There are 4 Celestials. 4 specs makes sense thematically.
This 4th spec would be based on the Red Crane Chi-Ji.
2 ideas:
- Split up Mistweaver and Fistweaver
- Similar to Feral Druid being split into Guardian and Feral— make it so Mistweaver alone is a caster healer. Then turn the new 4th spec into the Fistweaver spec. This new spec could remain either a full healer or become a support DPS.
- Make the 4th spec a caster DPS
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A caster DPS could be fun and would make Monks a versatile alternative to Druid. I would love to see Crackling Jade Lightning become a main rotational spell (would be similar to Arcane Missiles in my mind).
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This spec would focus on Chi based magical attacks, as well as Mist and Jade based magic. I think this spec would work thematically even though Monks are seen as melee traditionally— seeing as how the Monk Pandaren at the Chi-Ji temple are very Priest-like and mystical. Also, I really like casters in general lol so I’m biased here.
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You are replicating this thread: 4th specialisation for monk - #23 by Ralecgos-sargeras
In which you also commented.
Just saying 
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Sorry hall monitor. I’ll be a good boy next time!
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Ranged DPS Monk makes literally 0 sense. Warriors getting a healing spec would make more sense.
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Yeah. I don’t think we need more specs. Especially not a 4th monk spec. I actually think we need less specs in the game 
Could you explain why you think that? I am curious to read about your view.
In my opinion it’s great to have more options to pick from. After all, you are not forced to play every spec.
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I assume they think Blizzard is already handling the balance of too many specializations at once, so it must be practically impossible to ever add more classes and specs to the game in their mind. Usually, people with that opinion either think Blizzard are incompetent as developers and game balancers or they think they’re helping the company indirectly from extra workload when they speak against things like this.
the more specs you have the less ressources (time) and unique Ideas they can put into each spec. You lose spec identity. In addition balance becomes harder. The other option would be to make specs that have more than one playstyle would lose playstyles in order to make them different. (melee and ranged healing Monk for example OR dmg and heal discipline Priest)
There are several specs that play similar. they have different themes, which makes them a bit different, but if you break those barriers a bit more I could see rouge specs that play like Feral and one that plays like a Windwalker (where Chi are combopoints) etc.
The raid slots on the other hand remain the same (and PLEASE DON’T INCREASE). Everyone would want a reason to go into raid and M+, which means everyone would demand better utility. The time where “your” spec would be able to shine (“meta” in M+) would decrease. OR the utility has to be homogenized, which means you lose spec identity.
For Example I play Brew. instead of being meta once every 3 expansions I would maybe be meta once every 4 expansion in M+. But thinking of specs like Feral who will take even longer or even never be Meta (because a rouge player now has 5 specs and one has the Playstyle/ dmg profile of feral for example, then every feral would play Rouge, because if that playstyle/dmg profile would be bad, then they have 3 other specs to choose)
It is easy to say “they just have to balance better”, but there will always be a best comp out there. And all in all DF is one of the best balanced expansions since the release of WoW.
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Big no from me.
I feel like Mistweaver is in an amazing spot, if not a bit too strong, and has both fistweaving and casting with large strengths and weaknesses and in lesser content can hybrid between them. There is also overlap in both depending on the current damage profile/mechanic.
Don’t want them hard split by a long shot.
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YES!
Would seriously be perfect
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Druids having one more spec than any other class (2 more than DH) means bringing all classes to 4 specs SHOULD be looked at. Also thematically, there are 4 August Celestials and 3 Monk specs. It makes sense to have a spec dedicated to 1 Celestial.
I’d do it this way:
Brewmaster → Niuzao
WIndwalker → Xuen
Mistweaver → Yu’lon
Fistweaving Spec → Chi’ji
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WoW is not ending anytime soon. Blizzard also isn’t just going to run out of ideas. If they wanted to give a 4th spec to each class, they could do it. Class homogenization isn’t due to lack of ideas from Blizzard, it’s due to people wanting to do the same things as other classes and balancing for content and fairness. Whether we like that in the game is up for debate depending on which class you’re asking!
It would most likely not even be as difficult as people act like it would be. (Shamans could get an earth element themed tank spec, Evoker black dragon tanking spec, etc). Most of the class groundwork would be there to pull from for the 4th specs and would only probably involve the invention of a handful of spells for the main rotation. The hardest part would be making the spec trees— and they’ve shown us they are pretty competent at these new trees balance and reworks wise.
Hell, they dropped Augmentation Evoker on us as a surprise and it’s a support DPS which is a whole new thing to the game.
Want to clarify I’m not acting like this would be SUPER easy or something. I know any additions and development present effort and challenge, but it’s not so impossible like many act like I feel.
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I have already guessed a few of your points. They are if course valid, especially the difficulty to balance everything and the resources that need to be put in.
But I also believe it’s possible to add new specializations and keep them unique. With the augmentation evoker, a new era of specializations might have appeared. Unfortunately, such specs are a hell to balance.
While I agree to most of your points, I still believe that more specs don’t hurt the game but add to the diversity of play styles. “Meta” always bugs me in every game. Of course thhere will always be a combination - in every game - that works best. It’s becoming a bit too important to people wgat is meta and what not. In my opinion, there should not be a meta for everything. Every class should be able to shine in a few aspects. Ghe biggest possible damage while somehow surviving it will probably always stay the meta, because of trying to finish dungeons and raids as soon as possible.
But this is a bad thing to only focus on pure competitiveness. Of course there are several aspects where it becomes competitive. And that’s fine! There are people trying to achieve the top and have lots of fun doing so. But very many people don’t and prefer fun play styles.
Not being meta is not really an issue in my eyes - but of course I am aware that there are people who see it differently.
Maybe it’s time to add more aspects into dungeons and raids, other than doing as much damage as possible and following the mech to not wipe.
For example, there could be raid encounters where you want a very agile class or spec as only one person can carry a specifically for buff and has to do so as quickly as possible. So you can use Priests for grabbing, Augmentation stones for teleporting and a very fast spec to burst through the last distances.
Then there could be (one or two) dungeons with passages where an immense amount of single target healing is required. So specs with decent off-heal become interesting, while strong single-target healers are speeding the dungeon time up by more than a high damage healer would contribute.
There could be different little or more complex mechanics where several specs get to shine and speed up the key or encounter by a lot, even if not being the top DPS class or something. So there would be different metas spread across different dungeons, providing more mechs than purging enough enemies and only really having more complex mechs at boss encounters.
More dungeon diversity might be an answer to provide more metas at the same time, supporting the spec diversity.
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I personally think things like parsing/raid logs, many combat addons like damage meters, as well as many weak auras are having an extremely detrimental effect on the game mechanically as well as socially. This is really off topic of course, but these things seem to always come down to the conversation of “the meta” and usually top end 1% gameplay that most players here on the forums don’t even reach anyway. These hyper-competitive mindsets bleed into the middle of the pack playerbase from the top down and cause major disturbances in the enjoyment and the health of the overall game for everyone on the whole.
(For the record, I believe combat addons need to be removed from WoW, as well as weakauras. Damage meters can stay as well as other quality of life addons though. DBM/BigWigs and so many WAs are detrimental. Then, Blizzard can work toward designing fights at more reasonable levels of difficulty instead of the inflated difficulty as a result of combat addon usage— and design more in-game mechanics indicators like telegraphs and such.)
It’s OK to want to play the meta and maximize one’s potential, but a forum about adding more 4th specs into the game isn’t going to break the balance of the entire game or anything like that. If anything, it might even be a surprisingly positive shake-up to the game’s meta. A decent example of this positive shake-up was Season of Discovery on WoW Classic servers. They added Shaman tanks, Mage healers, even Warlock tanks and other cool things. Yes, the game back then was way simpler than retail (that is a fair point)— but the game was better for the additions and a lot of fun. It’s a shame so many good ideas are gatekept by people that immediately think about parsing rather than enjoying a game for being a game. I’d like to have more immediate faith in Blizzard with all the passion and good things they have been doing for the players in recent times.
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I am strongly against a 4th spec.
Fisrtly, because the class trees already struggles to properly accomodate 3 specs, 4 specs isn’t cutting it, at least for the only example we have in druid… Monk has had a full xpack of a junk class tree, let’s not make it 2…
Secondly, because a fourth spec will mean taking things away from a spec no matter what. We have few occurences of this but here are some that come to mind:
Guardian/feral: while I think the state of both specs is good right now, it took blizz a few years to refine the split properly. And I am not talking about performance here. Just gameplay/fun.
Demo lock was split into dh, kinda. And while the newer demo is thematically very interresting, I’ve always felt it to be clunky (although I haven’t played it in df). Also it used to be a pvp monster and has been completely absent in pvp since the remake. While the theme is better now, imo, the spec prior it’s abilities being moved somewhere else was a lot better gameplay wise.
While it could be great in the long run, I’m not willing to sacrifice the class and/or my favorite spec for an undetermined amount of time.
And on a meta perspective: MW monk hasn’t had a lot of spotlight in recent years either. It’s very good right now and while we have no guarantee of this continuing in tww, continuing on what we’ve built up looks like a brighter future than splitting this very versatile and fun spec into 2…
I think in this case a fourth spec is needed. Too much of mistweaver toolkit is split between the two play styles
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This is already the case. you have designated players for jobs and if they don’t do their job, you wipe. A race like you suggested exists too (Ghuun for example, where 1 monk could do the job of 2 people). The thing is, that you have to do these mechanics but still have to do dmg. Tindral for example required minimum 8 people for flying and handling Orbs. 4 healers to coordinate dispells. 2 tanks do dance around the boss. this left 6 other players that had to handle different other aspects (positioning for dispells, gates etc. ).
Well, you don’t have to. I play Brewmaster in M+. Would my team have a way easier time when I would be playing DH? sure, we would have way more CC, survivability and damage. But I like Brew. Most of the time Meta and the impact of Meta comes from the community. Meta is community driven. Most of the specs can reach very high keys, but people copy what the top few teams do (which is easier since you also have a good route and the same niche utility (like skips etc.) available.)
Augmentation is one of the biggest class related mistakes they have done in M+ and raid. That class is not possible to balance well. It is either bad for 99% of the player base and useable at the top or so incredibly powerful at the top but useable for everyone.
You litterally can see the disruption in this link: (can’t post, but mythicstats is the site)
With regards to that link. I would like to point out that blizzard wanted to nerf Warlock in Shadowlands, but the community wanted to keep them OP.
Interestingly many people would say, that balancing in DF was top notch. except for the occasional 2-3 week outliers. In my opinion what changed is the community mentality in lower than high end gears to have to run the meta spec. Which is understandable when DH tank makes your job (CC) so much easier. But then DH tanks also only want to run with meta DPS, because why should they be the only meta slaves. The other point is that gearing got easier, which means switching classes got easier and people reroll faster.
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This is what I would like to see as well. Not a dps spec but 2 heal specs.
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I personally lean more toward Fistweaver being a melee support DPS, but I wouldn’t be against Fistweaver’s new supposed 4th spec being fully a healer and playing like a melee counterpart to Discipline Priest.
That being said, Holy Priest actually ironically out-DPSes Discipline Priest which makes no sense to me thematically. That fact makes me want Discipline Priest to just become a support DPS as well at this point. And I’d fear Fistweaver being balanced too weak sauce on the DPS side as a full healer spec in a similar fashion.
I’m sure they could do some good things to make it work and remain a full healer though. That’s just a fear of mine and a big reason I quit Priest.
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I mean I wouldn’t be against FW becoming a support spec but I doubt blizz will add more support specs given how much they have back back pedaled aug.