5.2 Monk's only hope

[Deleted]

Ghostcrawler: "Monks are likely the class that needs the most work right now. Mistweavers have been difficult to balance, work on that is still ongoing. Healing and DPS Monks are also underrepresented in PvP."

Finally.
Hoping they will fix all the unjustified recent hotfixes.

[Yorgl]

I also hope they give juuuust a little bit EH by default for BrM.

[Kisho]

I think we all expected one of two things for Monks: either we'd be overpowered, or underpowered. A lot of people saw what happened to DKs at the start of WotLK and expected similar treatment for Monks, which didn't happen. We're not bad exactly, but we didn't get anywhere near the relative strength that DKs enjoyed for a while at the start of WotLK. This probably affected our representations in PvP and PvE, since people saw that if we weren't OP, then what was the point? May as well carry on with the old mains.

We certainly do have areas that need addressing, and Blizzard have been hard at work to do just that. But they can't just jump in and immediately change stuff without taking the proper care to ensure the pendulum doesn't just swing too far in the other direction. That's what happened during WotLK, and a lot of players expressed concerns that they were feeling 'whiplash' over how quickly the game changed. It was just too much, too fast.

So yeah... Monks could use work. Let's have faith that Blizzard will get it properly addressed in 5.2. We should start getting 5.2 info soon (January at the latest, I'd imagine), so let's wait and see what happens.

[Synbaby]

I'm with you Kisho! Eagerly waiting for some changes.

[Gallahadd]

I'd say after that post I'm "Queitly confidant" that Blizz will at least TRY to sort out monks in 5.2

I'm hoping for some more passive mitigation as a Brewmaster. Don't get me wrong a high skillcap is nice, but no matter HOW well you play, dieing in a single stun because you're wearing leather is never fun, so hopefully SOME kind of fix to that.

I think we also need a short CD defensive ability, say 1min CD, 10-20% DR for 10-15 seconds, just something we can pop when we have no AM up to smooth out some of the nasty ass spikes we can sometimes take.

Also.. we NEED a proper 50% DR cd, Dampen Harm just doesn't frakkin work, it's annoying for example to drop it when tanking adds on Wind Lord but.. oh.. wait.. no, none of the adds hit for more than 20% of your total health, they hit for ALOT and there's LOTS of them, but not enough to proc the DR.

[Mr. Casual]

yea im lvling a ww monk atm (73) so i dont have the full grasp of the class since im not max lvl but the one thing i have noticed is the lack of an i win button. Pvp now has devolved into comps with the best burst win. So for ww monks who dont have a 1shot button so that makes the class unappealing for the current game. all i here we are really squishy, so in a game that revolves around burst being squishy isnt a good thing lol. Have to wait until im lvl 90 to get a better look at the class

[Kenai]

There has been some seriously good discussion (on MW at least, I don't use the other specs much) on the official forums. I hope they are paying attention to it.

Regarding MW, and not even considering HPS, their lack of control with their healing is a pretty big concern, since so much of it revolves around ReM, which still is fairly unreliable even though it doesn't jump to pets and Dragonlings so much anymore. Their single target healing is also prohibitively expensive, and their CDs are...well, they could use some adjustments so they make more sense or are more applicable in more situations at least (particularly Zen Meditation and Transcendence).

MW literally isn't the same class/spec it was two weeks ago, and it's now actually suggested to ignore a large % of their healing toolkit in most situations just because it doesn't work well. I don't mind relearning the class if mechanics change, but that doesn't seem right to me at all when Healing Sphere is our go-to single target heal for HPS, Surging is literally not worth using, half of Enveloping ends up being overheal, and Soothing Mist gets interrupted by almost everything else we would want to cast, and most of these single target issues have been around a while. For multitarget, SCK is almost a last resort move thanks to the cost being so high (despite being a Chi building move) and unless you win the ReM RNG lotto, it's *almost* never worth using Uplift over Chi Burst in 25 mans anymore. We went from being a VERY active class to having almost nothing we can do because we have no mana for it, in a few days. Not only is it not very effective anymore, it's not fun or exciting either since we just have to sit there most of the time due to prohibitive costs on doing literally anything beyond the bare minumum. None of this really makes any sense to me, at all. Why did they think it would be ok like this? It's not.

Now with MW's formerly massive HPS not hiding the functionality problems anymore, I hope they are willing to actually address these issues in a timely fashion. I understand new classes are going to have ups and downs, but that doesn't mean I have to pretend this is acceptable. For the record, I was actually pretty ok with the last patch BEFORE the random blanket Mana cost increase to almost everything, now I feel like it's just stupid. Even so, I still roll my eyes at all the "rerollers" and the sky is falling hyperbole. The patch hasn't been THAT long for all of that crap, not yet. No one's really going to have time to reroll before the class changes again anyway, not at this point. Since it's not doing so hot in PvE anymore, and it never was doing very hot in PvP, positive changes can be expected before long. If not, then the b*tching and moaning can really start, by all means.

[Charos]

yea im lvling a ww monk atm (73) so i dont have the full grasp of the class since im not max lvl but the one thing i have noticed is the lack of an i win button.

You've touched on something pretty important here. We don't have any big DPS cooldowns; Xuen is more of a sustained damage buff rather than proper burst. IMO, a few things would help WW monks:

- We need some sort of burst ability. One potential idea would be to have a 3min CD ability that removes RSK's cooldown for 20 seconds or so. For brewmaster, it could remove the cooldown on keg smash. Alternatively, it could be a % crit buff, similar to warriors' Recklessness.

- Mastery needs an overhaul. The current system feels frustrating since a proc at a bad time leads to wasted resources (energy capping). It doesn't feel like free damage, it feels like overcomplicating the rotation. I like having a random proc, to keep things interesting, but this isn't really the way to do it. It could work if they reduced the mastery proc % chance across the board, but made those procs do more damage than usual to balance out the DPS loss. I don't think they would change it over to free RSKs, since that would feel too much like shadow priest / fire mage / whatever procs.

- Energy regen should be reduced, and the damage of our skills increased to compensate. I'm not saying by a lot, maybe 5-10% would be enough. This would smooth things out while still maintaining the feel of the spec.

Any comments or criticisms are welcome.

[Tastyfish]

I don't know about any of you but I like to know how, the constant judgment for a holy pally was deemed crappy in the end, but they turned around and made another healing spec based on the same principal. I like to know why they took it form one and decided it be good for another.

[Draahl]

The funny thing about WW's mastery is that they have tried this before, on Retadins in Cata. If it didnt work then, why would it work now? The one responsible for this mastery should be fired tbh, total lack of understanding.

[Kisho]

- We need some sort of burst ability. One potential idea would be to have a 3min CD ability that removes RSK's cooldown for 20 seconds or so. For brewmaster, it could remove the cooldown on keg smash. Alternatively, it could be a % crit buff, similar to warriors' Recklessness.

Ooo. Nice idea. It wouldn't be 'too' bad either, as you'd still be limited by energy/chi. Also the idea of chaining Keg Smashes just tickles me in all the right places. /teamrocketjameslaugh

- Energy regen should be reduced, and the damage of our skills increased to compensate. I'm not saying by a lot, maybe 5-10% would be enough. This would smooth things out while still maintaining the feel of the spec.

Erk, no thanks on that one. That would negatively affect a Brewmaster's Shuffle uptime, which in turn would mean we take more damage. Windwalkers could do with the reduction in energy regen sure, but not Brewmasters. We need that energy a lot.

I feel like a Brewmaster's energy income is actually pretty good, but Windwalker's is a bit too crazy I find.

[Woceip]

I feel like a Brewmaster's energy income is actually pretty good, but Windwalker's is a bit too crazy I find.

I like my energy income as a windwalker. It makes it an interesting game to me to work to spend the energy without capping my chi or wasting any. Brewmaster feels sluggish for energy income at times, but that may be because I'm gemmed and enchanted for dps. Only recently been getting enough 'extra' pieces to start building an actual bm specific set.

[timeconsumer26]

as for the mistweavers... all i want is a dev blog or something to give us a clue towards what direction they want to take us. They eventually did this with DK's, and did it a lot when changing up the tanks to more active mitigation. We are a new class, finding a realized niche within a raid setting will be difficult for any new class... the pinballing of changes we have seen to the spec is making it nigh impossible to find this niche... that said, the difference between a 10m MW and a 25m MW is staggering, and needs work, as does our single target healing. what spec has to wait on a proc chance to drop a big heal that is actually a silly hot that goes into overhealing 80% of the time? (soothing channelling to proc chi for EnM) My 10m kill of WotE last night saw a few tank deaths because i couldnt afford the mana for surging, and didnt get enough chi procs from soothing to boost the tank up enough... and several deaths happened while RM, EnM, were up, and SoM was channelling... maybe make EnM do 50% + of its heal go out instantly, with a smaller hot rolling after? etc etc etc...
one thing i will say after healing last night is that MW is still very viable for 10m normal (casual) content, despite its flaws... i played conservatively and usually had some mana to spare at the end, and still managed to pull ahead of our resto shaman (who significantly outgears me) on all fights in MV, other than WotE.

[SurrealNight]

I like where BrM's are at the moment, a tiny buff to either our Armor or HP would be nice but we are obviously doing well without it by adjusting stats for certain encounters if needed. I hope they don't mess with our damage, being high on the tank DPS charts is only fair if they are going to give us such a limited supply of CD's.

I'm not sure how they let WW go live the way it was you could see the issues with the class on paper without even playing it. So-so DPs, no raid CD's/utility, and weak PVP viability + it's another melee class? Probably one of the worst specs out of all classes this tier imo.

MW friend is going back to his Disc priest, seems sick of the lack of direction and constant nerfs and lack of solid raid CD's.

[Charos]

Erk, no thanks on that one. That would negatively affect a Brewmaster's Shuffle uptime, which in turn would mean we take more damage. Windwalkers could do with the reduction in energy regen sure, but not Brewmasters. We need that energy a lot.

I feel like a Brewmaster's energy income is actually pretty good, but Windwalker's is a bit too crazy I find.

I agree with you, but Brewmaster and Windwalker (iirc) already have different energy regen rates. You could change Windwalker without impacting Brewmaster at all.

[SurrealNight]

I agree with you, but Brewmaster and Windwalker (iirc) already have different energy regen rates. You could change Windwalker without impacting Brewmaster at all.

How is WW and BrM's energy generation different? They generate more Chi due to Tiger Stance (though Keg Smash for BrM closes the gap a little) but wasn't aware of different energy scaling.

[JhanZ]

In terms of PvP, I think WW needs some controlled burst on a CD and probably a bit more survivability.

[Bartolo]

We certainly do have areas that need addressing, and Blizzard have been hard at work to do just that.

Are you kidding?? Not a single message from Blizzard on monks balance since the release. We have no idea where the class is going and what their plans are, esp. for mistweavers. We trusted them, they cheated us. No more gameplay, no hope left, what a waste of energy. The only thing we could read is a twit from GC stating that MWs mana regen was OP (after they 'fixed' it without us asking for anything) when on the other side Disc priest in my 25 man is the only one not needing to take a single portal for mana regen on Gara'jal because his rapture proc is refunding 90k (!) mana when shaman MTT is down and his PoH is barely costing 13k mana.

5.2 is way too far for Blizzard to show us some respect and take action. I want an interesting gameplay and something else to do than to rely on lucky ReM jumps to heal my raid.

[Kisho]

How is WW and BrM's energy generation different? They generate more Chi due to Tiger Stance (though Keg Smash for BrM closes the gap a little) but wasn't aware of different energy scaling.

Tank stance has an extra 10% energy regen.

Are you kidding?? Not a single message from Blizzard on monks balance since the release. We have no idea where the class is going and what their plans are, esp. for mistweavers. We trusted them, they cheated us. No more gameplay, no hope left, what a waste of energy. The only thing we could read is a twit from GC stating that MWs mana regen was OP (after they 'fixed' it without us asking for anything) when on the other side Disc priest in my 25 man is the only one not needing to take a single portal for mana regen because his rapture proc is refunding 90k (!) mana when shaman MTT is down.

And how is getting emotional over it going to help? 'No hope left', riiiiight.

Take a look at the big picture. The entire game. Generally speaking, stuff gets fixed. Sometimes it takes a while, but the vast majority of the time stuff gets fixed. Why do we need to be coddled, to be told 'there there, it'll be ok, we'll take care of everything', when we could just trust them to do the best thing for the game?

Contrary to what is apparently popular belief, Blizzard do care about the game. They want the game to be as close to balanced as possible, because that creates a good game for everyone. They don't want to just leave a class behind, to languish in the depths of broken and unbalanced mechanics, because then they lose subscribers. They'd lose money. Even the most cynical of you can agree that they probably don't want to do that. It's not like (for example) Mage players pay more money, so they get favoured or anything so silly as that.

Also, y'know, your entire argument? 'Not a single message from Blizzard'? You may want to double check the OP in this very thread. Just an idea.

[Bartolo]

You're not wrong here, I tend to be a bit excessive. But overall the impression is that Blizzard have no clue where they are going (aka such 30% - 50% - 100% changes we see for monks or mages are far from being fine tuning) and they refuse to communicate and explain their views to their customers. The message from GC is far from being satisfying when it basically tells we will have to wait for 4 more months.