I’ve always enjoyed WW thoroughly, the playstyle of hit combo just plays so intuitively smooth. I’ve played WW at a decently high level in legion and on and off on an alt from legion to DF. The spec works really well, however, I think WW is not without its problems, in alot of ways I think WW could be massively improved with a few QoL changes that other classes have and that I’ve always taken for granted on those.
Some of my issues with WW:
Melee range interrupt: So many classes have a ranged interrupt that it took me a while to adjust to the range of spear hand strike. It’s annoying to interrupt as a WW monk because of how often you’re in the middle of a fist of fury (interrupting something and cancelling FoF in the process is a dps loss). Having to chase mobs because you’re not exactly in melee range or the important caster is casting something in the back, ugh. Tiger palm has a 10y range now with Skytouch, Strike of the windlord has a 9y range, FoF has an 8y range. I feel it wouldn’t hurt class fantasy or balance to give WW a 10y kick.
Touch of Death: I understand why this is a melee ranged ability, but it feels so bad… I don’t think anything feels worse than trying to use ToD on a mob and it leaps away or the tank kites it away at the last second. Especially in M+ where the tank is kiting and the mob dies before you can ToD it. This is exacerbated when trying to use the second charge, I’m often frantically trying to cast the second charge before the 5 second timer runs out and then the mobs are being kited or die before I can use it. I think upping the range to 8-10y would make this ability feel SO MUCH better.
No bloodlust/CR: A lot of classes are in this boat, but it really hurts specs when they don’t have lust/CR. Yes there are the CR wrists, but you have to be in melee range and it can fail. We have alot of utlity and amazing utlity at that (ring of peace/leg sweep/dispel/para), but we’re still often not taken because we don’t bring lust/CR.
Bloated defensive kit: This irks me alot, look at ret paladins, look at warriors. Especially Ret paladins, they have very similar defensives except on a far lower CD and they don’t have to put 5 buttons on their bar or worry about magic vs non-magic mitigation while being far tankier passively. I think WW needs pruning when it comes to their defensive kit… Remove Fort brew, give us 5% extra stam baseline. Give Dampen an extra charge or reduce the cd to 1 min.
Jadefire Stomp: A 10 second maintanance buff that requires you to stand in the area to reset the ability to keep the buff up. I think this ability feels bad to play, it has so many issues, especially in M+. You have to constantly preplan the direction of where you want it to go, sometimes it squishes because of weird terrain, you can get unlucky and it simply won’t proc the reset or mobs/bosses cast an aoe right on top of your stomp. Rune of power was removed for a reason, nobody likes abilities that restrict movement, look at DK’s with DnD look at prot paladins with consecration.
The Talent Trees: The class tree feels extremely restrictive. Why is Disable (an ability I’ve legit never used. If I want to slow something I could just quickly tap flying serpent kick.) tied to fortifying brew? You often have to forego paralysis in order to have room to take something in the class tree. I’d love to take the Expel Harm talents to use it as a pseudo defensive sometimes, but Vigorous Expulsion is tied to Soothing Mists and we simply don’t have enough points to invest in talents like Profound Rebuttal and Strenght of Spirit.
The spec tree feels restrictive as well, I don’t know if it’s the amount of ToD/SCK talents or the power of certain talents vs others, but I feel there are no flavor talents I can pick without hurting my DPS significantly.
I want to end this post by saying that even though I have issues with WW, I think the basic rotation is insanely fun. It’s probably the most fun spec in the game for me, but I feel it could be an absolute banger spec with a few QoL changes.