I’ve just come back to WoW after a long time away, and decided to switch mains for a change to see if that might help suck me back into the game. It totally worked! However, though I’m greatly enjoying the monk/windwalker play style, I have some small issues with the class.
I think overall it has a nice, furious martial arts feel to it. Great mobility, amazing AoE, and nice finishers once you have the right essences in slot.
What I really miss to give it a solid martial arts feel though is some sort of active defense ability. It feels really strange to me that a class based on martial arts is almost purely offensive. It’s cool of course that we have a minor heal, but I would gladly give it up to have an ability that instead could be used to mitigate/block damage for a second instead. It feels like it would fit the theme of the class so much better.
I know I’ve been out of the discussions on the class for a couple of years, so maybe this has come up a lot before, but I’m curious what the monk community thinks about this.
I felt the same way at the beginning when starting my Monk.
I though that our main defensive was through Vivify (minor heal as you called it), and back when asking around forums people told me that “Monk had mobility as a defensive” and that I should use it to “kite and heal” Which of cause was the excuse people who DIDN’T play Monk in PvP gave me
I can definitely see where you come from regarding a more “active defensive ability”, however Monk isn’t like a Pally, War or DK who always have on demand healing spells or powerful healing procs every few seconds. And that is because we don’t need it.
Monk has different survival mechanics than typical melee classes have, which you didn’t mention So I’m guessing you haven’t integrated them into your rotation yet. We rotate through our CDs one at a time to stay alive, and by doing that properly we can stay alive indefinitely.
And to be fair, we do have Chi Wave and Reverse Harm (baseline with Conflict & Strife) as “active healing” spells, although they don’t offer much healing. However they don’t do that for a reason.
If we need to survive or heal we can do the following:
Ring of Peace (45sec CD) to heal using Vivify or block pathways.
Touch of Karma (2min CD & our main def CD btw) to annihilate our enemy if they burst os down or attack us in general.
Dampen Harm (or any other row 75 talent you choose to better survive).
Transcendance to teleport away and heal or kite (I recommend Leg Weeping the opponent right before to give you more heal time).
Paralysis (45sec CD) to freeze your opponent so you can kite and heal using mobility (again, Leg Sweep first then Paralysis).
Leg Sweep (pretty much an infinite use spell) to slow or root our opponent so we can kite and heal.
Grapple Weapon (PvP talent) to highly reduce the dmg of our opponent.
So as seen, we don’t need “active healing” We instead get “survival utilities”.
To be fair, WW Monk does have a higher learning curve than many other melee classes, which is why many who pick up WW always ask around forums for help
The biggest tip I can give you to help you with WW defensives is to change your mindset about how classes work, and forget about relying on “healing” spells during fights like other classes do. Because once you finally get that eureka moment and see how powerful and fun Monks are with their survival utilities, you will not want “active healing”
Hey, some interesting points there. I’m certainly new to the class, though no stranger to complex classes or rotations as I’ve been an avid MMO gamer for most of my adult life. I’ll try to consider some of your advice though!
I think what I miss with WW isn’t active healing. I do like the mobility as a survival tool thing - I think that fits well with the martial arts theme. What I wish there was instead of vivify is a short cooldown “block” ability. Something I could regularly work into a rotation to actively mitigate/reduce damage spikes as they come in rather that kiting and healing, if that makes sense. Thematically, I think blocking seems more in line to a martial arts fighter than running away and healing.
Funny how biased you guys are. Either I’m missing it, or you guys don’t consider Fists of Fury at all when talking about this subject. It’s like 4 or 5 seconds of physical dmg mitigation and it’s a complete hell for me (ret pal/warrior) to be up against. It does a good bit of dmg, it slows me, and I can’t hit you for anything.
If you use this when the opponent uses offensive CD and you chain it with disarm, stun, paralysis and fly away with your insane mobility, you won’t be having this conversation.
I actually have a 120 ww monk alt, I know what I’m saying. Expecting more dmg mitigation while you have a lot of stuff already feels kind of stupid to me.
You get exactly this with the Turbo Fists (PvP) talent (War Mode required), basically turning your Fists of Fury into a big defensive as well (parrying 100% of attacks during its channel). Of course, this only applies to world or PvP content.
Otherwise some big defensive CDs are Touch of Karma and Dampen Harm/Diffuse Magic which help absorb a decent chunk of damage.
Thematically, it would be good for monks to get some super block, like that bit in the matrix when neo realises he’s the one and just absent mindedly blocks all of agent Smith’s attacks.
When I posted this, I was definitely coming at it from a PvE perspective. Part of what I miss in the game (after coming back from a couple year break) are more reactive abilities which are not tied to the global cooldown. Would be nice to really have to time a short window block instant, rather than put the character in “block mode” for several seconds.
Dont forget the ability to remove poisons. Not a real defensive but it can be a real life saver in the right cicumstances. Im looking at you Underrot dungeon
The thing is ww monk has alot of defencives, but the problem is is that they aren’t base line talents, you have to spec into those talents on the talent tree. Also some really good defencives are just pvp talents too.
Like ring of peace, dampen harm, leg sweep, grapple weapon, all you have to choose 1 or the other from the talent tree. But it’s still a good class, I main mistweaver though.
Which of cause was the excuse people who DIDN’T play Monk in PvP gave me 
So I’m guessing you haven’t integrated them into your rotation yet. We rotate through our CDs one at a time to stay alive, and by doing that properly we can stay alive indefinitely.
We instead get “survival utilities”.