I think I’ve spent enough time with it this expansion to truly know just how good it is and how it compares to the top tier classes. I am currently 621 ilvl and completed every dungeon on a 10, some over time.
What sort of improvements were made from Dragonflight?
I like “Ordered Elements” as a middle ground for Serenity being removed. Although, I would caveat this by saying tying this buff to RSK is actually sort of annoying in AOE pulls when you want to maximize SCK. It occasionally leads to annoying buff drops which isn’t fun. These buffs having durations inside durations of other skills isn’t well designed. You create these fun situations, but to properly play around them you need WeakAuras to track them. It really should be simplified to be part of the SEF buff to alleviate some of the amount of “tracker” and stack WeakAuras introduced this expansion.
Removing any incentive to using Jadefire Stomp (Feyline Stomp) is a plus as well because it was toxic to use in any fight with mobility.
Single target damage was greatly improved and feels pretty good in most cases. Even being just average is better than usual, so overall got to acknowledge that.
What about negative changes?
Acclamation:
I see what Blizzard was going for, giving us the ability to ramp damage on a single mob, but I think overall it isn’t the right direction for Windwalker. A mechanic like this makes it harder to spread Mark of the Crane without gimping your damage in most scenarios. Using a Blackout Kick to not waste the RSK stack on your main target or trying to weave in Tiger Palms is added complexity for no reason and is counter intuitive to the classes playstyle outside of SEF. It comes out to a 3-6% damage amp after ~9 seconds on single target and somewhere between 12-21% during SEF for a few seconds when clones hit. I don’t like the inconsistency of this. It should have a cap and persist until death or out of combat on a mob.
Removing Expel Harm:
Turning Expel Harm into a passive tied to your opening skill is bad as it removes an instant fast gcd from your kit. Before you could Tiger Palm → Expel Harm → Tiger Palm for Chi Cap then blast through your Chi, but now it feels sluggish and awkward to build up to 3 Chi sometimes for Fists of Fury without breaking Hit Combo.
Whirling Dragon Punch:
I was happy this came back as a good ability, but it is time for the activation requirements to go. FoF and RSK being on cooldown is very outdated. RSK lowers FoF cooldown by 4 seconds, Blackout Kick reduces RSK by 2 seconds during SEF and randomly resets it. You have to press these buttons and sometimes its going to line up to where it bricks your WDP activation. Our on demand burst for AOE isn’t even remotely good compared to top classes and this restrictions does nothing but cause frustration.
Blackout Kick:
This skill is pretty weak right now as a filler. If you do a search on your Talent Tree, you will see a dozen talents that give Blackout Kick different effects. This is too many. Simplify it. Also I think there is a good argument to be made for removing Teachings of the Monastery. Would rather the skill be baseline okay to press than only okay to press with max stacks.
General Buff Tracking:
There are so many untrackable, stacking, unique duration effects going on this expansion that it isn’t even possible to know what is going on without addons.
For example:
- Ordered Elements RSK 7 second chi reduction duration + 1 second off RSK cooldown after Blackout Kick
- Dance of Chi-Ji stacks
- Jade Ignition Explosion
- Teachings of the Monastery stacks
- Chi Burst stacks
- Instant Vivify internal cooldown that runs independently from the buff.
- Flurry Strikes
- Damage until Touch of Death does full execute vs 35% damage.
What didn’t get addressed in TWW? What issues still remain?
Invoke Xuen:
Give it a 1.5 min CD. I am sick of it being out of sync for zero reason and requiring you to save 3rd SEF an extra 30 seconds.
Storm, Earth, and Fire:
This skill should only replicate single target skills. Tiger Palm, Blackout Kick, Rising Sun Kick. Positioning requirements for Spinning Crane Kick, Fists of Fury, and Strike of the Windlord are far too unforgiving to leave it up to the targeting AI. Also this lets us hit bigger numbers and that is more fun than it being 1/3 * 3. Or at least change it to you deal 100% damage and clones deal 10% each.
Summon White Tiger Statue:
This shouldn’t exist.
Strike of the Windlord:
This ability can miss your target completely if you have to turn your character or move your camera as it is casting. Change it to an AOE around the target instead please.
Spinning Crane Kick:
This is an actual nitpick complaint, but why is Mark of the Crane still 18% per stack. Just make it 20% so it adds up to 100%.
Fists of Fury:
This just needs an large AOE size buff and target requirement removed. 8 yard range in a small cone is awful. It is way too hard to hit a group of mobs with this skill compared to something like Odyn’s Fury or Eye Beam. To hit the 5 target dummies in Dornogal you have to be inside them. On my DH I can Eye Beam them all from 15 yards away from the nearest target.
Touch of Death:
Blizzard has an internal server timer that ticks every ~1.5 seconds that checks if your current target is below your Current Health. It is nearly impossible to get a full hp Touch of Death off because of this. You will almost always end up hitting it millions of damage short because of this. If the timer lines up, yeah you can get a bit more damage, but it doesn’t matter. Touch of Death needs to be redesigned.
Conclusion
Windwalker received some notable changes to single target that has helped a ton and I am happy about that. The problems that remain and introduced are frustrating, but what can you do. The chances any of these problems get fixed this expansion are near zero. I just wanted to put out my thoughts on the class in it’s current state. This definitely isn’t well written, but just some observations I’ve made. Might fix it later.
Overall I’d say coming from Dragonflight these changes:
M+: 5/10. Feels like not enough changed mechanically.
Raid: 7/10. Nice to do good single target.