Thoughts on the Monk class in terms of difficulty/fun?
Hello!
Since WOTLK, I have raided exclusively as a mediocre warrior tank. Due to my sheer dislike of warrior dps post wrath, I stubbornly did nothing but tank. On the eve of WOD, I have decided to give another hybrid class a try for my PVE main. But I am worried about the overall difficulty of the Windwalker and Brewmaster specs. If my sources are correct, mastery of the Monk class in this regard is strictly micromanagement of abilities and perfect situational awareness. Despite my time spent as a warrior tank, I have had my ups and downs in terms of performace.
In the event that I decide to roll with my Tauren Monk (Hoofkick) to defeat the Iron horde, what are some tips that you all can give me while leveling in terms of mastering the class. (taking it nice and slow to learn the class and bind everything.)? Is there an addon that can help me with buff tracking/energy/Ki Management?
Ideally, I wanna bring a Brewmaster/Windwalker spec to the normal/heroic runs (currently known as Flex and normal in MOP) that I do in WOD. Due to my college demands, I probably will leave Mythic alone.
The overall healing changes make healing look more dynamic. So I may dabble in mistweaving.
Last edited by THE Bigzoman; 2014-04-12 at 05:58 PM.
Hello! Monk is a lot of fun, and the difference between a new monk and an experience monk is huge! I lvled my monk as WW till 30, then I got dual-spec and rolled (pun unintended) as brewmaster. I had a blast lvling, I was like a god, and even low lvl pvp was fun because guard is such a strong ability in low lvls! At 85 I switched to WW for lvling. Also utilize the monk daily quest that gives XP bonus!
I like all the monk specs, though it seems like MW is getting a lot of (bad?) changes in WoD.
As a monk you're always pressing a button, even though you sometimes wait for energy to use keg smash directly when it comes off the CD, but tigerpalm strike works a filler for BrM. Also, the mobility is awesome!
Hey, I may be biased because all i've been playing in MoP is monk but from the moment I switched to a monk from my previous main, i've never looked back :P It truly is an amazing class - a very versatile tank with lots of niche abilities, an insanely mobile DPS (who's rotation might seem rather dull at times) and a unique healer class.
If you require some guidance and tips I would advise visiting the monk guides in this forums, both the brewmaster and windwalker ones are very informative.
Regarding Brewmaster specific points, you should visit a blog called Sunnier's Art of War. It has tremendous amounts of brewmaster specific tips and points as well as a a starter UI in Weakauras strings, it will be tons of help while levelling and mastering the spec.
Personally, I levelled as a windwalker all the way to 90 and only swapped to brewmaster then but I would guess that having a full set of heirlooms on a brewmaster and doing dungeons to level would be the way to go, the experience is just way too good.
Windwalker is really about anticipation: knowing what's going to happen in the next 15-20 seconds. Am I going to be able to get a fists of fury cast off? Am I going to be able to DPS the boss for the full duration of my Tigereye Brew buff? Anyway, juggling the CD on FOF (25 sec) and RSK (8 sec), along with Chi/Energy, and anticipating damage periods and patterns is what Windwalkers do. Also, no big DPS cooldown. And lots of mobility and survivability, but not much utility.
The trick to understanding Brewmaster is to understand that shuffle doesn't really fill the role of Active Mitigation - shuffle is a Brewmaster's armor. If you don't have it up, you're basically like a Guardian Druid in caster form - dead meat. Other than that, Brewmasters are high avoidance, low health tanks with lots of mobility, no DPS cooldown, few *traditional* big defensive cooldowns but several powerful small cooldowns, and are great at kiting.
Mistweaver's are going to be very different in MoP from how they are now. Right now, all their raid healing is tied to Renewing Mist, which is sort of a combo between Prayer of Mending (it bounces to 2 new targets after the first application) and Swiftmend (Uplift pops a heal on every target with Renewing Mist). Their method of healing can be really powerful, but sometimes the randomness means people won't get heals who actually need them (Renewing Mists wasn't on them when you uplifted). This can sometimes leave you high and dry during AOE healing. Also, Fistweaving (off-DPSing to heal) has been an important part of the class since day 1. If you play Mistweaver, you'll probably do some fistweaving at some point.
monks are extremely fun. made me park my 7 yr old rogue main and turn it into an alt. Hybrid, versatile, desired in any situation, etc.
as for addons, I find it helpful to get a weakauras or something to track certain things.For WW, tigerpalm buff to keep up (like slice n dice), and when the free-chi for rising kick or blackout kick pops, when fists cd is up, and when that dps brew hits 10 stacks. Theres more but those are the important ones.
for BM, I like keeping track of stagger with a weakauras bar of some sort. One that can go from green, yellow, to red. and for both specs, I normally keep track of chi the same way I keep track of combo points with my rogue in weakauras. very simple to configure. For everything mentioned, there are strings posted normally in other threads and sites.
I think Felade summed it up best. Monks are about anticipation. Always looking into the future. Windwalkers don't have a particularly difficult priority list, but you can't really squeeze the most of it out without properly keeping an eye on when your abilities are coming off cooldown or your buff is about to fall off. I kind of compare them to a highly mobile cross between a rogue and a warrior. I've honestly never had as much fun as a dps before, however. Once you have it down it plays extremely smoothly, and even with low levels of haste you aren't left sitting around for more than a few seconds at a time every now and then.
Brewmasters have some of the smoothest damage intake in the game, but to really get it to work you need to anticipate when the big hits will be coming in and protect yourself against that with all the tools they have available. Still my favorite tank of the expansion so far with the array of self heals and multiple small defensive abilities.
Mistweavers... well they're the worst offenders in needing to anticipate incoming damage. No other healer needs the kind of setup they do for reliable AoE heals. And while expert MWers can go forever on little to no spirit, inexperienced ones will hose their mana pools with almost no way to get it back in a timely manner. I'm withholding judgement until 6.0 launches, but unless they do something about Uplift's reliance on Renewing Mists, it's always going to be a bit 'off' compared to other healers on anything but a fight with constant damage going out.
Monks are fun to play! If you like action/movement and yes utility without a utility button they are great. My main was Enhance shammie and I switched (after waiting literally for forever for a good expansion for them) to WW monk and haven't given it a second thought. I have started working on my enhance (which probably does do more damage easier at earlier levels), but still enjoy playing my WW more.
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