on a whim I decided to use my Dragonflight 60 boost tonight on a boosted Monk, since I’ve never had a Monk
Set up some basic keybinds and just jumped right in, not really knowing what I’m doing. Hit up the Waking Shores and started questing thru the campaign, but my goodness do I feel squishy
I pull only 2-3 mobs at a time and have to rest/drink/eat after each battle, sometimes tossing a Vivify or two to top myself off. Is this a “glass cannon” class like Mage?
I’m barely 61 and I’m kinda surprised by how squishy this thing seems to be (playing Windwalker spec)
It’s probably also me being bad at the class/it’s literally a boosted character, but I can’t help but feel like this thing is squishy just judging off my fights with non-elite random quest NPC mobs
also, Vivify feels like it barely heals. I’ll be getting pounded by quest NPCs, maybe hovering around 30-40% and I’ll cast a Vivify - but the incoming mob melees simply erase my healthbar right back to where it was lol
I’d say it depends on the situation/content… In general WW Monk has a very good array of defensives abilities paired with great mobility too, but it lacks good sustain…
So Windwalker can indeed feel like a glass-cannon for questing and leveling because you take consistent damage and have limited sustain, gets better as you get more gear because you get healing orbs from killing stuff so the faster you start killing some of the mobs the better your sustain will be too… But I mean even then sustain is not your strong-point.
That said, I find Monk survivability to be great for PvE group content as long as you understand the encounters and know when to use your defensives, you have like 4 of them to rotate trough so if you use them well you can live trough basically everything that doesn’t require an actual immunity.
In fact I recently started playing my Monk a bit more, it’s my 3rd alt so it’s only like 385 item level but even then didn’t had any issues surviving in keys from the 14-16 range… Well the 16 was SBG but we did miss a kick on a spider and I was the only DPS who made it trough despite being well under-leveled compared to the other two.
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Just double checked it was actually a +17 SBG and also did a +16 AV.
As for suggestions I’d say just abuse AOE Touch of Death to kill stuff quickly… You can rotate from TOD a pack, then for the next you pop CDs + Leg Sweep + Defensives when stun ends…
I’m not sure if maybe taking the Strength of Spirit talent could help a bit with sustain for questing, didn’t noticed it existed while I was leveling but might be worth a try.
My World and PvP builds max self-healing. It is a little soft while leveling.
Before 70, the incoming damage was surprisingly high. Turn on War Mode and use Turbo Fists. You can also manage dumping an energy bar on soothe between fights but it is annoying. You’re mostly questing storymode anyways, so no terrible loss to stop and smell the green gases.
Then you hit 70 and Expel Harm starts healing for 10% reliably. Mobs die fast enough afterlife orbs are sufficient. In group content, Karma is strong, Brew is helpful, and you have a tank and healer for when you eventually stand in the bad.
You actually get more healing out of just hard casting viv, because your energy is allowed to regen between casts.
Only time you want to be casting soothing+viv is when you have escape from reality procced.
Don’t viv with soothe or you will energy lock yourself. If you take the instant viv talent, you should viv → soothe since the instant procs are redundant and it allows out of combat hp regen, energy regen, and passive soothe to work together over time.
During combat when you need healing faster, the priorities are different, especially since you’re not getting the health regen. Instead mobility, utility, and instant procs are all you’ll be doing… Standing still is a bad idea, generally, if you’re on the defensive. And in that case, it’s exactly what you’ve pointed out – only viv.
Make sure you’re using tiger tail sweep to pause damage.
Ring of peace if you need to heal mid combat also can pause melee damage.
Paralyze to neutralize single dangerous casters not near you.
Get dampen harm and use it if you’re taking heavy damage.
If you’re a panda you can also use quaking palm.
Also doing a lot of damage fast ensures you don’t take as much damage so I usually attack one mob, pop ESF and pound the group as hard as you can. Also make sure to get punch of the wind lord as that is an epic talent.
Also as an alternative if you feel too squishy leveling as ww is switch to brewmaster. :-). They’ve got a lot better self sustain.
Hmmmmm, I picked up a few blue gear pieces and I feel a little more sturdy… but I still feel squishy overall @ 63 in this starter/green gear
If I pull melee mobs it’s not too bad due to 100% parry talent while Fists of Fury’ing, but if I pull 2-3 magic/spellcaster mobs then it’s immediately “getting trucked” lol
Even if it’s a tiny, non-elite spellcaster mob if it gets 3-4 casts off seems like suddenly I’m hovering down at like 30% healthbar, and then it’s hard to get my healthbar off the ground with this class’es weak heals
Spend ~1000g to get 316 gear for lvl 61s - Chest, cloak, bracers, belt, boots, 1 ring, neck.
Put on cheap enchants.
Talent into Skyreach (50% crit for 6 seconds after tiger palming).
Take all Touch of Death talents.
Take certain BOK talents.
Easiest leveling class there is.
If you pull too much, focus 1 target hard, touch of death it, then touch of death again.
Go mob to mob, Tiger Palm, RSK, BOK, FoF if you must.
If you pulled too much and Touch of Death is down, Use Karma, swap targets, use CDs and kill everything with FoF, SCK, RSK, and BlackOut Kicks. Never focus your Karma’d target in packs, it needs to live as long as Karma does to get maximum benefit.
I found it best to keep Touch of death constantly on CD, as it basically is 10 dead mobs every use.
Use this build for leveling, priority being Blackout kick talents, Skyreach, and Touch of Death talents - use meta builds at max level:
I’m up to 360 gear but still have to be careful pulling multiple mobs when my cooldowns are down. WW wears leather like a rogue but rogues have more defensives/escapes, more CC, and more burst. WW feels like expert mode.
As I’ve leveled and picked up new abilities I can’t help but notice it’s like a 8-9 button rotation (depending on talents), reminds me of SLands Shadow Priest lol
Seems like a “high skill cap” class just judging by the high button-count
Meanwhile, Beast Hunter and Arms Warrior are like 4 buttons
As some who plays a lot of Monk, our survivability really is at the bottom of list of issues facing us. We are bottom , dead last in ST and we dont make it up in AOE. So really have reached trash level in terms of dmg.
I started leveling my monk in DF these past few days and I found the same to be true. I specced for all of the increased healing in the monk tree and it still feels like it doesn’t heal for much. More sturdy, but still squishy. I have never actually died so many times on any other class while leveling in Dragonflight.
I think the WW tree needs to get some beefed-up healing or a rework to those healing spheres, or just more of them… Maybe some talents to increase armor as well. I feel they rely too heavily on all their defensives and it adds to button bloat at times.
Healing myself on my monk feels like I’m back on my holy pally -the heals are wet noodles and can’t save you in a pinch. Your health bar barely moves when you chi wave/burst/sphere/expel/vivify
Too many healing options but no real healing. I have found that speccing into the black ox statue is a way to assist this but you lose some other dps options of course
