Hello all
Posting here because I cannot post in the development forums.
I am here to voice my concern over the current state of WW in Shadowlands Alpha. The concern revolves around “interactivity”.
Don’t take away my interactivity from Touch of Death (the damage window) and I do not want Xuen if it’s just going to be a; me pressing the button, a tiger pops up, does his thing and leaves. Blizzard, that is not fun. You are over simplifying Touch of Death, and Xuen offers nothing other than another button to press.
By simplifying in this way, you are lowering the skill ceiling that players can reach if they understand how their class works and enemies they face. And while I see that you are doing so to make less of a gap between good and average players, but, and I am sure many would agree with me: Please Don’t Do That.
I would absolutely love to see ToD remain as it is, or at the very least leave the damage window in when fighting an enemy with a lot more hp than you. And making the ToD kill a creature with less hp can still be added. But this gives ToD interaction when fighting creature vs big adds. This is interesting. And would require the player to know and plan when to use it to maximise damage output.
About Xuen, it’s an awesome looking blue lightning tiger. But you are not doing it justice. Upon pressing the button, it’s just gonna come in, swing its paw about and leave. So much more can be done here to make it interesting and awesome to use.
For example:
Since he is lightning based, a “charge-up” mechanic is very fitting. A monk could summon Xuen, it would do its damage on a pack of enemies, and upon leaving, Xuen would buff the Monk. That’s rather simple, but it’s already miles better.
It could buff Monk in a number of ways. Simple one could be just a damage boost, which then adds even more interactivity to the ToD’s damage window if that remains, adding complexity, deeper class understanding and when it’s best to use it.
But my favorite idea for Xuen is this: once Xuen leaves and the ability goes on cooldown, it empowers it IF Xuen and Monk together have done enough damage. If the damage threshold was passed, Monk can presses the button again (during cd) and launch himself at the targeted location and strike all enemies with an equally split damage, and debuff enemies to take additional damage from monk.
This adds further complexity, and understanding of both the class and what kind of packs are coming up; will Xuen+Monk do enough damage to acquire that empowerment? If it’s a too few mobs, Monk can use ToD to bypass the damage threshold and then have a boost to AOE because a big pack is coming up that needs burning.
Another point which has been said over and over and over again: Whirling Dragon Punch and Fist of White Tiger needs to be baseline. Without them Monk feels starved for abilities to press, for chi and for energy, and is simply not fun to play.
Dance of Chi-ji. I welcome this talent, but it’s yet again gonna be a talent that gets picked 90% of the time. Not only it’s a good boost to AOE and even ST, but for me, the best appeal about it is that it’s free. The fact that it is free, allows a good WW to replenish his energy or chi by doing Blackout Kick > Free Crane Kick > Blackout Kick (while energy replenishes) without losing our damage output, or Tiger’s Palm > Free Crane Kick > Tiger’s Palm to quickly acquire chi. My point here is that you are killing Combo Strikes. And from memory I can’t even remember the middle talent currently in that tier, that’s how dead some talents are when a certain talents outshines others.
I will be coming back to this thread as Alpha progresses, but these are my main concerns at the moment.
Thank you for reading. Really looking forward to Shadowlands!
