Honestly, I wish my monk could do some serious damage with no weapon equipped. Like… A monk. Everquest? Free Hand-to-hand considered one of the best early weapons and got all sorts of awesome modifiers. D&D? Bonus rolls to unarmed strikes, and even starts to get magical benefits later on. The weapon slot itself should just be optional for the class. But that’s something they can’t handle in their game–the “system” says “every character has a weapon”, so here we are… Trying to ask whether monk weapons should be “real” or “invisible”. (Or somewhere in between.)
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Seriously, I feel like an idiot when I go up and start punching somebody with a sword.
That is one thing one of my favorite things about MoP was wpns were just stat sticks, I remember telling a druid I could beat him without weapons equipped and it was hilarious to prove it.
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Getting disarmed as Monk back then was fantastic–kept up near 100% DPS. It was really dumb when FoF had a weapon requirement added in Legion.
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Remember Chi Explosion? It replaced Blackout Kick. I’d choose that talent purely so I didn’t have to see the outdated animation of Blackout Kick.
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Wasn’t jab an animation that used the staff to plunk or you grabbed your sword from your back and swung down and then sheath it again fast
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Careful. Some people around here hate the mere mention of Chi Explosion, and will show up just to fight you for saying it.
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yes it was
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If this is the case then Monks shouldn’t need to collect staffs, swords ect to improve their effectiveness in game. Walking around with two swords at their sides or a staff/polearm on ones back while hitting things with bare hands is just silly. If you don’t want to use weapons good for you. They should make a glyph for us that want to.[quote=“Slade-area-52, post:15, topic:696778, full:true”]
I looked for your quote but can’t find anything from official blizzard that says what you quoted. Please provide your official blizzard source.
As for your “seems you are limiting them in ways the lore doesn’t”
Officially we have:
“Bare-Knuckle brawlers”
“No Weapon Style”
“these pandaren instead focused on harnessing their chi and learning weaponless combat”
https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/game/classes/monk
“Whatever their combat role, monks rely mainly on their hands and feet to do the talking”
https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/game/classes/monk
A martial artist without peer who pummels foes with hands and fists.
https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/game/talent-calculator#monk/windwalker
And before you make up your own cannon again, do not reply with “they vowed to never be weaponless again after their slave revolt” unless you have a official source for it. Because no where does blizzard say that.
[/quote]
Take another read through the thread. Slade actually agrees that monks should be able to use weapons.
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Yep! It was great.
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Watch Chen fight during the mop cinematic. He uses his weapons plenty. It’d be way lamer if he just used punches and spinning crane kicks like on live.
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No young one, you ARE the weapon. 
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Reviving this cause I just noticed it in game myself (since I main MW). We NEED a way to use our weapons, in at least ONE attack!! Even if it was a talent, a glyph, something so these swords on my back serve a purpose! It really takes away from the “class identity” imo.
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Chi Explosion, Chi Explosion, Chi Explosion,
I’ve got the two fist weapons from Throne of Thunder (the rotating stars that come off the sisters boss), and when they’re transmogged over something I have equipped, they stay visible during several of my attacks. I’ve got a staff equipped right now (thanks Nathanos) or I’d go test this and tell you which ones it worked on and which it didn’t.
I was always in the camp that didn’t want the weapons showing unless it was fist weapons. It makes sense for fist weapons to be used at all times but not swords, maces, etc. As for two-handers, it would make sense to use them some of the time but we don’t really have any abilities that lend themselves to two-hand use.
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The point is not to simply have the weapons visible. The point is to actually USE the weapons in an attack. I’m using one of the artifact BM staves and it stays visible when attacking, but it’s not actually used in the attack.
Nobody is (or very few are) asking for monks to use their weapons at all times, glyph or not. What I have seen is people asking to be able to completely replace the animation ONE attack (probably Jab or Blackout Kick) so that it no longer punches and instead uses the equipped weapon. This is exactly what Jab used to do, and I think Blackout Strike for BM monks until this patch.
ANY ability would lend itself to one-hand OR two-hand use if you completely replace the animation (once again, preferably with a glyph so it’s optional).
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The stars I’m talking about appear to be used during the attack, likely because they’re fist weapons. It sounds like you’re asking for actual ability changes depending on what’s equipped. Because you can’t Tiger Palm with a weapon in your hand, and RSK and BK are both kicks, not weapon strikes.
Disagree. Again, you can’t Tiger Palm with a weapon, certainly not a staff or polearm. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned using a pole-based pendulum-style attack and I like that idea, but then you would have to have a polearm or stave equipped and not be able to dual-wield.
I think the class, based on its setup, makes these situations all problematic, and there’s no easy fix. To be honest, I think we should have been restricted to either fist weapons, or to staves/polearms, and our abilities would have depended on what we equipped (like a kind of single-minded fury vs. titan’s grip tradeoff, but even more drastic). I don’t think maces or swords fit the class in any way, and they create the kind of problems we’re discussing just by being available. That’s my $0.02, yours may vary.
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There is an easy fix: create a glyph that uses the old Jab animation.
When monks first appeared in MoP, Jab was a weapon attack, but there was a glyph to change it to a punch where the weapon wasn’t used. The current ask - by many players, not just me - is to essentially have a reverse of that original situation. Jab can default as a punching animation but add a glyph to make it a weapon animation.
BM monks’ Blackout Strike also used a weapon strike animation, IIRC. That’s another option for the animation, which I think may have been slightly different from the old Jab animation. The suggested glyph could be implemented for Jab, Blackout Kick, OR Rising Sun Kick, or there could even be separate glyphs for all of them. Whatever gives players more options is good IMO.
The animations already exist. The precedent already exists. The desire in the player-base exists. Why is this difficult to understand?
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It’s not hard to understand at all, but there’s also a question of should get monks get this treatment when no other class I know does. I would love to have weapons visibly available on druids, but that’s problematic because Cats Wielding Daggers is on the level of Sharknado. Much easier, though, is a solution for getting out of that ridiculous boomkin form that doesn’t require going Glyph of Stars, which is so over-the-top that it obscures all transmogs and weapons. Same for Shadow priests and their purple haze.
By “no easy fix” I mean Blizzard jacked this up out of the gate, and not specifically for monks. ALL classes have an issue with fist weapons showing. I have a great transmog on an Elemental shaman that includes one of the Firelands fist weapons, but the only way I can have it show is to unsheath it out of combat, or use that ridiculous melee ability they just “unpruned” that isn’t going on anyone’s bars anyway. The excuses for why fist weapons in general can’t be shown more often on more classes has always been a bit flimsy IMO but if it’s as ingrained in the programming as Blizzard says it is, chances are you’re not going to get whatever you’re asking for.
My long-held, but fleeting hope is that in a few xpacs, when they’re out of ideas and out of classes to add or allied races to invent, they redo the entire suite of combat and casting animations for every single spec in the game to keep it fresh. Until then, we’re spitting into the wind.
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