Is Windwalker difficult to play because of all the different skils you need to press?

[Durkstar]

I use to main a windwalker monk during the end of mop and entire wod while it was just a spec that used like 4-5 buttons and was top of the dps list because it was still flavour of the month.

Now after trying a few different classes / specs (the last one was balance druid) i wanted to go back to melee. Not really sure which melee i should go i looked at all the classes and was surprised to see how windwalker has changed.

First of all the ( for me) new mastery which has you use a different ability each time to increase damage. Sounds like a interesting mechanic, but punishing when you fuck up.

Second the addition of 2 new abilities to press (yes they are talents and i could choose to not play them) but the guides seem clear that i should play them. Now this isnt a bad thing perse, but it does add more abilities to press and on my bar.

Not having tried this yet i could be really off, but is windwalker these days difficult to play in your opinion?

[GnomeEU]

With the right weak auras no class is hard to play.
You can just put the whole rotation including procs in the middle of your screen.

[HCLM]

There is no difficult classes in the game anymore. All classes are easy enough that u can just jump on new char and perform well if u read the rotation guidem

[saixilein]

WW monk playstyle is pretty easy to handle. For PvE i just Macro all my spells, so they dont cancel the FoF channling when i press them and thats it. I have 3 CD Keys (Xuen & Spirits + Covenant) and then my 6 Basic DMG spells. One of them i just use with proccs/in AE fights, the other 2 has like ~ 20+ sec cd so its not hard to play at all. Mastery can fck u up, when u forgot what spell u used last time, after a downtime, or when you get a lag and youre not sure if the spell was used at all.

And i think Overall WW in PvE is a bit boring.

[Ragnarohk]

There is no difficult classes in the game anymore. All classes are easy enough that u can just jump on new char and perform well if u read the rotation guidem

Were they ever hard? People keep chanting this mantra that now everythibg is a joke.

According to many people, feral druid in WotLK was the peak of complexity. I mained feral back then, and it really wasn't.

[LordVargK]

Its basic rotation is not that difficult. Just press which button is not on CD, don't press anything twice, don't overcap on energy or chi. The difficulty comes indeed from all the keybinds you have to use to play that spec to its full potential. I've noticed this in Torghast. Also Tab targeting to buff your AoE is very sluggish.

- - - Updated - - -

Were they ever hard? People keep chanting this mantra that now everythibg is a joke.

According to many people, feral druid in WotLK was the peak of complexity. I mained feral back then, and it really wasn't.

What people probably mean is, that the gap between a good performance and a bad performance was higher in the past. Systems like snapshotting and even mana management were a part of that. Whether this translates to "hard" classes is probably subjective. I find playing Arcane mage harder than other classes at high haste, since my hand starts to hurt after pressing one button for hours on end. I'd Indeed argue that Arcane is one of the harder specs right now, since you have choices to make, which impact your performance; something that is lost in other classes. But yeah, mechanically no class is really difficult (for me) in PvE.

[Durkstar]

WW monk playstyle is pretty easy to handle. For PvE i just Macro all my spells, so they dont cancel the FoF channling when i press them and thats it. I have 3 CD Keys (Xuen & Spirits + Covenant) and then my 6 Basic DMG spells. One of them i just use with proccs/in AE fights, the other 2 has like ~ 20+ sec cd so its not hard to play at all. Mastery can fck u up, when u forgot what spell u used last time, after a downtime, or when you get a lag and youre not sure if the spell was used at all.

And i think Overall WW in PvE is a bit boring.

And how are they in pvp? (mostly rated battlegrounds)

[Vasilisa]

If everything was piss easy as you people claim then everyone would be doing 90-100% parses

In the terms of complexity it really depends whom do you compare it with. I play two characters atm: monk & dh, where monk is quite complex to dps while dh is build around 4 buttons.

Still, once you get a knack of the proper rotation, both of them will be "easy".

[saixilein]

And how are they in pvp? (mostly rated battlegrounds)

pretty strong burst dmg, lack of survivalbility (as always) but for sure its one of the best specs now.

[GnomeEU]

If everything was piss easy as you people claim then everyone would be doing 90-100% parses

In the terms of complexity it really depends whom do you compare it with. I play two characters atm: monk & dh, where monk is quite complex to dps while dh is build around 4 buttons.

Still, once you get a knack of the proper rotation, both of them will be "easy".

As if 90% parses mean anything.
I have lots of 99% parses they're all cheated somehow.

Every clean fight means blue 70% parses, and it's totally fine because the boss is dead.

99% means you didn't play any mechanics, others were bad and you cheated were you could. Congratulations.

I really hate ppl who ask for logs because almost no one can read logs. I'm at 98.5 avg score. I have the same rotation as when I had 30 % parses.
Logs are for epeen only

[LordVargK]

As if 90% parses mean anything.
I have lots of 99% parses they're all cheated somehow.

Every clean fight means blue 70% parses, and it's totally fine because the boss is dead.

99% means you didn't play any mechanics, others were bad and you cheated were you could. Congratulations.

I really hate ppl who ask for logs because almost no one can read logs. I'm at 98.5 avg score. I have the same rotation as when I had 30 % parses.
Logs are for epeen only

So just because you cheated everyone did? Interesting logic right here

[mauserr]

So just because you cheated everyone did? Interesting logic right here

By cheated he means he got the logs but didn't deserve them because he did everything the same as far as the rotation goes for his 30% parses. It's everything else being more impactful, like the skill of your group, their dps, if they let you be the only one nuking adds or something. Your parses aren't really yours...

[Fistfighter]

Yeah

atleast back in MoP and WoD you had to press more buttons and were rewarded with bigger dps.
Now you just press more buttons to stay relevant to classes that press 4 in their rotation

and the WW buttons don't even line up nicely, there is hardly any rhyme and reason to such a large catalogue of abilites to press

[vitor210]

I use to main a windwalker monk during the end of mop and entire wod while it was just a spec that used like 4-5 buttons and was top of the dps list because it was still flavour of the month.

Now after trying a few different classes / specs (the last one was balance druid) i wanted to go back to melee. Not really sure which melee i should go i looked at all the classes and was surprised to see how windwalker has changed.

First of all the ( for me) new mastery which has you use a different ability each time to increase damage. Sounds like a interesting mechanic, but punishing when you fuck up.

Second the addition of 2 new abilities to press (yes they are talents and i could choose to not play them) but the guides seem clear that i should play them. Now this isnt a bad thing perse, but it does add more abilities to press and on my bar.

Not having tried this yet i could be really off, but is windwalker these days difficult to play in your opinion?

Im curious, what is dificult about it? Ever since MoP (probably even as early as wotlk though) all classes follow the same gamemplay:

1) dps skill with short cd that generates small amount of class power

2) dps skill with longer cd that generates big amount of class power

3) dps skill that spends part of your class power.

Every class is the same, the only "skill" involved is how to weave all of these 3 together to maximize your deeps

[Bloodyleech]

If everything was piss easy as you people claim then everyone would be doing 90-100% parses

In the terms of complexity it really depends whom do you compare it with. I play two characters atm: monk & dh, where monk is quite complex to dps while dh is build around 4 buttons.

Still, once you get a knack of the proper rotation, both of them will be "easy".

Do you even know what "parsing 90%" (or whatever number) means? If everyone does between 9k and 10k dps, the 9k dps people wouldn't be doing 90% parses, y know..?
In your logic, a 90% parse would be a 0% parse, because there is a difference between the top dps and the lowest dps.

[Razion]

Last I heard the most advanced thing you could do with the spec involved using Fists of Fury/Whirling Dragon Punch right as Storm, Earth, Fire expired so you got some kind of triple boost benefit of normalized damage while having three copies out. Probably not advanced on paper, but remaining uncapped on Energy and keeping your other CDs optimal for that period with Mastery/Hit Combo making sure your abilities aren't repeats combined is what gives the spec the depth it has. On top of managing SEF itself.

Saying the spec is difficult would be a lie because anyone can pick up a dps monk and enjoy it and get moderate success with it, but saying it's easy would also be disingenuous because of some of the tech you could pull off. Good pre-planning with Transcendence can be a good display of fight/area knowledge or adaptability in pressure situations. It can be a crazy mobile spec, so for encounters where dealing with a mechanic in an area, a WW can get right back on top of a boss really quickly after dealing with something else further away - and that can also be a good indicator of skill for the spec.

Notoriously SEF requires management to not result in damage loss. This is probably the most casual-unfriendly part of the entire spec. You need to be aware of things like a tank wanting to shockwave you because they aren't aware - it could lead to a desynch of SEF. You have to be aware of a healer who just wants to interrupt some adds with a RoP but ends up throwing them out of LoS by the corner - it could lead to a desynch of SEF. Maybe terrain could get in the way, maybe mobs just in general wanting to CC you can happen. A lot of your play with SEF not getting desynched can be played around with proper group/map/ability awareness and coordination, but the amount of vigilance that can be required for SEF is understandably a little extra. On one hand it adds a lot of depth where there wouldn't be otherwise, but it's also a huge liability for anyone getting into WW casually. It should just be a pet AI that just does damage, just a DPS CD, which on top of the normal CD usage and awareness in terms of duration and priority with the master and hit combo is what gives the spec it's depth, but requiring all this extra awareness for this one specific ability just to not lose damage seems to be like 90% of the frustration of the spec. In terms of a casual approach, it sounds a lot worse than it is, though. In reality you may not really care about SEF this much.

There's another thing WW can worry about right now, I'd guess maybe there's a bad relationship in terms of their survival CDs Fortifying Brew and Karma (and ToD and Karma when interacting with Fort Brew) being possible. Current WW may or may not see their survival CDs as priority for dps right now (I'd wager they don't), but DKs had a similar 'issue' in the past with AMS being used to soak for RP - a good display of fight and ability awareness that could reward a DK for using abilities unconventionally when not necessary and being rewarded for it, but encouraging improper use of abilities in a way that could be detrimental to a group if done improperly (if). And just like in that case, for casual WW it's probably a degenerate bit of liability potential for wasting defensive CDs for damage. Even if it isn't being used like that wide-spread right now (or maybe it is, dunno), as right now the health scaling may not be worth the risk of death - but later on in expansions it may become something that ends up adding more difficulty to the spec in terms of survivability so something to keep in mind.

[Vasilisa]

Do you even know what "parsing 90%" (or whatever number) means? If everyone does between 9k and 10k dps, the 9k dps people wouldn't be doing 90% parses, y know..?
In your logic, a 90% parse would be a 0% parse, because there is a difference between the top dps and the lowest dps.

Come on, no need to be hurt by my words I've used a logical shortcut, I meant that if it's be that easy then there would be very slight difference between players.

[Bloodyleech]

Come on, no need to be hurt by my words I've used a logical shortcut, I meant that if it's be that easy then there would be very slight difference between players.

Why do you think anyone is hurt here, tho?
It's a statement many people make - it's just wrong, that's all.

There will always be people that just do not care enough to even use the right buttons (i.e. using arcane shot as bm instead of cobra). As long as blizz doesn't make classes 1 button for dps, there will always be huge differences - that's just the nature of (MMO)RPGs or games in general.

[gd8]

Idk where this myth comes from that windwalker is hard to play it's very easy to me the rotation is pretty intuitive and simple. The only thing thats difficult about playing windwalker is the fact that it's a melee spec with basically no self sustain outside of touch of karma (effuse doesnt heal for shit) but that has nothing to do with the rotation or whatever.

[Toybox]

What people probably mean is, that the gap between a good performance and a bad performance was higher in the past.

Hard disagree with this. It feels like the skill floor has dropped while the ceiling has shot up. The difference between a very good player & a poor one is the biggest it's ever been.