I was intrigued at WW rework until I tried it myself. Boy oh boy. I really don’t understand how people can praise this rework.
First of all, Expel Harm. What’s really beyond my undestanding is how the idea of hardlocking the entire burst kit behind a single talent that removes now already borderline useless (after the removal of Chi-generating aspect) spell seemed anything good by anyone who played this spec. This is antithesis of talent versatility and overall just bad design. EH was good self-heal button for open world and PvP and good Chi regulator to keep the tempo and have no downtime in rotation, and there was simply no logic in removing it.
Second, Serenity. You had one of the coolest thematically fitting bursts in the game and you removed it in favor of SEF, spell that no one really likes and that has a huge history of being buggy mess. Bravo.
Third, Rushing Jade Wind. Instead of making it callable aura or non-Chi button as in BM and MW, they binded it to SotW and its 30 sec cooldown. Why?
Fourth, instead of Skyreach that you could play around at least, we now have Rushing Reflexes, and this one is even more suicidal, and God knows how much deadly situations and CC breaks this one will lead.
They have removed so many nice things yet they still have some weird death grip on JFS and Last Emperor’s Capacitor which were asked to be removed for a long time.
And honestly, I really don’t understand how this can be anything fun after what we had and what it could be.
Sorry but I just needed to vent a bit. This is a bit too much.
Agreed, there are a lot of good changes, but there are also a few changes like you said that were really bad too… I cant find myself liking my WW Monk going forward to TWW. I need Serenity and I wanna press stuff like every other class… right now with that Tigerpalm Costs we need certain Talents + Rng Luck to keep pressing stuff… doesnt feel good at all.
I was pretty skeptical about this change myself, but after trying it for the last two days I’m pretty ok with it. I haven’t felt like I needed the additional chi generation at all after swapping some gear to haste. With hit combo lasting 30 seconds (and not being the only possible option), there’s not much need for an out-of-combat spell.
Now, I do agree that there is a lack of talent diversity, but I don’t think that needs to bring back Expel Harm as an option.
Thematically, 100% agree. Gameplay-wise, this was the correct choice. In a perfect world (from my perspective) we would’ve gotten the current SEF+OE with a reskin/rename to make it more believable as a Chi technique. Serenity was very cool and made more thematical sense than SEF (WC3 be damned), but the free resource design was not healthy.
To reduce button bloat (which was one of the reasons why it was never picked before).
Other than Skyreach, there’s no strong incentive to play Rushing Reflexes and you can regain a lot of lost mobility through Lighter than Air instead. You’re understandably and rightfully worried about dying to Rushing Reflexes, so just don’t play it.
Both of those talents and their follow-ups are highly optional, so a death grip is kind of exaggerated. Also, while I agree with rather seeing JFS removed, lots of people like LEC.
what they did to WW over the years is terrible, but this is just on another level. it feels completely different, we dont really have a choice anymore, the talent tree sends us to SEF no matter what we do. and its hard to find a monk who actually preferred SEF over other options in most situations.
if we dont say anything, chances to change it go from 0.1% to absolute 0%.
I know I’m probably still used to the DF’s WW as I played the whole expansion with monk. But some of the changes just feel unnecessary. It’s those little things that make a big difference in the end. I’m not sure if it’s because we don’t have our hero talents yet but this version of monk is worse than in DF.
Skyreach needs to come back. I have no idea why they removed that. Feels bad without it.
Summoning WTS with Xuen also feels kinda weird. Now I just have less control over these 2 things. There was nothing wrong with that button.
I miss Expel Harm but I think I can get used to not having it.
What I like is that they removed Bonedust Brew and made me take WDP. I like that ability with it’s combo.
I have no idea why Blizz ALWAYS makes two good changes but 3 bad changes at the same time. And it’s like this with everything in the game.
Well, it’s highly subjective that those changes were bad. I advocated for skyreach being reworked or removed, so it’s not a bad change for me. Removing Expel Harm was unexpected, but I’m already pretty used to it and don’t miss it. Making WTS auto cast just removes a button, so I don’t see a reason to complain there.
That just leaves 3 good changes and 2 neutral-at-worst changes.