Monks have no raid utility?

[Callimonk]

I can use fictional numbers if I want to and still have it be a sound argument in a hypothetical sense, that's why it's called a hypothesis, there's no real data to support it (yet). If I say that I want to bring class X over class Y because class X gives 2% more raid DPS and some useful cooldowns over class Y's 20k more personal DPS, does it matter if I insert "Warrior" for "class X" and "Monk" for "class Y"? Either way, the point is logically sound.

No, but I PM'd you why. 2% is much more logically sound than 20%, especially when it comes to windwalkers. If you want to discuss imbalance - 2H is a great place to start. Or even the huge disparity between the DPS specs of other melee classes.

I don't have to have killed Heroic Tsulong to know exactly how the fight works and know that a lone Windwalker is minuscule in the overall healing done to the boss. Did you even count for 1% of the total healing to Tsulong? If you didn't and ended the fight a minute early... what does it matter if you did less than 1% healing? That's about as useful as a 1% DPS difference on any other fight, it's negligible. I'm not being elitist, I'm being academic. If you're wrong, you're wrong, experience doesn't have anything to do with empirical facts.

Again, PM'd. Also - 1% DPS difference can be huge. At least in my raid, 1% can put you at the very top... or put you at the very bottom. That's not negligible.

I also don't know how you can say that your own DPS had around 16% variance between fights, and then go on to say that no one class ever does 20% more than another class. That's insane, you don't think other DPS vary as much as you do?

I didn't. We had a 7% variance between our second best attempt and our final kill.

You didn't even say anything about mobility except its relevance to doing damage, which is exactly what I said, you just went on about Tsulong as if that's somehow relevant.

It is. Small add spawns -> requires mobility. Moving the boss to be closer to sun beams and be properly positioned -> requires mobility, at least for Melee. Actually - I'd argue that while we can move very quickly via roll/FSK, but overall - bringing Fists of Fury into consideration - we actually aren't that mobile compared to... well, any melee that doesn't have a channeled spell. Which is every other melee. I'm also looking at Tsulong because Night phase can almost be Patchwerk with proper positioning and not moving the boss too much (that is, if the stars align), while Day phase is a fairly typical add phase. I've had people argue that Blade Lord is a more "typical" Patchwerk single-target, but I disagree - we can't do our full rotation with him simply because of his random teleportation and movement. Plus - Tsulong is pretty fresh on my mind right now.

Again, there is a difference between being really good at your role and being overall very useful to your raid. Windwalkers currently fall into "pretty damn good at DPS related things" and then "awful" in terms of things not related to doing damage. This means that if all you want is a DPS that does DPS stuff, fine, take a Windwalker, but they don't have the kind of raid utility that can make you bring in a 90k DPS over a 110k DPS (you know, like Warriors or Paladins).

I can agree with you on this. I think 5.2 offers us a "fix" in terms of offspec healing via buffs to our L30 talents and even the possibility of having them as "fillers", but I also think that other classes simply do them better. Again - this is why I think WW fits well in a 25M because we do bring some great DPS in a single-target situation - but how often does that happen? Yah - like I pointed out, Blade Lord, and Night Phase Tsulong, but even those aren't real Patchwerk fights in terms of our rotation. I mean, they used to argue that low numbers from shamans back in the day were because shamans brought utility - and well... now shamans bring utility AND pretty decent numbers (even if they aren't top of the charts). I don't think that going for no utility but high numbers would solve anything.

Edit: wanted to add - I actually don't find our numbers particularly high. Our lack of burst makes us fall short in a short fight, or in an area where burst is needed (such as bursting down Garalon's leg, spine, etc. - the usual suspects). A good WW can put out good numbers with DW, but I've still found that most are more "middle of the pack" (even I am, in terms of my own raid). Honestly, I don't think I'd call our damage particularly amazing.

[Astraios]

No, but I PM'd you why. 2% is much more logically sound than 20%, especially when it comes to windwalkers. If you want to discuss imbalance - 2H is a great place to start. Or even the huge disparity between the DPS specs of other melee classes.


Again, PM'd. Also - 1% DPS difference can be huge. At least in my raid, 1% can put you at the very top... or put you at the very bottom. That's not negligible.


I didn't. We had a 7% variance between our second best attempt and our final kill.


It is. Small add spawns -> requires mobility. Moving the boss to be closer to sun beams and be properly positioned -> requires mobility, at least for Melee. Actually - I'd argue that while we can move very quickly via roll/FSK, but overall - bringing Fists of Fury into consideration - we actually aren't that mobile compared to... well, any melee that doesn't have a channeled spell. Which is every other melee. I'm also looking at Tsulong because Night phase can almost be Patchwerk with proper positioning and not moving the boss too much (that is, if the stars align), while Day phase is a fairly typical add phase. I've had people argue that Blade Lord is a more "typical" Patchwerk single-target, but I disagree - we can't do our full rotation with him simply because of his random teleportation and movement. Plus - Tsulong is pretty fresh on my mind right now.


I can agree with you on this. I think 5.2 offers us a "fix" in terms of offspec healing via buffs to our L30 talents and even the possibility of having them as "fillers", but I also think that other classes simply do them better. Again - this is why I think WW fits well in a 25M because we do bring some great DPS in a single-target situation - but how often does that happen? Yah - like I pointed out, Blade Lord, and Night Phase Tsulong, but even those aren't real Patchwerk fights in terms of our rotation. I mean, they used to argue that low numbers from shamans back in the day were because shamans brought utility - and well... now shamans bring utility AND pretty decent numbers (even if they aren't top of the charts). I don't think that going for no utility but high numbers would solve anything.

Edit: wanted to add - I actually don't find our numbers particularly high. Our lack of burst makes us fall short in a short fight, or in an area where burst is needed (such as bursting down Garalon's leg, spine, etc. - the usual suspects). A good WW can put out good numbers with DW, but I've still found that most are more "middle of the pack" (even I am, in terms of my own raid). Honestly, I don't think I'd call our damage particularly amazing.

I'm not sure what the other raiders are doing but there is no way 1% can bring you from top to bottom. In my raid group, which has pretty amazing players on most every class, its a pretty consistent climb between 80k-115k on H Tsulong this week, and it looks similar on most fights each week. 1% is no where close to that.
As well, RNG easily makes up for 10-15% of any spec's DPS, positive or negative, not to mention some outliers which go up or down more due to RNG. being within 1% is...statistically improbable.

[Callimonk]

I'm not sure what the other raiders are doing but there is no way 1% can bring you from top to bottom. In my raid group, which has pretty amazing players on most every class, its a pretty consistent climb between 80k-115k on H Tsulong this week, and it looks similar on most fights each week. 1% is no where close to that.
As well, RNG easily makes up for 10-15% of any spec's DPS, positive or negative, not to mention some outliers which go up or down more due to RNG. being within 1% is...statistically improbable.

Yah, I flopped my terminology. I typed the wrong; our damage is typically within 1% of one another - not our DPS, which is completely different. Admittedly, we have some amazing people - and we have some great people. I won't say very much past that, other than they know their class very well. Looking at our logs, our Tsulong damage ranged from 95K who were trained on boss (for night phase) (counting tanks - good ol'e vengeance) to 120k, who were multi-dotting adds (for both phases). Granted - because of multi dot vs. single target, that's not really much of a comparison. Meaning - Tsulong isn't a great fight to gauge numbers on, other than during night phase.

Regardless, the point is that WW are still fairly middle of the pack, though DW (looking at logs) can put out some good numbers. But good numbers != raid utility so much as making my Skada look a bit more teal.

[Teriz]

I think we've been trolled by Cle...

Anyways, play what you want to play. Some of things I hear about hard-core Raiding make me glad I'm a casual player. I couldn't imagine leveling numerous alts and spending untold hours trying to beat content. Talk about having no life...

[Snarfysnarf]

I think we've been trolled by Cle...
Talk about having no life...

2200 posts on this forum and your own blog about world of warcraft. You're really one to talk.
OT: Both brewmaster and mistweaver monks have raid CDs, the only spec without raid utility is windwalker, but they do enough damage and have enough target swapping potential to make up for it imo. Most top end guilds bring several monks to progression kills.

[Schaden]

Funny enough, most cutting edge guilds (Blood Legion, Vodka, Method, Paragon) exploited the hell out of Black Ox Statue by putting a Brewmaster in 4pc LFR/normal tier with Tiger Stance and had them do nothing but aoe/cleave to bubble the raid. It was so effective and powerful that it made or broke a few first time Empress and Sha of Fear kills.

Thus the reason Black Ox Statue is getting a nerf next tier.

[Totaltotemic]

OT: Both brewmaster and mistweaver monks have raid CDs, the only spec without raid utility is windwalker, but they do enough damage and have enough target swapping potential to make up for it imo. Most top end guilds bring several monks to progression kills.

This is what I was getting at from the end of my last post. No one will currently drop a Windwalker because they don't do enough DPS. In fact, they're one of the highest in the game and will only get better in 5.2. What worries me, and I think what is worrying people that think about this, is that if someone screws up on balance and overnerfs WW (you know, the kind of thing that tends to happen when you become the best DPS in the game in 5.2), they've got nothing to fall back on. Ret pallies still exist because they've got a lot of utility, despite being by far the worst melee DPS right now. Ele shamans still get raid spots because of Stormlash, Anscestral Guidance, and a bunch of useful totems to do useful stuff. I don't see any reason whatsoever to invite a Windwalker if they get nerfed (except maybe for soaking cooldowns, a niche for very few fights), which means that only the best of the best (i.e. better at their class than most of their guild are) will end up getting invited. It's the Sunwell Mage Syndrome, DPS cannot be a class's sole reason for having a raid spot because they can and will be sat if the pendulum of balance swings too far out of their favor.

[beauburn]

Some may disagree, but personally, I would rank the class someone plays as a secondary consideration.

Their skill in playing that class should be the primary.

[Xorn]

I hoped you would have been able to show that monk is actually viable high end raiding class so I would not have to change class.

I'm sorry, but, if your Monk isn't "viable" you're going the play your Shadow Priest instead? Shadow Priest. The WORST single target dps class right now. Yeah, I'm sure your guild will love it when your dps drops by a few thousand. But that extra "utility" is sure gonna be worth it when you hit enrage timers, right?

[Astraios]

Dead DPS do no DPS, shadow priests prevent people from dying. Progression is often hardest when you drop healers, and classes with off utility like spriests, DPS shaman, and dps druids, make that possible, to be honest.

[Ellesarr]

I hoped you would have been able to show that monk is actually viable high end raiding class so I would not have to change class.

jeeeesssuuus, stfu


you are never gonna go to a high end raiding guild so your class doesnt matter for shit, as long as you have buffs, anyone who says otherwise is a fucking moron.

[Callimonk]

OT: Both brewmaster and mistweaver monks have raid CDs, the only spec without raid utility is windwalker, but they do enough damage and have enough target swapping potential to make up for it imo. Most top end guilds bring several monks to progression kills.

As Moozh pointed out, most high-end guilds (and I know you know this, but I'm only iterating it for the thread) are now recruiting for more WW due to our 5.2 numbers, and it's in their best interest to have at least one. I am happy with my spot as WW in my current guild, but it would be nice to have another WW (even though we already have tons of agi users).

This is what I was getting at from the end of my last post. No one will currently drop a Windwalker because they don't do enough DPS. In fact, they're one of the highest in the game and will only get better in 5.2. What worries me, and I think what is worrying people that think about this, is that if someone screws up on balance and overnerfs WW (you know, the kind of thing that tends to happen when you become the best DPS in the game in 5.2), they've got nothing to fall back on. Ret pallies still exist because they've got a lot of utility, despite being by far the worst melee DPS right now. Ele shamans still get raid spots because of Stormlash, Anscestral Guidance, and a bunch of useful totems to do useful stuff. I don't see any reason whatsoever to invite a Windwalker if they get nerfed (except maybe for soaking cooldowns, a niche for very few fights), which means that only the best of the best (i.e. better at their class than most of their guild are) will end up getting invited. It's the Sunwell Mage Syndrome, DPS cannot be a class's sole reason for having a raid spot because they can and will be sat if the pendulum of balance swings too far out of their favor.

Sadly, I've been dropped for "not doing enough DPS" - which part may have been my fault, and part may have been the fact that I was 485 in a raid full of people 500+. But, that guild also ended up being trash, so I should probably put my point this way - less informed raid leaders will drop a class that isn't miles ahead of other classes, even if it's only in the first 30 seconds of a fight (which, even using TeB pre-pull, I rarely shine that early in a fight - maybe I'm doing something wrong).

Our mages would argue, too, that SMS hasn't quite gone away. They nag me all the time for leveling a Mage as an alt, because "mages have no utility" and "monks at least have a tank or healing spec" (as if that has any bearing on my main spec... I'd honestly level another class before going mainspec BrM again, and I really don't have any interest in healing outside of PvP or the very occasional need).

And I have to agree with your other point - that they could nerf us the wrong way. I've seen it brought up elsewhere in other threads, and I agree with the sentiment. I feel that they did nerf us in the wrong way by bringing our TeB generation from 2 chi/stack to 3 chi/stack - it's now only a "slight" buff that really only increases our rampup time a little bit. If they changed our 4set bonus (which I assume that + how strong we were in early PTR contributed to the nerf to the buff), I think we'd be in a much better place as far as our rampup time, and how we are able to use Lust/Time Warp/Heroism. Perhaps a VERY SLIGHT change in our mastery scaling (I'd rather not change the mastery itself - I think the new one makes a LOT of sense) would have been better than a change in our rampup.

Dead DPS do no DPS, shadow priests prevent people from dying. Progression is often hardest when you drop healers, and classes with off utility like spriests, DPS shaman, and dps druids, make that possible, to be honest.

Quoted for truth - it's probably one of the only reasons we even have one mainspec shadow priest anymore...

[Totaltotemic]

Sadly, I've been dropped for "not doing enough DPS" - which part may have been my fault, and part may have been the fact that I was 485 in a raid full of people 500+. But, that guild also ended up being trash, so I should probably put my point this way - less informed raid leaders will drop a class that isn't miles ahead of other classes, even if it's only in the first 30 seconds of a fight (which, even using TeB pre-pull, I rarely shine that early in a fight - maybe I'm doing something wrong).

Yeah, that's the other problem with relying solely on your DPS for a raid spot: if you don't have the gear or something have a guild that doesn't understand how the class works, you can get booted. We get energy capped at very low haste and have no short-duration cooldowns (TEB is nice and all, but it's nothing compared to most class's 15 or 20 second duration 25-30% DPS increases, things like Ascendance, Celestial Alignment, Dark Soul, Recklessness, Shadow Blades, all that fun stuff), which means that the opening burst coupled with Heroism/Bloodlust is almost nonexistent for Windwalkers, and there's nothing you can do about it. The few times I get to DPS these days (almost always healing), I start off 8th or 9th on damage done during the opening burst and then slowly rise throughout a fight to top 5 or top 3, and I've got relatively similar ilvls to the rest of our DPS. If people don't understand that your damage curve is going to look like that, then you're left with no other justification to fall back on, like:

Quoted for truth - it's probably one of the only reasons we even have one mainspec shadow priest anymore...

Yeah, VE is a better raid cooldown that most healer's cooldowns, on top of the fact that they have Mass Dispel which, with the dispel changes in MoP, has become a lot more important on fights with multiple dispels. They've also got a soaking ability that puts them almost at Monk level of soaking ability. If they didn't have anything like those utilities, I doubt you'd see a single guild actively want a shadow priest, but they get that due to the abilities their class has.

Of course, we could just try to have faith and believe in Blizzard's systems team to keep balance relatively close, but we've seen in the past that being scourged from raiding guilds is something that people can and will do if a spec doesn't bring anything useful AND isn't good at their role at the same time.

[Oopsmezedya]

Chi wave is monks utility, in 5.2 its going to be used every cooldown and will do massive healing bounces

[Moozhe]

Chi wave is monks utility, in 5.2 its going to be used every cooldown and will do massive healing bounces

That's right, we'll be one of the only melee in the same league as Shadow Priests, Elemental Shamans, and Boomkins with hybrid heals. I think feral druid does some healing but we'll probably heal for about twice as much as them.

With the addition of Storm, Earth, and Fire I think we will rise above rogues, feral druids, and DKs in terms of desirability. Ret Paladin utility is pretty good but if their damage doesn't improve with next tier they'd probably be lower than us in desirability. Warriors should retain the throne as the most all around useful melee.

Also consider that compared to a rogue/ret/DK we can switch specs with the same gear and tank competently, or we can reforge our gear and tank well.

[Florena]

Depending on the range of SE&F I think we might end up as the only melee that can 'cleave' targets that aren't next to each other. XD That and with the changes to our lvl 30 talents for off heals, and our own mobility and survivability, I think we'll have a bit more utility to offer in 5.2. And every once in a while RoP might prove useful against add phases as well.