Monks! Are you fun?

Classes Monk
45

Personally, I’d say they aren’t too fun. 8.1 is really helping with fixing the ridiculous damage orientation that they have (really strong burst, horrendous consistant damage), but it’ll still be a bit skewed towards burst.

Gameplay wise, I really don’t enjoy the energy. Monks used to be constantly attacking, maintaining Tiger Palm’s buff while using BoK and getting either the DoT or the heal based on positioning. FoF used to hit much harder in AoE. Touch of Death used to be an amazing execute that felt awesome. All that’s gone now.

WW just feels energy starved way too frequently, the damage feels awful outside of burst, ToK being used for damage feels bad, and Vivify is terrible for self heal.

BrM is really good and feels pretty fun, not to mention RJW really helps keep AoE threat. MW is really fun gameplay wise imo, I love Soothing Mists interaction with the other heals.

Only part of Monk that is just bad is Windwalker.

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46

50 energy TPs just slows down the gameplay so damn much, and they hit for nothing.

when rets drop 20-40k TVs back to back ( which relativisitically you look at the dmg of touch of death being in the 120-160k range on a 2 min CD ( ST, cannot cleave, cannot crit etcs ) if you play perfectly to funnel the entire dmg rotation into it, and they are doing 10-25% of its damage in rotational abilities. it makes us feel even more janky with our damage distribution. then you look at frost mages who can very often gets to cast glacial spikes for 70-100k and it cleaves with a talent. it just adds to the feeling that our damage breakdown is all over the place.

47

Fun, but less fun than they used to be. I played priest since vanilla and switched to monk when blizz redesigned shadow around void form, and redesigned disc to heal through dealing damage, which I can’t stand. MW changes to make you need to stand still a lot more made them less fun. WW aoe nerf, removal of legendaries, and general pruning have made WWs less fun. Still more fun than priest but it seems all the classes are heading in the wrong direction.

48

I don’t want to say you are playing it wrong if you think it feels clunky. But you’re playing it wrong if you think it is clunky

49

I don’t want to say you are playing it wrong if you think it doesn’t feel clunky. But you’re playing it wrong if you don’t think it feels clunky.

Jokes aside, the GCD change immediately makes it clunky. Whereas the spec itself wouldn’t be otherwise.

I mean the opener takes at least 5 GCDs of just setting up before you can even really start doing anything. The rest of the rotation outside of that is mostly fine, more so when ToK gets the nerf-bat in 8.1 when you don’t feel obligated to stand in something you shouldn’t be just to do comparable damage.

That said the spec is still fun and I’m not going to be abandoning it. But BFA has made changes (not only to WW, but as a whole) that have generally been pretty negative.

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50

I think they are still one of the more fun classes in BFA, but I hate most of the changes they’ve received. I actually really enjoyed Mistweaver in Legion, and really dislike the changes they made to the point that I completely re-rolled.

Same with Windwalker - was a great spec that has been slowed down to the point that I can’t enjoy it, though most classes feel really slow in BFA.

Brewmaster is still a great tank and one of the most fun.

51

I like Windwalker. Who doesn’t like punching dragons?

Brewmaster has its moments. I served drinks in a past life so it’s kind of nostalgic.

Mistweaver isn’t my kinda thing, I leave the healing to my flower loving druid friend.

52

Bad enough that I’m looking desperately for fun alts.

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53

I feel the need to direct you to this forum post.

As for my response to the OP’s question. Monk is still fun. However, Legion → BfA messed up a lot of just structural things. GCD changes really slowed thing down, and loss of artifact weapons kind of hurt some specs more than others.

From what I’ve played, BrM feels pretty similar to how it was in Legion except you have to be more frugal with your brews.

MW feels like blizzard was looking for more a of a WoD design, but didn’t implement the part of WoD MW that made it work in that back in WoD. Renewing mist had 3 charges that had a chance not to be consumed on use based on crit% and Uplift healed targets that had renewing mist on them. Now Renewing mist only has 2 charges and doesn’t have the chance to not be consumed on use, but Vivify functions the same way as Uplift did so it’s not just a good on use group heal anymore. Also not being able to cast Soothing Mist while moving sucks. Don’t know why it was removed.

WW by far feels the most different. The spec is slowed down so much because of GCD changes and loss of our artifact. Literally have like a 3-4 second ramp up time on each major pull/boss and that’s usually not even from Chi building abilities. We’re pretty energy starved because our artifact trait used to boost our max energy by 40, but now we don’t have it so we can really feel how bad a 50 energy TP is. It sucks having to talent Xuen because Hit Combo was made crap for reasons beyond my comprehension. RJW just slows the rotation down even further.

It sucks that our artifact ability replacement in Fist of the White Tiger is nothing like Strike of the Windlord and is more of a worse rebranded Power Strikes, which was a pretty crappy talent in Legion. Fist of the White Tiger is worse because it takes up a button and probably other reasons that I can’t think of off the top of my head because i never used Power Strikes in Legion. I mean if you want to compare the SotWL and FotWT in terms of power, SotWL was one of the main reasons WW was nerfbatted so hard in Legion in PvP. And while it was quite flattering for god (blizzard) to intervene on the rest of the playerbase’s behalf, I’m a little disappointed that I never got to fight at full strength in PvP because of templates. At the height of my power in Legion, SotWL had enough damage to one shot mythic geared tanks by blowing them away with 10M damage hits, and if that couldn’t kill them the likely 5-6M damage BoK I got from Antorus 4 set + leggo combo probably would. However, this was with CDs going. Though, I did have 1 or 2 RSKs in Legion that had the planets align and did like 10-11M. Meanwhile, FotWT currently hits for less than an RSK.

WW Rotation is still pretty good, but the energy starvation hinders it so much. Still a fun spec.

Also, I’d just like to express my feeling about how disappointing it is for what is likely the first blue post in the Monk forums or likely any forums regarding monk affairs for that matter in months or even years just to equate to “Monk is fun. We are aware there are issues. I’m sure people are fixing it.” I get that addressing class/spec issues may not be the duties of a CM’s station and the blue post probably means well, but it still stings that our first bit of communication in months between the devs and what feels like a declining population for a class/spec is just a “hang in there guys” kind of talk.

2 Likes
55

The artifact trait only really helped with energy costs on the opener and during downtime. Because if you were actively spending energy and not letting it cap, you were fighting the actual regeneration of energy, not it’s resource cap. But otherwise I definitely agree.

56

Mistweaver is by far my favorite healing spec right now, before this I was a diehard Holy priest player. I like the fact that our main HoT has charges attached to it; the short recharge time doesn’t leave me feel like I’m really short on it but the small cooldown attached allows it to actually feel powerful compared to some other HoT’s and the jumping targets on it and interactions with Vivify are fantastic.

Revival is still a really fun cooldown, even if it doesn’t heal for as much as it used to raid-wide. The AoE dispel on it can be a little…sketchy…sometimes, especially when you have bosses that required specific dispels like Attumen in the revamped Karazhan; using it at a bad time to dispel actually wiped a few of my groups farming there especially when it first launched and I was unaware of exactly how the debuff worked. I absolutely love Chi-Ji even if it may not always be optimal; watching that dumb little crane go flying around at the speed of light always makes me giggle and I lovingly refer to him as “crack bird” because of how he jets around from target to target and even occasionally hits enemies.

I do certainly miss being able to Soothing Mist while moving; this was a staple of Mythic+ healing for me last expansion when mastery affected the healing of Soothing Mist and it auto-channeled after direct healing spells. I feel a loss in my overall healing while moving because I was previously stacking very heavy mastery and abusing this movement allowance during Soothing Mist to heal M+ dungeons in ways most other healers could not last expansion, and I really enjoyed that aspect of play but there’s still enough to do while moving that I don’t feel entirely crippled if I have to move during combat like you’ll notice on some other healers (Holy Priest if Holy Words aren’t up, Resto Shaman can feel bad while moving as well without Spiritwalker’s) because the channel on Essence Font being usable while moving and ability to Life Cocoon a target make me feel like even if I can’t really stop moving for a few seconds, I can still get some healing out for the group and protect the tank.

Windwalker is still very fun for me to play, even if it does feel somewhat like a rogue spec with Energy and “Chi” instead of Combo Points. The mastery is supposed to be a benefit and not a mandatory thing to do, which may be where your disconnect with the spec is. While it’s certainly fun to maximize the usage of it (one of the things I enjoy the most about the spec actually) there’s no penalty to using say, two Tiger Palms in a row instead of waiting for another ability unless you spec into the Hit Combo talent right now. You’ll sometimes feel like you’re waiting for cooldowns, but that’s the case with most classes. It’s a slower style of melee spec that can get very spammy during certain times (such as when using Serenity as your 100 talent) but also has a slower pace that can be more fun because you can really plan out your attacks ahead of time and maximize the usage of your mastery, which is incredibly strong if used properly.

I do miss the artifact active of Legion, but the Fist of the White Tiger talent is very similar even if it doesn’t have the hefty AoE component attached to it that Strike of the Windlord used to have. It fills in the hole and is a very nice generator talent, although I believe that Energizing Elixir is the preferred talent on that row for most players trying to optimize damage.

It still has excellent mobility, a very fun cooldown with Touch of Death that is unlike any other class, and Touch of Karma (while a bit odd) is still a fantastic defensive tool that can be utilized offensively at times as well. Their talents are (for the most part) competitive enough that almost any of them are viable options to use depending on your content you plan on doing, and most of them are in some way going to affect your overall rotational play.

Can’t say much for Brewmaster as I personally never enjoyed the spec, having learned to tank on a Blood DK all the way from Wrath beta through the end of WoD and then transitioning to Vengeance DH; I just never enjoyed the Brewmaster playstyle even if it was (for a time) incredibly overpowered compared to other tanks, but I’m sure there’s plenty of advice in the thread from people who enjoy playing it for you!

Hope that helps!

Quick Note: I’m purely talking about playing the class from a “fun” standpoint. Others here will debate the power of the class and the DPS/HPS output or how they compare to other classes performance-wise. I’m simply trying to give you the opinion of someone who plays the class and specs purely for fun and not as a competitive player in this case. The class is an absolute blast if you’re not looking for maximum performance, and still has adequate performance compared to most other classes as well.

2 Likes
57

I’d like to add in agreement that the pacing of the spec feels bad with 100 energy and how much Tiger Palm costs, and say again how awful the GCD feels around our cooldown usage. It’s terrible.

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60

It would be nice to at least get some acknowledgment by Blizzard that they know WW is NOT working in its current iteration and they’re going to fix it. I’m leveling a DH to 120 as a backup incase WW continues to be trash into the next raid tier.

61

The person was talking about mw at the time.

62

True enough, still getting used to the forums.

But it honestly doesn’t really change the fact I was poking fun at how silly such a statement is, which is why I essentially said the same thing just from the opposite perspective to put it to light.

It could, or could not be clunky. Personally I like BFA’s version of MW simply because it’s closer to MoP’s MW than what legion MW was (obviously not the same, but PvE SoOM is nice to see back).

63

I probably should have more specific when i talked about this. Artifact trait energy boost worked really well with EE in Legion, but because of GCD changes and changes to EE most WWs use FotWT. While the energy trait only boosted our cap, EE basically reset our energy to that of what it would be like on pull.

Also, I’d just like to express my feeling about how disappointing it is for what is likely the first blue post in the Monk forums or likely any forums regarding monk affairs for that matter in months or even years just to equate to “Monk is fun. We are aware there are issues. I’m sure people are fixing it.” I get that addressing class/spec issues may not be the duties of a CM’s station and the blue post probably means well, but it still stings that our first bit of communication in months between the devs and what feels like a declining population for a class/spec is just a “hang in there guys” kind of talk.

64

TLDR: Mistweaver seems fun.

Windwalker’s damage feels disjointed because the animations don’t actually hit targets, and don’t sound like punches and kicks. They go over their head and whoosh the target rather than thud them. How do I get around this? How do I make this feel better? Also, should I always try to benefit from my mastery? Or should I just Blackout kick twice in a row to dump extra Chi, or while I’m waiting for energy?

Brewmaster… How do I get Healing orbs to spawn? I haven’t seen one yet. What’s the best way; aside from having a healer heal me; to get health back in combat? Do I just stand there and cast my heal on my self? Also, how much stagger should I expect to have at L120 with 340ish gear?

So, I have a few question I was hoping I could get answered since this topic is doing so well.

I decided to start leveling my Monk in my off-time. He’s only 112 now, so not too far in, but I’m noticing a few things.

Mistweaver… Really fun. I’m enjoying messing around with it. I haven’t done a dungeon with it yet, so I can’t really speak too much for it, but if it’s anything like it was in the past, it’ll be pretty fun. (I have one of every other healer, and am excited to try it out)

Windwalker still feels weird to me to be honest. DPS aside, the “rotation” or lack of feels strange. I’m still either waiting for resources, or waiting for CD’s because I want to get the most out of my mastery. Should I just Blackout kick twice in a row, or should I wait for the energy to build up and get another tiger palm in/over-cap on chi?

Also, the animations seem off to me. I feel disjointed form my damage. Blackout kick’s animation literally goes over the head of most human-sized mobs. It doesn’t connect with them. Rising sun kick’s animation is in front of the mob not on top. I feel like I’m not actually hitting them. At least Tiger Palm’s “chi wind” goes through the mob so it feel like something is connecting.

And when it does “connect” all the abilities have a whooshing sound to them and less of a thudding sound like a boot hitting their face. Just feels off. Is there any way to make this feel any better? I had this issue with my Beast Mastery hunter as well.

So… With that being said. I’ve been questing as Brewmaster. lol. It’s fun. My first Azerite piece I took the trait that causes Blackout strike to delete some of my Stagger, which; in the world; is all of it. So I’m basically taking half damage. It’s actually pretty fun right now.

Only thing is, I’ve yet to see a single “gift of the Ox” healing orb. Not one. I remember back in MoP (can’t really compare the game now to the game half it’s life ago… But still. It’s all the reference I have) I used to see them pop up quite a bit. It really helped with survivability.

Is there a way to increase the chance of getting a healing orb? Is the best way for me to regen health to stand still and literally cast my heal on myself?

Also, at L120 in roughly 340 gear how much stagger should I expect to have? As of right now, in Legion boosted gear, I have 60% Stagger. Which seems great. I know as I level and get less Agility (until I get gear) it will go down, and I’ll become more and more squishy. So once I get gear at L120, how much should I expect to have?

65

Yeah most definitely. Honestly the biggest changes in that regard are mostly the EE changes and legendary/tier set changes.

EE was a full reset which reduced overall downtime, tier (the antorus set) gave extra resources (and in combination with the legendary helm even more so), and the legendary chest essentially acted like an energy regeneration tool (similar to FoF in regards to generating energy while you’re channeling something since you aren’t spending it at that moment). Since during the ~4 seconds you were channeling a free CJL you would also be generating ~40+ energy.

The combination of all of that is what, in my opinion drove WW into being a much slower spec with much more downtime. At least more-so than the extra 40 energy. Also didn’t mean to come off a bit harsh, have just seen people think the 40 energy cap difference is the single biggest reason for the downtime tbh. <3

66

I have tested my dps on the ptr and I loss 3-4k dps total with trying multiple trait combos

67

was suppose to be, but they didn’t. I have tested multiple traits and the dmg is just insanely low, by like 3-4k