Updated: January 7th, 2021
- Introduction:
I wrote a guide about WW PVP in SL on the US Forums maybe someone might be interested about it here:
Hello everyone, my name is Cutiepie and I am a Windwalker Monk from EU who started playing Windwalker ever since 5.3 and has stayed my main until today.
I started playing serious PvP in 5.4. My most activity has gone towards 2v2 though where I reached multiple times rank 1 ladder spot. I reached multiple times glad and have been on rank 1 cutoffs very often in 3v3 couldn’t make the cut though because of personal irl reasons. My goal always in this game was to perfect windwalker gameplay and play the specc in unique ways.
- About the Guide :
It is aimed to give you a quick hint how Windwalker probably will play out from my own personal beta testing, popular Windwalker twitch streamers and Data as well as of theorycrafting. And give you an overview for all the possibilites Windwalker has in Shadowlands PvP be it 3v3 or 2v2 Arenas.
- About the Class:
Windwalker currently can hold it’s ground very good, the damage and utility is underestimated and very good, probably among the best in the melee category. Windwalker though has defining weaknesses towards the heavy defensive nerfs they’ve faced from the transition from BFA to SL. But it can be played around with good usage of Transendence and the new Legendary Escape from Reality when it is needed.
- Overview about the Guide
- Talents
- Honor Talents
- Covenants
- Legendarys
- Gear and Stat Combinations
- Rotation
- 2v2 and 3v3 Compositions and general Awareness
- Miscellaneous (macros, tips etc)
1. Talents
Talents mostly stayed the same, but there have been some changes in choices and possibilites.
15 Tier: Pure preferance I like using Chi Wave personally, but Eye of the Tiger is also a viable choice. The difference is actually so minor that you can use anything. Chi Wave though overall does more healing.
25 Tier: Tiger’s Lust
30 Tier: Acension when you have to play more Defensive or you play with Escape of Reality. It can also work good with Invokers Delight. Fist of the White Tiger when you play with Keefer’s Skyreach or Invokers Delight our new Legendary Items in Shadowlands.
35 Tier: Ring of Peace, Good Karma in certain double dps 2v2 combinations.
40 Tier: Diffuse Magic against any caster combination, otherwise Inner Strength/Dampen Harm against double melee combinations.
45 Tier: Dance of Chi-jI is too good to pass by. The bursty damage proccs fits windwalker good and the overall damage is higher than with Hit Combo.
50 Tier: Now that’s where things get interesting. Currently on the Beta you are able to play with the Legendary Keefer’s Skyreach, which enables a new Build where Serenity comes in play. I’ll explain it later, when I come to all the legendarys. Otherwise you will still play with SEF and Whirling Dragon Punch.
2. Honor Talents
Windwalker barely saw any changes to Honor Talent in SL, which is sad but this ultimately also changes not too much from BFA.
Honor Talent 1: Reverse Harm: Nothing much to say here it’s important in any aspect for Windwalkers defensive, but can be swapped out for Disarm/Alpha Tiger for more control/offensive gameplay.
Honor Talent 2: Turbo Fists: Should always be picked, only consider anything else if you need another honor talent and you play against double caster combinations or in 2v2 against Casters in general. And even then the 90% slow can punish positioning mistakes very hard, so try to always play it whenever possible.
Honor Talent 3: Our flex honor talent here it depends on which setup we’re facing. Your standard pick is Alpha Tiger for more offensive pressure. Grapple Weapon though should always be considered against melees outside of Survival, Feral and Windwalker. Ride the Wind can be considered if you play against Frost Mage or Affliction Warlocks.
Tigereye Brew should be picked against Affliction Warlocks, Balance Druids, Holy Paladins, Ele/Resto Shamans and any Plate DPS if you can afford losing Disarm or Alpha Tiger. All other honor talents barely have a use and should not be considered.
Ideal Honor Talent choice if able to be played:
- Alpha Tiger
- Turbo Fists
- Disarm
3. Covenants
Kyrian > Night Fae > Necrolord > Venthyr
Weapons of Order
WindwalkerFor the next 30 sec, your Mastery is increased by (1.25 * 10)%. Additionally, Rising Sun Kick reduces Chi costs by 1 for 5 sec, and Blackout Kick reduces the cooldown of affected abilities by an additional 1 sec. BrewmasterFor the next 30…
Kyrian currently offers the best covenant and soulbinds for Windwalker PvP. You’ll still will want to have the Pelagos Soulbind for the 3% Magic damage reduce buff and the Mastery buff increase.
Let go of the past works the same way like Windwalkers Mastery which is good.
The perfect Situation to use Weapons of Order is with Xuen and SEF together. During this time you will try to clip as many Rising Sun Kicks and Fists of Furys in the 30 seconds window as possible. To achieve this you will spam Blackout Kick regardless of your mastery until your Rising Sun Kick is off cooldown, as Rising Sun Kick is our hardest hitting spell in Shadowlands. You will find yourself sometimes using Tiger Palm for generating Chi which is also okay.
Fists of Fury is used and then immediately cancelled for more Rising Sun Kicks and Whirling Dragon Punch to create heavy burst spikes to your target, as your clones will continue casting Fists of Fury during every other spell you cast.
Conduits:
Updated November 18th Best in Slot Soulbind Path Pelagos:
Soulbind Calculator - World of Warcraft
View the Kyrian Covenant Soulbind tree for Pelagos and create your own Soulbind and Conduit path for any class in World of Warcraft: Shadowlands.
I’d still overall recommend using Pelagos mainly for the mastery buff and the early access to 2 potency slots. Even though it has been nerfed multiple times now.
Potency BIS: https://www.wowhead.com/spell=336598/coordinated-offensive and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=337286/strike-with-clarity
Updated January 7th
Calculated Strikes has shown recently to insanely boost damage numbers in combination with Dance of Chi-Ji when you were able to aquire 3 stacks or more of Mark of the Crane.
In PvP the mark of the crane buff behaviour is inconsistent and sometimes stays up permanently and stacks up to 6 which causes this conduit to actually gain an insane edge over Strike with Clarity. It effectively adds 45-90% more damage on Dance of Chi-Ji.
Update January 7th
Xuen scales really good with our stats and Invokers Delight, which makes Xuen’s Bond also a really good alternative to use. However all the potency conduits are very close together and the 2nd potency conduit is optional. I will be using Calculated Strikes or Strike of Clarity.
Endurance BIS: https://www.wowhead.com/spell=336379/harm-denial and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=336632/grounding-breath
Finesse BIS: https://www.wowhead.com/spell=336884/lingering-numbness and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=337084/tumbling-technique
For Pelagos, if you want to use the Potion with extra healing then you need to pass on a potency conduit and instead take a Finesse Conduit. Remember that Coordinated Offensives is the must pick potency conduit and always should be considered, regardless if you have 2 potency slots or not.
All the other 3 Covenants are unappealing and not very good. Kyrian is a safe net for PvP and Raiding.
4. Legendarys
For Shadowlands we have 3 very good PvP Legendarys which are in one or another way needed.
Invoker’s Delight
You gain 33% haste for 20 sec after summoning your Celestial. In the Monk Spells category. Learn how to use this in our class guide. Always up to date.
This Legendary will be our first choice for the majority of PvP matchups.
It’s such a good Legendary, It should be used with all your other CDS together and especially with Alpha Tiger it is an insane blast. people will just get melted instantly. Compared to all other legendarys it is also the most straight forward legendary and is not hard to play around.
Escape from Reality
After you use Transcendence: Transfer, you can use Transcendence: Transfer again within 10 sec, ignoring its cooldown.During this time, if you cast Vivify on yourself, its healing is increased by 70% and 50% of its cost is refunded.
This will be our main defensive Choice for Shadowlands.
If you know you will be main target (usually against Jungle, Rogue Mage aka setup based combs) this legendary will make wonders. People usually follow you during a good setup even to your transendence spot to finish you off. By doing so with this legendary they’re actively wasting more time and missing a kill oppurtunity. The healing from Vivify is also really complimented, because during a setup you’ll most likely find yourself casting after you used transendence. This will also on top of everything heal you easily to full HP.
However if you are not the main target of an enemy composition, then the legendary is a wasted slot and only has limited value. I recommend crafting this legendary as very last.
Keefer’s Skyreach
Tiger Palm now has a 10 yard range and dashes you to the target when used.Tiger Palm also applies an effect which increases your critical strike chance by 50% for 6 sec on the target. This effect cannot be applied more than once every 1 min per…
This will be our Plan B best choice for WW PvP.
This Legendary has a lot of potential for changing up how you play Windwalker. This Legendary effectively will give you the possibility to play Serenity, which results in less sustained Burst damage but very high burst spikes/damage.
What you want to do is setting up Xuen and then basically macro all your amplifierer and then spam Rising Sun Kick during the 6 second crit buff duration. You’ll want to achieve during this time at very least 2 Rising Sun Kicks. These Rising Sun Kicks are going to hit hard high crits around 20k+.
However it is also playable with SEF but probably not optimal, It’s a good legendary however if you feel yourself getting kited. Then it can gain more value than Invokers delight.
Downsides are that you are not able to cast your main resource generator until you start bursting, otherwise you mess up quickly. It’s very unforgiving and should be planned ahead and should only be used as Plan B if nothing else works. It’s a fun build to delete people though. You can also effectively swap targets and get full value of the crit buff from Tiger Palm when it fades. Remember that after Serenity you are basically doing nothing.
I’d always recommend playing Invokers Delight and SEF.
All the other Legendarys are niche and not recommended. Jade Ignation might work against Demo Locks or Unholy DK but it’s not worth it.
5. Gear and Stat combinations
When it comes to our stat priority towards Windwalker PvP in Shadowlands nothing much changed compared to BFA. Crit is now more valueable. It was increased in PvP from 150% extra damage to 175%
You’ll still want to aim for Versatility>Mastery=Crit>Haste
Versatility and Mastery continue to be our best stats in PvP as they directly increase our damage and our much needed survivability. It is not too bad to pass up on crit if you don’t have the perfect Mastery/Versatility Items compared to BFA, because of the changes to the PvP Scaling and the increase of value Crit got in PvP.
Haste continues to be a dead stat for WW’s so try to avoid it as hard as possible even when it means 0% Haste.
Your basic Gear mixture will be very general. But I will mention some specials.
As Trinkets you’ll want to use Gladiator’s Badge and Gladiators Medallion or Gladiators Relentless if you are Human. Battlemaster defensively instead of Badge.
As for Weapons, you will always want to play with Double wield instead of 2H, unless you get a massive boost of ilvl by a 2H. You are losing out of extra attacks for ToD and one enchant if using a 2h weapon which is overall a net loss but not by a lot.
You also need faster attacks because Touch of Death reacts to your attacks at 15% of someones HP instantly, which means it could take a full swing time of a 2H until Touch of Death glows up.
6. Rotation
Your Windwalker rotation will look the same like in BFA. Use Rising Sun Kick and Fists of Fury on cooldown and then close the CD’s with Blackout Kick and Tiger Palm. You’ll want to avoid using 2 spells in a row due to our Mastery.
When you use Weapons of Order this rule is nullified and you will spam Blackout Kicks until your Rising Sun Kick comes off cooldown. Otherwise keep your Mastery up.
In an Arena environment you usually will start:
Expel Harm > Disable > Tiger Palm > Rising Sun Kick > Tiger Palm > Blackout Kick. Wait until your Expel Harm comes off cooldown once again and then start your burst rotation. This however is a perfect scenario. In certain situations you have to adapt and coordinate your burst windows with your team mates and how your enemies react.
There is no real burst rotation in PvP tbh as enemies will always counteract you.
Your normal Burst Rotation will look like this:
in this situation you should at least have 3 Chi available
Leg Sweep > Rising Sun Kick > Tiger Palm > FoF Cancelled at 50% of your cast > Whirling Dragon Punch > Blackout Kick > Rising Sun Kick > repeat.
Depending of your Haste level you can switch Blackout Kick with Rising Sun kick at the end of the rotation. This might happen if you have Alpha Tiger, Weapons of Order and Invoker’s Delight up at the same time.
The important part is to clip your FoF to cast WDP or Rising Sun Kick to create huge burst as already mentioned earlier, your Clones will continue casting FoF while you use other abilites.
Your Serenity Burst rotation looks like this:
Here you don’t need to keep care of your Chi just use whenever it fits the best.
Tiger Palm (to get Alpha Tiger buff and Legendary crit buff) > Legsweep > Rising Sun Kick > Blackout Kick > Blackout Kick > Rising Sun Kick > FoF (stopped whenever 1 blackout kick is enough to reset RSK) > Blackout Kick > Rising Sun Kick.
7. 2v2 and 3v3 Compositions
In Shadowlands it looks like our Compositions will be very diverse I’ll put them down as S Tier, A Tier and B Tier.
S Tier WW 2v2:
Restoration Druid/Windwalker
Holy Paladin/Windwalker
Restoration Druid is a very durable healer and very versatile the nature of how Druids heal will help us survive setup go’s better one of our weaknesses where we can die. With multiple stuns due to Maim, Bash and Rake they offer a lot of value for Windwalkers to create pressure. They are also able to put up a lot of CC themselves with intimidating Roar and Cyclone. Rdruid’s are also looking to be very strong healing-wise and can survive melee classes very good by themselves.
A Tier WW 2v2:
Restoration Shaman/Windwalker
Nothing much to say here very good comp, access to spam purging and damage output of a Shaman in SL is very high. They’re the best healer against casters. They lack some sort of self defense against melee classes where you have to peel them often times. But overall a great healer. My personal favourite juice comp (class colours look great together)
B Tier WW 2v2:
MW/WW
Disc/WW
MW saw some big nerfs which doesn’t make them appealing to play with anymore.
Disc priests are too hard to play around they often times get smacked by melees and don’t have the mana for long games which makes the game a ticking clock. They can still work good and It’s still a very good offensive comp however all the other healers are much better to play with as Windwalker.
S Tier WW 3v3:
SP/WW/x (rsham best)
Mage/WW/x (Hpal best)
Enhance/WW/x (Hpal best)
All these compositions are looking very strong for WW in SL and these will see a lot of play in SL considering how strong these classes are and how the upcoming Meta looks right now.
A Tier WW 3v3:
Ele/WW/x (Hpal best)
Boomkin/WW/x (Rsham/Hpal best)
Arms/WW/x (Hpal best)
DH/WW/x (Rsham or Hpal best)
WW/DK/x (best Hpal)
All these comps are very good and can be played to rank 1 level even though they have some counters. Some of these have S tier potential but otherwise I’d rank them as A+ tier.
Overall WW looks to have a great choice of classes to play with which is refreshing to see. All other comps which I didn’t mention are not that common or not that good.
8. Miscellaneous (macros, tips etc):
I personally don’t use much Macros but there are some which are must have which will definetely make your life easier.
-
#showtooltip
/cast [target=party1] detox (party2 if you play 3v3) -
#showtooltip
/cast [target=party1] Tiger’s Lust (party2 if you play 3v3)
I personally use one macro for 2v2 mostly and then write down the name of one of my team mates (usually healer) to boost them whenever it’s needed for 3v3 (root beam for example). Otherwise I target my team mates manually. You can also write down in the macros the name of your team mates you play with consistently.
-
#showtooltip
/cast [@focus] Disable (how people will tell you that you’re annoying) -
#showtooltip
/cast [@focus] Paralysis
For Paralysis I personally use this one macro for every situation. I don’t need more. There are however mouseover macros which you can use to make it easier to use.
-
#showtooltip
/cast [@focus] Grapple Weapon -
#showtooltip
/cast [@focus] Spear Hand Strike -
#showtooltip
/cast Roll
/cancelaura Roll ( quick jebait)
There are some more macros available (Ring of Peace for example)
But I personally don’t use them maybe I will sometime but I am feeling good right now.
There are also weakauras available to remind you to put up transendence etc but I don’t use these kind of things. So i can only tell you that these things exist. You will most likely try to find them out yourself.
Otherwise some general Tips:
Try to remember to put up your port. One missport and you are dead. You can try to find a Weakaura but this is an important reminder.
Keep Disable up. What I spectate often times is that many windwalker let go their disable button. If you are near someone use it or reapply it. The root is a skill ceiling check with it you can do a lot to prevent from happening. E.g if you see melees running mindlessly to your healer don’t be scared to use your mobility to peel and apply disable or even root them. Chances they will be frustrated are high. For good healers a slow is mostly enough to keep melees in check. It’s also important for you to kite.
If you see a Priest running with speed to your team slow them root them. They will try to setup a fear on your healer.
If you play against a Mage don’t ever use SEF before they used Frost Nova. It nullifies your burst window. However if you have to, try to do it during stun windows or when you can lock him down. You are now also able to cancel SEF.
Touch of Death can only be blocked by immunites and Absorptions.
Crackling Jade Lightning has a knock effect. With it you can knock melees away from you or even down a bridge (Blade’s edge arena). Good use of it can be during Fists of Fury of another WW and you don’t have options to stop it or kite it.
Against other Windwalkers try always to have at least one roll up so you can roll out of Fists of Fury.
Vivify is a strong healing spell in Shadowlands now. Use it for your team mates when they are in trouble. It literally saves games and if you get kicked your healer has freeroom to cast whenever the cc chain is over.
You can use Ring of Peace to knock people into your range and get a double legsweep. It’s a good and satisfying play to do.
When you used Xuen and you are playing a CC heavy comp then keep an eye how your enemy is positioned. Xuen can easily break CC like Polymorph or Incap. Use a cancelaura for Xuen if you really have to.
Final Words:
I made this guide by fun and I’ll try to update it regulary whatever happens during Shadowlands. These kind of guides are kinda oldschool and they existed a lot back then in WoD in all class forums. I always thought they were cool to look through whatever interested you and were a great step for especially new windwalker players or even og WW’s to learn something new.
I am German so it might come to grammar mistakes or multiple uses of certain words if there is somewhere a big mistake towards it, then remind me of it and i’ll edit it.
This Guide took a lot of time and I hope you guys like it, I am also open to critism in certain constructive manner and tips how to improve.
I am also open to answer questions regarding different things I may have not mentioned. Thanks for reading.
