Are you satisfied with WW in BFA until today?

[Parhelion]

WW's pace doesn't scale off any stats.

Thank you for sharing with us that you don't actually know how energy-based classes work. No energy class is ever GCD capped, for a simple reason: abilities cost either energy, combo points or both.

20% haste increases our chi generation by 20%. If hasteless chi generation is 4 chi every 10 seconds, that's 26 chi per minute. Thus, every 10% haste adds 2.6 chi per minute to our rotation. Chi burst adds 2 to 4. WDP is resourceless, so it's "worth" at least 2.8 chi per minute.

So if the base is 26 chi per minute, with 20% haste and mentioned talents it becomes 36. With Energizing Elixir counted in, it's actually close to double of "regular" chi generation.

Since all of our real damage abilities cost Chi, as a WW in BFA today, you sooner run out of abilities to maintain Combo strikes than out of Chi, because the only spammable ability besides Blackout Kick is Tiger Palm, and you're either short on energy or on chi, extremely rarely on both.

There are, however, two styles of rotation (four if you count AoE): one is for burst, one is for maintain. If you go burst, yes, you'll run out of resources, especially if you don't talent Energizing Elixir. But this style is best suited for dungeons where there's plenty of downtime. Current situations where a tank grabs half the instance in one pull is going away literally tomorrow on wednesday when raids open. It's not very energy friendly because you're trying to both burst and maintain, which is impossible. If you use the "maintain" rotation with mentioned talents, the above statement is true - you'll almost never run out of buttons to push.

[Xahz]

No energy class is ever GCD capped, for a simple reason: abilities cost either energy, combo points or both.

His point was obviously that WW doesn't have anything like Seal Fate or Elemental Overload that makes WW resource generation scale with other secondaries. Also, energy classes are GCD capped all the time and your "explanation" of why that cannot happen makes absolutely no sense. If your rate of energy generation is higher than your rate of energy expenditure, you will be GCD capped.

I'm not sure what the point of the rest of your post is.

[Nyel]

I find WW incredibly dull to play in BfA, way worse than it was in Legion.

[Bouten]

Thank you for sharing with us that you don't actually know how energy-based classes work. No energy class is ever GCD capped, for a simple reason: abilities cost either energy, combo points or both.

Take a look a simple passive effect from the outlaw rogue kit: Combat Potency

This is what is missing from the WW toolkit. WW has no stat synergies. As an outlaw rouge gets more haste, his offhand hits more which generates energy. Likewise his main hand hits more often which leads to mastery procs which in turn generate more energy. Outlaw rogues 2 tiers from now will feel faster than they do right now because of how their class scales off a secondary. This is my problem. I am not talking about downtime. I am talking about how WW will progress over BFA. The argument that this is just how low ilvl WW plays and high ilvl WW will be different is simply wrong.

The talent points also seem a bit silly to me. The resource row gives half of what it did in legion. Compare FotWT to power strikes and EE from legion to BFA, its a straight cut down the middle. Every other class gets to play with 5 throughput tiers. WW only gets 4 which leads to a lot of AoE and single target spells sharing the same rows (a problem feral has which was brought up in the recent blue post about them).

All I was trying to get at in my other post was that WW will not change over the course of BFA aside from the numbers on the screen getting bigger. The question becomes do you like WW as it is right now? For me personally I hate the slow WW style and don't plan on sticking with it past the first tier. Many seem to find it fun and good for them, but this is not the spec I played in legion and it is frustrating to see a spec I played since MoP in this state.

[Juliansfist]

I find WW incredibly dull to play in BfA, way worse than it was in Legion.

Recently came back to WoW (quit during ToS due to a mixture of dissatisfaction and RL business)

Kinda hating WW as it's become a CD class, perhaps even more of a CD class compared to others.

Funny state when WW started off as CD-free (well Xuen was a token CD). What made WW really unique is basically gone and no longer do I feel that pressure like I did most notably in 5.4/6.0-1

Particularly dislike RJW - I would have much preferred 5.4 style or perhaps some bastardised version where RJW still replaced SCK as a chi spender.

[Parhelion]

Also, energy classes are GCD capped all the time and your "explanation" of why that cannot happen makes absolutely no sense. If your rate of energy generation is higher than your rate of energy expenditure, you will be GCD capped.

I'm not sure what the point of the rest of your post is.

The point of my post is - can you list one spec that's energy based and GCD capped because it generates energy faster than it spends it? I find it really hard to believe there's a spec that generates 30 or 40 energy per second or has enough non-energy or combo-based abilities that fill every single gap.

The reasons why Legion WW felt "smoother" is because:
- Energizing Elixir gave us up 11 Chi per minute (now 6)
- Chi burst gave us up to 10 chi per minute (now up to 4)
- because we started every fight with 150 energy (now 100).

That's up to 13 chi we lost, a nerf on mainly AoE and burst, not that much in rotation on longer fights.

[Raiz]

If you're strictly talking about energy regen and combo points, then sure, the gameplay will, kind of, remain the same.
However, I'm pretty sure when he talked about gameplay, he wanted to have a set that makes our rotation more fun. Because having multiples downtimes on long fights don't feel rewarding. There's been multiple changes on the gameplay with the legion's traits and the sets. Now ? It's dull.

[Nerovar]

And still an absolute top class, movement and dps are easily in the top field. typical FOTM player here?

They literally tore away a large chunk of utility that WW always had. How is pointing that shit out the attitude of an FOTM player? It's just ugly game design. Especially when it comes to PvP they completely changed the identity/role of this spec (and not for the better).

[Bouten]

The point of my post is - can you list one spec that's energy based and GCD capped because it generates energy faster than it spends it? I find it really hard to believe there's a spec that generates 30 or 40 energy per second or has enough non-energy or combo-based abilities that fill every single gap.

The spec you are looking for is outlaw rouge. Take a look at combat potency, their mastery and roll the bones buffs. That whole spec is swamped with generation. I never understand why people seem to think WW is supposed to play like assassination or feral. WW should be more in the outlaw rogue camp where we fight to keep our resources from capping out. We have the longest cast time ability in the entire game in our kit with FoF. Once we cast it, we as a player have no input for the entire duration. We shouldn't have to wait for cooldowns and energy on top of it.

You bring up talents as a way to fix issues with WW, but WW gets the short end of the stick on talents. We, along with druids, are the only class in the game to get 4 damage tiers. This causes a lot of aoe and single target spells to be put in the same row (an issue blizzard talked about in their recent feral blue post). Outlaw can choose resource generation in 3 different tiers. Monks can achieve some form of this, but talents often compete with must take talents for encounters or content. Serenity can act as an energy reset, but WDP beats it out in aoe and 5man content. Chi burst is great for aoe and allows for additional chi generation, but it is placed against Chi Wave, a single target ability.

Also you seem to be missing a main reason for why WW worked in Legion-- gear. The final tier of Legion we had 1 additional chi on every free BoK proc, an 8% increased chance to generate a free BoK, and access to legendaries which could provide chi reductions. None of these involved haste or crit or mastery, and that's because WW's speed came from text on items, not the secondary stats. The reality is WW was designed for the gear in Legion. BFA stripped away almost all of it, and in return we were given something that can hardly hold a candle to the most basic artifact weapon traits.

[Myta]

Windwalker is not a class meant to spit out abilities a mile a second. It's not an Enhancement Shaman that is just flooded with procs and shits going crazy with lightning and fire everywhere. The Windwalker a measured and methodical resource-management class. It has always been about properly timing and lining up your abilities. A rogue can Eviscerate whenever they have 5 combo points, we can't FoF whenever we have 3 Chi.

ToK, ToD, FoF, these are all resources, instead of lining up your abilties with your big cooldown, we've got half a dozen short cooldown we have to play spinning plates with. However even with that being said, I've rarely had a moment where I've sat there with nothing to do except for a once in a boss fight, and that gap is shrinking with gear. Because as mentioned earlier, the more energy have, the more chi we have, and the more chi we have the more we can BoK which reduces the CD of RSK and FoF. So the notion that Windwalker doesn't scale is patently false.

Let's not also forget that WW burst opener right now is one of the highest dps bursts in the game and is NOT reliant on procs, but is entirely controllable by the player with knowledge of the boss mechanics.

Miss Antorus Windwalker? Well I'm afraid you have to wait 2 years because this is how expansions work, you progress as you get geared.

[Parhelion]

Also you seem to be missing a main reason for why WW worked in Legion-- gear. The final tier of Legion we had 1 additional chi on every free BoK proc, an 8% increased chance to generate a free BoK, and access to legendaries which could provide chi reductions.

Yes, exactly. We have no way of knowing what future azerite traits will hold in store for us. The whole concept of Legion was the Legendary weapons, which now crippled our characters when we're without it. Please don't say we are the only class with this problem. There's no Outlaw replacement for Curse of the Dreadblades.

I agree it feels slower, but this is the internets, where every other post is "WW now sux, I quit" conversation-stopper.

This thread asks about "satisfaction", not feelycraft or whether 10% nerfs make us emoquit. Yes, could've been better, could've been much, much worse.

I'm satisfied.

[Rinaul]

I'm really satisfied. No need for haste and fairly baller ST and AOE with the right talents and good weapons. Usually top of the meters by a fair margin in mythics, can't wait to see how it carries over to raid and M+ later today

- - - Updated - - -

The GCD change really made the rotation feel clunky. wasting ToD or SEF while having to wait 3 GCDs to pop CDs is really annoying.

That's why you TOD after the other CDs. PeakOfSerenity has a proper guide on openers and CD usage. Check it out.

- - - Updated - - -

I felt competitive in dungeons until I got up to do mythics and I get denied for every single one I queue for the moment I apply to the group.

Sounds to me like you may be signing up for caster groups. I haven't had this issue and get more accepted than declined especially for the physical debuff.

[Hightotemz]

I'm really satisfied. No need for haste and fairly baller ST and AOE with the right talents and good weapons. Usually top of the meters by a fair margin in mythics, can't wait to see how it carries over to raid and M+ later today

I am busy levelling one now and even at level 114 I can burst 10k dps which was impossible on my enhance shaman until heroic gear. WW is in a very strong place dps wise atm.

[Deleted]

Hey guys,

I just would like to know if you are satisfied with the windwalker playstyle atm.
I just switched to hunter this Addon, but already feel like I made a big mistake

Do you feel competitive in dungeons and world content and is the specc still fun to play at max level?

Thanks for your answers

If you want to be unique and provide with good utlity to the team - yes, play it.

It's a taste thing. I like to play many people don't play. And Monk is one of them.

[Deleted]

Not as satisfied as I was in WoD.

But I guess it's not a bad spec, not a one I would try to recommend to a friend tho.

[Clozer]

Legion WW was by far the most fun ww iteration we have ever had.

Low haste and the loss of thunderfist makes gameplay a little bit worse but it's still fun in bfa. Just wish we could get these back.

[Deleted]

If you're strictly talking about energy regen and combo points, then sure, the gameplay will, kind of, remain the same.
However, I'm pretty sure when he talked about gameplay, he wanted to have a set that makes our rotation more fun. Because having multiples downtimes on long fights don't feel rewarding. There's been multiple changes on the gameplay with the legion's traits and the sets. Now ? It's dull.

In general, downtime actually is beneficial. The more downtime there is in a rotation, the less the spec is hurt if they have to move off the target for one reason or another. That's why, to me, the more downtime a melee spec has, the better it is for general usability. Additionally, that theoretically gives you much more control overall. If you're constantly GDC capped, you just spam stuff as fast as possible. However, if you have a lot of downtime, you can time your resource usage during periods of time where you have to burst down a target, or to take advantage of a DPS trinket proc, for instance.

That's why having a lot of downtime is actually a requirement for me to play a melee spec. If there's no downtime, that's when it truly is dull.

[Echoherb]

I find it incredibly fun so far. Love the mastery still, and the BOK reducing the cooldown of RSK and FOF makes the class play so much more dynamically imo. Coming from shaman, it's really a breath of fresh air to me personally.

[Raiz]

In general, downtime actually is beneficial. The more downtime there is in a rotation, the less the spec is hurt if they have to move off the target for one reason or another. That's why, to me, the more downtime a melee spec has, the better it is for general usability. Additionally, that theoretically gives you much more control overall. If you're constantly GDC capped, you just spam stuff as fast as possible. However, if you have a lot of downtime, you can time your resource usage during periods of time where you have to burst down a target, or to take advantage of a DPS trinket proc, for instance.

That's why having a lot of downtime is actually a requirement for me to play a melee spec. If there's no downtime, that's when it truly is dull.

To each their own, eh ?

[Parhelion]

I have to dissapoint some of you guys, but already with 340-345 ilvl gear there's really no downtime, especially in Uldir with actual movement. Even the "stand in bad" Good Karma is bearable. Cleared Uldir normal last night, didn't die once to the Karma factor. If anything, unavoidable ticking damage is way more dangerous, but that's the same for everyone.