TL;DR
Optimizing around Teachings of the Monastery (TotM) feels unnecessarily complicated, primarily due to the interactions going into and out of Blackout Kick. It almost feels like a design flaw for the 3rd stack of TotM to be so undesirable, both in terms of optimization and in the general flow of how TotM is played.
TotM would feel much smoother and be easier to figure out if Tiger Palm triggered Rising Sun Kick resets instead of Blackout Kick (adjusting the reset chance as needed).
Tiger Palm would feel more rewarding, Blackout Kick would be easier to “wind up”, and Rising Sun Kick would still get its rotational resets. Figuring out an optimal way to to interact with a single ability shouldn’t require a ton study and math… its play-style should be intuitive.
ToTM, How Many Stacks?
This post would be way too big if I tried to simulate every possible synergy in the new Dragonflight talent trees (along with the fact Windwalkers will have access to it as well), so I’m going to present my scenarios from the perspective of a Shadowlands-ish Fistweaver focusing on questing and outdoor world content (more damage, less healing). I’ll revisit some factors from a high level perspective later, but let’s dive into some numbers.
Stat references (using my current level 44 numbers):
- Tiger Palm (TP) - 94 damage. Usable every global cooldown (GCD).
- Blackout Kick (BK) - 268 damage. Usable every other GCD.
- Rising Sun Kick (RSK) - 681 damage. Usable every 8th GCD unless it resets.
- Teachings of the Monastery (TotM) - TP causes BK to hit an extra time, stacks up to 3. BK has a 15% (per hit) to reset RSK’s cooldown.
I’ll outline two different approaches for leveraging TotM to increase damage output. For simplicity’s sake, I won’t be mixing in any healing spells or Thunder Focus Tea into these rotations. Rotation #1 will prefer max stacks of TotM when reasonable, whereas Rotation #2 will just go fishing for as many RSK resets as possible within reason.
Rotation #1 - no resets:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RSK | → TP | → TP | → TP | → BK (x4) | → TP | → TP | → TP |
| → RSK | → BK (x4) | → TP | → TP | → TP | → BK (x4) | → TP | → TP |
| → RSK | → TP | → BK (x4) | → TP | → TP | → TP | → BK (x4) | → TP |
| → RSK | → TP | → TP | → BK (x4) | → TP | → TP | → TP | → BK (x4) |
(repeat)
- Tiger Palm (x21): 1,974 (no crits) - 3,948 (all crits) total damage
- Blackout Kick (x28): 7,504 - 15,008 total damage
- Rising Sun Kick (x4): 2724 - 5,448 total damage
- Total: 12,202 - 24,404 damage
Rotation #2 - no resets:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RSK | → BK | → TP | → BK (x2) | → TP | → BK (x2) | → TP | → TP |
| → RSK | → BK (x3) | → TP | → BK (x2) | → TP | → BK (x2) | → TP | → TP |
| → RSK | → BK (x3) | → TP | → BK (x2) | → TP | → BK (x2) | → TP | → TP |
| → RSK | → BK (x3) | → TP | → BK (x2) | → TP | → BK (x2) | → TP | → TP |
(as you can see, the rotation repeats pretty cleanly)
- Tiger Palm (x16): 1,504 - 3,008 total damage
- Blackout Kick (x26): 6,968 - 13,936 total damage
- Rising Sun Kick (x4): 2724 - 5,448 total damage
- Total: 11,196 - 22,392 damage
Calculating RSK Resets
Assuming zero luck with RSK resets, Rotation #1 deals roughly 9% more damage than Rotation #2. If we factor in a 15% for BK to reset the cooldown on RSK, things get more interesting (as does the math).
For simplicity’s sake, I’ll assign a value to an RSK reset triggered from BK by how soon RSK can be used again. So, using the “rotation” tables above as a reference, a BK triggering a reset in the 8th position of the rotation has a value of “0” (because RSK would’ve been usable in the next GCD anyway) whereas a reset triggered in the 2nd position has a value of “6”.
- Rotation #1 Total Reset Value: 3x4 + 6x4 + 2x4 + 5x4 + 1x4 + 4x4 + 0x4 = 84
- Rotation #2 Total Reset Value: 6x10 + 4x8 + 2x8 = 104
Trying to keep this relatively simple, we’ll multiply the reset value by 0.15 (representing 15%) to estimate the number of extra RSKs we’d get out of each rotation. Then, we’ll add those extra RSKs onto the damage total for each:
- Rotation #1: 12.6 extra RSKs, adding 8,580 - 17,151 damage.
- Rotation #2: 15.6 extra RSKs, adding 10,623 - 21,247 damage.
New totals including an estimated value for RSK resets:
- Rotation #1: 20,782 - 41,555 damage.
- Rotation #2: 21,819 - 43,639 damage, roughly 5% higher than Rotation #1.
The math and logic behind this isn’t perfect, but the presentational estimate is enough to get a point across: Maximizing the benefits of TotM is counter-intuitive to how the ability seems to be intended to work.
Other Considerations for ToTM
- Rotation #1 effectively suffers from diminishing returns along with a slower ramp-up on longer fights.
- Rotation #2 is significantly more flexible when needing to weave in other abilities while RSK is on cooldown.
- Rotation #2 takes better advantage of talents which work off of Rising Sun Kick due to the increased number of resets in comparison to Rotation #1.
- In the Dragonflight Mistweaver tree, the synergies available to each ability affected by TotM have a dramatic effect on how desirable they are to use:
- Tiger Palm: Ancient Teachings of the Monastery, Awakened Faeline
- Blackout Kick: Ancient Teachings of the Monastery, Spirit of the Crane, Ancient Concordance
- Rising Sun Kick: Ancient Teachings of the Monastery, Thunder Focus Tea, Rapid Diffusion, Rising Mist.