My Concern with Monk in Warlords...

[Vexja]

So some context: about half way through mists, ~5.2 I made Monk my Main class. I fell in love with the class. I poured a lot of time and effort into it, while making it my main i worked on reps proffs etc. Now making a class my main; there are a couple things I have come to consider; some of these things I am really worried about for Warlords. Please take the time to consider my perspective and write down your thoughts on the issues I am curious about. And thank you for taking the time to read and provide advice, experience, and insight!


HOW I CHOOSE MAIN CLASS:
A) Lore/idea of class - love it no problems there
B) Mechanics/feel of the class -I love the powerful fast pace mobile 1v1 dominating style of WW (Concerned this may change in warlords for pvp) and the cool MW niche, plus crane stance looks way cool. brews is fun.
C) Role(s) the class fills - Melee is cool, and great in pvp, I mained ranged (lock/hunter) pretty much since old beta so melee cool esp in pvp. I like healing. used to tank but eh, wish it was a range spec like shammy, tho for tanking brews is a blast so i can deal with no ranged haha. BUT this is where my concern comes in.

This is a lot where my concerns come into play, with one pve problem ojn the ranged subject)
D) PvP -How the class preforms/ its role in pvp situations. Let me explain this:

1d) Breaking Burst. I like a class that can break burst. Example: Touch of Karma, Iceblock, Divine Sheild etc.... so with ToK and FSK/Rolls (We can control their direction now? confirmed?) and Transcendence, we are chillin here.

2d) Recovery/Self Healing/Sustainability. However you want to say it, I like strong healing, I enjoy the empowering feeling of healing through damage instead of the playstyle of avoiding damage. So I like the choice of insta spending energy or give us a chi heal, to trade off damage for good healing, but I dont like the casting heal.... no insta procs? like that is going to make us into Gorilla Fighters. as in hit and run fighters right? Like to get healing to get survivabilty, you cant just rely on expel harm (and i guess chi wave? always mandatory i guess) so... you need to run away now to spam cast Surging Mists... well, now im going to use roll transcend FSK defensively right? to go hide and heal? that does not seem very monk/ master martial artist to me and changed the feel/gameplay.... thats not kung fu bro, if we have a damage trade off from energy like orbs now in live or a new chi heal would be cool, we could stay in the combat, use our rolls, fsk offensively and just delay damage and heal... feels better, I am concerned about this in WoD....

3d) Strong 1v1. I really like a class that can hold its own, very strong 1v1. good example is demonology warlocks, most of mists demo was beast in a duel outside of org, but didnt synergies as well as affliction in arena so it didnt do as well in the ranks, like a ww doesnt do too well in the ranks, at least in 3's, do to kind of a lack of synergy, but they are crazy strong 1v1, and they can 1v2 if their enimies arent smart about karma. (scared about this for the lack of healing and ranged thing in warlords)

4d) Limited support -Im not a huge fan of 20 support macos for buffing my party in arena1 2 3 lol. so Monk is a unique hybrid, they heal but dont off-heal much, they support themselves not others too much, besides detox. SO like Zen Mediation is a great example of how the monk can press one button and support/buff his allies without selecting party members and saves on button clutter. YET Zen Med is getting its support removed right? but it still works the same on self if they are casting at you yes? okay, kinda lame but its fine, why cant they take off that cancel on melee? its really lame.

5d) (AND LAST THING) Ranged - I played ranged for most of wow. its kinda hard to main a melee at times. but melee is fun in pvp.... thing is, I mained monk partly because at least with everything, you had spinning fire blossom and jade lightning, ive gotten some super clutch run away kills with them both..... Are they seriously removing both of these from WW? so WW will literary have NO ranged except like freaking chi wave? really.... how can I even solo onyixya during the air phase.... like that loss of ranged is tragic and i dont understand.

Oh and RIP Nimbus Cloud =(

SO again Thank you all for your time and input! I look forward to hearing how the monk community feels about these concerns and beta peoples experiences for Monks in warlords!

[Cyrops]

I used boost for monk, he was 85 and I just did it for free proffesions. Then I started playing WW, discovered the nightmare rotation and was SERIOUSLY thinking about maining it for WoD, but then after a few days of bliss I recovered and came back to my hunter. You seem to be more concerned about PvP rather than PvE, while I am more focused on soloing stuff, where Hunter is still King (maybe even more of a king in WoD than ever before).
I will gear my Hunter first, then play monk for a challenge in nightmare rotation, as PUG's look for healer/tank more often than DPS, even if they want DPS they want you to overgear content by a mile.

[Kaeth]

As far as I've seen/read, Crackling Jade Lightning is sticking around for all monk specs, but as of 6.0 only Mistweavers will be able to generate chi with it. So you still have to option to zap targets from range for mediocre damage wheneveer melee is not possible and there are no alternative targets to beat up on.

I am more focused on soloing stuff, where Hunter is still King (maybe even more of a king in WoD than ever before).

Depending on what you're soloing, a Brewmaster can be leaps and bounds ahead of a hunter. I'm soloing most of Firelands and some of Dragon Soul on my monk right now (alternating between BrM and WW depending on the particular boss), and when I go there on my hunter, i have to drag a death knight friend along to have a shot at anything more than Rhyolith and Alysrazor.

When unavoidable incoming damage gets to scary levels, blood knights and brewmasters pull ahead. Way ahead. That said, my hunter is my main, too, though he's had to share the stage with my warlock and monk a lot this expansion.

[Vexja]

As far as I've seen/read, Crackling Jade Lightning is sticking around for all monk specs, but as of 6.0 only Mistweavers will be able to generate chi with it. So you still have to option to zap targets from range for mediocre damage whenever melee is not possible and there are no alternative targets to beat up on.

Oh really!? I was misinformed, well thats good at least we keep the lightning! =)

and Ruhye...

I get that healing is too powerful cause it cant be countered, but wouldnt making a heal based on chi be a better solution? loosing some RSK for healing would definatley be a drawback, and you could stop a monk from healing by kiting so that they cant generate chi, like ehcn with maelstorm.... Wouldnt that work? seems like a better healing solution....Because despite the Lore behind it, your mobillity is going to be used more defensively instead of offensively now, which could hinder you ability to deal with a kite... so BECAUSE of your need to compensate survivabillity it will force you into running for heals, and thus leaving a big weakness in monks gameplay..... What if there is no LOS? just dont heal lols?

[Totaltotemic]

Have you actually read the patch notes or tried to understand how Warlords will work as a whole? A lot of your concerns just don't make sense.

Everyone's healing is getting gutted, including healers themselves. This isn't something unique to WWs.

The game is not and never has been balanced around 1v1. If you think WW is bad at 1v1, then whatever. It's not like that situation occurs much in actual PvP.

Again, everyone else's CC and off heals are being toned down as well. This doesn't really have anything to do with Monks.

Finally, why do you think CJL is being removed? It is not.


I highly suggest you go read the patch notes before even reading any discussion about WoD. Read the entire thing, not just the sections labeled Monk.

[Vexja]

I've read a lot of patch notes, but not all of them, thats why I was asking the community. There is no need to be rude about it.

And for healing, I understand that everyone is getting that, but its not the % of healing its HOW we heal, like ench still heals the same way in melee with 1 less cd(healing stream) but we are getting a mechanical change that causes a gameplay variation its different,

And even though its not balanced around 1v1s, I like a class that is very stong in most 1v1 situations, like monks are currently, even if it means we dont have the best synergy in arena teams, totally okay with that trade off, to me it feels better than feeling like I have to rely on someone else 1v1.

And I get the CC changes, but loosing blossom.... How are we getting compensated? Even with the reduction in cc, I can see kitting being annoying.... Is it confirmed that roll and such can be controlled in direction?

Idk why I thought that, must of misread something.

I was asking for opinions experience and advice, does that require me to have a PhD in Warlords beta notes? Hoping some people with beta experiance could give their input on how it feels currently.

- - - Updated - - -

I was thinking.... Could this more hit and run/ kite/heal windwalker fighting style possibly encourage SE&F use in PvP? Like Im going to transcend out to heal or roll whatever, so I throw a clone out on my target, go back get some heals off, engage clone off, rinse and repeat, or when im getting kitted, clone up and run, now your on the offensive with the clone..... Think they are gaming Windwalkers pvp gameplay to that kind of style? Thoughts?!?

[Totaltotemic]

The loss of Healing Sphere doesn't really change anything because everyone's self-heals are total garbage, like 5% of your max health at most. In the 2 BGs I did manage to get into (queue times are... not good) spamming Surging Mist was a joke, it was actually more healing to run around in circles waiting for Chi Wave and Expel Harm to come back up. Using SEF while you heal yourself wouldn't even do anything anyways, since most of its damage is from your abilities and if you're not using abilities it's not doing damage.

Removing SFB also doesn't change anything. Everyone else is less mobile, healers have to stop and cast a lot more often or they just do no healing. Before you'd have to line up this weird skillshot thing and pray a pet didn't get in the way, now they just don't move as much. The Roll/FSK thing is a bug, it's not supposed to be controlled like that.


These really aren't massive changes, they're little things that aren't very important anyways. Monks are still Monks, they roll around and hit stuff and still have all of the signature abilities, just less of the frill that threw extra stuff on top. Don't think of them as nerfs, they're just changes for the sake of having less buttons to press and they'll balance later.



You really don't have to have a PhD to read a list of changes, or even to click on the 6.0 Windwalker Discussion thread that's on this very forum and read that too. Everything you've asked about has been answered already and it's still there, waiting for you to read it. If rudeness was my goal I could just point you there and not answer any of your questions, but really if you actually care about how things are shaping up for WoD there's a ton of discussion on it already that you could get caught up on, it really doesn't take that long to read.

[Vexja]

Thank you total that was both helpful and insightful.

[Cyrops]

Depending on what you're soloing, a Brewmaster can be leaps and bounds ahead of a hunter. I'm soloing most of Firelands and some of Dragon Soul on my monk right now (alternating between BrM and WW depending on the particular boss), and when I go there on my hunter, i have to drag a death knight friend along to have a shot at anything more than Rhyolith and Alysrazor.

When unavoidable incoming damage gets to scary levels, blood knights and brewmasters pull ahead. Way ahead. That said, my hunter is my main, too, though he's had to share the stage with my warlock and monk a lot this expansion.

I was thinking more like 'current tier' stuff, like zandalari warscouts and warbringers, or 'farming hard elites for profit' and with low ilvl or 'guildless', because if you have guild you can gear your main and kill things fast, obviously.
There is little to no loot in old raids that I would want on my monk, except for all the legendaries. So I will do that, obviously, already got Thori'dal on Hunter.

When I got used to healing myself with spheres while soloing.... sigh.
I don't know about your monks, but my 522ilvl WW heals half health with full energy bar (3 spheres).

[Kaeth]

I was thinking more like 'current tier' stuff, like zandalari warscouts and warbringers, or 'farming hard elites for profit' and with low ilvl or 'guildless', because if you have guild you can gear your main and kill things fast, obviously.

Oh, yeah. I can beat a warbringer to death with impunity on my 545 Brewmaster, but my 550 hunter does it just as easily, three times as fast. When you can keep the big nasty focused on your pet, and there's not an excessive amount of unavoidable incoming damage, hunters are nuts.

It really is all down to what exactly you're soloing. Hunters, warlocks, death knights, and monks are all amazing.

[Cyrops]

Oh, yeah. I can beat a warbringer to death with impunity on my 545 Brewmaster, but my 550 hunter does it just as easily, three times as fast. When you can keep the big nasty focused on your pet, and there's not an excessive amount of unavoidable incoming damage, hunters are nuts.

It really is all down to what exactly you're soloing. Hunters, warlocks, death knights, and monks are all amazing.

Yeap, that's exactly why I main Hunter.
I used to play Warrior (starting on release with one) and the thing even back in Vanilla that really annoyed me the most was the inability to solo stuff other classes could. I was a hardcore raider (5-6 raid days a week 6h each day lol) and even with gear I couldn't touch some elites or do some efficient aoe farming.
My Warrior was barely able to keep more than 500g (even had to borrow that 1k for mount) even when I spent hours trying to farm for gold (being herbalist/alchemist and hating to gather wasn't helping).
In TBC I started fresh in new server and rolled Hunter, without even trying I had over 10k gold all the time, just seem to come naturally with avoiding repair bills, killing stuff fast also helped, could do some harder elite killing as well.

I tried warlocks, the one thing I found that turned me off the class, was inability to interupt, for example early in MoP soloing those rare pandarian elites that heal themselves was a no go (with crap gear), while hunter was able to kill anything, pretty much. Never had problem with anything while soloing with hunter, except for the harder elites in dino island, that would kill my turtle in 3 hits or something like that.

I agree that BrM monks are great at soloing harder mobs, just not at efficient speeds.

[Deleted]

I'd like to think that Paladins need some loving :P Prot Pala is quite nice, strong self heals, a simple rotation (imo) and short cooldowns all help