Windwalker Monk Feedback -- Build 21414 -- 6-Apr

Please feel free to reply to this thread with feedback you have on this specialization in the most recent version of the Legion Alpha.

You'll find class designer notes on this build here.

This thread and subforum are for class feedback. We may not be attentive to other threads on this subject. Please confine discussion in this thread to issues related to this spec only.

Thank you!

Hey Walkers in the Wind. Let's talk about some Storm, a little Earth, and maybe even a bit of Fire!

SEF is a pretty cool ability. It gave Windwalkers a very unique form of dealing with multi-target situations. However, it had some problems, many of which you've pointed out here. However, the biggest issue for us was just how much it overwhelmed the identity of Windwalkers. Outside of solo questing, you spent the vast majority of your time split into 3, and that became the defining characteristic of Windwalkers. We want it to be cool, but not completely dominate your gameplay. So, we've worked on coming up with what Windwalkers should do instead in multi-target situations. And we wanted it to still be unique, not just a clone of other specs' AoE rotations.

To aid in this brainstorming, we did exactly what you'd expect: watched a lot of classic kung fu movies. It didn't make it in in time for today's build, but here's what we're planning for next build. It's pretty unusual, and it may sound a bit daunting at first, but we've found it quite fun in practice:

• Fists of Fury does full damage to secondary targets.
• Storm, Earth, and Fire has a 90sec cooldown, and 15sec duration. All 3 spirits deal 33% of normal damage. While active, Spinning Crane Kick damage is increased by 100%. The spirits can hit the same target as you, but will prefer to find different targets if available.
• Spinning Crane Kick costs 4 Chi, and its base damage is increased by 150%. Additionally, it now deals 50% additional damage for each unique target you (or your SEF spirits) have struck in the last 15sec with Tiger Palm, Blackout Kick, or Rising Sun Kick.
  
• This target count number is displayed on the Spinning Crane Kick button.

The Fists of Fury change adds some burst AoE damage on demand. The Storm, Earth, and Fire change makes it only up some of the time, and solely for mutli-target purposes. Finally, the Spinning Crane Kick adds the core gameplay hook for Windwalker AoE. You'll cycle through punching and kicking each target, before unleashing a massive Spinning Crane Kick. When there are many targets, SEF can help you hit them all faster, and additionally increase your SCK damage even further. The 15sec duration is fairly generous, to make sure that it doesn't feel like a hindrance, as long as you are cycling through targets at a reasonable rate. The changes to tab targeting in Legion help make this a reliably doable task.

We hope to get this in your hands in the next build, so you can give it a try, and let us know what you think. Thanks!

04/06/2016 07:52 PMPosted by Delritha

a) Does the "50% additional damage" count any target that RSK's Weaken Blows" falls on
- If I RSK the boss and 10 adds are around, I BELIEVE (cannot remember off the top of my head) Weaken Blows also falls onto the surounding enemies. Will this application count toward the 50% bonus?
b) Are you trying to encourage "tab targeting" If you have 10 targets (Iskar transition phase as an example), You can spend 7 seconds as setup for a big SCK.
c) FoF's change is nice. Will this be applied to Strike of the Windlord as well? Since I believe that is also a 1/2^n damage currently for multi-target

a) RSK is single target; has been for a long time.
b) You won't wait until you've hit everything to SCK, you'll hit it along the way too.
c) Not sure.

The damage of SCK is going WAY up, in order to make sure that it feels rewarding at 4 Chi (or 3 Chi, undecided yet).

04/06/2016 08:05 PMPosted by Dreyen

On top of murdering your single target damage by 66%....

33% on SEF is *per Spirit*. It's neutral DPS-wise on a single target.

The changes to SCK/FoF are directly to those abilities, not only while SEF is active.

If you haven't tried it, check out tab targeting in Legion, it works much more reliably now.

More clarifications based on questions in #PeakofSerenity:
- No cap on SCK recent targets count (apart from just the limited GCDs within the time window).
- SEF is purely an AoE cooldown. It's a total of 99% of normal single target damage.
- RJW and WDP stay as they are for now.
- Chi cost of SCK is still undecided, may be 3 or 4.
- WWMs have too many TLAs.

(Not really an AMA, I'm answering questions here/there/twitter too, I just happened to see some questions there that I could clarify easily.)

General response to the concern about cycling through targets (probably with tab) being awkward: That was our biggest concern with this idea, no doubt. We tried it out though, and found it not to be a problem almost at all, in the vast vast majority of situations, and SEF helped with those. We were skeptical at first too, but found it pretty fun after just a few minutes.

Next build, give it a try, run a dungeon with it, and let us know how it went. We're definitely going to be looking for feedback on how that aspect of it feels in particular.

An update on this: We've significantly improved SEF's AI, and tailored it for its new purpose.

SEF clones will count toward SCK, and they will actively seek to maximize its effect. Every time they TP or BoK or RSK, they'll switch to a new target. Their target selection logic will try to hit targets that haven't been hit yet, and beyond that will prefer ones that were hit longest ago. They'll also ignore targets that have >90% DR or are not in combat with you. And since they Flying Serpent Kick to each target, they lose nearly no time in travel time even if the targets are spread apart.

Basically, SEF should help you maximize SCK in just a couple GCDs, while they're out.

(EDIT: Whoops, typo.)

Please keep on-topic. Cleaned up the thread of that off-topic discussion. Everyone's feedback is valuable. If I accidentally deleted any actual feedback (sorry!) please repost it.

04/08/2016 03:10 PMPosted by Aungwei

Basically, SEF should help you maximize SEF in just a couple GCDs, while they're out.

Assuming this is a typo and means Maximise SCK, does this mean that you've decided to have a hard cap on the SCK stacks?

It's been expressed that 5-7 stacks would be the best route for this ability.

Whoops, typo fixed. No, there's no hard cap, it's just limited by available target count and GCDs.

04/08/2016 03:10 PMPosted by Praisekippi

Has it been decided on 3 or 4 chi yet?

Leaning toward 3 at this point.

04/08/2016 03:19 PMPosted by Totallite

This question slipped my mind the other day but do these stacks for SCK get consumed each time you use SCK or does it just roll for 15 seconds for each target?

They are not consumed.

04/08/2016 04:12 PMPosted by Honktastic

Just another thought, and hear me out. With the new SEF change being almost exclusive to use in PvE, could we do a talent switcheroo? Nerf Xuen's damage a little bit, but make him baseline(as it probably should've always been) and put the new SEF in his spot on the talent tree. That way we could pick SEF for those crazy AoE fights(Hello Iskar, my old friend), but have Hit Combo or RJW for other situations and then we have our Xuenny-poo all the time. This would also give PvPers another valid CD to use and so they wouldn't have to look at SEF on their bar wondering if they'll ever use it. I just don't see the point of giving us SEF baseline when it'd only be useful on a handful of fights, whereas Xuen would be the most generic CD for use on everything for both PvE and PvP.

I may just be completely crazy, but I wouldn't be opposed to the new SEF change if that was the case. Could potentially be swapped for other things as well, that was just the one that made perfect sense to me.

Sounds like you're assuming SEF isn't intended for use in PvP... It is. It's not the same use as it had before, but it should still be useful.

04/08/2016 04:41 PMPosted by Delritha

i do have a question about the counter. Based on the description, I can tag 10-12 targets within 4-5 globals (depending on if you tab target or not to help the SEF). There should be a way to show which targets have been tagged. That way us as a player know not to attack a tagged target. Secondly If I tag a target, and 5 seconds later TP that same target, will the counter for that target get refreshed? Also what will the SEF do if they run out of targets to tag? Will they stop on said target and just continue to copy your moves until someone's "debuff" falls off?

They 100% work as would be ideal, continuing to refresh on whatever was hit longest ago. There's no debuff with SEF, because there's no need; they'll take care of it for you (unless there's some silly 20+ target situation, which we virtually never do).

04/09/2016 11:44 AMPosted by Delritha

Maybe a moot thing once people talent into the SEF artifact trait (38% damage instead of 33%; or a total of 114% damage).

That trait will change.

04/09/2016 07:10 AMPosted by Raconlok

There was a very recent post from Celestalon aimed at frost mages, that referenced efforts to reinforce their niche of 2 target cleave, which has existed "for a while". Since SEF came out in mid MoP Windwalkers have likewise had a niche with cleave - even spread cleave. I guess this does not count as "for a while"? Or there are other reasons why this long-running spec identity is no longer acceptable?

A very fair question. We agree that the spread cleave niche that Windwalkers had was pretty cool, and unique among melee. Maintaining Frost's niche was easy, and caused no problems. Conversely, maintaining Windwalker's niche was running into problems left and right. Thus, we're trying something different. This is a very significant and experimental change, to be sure; that's why we're trying to be so communicative with you all about it.