Hi everyone,
I wanted by this post to point the obvious things that I feel, hear and read, on the overall situation on the ww monk spec. Am I a top world player? No. but still im playing this game since a very long time and I do like to “think on things” further out before talking. I usually dont speak much, and get over thing.
So I will just phrase things out as segments not in any particular order, my apologies for this format.
#1 UPCOMING UPDATE In the .7 update , while some heavily announced rework for the ret pal has gathered quite some attention, the ww monk has a « class tuning » mostly perceived as non sense or worse « trash ». It’s as is " we’ve heard you never use those abilities ? right we’re even nerfing one (as of dmg per spec point view), and buffing other nobody ever take". In a attempt to buff single target dmg overall. That’s a fail story here.
Right now there is NO WAY you can take a ret pal at dps contest at equivalent gear. I put it simple as that, to do an averaged of 15K AOE you need 4 keypress and a proc, a ret pal only need 1 button to do an averaged 25K AOE. Talking with ret pal I came across, they agreed on tankyness/mobility issue, but the burst thing, tbh please the players… I have a terrible feeling for what’s coming for them, it’s gonna be a on/off thing. I hope not…
now more, while they will kind of nerf the hunter’s bow neltharax, they will buff hunter’s highest dps ability. nothing more to say, dont play monk atm, maybe as brew master. but ww is going down deeper and deeper. What’s the point to play this spec still? It’s one of the least played spec of the game now.
#2 The overall scaling is bad , and the mastery scaling especially. Why? because simply put our mastery is too powerfull. While a rogue buff his finisher move or other class buff only a element or a part of their dmg , we have full raw damage on next ability if it is different from the previous. so this cant be buffed as is or we gonna end up #1 dps again while rolling on the keyboard with our head.
Talking stat right now,
Haste has a cost of approx 170-171 rating per %, there is no DR I’m aware off
Versatility has a cost of 205-206 rating per %, there is no DR I’m aware off
Mastery has a DR mechanism very punishing wich prevent you going further than 30-35% (because it’s too expensive!) 1% of mastery cost you around 79 rating at 22% or so while it start at 22 point of rating per 1% at 258 rating.
Critical Chance has a DR mechanism that prevent you going further 40-45%, you start at round 7 point of rating per 1% and ends up around 128 point of rating per 1% at 4400 rating. But people continue to raise CC. Why? Because there is very little to zero burst in ww spec. Sadly arent we suppoed to be a high burst class? Well boys, there’s no burst if you don’t have crit.
So most of high end monk sits here with no outside buff or pots:
34-37% CC
18-25% vers (why? Because mastery scale bad)
0 to 6% haste
20 to 25% mastery
so stata order is crit=~poly > mastery>hate
Either we’re all wrong, or something is a miss somewhere in the ww monk mechanism because this will get you into a wall were other spec/class will continue to have more dps output while ilvl raise.
#3 ressource management is bad
Especially energy’s one / and return of it . Unless you build for heavy amount of haste, wich nobody does because otherwise , as I propose in #2 scaling is bad, you will drastically reduce your dmg output. So right now, people are stacking versatility/crit and some variable amount of mastery/hate.
this conclude in if you want a GOOD energy sustain, you must DROP your dmg output.
On the good side, having a lot of energy, is more forgiving on miss play. Maybe there is
threshold on haste. Eg a minimum requirement to be at ease. outside off cooldown, I felt a better flow around 10-15% of haste for the sake of it. so it’s really a tradeoff , drop dps output for haste.
Chi’s return is bad as in his state , we only have small chance of getting chi back when using our abilities.
In aoe phase, with 5 target debuffed, most of the time I got 1 chi back so I need a builder (I need something different anyway so…well it’s a builder most of the time) , then start spining again in the hope of a proc to continue. Chi return on other aiblities are as bad. the core machanism has already a huge constraint, so a better chi return would be very very nice. the situation where I can spin, and while I spin, use another chi dmg ability because I have the chi, or most likely only the energy, to do it is not in the often side of stat. but it happens, and it feel very nice when i can do it of course. 
I want this to happen every time, because it’s what were supposed to do.
Outside of RSK procs, or mastery stack, I track all these in a very easy frame right in front my eyes. I used every optimised combination or prioritization of our abilities, to check this out. On AOE’s phase you can do FOF priority and only using SCK 5 stack when it proc (this is a dps loss btw), or you can do SCK 5 stack no matter proc or not, this wont help chi return either of course. Now adds in raid/mm mechanism and you can toast very quick the sequence. There is no keyboard key for you to crush for sure! (blink one eye to enh chaman in the corner! thing is a living christmas tree!! lol !)
While to my eye, a rogue outlaw has one of the best combo point mechanism, I feel we have the worst of all spec. maybe we need a more direct link to earth, wind and fire
It’s easy to fix, we’re supposed to be some sort of momentum figther, well we need more momentum please on our builder /spender and overall energy regeneration mechanism.
#4 skill ceiling , button press ( ake button bloat) and spec design. [ And capped AOE everywhere ]**
This one is an easy one, our mastery put a big constraint on how to play the spec.period.
You want to favor ST? then don’t use SCK outside of proc. you want to favor AOE ? then favor SCK even outside of proc!
Other than that it’s the regular management of kicks’n’ fist, 4 pieces’s bonus don’t interfere much with the gameplay. You buff fist with kicks, and you buff kicks with fists.
The true fof lies in pvp, and it’s a terrible thing. They cant simply get balance between pvp and pve, so they choose to have this skill talent system. Here kiss’n’by to our beloved fof.
Past these basics things, we have on average over 25+ to 30 keybinds, 4 CD def, 4 CD off, 1 to 2 trinket use if you choose to, and some other abilities that don’t have a keybind. On average we have the same number of keybind than a protection war. I can name a few dps spec with the lowest amount of keybind, but that’s not the point. not even gonna mention the number of keybind for a brewmaster lol !
We need way more button press and brain to actually puts out a few numbers than most of other spec. I wont name them, it’s easy to find. And don’t tell numbers arent important, or your not playing the same game!
What so? This is the way and get over it!?! solution lies all in the class design and it is on the very behalf of everyone to like it or not. I feel we could use less button, at least on the big cooldown side.
bug on death touch and it’s design / bug on skyreach
there’s a few bug on death touch that prevent the first hit to do actualy mean damage.
it happens from time to time, you see rididiculous damage on first hit (as in anything from 5K to 8K hit) then the second one is the average big hit I’m sure some of you have seen this.
there this other issue, you use DT to cleave, not for the actual damage on main target most of the time…because the main target would have died anyway with or w/o your DT. it dies fasterOK, helps sometime. But that is a really bad designed ability, while it started interresting at the begenning. simply put if you dont use it for cleave, you are not using it correctly. and you wont do optimal damage. DT is actually your second to forth damage ability. if not, it’s done the wrong way.
I’m unsure this is a good thing, but it’s only real BIG HITER we have. If we spec into it , and i mean full spec, it should do more damage or be easier to apply for everyone.
that’s is not appealing gameplay , and i dont see a fit in the monk universe for this :
« tab to find a target that light up DT to cleave » to do some number. the Tank has to know and play around with it, but that’s OK I guess, team gameplay stuff.
Skyreach, well everyone know. it will dash you into the center mass of a bad mob and you’ll die of a mechanic or a cleave. Blizzard will split the thing into two separate skill. that’s not a fix it’s a workaround.
We, the players, we have found work around to play with this bugger. I expect Blizz to do his best to FIX it. Either by fixing the hitbox, or redesign it so it check if you are in melee range already. SIMPLE FIX. I prefer it TO NOT trigger sometime than TO TRIGGER and get me dead.
Btw the rogue is in the same boat on this they also have the exact same issue with one of they ability.
#conclusion
It’s now the time to get the thing done for the ww monk as it is for the ret pal. A complete rework or redesign of the spec. change tree, core abilities should not cost point, but be baseline as it ever was?!
Make new apealing abilities, there are plenty one in the monk universe in wow or outside wow. make new connection. fuse the obvious placeholder to just spend point? the tree design feel lackluster overall.
it’s probably time to reverse a few nerf after SL. I say it again, it feel dull to spend point on core class/spec mechanism, that’s not called choice. Current state of the ww tree offer absolutely NO choice for 99% of the players. Not yet talking about ST build, there’s isnt any viable choice. just go look on “murloc io” or “wow log stats raid/mm”. we have variation on at most 3 skills.
I give you one inspiration, from an other very old game.
A long time ago a concurrent company made a game , a sci-fi game with a class named “martial artist” . [here come hater, go play this game, blabla…i don’t listen to hater… ]
There were his core abilities :
-Fight with fist only, don’t need a weapon to wear but he could do so if he wanted to (any kind, not just staff, axe and sword), but then he could not use fist. Logic , right? Talking wow, There is no code issue here, they could do it “tomorrow” if they wanted to. Here in wow, we do need weapon to fight with fist (enchant, etc…). That’s called a work around again ! because in fact we are fighting with our weapon code wise. So basicly we’re not a monk as in monk fantasy, we’re a monk as in a biased code optimisation point of view. Someone at blizzard found out that altering animation to not USE weapon was the best way to make the monk. Fastest, economicaly interesting, sure. But limiting, indeed. Here’s come the fist weapon to completly make the weapons vanish. Again, a work around.
-Could change the element damage of hist fist : wind, earth and fire (ice too btw) Doesn’t this recall you something??
-has the highest crit rate of all spec class,period. Could do very short burst crit because he knew the weak point of the body. (with fof buffing crit chance of RSK, that’s a sort of small short crit window burst …but it’s only one ability I’d like to see a 100% crit window for 10s or so. maybe 8. dont care. let me crit what I want to crit in the moment in want to crit, that 6s 50% crit buff tied to a suicide ability this is non sense )
-no pets (well , question of universe) simply put move the damage on base abilities. Pet AI is not always good in wow. Again player use work around to play with their pets.
-high evade dps or tank (unless you play BrewMaster, there’s no such thing as high evade anymore for monks , evade in ww spec died a long time ago)
-could heal other or himself (unless you play MW or FW, you can barely save one’s life), but as of now you can save yourself from some trouble , but not real mean trouble.
-could buff other with powerfull crit buff , a lower version of his own buff. Here we buff avoidance and leech and physical dmg. Well that’s not bad for the physical dmg part. Everyone wants one. But im sure everyone would like a crit buff too.
-has high mobility. This is a check. it’s nicely done, actually it’s better.
-has strong defensive/offensive cooldown. Ok on the defensive side, on the offensive side, that tiger statue… feels bad, serenity feels bad,…spawning a pet to have haste/dmg buff feels bad… even if I spec into the tiger, over an entire 18-19 keys typical fight let’s say, at most it’s one more spawn. not worth it in my eye.
hope