I’m a Vanilla player who has just returned after a long hiatus since Catacylsm. I’ve played almost every class at one point or another. Rogue and Hunter in Vanilla. Priest through BC. Warrior and Death Night through WotLK. Mage through Cataclysm. And now Druid, Warlock, Demon Hunter in BFA.
Excluding Shaman and Paladin — which never really seemed to perk my interested — Monk seems to be the only class I haven’t tried that I might really enjoy. Since I wasn’t around for Pandaria, I know almost nothing about the class mechanics. But I like the fact that Monk, like a druid, can fill all 3 roles. I like the flashy animations and AoE damage. I’ll even go out on a limb and say I think the Pandas are cool. I prefer lightheartedness in video games to seriousness — video games are after all, a pretty ridiculous form of entertainment.
So is it worth my time? What am I missing here? I put myself in your hands community. Yes, I could just do the class trial, but I figured talking to others would give me a better scope of things.
Thanks for reading!
I’ve grown more and more fond of monks over the years. To the point where I’m maining a Mistweaver at the moment right now. Their playstyle for each spec is different than any other class has to offer, and I like that unique aspect of them.
I’ll start with Mistweaver as that’s what I currently play the most. One very cool thing about the current state of healers is that no two feel the same. They’ve managed to make 6 completely different ways to heal and have all of them be effective. Now for MW specifically. They are tied with Druids as the most mobile healer, and largely rely on instant casts while channeling to deliver the largest burst healing currently in the game. 3-4 globals will top off your low HP tank. However this can come at a cost of burning through your mana pool rather quickly, so you have to be careful. The other downside is MW have very limited external defensive cooldowns, and their AOE healing, while not extreme bottom tier, isn’t as potent as some other classes.
Wind Walker is the most mobile dps class in the game. Not even your Demon Hunter will be able to catch a WW monk in full retreat. To me the playstyle feels as if a paladin and a rogue had a baby. Energy bar with “chi” points that comes down to being a builder spender class. Pretty good aoe and good burst, but WW is pretty squishy as a whole. It’s best defense is it’s mobility.
Brew Master is… well, to be honest I don’t tank all that much, but the stagger passive makes for a unique twist on tanking as it’s basically active mitigation at all times. It takes a portion of all incoming damage and spreads it out over 10 seconds instead of all coming in at once. It allows you to take some pretty big hits while giving your healers time to deal with the damage when they otherwise might have to commit a cooldown to save you.
I’d say give it a shot. The worst that will happen is you don’t like it, in which case you can file it away to try again in a future expansion. Cheers, good luck, and have fun!
Thanks for the rundown, that was really thorough! I really enjoy healing and tanking, so I was particularly interested in those mechanics.
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I played vanilla as well and havent played for 9-10 years. I just came back and wanted to make a character that could fill all roles, had cool lore and high mobility. Monk fit the bill. I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I loved mistweaver animations and skills and mostly play that since I love healing. I do WQs and sometimes 2s as a windwalker and flying dragon kick is great if you have to move across the map and get dismounted and summoning to clones of yourself and then spinning crane kicking or fist of furying is a very satisfying aoe. I havent played much of Brewmaster, but I love the lore and concept. I tanked a heoric dungeon wasted once and we blew trhough it despite the fact that I never played Brew before lol. If you like monks, you can go back and do the timeshifted pandaria dungeons for the lore flavor. I still need to get the class mount, but that looks sweet. I would recommend. I feel like with three modes, you dont even really need an alt
Puts DH’s to shame in the mobility category department if specced right.
MW monk is my favorite, I just wish it felt as strong as it did. In Legion content, MW monk was god mode.