Why has Monk been ignored for so long?

[Zeji-nagrand]

Dont get me wrong, I absolutely love the gameplay of monk

But there are couple of things wrong that is stopping me from fully appreciating it

First off it’s the non weapon animations like the new tiger palm, please give us a glyph to use our weapons again (2h mog would be awesome too)

And secondly, why is fists of fury animation so BLAND? Honestly it feels like I’m playing a 10 year old game when I move around during fists of fury, a new animation with force and movement is definitely needed? Maybe something like a bicycle kick or a super quick succession of jabs from a bo staff would be so much better. The animation we have currently is kinda laughable and really makes the rotation seem lame

EDIT: So browsing the US forums, there are some really nice posts on how WW needs some love, we are completely ignored by blizz and DH’s are our leather melee replacements as we werent ever that popular.

Visually we just lack visceral impact. and the audio just makes everything sound like wiffing and whirling more than punches that dent armor and crush people.

Here is some quotes from posters on the US forums with some changes that I think are interesting and quite frankly needed, as a start to improving WW:

How do we feel about the monks class fantasy

@Vi

But what is a windwalker really? windwalking itself was a blademaster ability. they were inherently an eastern influenced orc clan ( the burning blade clan ) that was all about martial ability and coming to terms with there rage and finding zen.

In the game, windwalkers have some punches and some kicks. we summon a tiger. we can have a green wind that ticks some damage on our enemies. we have some " touch " abilities thrown in there. its just a big mish mash. we are not inherently tanky like demon hunters, warriors, rets, hell even enhance is tankier than us. so the idea of us being this unmatched hand to hand brawler who overpowers there enemies through skill doesnt marry up the the playstyle we have where we are off using weak heals to keep us in a fight by running away for an hour.

If anything demon hunters have our playstyle from the mission statement in there kit. and this is a big part of what doesnt work for me about the spec. its just a mish mash with no clear theme.

Do we pray to xuen for power and guidance? do we meditate to gain inner strength? why isnt this concept explored in the playstyle? we just seem to be aimless vagabonds who just punch and kicks things because we dont know how to pick up a real weapon.

How do we feel about the monks class fantasy

@Yangxiaolóng

" Hmmm… that is a question with a multilayered answer because each change would have to account for balance in PvE or PvP in some regard. I think i’d be better off just listing things i would change in general and the balance concerns they might bring up. That said, there are also completely aesthetic changes to the spec that could be made that would have no effect on balance at all.

Theme wise, I’d say a common theme i have with changes i propose is the idea of progress, improvement, and optimization of an ability. As well as drawing elements from asian culture and the idea of WW being a versatile duelist which means having several efficient answers to specific combat situations.

Change #1: Is more of a QoL/output change. I’d increase the amount of CDR BoK gives to FoF to 1.5 seconds instead of its current 1 second. It reduces our downtime a bit while giving us more energy “recovery” time where we do more damage. The balance concern for a change like this would obviously be would this make our damage too strong in PvP/PvE?

Change(s) #2: Are aesthetic changes to FoF. I’d change the sound back to the old version that sounded much more impacting. Then I’d crank up the animation speed for FoF to about double. And to top it all off with some extra flare and flash, I’d reinstate the Crosswinds passive artifact trait animation that shot wind ghosts when we FoFed back in Legion with the same cranked up animation speed, and maybe give the glyph option of shooting wind ghost versions of the celestials as a glyph.

Change(s) #3: Are aesthetic changes to BoK. I’d crank up the animation speed of BoK and change out the sound effect to a deeper pitched variant of TP’s sound to match how fast it would look.

Change #4: Is a change to Touch of Karma. I’d just revert it back to how it was in MoP, and probably throw in the option of having the damage come in the form of a magical DoT (the way it is now) or just let the damage transfer be instant. The 50% nerf to Karma’s absorb kinda made sense when we had Fort Brew and Zen Med baseline, but now we don’t have them baseline. I think the main balance concern for this change would come from PvP where people might be concerned that this would make Karma too strong. In my personal experience, Karma can get melted away real fast in its current iteration, and still the old tried and true counters of not attacking into and kiting or just bopping/immuning it off. The small PvE side concern for this concern would be trying to balance WW’s PvE damage around all that extra new Karma damage we would get, and it is a valid concern to which i say just don’t count it or discount it for half when trying to balance WW’s PvE damage. If WW players can get the damage in from Karma and not die to other mechanics then I’d say that they earned that extra credit damage.

Change #5: Implement Windwalk that is a good homage to the WC3 Windwalk into our base kit. The obvious concern for this would come from PvP. It would give us a very strong escape in addition to making us stealth bombers. That said, the new PvP trinket that was introduced this season, Corrupted Gladiator’s Breach accomplishes essentially the same thing defensively, and i think I’ve only seen it used once or twice this season.

Change(s) #6: Make WDP baseline and remove the requirement for RSK and FoF to be on CD to use or fix the bug that currently exists that causes it to be unusable even if aforementioned abilities are on CD. In addition to that, I’d crank up the animation speed a little bit and add an extra effect of a scaled down heavenly cloud serpent flying up as we do. I’d also add the sound file from the Cloud Serpent /mountspecial to the ability. Then maybe add a few glyphs that lets us change the color of serpent if we want.

Change #7: Give monk a signature ability on the same strength as LoH, but to focus on the more dueling aspect. Maybe an ability that forced a 1v1 from start to finish with no outside interference that would be disabled in rated. And it’ll have the added benefit of being able to keep rares to yourself out in the overworld.

There are a crap lode more changes i have floating around in my head, but this seems like a good/not too extreme start.

[Caränthir-pozzo-delleternità]

All good suggestions, I know it’s silly but what bothers me the most are the silly sound effects of the abilities for WW monks.