In the last few patches, Windwalker has had a number of welcome changes to its gameplay, class design, and talent diversity. Although public appreciation has varied per person, I at least am grateful for the increased awareness of the spec’s issues and attempts to address them.
Which quickly brings me to my main point of this thread: the main cooldowns for Windwalker, [Storm, Earth, and Fire], and [Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger], are being left behind in terms of innovation, creativity, and in my opinion, enjoyability.
**DISCLAIMER**
I’m looking at these abilities individually, that is to say, their baseline version that isn’t modified by follow-up talents. The follow-up talents have to be considered separately since they cost additional talent points that compete with other talents. In the case of SEF and Xuen, all of their follow-up talents are also theoretically not mandatory picks.
Storm, Earth, and Fire
Despite being the shorter cooldown of the two, at least baseline, I still consider SEF to be the “major cooldown” for Windwalker. It is by far the most recognizable, it has been part of the kit since Throne of Thunder, and of course it directly references Warcraft 3.
Many people remember its MoP/WoD version with fondness, albeit potentially with some rose-colored glasses:
Storm, Earth, and Fire
The Monk splits, summoning an elemental spirit to attack the target. The Monk can split into up to 2 elemental spirits at a time.The spirits will attack their targets and mirror your damaging abilities. However, for each elemental spirit summoned the Monk’s own damage will be reduced.
1 Spirit Summoned - Monk and spirit deal 60% of the Monk’s normal damage.
2 Spirits Summoned - Monk and spirits deal 40% of the Monk’s normal damage.
The elemental spirits will last until the Monk cancels the effect or their target dies or is otherwise unavailable.
Wow, what a mouthful 
Remember when Blizzard actually wrote detailed tooltips, or designed complex spells?
Now, some of the issues that I have with the spell are already present here. I won’t go into too much details since I’ve already done that in several, other, places. But, to summarize, SEF doesn’t suit the overall aesthetic of the chi-wielding martial artist that is Windwalker.
The current iteration of Storm, Earth, and Fire hasn’t seen any significant changes since its major rework at the start of Legion, more than 8 years ago, only tuning to the damage modifier and behind-the-scenes adjustments of the spirits’ AI. This version’s unique gameplay mechanic, arguably, was limited to accelerating the application of Mark of the Crane in multi-target situations. Since the spirits automatically switch to an unmarked target when single-target abilities are cast, it essentially reduced your MotC setup time to a third. Those are precious seconds in the competitive environment of AoE burst, so it was a welcome gimmick, albeit not immensely impactful.
However, Mark of the Crane is being removed in patch 11.1.
The tooltip text for SEF, and its entire “split into three spirits” flavor, is a colorful way of saying one simple thing: “Deal 20% more damage for 15 sec”. 51 words that all amount to just that. Do you get any additional benefit for dividing 120% of your overall damage across three units? Not really, in fact you even risk the possibility of your spirits jumping to a mob at the edge of a pack and miss a handful of mobs that you’re hitting. Do you gain additional value if you manually fixate your spirits onto one mob? No, at most you’re mitigating the aforementioned problem. 120% damage for 15 sec is the best case scenario. (Ignore Drinking Horn Cover for a minute, it doesn’t change the point.)
As a result, the gameplay impact of SEF in 11.1 is a big fat 0. Nada, nothing. You press it, and nothing changes. Your priority is exactly the same, your resources are exactly the same, the buttons you press and the order you press them in are exactly the same.
“But Seiryoku, this is addressed by Ordered Elements, no? It basically adds the resource cost reduction from Weapons of Order to SEF, which has a huge gameplay effect.”
Well, read the disclaimer, but real quick: absolutely, Ordered Elements is a very solid addition to SEF’s flavor and gameplay impact. But Ordered Elements is a separate talent. It costs a talent point to take, which means it competes with other talents in the same tier, and it needs to be judged separately.
SEF on its own adds nothing.
Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
Despite what I said about SEF, Invoke Xuen probably has the better claim of being Windwalker’s “main” cooldown. It has been a part of the class’ kit since MoP’s first patch, and has (as far as I know) never been removed as an option. Additionally, despite my personal protestations, it has the most visually obvious aesthetic affiliation with Windwalker’s main in-universe inspiration, the one and only Xuen, the White Tiger.
Thematically, however, Invoke Xuen is probably the worst possible “main cooldown” that the chi-enhanced martial artist specialization could possibly have. Summoning a powerful guardian spirit to attack your enemies for you is about as far removed from the idea of martial mastery and using your own body as the greatest weapon as you could imagine.
Damage-wise, Xuen isn’t very impressive. Baking in Empowered Tiger Lightning was a good call, but even while Xuen is active, he only accounts for about 10% of the damage you’re dealing. That includes his melee attacks, his Crackling Tiger Lightning, and his Empowered Tiger Lightning which scales off of your damage.
So what about playstyle impact? Well, hate to sound like a broken record, but… there’s nothing. Whether you have Xuen up or not doesn’t change your rotation in the slightest. The only reason it’s noticeable in the first place is because we haven’t yet not picked Invoker’s Delight as a follow-up talent since the Dragonflight talent tree reintroduction, but the same arguments apply here: Invoker’s Delight is a separate talent.
The only silver lining is that Xuen’s model is gorgeous. The white tiger practically bursting with lightning looks fantastic. I’ll be sad to see it go if it ever does, but it’d be a worthy sacrifice.
Comparisons
I was planning to do a deep dive into every DPS spec’s major cooldowns here, but it quickly became apparent that that would be a massive undertaking just to supplement a point I’ve already made. Instead, I’ll just list them all in categories of “not/barely noticeable”, “has some effect but nothing significant”, and “clearly noticeable, entirely different feel”. Note that I don’t actively play most of these specs, so feel free to disagree with my observations.
Not/barely noticeable:
- Deathmark (Assa)
- Pillar of Frost (Frost DK)
- Army of the Dead (UH)
- Metamorphosis (Havoc) (Bit torn on this because it’s so visually dominant, but realistically, the main gameplay impact comes from Chaotic Transformation, the “empowered abilities” have no gameplay effect)
- Execution Sentence (Ret)
- Avatar (Arms/Fury)
- Bestial Wrath (BM)
- Abomination Limb (Frost/UH DK)
Noticeable, but relatively minor:
- Summon Demonic Tyrant (Demo)
- Summon Darkglare (Affli) (Darkglare and Tyrant are mostly noticeable on summon, but have very little impact on your rotation while they’re up)
- Summon Infernal (Destro)
- Feral Spirit (Enha)
- Storm Elemental (Ele)
- Symbols of Death (Sub)
- Empower Rune Weapon (Frost DK)
- Raise Abomination (UH)
- Summon Gargoyle (UH)
- Unholy Assault (UH)
- Celestial Alignment/Incarnation: Chosen of Elune (Balance) (only because it puts such an emphasis on spending your resources in this window)
- Tiger’s Fury (Feral)
- Dark Ascension (SP)
- Shadowfiend (SP)
- Coordinated Assault (SV)
- Crusade (Ret)
- Avenging Wrath (Ret) (Whether manually activated or applied by Radiant Glory, the gameplay effect is the same)
Very noticeable:
- Dragonrage (Deva)
- Ascension (Enha/Ele)
- Stormkeeper (Ele)
- Combustion (Fire)
- Icy Veins (Frost) (Can’t go wrong with good old haste buffs on a caster spec I guess)
- Shadow Dance (Sub)
- Shadow Blades (Sub)
- Berserk (Feral)
- Power Infusion (SP) (Haste buff, caster, etc)
- Void Eruption/Voidform (SP)
- Recklessness (Fury)
- Call of the Wild (BM)
- Trueshot (MM)
The conclusion I would draw from this comparison is that WW is one of very few specs (albeit not the only one) of which both/all major cooldowns have zero impact on gameplay. Some cooldowns grant resources on cast, which arguably affects gameplay a little bit, but SEF and Xuen don’t even have that (without follow-up talents).
Suggestions
It wouldn’t be a post of mine without some rework suggestions, so here goes.
To replace Storm, Earth, and Fire, I would like something like this:
Serenity
Talent
Instant 1.5 min recharge
2 Charges
Enter an elevated state of mental and physical serenity for 15 sec. While in this state, you deal 20% increased damage and healing, and your Chi spenders cost one less Chi and cool down 30% faster.
https://i.imgur.com/FSKCHdo.png
Serenity’s spell effect, name, and general theme are excellent for Windwalker, far better than Storm, Earth, and Fire. Its main drawback in terms of healthy design was the effect of making all Chi spenders free, but that is easily fixed by just baking in the Ordered Elements effect. This combined with the increased cooldown speed would make the rotation change during Serenity very noticeable.
For Xuen, we can leave the name as is, since “to invoke” means something closer to what I’m going for than what the spell currently does. So here’s my suggestion:
Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
Talent
Instant 2 min cooldown
Cloak yourself in crackling White Tiger markings, empowering your abilities for 24 sec.Tiger Palm generates one additional Chi.
Chi spenders deal an additional 15% of their damage to nearby targets, reduced beyond 5. When this effect strikes fewer than 5 targets, its damage is increased by 5% for each missing target.
Your damage is increased by 5% per cast, until you use an ability you’ve already used.
https://i.imgur.com/qiVPotu.png
It’s a lot of text, but the last part is where the major gameplay impact would come from. It’s basically a supercharged Combo Strikes, where each unique ability cast increases your damage until you’ve run out of options and need to use one you’ve already used, ideally ending the chain with a big hitter like Fists of Fury or Strike of the Windlord.