https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/shadowlands-update-some-spells-no-longer-on-gcd/630189
Gcd changes list serenity and not SEF, dare I hope that serenity is the baseline? Because I feel they would have just said SEF unless SEF isn’t off the gcd and they are just trying to bring back that serenity rsk macro thing.
Spirit Shell, a discipline priest talent added back in for Shadowlands, is also off the gcd. I’m not sure how likely that is, but one can hope.
See then it might just be they are trying to bring back the style of rsk serenity macro.
I haven’t kept up with the other classes much as I haven’t mained anything else but WW since 5.0
I’ve quit on and off since MoP, almost solely from discontent with Monk design changes. E.g. TEB changed from Mastery increasing potency to Mastery increasing frequency was the primary reason I was unsubbed for 80% of WoD. Monk kit being too heavily AoE and not enough variety in single target play was the reason I stopped playing at the intro to Legion up to Tomb of Sargeras. I played all of BFA but didn’t play Monk. Go figure… Hoping to touch Monk again for Shallowlands, but we’ll see how it shakes out. I still haven’t decided on purchasing.
Edit: and the TEB design change was because they made a trinket in Throne of Thunder that broke the spec (RoRo)… Instead of just fixing the trinket. To give you a clear picture on where Monk design is prioritized - below the design of one trinket in MoP.
Imagine if TeB and 5.2 mastery existed in 8.3 with mastery amps/procs. I was able to one shot people with rsk when trinket empowered TeB and 1 healing orb did 2/3 of my health.
That required a proc, amps alone would basically give you the trinket all the time.
So I can understand the change if they want to make things like that in future, which makes me wonder if they had the core concept of corruption all the way back then.
I know I’m probably in the minority but I think Serenity is boring and I miss the Legion style of WW. I couldn’t stand playing WW in BFA and probably won’t be able to in SL if there aren’t at least a couple more meaningful changes to the flow (Energizing elixir baseline or off GCD, SEF off GCD, bug fixing, overhaul, whatever).
I really liked that I could hold my DPS cooldown for when it was important (lining up with procs or trinkets ASSUMING IT ACTUALLY ISN’T BUGGED WITH SEF) with SEF instead of having to press it on cooldown every single time.
Just my take, I really only enjoyed my WW in Legion
wasn’t the most popular build in legion a serenity build?
At least by the end of Legion the difference between Serenity or not was pretty minimal. But I’ve been known to have a bad memory so who knows. I just liked the general smoother feel of Energizing elixir oGCD+SEF though, to put it another way.
By the end if you were using serenity then you drastically hurt your dps, due to AtBT 4 set and lego helm combo being so good and the lightning chest.
However regardless I rather SEF reverted back to how it was pre legion, because relying on AI based cds sucks.
I feel like I’m being gaslit. I can’t remember in the last tier of Legion seeing a single WW monk (or guide, or video, or…anything) use anything but WDP.
Either that or I’m suffering some kind of stroke.
reread my friend
Stroke it is. Brb hospital.
SEF is coming off the GCD. It wasn’t mentioned in the original post but it was data mined later on, there is an article on wowhead.
It’s also on the official Blue post now, pumped for this change, SEF on GCD felt so bad!
It’s a shame Xuen is probably on GCD.
Xuen being on gcd not a big deal, the touch of death change it will be needed though
But that wouldn’t be too far out of character for what 8.3 has done across the board for classes. I definitely have been chunked by warlock, probably under this same concept, yet “This is fine.”
To be fair, warlocks with void ritual can 1 shot whole groups and Frost mages should be able to nearly 1 shot with glacial spikes with mastery stacking.
People also forget that minus the RoR trinket, 5.2 mastery was weak (but this could also be easily fixed by increasing % per point of mastery)
Ha, not to mention ignite spreading off world bosses to PvP targets was an issue (no clue if it hot fixed) but I’ve had Ignite ticking on me for 130k off spread from Sha of Anger. “This is fine.” 
“Better completely rework Monk mastery.”
It’s a boring build. Whirling Dragon Punch should be the best build. It’s the most monk-like. I would like to see an ability that procs the occasional free WDP. That would go a long way towards keeping sustained damage up.