Wisdom of the Wall appears to be all 4 buffs simultaneously, which makes sense given that you need 10 Flurry strikes for it. (At 20 sec per strike, that’s about 3 minutes)
It says “A” wisdom of the wall, it’s one of the four buffs.
Shado-Pan Windwalker Monk Initial Feedback:
As others in the thread have mentioned, there is a concern with generating flurry charges based on maximum HP. This can cause a lot of unintended consequences (good, but mostly bad) such as:
-
Macroing cancelaura Power Word: Fortitude/Rallying Cry into all of your spells for a DPS increase
-
Tauren Shado-Pan Monks losing a tiny bit of damage for existing
-
Effects that reduce your maximum HP being a DPS increase
-
Windwalkers being a god class on fights that have effects like the HP reduction on Cabal in the Shadowed Crucible
There has to be a better way to calculate how you gain flurry charges that (hopefully) is figured out in the course of the Alpha/Beta.
What I liked:
Good theming - I like that the tree has multiple ways it plays on Flurry Strikes throughout it. It does this in an non-invasive manner through passives.
(Mostly) Low RNG - Most of the tree consisting of passives that don’t rely on a proc and therefore all feel good to have.
What I didn’t like:
Wisdom of the Wall RNG - This is a major concern of mine. As a Windwalker Oldhead, I have come to loathe the stupid amount of RNG present in WW Monk today. Based on the wording present, it seems like you gain 1 of the 4 effects listed seemingly at random. This could lead to really frustrating edge cases of RNG where you get the shadow flurry strikes buff 5 times in a row on a single-target fight and do 5-10% less damage than other players because you just got unlucky.
Flurry Strikes maximum HP Trigger - mentioned earlier.
What I need clarification on:
What is a Flurry Strike - Despite the tree being all about them, it’s unclear what they actually are. Is it AoE? Does it only affect one target? How do the Flurry Strikes deal damage (does it just count down the buff and cast it at an interval or is it all at once)?
Vigilant Watch/Shadowboxing Treads Synergy - Does the multiple hits from Shadowboxing Treads on different targets add a stack of the Vigilant Watch buff?
Wisdom of the Wall - How does it determine which buff to grant you? Is it truly random or is it sequential like the Mag’har Orc racial, Ancestral Call?
Whirling Steel - What does it mean to be injured in this case? Is there an HP threshold or something?
What I’d like to see:
A more consistent Wisdom of the Wall effect. Perhaps making it sequential so you can plan around the buff you’re going to be getting? Maybe have it favor certain buffs based on the abilities you used last?
Overall, between the two trees. I liked this one way more mainly because of the consistency it provides and the fact that it feels like I’m doing the damage and doing cool stuff.
13 Likes
Huh, fair observation. Odd that they don’t template it like Shaohao’s Lessons then.
I’m reading it as if we get all of them. “A” wisdom of the wall. and “wisdom of the wall grants:” sounds like it gives all 4 buffs at once.
1 Like
I have a slight problem with the name. Shado-Pan are not just monks. There are other classes within the order and are even divided into three groups. Omnia, Blackguard and Wu Kao. Of the three Blackguard would be the considered the monk group (also have warriors), with Omnia being a scholarly focus (mage / priest), and Wu Kao being the scouts / assassins of the order (rogue / hunter.)
If you still want a Pandaren focus in terms of the name consider changing to Blackguard or a different name. Because I have to be honest right now I read Shado-Pan and I’m reading it as if it was a class with three specs in it.
2 Likes
Hey monks, we heard you like auto attacks…
Flurry Strikes should be an active. Either a new button (conscious of button bloat), or have the buff transform a certain ability until you use it. This gives the player agency rather than performing your rotation for a passive damage bonus, and also just feels good. Think of Killing Machine on frost DKs - ultimately it is a crit, but it feels so satisfying to press.
This could be that. Make sure it makes the button glow and changes the icon to something that feels weighty, this is important.
Also, there’s room to make this feel more ‘combo-ish’ in the original Streetfighter vision for monks. That obviously won’t happen in the Celestial hero tree - fine - but do it here. Rather than just ‘spend energy’, base it around a certain sequence of abilities or number of abilities A super basic and not-fun example would be ‘every 3 Blackout Kicks and 2 RSKs, X spell becomes Flurry Strikes’. That but with more thought.
4 Likes
To continue off this…
There seems to be a lot of confusion with how Overwhelming Flurry and Wisdom of the Wall functions, including some of the supporting talents, if Blizz could clarify.
Regardless, I still firmly believe this type of tree should be more technique/combo oriented and do something to change up how we play.
It needs to focus more on the monk dealing precise and deadly stealth-like strikes—the Flurry Strikes concept could work, but not in the way it is currently designed. Utilize the existing abilities and mechanics we have now, and improve upon that.
4 Likes
I thought with them using Shado-Pan as a source for the fantasy, that it meant they were considering going the route of incorporating weapon attacks. Then having this flow of weapon and physical strikes. With some abilities being replaced to focus on weapon use.
Ex:
Blackout Kick ----> Blackout Strike
Fists of Fury ----> Furious Strikes
If not weapons, then something that focuses more on combos like you suggested. Using your example, I could even see it being used not just as 1 strike. But even 1 unique punch and 1 unique kick. So you’re getting 2 new animations, maybe even 3 depending on what would get changed.
hey, any chance we could get some insight if you guys are going to revisit ww class tree or monk capstones in general. appreciate it!
7 Likes
The button bloat is bad buttons, conflicting buttons etc. I would trim buttons, but also replace them.
4 Likes
For context I’m arguably the best in the world at WW raiding and have done TC/etc for the spec for numerous years now. Some notes from WW perspective:
Overwhelming Flurry:
HP/energy conditionals are a bit strange. This may end up being extremely degenerate for WW as I’ll get into below. Conceptually our only spenders are generators, so it feels weird to have them be tied to a rather substantial pseudo CD. Additionally the amount of stacks generated in AoE would get rather silly rather quickly which can provide even further degenerate gameplay as I’ll explain.
Choice Node: Pride of Pandaria and High Impact
Sure why not. ST vs AoE swap
Veteran’s Eye :
What procs this? Seems quite low on initial glance. Be nice to know if flurry strikes is a singular hit per charge or numerous.
Martial Precision:
Personally think this should be something different. I doubt even your own devs know armor calcs. Hard to eyeball what this means.
Choice Node: Protect and Serve and Lead from the Front
Both of these are utterly worthless with current tuning on vivify/etc
One versus Many :
Sure why not. “Please press fof” as a talent
Choice Node: Whirling Steel and Predictive Training
These both seem utterly worthless for WW. Already have bounce back and avoidance is super conditional. WW needs more 1 shot protection if anything not post hit DR.
Against All Odds :
Starting to see the vision of this being more than a passive damage proc as the above comments erroneously infer. This has some issues however.
Efficient Training: :
Serenity CDR is practically worthless for Windwalker as a reminder due to Xuen/Skyreach existing. This just seems like another node build specifically for BRM. Not sure why WW now has 3 talent nodes buffing TP and its still irrelevant. This could make Spiritual Focus fringe viable but its locked behind a ToD talent for whatever reason.
Vigilant Watch :
Does this stack? Lol. Starting to get very degenerate guys…
Wisdom of the Wall :
Few problems with this.
-
Does this generate 1 buff? If so a random buff that has variable value of 5-10% is a bit silly imo. Feels bad to get the wrong one when you have a 2m go.
-
If it generates 4 buffs the contribution is ridiculous with rough math being >50% dmg increase after flurry. Thus I assume its 1 buff
-
What if you spend 20 flurry charges? 30? 40? In AoE scenarios you stack them far faster. Can easily run into situations where WW just evaporates dungeon/raid bosses after add phases/trash. We’re talking highest funnel burst in the game by a lot.
-
As a result you must carefully manage flurry stacks! As you can see most people in this thread see it as a passive damage increase. That is NOT the case and if you do an absent minded tiger palm goodbye millions of damage!
-
Skyreach makes this hilariously degenerate. Now you need to line up the tiger palm that procs it with the tiger palm that procs sky reach which increases flurry damage by 40-50%+ on ST plus overlaps skyreach with a crit amp, agility amp, and mastery amp, to drop some multimillion GCD’s into a mob for a few seconds. I don’t see how you can release this as is with Skyreach otherwise the skill floor gets pretty silly.
-
Typically damage relative to health increases over an expansion. If in earlier tiers you cannot reliably get 10 stacks for each proc that becomes extremely awkward given wisdom of the wall is a meaningful bonus.
Overall
You likely need to make this an active ability with more linear scaling of wisdom of the wall. Storing charges over time to be dumped, and then wisdom of the wall provides a percent of each buff for each stack.
ie:
I have 20 charges, I use it, I get 20 stacks of Wisdom of the Wall. Each stack is +X shadow dmg, +x% chd, +x% stat conversion.
Additionally many options in the tree seem quite worthless for WW which I think should be addressed. I don’t hate it as a more visually pleasing and interactive version of TEB, but the current iteration is degenerate. I understand you don’t want to add more cd’s/damage mults for WW, but that is simply how it would be played even as a passive which you need to consider. You should also strongly consider removing Skyreach and BdB to reduce issues with multiplicative interactions and open up design space for more interesting multipliers such as this
7 Likes
Wrong character cuz forums suck but you get the idea
Definitely an underwhelming set of talents that leave us questioning if the playstyle will enhance our gameplay or make it worse.
Overwhelming Flurry: I don’t hate it, we already have enough buttons to press. The passive seems fine. I just have a feeling the 400 Energy is too much if Tiger Palm is the only option we have to spend Energy as WW while we have a mastery that forces us to use a new ability each time to maintain a buff. The passive would benefit WW more if the Energy is changed to “x” amount of chi spent. For Brewmaster, since we don’t have Chi to spend, Energy makes sense. I don’t know how quick a Brewmaster can spend 400 energy, but numbers are able to get tuned if needed. I’m not worried about the balance as much as i am for the playstyle, and since Flurry Strikes is attached to other talents, there’s a few things that are uncertain.
Veteran’s Eye: We’re able to strike 5 times within 2 seconds on a single target?
2 seconds!? are Global cooldowns getting removed? like I know we’re able to get procs to hit twice, but still… maybe I am over thinking this one.
Against All Odds: Here’s a talent that makes me question how fast we’ll be able to obtain Flurry Strikes… I dont even know if a WW can spend 400 energy in 6 seconds. Again, this is me assuming something, but Tiger Palm is the only thing we have to spend Energy on (im not counting Expel Harm, it’s not part of a damage rotation). I would need to use Tiger palm 8 times to spend 400 Energy. 8 times in 6 seconds? while trying to maintain Mastery: Combo Strikes.
Math doesn’t add up.
Efficient Training: S.E.F and Serenity’s side of the talent is fine. can’t complain. but Weapons of Order? For Brewmaster? I don’t even have it talented because we have too many buttons to press. I went for the passive option to opt-out of tiger palm and have less buttons to press because it was two less things to worry about. So does the talent Efficient Training mean I am forced to Obtain Weapons of Order as a Brewmaster, assuming the talent tree will have a slight adjustment, making Weapons of Order somewhere in the talent tree where all Brewmasters will be forced to get or else this one talent is useless for us? You don’t want to give Brewmaster a bit more love for those who don’t want to play with Weapons of Order? I don’t know, maybe lower the cooldown of Exploding Keg, or maybe Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox?
Vigilant Watch: Uhm, does this stack? How many times will I be hitting Blackout kick before Flurry Strikes will proc? Seems weird as a talent. It’s like, sure I guess I’ll continue to use my Blackout Kick. Wasn’t planning on stopping.
Wisdom of the Wall: I don’t even know if this is a good thing or a bad thing… Seems weird and underwhelming.
The rest of the talents are just whatever.
Just gonna give a run down of what I think of each of the talents from WW’s perspective.
Overwhelming Flurry
Potential big boom every 8 TPs. Not a great start, but maybe it could built on.
Pride of Pandaria
Neat small bonus.
High Impact
Cool concept. Sounds like it’s gonna be hell to utilize in practice. Feels like this should be attached to ToD/AoE ToD instead. NEEDS TO BE ADJUSTED OR CHANGED
Controlled Instincts/Veteran’s Eye (on Wowhead)
Eh concept. Feels like it’s gonna be a lil RNG and mainly proc around Flurry Strikes for an underwhelming buff. SHOULD BE ADJUSTED OR CHANGED
Martial Precision
Neat. Put it on the main monk tree or the WW spec tree because this used to more or less be baseline with Tiger Palm.
Protect and Serve
Waste of a talent. Just bake it into Escape from Reality on the main monk tree.
Lead from the Front
Waste of a talent. Feels like it’s missing a zero.
One Versus Many
Flat damage buff with synergy for Flurry Strikes. Very uninspired. Would be more thematic if it removed the AoE caps and reductions from FoF/Keg Smash.
Whirling Steel
Mild upside passive defensive when we get hurt. I don’t see this being useful outside of situations where we mess up badly and rip threat off tanks or continuous big ticking AoE from a boss.
Predictive Training
Seems better for BrM. Much more relevant for WW in regards to PvP in which it feels like it’ll be pretty strong and have decent uptime.
Against All Odds
Main stat on a proc that happens every 8 Tiger Palms. Feels like it’s gonna be a pain to min-max. SHOULD BE ADJUSTED OR CHANGED
Efficient Training
Cool 15% buff for TP. Different flavor of Spiritual Focus for WW. Feels very underwhelming.
Vigilant Strikes
BoK crit buff is nice. High potential for cheese if the buff stacks.
Wisdom of the Wall
Every 80 Tiger Palms we get like a super trinket buff/CD, but it’s something we have to manage in the back of our minds or with a WA.
Overall Thoughts
This tree is a mess, but hey first drafts exist for a reason. Get rid of the waste of space talents. Our options are grim here because we either rework the whole thing from the ground up or simplify and make what exists work. Also how did EE not make it onto this tree?
Big downsides I see with what we have is that there is more background stuff to track in the background now which is never a good thing. There is no real change or addition to our rotation. The fact that we share this with BrM makes design space restrictive because Blizz will almost never flat out buff WW’s SCK which would be a better ability to base this tree around and augment. Basing this around our max health seems like an oversight especially on the BrM side.
These hero talents should have been made AFTER fixing the monk trees.
I don’t understand Overwhelming Fury.
I haven’t seen anyone mention this, but Aug exists. If I’m in a 5 man, at least as BrM Aug is adding about 35-40% more damage. Power Word Fortitude, Stam trinkets, Stam enchants/gems, and temp health increases reduce BrM’s DPS by making it proc less. But by virtue of Aug existing, I do more damage, I proc more Overwhelming Fury strikes, which makes me scale better with haste because I have the armor buff from Aug, which lets me get faster and more efficient Against All Odds procs, which gives me more defensive value from the scaling agility.
Is Aug being fundamentally changed to not benefit tanks in WW, or is BrM defensiveness going to triple dip with Aug?
Looks like some added scaling for monks which is huge. Overall looks fun without adding a bunch of extra stuff to do. Brew already has too much and WW rotation is amazing as is…
I think major issues require play time and tuning.
You could probably just not have this tree of talents at all and just put “you do more damage cause you leveled up” on it. Thats how much fantasy this tree carries.
Its monks? You punch things. More punching and kicking fits pretty closely with Shado-pan
I think the concern is that there is largely little to no interaction with our rotation and what kind of stats we’ll be building. Sure it’s more punchy punchy, but it’s mostly uninvolved and many of the talents are unimpactful and won’t affect our rotation. It’s just rather disappointing because there was so much space in terms of design and just wild stuff they could have done/made.