Monk Meditation - Episode 27: Windtalkers







The beta continues to open up, Brewmasters are not getting any more ability cuts, and are Windwalkers too slow? Coming up on Monk Meditation - Episode 27.

Theme music: John the Return 2K11 - Butterfly Reloaded by Butterfly Tea http://www.butterfly-tea.com/

Horde v Alliance All Monk Flex: Pt 1

Horde v Alliance All Monk Flex: Pt 2

• http://monkmeditation.s3.amazonaws.com/mm27.mp3

Monk Meditation - Episode 26 - It's Beta Time



Mistweavers continue getting tweaked, we’re a year old, we talk to you about the beta, and give away a beta key, coming up on Monk Meditation - Episode 26.

Theme music: John the Return 2K11 - Butterfly Reloaded by Butterfly Tea http://www.butterfly-tea.com/

All-monk flex:

Alliance: http://openraid.us/r/208938

Horde: http://openraid.us/r/209026

Gaze of the Black Prince: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/14689648/the-gaze-of-the-black-prince-returns-7-14-2014

• http://monkmeditation.s3.amazonaws.com/mm26.mp3

Warlords Beta - Windwalker Info

Ability Pruning

• Grapple Weapon
• Sparring
• Swift Reflexes
• Spinning Fire Blossom
• Healing Sphere
• Adaptation

Ability Changes
New Abilities

• Critical Strikes: Increases your chance to critically strike by 10%.
• Multistrike Attunement: You gain 5% more of the Multistrike stat from all sources.
• Surging Mist: 30 energy. Heals like a wet tissue.
• Windflurry: Grants 5% Multistrike to the Monk and all allies within 100 yards.

Changed Abilities

• Afterlife: After every kill, a healing sphere will appear. (Up from 50% chance. Glyph of Afterlife removed.)
• Combo Breaker and Combat Conditioning have been rolled into the Stance of the Fierce Tiger. Stance also now extends your 10% movement speed to nearby party/raid members within 10 yards.
• Crackling Jade Lightning: Reduced cast time to 4 seconds.
• Fists of Fury (see section below)
• Jab: Energy increased to 50 from 40.
• Legacy of the White Tiger and Legacy of the Emperor have been combined into Legacy of the White Tiger
• Ring of Peace: Lasts for 8 seconds. Instantly incapacitates targets in the affected area for 3 seconds (or until damaged). If they attack or cast a harmful spell, will be incapacitated for an additional 3 seconds.
• Rising Sun Kick: Removed mortal wounds effect. Affected targets now take 5% more magic damage.
• Spear Hand Strike: Will only silence the enemy if the monk hits from behind.
• Storm, Earth, and Fire: Off the GCD and has no energy cost.
• Tigereye Brew: Gain a stack for every 6 chi spent, up from 4.
• Tiger Strikes: Used to increase attack speed by 50% and your next 4 auto-attacks would double strike. Now gives an 8% (5% if dual wield) chance for your auto-attacks and their multistrikes to increase your multistrike chance by 25% for 8 seconds.
• Touch of Karma: Max amount reflected is 50% of your max HP, down from 100%.
• Touch of Death: Usable on targets below 10% HP. Will do your max HP in damage.
• Zen Meditation: The spell redirect effect has been removed.

Tier 100 Talents

• Hurricane Strike: Unleash a rapid series of kicks toward random enemies within 12 yards, dealing a total of XXXX damage over 2 sec. While kicking, you are immune to movement impairing and loss of control effects.
• Chi Explosion: Consumes up to 4 Chi to cause the target to explode with Chi energy, causing additional effects based on Chi consumed:
  
  1+ Chi: Deals Nature damage to an enemy equal to 1 (+ 89.1% of Attack power) plus 1 (+ 89.1% of Attack power) per Chi consumed.
  2+ Chi: Deals an additional 50% damage over 6 sec.
  3+ Chi: Also generates a charge of Tigereye Brew.
  4 Chi: The damage also hits all enemies within 8 yards of the target.
  
  Replaces Blackout Kick. Combo Breaker: Blackout Kick is also replaced with Combo Breaker: Chi Explosion, which causes your next Chi Explosion to refund 2 Chi.
• Serenity: You enter an elevated state of mental and physical serenity for 10 sec. While in this state, all Chi consumptions are instantly refilled.

Draenor Perks
From level 91-100, you will get a random perk from this list. Once you are 100, you will have all of these perks available to you:

• Enhanced Roll: Your Roll now travels the same distance in 25% less time.
• Improved Energizing Brew: While Energizing Brew is active, your Multistrike chance is increased by 10%.
• Empowered Chi: Increases your maximum Chi by 1.
• Empowered Spinning Crane Kick: Spinning Crane Kick now deals damage twice as fast, but its duration is reduced by 50%.
• Empowered Rising Sun Kick: Damage of Rising Sun Kick is increased by 20%.
• Empowered Fists of Fury: Damage of Fists of Fury is increased by 20%.
• Enhanced Transcendence: The cooldown of Transcendence is reduced by 35 sec, and Transcendence: Transfer is now instant cast.
• Empowered Blackout Kick: Damage of Blackout Kick increased by 20%.
• Empowered Tiger Palm: Increases the damage of Tiger Palm by 20%.

Glyphs (New and Changed)

• Glyph of Expel Harm: Expel Harm's energy cost is reduced by 5 while your health is below 35%.
• Glyph of the Floating Butterfly: Fists of Fury can be channeled while moving but no longer stuns its target.
• Glyph of the Flying Serpent: Flying Serpent Kick now also slows all enemies you move through by 70% for X.
• Glyph of Victory Roll: You gain 1 charge of Roll or Chi Torpedo whenever you kill a target that grants experience or honor.
• Glyph of Freedom Roll: Your Roll, Chi Torpedo, and Flying Serpent Kick abilities dispel all snares affecting you when used.
• Glyph of Blackout Kick: Your Blackout Kick always deals 30% additional damage over 4 sec regardless of positioning but you're unable to trigger the healing effect.
• Glyph of Detox: Detox heals your target for 4% when it successfully removes a harmful effect.
• Glyph of Nimble Brew: Clearing an effect with Nimble Brew heals you for 7% of your maximum health.

Fists of Fury
The Windwalker's Signature Ability has been buffed like crazy.

• Stun effect: Will only count as one stun, removing the diminishing returns aspect that affected fights like Galakras.
• Damage: Damage has been boosted by 100%.
• Damage split: Will do full damage to your primary target and do the damage split to other affected targets.
• Movement: Glyph of the Floating Butterfly allows you to move while casting, but removes the stun component.

With the details out of the way, let's talk about the feels.


Slow down
The devs have indicated that the skill cap in MoP was too high due to GCD capping. Highly skilled monks could utilize haste to get in a skill on every GCD. This made the class difficult to master for new players. A skilled player in the same gear could put out significantly more damage than a non-skilled player.

Let's put aside the debate on whether that is a good or a bad thing for now. The devs want to narrow the gap by bringing new players' damage up and narrow the delta between what the top damage can be.

The primary way they are doing this is slowing down our rotation by making Jab be worth 50 energy rather than 40. How does this affect our playstyle?

Having copied over my windwalker to the beta servers (ilvl 570, 11.5k haste on live), I do notice myself running out of energy earlier than usual. I am working in Energizing Brew in more (which has the benefit of increasing Multistrike once perked) and Fists of Fury. This is going to be where the skill comes in, being able to track these two additional cooldowns and hitting them when needed to keep your energy flow up and running. Even after getting more used to this, I still find myself running out of energy.

Keep in mind that the highest I've been able to go is level 92 at ilvl 570. When we're at 100, the item levels will be more on par with 650 or so (I believe), and will be tuned around balance at that level. We'll have to see how the feel of the class is.

Other feels
Storm, Earth, and Fire feels fantastic. Not only is it off the GCD, but the clones get to your target a lot faster. Still no UI element tracking their usage (other than the same buff icon we're used to). Hopefully they can add something for us.

Fists of Fury hits like a freight train. It feels really good to use it. This ability will be the centerpiece of our rotation to get our energy back.

The change with the Transcendence perks have made me put the two spells back on my quick bars. Having that instant (can even be moving!) cast to get back opens up all sorts of interesting play ideas.

I actually notice the lack of grapple weapon. I know it's little, but I miss it, especially when out questing.

In dungeons, I'm rocking faces. I'm looking forward to testing in raid environment.

Surging Mist feels very very weak in comparison to healing spheres. I have a feeling this is by design, but I'm hoping they provide us some Out of Combat healing, like ramp up the power of it if OOC.