit. although other guides that mention it don't say this makes it preferable, it is more viable now

[Moozhe]

Any idea if there's still some bug with Tigereye Brew charges? I've noticed that on a target dummy sometimes I have to do 4 Blackout Kicks (using up 8 chi) to get one charge. Sometimes I get 1 charge from 2 Blackout Kicks (4 chi). This is with no Mastery procs for Blackout Kick, and all the kicks are connecting.

This seems to happen when I have an unused Tiger Palm Mastery proc. So Blackout Kick is only generating 1/4th of a charge when it's active. Can anyone else confirm?

EDIT: The same seems to apply to all abilities. RSK and FoF only generate 1/4th of a charge with Tiger Palm Mastery active.

I noticed this too but I had no idea what could be causing it. If this is the case then until the bug is fixed I think we need to place using Tiger Palm procs on a higher priority, perhaps below RSK but above everything else. I think the other exception would be if you are about to energy cap and you have 3 or less chi, in which case you could Jab first.

[Malanoma]

Holy sh*t mastery is now becoming more viable for WW in 5.2.

[Ujio]

*moved to own thread*

[Milocow]

Is it possible to wear 2 Crystalised Dread (500 AGI gem) in both Sha-touched weapons?

[Gothmoogle]

Afraid not

[Ampere]

Is it possible to wear 2 Crystalised Dread (500 AGI gem) in both Sha-touched weapons?

No the gem is unique equipped.