Lore wise. Monk seems basic

Lore wise in wow it makes it seem like its a pick up weekend special. Like you can just pop a video in and train someone to be a monk in azeroth.

Yet lore wise of other classes it takes years of work to get where they are. Most of these people woulda been another type of class or a villager and just out of nowhere learn to fight like these so called mystical martial artist. Like saying picking up a sword makes you suddenly a mighty warrior.

With allied races it feels this way since they could have no contact with monks and one can come along and anyone can master it.
Nightborne who haven't had contact with the outside world.
Zandalari who killed anyone not Zandalari before the horde came.
Dark Iron Dwarves, another kill anyone not dark iron for awhile. Suddenly these races mastered being a monk like that?
Mag'har? They just arrive and they can already be monks? Lore wise no one stayed on dreanor after the iron horde and legion where defeated there.

monk just feels cheap and diluted lore wise to me. I'm surprised all the vendors and stuff in the cities aren't monks it seems so easy to become.
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I excluded kul tirans and highmountain cause a monk could have wandered in at anytime during most of their out of picture life time.
Ya iunno, warriors, hunters, rogues, priests, paladins all seem easy to become than a monk to me probably even warlock.

Warriors, hunters and rogues are basic and priests pallies and warlocks rely on outside source of power rather than their own.

That being said you have to give it up to the shamans and the druids.
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11/11/2018 01:31 PMPosted by Omnipotentjc
Ya iunno, warriors, hunters, rogues, priests, paladins all seem easy to become than a monk to me probably even warlock.

Warriors, hunters and rogues are basic and priests pallies and warlocks rely on outside source of power rather than their own.

That being said you have to give it up to the shamans and the druids.

Look at when you meet those said societies. You walk around and see all the class types you know here and there. You saw this with Nightborne in the cities. Didn't see monk NPCs until they became Allied race. Now you have them confined to one area.

Zandalari have NPCs all over representing the classes they can be.. except for monk. They will be added later when they are allied. A large population will suddenly pick up monk with a snap of the finger.
I wouldnt expect much in the lore department for the allied races lol....They were pretty rushed or intended to be basic as heck.

Pandaren monk are everywhere in Mists of Pandaria content so we seem more "natural" if you go do those zones, plus our start zone is pretty unique.

For every other race that can monk they basically send a pandaren to teach you in the basic start zones so...
You don’t really see many Monk npcs in general. Same way you don’t see many dk npcs or dh npcs. They were added to the game some expansions in and are classes that are uncommon.

another reason you wouldn’t see monks walking around the super market is that they just don’t wana be chillin with society corrupted by normal people and seclude themselves.

As for allied races being able to pick up being a monk it makes sence. Seek and you will find. Reach for your dreams and you will achieve. Anyone could be a monk if they are willing to put in the time and discipline of mastering the inner stregnth the same way anyone could pick up a sword and practice and become a warrior. Or a bow or a knife. You are all equipped with same stuff really regardless of race, you can see goblins not being monks because they’d rather just take the lazy man route.
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11/11/2018 01:03 PMPosted by Prasios
I excluded kul tirans and highmountain cause a monk could have wandered in at anytime during most of their out of picture life time.


You should also exclude Mag'har since we did send in tons of Monks during WoD and since their time passes faster than ours, they could already have 2nd or 3rd generation Monks in their midst by now.

Also, they have Blade Masters which are essentially a Monk combined with a Warrior.
11/11/2018 05:00 PMPosted by Omnipotentjc
You don’t really see many Monk npcs in general. Same way you don’t see many dk npcs or dh npcs. They were added to the game some expansions in and are classes that are uncommon.

another reason you wouldn’t see monks walking around the super market is that they just don’t wana be chillin with society corrupted by normal people and seclude themselves.

As for allied races being able to pick up being a monk it makes sence. Seek and you will find. Reach for your dreams and you will achieve. Anyone could be a monk if they are willing to put in the time and discipline of mastering the inner stregnth the same way anyone could pick up a sword and practice and become a warrior. Or a bow or a knife. You are all equipped with same stuff really regardless of race, you can see goblins not being monks because they’d rather just take the lazy man route.

Goblins are never lazy though, the only Goblin we see portrayed that way is Gallywix who is supposed to be a bit of a douche anyways. They're hard workers who constantly try to innovate and optimize. What they are is short-sighted, they cut corners to get things to go faster/harder and have no survival instinct.

So it makes sense they wouldn't be monks, at first sight it doesn't seem worth it to spend years secluded training to achieve inner peace. Without an immediate profit Goblins will just lose interest right away.
They made a 1 hour video called 'the history of warcraft' they mentioned Monks exactly 0 times

I think Nightborne make perfect sense for the Monk class. First for 2,000 years Kaldorei and Pandaren were close allies. This was before Suramar was isolated so plenty of time for the Pandaren to teach their Night Elf Highborne friends the martial arts. Second, once isolated, the way of the monk could have been used by a few to help with the addiction they felt. Third, once the rebellion starts, the way of the monk would have been perfect for the Nightfallen to resist Ellisande, just as the Pandaren used it to resist their Mogu oppressors. Of all the non-Pandaren races it could be argued that Nightborne have the strongest claim to have learned the art from the Pandaren. Plus they would have had thousands of years to practice before the barrier fell.

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This is something that I struggled with for a long time. Blizzard doesn’t seem to have much interest in Monk. The lore is bare bones. The animations are bare bones. Then they wonder why no one plays them.

What makes Monk cool to me (in all games, not just WoW), is that you are basically a Jedi. You feel life force (chi, ki, the Force) all around you. You can control your own to allow you to do extraordinary things. Want to punch through a wall? Can do. How about cut people with your hand, as if it were a sword or a knife? You bet. What about elemental punches/kicks or energy blasts? Definitely. And yet Blizzard barely explores those options.

Go look at videos of Monk in FF14 or games like Absolver. Their animations are beautiful and make you feel so unique compared to the other classes.

Blizzard confirmed in a post once that Monk Chi and Shaman/Druid healing magic all come from the Same place. Meaning that Monk can use life force as a means of Restorative or Destructive magic.

Blizzard should focus more on this lore aspect, rather than just “pandas and monkeys get drunk together then they act silly”.

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They made a whole expansion about monks.

Jeez.

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One thing that many people do not realize is that leveling in game isn’t the same as your character experience them.

Some quests are supposed to actually have taken the character a long time to do.
A quest that would take the player maybe 15 minutes to complete are supposed to by the games lore have taken them a few months or years to complete. We see it differently because you can’t have a game with quests that are realistic like that.

Also the lore for monk is actually pretty deep if you look into it and pay attention to the quests.

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Honestly, you’re likely not going to get story focus about a monk fighting for a grand cause after MoP. Monk’s in WoW lore are typically represented by Panderan, that side of the lore is really deep and is thematically how the class is structured.

Outside of that, you need to reach a little more and expand your own story and play off pieces that are scattered in game. For my Troll I self justified it as another form of voodoo/witch doctor, and assumed it’s reasonable based on their traditional combative capoeira dance. If I had rolled as a Tauren I would’ve assumed it was a pacifistic mentality that get’s out of control combined with an innate connection to the Earth Mother. If I had ran with an orc I would’ve assumed it was someone who glorified the truest form of brutal combat, and assumed the a shamanistic connection with the mists. But all of that is subjective for me and is based of the existing foundation that Blizzard provided. To be honest, I don’t want them to expand it because it takes the creative side out. I’d almost want them to make abilities more generic because the Panderan/Asian influence can be immersion breaking if you’re trying to fantasize about anything other than someone that learned directly from the panderan.

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Allied races seem more for the player rather than the lore. If they were intended to be any differently then the presentation of them was a little off. On the topic of Zandalari the world itself was very different when they were around. I can’t speak much for the Dark Iron lore , I don’t know anything about them that isn’t Ragnaros / Grim Batol lore.

The Zandalari have very close ties with the Mogu Empire and while it may not have been presented in game very well its not to unrealistic to imagine that some trolls were more neutral towards Pandaren rather than aggressive, in fact I do believe there were some smaller tribes/factions that defected back then and were mentioned in some lore. To an even lesser extent there were the Tuaren / Dwarf runemasters from previous Warcraft lore which also practiced the same concepts.

There is a lot of lore around for the Monk but not much of it is major lore and that is why a lot of times it feels like it’s not important, and its never showcased, or even displayed in any major way really.

Chi is within the Spirit Orb and the August Celestials are Wild Gods.

https://i.redd.it/ccze0t1q95701.png

Its a shame too because they keep moving the monk further and further away from its own lore each expansion.

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I think there are many cases of characters mentioned in quests or other lore who simply picked up a weapon and became whatever class with little to no training. And I don’t see why fighting with your hands would be any harder to learn than picking up a sword and doing the same. People constantly say this about the monk class though. Like it’s totally believable to roll a mage and it knows spells but roll a monk and punch something and people lose their minds.

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Monk is a little more advanced that just fighting with your hands. You literally empower your body with Chi, with life force, to be able to withstand damage or punch and kick through your enemies.

I view this as a gameplay trumps lore. WOW wants certain classes to be nearly universal-Warriors, Monks, Hunters. Shadow/Holy/nature/elemental affinity are used to distinguish races and the monks are not aligned with those.

Martial arts training and melee weapon training both require extensive training to master, and both are presented as universal in the game.

when you look at monks in pretty much any other MMO they have us beat in visuals and identity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXHJL57fSX0 BDO Striker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQwLFaoz8yU BDO Mystic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmd8tgBkuEo FF:ARR monk ( watch on mute )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHpB1x56d5U Blade and Soul Kung Fu master
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX9bD1e2gk0 Tera Brawler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RG8Y254L5Q Project BBQ watch @ 2:40 for the monk

this is just some of them out there.

even in MOP blizz didnt really give monks there time to shine. most of the pandaren and especially the shadopan werent monks. and blizzards representation of monks within the larger lore of the game is very very poor. its obvious we were never a priority to shine a spotlight on, and never will be. we didnt even get a graphic overhaul where every class did except for monk.

It’s honestly a bit silly in my opinion. I think even the most general, basic class, the warrior has more set in stone fantasy/lore than monks do. They should have gone all in with the pandaren stuff, like they did with DKs and DHs to cement monks as part of the ethos rather than this blanket class that almost all races can be because they can just stretch it to nearly any race.

The main thing for me is monks need more identity. Monks as a whole need more representation ingame and a tuneup on our animations. Windwalker needs more lightning and wind stuff, maybe make Xuen more of a presence in the spec. This applies to all 3 specs. Give us more identity, and make monks feel like they’re a thing in the world, rather than just something there for gameplay purposes.

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