Personally I really like the vast majority of changes made to the WW and Monk trees, however I have a few concerns about features that I think seriously impair the fun factor (and viability) of Windwalker with the current setup.
Bear in mind I primarily like to PvP and that’s the lens I’ll be looking through.
Elephant in the Room: Storm, Earth and Fire
I have to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to or heard a single windwalker player who likes this ability. Windwalker’s fundamental fantasy is being a glass cannon torpedo running around the battlefield and beating people up. Having a menagerie of animals (with one of the new Hero Talent Trees, but more on that later) and minions around you simply feels like it has nothing to do with the spec. It’s baffling why the Brewmaster ultimate of SEF was ever given to WW in the first place.
The fact that SEF doesn’t offer an array of clones who do additional damage, and instead nerfs your own damage into the ground in order to give you an alright damage boost IF(big if) all three clones can hit the target is horribly unfun for a number of reasons;
Jank being one of them. This ability has been cursed since the dawn of time to have awful AI and a myriad of bugs which were then taped over with band-aids but never truly made into a smooth experience where you can confidently say that if you press a button, your clones will repeat it on the correct target at the correct time.
The most egregious issue, however, is that as soon as any amount of soft or hard CC hits your clones, you are done for. Storm, Earth and Fire is the only “big dps cooldown” in the game that actively nerfs your damage. In PvP situations a myriad of things can make SEF completely worthless; AOE fear, AOE stun, AOE root, and you might say "oh well those things would keep you from doing damage with any other CD too! Except not, because you have trinket, Tiger’s Lust, ally’s Dispel etc. to help you stay active during a go, but your worthless clones aren’t going to do any of those things. Pressing SEF in PVP against any competent opponent is a 58% nerf to your own damage dealt. Not to mention the clones have anti-synergy with a number of important damage sources like Thunderfist.
This is fine, however, since there is always the option of picking Serenity… except… you’re deleting it for the War Within. Honestly, I can see why, as throwing the whole chi economy out of the window feels like a really cheap way to give you extra damage, but it’s still miles better because it involves buffing your own character rather than turning into a Beast Mastery Hunter.
Nobody likes SEF, and it ruins one of the most fun specs in the game. If you intend to keep it around for whatever reason please either keep Serenity or put in a new choice damage cooldown to use in its place.
Hero Talents
Shado-Pan
As much as I like the talent tree changes, the hero talents are a travesty. Shado-Pan isn’t thematic to the Shado-Pan “ninja warrior” fantasy at all. But, fine, I can step past that. The entire tree however is just “you deal more damage, and sometimes even more damage, over which you have almost zero control.” The whole tree is insanely uninspired and adds nothing new to your playstyle whatsoever.
Conduit of the Celestials
This tree is a lot more thematic and a lot cooler (even though personally I, again, don’t like the fantasy of summoning a menagerie as a WW monk) as there are some cool things you can do with the various celestials(their base forms mind you, the tree doesn’t really do anything interesting with them besides let you access them more). It also adds a new active ability, which for all intents and purposes is just Convoke the Spirits, (Zero RNG Edition™) Again, this makes no sense for windwalker monks. You’re a mobile fistfighter, why are you randomly channeling Convoke for 4 seconds to annihilate people from range? I like it for Mistweaver, but I cannot fathom why this pairing was made with WW.
Jadefire Stomp
Please axe this thing. As nice as it looks it just doesn’t fit with the WW theme (again…) and the extra damage boost it gives makes it mandatory to take. I’d like to see this either completely removed or made into a choice node with something else so I do not have to play the Covenant ability that was the least popular choice when it first came out, and for good reason.
Conclusion
Everything else you’ve done with the rework is fantastic and I’d really hate to see a few key things completely dumpster the fun when the potential to be amazing is so obviously there. Please consider implementing some of the above changes.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.