WW Monk 8.3

Classes Monk
1

Hi everyone,

I’m Huok, a WW/BrM monk player. I used to play WW monk quite a long time at the EU server, and now I’m playing monk at the US server for less than a year. Luckily, I could experience WW monk capabilities in EP by having a few top 10 world, and some top 100 world parses according to warcraft logs. Therefore, I would claim that I probably would know the strengths and weaknesses of the WW monks. (to buy some attention to this topic, maybe?)

As you all know, WW monks in 8.2, according to warcraft logs, had the worst performance between DPS classes (not the worst spec) in the single-target situations.
I’m not going to talk about that as Babylonius has a really helpful article at the Peak of Serenity about WW performance in 8.2!

Recently, Blizzard announced that they are going to buff WW monks at 8.3 by buffing our Rising Sun Kick by 25% and buffing our Blackout Kick by 10%
The question is: is it enough? Would it move us to at least the middle of the DPS charts?
Babylonius in his most recent article in Peak of Serenity claimed that it is about 3.7% buff to the CURRENT WW monks!
This should be enough to move us to the middle of the charts. But we need to be more careful about what we are going to lose in 8.3!

8.2 trinkets had some nice synergies with WW monks’ Touch of Death. Like many other WW players, I found Inkpod and Cyclotronic Blast extremely good on WW monks. The reason is simple. They do burst damages! And that’s precisely what a WW monk wants from a Touch of Death.
As I was browsing 8.3 trinkets, I haven’t found any trinket with such synergies with WW monks yet. If we don’t have any considerable burst damage trinkets in 8.3, we will lose 10% of trinket DPS increase because of their interaction with Touch of Death, which can altogether cancel out Blackout Kick buff (or even way more).

The other thing is the WW scales really bad! With the best gears of 8.2, mastery is our worst stat, while Crit and Vers are at the top! WW monk lacks a good scaling system because of its mastery and passives. This means we fall behind from other classes while average ilvl increases.

All and all, we need to be worried about yet another patch of bad performance and hard try, no reward situation for WW monks.

I think the WW monk community should ask Blizzard more buffs and tuning for WW monks before 8.3 get released.

I would appreciate it if you WW players leave a message here and share your ideas and let Blizzard know about what we are thinking about WW monks!

Thank you so much for reading this!!!

6 Likes
2

there’s not much point in asking for pre-emptive tuning when datamining just started. we haven’t even seen everything from the patch yet

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We already have enough news about itemization to say at least itemization in 8.3 will cancel out WW’s buffs, and we will go back to the first place.
My point is to mention that if the buffs intend to bring back WW to the middle of the charts, these buffs only barely “keep” WW where it is standing at the moment.
The other point of reacting soon is to have enough time to react to any future changes.
Yet another point is to have enough time to discuss what statement is wrong and what statement is right. Right now, as far as we know, there is no burst damage trinket, and there will be no burst essence or azerite trait to do what Inkpod and Cylco were doing. This is a direct 10% nerf to WW because of the Touch of Death mechanics. Now, people can discuss if this claim is right or wrong!

Therefore, with current information, what am I saying is nothing is going to change for WW single target. In the future, if we got any other news about itemization like the announcement of a new trinket or a usable item, we can stop worrying about 8.3!

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4

Even with less trinket synergy in 8.3, I think I’ll still be happy with the burst we can do. It’s the passive and sustained damage which is my problem. My monk’s melee sims at under half of my equally geared rogues melee for example. I Think Tiger Palm needs a buff for sure to make up for this. If all they can do is tune numbers a bit, I would like to see at least a 20% buff on Blackout Kick too. I still doubt this will make us competitive with other melee on single target though because of how badly we scale.

5

We need buffs to compensate for channelling stopping auto attack which reduces auto attack, ancient flame and vile bile (from the Underrot fist weapon). Alternatively Blizzard could change it so auto attack doesn’t stop when using our channelling abilities. These passive proc abilities have consistently been better on every other melee. Now maybe the difference is or less, but when you combine them together it is a disadvantage for WW and one we clearly cannot afford

To be frank though, WW needs an overhaul. We have deviated so far from original design, in fact we are the complete opposite of it.

6 Likes
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I like our current design minus like you said about not auto attacking in FoF. That would go a long way in helping us I think.

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This is pretty much the reason I quit my WW monk.

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http://wind.mathweaving.com/

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9

We should be able to equip two-handed staff’s like we used to be able to do before Legion. I can’t stand that we cant equip a two handed staff and have a great animation on a finishing move like when Monks first came out. Stupid. Using a two handed staff may help with stat optimizations as well. I also agree the WW monk needs to look back for ways to improve in the future - a buff to kicks is a good step; however, when our number one damage output comes from a channeled spell that kills auto-attack I think that the mechanics break down on the class. Tiger Palm needs a buff for sure, burst needs something - perhaps a brew? I love the WW monk, it feels fun - but the work to maintain it definitely out weighs the output we can DPS at.

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Good post OP. I like the changes coming in 8.3 but don’t feel they go far enough as well. Mainly i’d like to see scaling improved. (well mainly i’d like to play WW as it was in MoP or Legion - with better scaling). Having read stuff from Babylonius for a few years, whatever fixes he likes are fine by me.

11

i agree with this after leveling for the zandalari heritage armor i can say the spec is clunky and does need an over haul.

i hope with the level squish and class revamp because of it things will get better for ww monk.

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I am loving monk so far but yea fist of fury could use a redesign to make it feel more impactful and versatile. Make it non channeling except for the residual effect of our punch. For example we still make a big single punch, like Bruce Lee’s one inch punch technique, then because of the force of our chi and punch the enemies in front of us are beset by waves of chi punches for a duration of 3 seconds. We can do other things tho after the punch and while the residual force of our punch is still ongoing.

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Blizzard could make it really interesting where FoF was a 5s buff proc that enabled WW to use 5 abilities otherwise greyed out. These abilities have a.0.5s CD and only 1 of the 5 is active at a time. Successfully using the right ability causes a new or same one became available

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Monk already has too many buttons. Instead what they could do is our next X abilities are empowered

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8.3 will not get us an overhaul… they can’t do that. What they could do is fix the trinket bug that makes burst dmg trinkets too strong during ToD + SEF.

Then from there we need another buff to compensate for the lost damage. My recommendation would be to buff chi wave / burst. Those used to be fun buttons to press with meaningful impacts in single target or aoe situations. Now they are kind of worthless hit combo fillers. Lastly allowing FoF hits to count as auto attacks for proc purposes would help on hit items feel better.

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16

My feeling is that ww monks need more single target buffs. I hate tyrannical weeks my boss damage is always so low :confused:

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Or give us our combo stack back up.

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You talking about hit combo? I would rather the spec itself get the buff and not a talent that further decreases the usefulness (or lack thereof) of the other talents.

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wouldnt mind seeing our class “dumb down” in shadow lands. you guys asking for FoF to change is kinda off turning. just see what we can buff with tp, BK and RSK and make our 30sec cd buttons a bit beefier, if they can dumb down some that would be cool too. i do think we have maybe 2 more buttons than needed

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Antorus ww monk was probably the most fun I’ve ever had dpsing in raids and in open world content. Don’t know why they stripped so many specs down to clunky bare bones for BFA.

1 Like