I tried to love my Monk for many years, but could never come to appreciate the fantasy of oversized kegs being carried in my pockets to smash on enemies to generate hate, nor being a semi-DruidShamanRogue that was a melee summoner spec and needed a weapon equipped to unleash a fury of punches. Mistweaver is about the only fantasy that seemed to make some sense, as Chi Mastery is unique to the class.
What exactly is this class fantasy supposed to be anyways? If I could figure that out and feel it while playing my Monk, maybe I would like it as much as I want to. But right now, neither the tanking nor damage spec seem to fit a cohesive vision.
The idea behind the class as a whole is to be a master of various martial arts.
Brewmaster is based on the concept of the Drunken Brawler. Highly elusive and carefree. Whimsical but without question a master at close quarters combat.
Windwalker is based on the idea of mastering the swiftness of your own body. Position and accuracy being as important as power.
Mistweaver is based on the concept of mastering the energies within the body.
The realism you’re expecting from Brewmaster regarding holding kegs of beer is misplaced in games like WoW. By that standard, I should have over 1500 little critters following me around at all times since I enjoy battle pet collection.
The weapon requirement for Fists of Fury I will agree with. They have the swiftness part down solid, but the power fantasy is of your fist being the weapon. Beyond that they’ve rebalanced the flow so that channeling the entire FoF is a DPS loss in most cases, which is saddening.
Mistweaver has drifted the farthest from its class fantasy as far as I’m concerned. Mastering the distribution of Chi to the benefit of your allies was really engaging both in terms of gameplay and class fantasy. They removed Chi, reworked Renewing Mist to have less spread, and gave us Essence Font to haphazardly plug that hole. I honestly feel (as a mistweaver main) that the class design team shoul re-evaluate the route they’ve taken for the spec. It can do the content, but it’s not a fufilling spec to play in the least, especially in comparison to its previous iterations. Essence Font is a very pretty spell, but it has completely destroyed the core of the specs fantasy and gameplay.
It’s not so much the realism part that I have issue with, as it is that pulling out a keg and breaking barrels is not a martial art nor is it based on one–its a spec based gimmick more in line with Donkey Kong than Jackie Chan’s fantastic film and choreography.
I think Breath of Fire is a really cool twist, but find the spec lacking in abilities like FoF and RSK that feel more like martial arts master – that is, it’s overly focused on the alcohol theme which created a cute but chintzy and shallow spec fantasy incohesive with the overall class.
Windwalker has its definite high points, and if Serenity replaced Xuen instead of SEF (giving the Monk the tiger lightning, or some other benefit to offset the delta), I would feel a lot better about the way WW is put together. And yeah, FoF is really frustrating either due to the channel duration, or from the inability to use other melee skills during the channel (which, some awkward damage spikes might arise from it, but we’re seeing that with bugs anyways). Why can’t I at least Spear Hand Strike during the flurry? smh
I would love to see Chi return. And like I said, I feel Chi, as an effect and ability, should be unique to Monk and iconic to theme. I ultimately just feel the specs have been too differentiated, mostly during Legion (but also somewhat from WoD) which has pushed the flavors of Monk further and further from the core expectations of the class as a whole.
So a drunken brawler is a very very old personality type from Asia.
A tipsy monk is absolutely associated with martial arts. Bending and swaying between punches and kicks accidentally as he wobbles from intoxication. It’s an old comedic concept they brought to life quite well.
It is 100% a cultural homage. If this was a drunk character based on European or American stereotypes, I’d agree. But thematically, Brewmaster fits its fantasy best of all 3 specs.
To add; keg smash & breath of fire is also a reference to the warcraft 3 TFT version from Chen, where the abilities were likely more for gameplay purposes to fill a niche rather then a strict homage to anything.
And thematically, you’re missing where I’m saying that I feel theme should be class based not spec based, and it causes Brewmaster most of all to feel disconnected from Monk. That’s not to say the spec isn’t functional or can’t be fun – only that it is least like Monk over all. (Anything can be tuned to perform well, and performance and fun are almost interchangeable.
I think what bothers me about this is that it feel less like a combo than BoF is a maintenance buff. If more damage was loaded into the burn and melee skills, and out of Keg Smash, I would probably feel much more in line that the spec is a martial arts master.
It may be a little sad that talents can’t provide a better level of control over how that feel manifests than current design allows–leaving the player to the whim of the latest designer feeling on the class instead. It’s their fantasy, not ours.
Elemental Shamans channel the fury of Fire and Lightning.
Enhancement Shamans channel the power of the Winds to aid them.
Restoration shamans channel the spirits of Water to mend their allies.
They’re all shamans channeling the elements, but do so very differently. The exact same applies to Monks, they’re all martial artists of varying styles.
It sounds more like your idea of what martial arts should mean doesn’t line up with what they are inferring with a tipsy brawler, which is a perfectly valid opinion. That being said, the monk community from my experience, doesn’t share it.
Enhancement is the least related to the other two, and that’s largely by clinging to the Warrior-lite model from Legion. That said, Enhancement is a lot closer to Elemental than it seems MW is to WW.
I think you’re right about community–most people who tried Monk and share my opinion have either moved on to other classes or other games.
I definitely see where things disconnect for you in terms of enjoyment though. I’m at least glad you took the initiative to try and figure it out rather than trying to brute force yourself to enjoy a class and end up hating it. That seems to be what most people try to do in the game and it rarely works.
I like the mistweaver class fantasy. Like I’m working with life energy to attack things but also heal my allies. Manipulating it but in a positive way almost. All about balancing life energy.
And also a summoner which is cool. Our spell effects are pretty sick minus EF.
Gonna have to disagree with this. While I don’t mind EF personally, the real meat of the spec is in managing fistweaving properly. I find that gameplay both compelling, and very fulfilling. Never had more fun on a healer, except maybe shaman back in the wrath - cata days.
So I should have narrowed the scope a little. In terms of raiding gameplay, it is the absolute core ability they’ve built the spec around. It’ll always be your #1 heal, and you generally don’t hold it off CD for long.
You can recover from accidentally letting your HoT extensions drift without much performance drop. You can’t forget to pop EF when it’s needed without your performance dipping.
Same experience with BG’s.
For M+ and Arena, yes it’s not really a big part of the spec.
I’m glad you’re enjoying its current state. I’ve been playing Mistweaver on and off at varying levels of content since its release, and since they’ve reworked it in Legion it’s felt hollow. It’s still my favourite healer because it plays so drastically different from every other healer, but the feel of engaging gameplay with the spec is almost entirely drained for me and it’s mostly due to EF.
Originally I thought it was just a personal grievance, but after seeing people like Anomaly and others echoing similar opinions, I feel it warrants a closer examination by the dev team.
Weird that we need to include this. Like stratifying players into players and “not actually really players” devalues their experience (or “serious top-end players” are suddenly more valuable to the game cycle with regard to satisfaction). We are each paying the same sub fee to experience this.
What I meant by that, is that I’ve had expansions where I had no interest in doing more than casually playing for a few hours a week, and ones where I farm the crap out of the game to min/max.
Me saying I’ve played at various levels of content is me saying I can understand the perspective of hardcore top end players, as well as the more casual group, cause I’ve been both. There were 3 major patches in a row during Warlords where all I did was play battle pets. Key words in that sentence are “I’ve played”, not talking about anyone but myself for that statement.
So no, not valuing some players over others, nor was it inferred. The devs have made it clear they’d rather design to include the casual players, which I have no objections to. Don’t make my words something they aren’t.
Honestly, this is part of why I’ve never had much interest in the class. I just can’t get into a character that kicks and punches, when other classes can throw fireballs, summon demons, or swing two massive swords.
I would agree that now the class fantasy has become somewhat garbled. Although I don’t see too much of an issue with magic barrels coming out of nowhere as other classes do similar things like shamans flinging flaming totems from their pockets. I think a lot of the class fantasy disconnect comes from being so far away from Mists of Pandaria and the class being SO tied to that expansion the areas in it. Being anywhere else the class’s features seem out of place compared to the rest of the world they have created. It is’t necessarily game breaking but does make people shy away from the class (I know it kept me away for a bit). Shadowlands, being not on Azeroth, makes it less of an impact, but if Bliz decides to go back to Azeroth in the next expansion there are a few things they could do to reinforce and blend the class fantasy more into the rest of the game.
More Monistaries Throughout Azeroth
Since most of the other races have been exposed and trained under the pandarin in martial arts it would make sense that some of the masters would take their teachings back to their own lands and start their own training. Essentially this would develop into new styles of fighting such as Trolls using a form of capoeria (brazillian dance fighting) or Night elves using some kind of shadow striking martial art. The monasteries would have different cultural influences that pull it away from just being a pandarin class. Which brings me to my next point.
Expand the Celestials
If there are more monasteries and more cultures exploring celestial “worship” through being a monk it would come to reason they would expand which Loa they would dedicate themselves too. At the moment Bliz seems to want to tie the monk more to the celestials with the summoning abilities we currently have (personally I would rather them be stances) but if they are set on that path they should double down. The ability to change your celestial based on your monastery of choice would be interesting. It would be highly visual and not effect the abilities stat wise, but change the colors of your attacks and the form of the celestial you summon. It would probably be limited based on your spec, such as Mist Weavers could only attune to Loa that are based around healing and Wind Walkers could only attune to those celestials connected with fighting and so forth. It would add a unique visual component to the class that further blend us into the world of Azeroth. Also, I want to be a Bwonsamdi Monk.
Reinforce the Idea of the Wandering Monk
The Pandarin from Warcraft 3 were wanderers from a far away land and their heroes matched that style. I think that visual concept has been pushed aside for a more generic martial artist vibe. Ways to reinforce that imagery would be certain visual perks for the class. One could be ALL monks, whenever holding a staff, would carry it on their shoulder like the Brew Master Legion Weapon. We are not mages or priests and should not hold our weapons as such. Another option would be added back transmogs such as lanterned back packs or even barrels. This might help with the issue that now the Brewmaster no longer pulls them out of nowhere.
Staff Combat
I am not a fan of visual stat sticks. It makes sense for a mage, warlock or priest as their attacks are inherent and magic projectiles. But we are a melee class and If we do not use them in combat I would rather just have an option to make them invisible. That OR add in visual combat for using the staff. No other class in the game uses the staff as an actual weapon and the monk is the perfect opportunity to do that. There are multiple ways to implement this from glyphs to staff specific attacks/abilities much like the shield options for paladins and warriors.
The monk has a lot more potential in class fantasy than I think they currently are putting forth and I really hope they decide to do some interesting things with it going forward. Anyway, thats my two cents for what its worth. If you stayed with me this long thanks for reading.
I’ve also played at varying levels. But having that experience doesn’t change what my experience means, at least to me. Just like it wouldn’t if someone did solely world quests, raid logged, or is in a cutting edge group, and provided their feedback.
I wasn’t trying to attack, just noting that it’s depressing to think we have to pre-defend our perception with “Tweets are my own opinion” or “I have some background experience to validate this thought”. It’s a good response, sorry if I came off wrong with it.
@Blanc, thank you. I think you said what I was trying to get at better than I could.