Title. It seems like Blizzard plans on letting us go into Shadowlands with no meaningful changes. Ever since our rework in Legion the Monk class has had it’s identity stolen and most of the fun sucked out of it; leaving us in a horrible place. This is my last attempt to get the class some attention and if it fails, well at least I tried. If you’re not a Monk player I implore you to lend us a hand and get us our much needed attention.
I’m going to be specifically talking about Windwalker as I haven’t played Brewmaster or Mistweaver seriously since Warlords of Draenor. All three Monk specs were butchered in their Legion rework however. If more experienced BM’s and MW’s would like to step in that would be great. These are my own ideas, opinions and suggestions.
If you want a TL;DR, revert us back to MoP/WoD.
As posted in other threads, Windwalker’s biggest failure is our mastery rework; Combo Strikes and by extension our talent Hit Combo.
- Combo Strikes & Hit Combo.
It doesn’t add depth, it’s counter-intuitive; and limits the design space. I disagree with the notion that Combo Strikes makes you think ahead, as everything is laid out for you; the opposite of it’s intended purpose. Not being able to repeat abilities feels sluggish, and only worsened by the fact that if an ability is dodged or repeated you break your streak. There are also times when spamming Blackout Kick is your best move, but it results in a dps loss due to this god forsaken mastery. Give our mastery to a different spec and tell me it would be “fun and engaging”. We need to return to our original damage cooldown and mastery to finally get rid of this monstrosity.
- Tigereye Brew & Bottled Fury.
Tigereye Brew was our original damage cooldown in MoP and WoD. As you spend chi you gain stacks of Tigereye Brew, up to 10 stacks. When consumed it gave us a powerful damage and healing increase by up to (60% max). This gave monks frequent burst windows to “shotgun” their opponents and significantly increasing their healing abilities for a period of time. This means we can finally return to making our own decisions and have a RELIABLE burst cooldown that isn’t a mess like the SEF rework. Returning monks to their fast paced gameplay and decision making on what their next move was. Bottled Fury returns as our Mastery; giving you a % chance to generate an extra stack of Tigereye Brew, increasing the rate in which you can use the ability.
- Storm, Earth, and Fire.
This ability was reworked and turned into our Main damage cooldown in Legion; and I’d like to think a lot of people would agree that it just doesn’t feel good to use. The original SEF gave you a lot of control over your clones and had almost limitless potential with what you could do with it. Now it’s automated and does everything for you, except when it doesn’t due to the amount of bugs associated with it. The clones always seem to take the longest path to your enemies and sometimes outright disobey your focus orders. Using this in PvP especially feelsbad since your source of damage needs to be played around things like Frost Nova or other forms of CC, otherwise your opportunity to deal damage is gone. SEF should return it’s older version; which would keep it’s high AoE damage capabilities in tact in things like Mythic+, but giving back the original PvP flexibility like keeping rogues in stealth, keep healers in combat so they can’t get a redrink, or splitting your damage on two targets. Clone management and Tigereye Brew in conjunction would put Windwalker in a much better place in terms of gameplay.
- Jab & Tiger Palm.
Tiger Palm replaced Jab in Legion for some reason. Jab needs to return as the chi builder, giving us our weapon swing animation back and making Tiger Palm either it’s old iteration of giving us an armor bypass debuff, or something else along those lines. This change would be needed with the aforementioned changes to fill out our rotation more.
- Fists of Fury.
Fists of Fury has lost a lot of it’s original power, and this change was once again because of Legion. To restore some of it’s power we need the stun effect added back to this ability. This gives us our original lockdown combo in PvP from previous expansions that for some reason was taken from us and given to Demon Hunters in the form of Chaos Nova and Fel Eruption.
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Enerizing Brew baseline, in a weaker state.
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Tier 2 Talent Row
Move Chi Torpedo down to tier 6, replacing Hit Combo. Momentum replaces Chi Torpedo here. -
Tier 3 Talent Row
Bring back Chi Brew and Power Strikes in our Tier 3 talent row. With Tigereye Brew back we no longer need Fist of the White Tiger (will be talked about later) and Energizing Elixir. This gives monks their original Chi Builder options that changes based on their playstyle.
- Tier 4 Talent Row
Tiger Tail Sweep is in dire need a buff, and one way we could go about this is by giving it an additional functionality. If more than 2 targets are stunned reduce the cooldown of Leg Sweep by an additional 15 seconds or so.
Good Karma shouldn’t even be here. Give Touch of Karma it’s healing mechanic baseline and replace this with Summon Black Ox Statue. Giving Windwalkers an additional utility tool to help their tanks. Make it so taunting your statue applies Leer of the Ox on nearby enemies.
Ring of Peace has proven to be too powerful. I don’t want to see it turned into a dead talent but it does need a nerf.
- Tier 5 Talent Row
Inner Strength either replaces Dampen Harm or removed; and replaced with Healing Elixirs. This gives us a sustain healing ability to stabilize us in PvP.
Dampen Harm and Inner Strength are interchangeable. Dampen Harm is a bit of an awkward talent with it’s 20 to 50% damage reduction. Either make it reduce a flat physical % or something.
Diffuse Magic needs no changes as it’s a balanced ability.
- Tier 6 Talent Row
Hit Combo was addressed earlier. Replaced with Warlords of Draenor’s iteration of Chi Torpedo. This was taken away from us and given to Demon Hunters in the form of Fel Rush. Chi Torpedo was formerly a high skill cap ability that turned your mobility tools into an offense one. I know there are arguments “against” this but I believe it’s up to the player to make the right decision when and when not to use the talent properly.
Rushing Jade Wind is in dire need of a buff. It’s been nerfed over and over and is currently sitting as a dead talent. Return it to it’s original SCK replacement or something. We shouldn’t have so many dead talents.
Dance of Chi’ji is a weird talent, for some reason blizzard insisted on an AoE ability being an extremely strong single target one with procs. I don’t really mind it staying but it shouldn’t be stronger than the other options. This just can be a decent passive for those who don’t want an extra button.
- Tier 7 Talent Row
Spiritual Focus is a horrible dead talent, again. Replace this with the removed Chi Explosion talent. I disagree with Blizzard when they claimed Chi Explosion didn’t fit the monk archtype, as it absolutely does. It’s even planned to come back (in a way) with the Jade Ignition Legendary ability. Chi Explosion enabled a different play style for Windwalker that was very intuitive and had a lot of thought process behind it.
A controversial change, but since our mastery would be gone Whirling Dragon Punch and Fist of the White Tiger no longer feel like “mandatory” baseline abilities. This means we can combine these talents into Strike of the Windlord from Legion. Giving us a powerful AOE burst talent.
Serenity likely wouldn’t need any changes if Tigereye Brew came back, as it would be an extremely powerful cooldown combined with TEB.
Thank you for taking your time to read the post, if you did. We need to stand our ground and see changes guys.