After reading around the forums, I’ve begun to wonder what most monks really want for the class. I think we can all agree that we need bug fixes and balance changes but do you guys feel like once that’s addressed we should leave it at that?
Before monks were even announced I always wanted to play a martial arts class so naturally, when monks were announced I was very excited. I rolled one straight away and to be honest, the most fun I’ve had in this game has been playing a monk. This includes periods when our performance has been sub-optimal.
With that being said, as time has gone on almost every other class and spec has received visual and overall updates. Class identity has been cemented with changes that make each spec unique. I’m not even just talking about balance changes, what I’m talking about is thematic changes. When you play as any other spec or class in the game you really feel like you are that class from the ability and talent kit you’ve been provided with.
Whenever I play my monk, I can’t help but notice how our kit is all over the place and isn’t really focused in on anything. The only spec that makes sense thematically is brew master, the other two still feel randomized. When I’m playing my wind walker I don’t feel like I’m a martial arts master that has mastery of chi control. The name wind walker is completely irrelevant to the spec itself.
Why do we have so many summoner abilities? Lorewise, we’re a class based around martial arts and honor, it makes no sense for us to be summoning outside entities to assist us. Why do we have useless abilities like jade lightning that again make no sense for the class and are pretty much useless? Why are all our chi energy abilities so weak? When I first read the names Chi Wave and Chi Burst I expected something actually powerful. If we’re using chi for all our martial arts abilities, why is this not really reflected in the animations? All of our abilities lack any visual indicator of impact. They look silly.
I would like to hear everyone’s opinions on this. Would you guys be satisfied with bug fixes and balance tuning alone or would you like to see a thematic overhaul? Please leave suggestions for changes to existing abilities or ideas for new abilities below. A lot of our talent tree is filled with options that are unimaginative and just wasting space. Many of our talents should already be baseline as well.
For anyone who thinks monks are fine the way they are currently, I invite you to look at the following videos to see how the monk class has been handled in other more recent MMO’s. After seeing these, do you still think WoW monks are fine?
I really feel like WW needs a rework at this point. Im right there with you about how we shouldn’t be summoning pets to help us, it takes away from the monk theme of being a martial arts master that revolves around manipulating your chi to empower yourself.
Its sad that i have to use diablo 3 as a source of class design done right, but the monk in d3 i would say was thematically right on money in the way it was designed and the way it played. You had a lot of different martial arts themed abilities that felt good to use and played into the monks kit of being highly mobile, self sustaining, and supportive.
In contrast i feel as though the WW monk is just a bunch of random “monk” abilities thrown into a spec that struggles to have a really defining identity. It seems that WW’s main identity revolves around speed and mobility, but none of our abilities other then Roll, Transcendence, and FSK really play into that identity. I would like to see our damaging abilities better reflect upon our core identity as well. Adding something like 7 sided strike that enables quick strikes against 1 or multiple opponents much like a rogues killing spree, or just a simple targeted dash attack that acted as a charge like ability. At the very least rip off Lee Sin’s Q from LoL, a skillshot windslash that could be followed up by a gap closer attack would be very thematic and fun imo.
If left as is WW will not be seeing a lot of play from people trying to play at a more competitive level, we really bring nothing other then damage to a raid. We really need to be given more CC and utility to justify a spot. While WW is decent in pvp in the right comps i still find that the other highly mobile class that is the DH outshines it in pretty much every way.
Hopefully blizzard sees the community’s continued outcries, and makes some significant changes. Its already bad enough that all the monk covenant abilities are extremely meh, i would like to have something to look forward to this expansion regarding WW’s and monks in general.
I’m loving the suggestions so far guys! This is really what monks need. With other classes, sometimes the only thing that can justify playing a spec that is statistically inferior to the others is the class identity behind it. You can get caught in the class fantasy and it makes up for not being able to put up the best numbers. As monks, we lack the numbers AND we also lack the identity.
@Pyroptosis
I love that idea. It’s also worth pointing out that in the 5.4 cinematic where Garrosh faces off against Taran Zhu, he uses similar movements. In fact, all the moves Taran Zhu uses during that fight are things that monks don’t even have access to. If you can’t make monks look cool in a cinematic without adding abilities that they don’t have then that just highlights the need for a rework.
Here are a few suggestions of my own.
Celestials:
Instead of invoking the celestials and literally summoning them, why not instead allow them to empower us by giving us access to different forms. Each form would have a unique aura that temporarily envelops the monk and provides us with a different stat boost along with altering one of our abilties. For example, Xuen would give us the current damage boost he provides, envelop us in his blue aura, and alter Fists of Fury with a different visual. Here’s an example of what an altered visual could look like.
Also, the auras already exist in game in the form of the celestials. The auras of the different celestials look pretty cool already too. This would remove the summoner aspect of the class and showcase our mastery of chi energy.
I think it is very telling that monks are the least played class in the game. Especially considering the popularity of shows/movies with martial arts and chi/energy attacks. It’s not the concept of the class that is unpopular, it’s the execution of it.
I feel that monks being tied to Pandaria is part of it. It’s overly cartoonish and a little juvenile at times. This is where monks were created and that was colored their identity.
IMO monks should be more like warriors except a focus on self control over weapons and rage.
I main a panda and play panda for every class that they can be, but even I start to wonder if it isn’t time to start downplaying the monk-pandaria connection. Instead it seems like they are going the exact opposite direction.
I agree. They tied monks to the light hearted/cartoonish nature of MoP and never moved past it. Just because Pandaren look cartoonish and lighthearted in nature doesn’t mean our attacks have to be as well. We are fighters after all, our attacks should be fierce and impactful.
In the real world, there are many different styles of martial arts from all over the world. This logic should extend to the game, especially considering almost every race can play a monk. Different races should have had some sort of influence on the monk fighting style. We’re supposed to be martial arts masters, this means we should know more than one fighting style!
Thats a great idea, i was just thinking of this myself the other day. I always felt like blizz was taking the whole “Invoke” thing a little to literally by actually summoning the celestial’s spirt to fight for you. It makes alot more sense thematically that the monk would empower theirself by “Invoking” the thought or idea of a celestial for inspiration, and then bending their own Ki to replicate said celestial’s power.
Plus i’m sure pretty most monks would agree that it would be way more fun to slash stuff with lightning claws, as opposed to summoning a mini Xuen for a couple seconds. And if not, blizz could always keep the old Invoke Xuen talent if you wanted to swap back to the summon.
I can understand that, but it’s still a way more engaging idea then just summoning a pet. And to be honest pets don’t really fit into the idea of a monk imo. Still for some reason blizz wants to cram pet/summoning like abilities into the monk class.
I can see where they might think that but it makes more sense for monks to be quite honest. Shamans are masters of the elements and monks are masters of chi and the martial arts. Our martial arts take inspiration from animals, so to briefly have that portrayed while under an aura effect would not be treading too closely to shamans.
That’s an example of what the attack could look like. We’re not necessarily becoming Xuen or a tiger, we’re just being enveloped in his aura and changing stance briefly.
Also, this opens so many possibilities! There are four celestials in game right now, each with a unique aura, and unique characteristics. You have a tiger, crane, ox, and dragon. Think of the kinds of abilities we could take from this? It would spice up our bland animations!
im in the same boat. it should be about us being the unmatched hand to hand brawler martial artist. and less about summoning random things to fight for us.
if theres one class that could properly utilise stances correctly its monks.
could you imagine going into ox stance and it makes our roll a charge that stuns.
going into tiger stance and our fists of fury attacks twice as often.
going into crane stance and we gain a large dodge bonus and our RSK hits twice.
going into dragon stance and our fists of fury becomes a fire breathe instead that channels and changes it from physical damage into fire damage.
augmenting our base kit depending on the fighting style we are taking on. it reminds me of elementalists from GW2 changing there element type and it changes up there kit.
what i would personally love to see at the least would be:
touch of karma turned into life cocoon. so theres no more killing ourselves for extra dps.
SEF deleted and changed back into TEB. but change it to versa instead of flat damage/healing.
give us haste/crit scaling to more of our moves. say RSK crits also allow it to go off a second time. give haste break points to FOF so that we get more attacks in. give mastery scaling to xuen. RSK crits reduce FOFs CD by an additional second. theres plenty that they can do to our stats to fix our horrific scaling.
allow white attacks to continue during our animations ( FOF, SCK, WDP etcs ).
and an actual look at our talent tree. its just being left to rot. T15 is all useless. nothing can compete with WDP, make it baseline and reinvent the entire row. hit combo rolled in baseline. changes to all of the dead talents.
Clearly most of you haven’t seen Drunken Master. Awesome old school Jackie Chan movie. He uses a style of martial art revolving around being drunk and the drunker he gets the better he is. I really feel like that is the direction Blizz is going with Monks and I like it!
Sure maybe the beer drinking theme came from Pandas, but the Pandas are the ones who taught is the technique so it makes sense that they taught us the part about having to drink beer in order to master it.
Shuffle plays well into this. Drunkenly staggering around is a great way to absorb a hit by flowing with it or dodging it altogether.
I’m loving these suggestions. That’s exactly what I had in mind as well. We’re martial arts masters, we should have access to different stances. Our chi mastery should be represented in our attacks as well.
Here are a few other suggestions I’ve heard mentioned before and have thought about.
SEF:
Nothing needs to be said about how out dated the visuals for this ability are. Not only are the visuals out dated but the attack itself is a nuisance to use. Instead of creating minions that need to be controlled and kept on the target, we should have an ability that creates “mirages” instead. By this I mean, our attacks are replicated while this ability is active and mirages will appear and disappear after copying the attack. This would remove the need to control the minions and having to keep them on a target.
Thematically, the mirages would be a showcase of how swiftly we can attack/move, creating the illusion that there are other copies of us appearing and disappearing when in reality it’s actually just us. This lends itself to the name wind walker because of speed and mist walker because people often see illusions in the mist.
Touch of Karma:
This ability serves its purpose but the visual is too basic. A giant symbol appearing as an indicator is honestly the laziest way to implement it. Instead I propose that it be changed to an aura. Once again, I’m going to use Dragon Ball Z as an example of what could be done with this ability. When activated, we become enveloped in a distinct aura and begin to instinctively dodge enemy attacks while countering and redirecting them back. Here is an example of what this could look like.
Any attacks used against us while we are in this elevated state will be dodged and a “mirage” of our character will appear next to the attacker to unleash a counter attack.
Thematically, this ability would fit in well with monks as well and help solidify the class identity. Fighting instinctively and using dodges and counters is a big part in martial arts. It also showcases the speed and fluidity of a Wind Walker as well as the elusiveness of a Mist Walker.
Keep the suggestions coming guys! We need to compile this stuff into a list and push our most popular ideas. Many people have already mentioned that certain mechanics may be too similar to other classes but I feel as though that line of thinking is a problem in itself. If they provide enough of a twist both visually and mechanically, there shouldn’t be an issue. We can’t allow all the interesting mechanics to go to other classes while we’re left with nothing.
This is probably the most glaring problem with our talent tree, and its painful because its so obvious. I love the idea of Serenity over Storm Earth and Fire, but i will never take Serenity over WDP seeing as WDP is hands down the best talent in that tier. If we could only get one change to WW, it would should be making WDP baseline.
I personally wish that the monk DPS rotation was closer to how Ninjas in FF used ninjitusu.
Use different abilities to create a stronger skill, for example:
Using tiger palm x 3 = Fist of Fury
Using tiger palm, rising sun kick, spinning crane kick = WDP
Something like this but more in depth.
Also I would like to see more chi/mist based skills, CJL is boring. As a MW main the DPS rotation is boring and it doesn’t feel fluid, also it feels really weak compared to my holy paladin or resto shaman. I wouldn’t mind having some spammable instant cast range skills as filler, maybe something like pop Chi-ji and go fist weaving and if I have to back off, I can shoot few spinning fire blossoms until I can engage in melee again.
Love that. Yeah as a martial arts fighter class, combos should amount to more than just a buff. I think visual indicators for stringing out a long combo would be much more satisfying.
One suggestion could be to make our combos actually empower our abilities based on how many attacks we string together. You could have different combo tiers and each tier would have stronger variants of our regular combo builder abilities. These variants would also give us the chance to showcase different styles of kicks/punches/strikes, making us feel more like martial arts masters.
Once you reach the combo cap, you’d have the choice to sustain the combo and keep using the stronger versions of our attacks or break the combo by using a “super ability” that uses all the combo stacks.
This kind of system would give you the choice to either sustain a higher DPS overall or go all out with burst when you’re going in for the kill by using an ultimate attack. The idea of having an ultimate attack lends well to the identity of being a fighter class as well.
To take this even further, if we were to incorporate the different stances we’ve suggested in this thread, each stance could have a different variation of the ultimate attack.
I also agree that our chi abilities are lacking and could use some love as well. Currently, abilities like jade lightning, chi wave, and chi burst are disappointing. Our chi attacks should be much stronger considering that we’re focusing our energy to conjure and condensing chi energy in its purest form.
Brew needs to stay brewmaster after all its Chens WC3 style. Even Chen used storm earth and fire as an extra life bar as a brewmaster. Just add the line of code that makes the ox statue aoe taunt to the clones. So give brewmaster it and make it their go to big cool down (like last stand or lay on hands). And drunken kungfu is a real system so lets keep it.
WW can be something completely new. We all remember the Combat Rogue change into Outlaw. Lets make this the Holy/Chi based Scarlet Crusader style monk. Obviously not all monks would be scarlet crusader monks but the theme of a Chi based dps with serious animation overhaul. Get rid of every kind of brew for this spec. Get rid of every clone. Get rid of our favorite tiger. Make it a Chi empowered spec. No more pets. This is your brawling fast paced, dashing striking spec, with a double jumping, and CC chaining spec.
MW = Kharazim from d3 but actually more influenced by the Heroes of the Storm version. You heal for a burst every 3rd hit. You can then talent for more mana (raid use) or for more damage at the cost of higher mana cost (open world / pvp) or talent for bigger heals ( M+ build). It is a 100% fistweaving build the way it should have been from the start.
