I just wanted to bring the problems our class has been facing for awhile, to the GD. This is just a summary of what issues most monks seem to be sharing. Please also note that none of us are asking for number changes, or buffs, rather mechanical changes to the class. The Monk has gone through several class identities and it feels like an entirely different specialization each expansion (can be good and bad, depends on the expansion).
Lets start with MW, the weakest of the the specializations and the new Survival hunter of WoW.
Mistweaver
- Huge mana deficit. If your party needs emergency healing, you will be out of mana. End of story.
A potential “solution” to this is making the Tea a baseline spell. Theres no reason for the spec to need a talent to make their healing spec viable. Even that wont fix the mana burn issues though.
- Fistweaving is a trap and a wasted legendary
This legendary is a joke, almost a cruel prank on the players who crafted it. Not only does the healer who picks this up have to put their character in danger of lethal mechanics, they also dont do any significant healing. Its like taking a disc priest into your mythic + have him stand in melee range of the boss and asking why everyone’s dying. This legendary was suppose to open an entirely different play-style to the MW, but failed. If you want us to have different avenues of gameplay, put it on our talent tree and use Legendary items to enhance that experience…
- The spec does not beat any other healer for any type of content this expansion
From what I experienced, the MW is designed to be a strong and consistent single target healer and that is the case. HOWEVER, we play in groups of 5+, and not everyone can safely avoid damage. When this spec has to spam vivify to save their allies, they have little gas left for the main tank after a few seconds of spam healing the group. IT doesn’t seem like a big deal, but this will be a glaring issue once you realize mythic + tyrannical fights last quiet a while.
- The spec is F tier in PVP. MW dies instantly to any crowd control and their burst healing is not what it use to be
A potential “solution” could be giving MW ring of peace as a base line spell. I understand the MW was an S tier spec last expansion in PVP, but going into SL, they took nerfs, and 0 reworks. This class was left AS IS, and injected into the new expansion.
Windwalker
Preface, WW is a powerful PVP spec, and has always done well in PVP in the hands of the right player. I have no issues with PVP, but I dont want PVP to define what the monk class is, especially because we are a trinity class.
Main issue with windwalker has been the Talent tree and the PET AI that blizzard seems to want monks to become.
Blizzard wants WW to become the new beast master
No one is asking for number buffs, or damage buffs, rather reworks of our redundant spells.
- Hit - Combo is the most frustrating mandatory talent on the tree.
It does nothing new, and it is mandatory for single target fights. For those who don’t know what this passive does; it is exactly our mastery, EXACTLY. Delete hit-combo, bake it into our class with reduced percentages or remove it entirely, and add something more interactive and unique to replace it as our passive. Screw this lazy design, it beats everything in its row unless you are using specific legendary items.
- Put Strike of the Wind Lord back on our Talent tree
Why this spell was deleted from our spec, il never understand. It helped complete the windwalker rotation, and it was an amazing single target spell. Instead we were given a Invoke Celestial as baseline. Such an Iconic spell in that if I saw you had this spell talented, I knew you were a noob. I have no Idea how this spell made it into our baseline but Energizing Elixir was pushed to our talent tree, and SOTWL was straight up deleted. Im not saying it needs to be a baseline spell, but we should be able to talent into it at the expense of losing another offensive option, ideally this should compete with Xuen or Dragon Punch on our talent tree
- Whirling Dragon Punch is mechanically stronger, more fun, and outclasses the other two talent choices, just make it base line, it might as well be.
The only time someone picks up Serenity is in PvP for the burst window but even then its not a good choice. Your sacrificing a huge DPS move for the potential to burst your opponents and this might not be the case with CC and kiting. Typically Serenity looks strong on paper, but in action its not worth ever taking because Dragon punch is reliable, strong and fun. I wont even talk about Spiritual forces cause that talent is designed to look bad, feel bad, and be bad.
- PET AI IS BROKEN
Often times I will cast SEF and my clones will just not act, ignore a spell, or just follow my target around. This is so annoying and it feels really bad when you activate the spell and notice your the only one doing Fist of fury. Great, I just split my damage 1/3 and im the only one using the spell. I just nerfed my damage by 1/3 for no reason. Very nice. Delete this spell or fix it.
Brewmaster
Brewmaster has been the saving grace of this class, which is why I wanna talk about it last. Generally, brew-master has been good and enjoyable. I rarely find myself thinking something should change within the spec. Its unique, fun, and does a good job in its role.
With that, there are some minor things that might need adjusting.
- Celestial Brew should not be on a GC.
This spell is our only active mitigation, and its up often enough where I dont complain about the spell at all. A lot of us just wish it didn’t have to belong on the GC, its our only on demand mitigation and it has a 45-60 second cool down depending on your talent choices. This is more of a QoL change that alot of Brewmasters would appreciate. Also it wouldn’t hurt to give CB a longer duration. I notice the shield expires at 50% most of the time and it kind of feels bad to not get full use out of the brew.
- Clash is a cool idea in concept, but its just a janky warrior rush.
Its just a useless spell, most if not all will agree. Its fun in PVP to taunt a player, but playing BM in pvp is a bad idea unless your a premade. Im not sure if this is a complaint or a note regarding clash, i cant decide myself if this spell should be reworked into something useful or deleted. I dont think we need that as a tool. If you wanna delete clash and give us black out strike back I think most would be happy lol.
- Low health Pools
I think this is really only the main issue with BrewMaster. Our low health pools, complimenting our leather armor, makes us very squishy, but our stagger and dodge fix this. The only issue this generates though is taking large amount of magical burst damage over a very short amount of time. This class really struggles against magic damage, and that’s okay. Every class needs weaknesses, but for Brewmaster, sometimes being able to mitigate magical nukes is critical for the survival of your group. Perhaps allow celestial brew to leave a magic resist buff after it expires for a small duration. Nothing huge, maybe 5-7% resistance. Truly though, brewmaster generally scales quiet well with items so this might not be a real problem.
I’m not a game developer, so take my suggestion with a grain of salt.
What do you guys think when you see a monk? Do you typically want to invite a Mistweaver to your group? What about a WW or Brewmaster? How do you respond to the Monk requesting to join your group?
