Originally Posted by
Razion
Monks notoriously have had very low player population ever since their inception. If less players are playing monk, it's less likely good players are playing one - which can overall hurt community perception. There's an inherent problem with WW constantly being in competition with BM and MW across a class that is already less represented who also usually bring the same critical utility WW brings - such as the physical debuff, or Ring of Peace. WW seems to be in dire need of something it can bring that is a little more exclusive at the very least to its own class.
First, some examples of things that are kind of an issue for WW utility historically and what could be done to make them work.
Fists of Fury historically couldn't have parry or slow/stun components because it would hurt dps to hold for the utility and thus the inherent population damage perception the spec already deals with, so having the utility be a second press after FoF's initial press for damage would be one way to deal with FoF still being a rotational ability and having the utility still kind of tied to the ability. Second ability presses are already present with abilities like Flying Serpent Kick, so I think if anything it would be a bit flavorful for WW to bake that into the utility a bit.
Speaking of, Flying Serpent Kick historically has granted a Wind Rush Totem or Stampeding Roar effect via Ride the Wind in pvp, but in raiding this would present a problem of hurting Shaman/Druid representation (specifically Enhancement and Feral). One idea would be to have it provide a Speed secondary stat buff rather than a movement speed buff so that it could overlap with other movement speed increasing effects. Perhaps the wind could obscure hostile enemies from other hostile allies within it, or reduce enemy movement speed from the intense winds.
Zen Meditation being available to WW would probably help them, but historically it had a problem of being dangerous to the point of sometimes one-shoting the WW if certain abilities were redirected to them as well as potentially hurting BM and WM representation. The redirection of effects being exclusive to Brewmaster in pvp is currently a thing, and I think that's a good niche for Brewmasters to have in terms of differences they could bring. I think WW having a difference of the version where it just reduces damage taken for nearby allies I think would probably be one way to go about it, as that way perhaps stacking Monks in this way may even be beneficial rather than a case of only taking BM for the redirect - it would be beneficial for BM to redirect in some cases, but the DR from WW would be better in other situations so I think a spec-flavored distinction there may be okay. It may be kind of confusing if Zen Med looked exactly the same when they did different things, so maybe that would have to be addressed if a Zen Med option was going to be done, I think, as I don't think removing it from BM is entirely on the table.
Grapple Weapon being exclusive to WW would probably help them without hurting other specs as none of the other Monk specs currently use it. Historically taking boss weapons has been a problem in terms of in some cases either reducing boss damage by too much and/or increasing monk damage dealt from the taken weapon by too much. Modifying the kind of debuff and buff provided to perhaps be more similar to Disc Smite where the damage reduction and bonuses are less overall a percentage modifier to everything else but rather an independent amount that can scale on its own would probably be safer. I do like the idea of a utility ability that kind of rewards the dps player with a bit of a damage bonus a little bit, and certainly grappling a weapon is pretty thematic to that end I think.
Transcendence having a unique passive for WW that amplifies it to behave like Demonic Gateway may be useful. To have it behave differently than Demonic Gateway, perhaps it could teleport the one that clicks on the Transcendence spirit to go to where the WW currently is. This way, the situations a Gateway and Transcendence may still be a bit different from each other - while perhaps also playing into the strength of WW being fairly mobile and thus able to get to places less mobile classes may not be able to get to as quickly. Though, with planning, Gateway can still situationally perhaps be better or preferred over a Transcendence gate to the WW. (It probably goes without saying Gateway and Transcendence would have to share a debuff from being used in combination with each other.) Additionally, with Battle Resurrections usable out of combat in M+, it may be useful for WW to be able to place a Transcendence before they die to allow groups to take a spirit to get to them over certain large gaps or terrain otherwise blocked by exceptionally strong groups may be one use of this that could help WW in M+ have some merit to additionally help a current problem of perhaps groups feeling they need things like Shroud of Concealment for certain skips.
Healing Sphere as a spell historically was ran over by people who needed healing, but often a lot of over-healing was done and the over-healing wasn't being distributed to nearby party members with missing health. This kind of behavior would probably fix the ability's problems, but for WW there was an additional hit to functionality because of its cost of Energy getting in the way of wasting dps resources in addition to the global - so having WW have a mana bar like other hybrids to spend on these kinds of utility abilities would probably be beneficial so that they could do some off-healing in situations where pre-emptive planning of leaving healing spheres for upcoming damage could be beneficial and one way other classes don't really handle off-healing so I think it would be kind of special. Another solution would be to possibly make Healing Sphere in its spell form behave like Lightwell or Soulwell. Lightwell isn't currently in use, so I think that would probably be a less offensive iteration to other specs overall. There is a bit of a conflict in the original iteration with Effuse also healing, so perhaps Healing Spheres doing less healing as Healing Spheres is a mobile and a stackable planning placed kind of heal may kind of leave Effuse with a purpose - though I think Healing Spheres as a spell replacing Effuse would be better were one of them to be pruned to leave WW a distinction of having mobile off-healing to kind of be a small bit of flavor to its utility perhaps appropriate considering how mobile the spec is meant to be.
Spinning Fire Blossom historically like Healing Sphere had the problem of costing damage resources, so like Healing Sphere I think it would benefit from costing mana for WW. One-target ranged slow/root is good utility, but I think it could be more powerful utility if it returned as an AoE slow/root that explodes out from the target. And while on GCD historically was a problem it may be justified if it were for example a substitute for a talent on the old lv60 row which seems prime for replacements while still fitting the row as group control utility.
Zen Flight could be given a unique WW passive to make it be a friendly-cast slow-fall when in combat or cast on other players. This would potentially be useful in terms of long jumps in vertical dungeons but also mostly useful against potential bosses that have lately started to incorporate fall damage. There are lots of various forms of fall protection in the game, but I think it's a nice bit of utility to have a spec be able to bring friendly fall protection perhaps.