Monk & Windwalker Talent Tree feedback

Classes Monk
1

Hello! I’m a longtime Monk main and have been heavy into Windwalker since the start of BFA. I do M+ keys at semi-high level (+20-24) and raid Heroic as well as the occasional Mythic. My feedback will be coming from this perspective.

There are a couple of issues with the Monk talent tree in general:

  1. Roll. I assume the Roll ability in the Monk talent tree is an additional stack of roll instead of the baseline ability. It should be available to all specializations without having to pick Soothing Mists first. I advocate for swapping its placement with that of Calming Presence (a passive damage reduction talent) in the middle. Mobility is a big drawing point for Monks and should be available to all Monks without having to sacrifice throughput. Also, a new Monk player might miss out on it and assume that Monk mobility is lackluster.

  2. Ferocity of Xuen talent is incredibly boring. A 4% increase to overall damage that requires two talent points is about as bland and flavorless as talents come. Worst of all, it will be mandatory for all Windwalkers and Brewmasters out there. I understand putting old/unexciting abilities behind talent points so that a leveling Monk feels like they are progressing their character, but a low level Monk player is unlikely to feel a 2% or even a 4% damage increase at all, so that excuse doesn’t fly here.

  3. Windwalking. Putting this behind Eye of the Tiger is weird, but so is the nerf to it. The current iteration of Windwalking in Shadowlands increases movement speed of you and nearby allies by 10%. A two talent point sink that increases movement speed of you and your allies in 4 yards by the grand total of 4% is, blandly, preposterous. No self-respecting Monk is ever going to pick this. It just feels like a further nerf to the current Monk toolkit that just reduces the movement capabilities of Monks. Movement abilities are one of Monks’ highlights and should be, at the very least, preserved. Now, the fix here is easy: change the 2% increases into 5% increases instead. You will still only gain the current maximum of 10% passive movement speed, but that’s fine, especially since it will be available for all Monks. It should also probably swap places with the throughput increasing Eye of the Tiger, so that Mistweavers can get it without picking an unnecessary damage increase.

Other than those three points, I am overall satisfied with the Monk talent tree. You feel like you are building up to your current baseline, sure, but that’s honestly fine. I’m even okay with Spear Hand Strike being low on the tree, considering that Mistweavers will finally gain access to an interrupt. Great stuff overall!

Now, Windwalker tree has a couple of points I am not all too happy with, starting with the most major one:

  1. Bonedust Brew. Nobody picked Necrolord because Bonedust Brew is a fun and interesting ability. Moreover, it doesn’t make much sense in the class fantasy either, other than being a brew for Brewmasters. It’s a dull ability and very uninteresting. Even worse than this, its current application into the talent tree makes it even worse. If you are going to have a controversial ability like this in the talent tree, it should be a capstone ability. Currently, it is a mandatory pick for any kind of AOE builds due to inexplicably bottlenecking the access to Calculated Strikes, it also requires an additional talent point to make it good via Attenuation. This is nonsense. Calculated Strikes should at least come in the tree before Bonedust Brew, so that you are not forced into it to do AOE damage. Also, Attenuation should be removed. We need fewer incentives to pick BDB, not more.

  2. Far less importantly, the current placement of Whirling Dragon Punch makes no sense. It’s a super fun ability, it should probably have its own build with Rising Sun Kick and Fists of Fury buffs such as Hit Scheme. Maybe in place of Bonedust Brew? Currently, I missed it on my first go through the talent tree. Its positioning feels like an afterthought rather than an ability that is fun to pick. It also feels like a missed opportunity to not have an additional talent that makes you able to move during the animation, although it would also probably require another incentive (such as a damage increase) to make viable.

It also feels like the current Windwalker talent tree has little interconnectedness. You either have to go down the left path, the middle path or the right path, rather than getting to move over into another path halfway through, the same way as Enhancement Shamans do on their fantastic A+ talent tree.

I love Windwalker and hope to see it flourish. I’d be excited to play one for the third expansion running, but I really hope that my main point about Bonedust Brew gets acknowledged. It wasn’t even the most fun covenant ability! Weapons of Order was.

4 Likes
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Agreed, I only recently converted to necro for WW as its my least played of the 3 specs at the moment. Bonedust brew is a horrible ability to play around even if it is currently the top AOE DPS ability. I would be glad to see this dissapear.

3 Likes
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Hey ppl, I am a Monk main, mainly in M+ but I do Raid for loot. Got the 0,1% title every season in SL for M+ as WW, am playing Brewmaster around the same level, so I feel competent enough to give my opinion on these regards.
Bonedustbrew is actually a fun ability in the current state of Windwalker:
a) it is a valuable CD that has to be planned and decided “when” to use
b) you have to adapt your actual gameplay to its use/ the legendary proccs.

On the other hand I do fully agree, that the times of “finding” the right rotational choices, Chi and Energie preparation, positioning and situations for using BDB are done and closed.
It is not a “new” ability anymore and with Dragonflight it will not be a “free” choice, but rather a talent to be invested in. BDB going into Dragonflight feels limiting in the factor that - as you said - no one would pick it because of “BigFUN”, but because of the numbers behind it.

Going back to my point about “it is a 1 min Cd that has to be planned so its fun etc.” I still think, that BdB has potential, but the node under it (dmg increase to BDB) feels weird investing. It is “a point too much”.

Calculated strikes could be swapped with BDB to open the way for a potential Aoe-Fist-Build with SCK as almost a “filler” and going down the middle and right side (tyrannical maybe, but you still would want the SCK aoe).

Also Faeline Stomp is competing with BdB (since Fae is an Aoe ability what is the Single Target use of it on the right side?) and is obviously weaker than its competitor. This placement seems a bit off.

Fazit/Conclusion Bonedustbrew:
Id rather not pick the ability for numbers and its fun does not traverse past the current expansion (SL). The ability is played enough.
Faelinestomps placement feels off and could replace BdB or could be more accessable for AOE. If so, it could be altered a bit to Buff/Debuff, reduce Cds, whatsoever some core Monk- Abilities, since just a press and forget glowing resetts button seems (…and while meme-playing it in SL was…) boring.

P.s.: The bottom-middle Part of the tree looks soo fun!

Other impressions:
Flying Serpent Kick: LOL. I do not have the points for it in M+…

Touch of Karma: If I would not see it as an actual DMG increase in every pull and therefore place its value over Flying serpent kick, I would not take that, since Monks got Fort Brew reduce and Dampen Harm now. Also the node under it is completely useless? :frowning:

Whirling Dragon Punch: Seems like you won’t pick it as it currently stands (even to think that frightens me) … :frowning: but maybe with the 1 point of BdB-dmg-increase-node gone you have that point?

Top right Fist talent that gives back Chi: cannot take that either since lack of points, even if we go for Jade ignition and the FoF talent at the bottom. That seems a bit odd to take so much FoF talents, but not the Chi-generator.

Xuen talents: I actually like the split between those, since I saw it played out in current SL with FoF-Dmg-Conduit vs. Tiger dmg.- conduit and it was a decision to make. It seems a bit artificial though and I feel like having more points when at least the one Tuen talent could be baked into another would be nice. Despite that there is als the “NYI” one, so we’ll see :smiley:

Genereal Tree:
Only thing in general tree that seems weird is improved paralyze? what? :smiley: just to get to fort brew.
Rolling behind soothing mist - but I get it, with that roll you would have triple roll or double chi torpedo, so just leave it and take double roll.
Provoke a bit sad since I don’t have the points to get the movement speed.
Windwalking sad aswell.
the transcendence 2 pointer should be a 1 pointer I guess?
“NYI” talent in the last row should bw good, because the other options are non existent for WW :smiley: (maybe statue in necrotic, but I doubt it would take aggro).

Fazit overall: Do not be deceived, I really love the WW tree, both general and specs. It is looking so much fun. These are just my suggestions of things that could get a second look/ rethink.
Especially the single target and the ToD shenanigans will be so nice to figure out and play around.

1 Like
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I dont think it is, i do believe if ww monks want to roll in DF they will need to take soothing mists xD
They dont have roll baseline from what i can see and that is how we get it from the tree. Honestly what the hell XD

This is just stupid why the hell would a ww monk take soothing mists ever? Vivify is there and it can be instant cast now so again why the hell would ww take soothing to get roll its madness. This is just unbelievably stupid no other words, do the devs who designed this tree play monk or just read about them.

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I just started playing WW main this season, so I don’t have a lot of experience yet. However, one thing I do want to day is:

Bone Dust Brew is not fun!

It’s too complicated and unintuitive, it really punishes you if you dont time everything correctly, and it doesn’t look or sound cool. I’d much rather play with Faeline Stomp.

2 Likes
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Roll is baseline - i tested it on the alpha and there is a bluepost about it being baseline. All in all with soothing into roll you could have 3 roll charges instead of two, but most likely you will skip this and choose celerity on the right side after spearhandstrike.

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i feel you, but there is not an easy solution for this tbh. Windwalker is one of the more complicated speccs in the game and not suggested for beginners i guess. It just punishes missplay a lot, but is very rewarding and fluid if played correctly. I’d rather see easy to play hard to master, as easy to play easy to master.
On my end i would argue against your suggestion to reduce complexity, i’d rather see more complexity and micro management & min/max potential.
And it looks like the single target part of WW will be next expansion with the talent choices in the middle, while being pretty midly paced and easy to play with faeline stomp and the capacitator node on the right side.

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There is a way to find out whether it is or whether it isn’t. It is.

This isn’t constructive criticism, this is being unreasonable and I’d appreciate you not to try to add any more bloat to this discussion.

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Wtf??? Why so angry??? Jesus never new i would me someone so easily offended XDDD but to clarify you simplton i wqs not adding bloat at the time of the post there was no blue posts about roll being baseline and when i looked i to the ablities be giving to monks at the tike it said we would have to talent soothing mists to get roll(completly insane choice for ww giving vivfy now has instant cast negating the soothing mists vivify interraction) what i was expressing in my post was a ww monk main my displeasue and having to select a dead talent in order toy get roll. Now my simple friend how is this adding bloat to the disccusion i poi ted out a problem that has since been fixed while all you have contributed is some snarky off handed commnent cause i offened you sensiblities???:roll_eyes::roll_eyes: grow up dude holy jesus what a child. XD

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I am neither angry nor offended, just pointing out that you aren’t contributing anything here and I’d rather not have you make another attempt at such.

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Well my dude ive contributed more than you ive been on the beta i can safely say ww monks get 1 charge of roll you want another you have to take soothing mists like you have too to get it xD why is this design here. What ww casts soothing mists maybe if you want to instant cast vifify then maybe but wait 1 sec the talent row below has a talent to make vifiy instant casts anyway making soothing mists even more of a useless choice for ww monks. So i ask again my dude why is my contibution no needed do you not mind wasting a vital talent point when there so many more important things to choose. Like are you cool as a ww monk to just waste a poi t for no reason? Please tell me im curious xD

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Basically mate ill put it in leymans terms for you, in my opinion right now ww monks on beta are ruined everything that made them ww monks they now have to WASTE a talent point to achieve being a ww monk again. Ill explain so ww monks for me since they got released in mop they have been incredibly fast agile hand to hand combat fighters right, so what i mean by that is they have rolls to get places quick cause there wind walkers they walk on wind and flying serpant kick to travel mad distances cause they can walk on wind cause there wind walkers right, but not now on beta you get 1 roll thats it thats are movement ablity 1 roll arent we wind walkers shouldnt flying serpant kick be baseline like it has been for years cause we are wind walkers we walk on wind but not now for some reason and 1 roll charge this is madness and you have to take soothing mists to get another what is this design??? And tbh just the whole ww monk tree is meh just nothing cool and we Basically have to waste talent points all over the shop to get stuff back we have had baseline for years its just the hight of stupidity to me and im pretty much are whole burst we have to talent into like what the hell??? Not even 1 of the abilities baseline, im mean i think even warrior gets recklessness baseline and im sure other specs get ablities they have had baseline for years stay baseline but not monks??? Why?? Why do monks have to waste talents everywhere to get everything we have for years and the trees is just madness arms branching everywhere st ablites unlocking big aoe ablities and vice versa, like i dont get it why do monks get shafted so hard this expac and then WHY are you saying im contributing nothing. I am beyond confused, but ey if you like this monk tree enjoy it man XD

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So you haven’t been in the beta, because that was wrong wrong wrong wrong … wrong wrong wrong wrong… :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

You only need to take soothing if you want 3 changes, you can get 2 without soothing …

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It seems you confused the other guy/girl and me with the “roll bluepost”.

To this date (25.09.22) the general tree looks pretty nice and finished. Soothing Mist could also be a PvP thing, since it is now possible to speec into JadeSerpent Statue. Have a look at it, it works out really nice.
There are still 3 points I would adress that still seem kind of weird:

  1. Improved Paralyze existing is rather senseless or “artificial”, especially with FortBrew still hidden behind it. Harmstring (the slow/root ability thing) is placed really well in my opinion on that row though.
  2. Windwalking is really underperforming and I cannot think of a single scenario, where 2/4% move speed (its even a 2-pointer!) would make any difference at all.
  3. The Transcendece back-and-forth-talent is still a 2-pointer, but what do 2 points even do for the effect? Kinda weird.

I really love that ExpelHarm is now baseline and that it could be possible to even spec into OxStatue without losing offensive potential. Adding PvP on top of it, it seems as if the talent tree is neat and finished with only the named above still questionable.

P.s.: ROLL ist baseline. 2 Rolls with either soothing mists path or Celerity to the right. 3 Rolls with soothing mist path and Celerity. The choice for Pve Windwalker will be Celerity for 2 Rolls for - 100% - sure.

The Windwalker tree itself is a bit concerning, since to this date it will be a bit of a numbers game. What I mean by that is:

What will be the role of WW in Dragonflight? For example in Shadowlands-Raids it was/is AddSpawn- Aoe, in some fights it had a huge benefit in solo- dealing with adds, while everyone else is doing full single target to the boss. In Mythic+ WW strengths were massive AOE (outshined by WL and on par with or a bit weaker than SV) and great funnel dmg into a single mob while still massive aoe-ing the adds. WW in Shadowlands sucked big time in SingleTarget and especially in S4 for tyrannical weeks (e.g. Workshop, Upper Kara, generally speaking “single target Dungeons”).

With the new talents in DF it seems that WW could be competitive in Single Target while simultaneously still having the option to do good or strong AOE. But what about full left side BDB builds? What about Full right side Single Target builds? What about Touch of Death interactions? What about Capacitator leggy? Nightfae stomp?

There will be a “best AOE” build and a “best single target” build, but especially in M+ single target and AOE are both required. Even if you solve this issue via team-composition and having the WW adapt to one of the roles (Aoe or single target), a somewhat “hybrid” build, especially for tyrannical weeks, will be very important.

Going for an AOE- heavy build, you will have to sacrifice some FoF traits and even the RSK-dmg-increase to grab the legendary effects at the bottom, while still speccing into some FoF traits.
You will not be able to pick Touch of Karma nor Whirling Dragon Punch, since you are going to play with Bonedustbrew (again!) and will grab the talent beneath it aswell. If the numbers decide that Faeline stomp will be more viable, then BDB-row is dead what makes it arguable worse to have to go down there to grab Spinning crane kicks damage increase.

I do not see any use in the split between BDB and Fealine Stomp, since you will not be picking both and one will be better than the other for sure. The CDR on BDB seems awkward aswell, since there will be a lot of micromanaging involved with Xuen CDR and Storm, Earth and Fire CDR. I believe this to be more punishing than rewarding.

Conclusion:

  1. I am questioning the split between BDB-row and Feline Stomp, because this is going to be a numbers game with no advantages taken from gameplay. There is no situation where you can say that Faeline Stomp outshines BDB because… well there isn’t, except for possible numbers, so why even bother

  2. Even in pure single target, the only debate will be between FaelineStomp and Whirling Dragon Punch, so WDP will never be taken for other reasons than numbers and WDP even has weird interactions with Xuens Battlegear, where you might suffer from RSK CD- reduction on FoF triggering so you will have to sit on WDP for another FoF Rotation (if you have enough Chi of course…), what cannot be optimal play

  3. Fists of Fury traits for AOE seem worse since you specc into some, but not into all. Hybrid builds for e.g. tyrannical weeks will be especially weird.

  4. The DF talent tree is all about choices and adapting to different circumstances/ scenarios, so why do neither BDB nor Faeline-Stomp differ in any other way than numbers? The burst potential of BDB is way too high to even consider Faeline Stomp as a kind of sustained AOE - and you even get CDR on BDB. On the other hand if Faeline does competitive damage, then BDB will be a dead row, and for singletarget I suppose WDP will still be better that Fae, since you do not have enough points for the 100% increased reset (maybe if you opt out of Fury of Xuen, but that doesn’t seem right). It is still a bit weird

  5. Everything in between, next to and above BDB and Faeline Stomp looks awesome, and I am incredibly hyped for the interactions between Teachings of the Monastery and Xuens Battlegear (even if you will not take teachings for AOE dungeons most likely, and that’s a bit sad aswell).
    hybrid WW build is looking clunky, where pure AOE or pure single target (except Faeline vs. WDP) looks very sick and promising

15

So sacrafice my chi torpedo? Why why do i if i want two charges of chi torpedo stuff thats been base ww for years i now have to waste a talent point on soothing mists why?

1 Like
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Very good points but in all honesty the tree for me is trash just stuff all over the place in nosensical places aoe leading into single target and single target leading into aoe just nonsense and then the big for me just ww monks having nothing baseline they have had baseline for years all movement abilties apart from 1 roll charge need a talent point you want 2 chi torpedo in a buil that makes sense well no not happening you need soothing mists now??? Why? Or transcedence as you say is just pointless completely or now we need to talent interupt and paralyse?? Why can we not have one or maybe the detox? Or ar we just having to talent everything??? I ask what is a baseline ww monk tigers palm?? That it cause everything else you have to take again. Like my opinion ww monks are quick and nimble walk on air so even if blizz uave decided thay have to take eveything why take flying serpant kick away to why not make that a ww base ability seems appropriate dosent it?

Im so done with them they ruined feral and ww monks and still hover around the rears of mages and hunters.

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Any body have access to write feedback for monk PTR tread ?
need give feedback
like:
Please switch positions for →
Empowered Tiger Lightning with Last Emperor’s Capacitor

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So you’ve lost one baseline roll charge oh noes, but you can now have tiger’s lust with chi torpedo … :confused: which you seem to completly ignore.

btw, nice moving of the goal post … :clown_face:

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Actually why nobody raise topic
that we have quite cool and class valid ability like “Chi Burst”

  1. would be better to replace “Faeline Stomp” → “Chi Burst” (if selected in class tree → will be second charge)
  2. talent “Faeline Harmony” replace to “Chi Harmony” → our combo strikes have a chance (for exmpl-12%) to reset “Chi Burst” and make it instant

With “Chi Burst” it will be much consistent for class thematic

Also ability
“Transfer the Power” – should stack from each hit not only ability activation
for (rising\blackout\rushing wind)
, because in current case we will be never have full stack 30%

20

Yep, no one, myself included plays bonedust brew because it’s cool.

Everyone does because it’s as strong as the other choices in st, but ultra strong in aoe.