Hello!
Me as a Windwalker Monk player who is pushing 0.1% title in mythic+ every season, have some couple of words about season 2 changes and overall things that met in season 1. So this topic will be focused more for mythic+
The changes you made for PTR 11.1 are really good in my opinion. Getting rid of Mark of the Crane and buffing Spinning Crane Kick (and mastery scaling aswell) instead give us an opportunity to deal high damage, at least way better than it is (i made that conclusions after doing some Operation Floodgate 12s keys on PTR).
The thing that disappoint me is bugs… So fixing the bugs makes as stronger and gameplay will not cause disgust. Here are the most annoying bugs that Windwalker Monk have:
- Something is causing our casts (Celestial Conduit, Spinning Crane Kick and probably Crackling Jade Lighting too) interrupting. Part of that bug has been fixed at the beginning of season 1, but the remain one still exists. I saw a lot of feedback on forums about interrupted casts but i do not understand how this thing still in the game.
- Flurry Strikes. If we switch target at 180 energy which was not in the combat before we do not get benefits from Wisdom of the Wall, Against All Odds and Flurry Strikes will not discharge until we strike with Rising Sun Kick or other ability before press Tiger Palm.
I would like to add 1 more thing: please let Strike of the Windlord to deal reduced damage after 5 targets instead of splitting damage across all enemies, so it will feel like a real big button you want to press.
There are a lot of more bugs but those ones should be fixed as soon as possible because it affects the gameplay in a bad way. If it will be fixed, Windwalker have a high chance to be good DPS spec in season 2.
Sorry for the mistakes, English is not my native language.
Hello,
Even if the patch note goes to the right direction there are still several issues remaining.
I won’t talk about the channeling bug stopping by itself because of random proc (fury of xuen, chi burst, etc …) since it is there since day 1 …
- aoe is still tank level. This is due to our spell that deal aoe are part of our ST rotation. I understand that you don’t want to buff it too much since it will likely break monk dps in single target. But now spinning crane kick is legit one of the best spell in single target with dance of chi’ji proc so you have increased the problem, not solved it. You should consider transfer some spinning crane kick power to other spells (fist of fury cleave and removing split damage on strike of the windlord for example) in order to help you get some space for improvement on WW aoe.
- slicing winds should not replace flying serpent kick and should not make you leap forward. Roll or dash with lighter than air is not part of our aoe rotation like demon hunter. What works with demon hunter does not work with windwalker. It is clunky to use and the repositioning make us loose some dps where for example demon hunter can still dash back and do some dps.
- removing rising sun kick from heart of the jade serpent was a terrible idea. First because slicing winds will never be part of our ST rotation and second because it nerfs too much an already weak hero talent tree. With the improvement of mastery it should have made it on par with shado-pan if you did not have remove rising sun kick from it.
Yet aoe is better and easier to set up and mandatory unfun talent are now gone wich is a good point. We are still very constant on both ST and aoe. The problem is being constant in aoe is only good if you do smaller pack wich was never the way to go strategy in M+ and having no combat rez, no bloodlust and no buff (mystic touch is lackluster, never needed) does not help neither.
Beside that you made really good job to increase scalling of windwalker and the spec perform quite well in ST.
I miss to say something, the channeling bug also stop slicing winds charge/channeling preventing it to do damage but still incurring the cooldown.
To add here, I’m the the theorycrafter for Windwalker and currently maintain our sims. So here goes nothing:
The positives about our changes and the tierset:
- Tierset looks amazing visually
- No tierset bugs which is a surprise
- Mastery buff allowing our abilities to keep scaling is a good thing
- Increasing SCK damage in AoE is very much needed
The downsides of the PTR changes/tierset:
- tierset has zero impact on gameplay and could basically not exist
- tierset is quite weak and needs to be buffed
- Slicing Winds is very awkward to use and needs the instant charge distance either nerfed or removed
- Slicing Winds has no impact with the rest of the kit and is therefore very boring (like Jadefire Stomp)
- Removing Rsk from Heart of the Jade Serpent was very stupid since it nerfs conduit for no reason
- Removing Mark of the crane and buffing Sck baseline may be great for Aoe but has devastating effects on lower target counts
=> talent diversity: gone; one talent builds for all situations
=> playstyle: same on all targets, potentially using sck even on st to drop chi with shadopan
- No major issues that currently remain were adressed: Why is conduit still split damage and therefore too weak in aoe? Why does Jadefire Stomp still exist/ is not massively buffed/changed?Why are so many damage amps for SEF bugged?Why is wasting Chi with shadopan still a thing?
Overall I suggest reworking the 4p cashout effect into something that actually changes our gameplay and rethinking the way you want to buff spinning crane kick, because the current solution is not sustainable for the spec.
Best regards Kholer from Peak of Serenity
Thanks for joining a discussion. Hope Blizzard will read and make further changes in a right direction 
I can agree about everything you saying, but tier-set is not that bad as you thinking. Stacks (2p) generate quite fast and after resetting Winning Streak! you able to gain another stacks together with Cashout (4p).
So after playing on PTR i might say tier-set actually increase your AOE/ST value. Yes, it is boring but way better than season 1 tier-set bonus in terms of damage impact.
I think Blizz should first sort out a spec’s base set of abilities and talents, making sure everything is fun and balanced, before adding borrowed power that impacts gameplay. The base kit should be properly fixed, instead of having a tier set act as a temporary solution.
I know Blizz intentionally kept the season 1 tier bonuses bland because the new hero talents already added so much new stuff. Now we’re heading into season 2 and players want new stuff. But I think it would be better to get another bland tier bonus and instead get lots of tweaks to our base kit, because it still has too many issues.
Great changes! I saw a lot of feedback about those things and glad to see you actually read the ideas from players. Keep it up!
To let us play Conduit of Celestials and make it as a choice, Celestial Conduit needs better target scaling (for mythic+). The same thing is for Strike of the Windlord.
And again… bugs (especially the one that interrupting casts) which negative affect to our gameplay.
Hello,
I would like to say couple of thing about WW Monk from the point of more casual m+ player (this season just doing 10s-11s), maining WW monk since Legion, and see some discussion. Most of these ideas are just from top of my head and not deeply thought through, but I would like to hear from others if it’s actually a decent idea or just absolute non-sense.
First of all to adress the changes on 11.1 so far. Definitely step in the right direction, but
- Tier-set is pretty dull having no interaction with our rotation, but I guess people like it more like that (e. g DF S1 set bonus being chosen over S3).
- Slicing Winds is a great idea but I too don’t like it replacing Flying Serpent Kick because you are losing one of the best combat mobility, and you will almost never use Slicing Winds for movement in combat since it would be a significant loss to your damage.
- Slicing Winds doesn’t interact with the rest of the kit. Maybe adding something like “Generates 3 Chi and reduces cast time of your next Fist of Fury within 6 seconds by 50%“
- If Crackling Jade Lightning will actually be playable and the go-to talent, let us channel it while moving, similar to Fist of Fury, but keep it interruptable. Having to stand still as a melee is really frustrating.
Now to some changes to the WW Monk kit
- I really miss Weapons of Order back from Shadowlands and I don’t think I’m alone on this one. It felt like a really big CD while kinda altering your rotation. Storm, Earth and Fire has been buggy probably the whole time it exist without ever being properly fixed, so how about getting rid of Storm, Earth and Fire and putting Weapons of Order in it’s place, with a couple of tweaks and tuning of course. Adding Spinning Crane Kick to the Chi costs reduction with internal CD on it. Keep it similar to SEF – 2 charges with 1.5 min recharge time. I personally like the relation of SEF and Xuen where you can use one charge of SEF while Xuen is on CD and have to track and keep one charge of SEF to pair it with Xuen.
- And for the biggest problem of WW Monk – high targets count. Please make us in some way deal uncapped AoE. Slicing Winds, Whirling Dragon Punch, or maybe Dance of Chi-Ji procs durning Storm, Earth and Fire. I realize It’s incredibly hard to balance uncapped AoE to not be broken, but it’s really frustrating being so underwhelming on high target fights.
I’m no expert on this, but I just wanted to give my two cents here. My apologies if any of these ideas are absolute garbage.
We got additional changes, let’s go over them and see what they mean
-
4 set buffed to 8% per stack:
=> an insignificant buff for st, increasing the sets value from 5% to 6%. Still weak. That said, the set is better in aoe situations, albeit by no means strong
-
Slicing winds damage increased and charge distanced lowered:
=> great change making this ability now usable. However more interaction with the kit would still be great
-
Xuens bond now provides a flat 30 second cdr:
=> great change, not much to say about it
-
Last Emperors Capacitor value buffed to 400% and LEC nerfed to 80% value to compensate:
=> this enables both of these talents to be used. At the current state, it’s possible we might even run both in st for shadopan. Conduit cannot afford these talents, giving us nice talent diversity between the different hero talents
-
Heart of the jade serpent now triggers with every sotwl and reintroduces rsk
=> great change, less tracking needed and much more consistent playstyle
Overall, all these changes are great. However the Todo list is still very large:
- SCK in AoE still needs major buffs for us to be competitive in m+ and probably a nerf in st
- Our tierset still needs help in st situations
- Conduit still needs help if it wants to be played. Particularly in m+ it stands no chance due to the lack of aoe scaling. Where is our SQRT (square root damage scaling) for celestial conduit?
- other things like Jadefire stomp, fixing our bugged damage auras, the whirling dragon punch grace period, clipping sck channels…
Thank you very much for listening and implementing to our feedback.
Kholer from Peak of Serenity out 