Monk changes in build 15657, tons of blue posts

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May 012012
 

Whew, tons of material out tonight. I’ll parse what I can, but there’s no way I can get to everything today. Here’s my quick off-the-cuff analysis.

All

  • The reduced energy regen I mentioned in my last post is intended for WW/BM. BM gets it back via their stance and Recoil. whereas WW has Energizing Brew. Wouldn’t surprise me if this changes some more.
Windwalker:
  • Windwalker’s extra chi gain got baked into the DPS stance (but it’s not working right now on the beta, which really hurts). Muscle Memory is gone.
  • New spell for Windwalkers, Touch of Karma; redirects damage for 6 sec. Badly needed Survivability.
  • Spinning Crane Kick costs energy instead of Chi, which is probably good as the fallback AoE.
Brewmaster:
  • Stagger is now 70% damage taken/30% staggered.
  • Instead of directly granting Stagger, BOK now gives Shuffle, which gives +30% parry and something to stagger. Mastery does the same. Blue post (see below) indicates that design intent is that all un-avoided hits are staggered, which is a very interesting mechanic. Could explain why the armor was so low.
  • There’s a new parry passive that does some damage.
Mistweaver:
  • They’re trying to chill out the ReM/Uplift spam rotation, which is good; felt like druid RG/WG spam.
  • Chi Wave is likely becoming a talent, not a mistweaver exclusive.
Full changes below; I’ll updates guides when I can, though likely not for a couple days (busy).

Patch changes from mmo-c:

Baseline

  • Stance of the Fierce Tiger now also increases the amount of Chi generated by your Jab and Expel Harm abilities by 1.
  • Swift Reflexes (New) - Whenever you parry an attack, you reflexively strike back at the enemy for (0.3 * (MainHand DPS + 50% of OffHand DPS + 7.1% of AP – 1)) to (0.3 * (MainHand DPS + 50% of OffHand DPS + 7.1% of AP + 1)) damage. This effect has a 1 sec cooldown.
  • Spinning Crane Kick no longer costs 2 Chi and costs Mana/Energy instead.

Talents

Windwalker

  • Flying Serpent Kick now slows enemies down by 0.2 sec, down from 0.3 sec.
  • Touch of Karma has been clarified – All damage you take is redirected to the enemy target over 6 sec instead of you. Damage cannot exceed your total health. Lasts for 10 sec.

Brewmaster

  • Brewmaster Training Shuffle now increases your parry chance by 30% and your Stagger amount by an additional 20% for 6 sec.
  • Keg Smash now has a 8 yards range.
  • Mastery: Elusive Brawler now Increases your parry chance by 50.0% of SP and your Stagger amount by an additional 50.0% of SP.
  • Recoil reworked – Your successful normal attacks restore up to 3 energy per second, based on weapon speed. While dual wielding, this energy is halved.
  • Stance of the Sturdy Ox now increases Energy regeneration by 30%.

Mistweaver

  • Life Cocoon gained a Levitate/Hover effect.
  • Stance of the Wise Serpent now also grants expertise. Now increases Attack Power by 50% of your spell power, down from 100%.
  • Uplift now increases the duration of all your Renewing Mists by 6 sec instead of refreshing it.

Blue posts:

  • #502 - 2012/05/01 09:08:00 PM
    • We’re still planning on adding a Mistweaver “chi dump,” hopefully within the next two builds. It will probably cost 3 Chi, and interact with Soothing Mists somehow.
    • We’re going to be diminishing the interaction between Uplift and Renewing Mists. The gameplay at the high-end becomes nothing but keeping all of your Renewing Mists refreshed on as many targets as possible, in spite of everything else. We found ourselves using Surging Mist just to gain Chi for Uplift, to keep Renewing Mists rolling on a 10-man raid, which was overpowered, but definitely wasn’t fun if we missed that refresh. Our current plan is to cause Uplift to only extend the duration of your Renewing Mists by a 6 seconds or so, rather than refreshing it completely.
    • We’re probably going to be moving Chi Wave out of the Mistweaver spec, and put it as a talent choice with Zen Sphere and Chi Burst, then balance those as interesting choices for all Monks.
    • We’re going to be adding spirit to expertise conversion to the stance as well.
    • We may re-design how the statue works, removing the on-click effect as it steps on Lightwell’s toes a bit.
  • #161 - 2012/05/01 10:05:00 PM
    • We’ve been doing a slight rework of some of the Brewmaster’s mechanics. In an upcoming build all attacks done to the Brewmaster will be staggered, and we’re adding UI to show you the “level” of your stagger (high, medium or low), so that you can know when you should use Purifying Brew. This design will give you the choice of clearing your stagger stack with Purifying Brew, or continue to push damage into your Stagger stack using Blackout Kick.
    • We’re going to attach the Brewmaster to Parry more. Parry will passively cause a counterattack effect causing damage, and using Blackout Kick will now cause your Stagger % (as in, the amount of damage being staggered) and Parry % to increase.
    • We still need to give the Brewmaster better defense against magic. This will either be a passive damage reduction or some rework of an ability.
    • We’re going to make defensive cooldowns all “Chi-free”, including the talents.
    • We’re going to change Spinning Crane Kick to not cost Chi, but Energy/Mana over time.
    • We will do a polish pass on the interrupt (Spear hand strike) and snare (Disable). That said, Disable is a bit superfluous for the Brewmaster because of Dizzying Haze.
  • #3 - 2012/05/01 09:11:00 PM
  • In an upcoming build, we’re boosting the passive [energy] regeneration rate for Brewmasters in the [tanking] stance. We reduced the energy rate because it was too much for Windwalkers (since they gain 2 Chi from Jab).
  • #3 - 2012/05/01 09:12:00 PM
  • This is indeed a bug. The range is not intended to be that short.
  • #4 - 2012/05/01 09:13:00 PM
  • The balance on these spells is not yet complete. We intend for Chi Burst to be worth the cast time for all 3 specs. The spell effects for Chi Burst should also be in the next build.
 Posted by at 8:13 pm