This could be considered the 3rd part of my forum miniseries on how to improve the Windwalker spec design, and really polish the visual design to the same standards as other specializations. You can find the first and second part here and here.
My apologies for the lack of hyperlinks, I’m not trust level 3 yet so this was the only way I could include references to imgur posts.
General aims:
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Crackling Jade Lightning replaced with Chi Bolt (
https://i.imgur.com/01QOFl5.png) for all specs. This to make lightning spells exclusive to Windwalker, rather than an entry-level spell accessible to any monk. -
Clear distinction between jadefire talents on the left, and white lightning talents on the right.
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Icons for several talents should be updated which I couldn’t do in this tool:
- Open Palm Strikes
- Touch of the Tiger
- Spiritual Focus
- Empowered Tiger Lightning
- All Touch of Death talents
- Crane Vortex
- Rising Star
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Several other icons are simply using duplicates of existing spells and talents as well, and I’ve added custom icons for inspiration.
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Removed the connection between Xuen’s Bond and Empowered Tiger Lightning to the talents directly above them, making them only reachable through Invoke Xuen. Added connections from Dance of Chi-Ji and Hit Combo down to the next row to compensate.
My aim with this tree was to solidify and polish the current Windwalker tree in terms of theme and fantasy, without fundamentally changing the gameplay. I’ve also addressed some “dead” talents and commonly disliked mechanics, and attempted to add effect to improve stat scaling.
Full tree (icons) (https://i.imgur.com/qui1QAh.png)
Full tree (names) (https://i.imgur.com/lqawX9n.png)
Fists of Fury (https://i.imgur.com/6gohgQh.png) now has a static channel time and instead increases the amount of damage ticks with Haste. This makes haste directly improve the DPC (damage per chi) of FoF, adding a small factor of haste scaling.
Glory of the Dawn (https://i.imgur.com/UKzULXG.png)'s proc chance is now equal to Critical Strike chance.
Rushing Jade Wind reworked to Jadefire Wind (https://i.imgur.com/QQFcP19.png). This is a chi builder which is inferior to Tiger Palm in single target (30 energy for 1 Chi), but superior when hitting 3 or more targets with it (30 energy for 2 Chi). It replaces Expel Harm in order to not use up another actionbar slot.
Jade Ignition (https://i.imgur.com/HxNDdtR.png) fully reworked and move to behind Jadefire Wind. This makes Spinning Crane Kick trigger a free and more powerful Jadefire Wind, at the cost of generating no Chi.
Dance of Chi-Ji (https://i.imgur.com/jUNVDLP.png) has a new icon and mechanic: rather than being rppm, it now grants the buff after casting 4 Chi spenders. I went for this approach instead of “X Chi spent” in order to avoid an anti-synergy with the current and upcoming version of Serenity.
Drinking Horn Cover (https://i.imgur.com/R81Jt8L.png) also gets a new icon, and an additional mechanic of extending Storm, Earth, and Fire or Serenity by 3 seconds when fully channeling Fists of Fury, canceling out the opportunity cost of channeling FoF when trying to optimize this talent. This has the additional benefit of gaining slightly more SEF/Serenity duration when FoF gains several damage ticks through Haste.
Strike of the Windlord renamed to Fist of the White Tiger (https://i.imgur.com/MUxF11a.png), otherwise remains the same. “The Windlord” refers to Al’Akir the Windlord, whose power was imbued into the Fists of the Heavens which unlocked the original iteration of Strike of the Windlord in Legion. Now that it’s a Windwalker ability and not a borrowed power, I think it should be renamed appropriately.
I’d love for it to get better target scaling, but I can’t put that in a tooltip anyway.
Thunderfist (https://i.imgur.com/yf9mtIh.png) gets a new icon, and can now be spent with single target abilities as well as auto-attacks. On top of that, it no longer has a duration.
Rising Star (https://i.imgur.com/lYW1X2n.png) and Crane Vortex (https://i.imgur.com/8uz0JLh.png) get a slight mechanical change for a bit more flavor than “RSK/SCK does more damage”.
Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger (https://i.imgur.com/xydK9wN.png) reworked to no longer summon a mini-xuen, but instead give the player a damage aura to replicate the same effect. This damage pulse is still hasted, and can crit. Thematically, it never made sense to me that you could summon Xuen, even if it’s just an effigy of him. It’s unclear whether Xuen is supposed to actively control this effigy, or the player controls it like an extension of themselves, but neither feels like something you can obviously do with Chi manipulation. Instead, you now empower yourself using Xuen’s teachings. As it happens, this can easily be integrated into the Conduit of the Celestials Hero tree, by simply having an empowered Jadefire Wind be active while the buff is up.
Xuen’s Bond (https://i.imgur.com/9NA15LL.png) is functionally fine, even if cooldown reduction is often made useless when trying to stack buffs anyway. The main issue with the talent is just that it’s very weak, so I’ve cranked up the numbers.
Empowered Tiger Lightning (https://i.imgur.com/TaOkaXN.png) only needed a small phrasing adjustment to account for Invoke Xuen’s rework.
Last Emperor’s Capacitor is reworked to Crackling White Lightning (https://i.imgur.com/Sy9MqoW.png), which reintroduces CJL into the kit with LEC’s mechanics baked in. I’ve also thrown in a “castable while moving” flag, since that’s one of the main annoyances about LEC currently. The base damage of Crackling White Lightning is also increased from current CJL.
Jadefire Stomp is renamed to Jadefire Burst Technique (https://i.imgur.com/36vk4eT.png) in order to mirror an upcoming talent, along with a new icon. This bakes in the damage buff from Jadefire Harmony, and removes the reset mechanic entirely. It is now simply a 10 sec damage buff that you can access every 30 seconds, and no more. As a result, the animation immediately fades unless you’re talented into Path of Jade.
The follow-up talent, Jadefire Concentration (https://i.imgur.com/xigxtwg.png), allows you to reduce the cooldown to 20 sec fairly reliably, and Path of Jade (https://i.imgur.com/iUtyyc2.png) reintroduces the lingering ground pattern for a medium-sized dot.
Bonedust Brew remains an eyesore to me, so I’ve reworked it to the mirror of the talents above: White Lightning Burst Technique (https://i.imgur.com/bkvn1R9.png). This removes any reference to a brew (that’s not our spec anyway), and is now an energy-based projectile. Its follow-up talents Sparks in the Wind (https://i.imgur.com/7ffUGeR.png) and Attenuation (https://i.imgur.com/5Kd60Wn.png) grant you additional effects when fighting debuffed enemies, like more stat scaling interactions and cooldown reduction.
Whirling Dragon Punch is retired and replaced with Jadefire Resonance (https://i.imgur.com/Eqen2id.png). I quite like empowered spells, and I think it could be fun to have the option of one in the windwalker kit. This is a throwback to the old Chi Explosion, and gains additional damage and effects when charging the ability with more Chi. If you start the empowerment with less than 6 Chi, the spell will simply fire as soon as your last Chi is consumed with the respective effects.
Skytouch (https://i.imgur.com/nSnhxtB.png) and Skyreach (https://i.imgur.com/mQY6Yu8.png) are ironically somewhat mismatched with their effects, (you “reach” without moving, and you “touch” by moving closer) so I’ve swapped the names. I’ve also reduced the crit effect as well as the target-based cooldown, which should makes it far less punishing and easier to ignore.
I’m also including the Touch of Death (https://i.imgur.com/If6MrjO.png) rework suggested by Hursti some time ago. Note that this ability has a hasted cooldown, can crit, and benefits from Mastery: Combo Strikes. This rework includes adjustments to most of Touch of Death’s modifying talents: Fatal Touch (https://i.imgur.com/8yYvXGL.png) reduces the base cooldown by 10 or 20 seconds (2 point talent), Improved Touch of Death (https://i.imgur.com/mSNaca0.png) increases the hp threshold to 35%, Forbidden Technique (https://i.imgur.com/AhRwum7.png) grants the spell a second charge and a damage increase, and Fatal Flying Guillotine (https://i.imgur.com/AthF9xC.png) allows you to strike up to 5 targets with one cast, with some extra flair added to the animation similar to Killing Spree or Blade Dance. The 40% reduction on each hit roughly results in the same damage as the live version when used on 5 targets.
Lastly, although I’m generally satisfied with the state of the Monk class tree, I would still like to rework Summon White Tiger Statue (https://i.imgur.com/ns1Xk6j.png) to be a utility spell rather than an all-too-simple damage pulse. This is a raid-wide mobility totem similar to demonic gateway, except it is one-way only and relies on the player to aim with their camera.