Issues:
- Energy Starvation: I am sitting at 13% haste atm and I have tried every talent build choice while doing the prepatch event (as target dummies), as well as a key here and there. Atm, I see one hero talent that may give a little buff to energy regen, but I am unsure of if that would even be enough. Why is this an issue? In order to mitigate energy starvation I have 2 options available, of which both are unenjoyable to me (and maybe others).
Option A: Take Whirling Dragon Punch and Jadefire Stomp while relying heavily on Dance of Chiji procs for free spinning crane kicks to eat time and give me a few seconds of energy regen. Core issues: Button Bloat, Decision Tree, Punished for Bad RNG. Button Bloat (see below), Decision Tree (see below), Bad RNG is never something you want players to be actively feeling as part of their rotation unless there is an upside RNG… so if I get AMAZING Rng, I am energy capped and the cycle starts anew…
Option B: Prioritize Haste from gear. Core issues here: monk’s other specs don’t necessarily want haste, requiring extra gearing on top of extra gearing with the new trinket changes coming in TWW. This is problematic because we get 1 item from the vault, not 1 per spec. Another core issue is that this is a game where we don’t get to choose our gear rewards at the end of a key, IF we even get a reward (pity gold doesn’t count because consumables cost more than what Blizz gives us). Requiring us to stack haste in order to have a decent feel to playing the spec is bad design. A similar situation that people could use to justify this is Fire mage + Crit. The reason why this isn’t a 1:1 is because Mages can and do play frost (or arcane lol) as a different DPS role while gearing up. This is also bad design but is mitigated slightly by their ability to play an additional spec in the same role while waiting. I do play all 3 roles for Monk but this isn’t an option that I enjoy. I quit warrior because it took me 42 runs to get a shield to drop in Season 4 of SL and trying to farm a haste set just to make my DPS role enjoyable enough to play should not be a solution. Moreover, if my guild groups have people that want to heal and tank, I either need to dictate that I can’t fulfill a DPS role because of class design or sit out of the run/drag the run down. The point of a multiplayer game is to play with others, not sit out while they have fun.
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Button Bloat: I am GRATEFUL that statue is now passive and bonebrew is gone. My feeling in the past was that WW had too much button bloat of impactful cds which needed to be managed every pull. This is compared to my xp running as Arms/Fury/Ret/Havoc, which don’t suffer from this nearly as much if at all. The reason why I feel this as an issue is because every second that these active CDs (Bonedust/WDP/FoF/RSK/Statue/JadeFS/SofWL) aren’t on CD is lowering their value as a talent/spell. By having so many, it is a rough ride setting them all up consistently for multiple packs, especially since they have varying CDs. (Quick Justification for RSK on this list: other specs that have something on an 8s cd have multiple charges as to not penalize as heavily… raging blow, crusader strike/blade of justice/mortal strike (historically if not now)). JFS has a shorter cd now, which is nice but doesn’t solve the issue alone. A viable solution to this would be to split the option of either choosing JFS or WDP and letting players choose which they prefer. Energy starvation is mandating that we take both. This is about to get worse because the energy regen boost is on the hero talent tree that adds ANOTHER CD for monks to manage.
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Decision Tree: This is the core “feel” of a class, not simply their assigned dps role (Burst Damage, AoE, Single Target, DoT etc). What buttons we choose to press next and their payoffs are what make the class feel unique in game and varied from other mmos. Fury Warrior is an excellent example of this as most buttons have enough charges/short enough cds to be available at almost all times. Choosing the right buttons to fit the right scenarios generates better DPS results. WW has an innate handicap in this perspective from its mastery forcing alternating keystrokes (which is fine), but does limit what your next keystroke options are significantly. The issue atm with Energy Starvation + WDP is that I don’t make decisions anymore. Not even, AoE v Single target. Is a button available to me? I press it. There are points in the rotation where there aren’t options of what to press. There are moments of Bad RNG where I don’t have the energy to Tiger Palm and Chi is at 0. I am not deciding when to Spinning Crane Kick, I am seeing a proc light up and I need to use it or be punished via starvation. The same is true for JFS, RSK, FoF and WDP. This feels like Ret Paladin WotLK but without being OP in ICC.
Proposed Solutions:
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Increase Energy Regen. Being on theme, why not give us a combo-strikes buff to energy regen passive… if we play well, we get more energy, no RNG, no grinding haste sets with RNG for obtaining. Perhaps it could even allow us to choose different talents because of our confidence in our play instead of mandating the energy regen talents. A baseline bump is also fine here. DO NOT PUT THIS ON OUR 4 SET. No one wants to wait weeks for the class to not feel awful.
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Second Charge on RSK. Also, give us the option to choose 2 of the following to buff via talents and use (JFS/FoF/WDP/SotWL) 3 is unwieldy without addons and 4 just hurts even with. This game’s mechanics requires players to not be staring at their action bars. Managing that many cds perfectly (or getting punished by a double tiger palm because of auto-piloting) is not a good feeling when other specs have far less to deal with and options to make them passive/stack charges.
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Our major cds are all aoe, which is our DPS Role flavor (Burst AoE dps). Our procs are static: Free Blackout Kick! Free Spinning Crane Kick!. Giving players choices allows players to get rewarded for choosing well. How about procs called Feet of Fury? RSK double/triple kicks or SCK also BoKs? There’s many avenues to work with there… I mean SCK could also suck all enemies into range (without breaking casts). If we got to actually choose how to spend our procs, it will improve the feel of the class as a whole (for those that reach that proficiency level with the spec).
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Do Storm, Earth, and Fire clones Jadefire stomp? I don’t think they do (hard for me to tell) and it’d be neat to see it visually and also if we’re talenting into an attack and they’re supposed to clone us… why is that not a thing? Are our clones playing Simon Says?
Terrible Counter Arguments:
C1: Play a different game. I like WoW, the content, the lore, the crunchiness of the clicks and the damage, there’s nothing that mirrors it well.
C2: Play a different class. No. I like Monk lore, Monk theme, and Playing Tank/Heal/DPS on a single toon because I hate gearing, especially since it is a FULL reset every 6 months. 42 runs. For. a. NEEDED. Shield. FOR. TANKING. Never again. (Yes I’ve played a ton of druid but I hate it’s DPS issues far more… example requiring mega pulls to do good damage but not having a toolkit that facilitates those pulls, having to push my bleeding edge every key so that my damage actually matters because things live 40+ seconds so I can’t run with friends who are lower geared/skilled unless I tank or heal which they also enjoy playing)
C3: Well I like: I am not advocating removing these cds as talent choices. They could be balanced to be even in functionality. But if you have a fight that lasts for more than 1 min on the same target(s), you should feel what I am feeling for Energy (or your haste is far beyond mine 13%). To find out what I’m talking about, run a single target dummy test 4-5 times from Xuen-Xuen.