What the Monk class is all about

[Totaltotemic]

Lately some things have come up with regard to the 6.0 changes about spec identities, and I feel like some have forgotten that Brewmasters, Windwalkers, and Mistweavers are all Monks. Being part of a class comes with certain elements that you know are going to be there, regardless of which spec you choose. For example, Druids are naturey and change forms, Hunters shoot stuff and have a pet, Rogues are stealthy tricksters, and Warriors are big brutes that smash stuff. I'd like to take a moment and outline some things going way back to Blizzcon 2011 and all of the patches since then that define what the Monk class itself is about.


Themes

The official game guide page for the Monk class is a great starting place for the Monk themes. Monks are martial-arts fighters, kicking and punching their way to victory. Monks use their own inner energy, or chi, to fight. They do not rely on outside help, they harness their very being to do whatever it is that they need to do.

Monks are also heroes. All player characters in WoW are heroes in a way, but Monks fought themselves out of slavery with their own hands because they didn't even have weapons, they weren't just trained because it seemed like an efficient way to kill people. When it doesn't seem like they have anything, Monks are still able to fight. No one tells them what to do, there are no restrictions on what they can do. A Monk should be able to do anything he/she can imagine even if it doesn't seem possible.

The final theme isn't mentioned much in the Game Guide, but Monks are also about balance. They don't go overboard and don't get carried away. They do exactly what is needed, no more and no less. They weave things together very fluidly and are the only class in the game that has an identity of truly being graceful. They are versatile and have immense amounts of control over everything they do. This is what makes them Monks and not just cold-blooded killing machines.


Themes in Gameplay Throughout the Class

Roll: Roll is the iconic Monk ability. It is something you see Monks doing often, and you can instantly tell that someone is a Monk when they roll. It embodies a lot of the big thematic elements of the class. You can Roll wherever you want to instead of being restricted to going straight to a target like Charge. You can Roll whenever you want to, two or three times in a row if you feel like it, cooldowns don't tell you what to do. Roll isn't about hitting people or healing people or even having anything to do with other people, you Roll because you can. It always goes the exact same distance, in the direction you pointed in, and a good Monk will know exactly where the Roll will end before it even begins. It is controlled, but also limitless, the pure embodiment of what it means to be a Monk.

Chi: The resource system for Monks competes even with Roll for being the single most iconic Monk thing, and for good reason. Chi is generated and then spent, then generated and spent again. Everyone that's experienced the chi system knows that metronome feeling of Jab/spend/Jab/spend/Jab/spend in a very precise manner. It is precise because that is not the only way to play with chi, you can also build more if you like and spend the chi in various amounts. Chi is fluid and feels like combining abilities, but like Roll it also gives you the freedom to do a lot of different things within the confines of a very simple system such that there is room for great skill as well as predictability. Chi is anything but chaotic, you get it in set amounts and you spend it in set amounts with no randomization (with the ugly exception of Soothing Mist which is going away). What you see with chi is what you get, which allows for a ton of control to let you play smarter rather than faster.

Drinks: Having its roots in Pandaren tradition, Monks like to drink tea and ale. It's hard to notice on the surface, but the Brews have a very strong balance and control metaphor going with them. TEB and Mana Tea are cyclical abilities that give a pattern to resource usage, while Elusive Brew has its own cycle independent of anything else where it's not really a cooldown but more of a very slow metronome with its near 50% uptime going on and off and on and off again. All of the Brews are something that is done regularly, but you don't ever have too much of at any one time. Keeping in step with the Monk themes, all of the Brews are easily controlled yet have great freedom. You use them when you want to, not when a timer says you have to like other cooldowns.

Damage and Healing: This goes strongly with the balance theme, but also has a lot of overtones regarding the Monks' self-reliance and heroic qualities. Monks always do both damage and healing simultaneously. They do not have cooldowns that create large bursts of healing, nor do they have cooldowns that create large bursts of damage. No matter the spec, the "Chi" talents, Expel Harm (can be glyphed also), and Chi Torpedo always do both damage and healing no matter who they are used on. The only other class that shares this trait is the Priest class, everyone else has abilities that either do damage or healing or drain life, but do not both heal allies and do damage on a regular basis. While Priests have a duality theme going on alternating between light and dark, Monks have a balance theme in which both healing and damage are together and inseparable. You literally cannot play a Monk and not heal allies, and you can't play a Monk and not do damage.


What does this all mean?

Now that you've endured my ramblings on themes and such, we come to the point of the matter. Some things about the Monk class need to stay the way they are to still be Monk things, and others should probably change some to avoid feeling out of place in the Monk class. Even if you take game design out of the picture, from a purely artistic standpoint you can see some things that need to happen to make Monks feel like Monks.

Clash felt out of place in the Monk class as a clunky spell that is unclear, but more importantly it's too reliant on enemy positioning for the class that doesn't rely on anyone for anything, least of all movement or CC. Dizzying Haze is a great example of a spell that fits a spec's identity while also really being part of the class as a whole, it offers a lot of control and a lot of freedom while also just being about throwing barrels of beer at people.

Tigereye Brew must remain the cornerstone of the Windwalker spec (even if you don't like it) because Brews are a fundamental part of the Monk class, and downplaying it would just turn WW into a spec that doesn't really feel like a Monk because it would lose a lot of its control and flow. Fists of Fury really needed to change because it doesn't feel like it has the kind of self-reliance that Monks are supposed to have when it's dictated by outside factors most of the time.

Mistweavers need ReM and GotS to be less random because Monks are supposed to be about calm planning, not frantic button mashing hoping RNG blows your way. The spec as a whole also needs more control, a Monk should never feel helpless and need clever tricks to get out of a bad situation, Monks are more about planning in such a way that bad situations never even happen. Crane stance needs to be less restrictive because Monks aren't about restrictions, they're about having so much freedom that you have to make the right choices at the right times.

I'd like everyone to keep in mind that there are more than just gameplay reasons that go into designing a class or a spec, at some level the fantasy has to remain intact for it to still be interesting. What other themes do you think might be at the core of the Monk class or each spec? What changes might you want to see that would make the class feel more like what a Monk is really supposed to be about?

[keqe]

TLDR: Clash being removed is fine.

Just joking ^^. Nice post and I see you have done your research well. I will feel bad about clash going away but I can deal with it. However I hope they would do something about breath of fire which is probably the most iconic Brewmaster ability from WC3 days. Currently it is a niche AoE damage ability that doesn't feel good to use yet is still usable in many situations. I just feel it is not what it is supposed to be.

[Jocias]

I'd like everyone to keep in mind that there are more than just gameplay reasons that go into designing a class or a spec, at some level the fantasy has to remain intact for it to still be interesting. What other themes do you think might be at the core of the Monk class or each spec? What changes might you want to see that would make the class feel more like what a Monk is really supposed to be about?

Summary and Perspective
I play WW almost exclusively, and I love the spec. Nearly all my time with the spec has been in PvE, so my observations are pretty much limited to how we work in raids. When it comes to raiding and playing the game, I'm fairly progression minded, and I don't consider the visual effects or sounds of the class to be important in my analysis of the spec. In my mind, there are 3 big things holding back WWs: weak raid utility, an insipid mastery, and a currently hamstrung ability (FoF) that Blizzard assumes we use on CD.

Raid Utility
I'm thrilled that we're getting raid utility, but I'd love for our raid utility in WoD to not be so trivial and niche. The current plan for our raid utility is an aura that gives a 10% movement speed buff to anyone within 10 yards of us. That sounds amazing until you consider how 10% additive movement speed is an almost negligible amount. Not saying we need to give the group a second usable BL or anything, but I'd rather just have another Stampeding Roar or something that can be used as a CD. If I were designing it, I'd keep the passive aura and give it an activation effect that puts the aura on CD for a while and gives everyone within 20 yards a buff similar to Tiger's Lust. That keeps with the theme of balance: either have a persistent, 10 yard aura that speeds the raid up a little bit or a 20 yard Burst of Speed CD.

Mastery
We need a new mastery for WW. Currently, our mastery gives us a chance to gain an extra stack of TEB every time we generate a stack of TEB. WW mastery just kind of does what it does without any intervention or interaction from us. It doesn't really have a great impact on our rotation, and it isn't even all that powerful. Above all else, it's bland and boring.

Good Masteries for Comparison
Resto Druid mastery is one of my favorites. You have to use a single target heal on occasion to active a buff on yourself that increases your HoTs. I even like the idea of Arcane Mage mastery, though, in practice I find it more tedious than fun. Arcane Mages have to manage their mana very tightly and keep it as close to 100% as possible to maximize their damage through their mastery. I don't even mind Resto Shaman mastery. You do more healing for every % of health that your target is missing. If your target is at 1% health, you get 99% of your mastery's effect. It kind of sucks on farm content where the healing game becomes a sniping match for HoT and absorb specs, but it's rewarding for progression.

My Suggestion
I really wish they'd just decouple our mastery from TEB. I hate that my only real DPS CD is partially at the mercy of mastery RNG. Just let me have 1 stack of TEB for every 3 Chi that I use. I don't want a 1 TEB stack with a 20% chance to get an extra stack for every 4 chi spent. Maybe our mastery could be something along the lines of a Combo Breaker: RSK. It would have a % chance, increased by mastery, to replace a CB: BoK or CB: TP with resetting RSK's CD and making it chi-free for a couple seconds. This would reward players who keep RSK on CD and would require some action from us to make it useful. I know that it's not the most intriguing mastery suggestion, but I haven't put much thought into it. I just hate passive masteries and want it to not include RNG tied to TEB.

FoF. OMFG FoF!
Most of this post has been me complaining about design flaws of WW. This one has me excited because Blizzard has fixed a major design flaw that's existed for as long as the spec has existed. FoF is (in my opinion) our most iconic, damage-dealing ability, and now we actually get to and want to use it. I just hope they don't buff it to the point that everything else in our kit is just secondary to hitting FoF on CD. If they really do buff FoF's damage by 100%, that means they'll have to retune the rest of our damaging abilities to do less damage to keep us in-line with other DPS specs. I will be really sad if I just become an FoF machine, and I hope that I actually feel like RSK and BoK are worth using relative to just pooling chi and waiting to FoF every 20 seconds. Regardless of possible balancing issues, it has me excited for the expansion.

TLDR
Considering "No raid utility!" has been our rallying cry for the last 2 years, I'm happy that they're giving WWs some raid utility. 10% movement speed sounds like a lot until you actually consider how much 10% additive movement speed actually is. For anyone wondering: it's not a whole lot. I hope they iterate on it a bit.

Our current mastery eats a big bag of donkey wangs. I'd like it to reward good play, not just be a passive, RNG nightmare of uselessness. I suppose you can say the same thing for MW mastery, but I'll leave that issue for someone more familiar with MW.

Can't wait for the FoF buff. I'll have Madonna's "Like a Virgin" playing on loop for my first raid night after the 6.0 patch; I'm expecting the FoF change to be just about as good as sex. Just hope it doesn't feel so good that anything that comes after feels useless in FoF's afterglow.

[Tatuin]

[SIZE=4]Can't wait for the FoF buff. I'll have Madonna's "Like a Virgin" playing on loop for my first raid night after the 6.0 patch; I'm expecting the FoF change to be just about as good as sex. Just hope it's not so powerful that it eclipses all our other damaging abilites.

ON a side note. Throw in the japanes cover will make it alot more fun then and ofc other good covers of that song ;P

[Totaltotemic]

Raid Utility
I'm thrilled that we're getting raid utility, but I'd love for our raid utility in WoD to not be so trivial and niche. The current plan for our raid utility is an aura that gives a 10% movement speed buff to anyone within 10 yards of us. That sounds amazing until you consider how 10% additive movement speed is an almost negligible amount. Not saying we need to give the group a second usable BL or anything, but I'd rather just have another Stampeding Roar or something that can be used as a CD. If I were designing it, I'd keep the passive aura and give it an activation effect that puts the aura on CD for a while and gives everyone within 20 yards a buff similar to Tiger's Lust. That keeps with the theme of balance: either have a persistent, 10 yard aura that speeds the raid up a little bit or a 20 yard Burst of Speed CD.

If we're talking about what fits Monks, wouldn't better damage and healing abilities (or even something passive) make more sense than more movement speed? The biggest problem with the movement speed aura isn't a gameplay issue, it's perfectly fine from that perspective. The fact that it makes you not want to use Roll or FSK so you don't go too far ahead of your allies is what makes it weird because you're supposed to be able to Roll whenever you want. I feel like another button may be a bit much when the healing portions of Zen Sphere and Chi Burst could just be dramatically increased, or maybe Xuen could do Eminence like it does for MW. Tacking a movement ability onto a class that is already full of movement abilities just seems weird.

Mastery
We need a new mastery for WW. Currently, our mastery gives us a chance to gain an extra stack of TEB every time we generate a stack of TEB. WW mastery just kind of does what it does without any intervention or interaction from us. It doesn't really have a great impact on our rotation, and it isn't even all that powerful. Above all else, it's bland and boring.

Good Masteries for Comparison
Resto Druid mastery is one of my favorites. You have to use a single target heal on occasion to active a buff on yourself that increases your HoTs. I even like the idea of Arcane Mage mastery, though, in practice I find it more tedious than fun. Arcane Mages have to manage their mana very tightly and keep it as close to 100% as possible to maximize their damage through their mastery. I don't even mind Resto Shaman mastery. You do more healing for every % of health that your target is missing. If your target is at 1% health, you get 99% of your mastery's effect. It kind of sucks on farm content where the healing game becomes a sniping match for HoT and absorb specs, but it's rewarding for progression.

My Suggestion
I really wish they'd just decouple our mastery from TEB. I hate that my only real DPS CD is partially at the mercy of mastery RNG. Just let me have 1 stack of TEB for every 3 Chi that I use. I don't want a 1 TEB stack with a 20% chance to get an extra stack for every 4 chi spent. Maybe our mastery could be something along the lines of a Combo Breaker: RSK. It would have a % chance, increased by mastery, to replace a CB: BoK or CB: TP with resetting RSK's CD and making it chi-free for a couple seconds. This would reward players who keep RSK on CD and would require some action from us to make it useful. I know that it's not the most intriguing mastery suggestion, but I haven't put much thought into it. I just hate passive masteries and want it to not include RNG tied to TEB.

I think you may have missed the point. You're looking at mastery from a purely gameplay perspective where it needs to be something exciting. I can also tell immediately that you didn't play WW in 5.0 when Combo Breaker was the mastery and the spec was heavily restricted in what stats it could use because mastery contributed to GCD capping even more than haste did. WW felt like having infinite energy at 15% haste, which cut down on options for the class that's supposed to be all about having options.

The TEB mastery itself is actually objectively one of the most interesting DPS masteries in the game. The Destruction mastery and the three Mage masteries are the only ones in the game alongside the WW mastery that are more than just "increases damage of x" or "chance for additional attack to fire automatically." Personally I think the biggest culprit for making the RNG seem worse is Chi Brew. You're supposed to know what you're getting when you press a button as a Monk, and Chi Brew right now can either give 2, 3, or 4 stacks based purely on RNG, and it's amplified when you use it twice in a row and get anywhere from 4 to 8 stacks. If mastery just didn't apply to Chi Brew, TEB generation would be a lot more consistent like it was at the start of 5.4 before the hotfix and it would bring back some of the control that was lost.



I'm not saying that pure gameplay design is bad, we have plenty of conversations about that all around this forum in several different threads. It's just also important to keep in mind that the core design of the Monk class is supreme over individual specialization designs. For example, FoF being restricted for movement is the antithesis of Monks on top of being crappy play for a melee. That's different than a DK stopping to channel Army of the Dead which they only don't do because it's a DPS loss, not because the unstoppable walking death machine feels weird to stop and channel a big attack.

[Jocias]

If we're talking about what fits Monks, wouldn't better damage and healing abilities (or even something passive) make more sense than more movement speed? The biggest problem with the movement speed aura isn't a gameplay issue, it's perfectly fine from that perspective. The fact that it makes you not want to use Roll or FSK so you don't go too far ahead of your allies is what makes it weird because you're supposed to be able to Roll whenever you want. I feel like another button may be a bit much when the healing portions of Zen Sphere and Chi Burst could just be dramatically increased, or maybe Xuen could do Eminence like it does for MW. Tacking a movement ability onto a class that is already full of movement abilities just seems weird.

I'm not a fan of Blizz's idea of WW raid utility, but it's in the alpha, and unless something major happens, I doubt it will be removed. Given that, I was just looking at ways to make it not be so useless. Working within the framework of what they've given us, I think the option of a persistent aura that can be traded for a burst of speed makes sense from a thematic standpoint. Also, it would make the ability a true raid CD instead of a questionably useful aura.

With Blizz's attempt to remove a lot of the raid CDs from DPS specs, I have a hard time seeing us getting a true raid-wide DPS or healing CD. In fact, if they gut every other melee spec of their raid utility, I'm fine with also having none. Having to argue your way into a raid because of your comparative lack of raid utility should not be part of the meta-game for WoW.

If we're talking about what fits Monks, wouldn't better damage and healing abilities (or even something passive) make more sense than more movement speed? The biggest problem with the movement speed aura isn't a gameplay issue, it's perfectly fine from that perspective. The fact that it makes you not want to use Roll or FSK so you don't go too far ahead of your allies is what makes it weird because you're supposed to be able to Roll whenever you want. I feel like another button may be a bit much when the healing portions of Zen Sphere and Chi Burst could just be dramatically increased, or maybe Xuen could do Eminence like it does for MW. Tacking a movement ability onto a class that is already full of movement abilities just seems weird.



I think you may have missed the point. You're looking at mastery from a purely gameplay perspective where it needs to be something exciting. I can also tell immediately that you didn't play WW in 5.0 when Combo Breaker was the mastery and the spec was heavily restricted in what stats it could use because mastery contributed to GCD capping even more than haste did. WW felt like having infinite energy at 15% haste, which cut down on options for the class that's supposed to be all about having options.

The TEB mastery itself is actually objectively one of the most interesting DPS masteries in the game. The Destruction mastery and the three Mage masteries are the only ones in the game alongside the WW mastery that are more than just "increases damage of x" or "chance for additional attack to fire automatically." Personally I think the biggest culprit for making the RNG seem worse is Chi Brew. You're supposed to know what you're getting when you press a button as a Monk, and Chi Brew right now can either give 2, 3, or 4 stacks based purely on RNG, and it's amplified when you use it twice in a row and get anywhere from 4 to 8 stacks. If mastery just didn't apply to Chi Brew, TEB generation would be a lot more consistent like it was at the start of 5.4 before the hotfix and it would bring back some of the control that was lost.



I'm not saying that pure gameplay design is bad, we have plenty of conversations about that all around this forum in several different threads. It's just also important to keep in mind that the core design of the Monk class is supreme over individual specialization designs. For example, FoF being restricted for movement is the antithesis of Monks on top of being crappy play for a melee. That's different than a DK stopping to channel Army of the Dead which they only don't do because it's a DPS loss, not because the unstoppable walking death machine feels weird to stop and channel a big attack.

I think you and I disagree fundamentally on what a mastery should do. I feel like most of the masteries in the game were just kind of tacked onto each spec. Maybe it's just me, but it feels like mastery is just an extra tuning knob that Blizzard added to make balancing specs easier for them. Mastery is boring and generally just provides a blanket increase to a spec's damage, but just because nearly all spec's masteries are that way doesn't mean WW or any other mastery should be. Fundamentally, I find WW mastery to be pretty much in-line with most other masteries. The difference is our mastery is RNG, and IMO rarely in a good way. I'd prefer the ToT mastery to what we have currently, and with the changes to stat snapshotting, our mastery from ToT could be implemented without issue. Even better than that, I'd prefer to have a mastery that does something that forces me to be a good player to get the full benefit from it.

I was around in 5.0, but even if I weren't, I don't see how that would preclude me knowing about our old mastery. Not sure if you were including that comment in there to insult me in a passive aggressive way or something, but I don't see what it has to do with this conversation. In my mastery suggestion, I didn't suggest increasing the amount of CB procs we get. I was around in 5.0 and know how fun GCD capping was. My thought was to simply replace the existing CB procs that we get normally with an occasional CB: RSK, the proc rate for which would be increased by mastery. I came up with that idea for mastery in about 30 seconds while I was writing that post as a suggestion of something that I think would reward good gameplay and include a bit of RNG that requires player interaction. If it's a bad idea, that's fine. I'm not attached to the concept of CB: RSK. I'd just like to have a conversation about a good replacement for mastery. As I said, I'd be happy with just about any mastery so long it's either decoupled from TEB or they remove the RNG element but keep it as modifying TEB.

[apepi]

While most of this is about gameplay I would like to mention a little lore of Monks.

Most of Monks powers come from the monk themselves. Monks do not eve use weapons, which even warriors and rogues and hunters use. Though(as you mentioned) they do use bres, or tea or etc. to enhance their inner powers. Though this was the Panadren race, most Panda's kinda of all follow Monks beliefs(or you could take it the reservse that monks just follow it even more). and the Panda's before the sundering were friends with the Highborne(Night elves) but before they left them they gave the night elves a box that would contain "all the arcane magic they would ever need". But when the Highborne open this there was nothing. Hinting to the Highborne to them to stop the arcane magic and all the power they needed were within them, though as they say the rest was history....


The inner power monks use is called chi, and it can be use to focus into different things, Mist or lighting or to help strength there other skills.


Though Monks mistweaver is a bit...er...pretty unmentioned. It does pretty is like the mist that shrouded pandaria that protected pandland from demons/the legion. We know a few things about it is made from chi which is then turned into the mist(or lighting). It is neither from the power of the tides(shaman healing?) or divine(holy) magic. It is supposed to balance the good and bad energies in people, returning them to good health and fortune.

I also want to mention each spec reveres one celestial(which you should already know). Each Celestial represents or teaches something, Xuen is Strength and Vision,Niuzao Endurance, Yu'Lon Wisdom and Chi'Ji Hope. Windwalkers are usually been seen training physically(sparring), Brewmasters are seen as brewing, Mistweaver are mostly mediating and Crane(?) monks are seen studying.

Now crane is even less talked about than even mistweavers. Chi'Ji is mentioned on being able to make rainbows, and is seen to be the healing aspect(although Chi'Ji and Yu'Lon Kind of take this title). In the game we see Chi Ji using fire like magic

[Totaltotemic]

and the Panda's before the sundering were friends with the Highborne(Night elves) but before they left them they gave the night elves a box that would contain "all the arcane magic they would ever need". But when the Highborne open this there was nothing. Hinting to the Highborne to them to stop the arcane magic and all the power they needed were within them, though as they say the rest was history....

I feel like the whole "the secret ingredient is you!" thing really defines Monks. Monks are the only class that don't inherently rely on something, whether it be a companion, poisons, Twisting Nether energies, "the Light", nature, or big-ass weapons that may or may not have magical runes etched into them.

As for the celestials, it still blows my mind that Chi-Ji is the "healing" celestial but MWs are Yu'lon themed simply because the color red didn't fit well with healers. From trinket names to quests to the legendary cloaks, Chi-Ji is the healer (with various Light-based attacks too) and Yu'lon is the one with magical fury (and never heals anything except on Twin Consorts for some reason), yet MWs get it backwards because lolcolors. It's one of the biggest violations of class thematics for gameplay reasons the game has ever seen. It's probably because Monks have never had a history in WoW of being healers (the Pandaren Brewmaster in WC3: TFT did not heal at all, and Chen Stormstout never heals) but for gameplay reasons they needed a healing spec. As such, MW will always be a bit "different" from other Monks because the spec as a whole doesn't exactly fit the original inception of Monks to begin with.

[Haven]

That's all fluff, they don't have anything that makes their tactics fundamentally different from other classes. Is it defined by high mobility? Kind of, rogues have that as well. Is it defined by building up and expending chi? Hell, even paladins have exactly the same stuff. THere's too much classes and too little fundamental difference. Look at Diablo 3. Barbarian is the whirlwind a melee guy who just sweeps through the battlefield like no one else. The Crusader is the shield guy, no one uses shield like him. Monk is the fast, combo guy who can do some explosive damage. Demon Hunter is mobile as fuck. Wizard gives the feeling of glass cannon like no other class but damn he's powerful. Witch Doctor is a summoner. Point is, each class has a tactical core that others can barely even try to replicate. In WoW, this kind of distinction was lost long ago. At best, you get things like Roll, Charge, and Death Grip added.

[Totaltotemic]

That's all fluff, they don't have anything that makes their tactics fundamentally different from other classes. Is it defined by high mobility? Kind of, rogues have that as well. Is it defined by building up and expending chi? Hell, even paladins have exactly the same stuff. THere's too much classes and too little fundamental difference. Look at Diablo 3. Barbarian is the whirlwind a melee guy who just sweeps through the battlefield like no one else. The Crusader is the shield guy, no one uses shield like him. Monk is the fast, combo guy who can do some explosive damage. Demon Hunter is mobile as fuck. Wizard gives the feeling of glass cannon like no other class but damn he's powerful. Witch Doctor is a summoner. Point is, each class has a tactical core that others can barely even try to replicate. In WoW, this kind of distinction was lost long ago. At best, you get things like Roll, Charge, and Death Grip added.

Of course if you actually read the post or played a Monk you might know what you're talking about and would realize that class design goes a lot deeper than one or two flavor abilities.

[apepi]

I feel like the whole "the secret ingredient is you!" thing really defines Monks. Monks are the only class that don't inherently rely on something, whether it be a companion, poisons, Twisting Nether energies, "the Light", nature, or big-ass weapons that may or may not have magical runes etched into them.

As for the celestials, it still blows my mind that Chi-Ji is the "healing" celestial but MWs are Yu'lon themed simply because the color red didn't fit well with healers. From trinket names to quests to the legendary cloaks, Chi-Ji is the healer (with various Light-based attacks too) and Yu'lon is the one with magical fury (and never heals anything except on Twin Consorts for some reason), yet MWs get it backwards because lolcolors. It's one of the biggest violations of class thematics for gameplay reasons the game has ever seen. It's probably because Monks have never had a history in WoW of being healers (the Pandaren Brewmaster in WC3: TFT did not heal at all, and Chen Stormstout never heals) but for gameplay reasons they needed a healing spec. As such, MW will always be a bit "different" from other Monks because the spec as a whole doesn't exactly fit the original inception of Monks to begin with.

Yeah, it is that thing that makes them special.

Though Yu'lon also symbolizes rebirth, which is a kinda healing, so don't forget that. I think blizzard finds it weird because each of the celestials kind of each represent one of the four common elements. Niuzao for earth, Xuen for Air, Yu'lon for water, and Chi'Ji for fire. But it would seem wierd for the fire one to be the healer.

Now let me get back to the gameplay stuff because I have not talked about that. What makes is icionic to us?

I think our mobility is very iconic to us.

The ability to be able to just 'handle' people I find is very iconic. With all the disarms, slows are ccs it is very monk like and is even shown in lore and how monks fight in cinematics.

Look at this guy, he is easily able to disable and disarm these two warriors very easily. It is a shame that monks are getting these abilities taken away from us.

- - - Updated - - -

A very interesting read, here are some of my comments:

1. Crane Stance. There are a few Celestalon tweets that to me seem to indicate they want to make Crane Stance like Gladiator Stance for Warriors. You aren't supposed to be switching between the 2 stances it feels like to me is their goal. Unfortunately without testable content I don't feel like we can get an exact answer on this.

Couldn't find the tweet but, assuming I'm not imagining things (always possible), it went like this: someone asking why someone would use Crane Stance with such penalties. Answer was: depends on what role your guild wants you to be. To me that implies they may treat it as a 4th spec like Gladiator Stance will be a pure dps spec.

2. Theme of the class: I'm fine with the WW mastery as most masteries are very passive. I would like brewmasters to be able to use breath of fire more. Somehow.

I would like Chi Wave honestly to be replaced by something and Zen Sphere buffed. It just feels so weak. Chi Burst you aim a large ball of death and life. Zen Sphere works thematically its just too weak ATM. Chi Wave feels so bad to use. You can't aim it like the other 2. I'd almost want something like: each jab reduces cast/cost of surging mist by 20% stacking 10 times and can now be cast on enemies and does 100% of its damage as healing to a nearby party member and if cast on ally deals 100% of that heal as damage to a nearby enemy. (I made that up in 15 seconds so quality not assured.)

I'm not saying Chi Wave is bad, just that it feels weak in a raid setting.

Celestials: can we please have invoke Xuen become invoke your stance's celestial? Just an aesthetic change.

Statues: are these part of the theme of the class? If they are I think WW should have one. (I never played with the MoP beta Xuen statue so I don't know how that worked out.)

I almost wish them to make crane stance just another spec. Just make it a spec that is a melee healing spec that does a small amount of damage. Kind of like how druid has 4 specs and priest has two healing specs. The lore supports it, some people actually want to heal with melee abilities. Why not?

[Haven]

Of course if you actually read the post or played a Monk you might know what you're talking about and would realize that class design goes a lot deeper than one or two flavor abilities.

But when you brush off all the flavor text and pathos and look at bare bones... They have Roll, a peculiar Shuffle mechanic, and the one thing that really makes them stand apart for now, Fistweaving (which is getting placed into a specified 50/50 dmg/healing niche in WoD).

[Totaltotemic]

But when you brush off all the flavor text and pathos and look at bare bones... They have Roll, a peculiar Shuffle mechanic, and the one thing that really makes them stand apart for now, Fistweaving (which is getting placed into a specified 50/50 dmg/healing niche in WoD).

A class is more than its bare bones though. For instance, why does Expel Harm do damage at all? It's never significant from a gameplay perspective, balance wouldn't be affected whatsoever if it didn't do damage. In fact, you could argue that it makes the class a bit more needlessly complicated as for all three specs Expel has the odd tendency to do more damage than Jab does. It makes sense to do damage because of what Monks are and what the ability actually means, purifying yourself and making the energy go somewhere else rather than completely burning it away like Light users or simply "recovering" like a lot of other classes. Expel Harm would be pretty bland if it didn't do damage, but because it does it actually fits the theme of the class instead of just being the self-healing button.

Spinning Crane Kick is another thing that has odd quirks just because it's a Monk ability. Why do you move more slowly while spinning in a circle? It's obviously not for balance, everyone else spams AoE at full speed. It's not part of the Monk's gameplay niche of being mobile, but rather the opposite. When you boil it down, you move more slowly when using SCK because it's damn hard to run full speed while circle-kicking on one foot. A glyph exists to make it not be a big gameplay penalty when you really do need to move at full speed, but the default version of SCK slows you down just because of what the ability it.


@apepi, I think the thing about "handling people" is precisely why the L60 tier of talents does no damage. Thematically, a lot of other AoE CC abilities are things that do a sizable amount of damage (Shockwave being the prime example) and their CC effect is "secondary", but the Monk abilities are purely about CC. You can similarly see this in the L90 Death Knight talents who also have the same penchant for controlling people. It's possible though that some of that is leftovers from an early version of Monk that had no AA, thus forcing a tradeoff if you spend GCDs on CC because you would do literally no damage in that time.

[Pandorox]

Well Written Total!

Now for my rant..

I seriously wish Blizzard comes to their senses about Monks not having raid utility.
I mean they just gave Mages another one. Yet we have no true raid cooldowns.

They should just make Xuen baseline & allow it to grant Eminence.
Or maybe give each spec Revival since it's practically an instant cast Tranquility.

[Joeygiggles]

Would love for the SeF bug to come back. The ability to transfer to your clones was fun while it was short lived. As far as raid utility, the bonus movement is meh. Maybe a stagger aura for everyone from a BrM, perhaps something like a 5% chance of multistrike from WW, and I dont know about MW.
To get something worthwhile will be tough of course with out it being to OP or underwhelming.

[Callimonk]

You know, when I saw the title of this post... I was worried it'd be another "Which class should I play" (granted, I should have seen the author). Well written - this is very beautifully done, TT.

The movement ability is more important than we seem to realize, honestly. Windwalker needs *something*. And it's going to be important to have that aura - so now raid spots are opening for Windwalkers (how do you think I managed to find a guild? Other than my dashing good llamalooks).

Honestly, one of the things I love about playing monk (specifically Windwalker) comes with the territory of being dependent upon myself, rather than some other "secret" or outside power. It kind of is an extension of my personality, in a sense - as many people that know me IRL can state. I've had to overcome some pretty tough times on my own, and it feels natural to play a character that is also dependent primarily upon themselves.

[Deleted]

You know, when I saw the title of this post... I was worried it'd be another "Which class should I play" (granted, I should have seen the author). Well written - this is very beautifully done, TT.

The movement ability is more important than we seem to realize, honestly. Windwalker needs *something*. And it's going to be important to have that aura - so now raid spots are opening for Windwalkers (how do you think I managed to find a guild? Other than my dashing good llamalooks).

Honestly, one of the things I love about playing monk (specifically Windwalker) comes with the territory of being dependent upon myself, rather than some other "secret" or outside power. It kind of is an extension of my personality, in a sense - as many people that know me IRL can state. I've had to overcome some pretty tough times on my own, and it feels natural to play a character that is also dependent primarily upon themselves.

every item you hold is magically augmented i hope this ruins the game for you

[mitbrandir]

Nice post - I think monks are a lot about being right up in someone's face. The play style is pretty interesting and different compared to the other classes.

[Callimonk]

every item you hold is magically augmented i hope this ruins the game for you

oh honey, chain heal already opened my eyes years ago