Patch 5.2 Monk changes

 Brewmaster, Mistweaver, Windwalker  No Responses »
Mar 052013
 

I’ve been neglecting WoM a bit, but it’s time to get back in the saddle and review the patch changes!

General

  • To get to the new island with the dailies/raid instance, you take a quest from the Shado-Pan Offensive camp in Townlong Steppes. Subsequent trips are via a portal in the same location. You must have completed the 5.1 intro questline, Landfall, to receive the Thunder Calls quests.
  • Two new factions are being added with VP gear; the Shado-Pan Assault (rep gained by raiding) and the Kirin Tor/Sunreavers (rep gained by dailies).
    • SP Assault gear is all ilvl 522, and costs from 1250-2250 VP. Neckpieces are available at neutral; trinkets, wrists and rings  at friendly; cloaks, legs and hands at honored; chest and waist at revered; and shoulders at exalted. As of right now, it is not known how much rep is granted per boss (or from trash), but a blue post has stated that “a single boss kill should get you mostly to Friendly.” Bosses can only be killed once a week for rep, in any difficulty.
    • Kirin Tor/Sunreavers provide ilvl 476 belts at Honored, ilvl 496 cloaks at Revered, and ilvl 496 rings at Exalted. The 476 gear costs a small amount of gold; the 496 gear will cost VP, presumably at the same price as 5.1 VP gear. Icy Veins has an awesome guide to all the new dailies and stuff to do on the Isle of Thunder, so I won’t recap that here.
  • Apart from the new raid, there’s two new world bosses that drop ilvl 522 gear. Nalak is roughly equivalent to the Sha of Anger; however, he will not be unlocked “until Lei Shen is defeated.” (It’s unknown whether that means progression in the server-wide daily events, or raid progression.) Oondasta is found on the Isle of Giants, and is reportedly very difficult; that said, the new Tap-to-Faction system means you can grab a ton of people (multiple raids) and just zerg him down, presumably.
  • Throne of Thunder gear that goes unused can be DE’d and will reward one Haunting Spirit per item. New crafted ilvl 522 boots and helms are available that require 6 and 8 Haunting Spirits, respectively.
  • The 5.2 legendary questline will require 40 Trillium Bars (buy them now if you can), 20 Secrets of the Empire (aka Sigils of Power), exalted with Wrathion (kill stuff on the Isle of Thunder), and 12 Titan Runestones (aka Sigils of Wisdom). It will reward a very strong metagem that will replace your current meta. The Eye of the Black Prince from the 5.1 legendary questline can be repurchased and used on 5.2 weapons to add an additional socket.
  • All the old VP gear was reduced in price (5.0 by 50%, 5.1 by 25%), which will help considerably in getting alts geared for Throne LFR (ilvl 480 requirement).
  • Item upgrading is going away, so today’s the last chance. (That said, it’s likely best to hold on to your VP at this point to buy new gear.) Ask Mr Robot’s Item Optimizer is now updated for 5.2, so go check them out if you’re unsure. (Actually, go check them out anyway, they rock.)

For all the other stuff (pet battles, profession changes, etc) go check out MMO-Champion.

Monk Changes

All Specs

  • Talent Changes:
    • Level 15: Tiger’s Lust no longer has a Chi cost, which it makes it much more competitive with Momentum and Celerity at Level 15. Even if you leave the CC break effect out, a free 70% speed buff for 6 seconds with only a 30 second CD is pretty nice. Unless you’re specifically using Roll on a certain fight, I’m now recommending this talent for all specs.
    • Level 30: All of the healing talents were redesigned from “no cooldown, but uses chi” to “free, but has a cooldown.” This means you’ll likely use them more often; see the spec-specific sections for recommendations.
    • Level 45: No changes.
    • The level 60 AoE CC talent tier was rebalanced significantly.  Deadly Reach has been removed and the effect permanently added into Paralysis, and a new talent has been added; Ring of Peace. Charging Ox Wave’s cooldown was also dropped to 30 seconds. Both of these talents are now more competitive with Leg Sweep, but I still prefer LS.
    • Level 75: Healing Elixirs was buffed to 15%, while Dampen Harm now can be used while stunned (and the CD begins on-use). No effective changes; you’ll still use HE for soloing, and DM/DH where they make sense in groups.
    • Level 90: Chi Torpedo was buffed by 15%. Still hard to use effectively as it’s tied to Roll, so I expect it to be little-used.
  • A new ability, Nimble Brew, was added for Brewmasters and Windwalkers. Mostly for PvP, but put it on your bars for the semi-frequent times you get CC’ed in instances.
  • Path of Blossoms is gone. I’m sorry for all three of you who used it regularly. The glyph now affects Paralysis, and causes Paralysis to no longer be broken by DoT’s, which has a minor benefit.

Brewmaster

  • Mastery’s effectiveness was buffed by 25%. Not enough to make it worthwhile.
  • The amount of damage needed to activate Sanctuary of the Ox (the shields put out by your Black Ox Statue) was doubled. This is a big nerf, but mostly for your group, not for you; the amount of shielding that thing could do at high damage was pretty overkill.
  • For a level 30 talent, I’m still going to stick with recommending Chi Wave, with Zen Sphere getting an honorable mention. I love the detonate on low health part of ZS, but I don’t see it healing enough to be worthwhile. Chi Burst may come in handy in certain situations.
  • See Sunnier’s Brewmaster Patch 5.2 Survival Guide for a full rundown.

Windwalker

  • A new ability,  Storm, Earth, and Fire, was added. This thing is totally sweet. Use it on a target, and a clone of you spawns and starts attacking; the clone mirrors your abilities. You’re both reduced to 60% damage, so it’s not massively OP like the old Blade Flurry, but it’s still nice. (You can also put out a second clone, which puts all of you to 45% damage.) Note that you can’t use this on single-target fights; if your clone is attacking the same target as you, he won’t mirror attacks.
  •  Combo Breaker, the old mastery, has become a passive ability with a fixed procrate.  Bottled Fury is the new mastery. This makes Tigereye Brew (and mastery) much more powerful.
  • Rough guess on stat weights: Hit/Exp = 1.05; Agi = 1; Haste = 0.50; Mastery = 0.48; Crit = 0.46.However, it’s a bit more complicated then that. While the removal of Combo Breaker helped with energy capping, you’re still likely to hit a haste softcap somewhere around 6-7k haste. Also, mastery directly scales with crit, and is much better if you can line it up effectively with other damage increasing procs and abilities. Bottom line:
    • Heroic-type windwalkers: hit/exp to cap > haste to 6k > agi > mastery > crit > haste above 6k
    • Normal/LFR-type windwalkers: hit/exp to cap >agi > haste to 6k > crit > mastery >haste above 6k
  • Touch of Karma no longer has a Chi cost, which is handy.
  • Gear list: While I haven’t put together a windwalker specific one, feel free to check out my feral druid gear list, which should be roughly comparable.
  • For a level 30 talent…pick what you want. At high gear levels, you’ll be close enough to GCD cap that you won’t have much time to use anything. Chi Wave likely wins by default.
  • See Mihir’s WW guide at MMO-Champion for more info.

Mistweaver

  • Healing Sphere orbs (both cast and mastery proc) pop after 30 seconds and smart-heal those around them. This sounds great; unfortunately, the heal is only for 50% of the original effect, which sucks.
  • Jab now costs 8% mana, which makes it not worth using as a chi generator. Only Jab if you’re fistweaving.
  • A new proc was added, Muscle Memory, which causes TP/BK to do more damage and regenerate mana after a Jab/SCK. This isn’t a mana regeneration tool, this is used to offset the cost of Jab while fistweaving. Overall, fistweaving’s DPS was buffed considerably.
  • Soothing’s chi generation rate was increased.
  • The Level 30 healing talents all got changed dramatically; I’d recommend Zen Sphere for constant damage fights, Chi Burst for raid-stack fights, and Chi Wave otherwise.

So, what to do now? Well, first, keep RM up, and use your L30 healing talent and Expel Harm on CD. From there, if fistweaving, Blackout Kick/Tiger Palm to spend Chi, Jab to generate. If healing normally, Uplift/Enveloping Mist to spend Chi, Soothing Mist/Spinning Crane Kick to generate. Keep stacking spirit until you figure out the new rotations and skills, then start backing off for haste (likely better than crit now due to Soothing buff). Dayani should have a 5.2 mistweaver guide up soon at healiocentric with more detailed info; if our recommendations clash, listen to her. :)

That’s it! I’ll be updating all the guides as I get a chance. Have fun in the Throne!

Patch 5.2 on PTR – Early Monk changes

 Brewmaster, General Monk, Mistweaver, Windwalker  3 Responses »
Dec 222012
 

Patch 5.2 PTR notes are here tonight! (What, you were going out/on holiday tonight? Psh. Priorities, man, priorities.)

As always, datamined data is datamined.

EDIT: Official (draft) patchnotes went live as I was writing this. Rewriting patch notes to make analysis sense and adding links as appropriate.

  • Deadly Reach has been removed.
  • New Level 60 Talent: Ring of Peace
    • Ring of Peace forms a 8 yard sanctuary around the target for 8 seconds, causing all enemies in the area of effect to be silenced and disarmed.
  • Paralysis is now a physical, non-magical effect, and can no longer be dispelled, grounded or reflected, and its base range has been increased to 20 yards.
  • Charging Ox Wave now has a 30 second cooldown (was 60 seconds).

Ranged. AoE. Silence. Holy crap. Leg Sweep just got a contender, and COW got a nice buff too.

  • New Windwalker and Brewmaster ability added at level 30: Nimble Brew. Nimble Brew removes all stun, fear, and root effects, and reduces the duration of those effects if they are re-applied by 60% for 6 seconds. It has a 2 minute cooldown.

Remember how windwalkers were supposed to be mobile in PvP? Yeah!

  • Chi Wave now does 100% more damage and healing, and no longer costs Chi, but now has a 15 second cooldown.
  • Zen Sphere now has a limit of 2 (was 1), now detonates when either the recipient reaches 35% health or the Zen Sphere is dispelled, and no longer costs Chi.
  • Chi Burst now does 100% more damage and healing, no longer costs Chi, and now has a 30 second cooldown.

DAMN. The no-chi cost completely changes the calculus on these things. Chi Wave still does pretty much the same thing, except WW/BM is much more likely to use it now. Chi Burst becomes a mini-group healing cooldown of sorts. Free Zen Sphere detonations? Have to think about that one, but pretty sweet for PvP.

  • Tiger’s Lust and Touch of Karma no longer have a Chi cost.
  • Tiger’s Lust can no longer be used on targets that have other temporary speed increases active.

So much for super-speed TL, but the Chi cost removal makes it a viable choice in Tier 1. Chi cost removal for ToK makes my windwalker so, so happy; no more pressing it as an oh crap button and not having the chi to use it.

  • Dampen Harm can now be used while stunned, and its cooldown will now begin when used, not when the effect ends.

“This is how I frustrate Rogues.”

  • Healing Elixirs now heals the Monk for 15% of maximum health (was 10%).
  • Chi Torpedo now deals 15% more damage.

Needed buffs. More useful now.

  • Path of Blossoms has been removed.

What spell was that again?

  • Mistweaver
    • Healing Spheres will now heal for 50% of their original value if they expire without being picked up. This healing will factor in relevant Mastery.
    • Healing Spheres now have a duration of 1 minute. Healing Spheres generated by Mastery: Gift of the Serpent now have a duration of 30 seconds.

Well, mastery just became relevant again. 6 yd radius on the autoheal; have to see how smart it is.

  • Life Cocoon can no longer be dispelled.
  • Zen Focus, the 4-piece Mistweave set bonus, is now more responsive.
  • It is no longer possible to use Thunder Focus Tea while silenced.
  • Xuen will now fixate on the Monk’s original target.

No more lolcocoon! Also, yay bugfixes.

  • Windwalker
    • New Level 75 Ability: Storm, Earth and Fire
      • The Windwalker can summon up to two elemental duplicates that mirror damaging abilities that the Monk uses while they are active. For each spirit summoned, the Monk’s damage is reduced: 1 spirit causes the Monk and the spirit to deal 60% of the Monk’s normal damage, while 2 spirits will cause the Monk and both active spirits to deal 40% of the Monk’s normal damage. Each spirit lasts until the ability is canceled, or that spirit’s target dies or otherwise becomes unavailable.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. First, awesome, windwalker needed some more complexity. Second; this appears to be a cleave type ability: I’m assuming you can’t use it on a single-target fight (else you always would, 120% > 100%). Third, three copies of Xuen? AWESOME!

  • Combo Breaker is now a passive ability granted at level 15 that grants a 12% chance to make the Monk’s next Blackout Kick or Tiger Palm cost no Chi.
  • New Mastery: Bottled Fury — Increases the damage bonus provided by Tigereye Brew by .2% per Mastery per stack.
  • Tigereye Brew now increases damage by 1% per stack (was 2%), but is now improved by Bottled Fury.
  • Tigereye Brew now gains 1 charge after spending 2 Chi (was 4 Chi).
  • Tigereye Brew will now stack to 20, but only 10 charges can be consumed per activation.
  • A user interface alert now displays upon reaching 10 stacks of Tigereye Brew.

This was hugely needed, as mastery was getting completely devalued by high haste (running out of GCD’s means free abilities don’t mean as much). Not sure about the other TB changes; at 1 charge per 2 chi spent, the uptime is going to be really high. Becoming more of an Inquistion/SR type ability?

  • Brewmaster
    • Mastery: Elusive Brawler now provides 25% more Stagger per Mastery rating.

Also hugely needed, as mastery wasn’t effective enough vs. Stamina for building tank EH.

Great changes all around.

Brewmaster/Windwalker Ovale Scripts

 Brewmaster, Windwalker  1 Response »
Oct 092012
 

I’ve had a few queries about Ovale scripts for monks. I was planning on writing one myself when I had time, but thankfully Nerien has compiled one already based on the rotation in my guide, so now I don’t have to! Yay! His script supports both Brewmaster and Windwalker. You can get it either by downloading the Nerien’s Ovale Scripts addon from Curse, or by copy/pasting from my forums, where I’ve reposted it. (I’ve posted it twice, to keep discussion properly categorized; here’s the windwalker thread, and here’s the brewmaster thread. I’d like to get some serious theorycraft discussion going if possible.)

Also, thanks to all who sent their condolences. My wife is doing better, and hopefully should be out of intensive care sometime next week.

 Posted by at 4:36 pm

Windwalker Monk Guide for Mists of Pandaria Published!

 Windwalker  1 Response »
Aug 192012
 

Readers, I’ve been working on this for a while, and I’ve finally (mostly) completed my windwalker monk guide for Mists. An excerpt is below: go here for the full thing, and let me know what you think! (I should have a brewmaster guide up in a couple weeks, and a mistweaver guide a few weeks after that.)

Introduction

Windwalker monks are a melee DPS class that was newly added to the game for the Mists of Pandaria expansion. Any race, except Worgen and Goblin, can be a monk. (All my pictures are pandaren because, well, that’s all the art at the moment.) Like all monks, they have two resources that must be managed; energy and chi.

Energy regenerates at a constant rate (10/sec), and is used to power several abilities. Windwalkers have a 100-point energy pool. Energy regeneration does scale with haste, and can also be temporarily buffed by Energizing Brew.

In contrast, chi is a static 4-point pool, similar to a paladin’s holy power, that decays when out of combat. To build chi, a windwalker monk will typically use a “chi builder,”  such as Jab, which hits for very little but generates chi. The windwalker monk’s hardest-hitting abilities, or “chi consumers,” use that chi to generate the bulk of the windwalker’s damage. The key difference between chi and other secondary resource systems (such as holy power or combo points) is that all chi consuming abilities have a fixed cost and damage, compared to the others where damage/effect scales based on the amount of secondary resource currently banked.

What does that mean? Well, it opens up your flexibility quite a bit. Rogues, for example, pretty much never use a finisher unless they’re at maximum combo points, because of the way it scales. In contrast, windwalkers have the flexibility to alternate chi builders and consumers for steady damage, or use multiple builders to store chi, and then multiple consumers for extra damage during a burst period.

Every fight against non-trivial enemies will require careful management of both resources. The two primary mistakes you want to avoid are chi dumping and energy capping. Chi dumping is using a chi builder when you are already at full chi (thereby wasting time and energy) whereas energy capping is allowing your energy meter to fill to 100, which causes your energy regeneration to stop. As you get used to the spec, you’ll learn how to weave chi builders and chi consumers together to keep a constant flow going.

Primary Abilities

These are the abilities you’re going to use most often, so know them, love them, hotkey them.

Ability Icon Discussion
Jab 40 energy, no CD. Basic attack. Increases chi by 1 baseline, increased to 2 via Stance of the Fierce Tiger. Can proc a free Tiger Palm/Blackout Kick via the Windwalker’s Mastery, Combo Breaker. Primary chi builder for single-target.
Rising Sun Kick 2 chi, 8s CD. Heavy damage to current target and causes all targets within 8 yds to take 10% additional damage (from the Monk) for 15 sec. Use this on cooldown.
Fists of Fury 3 chi, 25s CD. Unlike the other instant abilities, this is a 4 sec channel that hits 5 times for significant damage. It also stuns enemies during the channel. Downsides: expensive, it’s channeled (can be interrupted, no autoattack during the channel) and it splits damage among targets hit, which makes it not very good for AoE unless the stun works.
Blackout Kick 2 chi, no CD. Hits for good damage, and adds a DoT for 20% of the damage if attacking from behind, or a self-heal for 20% if attacking from the front (Combat Conditioning). Occasionally usable for free due to Combo Breaker.
Tiger Palm 1 chi, no CD. Moderate damage; adds a 10% armor debuff for your damage to the target. The debuff stacks 3x, so 30% armor reduction. (10% armor reduction = 3-4% more damage, roughly.) Occasionally usable for free due to Combo Breaker.
Spinning Crane Kick 40 energy, no CD, generates 1 chi if it hits three or more enemies. Channeled 3 sec AoE that hits 4 times. Primary chi builder for AoE.
Energizing Brew 60s CD. A energy regen cooldown, very similar to a feral druid’s Tiger’s Fury except slower. Like TF, you’ll want to use this as soon as it comes off cooldown and the extra energy isn’t wasted.
Tigereye Brew  This is your “click me for more damage” button. It doesn’t have an actual cooldown, but you’ll want to use it at 10 stacks to maximize the effect, so roughly every 75s-90s, or more if you have to stop attacking a lot.
Zen Sphere Your Level 30 talent. At the moment, things are fluctuating as to whether this (or the other L30 talents) will be used in the rotation, or just for self-healing purposes. More on this in the Talent section.
Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger Your Level 90 talent. The other options appear to be more AoE focused, so we’ll rely on Xuen for the time being.

That’s it! Master those 10, and you’ll be 95% of the way there for single-target DPS situations.

Reminder: Hit this page for the full guide.

 Posted by at 7:08 pm

Monk roundup, 5 August

 Brewmaster, Mistweaver, Windwalker  No Responses »
Aug 052012
 

Haven’t written here much; been looking at druids more recently. Here’s a roundup of some good links, though.

  • I wrote an article on things you can set aside now for a new monk over on WoW Insider.
  • Disargeria is absolutely knocking it out of the park over at Monk and Monk. His Windwalker guide is a must read, as is his analysis of Shuffle uptime for brewmasters. Really interesting math on what % of Chi to dedicate to Shuffle uptime (aka via BOK) vs saving for Purifying Brew.
  • Celestial Fists is back with a beta patch roundup.
  • Some interesting points in the windwalker thread on EJ. With the recent increase in energy regeneration from 8/sec to 10/sec, that does some…THINGS…for stat weights. Looks like Agi will be on top, followed by hit/exp, as expected. Haste and crit are in shouting distance, but mastery is definitely the worst. What’s most interesting, though, is that Agi isn’t 2x better than hit/exp, which means the new gems that have double secondary stats may be preferred. (Note that I’m not really in favor of increasing the energy regen…I thought it was well balanced at 8/ssec, and fear things are going to get out of hand at later tiers at 10/sec.)
  • Good mistweaver calculator from Arison. Haven’t played much mistweaver lately, but his points about Eminence and mastery being underpowered seem pretty accurate. The 1350 haste breakpoint for extra RM/EM ticks looks pretty critical right now (not that it’s hard to achieve).
 Posted by at 10:58 pm

Completely redone Windwalker guide

 Windwalker  No Responses »
Jun 102012
 

I’ve just completely redone the Windwalker guide page; think it turned out pretty well and I’ll reuse the “ability table” design for abilities. Still need to rework formatting for the other text blocks, but I’m okay with it for now.

Next I’ll start working on the other specs, which are a bit harder to test since they require something big hitting you or hitting someone else. I wish they’d add a training dummy that attacks you.

 Posted by at 11:45 pm

More Updates

 Brewmaster, Windwalker  1 Response »
May 072012
 

I’ve updated the Brewmaster and Windwalker guides for Build the Latest (what is this? 15662? Yeah, that one.) I’ve decided to hold off on Mistweaver for the time being, because there’s still quite a few things in flux with MW. Blizzard is still figuring out whether a “melee healer” is a good or bad thing, so various builds have made that playstyle both desirable and undesirable. (Not to mention still-existing bugs, such as spellpower not correctly converting to attack power, which makes it hard to tell if it’s working well or not.)

If you have any general questions, though, leave a comment or hit me up on Twitter (@alaronmonk).

 Posted by at 12:22 am

Windwalker Napkin Math

 Windwalker  4 Responses »
May 012012
 

Based on Build 15650 numbers; this is mostly just random late-night theorycraft that may be totally wrong.

Damage-per-Chi

I did some quick Excel calculations on DPS rotations, based on the current Windwalker numbers (See below). There’s no real reason to NOT use your highest damage-per-chi ability (DPC), unless you’re saving chi for an upcoming burst/AoE pack or something. I’d definitely say BOK needs a buff, and RSK needs a nerf. Right now, above 50% is okay (FoF on CD, RSK on debuff CD, procs, TP) but below 50%, you might as well just use RSK on cooldown (and otherwise use Jab/EH or procs).

Jab or EH?

Jab does about 4k damage, EH about 12k…but the WW Mastery only works on Jab. A 100% Mastery procrate would be worth about 26k DPS…so you’re looking at between a 30-40% Mastery procrate to prefer Jab. (You’re still using 3 Jabs to 1 Expel Harm, due to EH’s CD.)

GCDs, Energy, and Chi

If we assume we use Jab or EH every 4 sec (to perfectly align with energy regen, ignoring haste and EBrew at the moment), then you’re looking at 22-23 Jab/EH uses over 90 sec, for a 45 Chi gain. (Say a 3:1 ratio, 17:6 or so.) Say the target is +50%; you’re spending 6 Chi on 2 FoF’s, 12 Chi on 6 RSK’s, and 27 Chi on 27 TP’s. Jab/EH uses 23 GCDs and the Chi consumers use 33+2*4…41 GCD’s. Now, add a 20% mastery procrate on those 17 Jabs; that gives you 7 procs to burn off and 7 more GCD’s, for 71 GCD’s out of 90.  It’s not quite GCD-locked, but very very close. (Especially when you add in Energizing Brew and a Chi talent…that’s another 7-9 GCD’s there.) Below 50%, it looks significantly easier on GCD’s due to BOK’s current cost (or RSK, if you just choose to spam that).

EDIT: Achloryn just pointed out in another thread that energy isn’t regenerating at 10/sec, more like 8/sec. Oops. Figure 20% less Jab/EHs and 20% less Chi gen for now; need to see if that regen rate is intended or a bug. If nothing else, that helps the GCD-lock problem.

Ability Damage Chi Cost DPC
Fists of Fury 52000 3 17333.33
Tiger Palm (+50%) 13500 1 13500
Rising Sun Kick 25000 2 12500
Spinning Fire Blossom (far) 11000 1 11000
Blackout Kick (+DoT) 18500 2 9250
Tiger Palm 9000 1 9000
Spinning Fire Blossom (close) 9000 1 9000
Spinning Crane Kick 16000 2 8000
Blackout Kick 11000 2 5500
 Posted by at 12:08 am

Windwalker Guide updated to Build 15640

 Windwalker  No Responses »
Apr 272012
 

I’ve updated Windwalker for the latest build. As always, the guide can be found here. I moved the suggested rotation closer to the top; we’ll see if that helps things any. I’ll tackle Mistweaver next. (Hopefully, the NEXT patch won’t drop until after I finish that. That’d be nice.)

 Posted by at 2:12 am
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