How I would rework Windwalker Monk for 9.0

Classes Monk
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To start with, I currently have two 120 Monks, a 110 Monk, along with a myriad of lower level ones (81, 67 off the top of my head), and have been playing them since they first came out. I also owned the MoP Collector’s Edition, and got to see a bit of the behind the scenes design for Monks, namely the old balance of Dark Chi vs Light Chi (which was ultimately discarded). To be clear, I’ve seen a LOT of variations for WW Monk over the years, start with back when Tiger Palm stacked three times, onto now.

I would choose to reform the visuals of much of the class to be more in line with the thematic Celestial that they embody (Xuen), and as a result should like to see some new visuals matching that (Lightning, and Tiger).

A few changes to the playstyle:

First and foremost, Monk should feel fluid, while also having meaningful choices to make, and be, most importantly, fun. Keeping in line with this, and the aforementioned visual and thematic rework, a few of the current abilities (i.e. Storm, Earth, and Fire) would be removed entirely from the game, with a more ‘traditional’ kind of cooldown in its place (one that doesn’t create unreliable, and buggy assets :stuck_out_tongue: => That awkward moment when your clone decides to go on strike while in the middle of an encounter, and runs off into the sunset).

Storm, Earth, and Fire => Removed from the game

Replacing it:
Fury of the White Tiger
X% of attacks from the Monk is dealt as % Nature (lightning themed) damage, chi-generating abilities generate 1 additional chi point (more fluid combat, increased burst, armor penetration, relates to Xuen, the Lightning Tiger)

Visually, it would be interesting to create a see-through Lightning Tiger effect overlaying the Monk (Xuen’s Head visually with lightning occurring sporadically)

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The point of this change is to make it a more reliable cooldown, entertaining to look at, and create a bit of flair to the class. It mixes Serenity (more ability usage) with Tiger Eye Brew, without sacrificing the effectiveness of it. The additional Chi Generation assists in making the spec feel fluid, and ultimately should result in a consistent set of gameplay that doesn’t get old as fast.

Gathering Storm

(replaces current Spinning Crane Kick Empowerment System)

Blackout Kick, Rising Sun Kick, and Fists of Fury apply a stacking debuff to targets hit - called Gathering Storm, Fists of Fury may apply this multiple times (once damage tick)

Spinning Crane Kick consumes the Gathering Storm, converting it into bonus Nature Damage

This keeps with the theme, and makes Spinning Crane Kick useful even in Single Target at a point (where the damage may eventually equal or exceed that of comparable abilities)

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Main goal, make Spinning Crane Kick useful in single target scenarios at time, albeit not something that is used continually, builds on the theme (storm => lightning), and gets rid of the often annoying tab targeting spam that’s otherwise necessary to keep up the full bonus for Spinning Crane Kick (as AoE Fists of Fury likewise marks targets) .

New Talent (replacing old of same name)

Ascension, of the Storm

Chi Generation Talent

Chi Consumed Generates Stacks of Ascension, after hitting X number of stacks, your next Chi Consuming Ability will trigger Ascension, granting 1 chi per Y seconds, and empowering Roll to ‘Lightning Dash’, allowing the character to instantly ‘blink’ (lightning themed) instead of rolling (faster travel time, ignores damage and other effects in the interluding space)

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To start with, you may be asking “Why would roll become a ‘blink’-like effect?”, there’s no answer for a reason other than thematic gameplay elements, it alters a little bit of mechanics (allowing the user to circumvent certain events or effects if they’re fast enough; i.e. dodging a laser from boss by ‘blinking’ ‘through’ it).

As for the other effects, it’s meant to change the current Ascension, into something that has a bit more User Interaction, and that has a noticeable (direct) impact on the gameplay minute to minute (i.e. I know that it is about to come up, so I save it, trigger the effect, and then instead of rolling into the Frost Mage I blink onto them dodging a Ring of Frost that was set up), as well as just, in general, more fluid gameplay.

The least ‘fun’ aspect of a Windwalker Monk is when you have nothing available to be used, this (among other changes) would seek to rectify that.

New Talent

Lightning Blade (low level talent)

Replaces Jab; deals increased damage (minor), all damage is dealt as Nature Damage, Lightning Blade gains a 3yd Range (quality of life, not major)

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To preface it, this is meant as a very low level talent (comparable to like a 15), is not meant to add a significant amount of DPS, but does add a few interesting effects, namely the bonus by means of ignoring armor (nature damage), visual changes (an increased range ‘lightning jab’), and a 3yd range.

The range increase is minimal, just meant to make the talent slightly more interesting to use, without taking up a lot of ‘power allotment’ in terms of comparable talents.

2 Likes
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I saw storm earth fire removed from the game from OPs post and I immediately yelled no, God NO! I love storm earth and fire. The only change I would like to make is fist of fury do 100% to all targets instead of 50% to side targets in PVE, not just PVP. It’s the bread and butter of WW monk, the reason why I choose ww monk. It should feel very strong and feel powerful! It would be nice to update animations too on monks like they did for pallies. I only play WW monk, so those are my 2 cents.

2 Likes
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Well, I was expecting something different from the title and was kind of ready to dismiss it and say WW doesn’t need a full-rework but it can use some improvements and updates for sure… Turns out you are not proposing a full rework either and your ideas are more or less just a few nice improvements that could make the spec a bit better so I think I like them. (maybe just change the title a little bit to “update” instead of “rework”).

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I’m with you don’t touch it. I love it. Would be nice to fix the bug that pops up now and then when they do nothing but watch you attack:)

You’re right when They are up Fists should hit harder.

I’m not for adding more and more buttons to a class. Having to watch 50 cooldowns and have 50 buttons to mash doesn’t make a class more fun. To me when a class gets that way it sits gathering dust.

Nothing fun having to do a million things to do DPS or healing for that matter.

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Did you read it though, there’s no new buttons to the class, lol…

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sorry to disagree, but im with the OP with removing SEF. move it to a talent as an option for those that want it, but im just completely over this buggy mess. id prefer to have a reliable CD that does what its supposed to do without having to worry about stupid pet AI.

ever since WOD ive wanted our dps cd to be a versa amp in the same vain as old TEB with the old WOD 4P pvp set bonus.

blizz obviously wants us to be the short CD spec ( kinda like demon hunters… ) where all of our dmg is tied into short CDs. im fine with that but like what blizz have been trying to do for a couple years now, they should really lean into it and fully embrace it.

dps CD: Serenity - enter into an elevated state of body and mind. increasing versatility by 40%. 8 second duration, 1 min CD. 2 charges.

this becomes both a offensive and defensive CD. short duration, short cooldown. you can back to back them for longer burst, or hold onto a charge and help yourself stay in a fight and keep on dpsing instead of running out. it helps solve a lot of our squishiness problems, it can be hard countered with CCs in pvp because of its short duration, so you want to make sure you can connect and stay on a target when you burn charges etcs, and it keeps to the theme of us being a short CD spec.

id also change TOK to life cocoon. needing the facing requirement, target requirement, range requirement and TOK being removed when a target dies or in pvp where half the specs in the game can immune it, ignore it or remove it means we are easily hard countered in the defensive department. blizz cant balance it in pve, and if you are maximizing your dps in pve your burning it offensively which leaves you as a sitting duck for when you actually need it. it needs to be changed.

tiger palm back down to 40-45 energy OR up our base energy regen rate OR give us more flat energy. pick one blizz. waiting around for a loooong time to generate chi feels terrible.

paralysis down to 30 sec CD. it means we can line up kill potential better in pvp with synergy with other classes easier, and in pve it allows us to be more useful in things like M+.

pipedreaming here but turbo fists baseline would be wild. that utility and defensiveness of being able to eat something with 100% parry chance is real juicy and would be real fun to play around. hell demon hunters get it on a what 7-8 sec CD with blade dance, dont see why we couldnt get it too.

also pipedreaming here is a talent that augments our rotation like black out combo for brewmasters. adding an even further layer of rotational gameplay for those that want it would be phenomenal. it would be reminiscent of the GW2/Blade and Soul systems of there rotation changing based on what they had previously pressed in the rotation. hell, they could even tie in things like turbo fists with it.

TP>BOK>TP>FOTWT>FOF means the FOF has the turbo fists effect.
TP>RSK>TP>BOK means the BOK does full shadow dmg and ignores armor.

its just spitballing but having bonus effects based around what we have pressed in the sequence would be pretty damn interesting gameplay, but i can definitely see where things like our mastery would work counter to it.

but the final thing id want is to finally get our graphical overhaul. monks are the ONLY class in the game that didnt get a graphic update in Legion. theres no visceral impact to our abilities. you see a warrior raging blow>whirlwind>rampage and holy hell does it look like they are a murder machine. meanwhile we are woosh woosh woosh with no umph, no impact to our abilities. we are very visually unappealing compared to all of the classes that got overhauls.

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I would make it a true “Combo” spec. Like, think Street Fighter. You would have Combo Opener abilities, like Jab for example. Using Jab would allow you to use a Combo Extender, like Tiger Palm or Blackout Kick. After you’ve strung some Extenders together in a combo, you would use a hard-hitting Combo Finisher move like Rising Sun Kick or Spinning Crane Kick.

Combo Openers and Extenders would have very short GCDs to convey the feeling of inputting a fast combo. Combo Finishers would have longer GCDs to show that the combo is finished. There would be different Combos for different scenarios.

Burst cooldowns could be Super Combos. As you perform Combos, you slowly fill up a Super Gauge. When the Gauge is full, you can use a Super Combo. These could include a giant Chi Burst, a large and fiery Spinning Crane Kick, an explosive Breath of Fire, etc.

Other burst CD could be Serenity: reduces the energy cost of all Combo Openers and Extenders by X, and increases the damage of Combo Finishers by X.

One defensive tool could be the Parry system. You would have 3 charges of Parry, and using a charge would cause you to parry incoming melee attacks for the next 2 seconds. The cooldown of Parry is reduced for each successful Combo you perform.

Just an idea. I’m an avid fighting game fan so I would love to see something like this in WoW.

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Buggy, doesn’t feel powerful, low %'s seen on the screen, whats to love about it other than the visual?

If it were up to me, i’d do some changes to WW something along the lines of this:

  • Storm Earth & Fire returned to a toggle like its MOP/WOD iterations, which allows for a fun, AOE cleave style like we used to have.
    Toggle SEF would now take Spiritual Focus’ place on the talent tree.

  • To replace SEF, bring back Tigereye Brew, instead of 6% per stack (not sure how 60% increased damage would work nowadays with scaling and all that in PVP/PVE) but make it 3% per stack, this makes TEB very rewarding to use the higher stacks you use it, and also grants a bit of consistent damage which is something we lack right now, especially PVP. Ontop of that, this takes away what right now is a very buggy “burst” ability in SEF.
    (You could even change the visual of Tigereye Brew, now as soon as we take the drink, our hand’s now have lightning surrounding them or something along the lines, to go with the whole “lightning Xuen” theme everyone here seems to want)

  • Serenity now functions like this “Enter an elevated state of mental and physical serenity for 8 seconds. While in this state, all chi consuming abilities are free of cost” 1.5 Minute CD. Additionally you can now generate a Tigereye Brew stack per every 2 Chi consumed rather than every 3 passively.

  • OVERALL -

  1. This makes us rely on generating Tigerye stacks, & depending on your playstyle would depend on the damage you put out. Maybe you use a lower amount of stacks for consistency, or wait and use a ton for a big burst.
  2. Allows for us to have a more unique way of doing AOE/Cleave/rot damage like we used to have, more explanations on this as my list goes on.
  3. Completely revamps the 100 tier, allowing us to choose between AOE/Cleave with toggle SEF, more damage with WDP, or an opportunity at extra Tigereye Brew stack’s more passively with Serenity.
  • Energy Elixir rework. It currently instantly generates maximum energy & you gain 2 chi.
    It would now do something like this:
    “Energy Elixir Restores 1 chi & regenerates 60 energy over 5 seconds. Additionally you also gain 2 stack’s of Tigereye Brew”
    2 Charges, 45 second CD.
  • Replace Fist Of The White Tiger for Chi Explosion. work’s pretty much how it used to in WOD. The more chi you used on it, the more effect/damage it had, & the fact that you could generate Tigereye Brew stacks quicker.
    Replaces Blackout Kick.

— OVERALL —

  1. If you choose Ascension, you still gain the extra chi & energy regeneration & extra baseline energy, which makes the playstyle more quick & consistent.
  2. If you choose Chi Explosion, this is a great tool to combo with something like the SEF toggle for ultimate cleave. It would also be the quickest way to generate Tigereye Brew stacks. I’ve always found this ability really fun to use, and don’t understand why it was removed to be totally honest.
  3. If you are to choose Energy Elixir, it would lead to more of a “I want resources, & I want it now” type of style, possibly for the perfect opener to a raid boss or the perfect triple CC setup in a 3s match. It makes you more in control of your energy & allows for on-demand stacks right on the spot when you need them.

2 more things I would love to see, which doesn’t necessarily impact the playstyle or the core of how WW plays is:

  • Make Fortifying Brew baseline, every Monk spec but WW has it baseline, and up until 8.1 we were one of the squishiest out there. It would help & impact us defensively in both PVP & PVE. A big QOL change IMO.
  • Reintroduce Zen Meditation in it’s MOP iteration. I’d even take it as an honor talent if not baseline, although having it baseline would be very nice.
    “When channeled, all damage you take is reduced by 90%, additionally, all harmful spell’s cast against your allies within 30 yards are redirected back at you”.
    This does a few things for us:
  1. Provides us an extra defensive that can still be counter-played by the enemy.
  2. Provides us with a unique form of utility, a good WW back in MOP would use this ability at the right moment to eat the game changing Chaos Bolt that would otherwise kill your teammate, or potentially to eat a Trap that would change the entire momentum of the arena match.
    Something i’ve felt the most since BFA launched with WW, PVP wise, is that we lacked utility. We lacked something to truely save our teammates and provide them with an extra sense of security. Reintroducing this ability would fix that. Especially as an honor talent, it would still be competing with other great Honor Talent’s that we currently have to choose from, so this would prevent it from being “ROFL OP ABILITY HEH XD!”

BTW, just as somebody who plays RJW in PVP & hates Hit Combo playstyle, & have never been fond of Xuen or the cheesy double Xuen with trait, I would like to see RJW buffed, atleast in PVP combat only, because currently it makes the playstyle “IMO” more fluent but falls a little behind in performance as opposed to the other two options.

Tldr we should have more cool options to choose from. Relying on blizzard to provide those for WW isn’t something I want to wait years for, so these options I proposed above would make WW play, while still feel slightly different than the best iteration of WW we’ve ever had; MOP.

Maybe these changes would be unhealthy for how the game play’s today, but IMO they should a hell of a lot more fun than WW currently. WW currently just feels mediocre, and while it’s still semi-fun (why else would I play it) it still pales in comparison to previous expansion iterations.

2 Likes
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I did the same thing. “NOT MY MONK MIRRORS!”

But seriously, I miss strike of the windlord. Seriously, every patch, every xpac is designed to bring WW down into the pack, since being ahead in the middle is too good, apparently. FoF nerf, crane stack nerf. Monk needs things that set it apart, because let’s face it, I don’t want to be just another rogue or feral druid clone.

If nothing else, I want another hard hitting ability that’s baseline that I could fit into my ToD window. If they’re going to INSIST on tying all my WW DPS to my cooldowns, I want another hard hitting ability, that functions as single target and AoE again.

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Yeah let’s remove the one ability that’s been THE signature ability for monks since WC3

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If it’s a buggy mess that they still won’t fix, then yes, take it away.

It would be much better as a talent, with Serenity being baseline anyway. They’d need to tune it, but that would be fine.

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I’d rather they bring back its toggle version instead of just purely getting rid of it. The ability itself is rather unique it’s just the dps cooldown iteration we have of it now is rather terrible and buggy.

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praise
10 characters

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i agree 100%. the toggle was infinitely worlds better than this current garbage.

but apparently either moving your fingers quick on the keyboard or using a mouse over macro was too hard for the masses.

they could dump the way of the crane crap and bring back the toggle and id be so happy.

as an edit and waxing poetic about blizzards overall class design. i certainly get where they are coming from with combining things and streamlining classes. other MMOs have some of the most rich and vigrant class design with very few buttons. but thats because they have entire systems around the abilities being augmented either via the rotation or in the background. combining SEF with TEB into our dps CD would of been fine, if it actually worked properly. thats my major complaint about it, is that it can bug out and not copy abilities or they are facing the wrong direction when they are channelling FOF etcs. if you look @ GW2, on 10 buttons they can technically fit 32 abilities because of the weapon swap system they have, and that abilities 1-2-3 can each augment into 3 different abilities each depending on where you hit them in there sequences.

Tera online if you want you can custom build your rotation in the background in a very indepth mastery system and do the same thing with 1 key to have upwards of 6 abilities chain just from hitting spacebar. but you have to set it up, and only certain abilities can follow certain other abilities in the order of the chain, so you have to customize and set it up to A: work in the first place and B: so it will be an actual effective dps rotation.

when i look at all of the other MMOs on the market, blizzard has easily the worst class system of them all. theres near no customization. the rotations are mostly stagnant and boring. windwalker ironically has one of the most involved rotations and thats not saying much compared to all of the other MMOs. and even with the visual overhaul ( and monks are the only class who didnt even get that ) the visuals in wow are ultra toned down and boring comparatively.

theres so much potential, but i just think the game engine is just too damn ancient at this point for blizz to do much more than they already are.

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I’m sort of hoping next expansion they will just change our base dps cooldown to being something else, but knowing them they likely could just remove SEF entirely, and just replace it with a generic % damage increase cooldown (could have sworn an iteration of ). Though given how we have Serenity still they could just end up making Serenity baseline and have SEF be a talent (which I guess wouldn’t be to bad if we could use it with WDP or maybe get an additional charge on it). Currently I only really use SEF over Serenity because of the extra charge, it’s usable with WDP, and there doesn’t seem to be that big of a difference single target wise when compared to Serenity. Preferably I wouldn’t mind getting TeB back as our base dps cooldown but seeing as how that is a honor talent now that isn’t likely ever to happen.

Streamlining wise they really just made it more convoluted and clunky compared to how it was before. Take SEF as a toggle you could switch it back and forth on and off relatively easily, compared to now where you can only either have multi target or single target if you focus them but then you are stuck with them focusing on a target and can’t revert back to multi-target till said target dies. This isn’t even taking into the consideration of the terrible AI they have now where they may stop attacking when something dies, may waste your usage of FoF, may randomly pull some other mob nearby, etc. Then you have TeB which could be used at different stack amounts, and could also be popped if you needed some extra healing going out on you. While now we get a dps cooldown that may increase your damage during its duration but it can also now be unreliable if the clones decide to stop attacking, or face the wrong way for FoF.

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Ya that’s basically what I was suggesting. old Tigereye Brew as baseline, Toggle SEF as talent in place of Spiritual Focus, and rework Serenity a bit.

BTW Tigereye Brew honor talent we have currently doesn’t function the same way that old Tigereye Brew did, it’s a very trash version of what it once was, AKA why nobody uses it.
Would be lying if I said i’d be surprised if they removed it for something else. (Wish they’d take it away and make it baseline as its MOP/WOD iteration though)

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Like ninja from FFXIV?

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SEF is easy to fix. They shouldn’t remove SEF.

1.) It should be a dps / survivability cooldown like it was in WC3 where you could split and as long as 1 of your clones survived you would survive.

2.) Instead of perfectly split damage just have each new clone do 20% mirror of your damage. That way you do 140% damage, but if a clone misses or walks off into the sunset no big deal.

3.) Have the clones attack your target by default and have the second button press make them spread instead of the other way around.

4.) Allow them to move as well while channeling FoF so they stay on target.

1 Like
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I think Legion WW was the funnest it had ever been. The new mastery is great and they should continue with it. I think WWs are fun in BfA as well (as fun as a class can be at least). I do miss Chi Explosion and think it would make a nice final row talent or even a replacement for RJW or SCK.

They also need to fix CJL, it’s currently pretty useless. Maybe add a talent that bakes in the Legion Legendary that increases its power with every Chi spent. Zen Flight could also use a tuning to be usable as a self Levitate while indoors.

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No Tigereye Brew
No Zen Meditation
No SFB (not one that we’d take over fist stun)
No Nimble Brew
No Chi Brew
IDK legion WW was pretty damn boring to me, and it added clunky mechanics such as port heal & what was a butchered RSK animation with double RSK. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t very fun, just IMO.
New mastery & Hit combo are hands down the two things I hate the most about Legion/BFA WW, hate the playstyle that Hit Combo promotes, it doesn’t feel like WW’s old self or fun whatsoever to me.
Again opinion based, but MOP WW to me was x20 more fun than what I thought was a very clunky Legion WW.
BFA WW is slight more fun than Legion despite no fist stun, although that would be quite the icing on the cake right about now.

Just make it a talent in place of something we never use, like Spiritual Focus. And while HC & Xuen are more preferred, RJW still has its uses and I still personally use it as a playstyle preference in arena, just needs a small buff to perform as well as its competition.
Doubt they would ever replace SCK for something like Chi Explosion but who knows, having Chi Explosion back would be sick though.