this feels like outright hatred against monks at this stage from blizz. the same thing happened in the legion beta AND the bfa beta. where they just threw there hands in the air and went " welp, they work, who cares just leave them how they are ". and went back to redesigning warlocks and paladins from the ground up for the umpteenth time.
surely theres at least 1 blizzard employee that plays this trash class? surely theres 1 single person who wants to get these bugs fixed before even beginning to look at iteration and improving this class. because it really doesnt feel like blizzard even remembers this class even exists.
if theres 2 thing thats for certain with blizzard concerning monks its:
1: blizzard only considers monks as pandas. even though almost ever race can be one, they are all pandas.
2: the one single person whos hiding in a broom closet that plays monk on a tablet really REALLY REALLY loves SEF for some ungodly reason and really doesnt want to let that trash go ( or to even fix it ).
and for the people arguing about dps rankings. the ranking themselves are immaterial if there isnt much of a gap. if you are the worst dps class in the game but theres only a 5% difference, that isnt much. but when theres a mountain of a gap you have a problem. currently its a mountain. id vastly prefer the gameplay to be awesome and fun and visceral with an amazing customisable talent tree with many different talent make ups to augment our gameplay. and no bugs and no SEF. revert it back to old SEF if you have to, but it being our dps CD is 1 of the 3 big pillars of why we suck.
1: SEF as a dps CD is trash because of its sheer magnitude of bugs and gameplay issues. that blizzard extremely obviously cannot fix. they do not have the talent OR the inclination to even want to fix it.
2: our stat scaling is horrific because of the lack of attention to the spec. this combined with all of the years long bugs.
3: our talent tree hasnt been worked on in 6 years. there has been no iteration or thought put into it at all. the gameplay within it doesnt exist. the only real gameplay rotation rows are T15, because everything else is either personal choice between defensives/mobility or the talents are autolocked.
i guess you can also add that we lack desirability for group content because we just dont bring the same defensive or group options other classes have. zen meditation probably would give us that if they restored it. that or an activatable portion to windwalking like stampeding roar. or like an idea i had recently where if people click on our transcendence port they port to us. so we become a mobile warlock gate. something needs to be done here.
Ok you shouldn’t because you keep using words wrong.
Can you mechanically perform the minimum requirement that you need to fill to take a spot? If the answer is yes then all that matters about viability.
You are asking to be competitive to your peers, that’s a different concept and one I can get behind.
I understand your frustration. I don’t think its a hate against monks in particular. However, I was thinking this a few months back. So I can understand where you’re coming from.
I think the dev’s really wanted to make classes better. I think they wanted to make the Monk changes that the community wants but they don’t have time. The expansion is being rushed horribly. If you play on the beta you know what I’m talking about. The beta has bugs that are clearly alpha bugs. There is stuff happening on the beta right now that should have been taken care of in alpha.
I really dislike this 2year cycle of expansion stuff. I think they need to move away from this model and create new expansions that will fulfill the vision they have. If they had more time for development and test the bugs would be fixed and most classes would be better off. A lot of specs are really upset right now that they don’t receive proper changes. I was reading other beta-class forums today and it is clear only a few specs are happy.
I think monk tends to be the last spec for blizzard to work on because it has the fewest people playing it. The dev’s are not given enough time to fix the lower populated specs. I’m sure a few weeks ago the devs had great intentions of fixing the spec but realized they do not have the time.
At this point we can really only hope for bug fixes.
Type “ctrl+f” and search this topic for the word “viable”.
You’re actually the only one using it ad nauseaum. You already said you think Monk is viable, you don’t need to keep saying it every time someone thinks differently.
And the giant back patting circle doesn’t have to keep saying they aren’t over and over, then use concepts of competitiveness like it somehow translates.
I will continue to keep saying it for as long as I want.
I could say because I want to let someone looking to play monk and let them know that while usually fun they are a bit under tuned, but will be viable to do all content, just might not be as easy.
Or several other various reasons, but the main one is because I can.
As long as my sub is active, I follow the rules, and want to I will. Because you don’t pay my bills, you aren’t my parents, my spouse, boss, or anyone of authority over me. Meaning you can just deal with it.
Each artifact weapon offered approximately 20 unique enhancements or abilities to “specialize” further.
Across all azerite pieces, there are a maximum of 6 unique enhancement to “specialize” further (assuming you don’t take generic outer ring skills like Heart of Darkness).
Across conduits, there are maybe 2 unique enhancements to “specialize” further, and all the others are generalized to the class.
Legendaries/sets in SL may be considered a wash to mirrored Legion systems.
But now consider generic abilities:
Essences and many traits are shared across roles.
Corruptions are not really dependent on anything.
Soulbinds are shared across all characters with the same soulbind.
Covenant abilities are shared across all characters with the same class.
Covenant signature abilities are shared across all characters in that covenant.
It seems that this “trend toward generalization” is only intensifying. My guess is because they can try to hit more players, regardless of their class/spec, with less investment into the spec-relative systems and mechanics. Obviously this discounts the complexity in each spec, and some classes and specs will gain more synergy with genericized power options than some others… and I think creates the conditions necessary for the falloff seen in separate tiers throughout BFA.
TLDR; don’t anticipate Shadowlands to fix the broken interactions, as there’s less room to tune individual classes/specs when more and more abilities (such as covenants) are generic across all players.
Oh, and I also wonder if the employee psychology has had any impact on stretching class/spec design strategy, or challenging bad leadership direction: https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/12/18222484/activision-blizzard-layoffs-cuts-jobs-record-results-2018
At this point I know most of the changes simply don’t have time to be addressed unless they are in a later stage of development, which I doubt.
I would love to see wdp go baseline, more talent changes and integration of hit combo into the mastery. Maybe a real shuffle to make our talents less clear and more actual choices, some bug fixing to top off ww.
I would love eminence healing for mw to make its return but that’s some big changes that would be a nightmare to balance this close to release.
I however know that we just won’t see that on release. What I can hope for are some groundwork fixes.
We can still see storm earth and fire bug fixes
We can still see goblin/worgen monk
We can still see adjustments to touch of
karmas interaction with fortifying brew.
We can still see some power returned to chi ji for mw
I started playing monk when arms really fell short of its class fantasy with deep wounds and corruptions filling 70% of the damage meters. Ww felt like your abilities were truly impactful. With most of what was holding the class back being bugfixes/fundamental changes which can still be addressed at this stage before shadowlands, and scalings which
are being addressed through conduits and legendaries with any luck.
The monk class has been through a lot since it’s inception. But It remains enjoyable, and the core gameplay, while faded, is still there. If we can get just a little love on some realistic changes, I can hold out hope for the class and lock it in so my guild can stop grilling me to make a decision. It’s not too late to get some basic changes that won’t dramatically shift the gameplay or balance.
If I can play my roleypoley gerblin for shadowlands, I can die a happy trash creature.
That 90% of the community demands can be met through talent adjustments blows my mind. But it’s like they want to pretend talents just exist to “backfill” borrowed power from the last expansion, rather than meaningfully ordering a specialization in the playstyles the players are asking for.
Also, I tested the fistweaving potential of the lego gloves and decided it’s not happening. Chi ji at a 3 minute cooldown is too long for not enough “Wow!” Like… It’s almost like this is how the spec should feel passively when talented for it…
It’s a shame each expansion has to have a new gimmick rather than focused structuring of the core classes. We could have our mid level talent tier be a larger choice for playstyle, essentially allowing people to further specialize and set themselves apart from others of the same specialization.
Arms warrior could have gladiator stance, deep wounds/rend, and overpower/sharpen blade be a talent choice. Mistweaver could have eminence/crane style, uplift/serpent style, and maybe a new style oriented with the ox.
Most specializations have the groundwork laid for these alternate play styles since they functioned differently through so many iterations.
Instead we have to set ourselves apart through the soulbinds that are being introduced. Who knows what we will have to do in the expansion after that.
I see what you are saying here, but it’s true that both balance Druids and holy paladins are massively unhappy with their reverts/reworks. Thus, be careful what you ask for. You might get a shadow priest rework or you might get a survival hunter rework.
Of course Holy paladins are unhappy. They were brought down from god tier to regular status. I promise you they will end up great again before the expac is over. We’ve seen this trend in Legion & BFA.
idk what to say about the Balance druid rework. My understanding is that they didn’t even expect a rework. Very odd. I didn’t think Balance druid played bad but I could be wrong.
Shadow Priest needed the rework. Good for them.
Survival/sub/MW should have been the first specs to receive changes for SL. Survival is an absolute trash specialization and Blizzard knows this. Sub was able to get some good work done for SL so good for them. Happy to see a spec like Sub receive quality changes.
WW doesn’t really need a rework but needs to have a few things changed. Largely the spec is a lot of fun on Beta. Avoid SEF your gtg. If they fix WW scaling it would be nice. Maybe make the covenants actually notice our mastery. Night Fae is producing an abundance of energy / chi obs Whyyyy?? Why the energy orbs I’ll never know. They should just change the energy orbs to healing. Its so odd having 15+ orbs around me at times. BTW orbs cap out at about 20 on the ground. I tested this many times now.
I would be willing to gamble MW for a rework tbh. The spec is so stale in BFA / SL. It can’t be hard for Blizzard to revert us back to WoD or 5.0. Current MW is just so rotten. The passive play needs to be gone. Chi-Ji was obliterated into nothing. I’m pretty sure we’ll be taking RJW again. Tear of Morning is the ONLY good thing about MW on beta. I’m sure it’ll receive a nerf as well. We truly don’t even know the power for MW on beta as well due to the bug interaction happening with Bonedust Brew. If Bonedust makes it to live Blizzard will notice and nerf that into mush. At that point you can bet MW will stay at or near bottom. We’ve seen this same scenario played out before.
Edit: I wanted to make sure people know. MW isn’t just a HPS problem, but more of a utility in raid problem. Our HPS could be on the same level as disc/rshaman/pally but it wouldn’t matter because of their healing CD’s / other utility. ROP looks good in Mythic+ but doesn’t really do anything in a raid setting. Our movement is great but other classes can pretty much move as fast. We don’t really bring anything.
What needs to happen is Disc/hpally balanced at a lower HPS when compared to Rdruid/Hpriest/MW monk. I think Rshaman will always be good because of its unique healing cd’s. The only time we don’t require the healing cd’s is for fights that are not healing intensive or have a moment of reduce damage needed. Blizzard took this into consideration before WOD as well.
Edit2:
I also feel bad for any1 that has to play BRM. I feel sorry for that person. BRM is soooooooooooo BORING. OMG!! You could almost hit the boss get agro and go afk for a few mins. I’m pretty sure guardian is even more interesting at this point lol. If you could magically hold agro you could really afk. The BRM is almost doing nothing to mitigate damage on beta. Stagger is doing everything. CB the cd is too long. Nerf the absorb amount but make the CD shorter! Purifying Brew should have its CD shortened.
If the only thing Mistweaver brought was HPS, we would get brought in; otherwise WoD wouldn’t have been such a clear favourite for people.
Utility only really becomes necessary to consider at the top end where gear level is at the lowest when the kills happen, or when specific utility negates mechanics.
Honestly I find myself using RoP on basically any fight with adds, the additional control is usually well received.
But utility is the reason we don’t get brought. Its the reason we fight for the 4th healing spot. In WoD our type of healing was rather unique. It worked for a few of the fights. Also in WoD our healing style was much more interesting which is why people like it. I said nothing about Monk being Great in WoD in terms of balance.
Also our healing cd’s are pretty rotten.
Utility is always considered. Even more so in Mythic+
ROP was not used in any single fight in Nyalotha. There was no point in it. Druid or shaman would just ae root everything. Skitra maybe the closest thing you could say, but like i said, it was better to root the mobs. If you even did that strat
How did you use ROP on carapace? Or on hivemind? or on vexiona? I’m curious
Carapace had nothing that needed ROP because all the adds should be grouped up and cleaved
Hivemind didn’t use rop. You used dk pull and stuns. There is no spreading or pushback needed.
ilgy Maybe with the MC MAYBE.
Vexiona was a clear stun and ae kill it before some1 died. You don’t spread anything here or bounce it.
Skitra was better to use AE root. You know this as well as every1 else. But o well, I’ll give you people skitra to be nice. Also this is only if you didn’t cheese the boss. Also most people did this after the first month or so