Serenity in Shadowlands is worse than taking any talent in the last row

Classes Monk
1

Hello.

I’m here to start a discussion around serenity and some things that can be done to save it from the hell it is in. There was a (short) discussion about it in the US forums(https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/lets-discuss-serenity/541051) but unfortunately it didn’t lead to anything.

I understand some of you monk players don’t like serenity, and that’s fine. Some of us don’t like Storm, Earth, and Fire so an alternative (albeit a more rigid one) would be welcome.

First let’s discuss some bugs(intended features?) (I reported them in-game but god knows if that ever works on live?):

  • Blackout Kick cooldown reduction (and by extension Weapons of Order from Kyrian cooldown reduction) are twice as weak during Serenity.
    For example with 0 haste Rising Sun Kick has 10 seconds cooldown (reduced to 5 with Serenity). You’d expect the following timeline of events then:

    • 0.00 Serenity+Rising Sun Kick (Rising Sun Kick should be ready at 5.00)
    • 1.00 Blackout Kick (-1 second to Rising Sun Kick so it should be ready at 4.00)
    • 2.00 Blackout Kick (-1 second to Rising Sun Kick so it should be ready at 3.00)
    • 3.00 Rising Sun Kick

    Reality is slightly different

    • 0.00 Serenity+Rising Sun Kick (Rising Sun Kick should be ready at 5.00)
    • 1.00 Blackout Kick (-1 second to Rising Sun Kick so it should be ready at 4.50)
    • 2.00 Blackout Kick (-1 second to Rising Sun Kick so it should be ready at 4.00)
    • 4.00 Rising Sun Kick

    Weapons of Order has the same issue (instead of -2 seconds of the cooldown, it is only 1 second). This “bug” appeared sometime during Shadowlands alpha (and it was reported on the class bug thread) but wasn’t very visible so it was overlooked.

  • The damage buff(+20% increased damage and healing) only works with monk abilities, no trinkets. This might be intended, but the tooltip does not say “your abilities deal 20% more damage”, but rather “you deal 20% more damage”

Couple this with the following disadvantages:

  • Less duration, less damage% than Storm, Earth, and Fire
  • Only 1 charge making it desync with Xuen/Weapons of Order and in general less flexibility.
  • Casting Fists of Fury is terribly inefficient (Storm, Earth and Fire allows you to cancel your Fists and cast other abilities while your spirits continue to do Fists of Fury AND cast those abilities), especially with Weapons of Order.
  • Coordinated Offensive Conduit is slightly weaker for serenity than Storm, Earth, and Fire because it’s additive % instead of multiplicative%.
  • You also lose Whirling Dragon Punch (if we are to compare it to another talent). This one I would actually gloss over because Serenity is worse than Storm, Earth, and Fire even without looking at Whirling Dragon Punch.

For Kyrian Windwalker monks using Serenity is just worse than not using any talent at all on that row (sims and practice dummy support this conclusion), and for Necrolord and Night Fae it is less than 10 extra dps, so within a margin of error, compared to not taking any talent.
If we add Whirling Dragon Punch to the mix (which even in single target amounts to around 6% of windwalker dps) it becomes pretty sad.

Some solutions to this situation:

  • At the very least fix the first bug mentioned above. The sims do not even take into account this bug so the conclusions I wrote above are based on a universe where this bug is fixed. Sims take this into account now.
  • Either make this cooldown more flexible (2 charges) or buff it through either more damage%, or (my favorite) less cooldown. A 1 minute would make it more flexible just by allowing it to sync with Weapons of Order and/or Xuen.
  • Change the cooldown mechanism (was recommended in the US article I linked). Basically give the same cooldown reduction through a 100% Haste Multiplier instead of the weird “your Chi consumers cool down 100% more quickly”. This tooltip existed for Legion where we had Strike of the Windlord which had a static cooldown, not decreased by haste.
    In Shadowlands only Rising Sun Kick and Fists of Fury are affected, and having high haste would make Fists of Fury more efficient during Serenity.
  • Fix the conduit, or Storm, Earth and Fire will grow faster in damage than serenity.

In the end I’d like to clarify that I’m not asking for more damage for Windwalkers, just an alternative (even with -0.2%/-0.3% less damage) to Storm, Earth, and Fire. Thank you!

3 Likes
2

I’d still take it over SEF any day in PvP. The amount of times the SEF spirits just feel like standing still facing the target and not following any commands or my whole damage being hard countered for 15 seconds by 1 aoe root or cc that i can’t make my spirits get out of is incredibly annoying. The whole spell is a buggy mess that feels awful to use.

That being said if SEF didn’t break down 40% of the time it would be better than Serenity, yes.

The only reasonable fix would be to delete both spells and just make a new cooldown that actually fits the Windwalker playstyle and fantasy.

Edit:

This makes it stronger, not weaker. If Coordinated Offensive only added around 10% extra dmg to the 20% bonus it’d only add a whopping 2% extra damage. Luckily it adds a flat 10% dmg bonus on top of it instead of modifying it.

Edit 2:

Doesn’t RSK has a 12 second base CD? I could’ve sworn it did edit 9042341: no it doesn’t idk why i remembered 12

3

I meant it like: “You deal X% more damage during serenity”. A multiplicative 10% to the 20% bonus (like it is for SEF) would amount to 32% total bonus damage. (10% multiplicative extra damage is computed in the following way: you take normal damage and multiply it by 1.1)
That’s how it works for SEF (although there’s a different bug there with the main spirit).

4

There are other talents in last row?

5

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