Triple DPS in 5.2

[junn]

Combine smoke bomb with ROP and you have an area where you cant cast into or out of. Add DK for death grip (and gorefiends) and you have an area where you cant get out of, and cant cast, and cant target into.

You cant peel someone if you cant cast and are disarmed.

[Snuggli]

Combine smoke bomb with ROP and you have an area where you cant cast into or out of. Add DK for death grip (and gorefiends) and you have an area where you cant get out of, and cant cast, and cant target into.

You cant peel someone if you cant cast and are disarmed.

The problem being that it lasts 6 seconds, and nearly every single class could easily survive it.

[Yvaelle]

The problem being that it lasts 6 seconds, and nearly every single class could easily survive it.

If one of three members of your 3v3 team can't survive it - it's going to be on that person though. It's also not going to occur until they can't survive it (so nobody is going to do it on a paladin with divine protection still available, but as soon as its down, they will). Smoke Bomb is an incredibly potent ability - but because it has such a long cooldown - longer than the cooldowns of the abilities needed to survive it - it's kept in check.

What will be more interesting is how Ring of Peace will be used as a way to create unpeelable burst windows often. Much in the same vein that Frost Mages can create similarly strong windows every 30 seconds via Deep Freeze - where the person is not only taking large amounts of damage, but is unable to take action or movement to respond.

I'm sure as many people are suggesting, RoP + Smoke Bomb is some incredible synergy - but strong synergy exists for many classes. Rogue+WW+Healer(or Ret) will be a strong comp in the future as a result - but if it needs a nerf - the problem is the frequency of Ring of Peace to get cooldowns out of people every 45 seconds (AoE) - when those cooldowns often reset on 2-3 minute timers. It's just a matter of time before RoP's start happening more often than people have cooldowns with which to respond (if they even have the right kinds of cooldowns to respond in the first places, some classes will prove naturally more susceptible).

If Ring of Peace was a 60 or 90 second cooldown, I think it would be far more balanced - but still have strong synergy with Gorefiend's Grasp and Smoke Bomb (which it should, classes should be allowed to have natural synergies). What actually concerns me a little more about Windwalkers though than all the new things they are getting - is all the things they have currently that I think a lot of people aren't seeing.

True, Windwalker (and Mistweaver) representation is extremely low right now - but it's their First Season Of Existing - their representation this season, even this far into this season (because even the ones that leveled up this season didn't gear or were way behind in gear all season) - is not representative of their strength. Even if they were not buffed, Monk representation would be higher in 5.2 than in 5.0/5.1, it would be higher in 5.3, and 5.4 than it was in the previous season as well - it will probably take a full expansion or more to start seeing new classes properly represented (as it was with DKs, despite them starting at 55/58 in full near-epic gear and being absurdly overpowered at the time).

Windwalker DPS and burst is actually mid-to-high on live. Windwalkers in PvE DPS are second only to Arcane this season, and Arcane is scheduled for Massive Nerfs (where Windwalkers are not) - next season it's likely they will be the top single target dps spec in the game.

Their burst is largely unorganized right now, in pvp on live - but their burst cycle is potentially colossal - and partnered with a high-stun-uptime partner like a Warrior, Rogue, Fmage or Ret - they will be able to pull off that burst even in PvP (and some already are, there are I think 2 WW at Rank 1 this season, despite only like a handful of 2200+ windwalkers in the world). That to me, implies there is a huge discrepancy in Windwalker PvP skill cap and curve right now - how to succeed in WW arenas is undocumented right now - as it becomes better understood and practiced - more will succeed with it, even without buffs. With all the buffs, WW could become very very strong next season (although not 5.0 Warrior / Hunter strong).