Which type of class is a Monk really?!

[Illitti]

You show only 10H from here, and as Nikkaszal pointed out, omited some specs. Lets compare 10H to 25H and see the difference:

Overall, Monks are in a fine position since 5.1, looking to be in a slightly better position come 5.2.

I believe I made myself perfectly clear why some specs were not listed. Those that play Arms in raids probably do so because they like it, or because it's their PvP spec and they can't be arsed to make an offspec and learn to play it. Either way, they're not putting an effort to swap a spec and reforge their gear accordingly, which already shows that their parses should not be taken seriously.

I think the differences in 10H and 25H boil down to 25H being more prone to huge AOE fests, like Feng, where WW performs greatly. Even then, this was not really my point. Maybe I should have left raidbots link out altogether. The point was that if we make this forum an echo chamber where everyone praises how glorious the spec is in every aspect, it has huge impact to WW community, which is why I also pointed at MMO-C Shaman community. Look at Warlocks or Rogues, who currently parse highest for ranged and melee respectively. Is their forum full of members praising Blizzard for their great design decisions?

Numbers wise, we can't say anything about 5.2 yet. But concept wise, we're getting some direly needed love.

[Dreyo]

Look at Warlocks or Rogues, who currently parse highest for ranged and melee respectively. Is their forum full of members praising Blizzard for their great design decisions?

That's a specious correlation if ever I saw one.

[promdate]

I think the differences in 10H and 25H boil down to 25H being more prone to huge AOE fests, like Feng, where WW performs greatly. Even then, this was not really my point. Maybe I should have left raidbots link out altogether.

SCK did 20% of my damage on Feng a few weeks ago (I've been tanking, normally dps). Don't you still have the aoe phase in 10H for Feng? On single target boss fights with no adds or swapping, WW monks do well. Are we in the same dps range as Ferals, Rogues, Mages, or Locks? Not really, but we're not THAT far behind. Sky isn't falling, never was.

[grimsanta]

No raid utility from WW monks? I can sacrifice a tiny bit of DPS and exhange black out kick for Chi Wave from time to time and put out a decent amount of heals that prioritizes damaged members while still DPSing the boss. I can out heal a shadow priest doing this with no overhealing. Zen meditation is also an effective cooldown when used properly. When our raid was originally having trouble with feng (now a face roll of course), zen med could nearly negate an epicenter. Also works great on force and verve. Or at least it seems to. Single target for WW is good, 2-3 targets is bad (stone guard, I'm looking at you!). We also have a single target insta kill for weak mobs, which helps on fights like gara'jal. And the idea that we don't have burst is pure bs (xuen, energizing, and tigers brew all at the same time will induce massive dps).

Healing is great for the most part, though there is a bit of build up. Our heals are quick, but our big heals cost a LOT of mana, something that can be negated by good use of chi. Spinning crane kick is one of the best AOE heals in the game when used with rushing jade wind (or whatever it's called).

Can't speak for tanking much as I don't, but our main tank in our raids is a monk. He seems to pull higher dps than other tanks do.

[Woceip]

I can't even begin to comprehend why people think WW is great or even middle of the pack when statistical evidence is something like this:

http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Overall_D...10100000000000

It'll hopefully be fixed in 5.2, at least patch notes look very promising, but currently WW is dead last with zero raid utility.

This has yet to stop me from destroying most of the people I end up grouped with, be they normal raid members or randoms. Only fights I come out behind on are caster favoring or multi-dot where I can't aoe. Cleave used to be like that, it's a toss-up now with the changes.

[Illitti]

SCK did 20% of my damage on Feng a few weeks ago (I've been tanking, normally dps). Don't you still have the aoe phase in 10H for Feng? On single target boss fights with no adds or swapping, WW monks do well. Are we in the same dps range as Ferals, Rogues, Mages, or Locks? Not really, but we're not THAT far behind. Sky isn't falling, never was.

Since SCK isn't capped by the amount of targets and Devouring Shield (if I remember the ability name correctly) spawns spirits from every player, it obviously hugely benefits 25H because there are more spirits. This is evidenced by large difference in data, where we're 6th on 10H and first on 25H.

I never implied that the sky is falling for us, just that our flaws need to be made clear so the community doesn't get the wrong impression about WW.

No raid utility from WW monks? I can sacrifice a tiny bit of DPS and exhange black out kick for Chi Wave from time to time and put out a decent amount of heals that prioritizes damaged members while still DPSing the boss. I can out heal a shadow priest doing this with no overhealing. Zen meditation is also an effective cooldown when used properly. When our raid was originally having trouble with feng (now a face roll of course), zen med could nearly negate an epicenter. Also works great on force and verve. Or at least it seems to. Single target for WW is good, 2-3 targets is bad (stone guard, I'm looking at you!). We also have a single target insta kill for weak mobs, which helps on fights like gara'jal. And the idea that we don't have burst is pure bs (xuen, energizing, and tigers brew all at the same time will induce massive dps).

Healing is great for the most part, though there is a bit of build up. Our heals are quick, but our big heals cost a LOT of mana, something that can be negated by good use of chi. Spinning crane kick is one of the best AOE heals in the game when used with rushing jade wind (or whatever it's called).

Small offhealing is not raid utility. Can you use Chi Wave to heal through Force and Verve when all healing cooldowns are used? No, but if you had Cat Druid or Enh Shaman, they could.

You're also wrong about Zen Meditation. Currently about the only thing where spell redirection works is Spirit Kings when Meng is in Cowardice, but you'd kill yourself if you used it there because of DoT nature of the damage. If Zen Meditation really worked to redirect damage that the raid takes on Epicenter, Force and Verve or similar, I'd not complain about our raid utility one bit.

About Burst Damage, that requires a lot of setup and if we are to sit on our short term cooldowns, it will affect our overall DPS massively. Obviously, sometimes it is required, but that's not good for us at all. Even with all those popped, we lose next to every other class in burst.

I don't really agree on our self healing, it's decent but definitely not great. Our self mitigation is awesome though, as is our AOE, I agree on those.

[TheWindWalker]

Small offhealing is not raid utility. Can you use Chi Wave to heal through Force and Verve when all healing cooldowns are used? No, but if you had Cat Druid or Enh Shaman, they could.

They could still fix this the same way those other two work. Give Windwalker Revival with double the cooldown length.

[Nikkaszal]

Hands up everyone complaining about their WW monk being "crap" compared to everyone else who is also being regularly benched in favour of another class.

Go on, don't be shy.

Go ahead and post an armory link of your activity log to show that you're not getting brought along to boss kills.

Because if you're still raiding, and bosses are still dying, guess what - you're just bitching for the sake of bitching.

[alysmera]

Hands up everyone complaining about their WW monk being "crap" compared to everyone else who is also being regularly benched in favour of another class.

Go on, don't be shy.

Go ahead and post an armory link of your activity log to show that you're not getting brought along to boss kills.

Because if you're still raiding, and bosses are still dying, guess what - you're just bitching for the sake of bitching.

I smiled at this based on the fact that while you are right, I've been in the place of being benched for a Fury warrior (Skullbanner). But, like you said - bosses are dying. Gear is still incoming. And I'm still able to hold my own. I don't think there's any issue with discussing the lesser points of the class - if they aren't mentioned, then what will happen to our balancing? I think that 5.2 is evidence that our discussion of the pros/cons of WW has had an effect. I also presume that it'll see more topend guilds recruiting monks for melee spots - especially if Storm, Earth, Fire ends up being a particularly strong mechanic. But that wasn't your point, I know.

Small offhealing is not raid utility. Can you use Chi Wave to heal through Force and Verve when all healing cooldowns are used? No, but if you had Cat Druid or Enh Shaman, they could.

No, but I'm able to stand out during that particular mechanic with use of fort brew + touch of karma, and by doing so gain an increase to my own damage which = quicker boss death.

You're also wrong about Zen Meditation. Currently about the only thing where spell redirection works is Spirit Kings when Meng is in Cowardice, but you'd kill yourself if you used it there because of DoT nature of the damage. If Zen Meditation really worked to redirect damage that the raid takes on Epicenter, Force and Verve or similar, I'd not complain about our raid utility one bit.

I see your point here, but I see it from the standpoint of someone who eats Total Annihilation on Elegon with just my own Zen Meditation (and Diffuse Magic, when ZM is on CD). Also, as someone who's killed H Spirit Kings... I think that's a terrible usage of ZM.

About Burst Damage, that requires a lot of setup and if we are to sit on our short term cooldowns, it will affect our overall DPS massively. Obviously, sometimes it is required, but that's not good for us at all. Even with all those popped, we lose next to every other class in burst.

I agree that this isn't our strongpoint. However, I'd rather not be in the place that rets are - I'd rather have less burst, and more sustained damage. That doesn't mean I wouldn't really like to have a 1-2 min CD that, say, gave 10 stacks of TeB. I think that's what they were trying to accomplish with Chi Brew, but just didn't manage it. Edit: also, I think that the 5.2 TeB change may or may not mean we're able to have even more sustained damage through TeB, and have an easier time pooling it for burst phases.

-------

I've said it before - I'll say it again. And others have said it as well. We really aren't in a bad spot damage-wise. 2H users are (imo), yes, and could use more balancing, but I know that once I am able to DW (we've had a lack of fist drops) that my numbers will absolutely soar. 5.1 brought many welcomed QoL changes that increased our damage ever so slightly, and I believe 5.2 will have changes that will increase our PvP (and by virtue, PvE) utility.

[Socialhealer]

leveled as 3 specs, mistweaver was shit crazy OP i could do such nice aoe dps and heal stupid amounts, brewmaster i dunno didnt like it. and windwalker felt slow compared to mistweaver infinite mana > energy doing nothing but waiting for energy to come up isnt fun

brewmaster/mistweaver seems most useful class in raids, windwalker really brings nothing to the table you can easily raid 10/25 without a monk dps and you can't find an instance where you wish you had one, kind of sad.

[alysmera]

leveled as 3 specs, mistweaver was shit crazy OP i could do such nice aoe dps and heal stupid amounts, brewmaster i dunno didnt like it. and windwalker felt slow compared to mistweaver infinite mana > energy doing nothing but waiting for energy to come up isnt fun

brewmaster/mistweaver seems most useful class in raids, windwalker really brings nothing to the table you can easily raid 10/25 without a monk dps and you can't find an instance where you wish you had one, kind of sad.

As a mainspec Windwalker, I've never had issues with energy after a certain item level (~485). With the change to Ascension, it has been even less of an issue. It tells me you either aren't prioritizing properly, or aren't using certain CDs (Energizing Brew, Fists of Fury) often enough.

[Veyne]

I personally really enjoy healing while leveling my Monk while simultaneously outDPSing the rest of the party, but I'm concerned by how they'll play out at end game. I don't want to feel forced to be a melee healer monk while keeping a raid up. I haven't really done much looking into how well they play at end game, so I Don't know how substantial my fear is.

[Socialhealer]

As a mainspec Windwalker, I've never had issues with energy after a certain item level (~485). With the change to Ascension, it has been even less of an issue. It tells me you either aren't prioritizing properly, or aren't using certain CDs (Energizing Brew, Fists of Fury) often enough.

leveled didnt raid, so no i didn't have ilvl 485 while leveling xD and ofc i wouldn't expect a lack of energy in raid gear, but ye point stands windwalker needs to bring something other than dps, especially when its not even high on dps.

[alysmera]

leveled didnt raid, so no i didn't have ilvl 485 while leveling xD and ofc i wouldn't expect a lack of energy in raid gear, but ye point stands windwalker needs to bring something other than dps, especially when its not even high on dps.

Pffft slacker! I keed, I keed. For leveling I personally went Brewmaster myself - but then, I had intended to be a mainspec Brewmaster.

[Gigzi]

I raid with a WW Monk and I have to say, he pulls some serious numbers, but then again, it always comes down to the person playing. We brought a second WW one week because we were short a raider, and he and the fixed WW were pretty much geared identically. The entire raid the second MW was pulling only 60% of the first's dps.

As for BM Monk's it again comes down to skill. I've encountered a lot of BM monks in HC's lately and they vary in skill. Some I can afk during pulls because they are simply that easy to heal, while others are so spikey with the damage they are recieving that I find myself unable to look away from the screen for fear they'll tip over and die.

I play a MW Monk as a lvl 90 alt and while they are pretty good healers, I personally, find them boring.

Try out each of the spec and see how they feel for you. It's worth trying out.