The stuff below is meant as a basic 'Frequently Asked Questions' for Windwalkers in 5.4. Since the current Windwalker thread is starting to get outdated and Mihir quit / is no longer updating the guide that is in there, this is an attempt to summarize all the solid discussion that has been going on in this thread.
If you find anything that's incorrect or incomplete, let me know.
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What are the major changes to Windwalkers in 5.4?
- First and foremost: New mastery! The new mastery gives you a % chance to gain an additional stack of Tiger Eye Brew (TEB) every time you gain a stack the normal way. The old mastery increased the damage multiplier from TEB on activation, this multiplier is now a fixed 6% / stack. No more 200%+ damage increases with Rune of Re-origination trinket, which is now rather useless for us.
- Rushing Jade Wind (RJW) is redesigned, and now replaces Spinning Crane Kick when specced into it. It is now a 'whirlwind' aura around you that does AoE damage to everything in 8 yards radius that does not require channeling. This means you can activate RJW and continue your singletarget rotation for a few seconds (until you need to cast RJW again).
- Xuen now has a pet bar (no more randomly attacking targets 5 miles away) and does slightly more damage.
- Storm, Earth and Fire was buffed, as a result this ability is now definitly worth using in situations where there are multiple targets.
- Stat priority for 5.4?
It seems it will be: hit/exp cap > haste cap > agi > haste => mastery > crit. Sofar it seems that builds with high haste and mastery outperform crit-based builds, but a lot of testing is still done on this subject.
- Will Rune of Re-Origination still be viable for the start of 5.4?
NO. Get another trinket!!!! even the 522 VP (now JP) trinket is likely to give you better performance, especialy if you gear mostly for haste as mentioned in the stat priority above. If for some reason you really are stuck with the Rune, make sure it either procs mastery or crit.
Best pre-5.4 options: Juju + Renetaki's.
- tier 16 BiS list based on current PTR?
t.b.d.
- Value of the new T16 bonuses?
2 piece should come out of the gates as a 2-3% dps increase. Nothing too fancy but it is 'free' damage I suppose. Warforged non-set items might give you better results.
4 piece is a lot harder to estimate but seems very underwhelming. Again, this setbonus give you a free bonus in the form of some minor chi-gains, but don't go out of your way to get the 4 pieces if there are others in your guild that will benefit more.
- new RJW vs new Xuen?
You trade SCK for the new RJW if you spec it, so no more spinning like mad man if you do. Since the base damage is a lot lower than SCK the main reason to use this would be the fact that you get to do other stuff while RJW is up as it’s not channelled but just a self buff. The question then becomes:
RJW + free gcd’s for other stuf vs. SCK spam / Xuen?
You can use this rule of thumb:
"AOE" is required for less than 10 seconds at a time ---> SCK
3 or more targets stay up longer than 10 seconds ---> RJW
This 10 second rule is just a general guideline, basically RJW is not worth it if stuff dies very fast. In those cases you're better off just frontloading some damage with SCK.