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

[Nerovar]

The only difficulty from current WW comes from the fact that SEF is a stupid, badly designed ability that spergs out at every chance and actively takes away control over your damage. It's a dumb, gimmicky spec that lost all its flavour thanks to the Legion reworks.

[RobertMugabe]

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?

Nah WW isn't difficult because of its rotation, but because your main defensive is your movement and teleporation. In PVE they're easy af to play, while in PVP they are hard to play because of their poor defensivness during stuns

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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.

Yeah players also made that argument back in wotlk that every spec is now a joke.

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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.

Yup exactly that (btw. the heal is called Vivify now)

[AkundaMrdal]

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

Your rotation might be same, but your knowledge of an boss fights certainly isn't. Which is major part in your dps output, to know fights, have good movement and cd management. You can flawlessly press your rotation on target dummy, but if you got in raid and panic when you have to play mechanic, your dps goes to shit.

[LordVargK]

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.

Maybe that depends on the Spec you play.

[HCLM]

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.

Well yes, if u track back to the Wotlk -> Cata -> MoP -> WoD many classes had much more complex rotations. Then pruning came in Legion making all classes much more easier to play, and instead they made raids/dungeons more complex.

[Fastlane_hellscream]

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.

I use this weakaura to track my ability last used https://wago.io/WindwalkerLastAbility

It helps in 2 ways. Obviously you know which ability you used last, but it also has a really small audio queue if you break your mastery. The reason I mention it is you can hold off using one of your harder hitting abilities if you hear that sound. Breaking mastery sucks, but if it does happen, I find this helpful.

OP: Several of your abilities have cooldowns, so it isn't hard once you have a basic understanding. It is like anything else, it "slows down" the more you do it. I like WW more then any other melee in the game. Not to mention it's doing good dps atm when played well. Good luck either way!

[Saubon]

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?

Rotation is fairly simple, maybe not as simple as boomkin, but you'll get used to it really quickly. It is even hard to mess up your mastery, because your roto usually comes down to TP- skill1- TP- skill2- TP-skill3- TP- skill2. Only if you use weapons of order you have to chain your chi spenders properly.

And I have to say, it is really enjoyable to play. You have no ramp up time, you have quite decent dps outside of CDs, you have cleave and good aoe, self heals and m+ utility...

[Hightotemz]

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.

This is true and enhance shaman was 2nd , not that both were hard to play. Enhance shaman in WOTLK compared to bfa.hahaha At least that spec has improved for Shadowlands.

[Jackstraw]

Depends on what you define difficult. It's fun and rewarding, which is really nice.

[Chickenfing]

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

This is so unbelieveably false it isn't even funny. Stop spewing this bullshit everywhere, or at least show us example logs where you played your class perfectly and still parsed 30%. Literlaly only doing your rotation correctly basically guarantees you a 70. Optimizations another 20%. Strat and kill speed/execution the last 10%.

[Powerogue]

I've tried the optimal spec for it and hated it, but the rotation flows really smoothly the way I have it set up (mainly picking the extra energy and energy regen talent). It has a sort of DDR rhythm to it.

Never really had a problem with SEF but maybe that's because I don't stare at the DPS chart as I use it. One button to activate, another to hone in on one target, it's not complicated to use. I'd hate to see the most CD cut just because the clones don't work absolutely perfectly.

TL;DR have you tried being mediocre at ww monk? It's more fun. I am chainsawing down enemies as I level as easily as I remember from BFA and Legion, I certainly don't feel weak or clunky.

[Raisei]

I think it is pretty easy to play, but mastering it is a different matter.

Contrary to some classes our Mastery requires some thought to be applied. For example, both DK dps specs get a simple flat percentage of their respective damage type (Frost/Shadow+Minions) while we need to "earn" our damage increase.

It's not difficult to do in a vaccuum of course. Just never push the same button twice in a row. Easy. But when you go over to a realistic situation, say M+, you need to add interrupting, stunning, RoP placement, evading, boss mechanics and affixes on top of making your brain follow this normally simple rule and not always does this work.

Especially when things get hectic you will break Mastery at some point. It takes a lot of practice to keep doing it right while the world around you explodes, sometimes you feel the need to push a button but you have no energy for TP and already BoKed, so you reflexively BoK again. It happens.

Luckily our Mastery can be regained on the next ability immediatedly so it is only a loss on that one kick. Unless of course you play with Hit Combo, then it kinda screws you over for a few seconds.

So comparatively I would say WW is one of the melee dps with a bit more complexity, it's not especially difficult, just needs practice so the muscle memory gets used to it.

[Fastlane_hellscream]

Adding to those issues...if you are too far from your target, and say black out kick doesn't hit your target...then you hit tiger palm and break mastery without realizing your bok didn't get cast. I know you should be able to notice this, but when shit gets hectic it can be missed.

[Azaile-]

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?

i too played a WW in mop and left it for a bit when they changed the spec, ive picked it up again and its back to where it was button wise in mop. its fun again.

[Hightotemz]

i too played a WW in mop and left it for a bit when they changed the spec, ive picked it up again and its back to where it was button wise in mop. its fun again.

although the spec has been nerfed due to them fixing bugs that decreases our damage into the ground and now we the worst dps class in the game after patch 9.05.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...s/26/#region=1 --patch 9
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/26/# --patch 9.05

[Priestyboy]

WW is "fine" atm. The biggest issue is that they don't scale and that Blizzard refuses to fix all their stupid fucking bugs.

[Fastlane_hellscream]

WW is "fine" atm. The biggest issue is that they don't scale and that Blizzard refuses to fix all their stupid fucking bugs.

Well, not really the case any more lol. Now the bug fixes making scaling even worse...kind of sucks.

[jellmoo]

It's not terribly hard in PVE. Pool your Chi for when you need it, don't cap, don't use the same ability two times in a row. The crux of it is simple enough, and you don't have to choose between single target and multi target in regards to your talents, really. Like everything, mastery takes more effort, but it isn't hard to grasp the basics and not embarrass yourself.

In PVP, you need to have amazing situational awareness and know how to use your movement really well. Your survivability is ass, you need to avoid taking damage to survive. I find it ridiculously hard, but I'm terrible at PVP to begin with. I just find that I have to try twice as hard to be half as good as I would be with another class.

[NordWitcher]

The only difficulty from current WW comes from the fact that SEF is a stupid, badly designed ability that spergs out at every chance and actively takes away control over your damage. It's a dumb, gimmicky spec that lost all its flavour thanks to the Legion reworks.

This so much. I never know if I am hitting the target or not which is very frustrating. It's kinda like the Demon Hunter's fel rush ability where you have no real control over the ability. Am comparing it to a Warrior's charge which targets a target.

[Easyclassictopkeklel]

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

well, then there never were difficult classes in the game if we follow that logic.