Monks, talents and borrowed power

[Skullreaver-turalyon]

I have been playing Monk for the past 2 expansions. Nothing hardcore but I generally enjoy playing the Windwalker spec but I have a concerns for Shadowlands.

When i think of Monks is think of punches, kicks, combos and finishers and I think Diablo has a better base than WoW.

In Legion we got our artifact weapon and amazing ability Strike of the Windlord and it was one of the main factors I mained the class. I always felt it was missing a cool animation but it felt satisfying to press and hit like a truck, you always looked forward to pressing it.

BFA comes along and its changed to a boring spender which adds nothing to the game play and i think thats the problem with BFA WW and it looks like it wont change in Shadowlands. Now I know the new borrowed power may patch up the class a bit and some of the legendaries make for some interesting choices but they dont fix the main problems. The core spec is a bit off.

Looking at the covenant abilities and spec reworks it looks like we are turning into a summoning class. Summon Xuen, summon weapons of order etc then the legendaries make jade lightning stronger. All this seems go against the martial arts theme of the class. Plus a lot of the monk abilities and new abilities don’t scale with mastery which is a waste of a cool mastery and means we stack the most boring stat versatility.

I had always hoped that they went the way of having monk use different combos to build up to a finisher. Similar to the way we used rising sun kick and fist of fury to build up to a dragon punch.

Windwalker suffers from not having a flashy button and most of the talent tree is boring and ends up having a defined path. I cant remember the last time i changed my talent set up.

Looking at the talents.

Firstly, i would make dragon punch base line. I dont know why you would take the other two options. Its one of the few buttons that feels fun to press.

Then i would move Fotwt to Tier 50 and return it to how it was in Legion and give it a tornado animation kind of like rushing Jade wind.

I would ditch spiritual focus and replace it with Chi burst. I would make this more like the Hadouken its meant to be and make it instant cast. A cast bar for a mobile class seems harsh and against play considering its directional ability anyway. Also buff the damage to finisher status.

You could then make these two abilities activate when dragon punch is on cooldown to make it feel part of the combo playstyle.

You could then keep serenity and make it pressable burst window when dragon punch is on cooldown or keep it as it is.

Tier 15 is then redundant and boring. Eye of the tiger is a terrible forgettable talent. Id rather this change to adding a few more damage increase percentage to Mystic touch for the monk only.

I have never used chi wave and id rather have chi orbit back and make it generate spheres when you generate chi. It could generate chi and healing spheres around the monk and explode on spenders.

I would say tiers 25, 30, 35 and 40 all generally seem fine and we would need a filler for fotwt. Although fine, they are still boring and id prefer talent to enhance a core spec or change up the play style.

Tier 45 needs a rework. Hit combo is the worst talent ever and is basically our mastery. I cant see anyone using Rushing jade wind making dance of chi-ji the boring go to talent.

My minor suggestions above is mainly to change the spec with minimum effort but id rather see interesting things that add to the martial arts flavour i.e. like axe kicks, lightning charged fists, or flaming kicks that add a dot. These could be talents that add to core abilities and keeping extra button presses down. They have so many things they could draw from the Diablo monk that would make the class fan as well.

Having a talent row that brings in mantras could be cool.

I just wish they would fix the core classes and make them fun rather than rely on systems to patch them.

I would even rather they introduced a diablo 3 system with runes to change it up further but make it part of the talent system

TLDR, more interesting abilities to press, less passive summon abilities. Using talents to enhance the core spec.

Anyway, apologies for the incoherent blog post lol.

[Relent-turalyon]

@Skullreaver-turalyon

the problem with BFA WW and it looks like it wont change in Shadowlands. Now I know the new borrowed power may patch up the class a bit and some of the legendaries make for some interesting choices but they dont fix the main problems. The core spec is a bit off

imho it isnt, Alot of people actually enjoy monk even now gameplay wise and agree its really fun. the problem is the Class isnt Strong… in any meta… it sits at the bottom of DPS in Raids.

and with 0 Unique utility is Basically replaced with brewmaster which in the tanking meta is Ace. WW Monks gameplay isnt the problem. the fact they seem to refuse to fix the class to become Competitive is. People are bored with waiting to see blizzard fix the scaling problems… and blizzard everytime simply does not.

@Skullreaver-turalyon

Looking at the covenant abilities and spec reworks it looks like we are turning into a summoning class. Summon Xuen, summon weapons of order etc

well not really, Kyrians only one Option. and While in its name says something if u look at the ability, its Not actually summoning anything… it Resets ur Sun rising kick immediately and makes each use reduce the cost of ur other Chi Spending abilities. this effectively isnt a summoning ability. it just says so in its name.

Xuen was something the class was launched with and its nice to have it back at Baseline.

@Skullreaver-turalyon

I had always hoped that they went the way of having monk use different combos to build up to a finisher. Similar to the way we used rising sun kick and fist of fury to build up to a dragon punch.

They wont do this, WoW has made a great effort to move their game from a Rotation to a Priority List on its course… introducing more abilities like this would not only make the concept more boring. but also Put monks back into a Rotational loop of abilities to use.

@Skullreaver-turalyon

Plus a lot of the monk abilities and new abilities don’t scale with mastery which is a waste of a cool mastery and means we stack the most boring stat versatility.

This is because the othe rhalf of our mastery is in the talent systems as some sorta reminder to players to play the class correctly. they imho should just push this talent into our Core Mastery and change that talent out completely

[quote=“Skullreaver-turalyon, post:1, topic:169335”] Firstly, i would make dragon punch base line. I dont know why you would take the other two options. Its one of the few buttons that feels fun to press.
[/quote]

I can agree here. defintly would be a positive move forward

@Skullreaver-turalyon

I would ditch spiritual focus and replace it with Chi burst. I would make this more like the Hadouken its meant to be and make it instant cast. A cast bar for a mobile class seems harsh and against play considering its directional ability anyway. Also buff the damage to finisher status.

I’d like this change… it sounds atleast more Enjoyable then Spiritual Focus.

@Skullreaver-turalyon

You could then keep serenity and make it pressable burst window when dragon punch is on cooldown or keep it as it is.

imho SEF looks more Cool then Serenity ever will in all honesty.

I can agree with alot of your ideas, i think u’ve taken the convenant ability name alittel too far to heart however… as its not a Summoning ability… and Whiel i get Xuen is… its a Baseline core part of monk… so imho is actually a good thing.

i’d say my Major problems with the Specc would honestly be.

• Hit Combo and Whirling dragon Punch being both in the talent tree while should be baselined.
• Xuen could use alittle bit extra to stop it being a fire and forget, even if they simply baselined a effect which allowed us to reduce its CD.
• Tigereye brew still not returning
• Our Old Legion artifact ability still not being baselined.

[Chunchunmaru-silvermoon (Chunchunmaru)]

What WW needs is karma damage to be only functioning in PVP, xuen to scale with mastery and wdp or another ability that’s not a builder to be baseline, hit combo being removed and a balance between serenity and clones so it’s a per encounter choice by making serenity last longer for example. WW will stop having such scaling issues then and only thing it will need is a +% buff on the aura if it’s needed.

[Gnomechomsky-twilights-hammer (Gnomechomsky)]

@Skullreaver-turalyon

Legion we got our artifact weapon and amazing ability Strike of the Windlord and it was one of the main factors I mained the class.

SotWL was sooo good, idk why they changed it.
Idk why they done any of the things they did to the spec coming into BfA… (Karma cut in 1/2, Serenity cut in 1/2, Paralysis trebled, Port doubled, FSK nerfed, FoF stun removed, Healing Elixirs removed, GCD changed)… it’s like it was redesigned by someone who hates the spec with a passion.

I was genuinely hyped when they said they’d begin ‘unpruning’ for SL.
We getting mobility back? Heals back? Cc’s back? 100% Karma back? Serenity burst? GCD reverted?

[Brachydios-turalyon]

tbh… i think every class can be sad at this

no class realistically came out of BFA Changes better off realistically.

Monk is fun gameplay wise… i find mos of the put off for alot of players

• Outdated Animations… monks havent been updated since 2012, i can only imagine thjis is because they cant find a Way to improve the animations as its Combat is very different to other melee classes

• Kept bottom of the barrel in Raiding enviroments… this ownt appeal to anyone realistically.

• seems to be almost ignored entirely by blizzard.

The class is fun… and Alot of people testing in SL have seen that by far, its a really fun class to play… but blizzard need to update some of animations… maybe fix the fact ur weapons randomly dissapear and reaapear in combat without using a mog to hide them entirely. maybe change the class up alittle… (theres way more Talents they could have baselined for the better)

i’ll take a ST buff
and a Animation Update

and be happy in all honesty

[Gnomechomsky-twilights-hammer (Gnomechomsky)]

Yeh I know a few other specs got nerfed too (though, I’d argue not as heavily -who else had their primary defensive cut in 1/2? People pop immunity & they’re good for 10s. I pop Karma & I’m dead in 2s ).

Animations & Raid viability don’t bother me too much personally, I spend most of my time in PvP, not looking at my own anims. Also, don’t mind me, I just like to moan about the state of WW at every opportunity.