The first bell has been rung, and the cavern trembles violently. Megae- I mean, Midnight is soon upon us.
With a new expansion come new class changes, so I’m going to be compiling all of my current wishes and suggestions for the Windwalker specialization, including a lot of Hero talent changes.
Talents
Class talents
I don’t have a ton to say about the class tree, I think it’s pretty solid and offers a good amount of variety in terms of utility and defensives. I do have some suggestions, though.
Chi Burst
The first suggestion I have may be a controversial one. I want to turn Chi Burst into an empowered ability.
Chi Burst has gone through some changes since The War Within started. Previously, it generated Chi based on the amount of targets hit, up to 2. This made it a staple pick in any build, since it provided an efficient opener in the form of Tiger Palm > Chi Burst > Tiger Palm, even if you only had 1 target. This had the side effect of making Chi Wave, which Chi Burst has always been mutually exclusive with, practically useless in all of Dragonflight and rarely picked before that.
The Chi generation has been removed during the launch of The War Within, and a rather baffling change has been made for Windwalkers specifically that prevents Chi Burst from being usable until an associated buff procs. Combined with tuning that doesn’t compensate for this additional hurdle, Chi Burst has understandably not been picked at any point during the expansion so far. Mistweavers and Brewmasters seem to sometimes use it still, but all of the aforementioned problems just so happen to be Windwalker-only, so that checks out.
So, I’m hoping to hit three birds with one stone:
- Introduce a Chi dump ability
- Make an empowered ability that is well-liked
- Make Chi Burst more useful
Chi Burst
1 Chi 40 yd range
Channeled (1 sec cast) 30 sec cooldownHurls a torrent of Chi energy up to 40 yds forward, dealing (100% of Attack Power) Nature damage to all enemies, and (220% of Attack Power) healing to the Monk and all allies in its path. Consumes more Chi and deals more damage when empowered.
I: 1 Chi, (100% of Attack Power) damage.
II: 2 Chi, (200% of Attack Power) damage.
III: 3 Chi, (300% of Attack Power) damage.
IV: 4 Chi, (400% of Attack Power) damage.Healing and damage reduced beyond 5 targets.
https://i.imgur.com/KimGgro.png
This addresses one of the current problems with Shado-Pan Windwalker, which is its disregard of resource management during cooldowns. Energy spending is such a high priority that it is optimal to cast Tiger Palm even when already capped on Chi. Having the option to quickly dump most of your Chi would help a lot with that. The number is tuned to be stronger than a base Blackout Kick, but weaker than a Rising Sun Kick (per Chi).
For Mistweavers and Brewmasters, the ability can either remain unchanged or adopt a simple linear scale for the damage and/or healing when empowered.
Wind’s Reach
One of the things that most melee specs lament is melee-range interrupt abilities. This talent could be a convenient way of adding that quality of life to Monk, though it would require a little bit of reshuffling.
- Swap positions of Detox and Crashing Momentum/Disable
- Swap positions of Wind’s Reach and Spear Hand Strike
Now that Wind’s Reach is behind both Spear Hand Strike and Crashing Momentum/Disable, change it to the following:
Wind’s Reach
The range of Disable is increased by 5 yds.
The duration of Crashing Momentum is increased by 3 sec and its snare now reduces movement speed by an additional 20%.
The range of Spear Hand Strike is increased by 5 yds.
https://i.imgur.com/rmv0uO7.png
Bounce Back
More of a fix request than a change, but this talent really should be working on any hit that surpasses its threshold, be it DoT, targeted damage, AoE damage, whatever. It should also reduce the triggering hit itself, on top of applying the DR.
Another option would be something like this:
Bounce Back
When a hit deals more than 12% of your maximum health, heal for 50% of the damage taken over 4 sec.
This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 sec.
https://i.imgur.com/QEwsJk0.png
Rushing Reflexes
This talent seems very underwhelming and to my knowledge is barely ever used. Perhaps Skyreach could take its place instead, possibly with a short cooldown on the dash effect.
Spec talents
Let’s start with the obvious one, which I’ve frequently championed in the past and still consider my dearest wish for Windwalker.
Storm, Earth, and Fire
I’ve spent a lot of words on this spell over the years, such as here and here, and in the posts that are linked within. Precious little has come of that, sadly, but I can’t exactly write a giant wishlist/suggestion post and not bring up SEF.
I won’t repeat all the reasons why I want the ability removed, you can read my old posts for those, but I’ll briefly summarize:
- Pet AI is notoriously unreliable
- Despite being one of the main Windwalker cooldowns, the spirits interact poorly with several damage increasing talents. Overall, these bugs can lead to a damage loss of around 4%.
- Thematically and lore-wise, it makes very little sense. What does it functionally mean to “split into three spirits”, like what happens to your body? How does Chi manipulation allow you to do this? Where do the clothes and weapons that the spirits wear come from?
That said, SEF does have something that I’d hate to lose: flexibility. Having one major 2 minute cooldown and one charge-based minor cooldown is a great setup that absolutely needs to be preserved. Is that greedy of me? Yes.
Anyway, here’s my latest suggestion:
Serenity
Instant 20 sec cooldownConsume up to 10 stacks of Serene Essence to enter an elevated state of mental and physical serenity for 1.5 sec per stack. While in this state, you deal 20% increased damage and healing.
Every 5 Chi you consume generates 1 stack of Serene Essence, stacking up to 20.
https://i.imgur.com/1LBtrJ7.png
It’s strongly inspired by Tigereye Brew, aptly suggested to make a return by JFunk, but I felt that the brew aesthetics don’t really fit our spec anymore. Serenity, as always, has a great aesthetic for Windwalker and I’d love for it to be reused.
Now, these numbers were picked in order to recreate SEF’s current value, more or less. At the low end, we consume about 30 Chi per minute, which would give you a full value Serenity every minute. The cap of 20 means you can delay the activation of the buff without losing value for a long time, which should give you the same flexibility as SEF does now.
There is an issue though. Chi consumed per minute varies quite heavily between Shado-Pan and Conduit of the Celestials, with Shado-Pan at about 30 Chi per minute and Conduit at about 42. This is, in part, a result of Shado-Pan’s extreme Chi waste that I mentioned earlier in the Chi Burst section. This would mean that Conduit generates significantly more Serene Essence charges over time, which would need to be tuned around. I don’t really have a great solution for this, but it would essentially require some method of controlling one’s resource generation and consumption on the specialization level. In other words, we need to be able to dump energy and/or Chi on a whim. The reworked Chi Burst is a step in that direction, but I don’t know if that alone would be sufficient.
Another possible solution is to just make Serene Essence charges refill on a time-basis, rather than tying it to resources. That kind of feels like a copout and I would consider that a last resort.
Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
For similar reasons as Storm, Earth, and Fire, this would be a much better ability if it didn’t summon a pet, and instead empowered the player directly. This can be distinguished from Serenity with visual effects, and the in-universe explanation that while Serenity is an empowerment gained from stoking your inner Chi, Invoke Xuen grants you increased power through creative applications of Chi and Xuen’s own techniques.
Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
40 yd range
Instant 2 min cooldownRecall the teachings of Xuen, the White Tiger for 20 sec. Your melee attack speed is increased by 100% and you release Tiger Lightning every 1 sec, dealing (25.7% of Attack Power) Nature damage to your target and 2 nearby enemies.
Every 4 sec, strike your enemies with Empowered Tiger Lightning, dealing 8% of the damage you have dealt to those targets in the last 4 sec.
https://i.imgur.com/Vvgwtwe.png
Dance of Chi-Ji
Dance of Chi-Ji
Approximately [1.5 + Haste] procs per minuteSpending Chi has a chance to make your next Spinning Crane Kick or Rising Sun Kick deal an additional 200% damage.
https://i.imgur.com/tFTzVvh.png
A simple change, but this would massively increase Rising Sun Kick damage in single-target situations, as well as provide a player choice when Dance procs.
Strike of the Windlord subtree
For the purposes of this post, I’ll consider the following talents to be part of this subtree:
- Strike of the Windlord
- Rushing Jade Wind
- Thunderfist
- Gale Force
- Communion with Wind
- Slicing Winds
- New talent
The first major change that I want to suggest is to make Slicing Winds a choice node with Strike of the Windlord. This would give us access to Slicing Winds without it being locked behind Strike of the Windlord, and not have it be subjected to the latter’s tuning. It also means we can specialize the two spells in different ways; Strike of the Windlord can be the single-target and funnel ability, while Slicing Winds is the multi-target nuke.
I’ll also take the opportunity to add some nuance to the tooltips, to perhaps clarify how we’re still using Al’Akir’s power without the Legion Artifact weapon.
Strike of the Windlord
2 Chi 9 yd range
Instant 30 sec cooldownInvoke the memory of the Windlord and strike with both fists, dealing [(600% of Attack Power) + (400% of Attack Power)] Physical damage to your target and [(120% of Attack Power) + (80% of Attack Power)] to all other enemies in front of you. Reduces the movement speed of all enemies struck by 50% for 6 sec.
https://i.imgur.com/0efsRvb.png
This is a significant buff, but that’s because I’m baking in the current effect of Communion with Wind. The 20% damage to secondary targets is mostly symbolic and serves to enable the follow-up effects. The icon was changed to further distance ourselves from just being identical to the artifact ability.
Rushing Jade Wind
[Strike of the Windlord/Slicing Winds] summons a whirling tornado around you, causing [9 * (13.3% of Attack Power)] Physical damage over 6 sec to all enemies within 8 yards.
Every time this deals damage, your next Spinning Crane Kick deals 2% increased damage, up to 80%.
Deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets.
https://i.imgur.com/qdCWdjM.png
Adding Slicing Winds as a trigger, and adding an interaction with Spinning Crane Kick to replace the one we lost after Mark of the Crane was removed.
Thunderfist
[Strike of the Windlord/Slicing Winds] grants you 4 stacks of Thunderfist and an additional stack for each additional enemy struck.
Thunderfist discharges upon melee strikes, dealing (300% of Attack Power) Nature damage.
https://i.imgur.com/ZhFEhaq.png
Same as above, and increasing the value. Its nerf was pretty unnecessary and still is. Also added a new icon to replace the lazy reuse of the artifact icon.
Gale Force
Targets hit by [Strike of the Windlord/Slicing Winds] have a 100% chance to be struck for 10% additional Nature damage from your spells and abilities for 10 sec.
https://i.imgur.com/HMkFlEa.png
Gale Force is unchanged, just with Slicing Winds added as a trigger.
Communion With Wind
Gale Force now strikes 2 additional targets when it deals damage.
https://i.imgur.com/KrLlgN9.png
A replacement for the current Communion with Wind which was baked into Strike of the Windlord. Gale Force contributes around 3% of overall damage, so this should be a fairly valuable talent when additional targets are reliably present.
Now for the kicker, pun intended:
Aerial Mastery
Strike of the Windlord:
Strike of the Windlord now grants a charge of Empowered Rising Sun Kick for every 3 targets struck.Empowered Rising Sun Kick:
Your next Rising Sun Kick deals 200% increased damage, costs no Chi, and knocks nearby targets into the air.Slicing Winds:
Slicing Winds now launches you upward instead of foward, and is replaced with Thunderfall Kick for 5 sec after it is cast.Thunderfall Kick:
Crash down onto the field with a thundering axe kick, dealing (500% of Attack Power) to all enemies within 20 yards. Deals increased damage when used from a greater height.
https://i.imgur.com/xzVKX8f.png
For the SotWL section, this adds another element of funnel to Strike by giving your enhanced RSKs, based on the amount of targets you hit. The knock-up effect would likely have to have an internal cooldown for balance.
For Slicing Winds, I love me some combo moves, and a random thought from a passing Discord user gave me this idea for a huge spectacle finisher move. The additional effect of extra damage at greater height might also be just enough of an incentive to actually fully empower Slicing Winds (not to mention the potential visuals).
Jadefire Stomp subtree
I don’t think it’s really worth trying to salvage these talents. An attempt was made during the transition from Dragonflight to The War Within, when everyone had been quite vocal about how stupid it was for such a mobile melee spec to constrain itself to a small area, and that feedback was indeed heard. The “stand in the zone for a reset chance” effect was removed, the base cooldown was reduced. However, that means that all that’s left is a boring albeit pretty looking ability, with no interesting interactions with the Windwalker kit, and weirdly low, hardcapped damage. For the 3rd season in a row, nobody is playing these talents. They never end up simming well. Even worse, that valid attempt at fixing what was broken went largely undetected by many, and the stigma of terrible QoL remains stuck to these talents to this day.
Let’s just remove them altogether, and introduce the following:
Ring of Suppression
Instant 45 sec recharge
1 ChargeForm a Ring of Suppression at the target location for 5 sec. Enemies that enter the ring will be silenced.
If Ring of Peace is talented, this ability replaces it, gains 1 charge, and increases the recharge time by 5 sec.
https://i.imgur.com/51mGk9N.png
I’ve thought long and hard about what could replace three whole talents, especially if they need to have some kind of shared concept. As it happens, our spec tree is almost entirely dps-based. With the arguable exception of Combat Wisdom, every single talent increases your throughput and pretty much nothing else. So, I figured that maybe we should have at least one option for powerful utility.
However, a utility option in the tier 3 section of the spec tree would probably not be appreciated. It would either never be picked, or the utility would have to be so powerful that you’d give up a lot of damage to get it. A possible solution is to move Jade Ignition to where JFS is now, and put Ring of Suppression in the now-empty spot. In fact:
Jade Ignition
In order for Jade Ignition to be worth a t3 spot, it probably needs a buff. It currently contributes approximately 2% of overall damage in m+, so increasing the base damage and/or the scaling factor would be appropriate.
Jade Ignition
Whenever you deal damage to a target with Fists of Fury, you gain a stack of Chi Energy up to a maximum of 30 stacks.
Using Spinning Crane Kick will cause the energy to detonate in a Chi Explosion, dealing (220% of Attack Power) Nature damage to all enemies within 8 yards, reduced beyond 5 targets. The damage is increased by 7.5% for each stack of Chi Energy.
https://i.imgur.com/PnviWWQ.png
The above changes should result in approx 40% more JI damage, which is still not amazing, but I’m hoping that the follow-up talents will be enough to offset that.
Flash of Twlight
Using Rising Sun Kick will cause your Chi Energy to collapse in a Chi Implosion, dealing (280% of Attack Power) Nature damage to your target. The damage is increased by 12.5% for each stack of Chi Energy.
https://i.imgur.com/nIbzzvy.png
Jadefire Harmony
Enemies hit by Chi Explosion [or Chi Implosion] are affected by Jadefire Brand, increasing your damage against them by 6% for 10 sec.
https://i.imgur.com/fwBnfkA.png
Flash of Twilight basically gives you the option to spend your JI stacks on RSK instead, for a powerful funnel. With 5 secondary targets available, this would generate an additional 1330% AP for RSK if you hit all targets with all ticks of Fists of Fury.
Jadefire Harmony is obviously not much different than its current iteration, just using Jade Ignition as the application trigger instead of the now removed Jadefire Stomp.
Overall
In conclusion, the spec tree would end up looking like this:
https://i.imgur.com/Z6cmbIE.png
and with talent names:
https://i.imgur.com/pQVpsnm.png
(Apologies for the use of imgur links, I am still not able to post images here.)
Hero talents
Shado Pan rework
This will mostly be a repeat of my rework concept from about a year ago, found here. It aims to make Shado-Pan more thematically appropriate for a Windwalker/Brewmaster Monk tree, and addresses some of the most problematic issues in terms of gameplay and balance.
If you’re interested in my reasoning for the name changes, please read my original post.
New Hero tree: Fist of Kang
Flurry Strikes → Fist of the First Dawn:
Every [(Attack Power * 4.25 * (1 + Versatility))] damage you deal generates an Endurance Charge. When you reach 10 charges, unleash a devastating blow, dealing (45% of Attack power) Physical damage per charge.
Pride of Pandaria:
Fist of the First Dawn has a 15% additional chance to critically strike.
High Impact:
Fist of the First Dawn deals (500% of Attack power) Nature damage to all uncontrolled enemies within 6 yds.
Veteran’s Eye → Rebel’s Clarity:
Striking the same target 5 times within 2 sec grants 1% Haste. Multiple instances of this effect may overlap, stacking up to 10 times.
Martial Precision:
Your attacks penetrate 12% armor.
Protect and Serve → Grief-stricken:
Your Vivify always heals you for an additional 50% of its total value.
Lead from the Front:
Chi Burst, Chi Wave, and Expel Harm now heal you for 100% of damage dealt.
One Versus Many:
Damage dealt by Fists of Fury and Keg Smash counts as double towards Endurance Charge generation. Fists of Fury damage increased by 15%. Keg Smash damage increased by 35%.
Whirling Steel → Mountain Sanctuary:
When your health drops below 70%, steel your resolve, gaining 20% parry chance and avoidance for 15 sec. This effect can not occur more than once every 90 sec.
Predictive Training:
When you dodge or parry an attack, reduce the damage of the next incoming direct attack by 20%.
Against all Odds:
Fist of the First Dawn increases your Agility by 0.5% per consumed Endurance Charge (up to 20) and reduces damage taken by 10% for 6 sec.
Efficient Training:
Energy spenders deal an additional 40% damage. Every 50 Energy spent reduces the cooldown of Storm, Earth, and Fire by 1 sec.
Vigilant Watch → Teachings of the Caged Beast:
Blackout Kick deals an additional 20% critical damage and each cast increases the damage of your next Fist of the First Dawn by 2%.
Wisdom of the Wall → Breaking the Chains:
Fist of the First Dawn grants one of the following effects for 10 sec:
Our Hardened Backs: Effect of your Mastery increased by 30%.
Our Strengthened Arms: Fist of the First Dawn destabilizes the Chi of its targets. Enemies that die with an unstable Chi explode, dealing (200% of Attack Power) Physical damage to enemies within 8 yds. (Lasts 20 sec)
Our Sharpened Minds: Dodge and Critical Strike chance increased by 80% of your Versatility bonus.
Our Strength Combined: Critical Strike damage increased by 30%.
Conduit of the Celestials
For Conduit, I don’t really have much to say about the gameplay or balance. It is generally well-balanced and tunable where necessary. I would very much like to see the secondary target bonus for Celestial Conduit increased, as 6% is an absurdly low amount. This could easily be increased to 30% to keep Conduit relevant in cleave situations. I also think that Flight of the Red Crane is a bit underpowered and could use a buff.
August Dynasty would need a rework to account for the spec tree changes. The simplest solution would be to link the effect to Whirling Dragon Punch.
The main suggestion I have regarding Conduit of the Celestials is to change its visuals a little. Just like with the change to Invoke Xuen, I don’t think there should be an implication that the August are directly assisting the Monk or somehow spiritually linked to them like a Shaman might be to the Elementals he borrows power from. Instead, the aesthetic of Conduit should be that of using specific techniques taught by the Celestials, passed down the generations of Monks since.
To achieve this, remove the full model of Xuen when Courage of the White Tiger triggers, and replace it with a blue streak of slashing energy to accompany the Tiger Palm effect. For Strength of the Black Ox, add a white-and-black energy pulse when using Blackout Kick. For Flight of the Red Crane, perhaps a bolt of red lightning bouncing around its targets. Lastly, for Heart of the Jade Serpent, a simple jade glow around the character or their limbs would suffice.
Misc
This is where I’ll put the suggestions that didn’t fit the previous categories. At the time of writing I don’t have a lot to put here, but I’ll update this section later if I think of anything.
But for now:
Spinning Crane Kick
2 Chi
Channeled (1.5 sec cast)Spin while kicking in the air, dealing [4 * (10% of Attack Power) * [(Attack Power * 0.98)][((Attack Power + Offhand Attack Power) * 2 / 3)] – 2H, DW / Attack Power] Physical damage over 1.5 sec to all enemies within 8 yds.
Deals an additional 20% damage for each target struck, up to 5.
Deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets.
https://i.imgur.com/59GGQxB.png
This reintroduces the mechanic of superlinear scaling to Spinning Crane Kick that was removed along with Mark of the Crane. This would, of course, also require the 80% buff to be reverted. While I understand and support the intended improvement to quality of life, I think it was a mistake to just massively buff Spinning Crane Kick’s base damage. This has made an ability that was ostensibly designed for multitarget situations far too valuable in single target situations as well. Dance of Chi-Ji is no longer considered an optional talent and is present in every build, and Spinning Crane Kick usually deals a very significant amount of damage in pure single target encounters.
Lastly, I’ll leave a link here to my fairly recent post on visual and audio design.
Outro
Thanks for reading til the end, I know my posts tend to be a tad wordy, but I do hope you found my ideas interesting and, if you’re a dev, inspiring?
Obviously, I don’t have any strong expectations that these ideas will make it into the game. But if any of them do, even partially, I will feel validated in my efforts.