DF Monk Suggestions:
So I have loved the monk class since it came out and have always enjoyed that blend of wacky silly abilities, swiftness, zen and the seriousness in which they can perform when in the right hands.
My hope for Dragonflight is that we get to feel the theme of the class while updating and refreshing the way some stuff works; to that end, here are some bullet point ideas that individually would be fun and collectively would be amazing.
Class:
- Roll - Now interacts with you spec, providing a small buff,
- MW Monk leaves mist in the path of their roll, providing renewing mist for 6 seconds to friendlies within 5 yards of their roll.
- BM Monk provides a buff to allies within 5 yards of their roll for 8 seconds that redirects 15% of the damage dealt to them, back to the BM.
- WW increases the move speed of friendlies within 5 yards of their roll by 15% for 8 seconds.
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Celestials - Iâm not much of a fan of pets for monks, nor do I think it fits the theme, so I would prefer if we took on the aspect of one of the celestials and instead it empowered and interacted with our abilities.
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Healing Spheres - bring back healing spheres as an alternate form of healing (to make it simpler for the player it could slowly gravitate to a player if they move within 5-10 yards of it. Instant cast mobility heal. Add a feature where double tapping puts it in front of you.
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Roll Out - Add a passive that when falling a distance that would be fatal and if roll is off cooldown it consumes a charge of roll and reduces the damage taken from falling by 50%. Could be a fun animation with this. Very thematic for a class thatâs all about Zen and balance.
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One with the Universe - Ultimate ability that stores up based on the respective role contributions; MW its % of health healed, BM its % of damage mitigated, WW its Chi Spent - The Monk unifies with universe for 6 seconds and performs a function specific to their role - MWâs direct heals now apply touch of the universe, reducing damage taken by 20% for 6 seconds, BM clears all currently staggered damage and continues to clear staggered damage every 2 seconds until the effect ends, WW monks begin applying a mark to all targets they deal damage to for 4 seconds, after 4 seconds they disappear moving at light speed attacking marked targets every 0.25 seconds for 2 seconds, each attack exploding for nature/lightning damage to surrounding targets. Maximum 8 attacks, attacks in the order the marks are applied, if less than 8 targets are marked the attacks can hit the marked targets multiple times. Monk is immune to damage, healing and effects while moving at light speed.
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Chi burst - I would change Chi Burst to to be WAY COOLER! Rework:
The Monk goes into a zen state for 3 seconds (channel) performing ancient hand gestures rapidly that draw negative chi out from (could be orbs or a new animation) all enemies within 20 yards and gathers it to the Monk. At the end of the channel or when Chi Burst is recast the monk releases a wide beam of chi that deals damage + healing based on the number of enemy targets and the duration channeled. Think Gokuâs Kamehameha. -
Reintroduce styles - each celestial provides a blessing to the monk in the form of a martial style for a brief moment after they use an ability thatâs in line with the celestials aspect .
- Your RSK, BoK, FoF & TP abilities provide the monk with an 8 second tiger style buff which causes your attack speed and cast speed to be increased by your total movement speed. 20% of your total movement speed for attack speed and 10% for cast speed.
- Your Roll, FSK & Movement abilities provide the monk with a crane style buff which reduces the cooldown of your next ability with a cooldown of 1 minute or less by 25%. Consumes the style buff when activated.
- Your Vivify, renewing mist, expel harm and other healing abilities provide the monk with a serpent style buff which causes your next damage or healing ability to cause a puff of mist at the targets location that applies âmist soaked handsâ to the closest friendly target and causes their next 3 abilities to heal for 2% of their maximum health. Consumes the style buff when activated.
- Fort brew, purifying brew, diffuse magic, ToK, dampen harm and other protective abilities provide an 8 second Ox style buff that increases your maximum health by 2% for each 5% of missing health, maximum of 20% (@50% health), the effect expires when Ox style expires.
- Monastery Acrobatics - Adds a wall jump and wall slide for monks. Allows the Monk to jump a second time providing that the monk is within 1 yard of a wall/surface, additionally the monkâs fall speed is reduced by 50% when within 1 yard of a wall. The jump has a 3 second internal cooldown. Once again, this is super thematic for either a Monk or a Rogue, but I think its slightly more Monklike.
WW Specific:
Firstly - Get rid of clones & pet Xuen - They are clunky and arenât especially Monklike in theme, its weird that WW Monks are like a pet class. I have suggested what I believe to be suitable replacements using - Wind Awakening + One with the Universe + Invoke Xuen. Read further for the details.
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Windwalk - Change Windwalk passive to provide movement speed based on yards moved in the last 8 seconds, each yard moved provides 1 stack of Windwalk, each stack is worth 1%, max of 25 stacks. Wind animation at max stacks. Stacks expire individually. This makes it much more interactive and noticeable.
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Windwalk - Add an activate to Windwalk; the activate ability clears all snare, root and immobilization effects from all allies affected by Windwalk and applies 15 stacks of Windwalk (see above). 5 min cd. Provide a gust of wind animation for all affected allies. Windwalking radius needs to be 20+ yards, lingering buff reduced to last 3 seconds.
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WDP - baseline Whirling Dragon Punch, change it to Whirling Dragon Combo, and give it an animation where it kicks upwards and punches downwards. Allow movement during the animation.
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Wind Awakening - (WA) New fundamental dps cooldown - every 4th combo strike in a row builds 1 charge of Growing Wind. Max of 20 charges. When consumed, each charge provides a 2.5% reduction of cooldowns, including the global cooldown and increases energy regen rate by 2.5% per charge. Only 10 charges can be consumed and activated at a time and new charges canât be generated while under the effect of WA. Maximum CD reduction and energy regen increase of 25%, lasts 12 seconds. No GCD. Also, add a mad wind based animation!
Perhaps while under the effect of WA all your mystic touch applications are increased by 0.5% per stack, max of an additional 5% for the duration of WA. Total max damage increase from mystic touch during this 10 seconds window is 10% (5% from WA, 5% base). -
Xuen - Invoke Xuen now becomes âInvokeâ Xuen which shrouds you in tiger lightning and amplifies your most iconic abilities (Think Raiden - see link for concept image https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/864480090953558426/). Lasts 15 seconds, 2 min CD.
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FoF becomes Fury of Xuen and hits targets for additional tiger lightning damage and has a 40% chance to apply a non diminishing ministun for 0.1 seconds every hit.
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RSK becomes Rising Tiger Kick and leaves an after image of the monk that explodes for tiger lightning after 2 seconds.
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BoK becomes White Out Kick and leeches speed (20% slow + 20% move speed inc) for 12 seconds.
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SCK becomes Crackling Cyclone and has its AoE size increased and damage changed to tiger lightning/nature.
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Roll becomes Lightning Dash and now teleports 15 yards instantly, damaging enemies within 5 yards of where the monk arrives and leaves behind tiger lighting in the path, enemies that pass through it are slowed. Roll recharges 300% faster.
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Flying Serpent Kick, becomes Accelerated Lightning and now travels 50% further, speeds up the further it travels, accumulates damage and widens the radius of the damage + slow the further you travel, releasing it when you recast the ability for 100% of stored damage + radius or instead store it for 3 seconds after Accelerating Lightning has ended and apply it on your next melee attack for 50% of the stored damage + radius. Change animation to lightning and Xuen instead of a dragon/serpent.
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TOK - Remove the damage AND healing component of Touch of Karma - now it no longer needs a target - Change the name to Chi Barrier - have the healing and damage component as talent option. Change the mechanic to:
Chi Barrier - Activate: creates an absorb shield equal to 20% of the Monks maximum HP, up to a maximum of 65% hp based on how many charges of Lingering Chi the monk has.
Chi Barrier - Passive: For each 3 Chi the monk spends, they accumulate a charge of Lingering Chi. Each charge increases the amount of damage absorbed by Chi Barrier by 15%, lasts 30 seconds and is refreshed by additional Lingering Chi charges, max of 3 charges. I like the idea of the visual aesthetic of this spell becoming more overt/opaque as the potency of the spell increases. FYI it would take around 11 seconds of building and spending to get this to maximum potency. -
Tiger Lust baseline
Talents:
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Flying Serpent Kick now travels 15 yards further and is controllable.
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Roll now travels twice the distance and pushes enemies out of your way, causing a 5 yard pushback. You can no longer be slowed, stunned or disabled during the execution of roll.
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Increases primary target damage from WDP (WDC) by 30%
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Wind Awakening now generates 1 stack every 3 combo strikes (down from 4) but now you can only consume a maximum of 8 stack at a time (20% down from 25%).
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Add a chance for you to proc âInvoke Xuenâ the same way âFury of Xuenâ used to. Each time you cast FoF you have a chance to Invoke Xuen based on the stacks you have. Each Chi you spend generates 1 stacks of Xuenâs Fury, each stack provides a 2% chance to Invoke Xuen. Stacks to 100. Invoking Xuen this way only lasts 7 seconds.
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Prepared Awakening - talent that provides you with stacks of Wind Awakening while out of combat making it significantly more usable at the start of fights. This passive would provide 1 stack of WA every 5 seconds while out of combat. Up to 8 stacks.
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Change rushing jade wind (RJW) to be a toggleable passive which works like the Diablo monks sweeping wind. RJW costs 45 energy to cast and it has no cool down, last 5 seconds. RJW is empowered by the monks critical strikes while RJW is active, when empowered the radius and damage of RJW is increased by 15% and an additional 3 seconds of duration is added. Maximum of 4 stacks. Maximum of a 60% increase to radius + damage and a total duration of 17 seconds.
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As we have modified the Xuen cooldown to be something interactive that impacts our abilities instead of a summon, we can now have a talent as a summon xuen for those that like a pet, this would just occur at the same time as when you invoke Xuen. (Would need to scale properly).
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Inner strength - change to a âdistance movedâ buff that provides additional charges of damage reduction based on distance moved. 2% DR per charge, 1 charge every 5 yards moved for 4 seconds, stacks 5 times. Or perhaps it could work off your combo strikes like WA does, gaining stacks based on how many combo strikes in a row you have hit. The other option is to have this tied to your WA charges, the more stacks you have the more damage you mitigate, making you decide between damage and damage mitigation.
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Diffuse magic is fine, maybe make the ability taper down for 10 seconds from 100% to 0% magic damage mitigation, this adds another layer of timing to its usage.
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Tiger tail sweep, in addition to its current effect it reduces the cooldown of leg sweep by 0.4 seconds for each chi spent.
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Buff the windwalking activatable mentioned above - In addition to its other effect the activate could increase the move speed bonus aura in both potency and range (maybe 10% additional move speed and 5 yards more range). Also apply an immunity to snares, immobilization and root effects for 3 seconds when activated.
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Combine celerity and chi torpedo, 3 charges, 20 yard distance, shortened CD, remove movement speed increase.
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New talent called âmomentumâ that improves the movement speed bonus of Windwalk just for the monk, based on distance traveled, increases the maximum charges from 25% to 40% and makes the stacks generate by 2% per stack instead of 1%.
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Change tigerâs lust to provide immunity to snares as well and if it successfully removes one, the cool down is halved.
I know there is a lot there but these are just some ideas that I personally would enjoy, although there is also some stuff in there that I think resolves some fundamental Monk/WW issues.
Would love some feedback/thoughts!
