I do theory crafting for the spec, have for years, high end raiding, done these types of posts before, blah blah blah.
Anyways, onto feedback primarily centered around raid/m+ performance and output. I think the thematics are strictly improved so thanks for that.
Overall Class/Spec Trees:
Good Changes:
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Stomp no longer positional requirement via removal of resets (I had suggested this a lot previously so glad to see it)
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BdB and associated dead talents removed (I had suggested this a lot previously so glad to see it)
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ToD heavily de-emphasized given it was very polarizing in regards to both opinion and damage output
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Additional haste bonuses via Momentum Boost and Glory of the Dawn
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Overall fewer useless points with better attachments to stuff like Inner Peace and Glory of the Dawn (I had suggested this a lot previously so glad to see it)
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WDP is actually made a button via damage boosts and additional procs
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Keybind compression via Dampen Removal/Statue removal from active/RJW
removal/BdB removal/Chi wave auto casts (I had suggested this a lot previously so glad to see it) -
More interesting bonuses provide via more talent options interacting with things like Blackout Kick and Strike (I had suggested this a lot previously so glad to see it)
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Class tree far more options and nodes providing more choice instead of being forced into talents you don’t care about for pathing
Bad Changes:
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Removal of auras on Generous Pour and Close to Heart nerfs an already poor utility kit in raid and m+ environments. DH for example has a far better buff as well as darkness. WW has only mystic touch which is one of the worst raid buffs.
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Class tree devoid of usefulness. There are for example something like 10 talents related to snare removal and snare application. All of this is practically useless in a raid environment and near useless in an m+ environment.
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Removal of tankiness via loss of Dampen Harm. WW outside of cooldowns is one of the squishier specs, especially if we do not invest as heavily into vers as we do now. No bonus stamina, only passive DR is avoidance which is heavily conditional, defensive procs in tree do not protect from 1 shots which is common in m+, etc. WW is going to be one of the squishiest specs in TWW. Mobility is good for damage avoidance in PvP, but in PvE I cannot just roll out of unavoidable 1 shot boss mechanics. I’m not asking for dampen back, but please consider adding some options here for survivability
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Extreme emphasis on burst via the addition of numerous multiplicative modifiers (more on this later) creates a spec where you have scripted 5-15s damage windows then can effectively do nothing for another minute.
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Class Tree capstone points are pretty uninteresting from a PvE perspective and Fatal Touch is a totally unnecessary multiplier. Sure I can go 50% faster around the world or something, but that doesn’t help when I’m stuck in one spot hitting a guy.
Worthless talents
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Numerous class tree options, pretty much anything that isnt damage or passive healing or DR
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Combat Wisdom is borderline worthless given Expel Harm doesn’t generate chi, yet it is required to go lower in the tree.
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Flying Serpent Kick is right under Combat Wisdom, so 2 dead points is a rather contested tree just to unlock your cooldowns. Flying Serpent Kick is redundant for most content given all the additional mobility added. Make it baseline if you’re so intent on us having it?
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Touch of the Tiger is useless
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Martial Mixture is maybe the worst option in the tree
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Meridian Strikes has no place given the removal of other ToD talents and will never be taken
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Rising Star is very bad for 2 points in a very contested talent area. Doubling it and making it 1 point would make it more competitive depending on target counts
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Last Emperor’s Capacitor is never worth taking and conceptually doesn’t fit with a spec extremely focused on burst windows.
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Xuen’s Bond being in the same row as 5-10% damage amps is a head scratcher. This talent is never worth taking.
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Path of Jade and Singularly Focused Jade aren’t particularly interesting regardless of tuning (and Path of Jade seems very bad).
Overall the amount of worthless talents is down considerably, so props to that, but still some issues here. Pruning or new options would both be fine.
Problematic Interactions
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SEF being a requirement via the removal of Serenity is unfortunate. It’d honestly be nice if there was a way to have a choice node that keeps the same effect but keeps everything centered on the player. Having clones jumping to dying targets, not prioritizing Sky Touch well, etc, rather limits the usefulness of not just always focusing clones.
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Numerous new multiplicative modifiers including Acclamation, Fatal Touch, Dual Threat, Gale Force, and Hero Talent trees. It’s pretty easy to draw up scenarios where Windwalker is doing 10x+ normal damage in very small windows. This would both make any “burst phase” in a raid trivial via the inclusion of a Windwalker to a degree probably never before seen, as well as requiring the core WW rotation to hit like an absolute noodle as a consequence. Easiest fixes: Remove Sky Touch, Gale Force is probably unnecessary, hero talents should probably be less loaded (specifically Shado-pan can be very silly and when combined with Sky Touch encourages literally afk’ing to line up)
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Talent support for SCK is limited. Crane Vortex is also very expensive being 2 points. Blackout kick has numerous multiplicative multipliers available and combined with overall chi generation reduction leads to potentially just not pressing SCK outside of specific circumstances. This also naturally leaves Windwalker in a place where AoE (and thus M+ performance) is probably quite weak given a total lack of utility and defensive options.
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Some pretty silly things can be accomplished with openers that I won’t mention because they’ll be fun to do :).
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Whirling Dragon Punch can quickly be made very difficult to cast. As an example, FoF is a 4s channel, RSK is a 10s CD. If your haste is 100%, FoF is a 2s channel, RSK is a 5s CD. The cooldowns of abilities are reduced more in absolute terms than FoF channel is reduced, so it can become very difficult to cast WDP while within certain buffs. Please reconsider the casting criteria for this ability
Hero Talents (lol)
To be clear I dig Conduit of the Celestials and the thematics here are nice, but you can get pretty degenerate.
- First off, Conduit does 1200% AP * 9 according to tooltips. In current terms, that would do at least 10m damage! So probably the strongest single button press in the entire game? and that is before the additional bonuses. On its own it’d be doing about 100k dps, so close to 30% of damage would be this one button press, all in a 2-3s window. Lol. Obviously will be nerfed, but again, lol
Shado-Pan’s Flurry is probably even more degenerate. Assuming you get at least 20 stacks you could get the following
- A 2000% AP hit
- A 20% agility boost (lol)
- 30% increased critical strike damage (fully multiplicative with crit chance)
- Double the damage of Flurry
- 15% bonus crit chance on Flurry
- 10% bonus damage on Flurry.
End result? Something like 5000% AP, plus a 50%+ damage modifier for abilities casted within 6-20s. You will literally afk to line that up with Sky Touch, probably even if Flurry itself is nerfed given the Wall+Against All Odds multiplicative interaction
You probably just need to go back to the drawing board here on some combination of how this procs, what the proc does, and how stacks are obtained. Keeping it attached to Sky Touch encourages some very silly gameplay. Against All Odds is also probably just unnecessary and dumping multiplicative buffs into something hard to time well makes skill cap very silly in addition to requiring extensive external UI support to gauge stack count and progress towards proccing.
Anyways.
Misc Hero Talent Notes
Shado Pan
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Martial Precision Providing 10% armor pen is unintuitive. Please do not introduce players to armor calcs, nobody needs that brain damage. Other games have much easier to understand armor pen calcs which could make this very confusing for most players
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Veteran’s Eye seems really bad. 5 hits for 1% haste? Pretty forgettable.
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Lead from the Front and Protect and Serve are both uninteresting and do basically nothing for us
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One Versus Many: Cool I guess? Be careful with your multiplicative FoF modifiers tho!
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Whirling Steel only procs at sub 50% hp and avoidance is a very weird stat. Pretty low value for us
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Vigilant Watch: Does this stack? If so, lol, if not, seems strange, might as well just make it Flurry does 10% more since you cast BoK a bit more often than you spend 400 energy.
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Against All Odds is lol
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Efficient Training is a sure why not thing.
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Wisdom of the Wall is lol
Conduit of the Celestials
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Temple Training is infinitely better. Stop buffing tiger palm, it sucks.
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Courage of the White Tiger does a pretty silly amount of damage. Cool concept tho.
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Restore Balance: Sure why not. The MotC stacks are somewhat redundant given we are forced SEF tho? Hard spot for you guys but would really be nice to maintain Serenity visuals as a choice node to not have clones.
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Heart of the Jade Serpent is hilarious and I’m not sure if you’ve considered what it enables.
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Strength of the Black Ox is a sure why not thing, but also like really? 500% AP? No mastery scaling?
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Flight of the Red Crane is weird. Not possible to proc the RPPM unless you take WDP creates a DoCJ proc or Rushing Jade Wind as a talent. Neither of those seem optimal on ST. Perhaps this is intentional but seems strange. Probably just have all/most of the RPPM consumed during a Xuen cast? Not sure more burst is necessary
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Heart of the Jade Serpent makes WDP basically uncastable. Please reconsider how WDP is made castable. This actually becomes important when WDP is a meaningful damage contributor.
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How does Inner Compass work? Given us 12% stats for example can be pretty silly if we keep other multiplicative modifiers.
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Unity I dig thematically, 200% effectiveness can get pretty silly though lol.
Overall
Good direction addressing some pain points, but please don’t make me track Flurry as is and please don’t release something where my spec gets drastically nerfed to being unplayable outside of 1m and 2m CD overlaps. Some defensive/utility help that is PvE focused would be nice as well. Thanks!