Before Monk was confirmed, Blizzard went so far as to say Monk would NEVER become a class in the World of Warcraft.
When Mists of Pandaria was announced, that decision, like many others at Blizzard HQ, were turned around. Monk was coming. And it was told to be a unique melee experience that would fill the role of tank, DPS, and healer.
But more than that. Blizzard said they were pulling inspiration from the fighting style arcade games. While no titles were actually stated, the allusion to games like Street Fighter or Tekken were clear.
The initial vision was pitched as a melee class that would not use auto-attacks, and instead their abilities would replace their need for any auto-attack functionality. It was sheer lunacy. And it also sounded brilliant.
Further, things like combos were going to be an interesting twist on the class. It wouldn’t be like a Rogue, where the combo points were just another nuance of the drab generator-spender system. No. The Monk combos would offer a totally unique style of play, where moves would open into other options or abilities. They would be dynamic in the midst of combat.
Alas, among all the hype and vision, in the 11th hour, it was scrapped. Auto-attacks were given. Combos were scrapped in favor of the horrendously bad Tigerseye Brew system, which is thankfully long gone. Instead, Monk would look completely different.
Looking back, what we got wasn’t bad. In fact, healing orbs and warps and flying serpent kicks were ludicrously fun. It’s certainly in a nice spot today… But there is some restless wonder… Where would monk be today if instead another system did take hold… A curious notion… What if… ?
Idk man, that stuff was the greatest pvp ability ever. Increasing dmg and healing was great.
Also back in 5.2 TeB and
Gave me the most gimmicky fun I ever had because of our mastery of the patch was awesome.
So when that trinket would proc my TeB was making me hit with 1mil rsks on cloths, 1 orb healed me instantly like a LoH.
Agree that RoRo made it fun. Waiting weeks to get RoRo was awful though! This was before the mastery change too…
Before RoRo, mastery made TeB extremely beefy. After RoRo, the design flaw was apparent (at least the effects, not so much the cause). Mastery was nerfed to make TeB stack faster instead of be more effective.
The underlying problem of TeB is what your damage potential looks like out of TeB. So the goal became maximum uptime, so you didn’t suffer an effective damage cut during your rotation.
When cooldowns have uptimes of 10-20%, their use has some meaning or purpose. Once that figure pushes over 45% uptime, it’s no longer a cooldown and becomes a buff to manage (or you suffer penalization).
TeB was designed to be a buff, implementation to be a cooldown, and struggled to be a function between the two styles.
Edit: Just a story. I specifically remember giving up in WoD on the Brawler’s Guild just because I would go into fights with zero TeB stacks and miss timer… So then I’d have to pre-stack TeB every round just to make sure I wasn’t going to lose from one mechanic. That’s when I took a lot of time out to think about it and came to my decision on good or bad. Good in theory…
It was late in release, so gear should’ve been a non-issue. That’s why my frustration really mounted.
As far as MoP, the PvP kit was much better. Healing orbs and the mobility would make monk nearly unable to be killed. A lot of the good feeling I have from both expacs is from the kit around TeB, not TeB itself. I fully believe replacing it for Combo Mastery, though bland, was a good move.
The way whirling dragon punch is honestly a great example of monk potential.
Popping ToD into FoF, Rising sun kick and finishing off with whirling dragon punch is truly satisfying…something a class like demon hunter or rogue could never offer
Also back when double blackout kick was a thing or you still have the double slow then into a root.
Blizzard really needs to embrace this combo idealogy to differ it from demon hunter atm because demon hunter honestly does a lot of things monk can but better.
You know Eye beam vs Fist of fury
Mobility
Even their ranged attacks… DH just chunks a glaive where crackling jade lighting is clunky af… maybe give monks the ability to set up Hadouken and I honestly feel like adding jump into some of the combos while difficult to code would add a breath of fresh air. * rising sun kick vs high rising sun kick that also does missing health dmg starting at 30% max health so you don’t feel obliged to jump every rising sun kick.
Like double jump… Monk should get that one. I understand not getting the glide, but I don’t understand why my Monk can’t double jump, other than the developers timeline of content released (no lore or computational reasoning apparent).
I like the idea on using mobility as part of a bonus effect, and where maybe the bonus is utility instead of raw damage, so players don’t feel penalized for just wanting to play standing still (or a group mechanic requires it).
Getting big numbers via OP brokenness isn’t what I call fun or well designed. In fact, it’s stupid and quite the opposite. IMO a quick and agile fighter class like this should never have a “I buff myself to hit harder” as a major ability, anything and everything offensive should be a strike so it doesn’t hurt fluidity.
Fun should be about smoothness, fresh unique mechanics without being ridiculous and button/key press feedback to the player so appealing because everything flows so well chaining together to deliver something impactful, just like someone who used WDP’s underlying mechanics as an example. An example would be Combustion phase. My monk example would be the staggering and drinking mechanic.
That said, there’s always gonna be someone who enjoys something else thoroughly, even if it’s just a brain dead buff and there’s nothing wrong with that.
And monk had that all throughout MoP, then we were changed moving into WoD because we were gcd capped and people complained, so we got the energy nerf and been stuck ever since.
It’s funny how Blizzard did try pretty hard to fulfill the fantasy but failed again and again before WDP came along. Hurricane strike/kick? Chi orbs or whatever those rotating balls were called… chi explosion? Heck, that roll upgrade aka psycho crusher did damage at one point…
All over the place. Just like Hunters and Shamans, zero consistency.
Legion to BfA (and to SL) has somewhat a semblance of stability but man it’s a tough pill to swallow seeing how DH, Fury, maybe even Outlaw is (save horrid RtB).
5.4 monk was a great fluid time. Rjw replaced sck and it was possible to have it up 100% of the time.
So if felt like you were a true master of the wind along with not having to bother with SEF as a cd.
5.2 felt great not just cause of a broken trinket, but because all our stats felt good and the rotation was pretty impactful.
I never understood the hate from TeB, it’s way better than sef that’s for sure
Never got RoRo and loved mop monk. Also this thread made me remember stacking healing orbs on the teleport, and just being able to put orbs in front of you without stopping to cast. Mop was so good.
I also really liked your thought on dropping the tick bursts and increasing the tick rate on FoF. Just worth mentioning, I feel.
I don’t see how leaving AAs off the table would create balance issues overall since that’s how casters function in principle - they have no ticking “sustainers” between, save DoTs contribute ~1/5th white damage. Though, that is what I remember too. The health and PvP game was different back then too though, before Legion templates and all that work around health scaling.
I play both dh and monk and the big difference is how fast their AoE charges up and dumps, to then burst in to big ST dmg when using demonic. Monks FoF plus SEF and SCK are fun to execute but takes way more planning and time to execute. Factor in the long FoF channel and the SEF clones running off and you can see why DH is just better at what they do.
I’m having a hard time going in to this xpac deciding what to main. I started monk in legion and my guild needed DPS so I switched to DH from BRM. Then I went monk again in BFA and switched to DH. So going in to SL, I’m pretty sure I’m going DH or maybe even warrior.
I do like my monk though. Lots of mobility and fun skills but struggles with ST and doesn’t seem to be all that great at AoE vs others. I don’t know.