So this one going to be long one and I hope you will be patient going through it but it just proves how much windwalker needs a lift up to be at least near other DPS specs in Shadowlands. As it stands right now windwalkers huge amount of bugs and holes that makes it weak. It does not do anything that other DDs cant do allready and better as well. Those two are main reasons behind why WW struggles.
Windwalkers live in the shadow of demon Hunters and brewmasters. There is no single reason to take windwalker into your raid or mythic + because any of the damage dealers can do same and better the damage, specifically single target and bring wider, more practical utility or just be a tank. This can be solved in majority by odressing WW’s bugs and filling some obvious holes.
All that I’m about to write it’s just a collection of of everybody’s idea in majority peak of Serenity dot com and others windwalkers active players that are vocal via various Media like Jfunk. Shoutout. So don’t give any credit to me give it to them, I just want to make it appear here and and show that these ideas are not just one persons desire.
I will be talking abour scaling alot and to help everybody understand that its not just flat dmg I am talking about but it is the power curve every spec travels throu expansion patch by patch as we get stronger getting gear with highee numbers. It is the every rising line but for Some it rise up faster than others while for some can…not move that much. One spec can start very high but scale with stats poorly so his power would basicly not increase much over the span of a patch while second spec will start with low power but scale well with stats and will inevitably meet with the 1st one and then suprass it even further down the line. So WW is like this former.
Mastery - From what I observed the comunnity is divided on this one. Some like it some dont. It creates alot of scaling issues, some abilities dont scale with our mastery some do. Some abilities are not included in mastery which can make it drop without you knowing. Like covenants abilities, especially night fae which you use quite often. New expel harm which I will talk later about. Xuen which is our important CD in SL and touch of karma I will talk about later as well. Additionaly mastery states that it increases damage of abilities that are not the repeat of the last of but we cant spam any abilities that matter in damage in rotation because we are CD and resource locked in a first place so there is a bit of conflict there. You really only look after tiger palm and blackout kick 95% of the time which are not any meaningfull part of our overall dmg.
Proposal - Alot of people say tigereye brew makes more sense (toned right) which i think is good point. I like both but most I would like to know that my mastery matter and will continue to matter further into expansion. One that works matter to me. Tigereye brew made sense and easly sorts every issue current mastery creates. Building stacks of flat dmg and healing increase and creating dmg windows. Would need change to some covenant. kyrian: more stacks for 30s? venthyr no change? nekro: no mich change as well? night fae: again more max stacks when you stand in it?
I will talk about making free space in talent tre which could used to make abilities that drop those stacks for a reward which could really work long way.
Now you might think it is a big rework but it simply is not, it would solve alot off issues and require less resources to look after it one its done. Plus ww could actually use its healing finally to help with survivability and monk’s idea of a hybryd which has been forgotten. And yes I will say it, if shadow got it it means any other can get that sweet rework. WW had nothing new for at least 3 years now.
Storm Earth and Fire - this is another one that creates more problems than benefits. This one I talk about reluctantly bacause I have strong believe that it is a coding sheet show. Spirits AI buggs out alot. They can miss a spell not casting it at all which ends up with you only doing 45% of dmg. When you lining up resources and cooldowns for that window and it fails makes me want to exit game and have a break. Spirits get confused alot after killing a mob. Can not forget about triple 100% cast at last seconds of the CD which made us cancleaura it in purpose which you thought you fixed by deleting that feature but we still do it at last 0.3 sec.
But still there is an opportunity here that might make WW a unique damage spec. SEF can serve as cleave tool like arms warrior has or destruction warlock. the spirit will travel to your target and do x dmg of your dmg. max 2 spirits. You target 1st if its outt you send 2nd spirit to difrent target. WOD version. spirit spread cleave, no melee can do that. I agree that it can help WW finding a nishe in raid setting.
Paralysis - Why does it put you in combat when havoks imprison does not. I just dont inderstand it. Please be fair with this one.
Touch of Karma - it is very weird, to use defensive cd for offensive purposes is wrong. Especially now with fort brew that increase you hp. thats 2 defensive CDs to use offensively. There were some suggestions to just put dmg portion in pvp talent. That could work or make it similar to druids thorns. Thanks to that it will scale with mastery and crit oppose to what is now. It scales only with hp atm.
Expel harm - This button makes no sense to press nor it is included in our mastery. Simply reverse harm current pvp talent baseline would just do the magic. They both exist in beta atm. We would love additional chi generator in our rotation and healing bit can be used to get nice hit of tanks hp even in mythic+. Again it would make WW do something that other dps dont and outline the hybryd nature of the monk.
Xuen the White tiger - the fact that it does not scale with our secondary stats very well will make it weak to press after 1st patch. It does not scale with our current mastery at all. His auto attacks only scale with our haste but no the lightning tiks which is majority of his dmg. Can he crit? Can his lightning crit?
Talents:
1st row - basicly is just underwhelming apart from chi blast animation and chi generation. Eye of the tiger you will not notice not only because it is so passive but because its meaningless in numbers as well. If we could affect more targets that would straight up made it interesting, we change target anyway for spinning crane buff. Chi wave just serves as combo saver. If you got rid off this row that would not make significant change in either playstyle and numbers. Tigareye brew could make it bit better due to healing increase.
2nd row - is fine in my opinion I use all.
3rd row - Nobody uses energising elixir anymore. It is fun to press fist of the white tiger and get on demand chi for opener every 30s with cool animation (I miss you legion artifact ability) and fits the rotation. Ascension is ok but only because we have been bombarded with so much resourçes left right and centre, which makes little sense for WW. Will talk about it in covenant abilities section.
4rd row - tiger tail sweep took litelary nobody and for a good reason. why would you give up on Ring. You can have both. Good karma its weird because you use karma to prevent dmg so theres not much to heal. Maybe ok for pvp but then again you giving up on ring. This is where we have another opportunity by making ring of piece baseline and open up talent spot. One point on ring of peaalce is that its unfair to have DHs just fly over them like nothing.
5th row - Hit combo please, it is just so lazy that it makes me a grafter. Just mastery on mastery. Not impactfull not fun. Delete and open up talent spot. Rushing jade wind is another one that nobody takes. Not impactfull enought. Now the silver lining for WW is dance of chi-ji is just awesome not only for the aditional damage it provides but for the fact that it does give you another option in your rotation that can lead to satisfying combos even when it procs back from itself when everything is on cd you can pair it with bok and reduce those cd. Just juicy. Thats when WW started to dance.
5th row - for a last dps row one would think that will grant you option depending on content but Whirling Dragon Punch is just good everywhere not only because ability itself giving you another hit in your combo but because your not giving up on very flexible cd which is SEF. People made some math and serenity would have to be 3 fold buffed to compete with WDP but still I would take WDP because it is another button and fun one to press. We got so much used to WDP that natural conclusion would be to just give it to WW baseline. We cant see WW without it and will allways choose it if it stays as a talent. That would open up yet another spot and I am ready to bet that what ever idea comes in place it will be taken instead of other two mainly because how under tuned and boring they are. Not boring one is of course Serenity but I just don’t want to give up flexibility SEF provides.
So, WW acctually have no real choice in talents with a singlenspot that would alter gameplay to fit to diffrent enviroments apart those 2 I mentioned. Theres currently one build for everything. As a WW you dont open talent window much.
Covenant abilities
Kyrian’s Weapon of order - So this one is in conflict. It resets our RSK which you cant utilize straight away bacause of our mastery and if you do you will loose the mastery. Additionaly monk dont deal well with extra resources because we dont have a way to dump our chi on demantd efectively. BOK becomes free and only way to dump your chi is SCK. You loosing dmg in or oder to keep mastery and influx of chi, still capping energy. If you leave energy aside you can take advantage of free BOK for surge of CD reduction in FoF and RSK but then you loosing dmg from mastery again. I do not believe that this is the intention of this ability.
In my opinion it would make more sense to either change mastery as mentioned above or give the spell symbolical dmg conponenet so it becomes a hit and keep it in out mastery.
Venthyr’s Fallen Order - I like it alot fallen order of dead monks fits in my opinion. CD is very powerfull and it does scale well. It is being haunted by bugs tho. Tiger monks dont cast Fof anymore and they do 45% of the dmg when you use it along with SEF. Abit of fire and forget button but hey you cant have everything.
Just fixing bugs and cross relate them to our toolkit.(sef bug)
Necrolord’s Bonedust brew - its just too rng for me. same problem with SEF here as above and another abiliy that gives more resources which I mentioned at Kyrians.
Cant give any suggestions here.
Nightfae’s faeline stomp - it is awesome. Gives new hit and animation and I like it. Unfortunately, again bugs and resource problem. For a spell that you possibly cast very often it needa to be put on the mastery list otherwise it makes no sense. You will loose mastery often. It can provide alot of both resources which again we are just not capable of spending efficiently. I dont know exacly how it works with SEF you get one from storm clone or you get 3 from all ? regardless probably needs decision there. It looks lovely but if you get alot of procs you just going to clutter entire floor. God forbid you run with night fae blood DK.
So here I would feel much better knowing I that it is part of my mastery. Would not mind exchanging resources for damage cause it could need a tune up to be fair and we dont need more resource. Would suggest toning it down a bit as well.
Other bugs:
Auto attacks - it wasnt a problem before but since we started to put autoattacks back into equation WW fell back as only one melee that has to channel so many abilities. This is one of major reasons why WW struggles with single target. Lack of autoattacks during FoF and SCK just makes no sense to me. MM does autoatack while casting Aimed Shot so the technology is there. Fixing that wouldò help WW immensly.
FoF and interrupting - I really believe this is a bug. We are throwing out hands all over the place allready. Feels very bad to miss a spell interrupt in purpose for dmg or being scared to cast Fof because you have to interrupt a spell.
WW and raid - at the moment WW brings nothing to the raid that makes raid leader say “I want WW for …” one of the idea around to make smth with windwalking aura which can easly disapear and noone will notice. Movement boost is allways usefull. At the moment 10% is not enought to notice and it does not stack with anything even if in range whuch is just so poor you will allways run ouf of it even in myth +.
Make it stronger passive or CD whichever there is an opportunity in it.
Another interesting suggestion was mass transcedence and that would be awesome and usefull but I leave this one to the public. That and spread cleave suggested above with new/old SEF would lift WW raid spot chance up.
So there is it
Thanks.