Well, I’ll say it here, as I’ve said elsewhere already. As a monk main, I’m seriously underwhelmed.
Shado-pan loses functionally all the flavor of the faction it’s emulating. When I saw the name I was hoping to see a diverse set of support elements from all the classes of WoW, because the Shado-pan are more than just monks, they’re everyone. I was hoping to see something akin to the scalecommander, calling in reinforcements, using hidden techniques, or possibly interacting with the ability to draw the Sha from our opponents. You know, the literal first thing we see a member of the Shadow-pan do in Pandaria.
Instead we’re treated to “when you do damage, do some more damage, sometimes.” It does nothing to fix any of the problems that windwalker or brewmaster currently have, and in fact it’s going to exacerbate existing issues the classes are facing, namely scaling. From a keystone that literally reverse scales as you level and gear, to a series of nodes that continue to suffer from the monk problem of “do thing, get free stats” even further invalidating stat scaling on our equipment, and generally distinct lack of usable utility, either in defense or mobility, and you’re left with a hero spec that basically fails at everything the system is set out to do: Shado-pan doesn’t make me feel like the fantasy it’s expressing, doesn’t make my character cooler or more interesting to play, and doesn’t prop up problem areas or cover additional ground for the class.
Conduit of the Celestials, on the other hand, actually seems interesting and engaging, but even then it is leaving a bad taste in my mouth. The last thing monk players want is another channeled ability. Essence Font is constantly maligned by the community because it’s not fun moment-to-moment gameplay, and is either so powerful you feel forced to use it, or so sub-par it’s largely forgotten. Windwalker already struggles with scaling partially because of the raw amount of channel time in the rotation, preventing things like auto attacking from actually being able to be valuable. This is part of the reason haste is just so terrible for the class. Many of the nodes are simply “this ability you’re already hitting on CD does more damage” or “this ability you’re struggling to use to consume resources gives you more resources to consume.” The fantasy lands much better, as it seems you’ll have the spirits around you basically constantly by my reckoning, but it leaves a bitter taste when the things they’re doing range from uninteresting, to actively unhelpful. I was hoping for a support oriented option, especially because I’ve been hoping for a melee augmentation style gameplay and thought monk would be the place to find it. While the spec has cool flavor, it doesn’t solve any problems of the classes, and even goes on to further add button bloat to a pair of specs that are begging for more keybind space.
I really hope whoever is on the monk dev team sees this, and when we get dedicated feedback sections I’ll be reposting it there, because honestly this lackluster reveal, coupled with our dire need of some reworking, and the general silence from the dev team just goes to show exactly why monks are the least played class in the game (aside from Evokers, but they’re literally limited to one per realm.)