As those who have played the beta and those who have been keeping an eye on TWW changes have seen, Blizz is trying to solve GCD capping/locking by reducing our resources… again. This is the THIRD time they’ve done this and being that it’s the third time they’ve done this, it’s evident that Blizzard hasn’t learned that this is an ineffective solution to GCD capping/locking.
So fellow WWs, let’s let Blizzard know that their course of action is dumb and makes WW feel less enjoyable to play. Drop feedback in the thread for beta feedback. Let them know they’re making the same mistake again.
As for an alternative solution to the GCD capping/locking, I propose a flat reduction in WW GCD, which should have been done going into WoD from MoP which was the first time Blizz increased the energy cost of Jab/TP. Blizz is already playing around with the idea of poking at the GCD with the new SotWL talent, Darting Hurricane. They’re going light and making something likely inconsequential given that it messes with the GCD for only TP which we’re gonna be seeing less of if current changes run their course. So why not just take the leap and just flat reduce GCD like they should have done 10 years ago.
Alternatively, if they weren’t feeling brave enough to flat out reduce GCD, they could also reduce the priority of random procs so we aren’t pressed to burn them right away. IIRC, Blizz is letting us bank DoCJ charges (not sure if that’s changed since I last saw it) in TWW. They could go further down this line with BoK procs as well. That way when we get procs, it won’t reset itself with funky RNG and we aren’t as pressed to burn it right away.
EDIT: Someone else proposed this as an alternative.
I personally feel that slower is more enjoyable. Going up to 60 energy feels a bit extreme, but with using Inner Peace it feels just right to me.
I’m not sure what you think reducing the GCD will do, it will just lead to using your resources in a smaller window and then having a bigger window of waiting for them to come back and doing it again. Windwalker’s GCD is already 1 second like all energy specs.
Currently, on Beta, both DoCJ and BoK! procs can stack to 2, so you don’t have to use them right away, they changed that a few weeks ago.
If you’re looking for speed, there are a few talents to take that will get you back up to GCD capped, but I’m not sure if you’re advocating for the spec to be faster or just slower in a different way.
I already find a 1 sec GCD slow even outside of CDs.
Honestly, in a perfect world, we’d be able have two styles of WW and choose which flavor we like. I’d love a version of WW that plays like a computer playing Tetris where a player can play at over 240 APM and print damage, but I can also appreciate a more TeB style of WW where we build more slowly. However, neither of that is what we’re getting with the beta changes.
What I’m advocating is for the resource changes to not go through because this is the third time they’re doing this to address the same problem. Rather than doing the same thing again and having more stuff get added to WW so that we end up back at GCD cap again, why not try a different approach? I get your concern with WW gassing out faster outside of CDs, but that just means Blizz can return old tools to us like EE or Chi Brew (albeit in a different flavor) or roll back the TP energy cost back to 40. That also means new additions to WW have more space in our rotation where we don’t hit GCD cap. And, as a side note, more flat-out consistency means we are less vulnerable to the whims of RNG.
I don’t think that reducing the GCD is the way to resolve this and I think its fair to assume that quite a few people don’t like the lightning speed in which we have to smash buttons.
A way we could all have our cake and eat it is if we were treated like other classes whose GCD interacts with haste. This would double down on their attempt to bring haste into the mix as a desirable stat and would allow for multiple play styles depending on how you build your stats.
If you did this it would likely have to be a change for all energy users but instead of the standard 1.5 start point I would recommend a 1.25 GCD for energy users with the haste benefit perhaps tapering harder than the classes with a native 1.5 GCD.
This would give you windows of fast paced button mashing during invokers delight and lust but would then slow down, which I actually think that the current TWW WW monk would benefit from as currently it is entirely possible to be waiting with no chi and no energy.
I think this would work pretty well. Though, I’d keep WW at a 1 second base GCD rather than 1.25. It’d be fun to see what 80+% haste WW could do with (presumably) a .2 sec GCD during burst.
There are plenty of specs that play frantically slamming buttons as fast as they can. WW spent much of the first few expansions being the opposite of that. I’d much rather the spec be more unique in its play style than homogenized to “more presses = more damage” like Fury Warrior and others.
If I wanted a high APM spec to make my 35yo fingers hurt, there’s plenty to choose from.
That’s fair, but I think WW has more then enough substance to work with to add a layer of depth to the speed to make it very fast but require high precision as opposed to just mindless spam.
I’d love to see our spec tree revamped to have two different styles of WW, so players can choose.
That’s fair, although our mastery prevents it from being too mindless.
Really it’s a playstyle preference, I like my martial artists fast paced and precise, like Ip Man. Doesn’t feel right being a martial artist that’s slow.
Either way, if the speed of class’s playstyle is based off a stat which you can take or leave, it would mean you would have some degree of control, which means you could play your way and I could play mine. I see nothing wrong with that.
I truly do understand those that like a slower playstyle, however I feel that “slow” is very “anti-monk”. A slow fist fighter is “just a fighter” or a “brawler” in my opinion. Fantasy style monks have always been about a flurry of blows so fast that an untrained fighter can’t even keep up with their eyes, harnessing their inner chi to empower themselves(not rely on summons and tote- i mean statues), and being unpredictable in their attacks which is the only thing I think blizzard succeeded in with the mastery preventing spamming the same ability over and over again.
Again, I’m not trying to bash anyone thats enjoying the slower playstyle. But let me ask, if they did a fast playstyle “right”, would you not enjoy it more? Do you actually feel like a monk attacking so slow? Do you feel like a monk that has honed and trained their body through the most grueling physical and spiritual training when you’re character is essentially “gassed out” after 1-2 of their weaker attacks? It makes no sense. Or are you enjoying it because it’s just something that’s kind of working so far? I think a lot more would enjoy a rapid playstyle that involves mixing up your moves and feel like you’re combos are building up to unleash a lightning fast chain of strikes or devastating blow.
Because I’ve played the spec since release, and lost complete interest in it from Legion and on, with it getting progressively more depressing throughout each new iteration.
The original catch for me with WW was how you’d play for the big burst windows with TEB, along with some unique talents like Chi Explosion from WOD, or giga buffed Xuen in Legion. Images from MOP/WOD were also a very unique and interesting take on a gameplay aspect that they just decided to gut for god knows what reason.
If we’re talking fast being button mashing, that’s specifically what killed the interest for me. There was no preparation beyond lining CDs up. If we’re talking fast as in make a bunch of numbers appear at once because you have a bunch of things happening at once, then that’s just a different way to implement damage.
Ramp up time, personally, was one of the most interesting things with WW in its original iterations.
I would say MoP’s version of the spec is still my favorite and if I’m not mistaken it still is for most others who have played the class from the beginning as well. It wasn’t a sluggish street brawler. You had quick jabs that built up to other attacks. The pace was good, with a build up to TEB. For me Chi Explosion is a disgusting abomination that I pray never returns. The original SEF was awesome too, had so much more fun with that than the bugfest it turned into.
Some specs really are mindless buttonsmash-fests. My personal feeling is a monk should never be too out of breath to do anything, but always striking with thought behind it, building up to something or exploiting a weakness. The original version of the spec still feels like it did that the closest. I’m not saying make it like Legion where you had to take a 5 hour energy to be able to fit all your cooldowns into a serenity window, but fast enough to where it never feels like your monk forgot to do his cardio workout and has to wait 3-5 seconds to do one of his weakest attacks.
For what its worth, saying you like “MoP’s version” narrows it down to 3 different options, all that played very differently and all that had significantly more downtime than we’ve seen Windwalker have in years.
I personally never felt that it had significantly more downtime. I am getting older though so I won’t disagree with the possibility of my memory starting to go. My potentially fading memory stays haunted with windwalker having the most downtime when chi explosion was the bees knees in WoD.
I dislike this arguement in any form about MOP WW. Your uptime was based around your TEB windows, which was definently impacted by RNG, but ultimately a good WW was separated heavily from a bad one then.
And the simple changes to things like this is to frontload more damage, or offer haste as a good stat for PVE purposes. I am personally a fan of WW having base haste in its current iteration, but it’s so heavily overshadowed by the other secondary stats that you just simply don’t get to want it. It’s a very good feels good stat.
In the first tier, your downtime was based on how many prices you got of Combo Breaker Tiger Palm and Combo Breaker Blackout Kick. In Throne of Thunder it wasn’t based on anything until you got Rune of ReOrigination. In both those tiers, TEB windows were relatively consistent and spaced out. It wasn’t until the 2nd Mastery change in Siege of Orgrimmar which made TEB stacks RNG based on Mastery% and we started avoiding Mastery as much as we could.
Either way, I’m not sure I’d agree that TEB had much effect on the downtime since WW’s ability to pool and dump was relatively limited and TEB was a flat damage amp.
I agree with this, but it could be the rosed colored goggles speaking. I much preferred MoP’s iteration of SEF and I enjoyed all of the tools we were given without it necessary feeding a singular well thought out symbiosis.
This is just facts so I don’t disagree but you can’t evaluate any class in a vacuum and the reality is that all classes have been getting faster and faster as the community becomes more fixated on min maxing, M+/raiding has become more competitive and your general player base has more tools for optimization. A lot of classes were slower back then making WW feel relatively faster. It’s semantics but if all the other classes get faster and we don’t it would feel like we are getting slower.
