Windwalker monk - Beta discussion
-beta build 15851-

 

Contents

1 Disclaimer 2 Overview 3 Core mechanics and spells 3.1 Resource system 3.1.1 Energy 3.1.2 Chi 3.2 Passive spells 3.2.1 Raid buffs 3.3 Usable spells 3.3.1 Basic abilities 3.3.2 AoE abilities 3.3.3 Other damage related abilities 3.4 Utility spells 4 Combat cycle 4.1 Spell Juggling 4.2 Multitarget 4.3 Burst 4.4 Cooldowns 5 Gear and Stats 5.1 Gear 5.1.1 Tier sets 5.1.1.1 Tier 14 5.2 Stats 5.3 Stat enhancements 5.3.1 Enchants 5.3.2 Gems 5.3.3 Consumables 5.3.4 Professions 6 Talents and glyphs 6.1 Talents 6.2 Glyphs 7 Mechanics 7.1 Strike formulae and normalization 7.2 Strike efficiency 7.3 Spell behaviour

[top] Disclaimer

This thread is for basic discussion of the DPS Monk spec. In the interest of having a centralized listing of abilities and core concepts of the spec, I've compiled the following post. It's my understanding that the Windwalker will no be shipped as we now know it from beta testing, so this is not intended to be a guide; it may serve the purpose to start shaping one out, though. In the meantime I'll be updating this post as we get new beta releases, and with feedback from this thread and others in several discussion boards, datamining sites and live footage; see that, at the moment, I don't have access to beta, so any kind of information to fill up gaps, or further develop the OP, is welcomed; if you spot an error and think replying to the thread would pollute it excessively, feel free to PM me. In the future I might be interested in writing a guide, but I haven't yet decided if I'll be directly involved in Monk theorycrafting, that is: the guide is still up for grabs so, if you are up to the task, don't hesitate to contact EJ Mods (particularly Aldriana).

Please note that, as the monk class is prone to fast changes, it's understandable that the discussion will flow in more speculative ways than usual, and moderation may be a tad more lenient. However, all general forum rules apply: I'll be checking regularly on the thread, and it's expected that mods will mod.

[top] Overview

The windwalker monk is the dps spec of the new class introduced with Mists of Pandaria. It's a mêlée fighter themed around punches and kicks with a wedge of martial arts. Monks were announced to lack autoattack and use 3 different resources; the implementation we have now in beta does autoattack and has a streamlined 2 resource system.

At its core it functions much like the rogue class, where some basic spells need to be used before gaining access to presumably more powerful spells or finishers. Monks, unlike rogues, have a fixed cost for those finishers, thusly making possible to chain finishers.

[top] Core mechanics and spells

[top] Resource system

Much like rogues, dps monks use two resources, energy and chi. It's worth noting that, as it stands, windwalker monks are largely capped on resources, not gcd (the gcd is 1'', like that of rogues). The main energy consuming move (Jab) is somewhat expensive and, while it can be used several times in a row, it's not an spammable ability.

[top] Energy

Is an ever-regenerating pool used by certain utility spells (disarms, snares, heal, etc.) and, primarily by Jab (40e). It regens at a steady pace (8 per second baseline); aside from haste procs and bloodlust-like buffs there's only one way to change energy acquisition: by using the 60s cooldown Energizing Brew.

[top] Chi

Is built primarily through the use of Jab (2chi per, thanks to Stance of the fierce Tiger); it's consumed in finishers of sorts, being the main difference with rogues the static chi cost; also, unlike combo points, chi stacks on the monk. Chi can be pooled up to 4 (5 if talented) and most finishers cost 1 or 2, so it is possible to chain finishers. Aside from Jab, there are some other ways to gain chi:
- Expel Harm: self-heal that also deals damage and grants 2chi (thanks to Stance of the fierce Tiger). Additionly it doesn't trigger mastery procs but its damage as of 15781 compensates for that.
- Spinning Crane Kick: aoe move that grants 1chi.
- Chi Brew: a lvl45 talent that replenishes all chi on a 90s cooldown.
- Power Strikes: another lvl45 talent that adds an extra 1chi per jab every 20''.
- Afterlife: a windwalker-only passive that has a 50% chance to summon a Chi Sphere by dealing a killing blow with Blackout Kick, which restores 1chi when walking over it.
- Crackling Jade Lightning: which has a 15% chance to build 1chi per tick.

[top] Passive spells

Combo Breaker: this is the windwalker's mastery. Each time the monk uses Jab, there is a chance to proc either or both of Combo Breaker: Tiger Palm and Combo Breaker: Blackout Kick, thus allowing the use of those finishers free of cost.
Brewing: Tigereye Brew: while this buff is passive it requires player feedback (consuming the brew). It's a mechanic that stacks as a self-buff (up to 10) every 4chi that the monk consumes; once released with Tigereye Brew, it'll increase the windwalker's damage by up to 20% during 15''.
Stance of the Fierce Tiger: each monk spec has a stance (tanking being the Sturdy Ox, and healing the Wise Serpent). The dps one increases damage dealt by 20% and is required in order to use most of the damage moves. It also makes it so that Jab and Expel Harm produce 2 chi instead of the baseline 1 of other monk specs.
Tiger Strikes: is a proc that simply increases the amount of white swings the monk performs.
Way of the Monk: increases white damage if dual wielding or attack speed if wielding a two-hander.
Power Strikes (through talents): if specced into this, the windwalker will get one extra chi per Jab every 20''. If that chi goes over the cap it'll summon a Chi Sphere that can be absorbed by the monk afterwards.

[top] Raid buffs

All monk specs provide Legacy of the Emperor (+5%stats). Windwalker monks formerly brought the new mastery raid buff but now grant the 5% increased critical strike chance one Legacy of the White Tiger (+5%crit).

[top] Usable spells

[top] Basic abilities

Name	cost	mod	cd	extra
Jab	40e	1.5	none	produces 2chi
Expel Harm	40e	3.15	15s	produces 2chi
Tiger Palm	1chi	3	none	Tiger Power
Blackout Kick	2chi	8 (+1.6)	none	Combat Conditioning
Rising Sun Kick	2chi	14.4	8s	Mortal Wounds and 15'' of 10% increased damage taken debuff.
Fists of Fury	3chi	5 (*5)	25s

Jab: this is the most basic attack and main chi builder (2chi per 40energy). It'll morph into jab, club, sever, slice, pike or clobber if you equip fists/maces/axes/swords/polearm/staff. Following the rogue simile, this'd be a sinister strike.
Expel Harm: is an aternative to Jab; it builds as much chi for the same energy cost, while dealing more damage and also some self-healing. Its drawback is the 15'' cooldown and the fact that it won't trigger mastery procs.
Tiger Palm: is a cheap finisher with no cooldown. It buffs the monk with Tiger Power ignoring 5% armour (stacking up to 3 times) for 15''.
Blackout Kick: is another finisher with no cooldown. Along with the two above, this move is shared by all monk specs. For windwalkers it can proc a 4''dot (4 ticks) dealing an extra 20% damage when attacking from behind thanks to Combat Conditioning. They are iterating over this ability fairly often.
Rising Sun Kick: is a windwalker-only finisher on a short cooldown. It'll also debuff enemy units for 15'' to take 10% increased damage from the monk.
Fists of Fury: is an expensive finisher on a short-ish cooldown that damages (and stuns) in a frontal cone during 4s. Note that, as a regular channel, it disables autoattak and will break out of channel if moving.

[top] AoE abilities

Name	cost	cd
Spinning Crane Kick	40e
Fists of Fury	3chi	25s
Flying Serpent Kick		25s

Spinning Crane Kick: is shared among all specs and is very similar to a warrior whirlwind. It awards 1chi, half the amount of chi a Jab does and disables autoattack.
Fists of Fury: is very expensive as an aoe, since it splits the damage between all units; its strength as an aoe, if any, lies in the aoe stun (which is now merely a token of it's former incarnation)
Flying Serpent Kick: has two components, a movement forward and an aoe damage/snare on-landing ( Flying Serpent Kick). It has no cost so it may work as a filler spell.

[top] Other damage related abilities

Name	cost	cd
Brewing: Tigereye Brew	none	none
Spinning Fire Blossom	1chi
Crackling Jade Lightning
Path of Blossoms	30e

Brewing: Tigereye Brew: formerly a cleave-like cooldown, this is now a mechanic that stacks as a self-buff (up to 10) every 4chi that the monk consumes; once released with Tigereye Brew, it'll increase the windwalker's damage by 2% per charge during 15''.
Spinning Fire Blossom: ranged attack that can be used as filler on the pull (if specced into Chi Brew) or while running.
Crackling Jade Lightning: channeled ranged damage; each tick has a chance to generate 1chi.
Path of Blossoms: mouse-targeted fire damage triggered by the enemy when stepping on it (much like a hunter's trap)

[top] Utility spells

All monks come with a wide array of spells such as interrupts, disarms, mobility, etc. Some of them, if previous xpacks serve as an example, are more pvp oriented, but may see an use during pve at some point.

Name	cost	cd	effect
Roll	none	none	Much like blink it'll teleport the caster a short distance forward; if used while falling the monk will still get the fall damage after landing.
Paralysis			Basic crowd control move (30 to 60s effect)
Detox	20e	8s	Dispel diseases and poisons
Spear Hand Strike	30e	15s	Interrupt (or a 4'' silence if the caster is facing the monk).
Resuscitate	50e		Ooc res (10s cast).
Grapple Weapon		60s	Disarm; if the weapon in cases is better than that of the monk it'll increase by 5% the monk's damage, healing or damage reduction
Disable	15e	none	Speed reduction; roots the enemy if already snared.
Healing Sphere	60e		Green orbs that players can walk into and get healed (1.5''cast time).
Zen Meditation	none	180s	99%damage reduction plus self-redirect raid damage, breaks on melee attack (8s channeled).
Fortifying Brew		180s	+20%hp -20%inc damage during 20''.
Crackling Jade Lightning			Much like arcane missiles, it channels nature damage during 6'' over one target with the possibility to knockback said target.
Provoke			Basic taunt move
Transcendence		45s	Demonic circle of sorts.
Transcendence: Transfer	1chi	25s
Zen Pilgrimage		1800s	Teleport to Peak of Serenity (?)
Zen Pilgrimage: Return
Touch of Death	3chi	90s	Instakills an enemy. Only works on pve and against targets below the monk max health.
Swift Reflexes			Defensive passive proc.
Touch of Karma	2chi	90s	Windwalker only. All damage taken is deflected and instead aplied to the enemy during 6''.
Sparring	none		Windwalker only. Defensive passive stacking buff.
Adaptation	none		Windwalker only. 25% increased dodge for 5'' when disarmed.
Afterlife			Windwalker only. When dealing a killing blow, it can summon Healing Spheres or Chi Spheres, that restore health or 1 chi.

[top] Combat cycle

(WIP)
As of the current beta build, a windwalker monk has some spells worth tracking: the mastery procs, the debuff from Rising Sun Kick and the charges from Tigereye Brew. A combat cycle seems to be mostly centered around chi expenditure and cooldowns. At first sight the cycle doesn't seem too complex: use Jab as much as your energy lets you and expend chi on the most efficient finisher available. Mastery procs don't seem to come with an icd; thus, they should be used as soon as possible (or at least prior to using Jab), so as to maximize the amount of procs a monk can get during a fight.

We can asume that using RSK on cooldown is better than using it simply for the debuff. Also, FoF (if single targeting) is one of the highest DPC moves we have so it stands to reason it'll be used on cooldown. A normal patchweresque fight could be described as:
Put TP/RSK up
Jab/Expel Harm if close to cap
Use Tigereye if at 10 stacks
Use cooldowns if off cd: Energizing Brew, RSK, FoF
Use combo breaker procs (BOK or/and TP)
Consume chi with BOK
Jab/Expel Harm if no chi available
Flying Serpent Kick if no energy available
/flex

Aside from not letting either resource to cap, there really is no optimal point in a cycle to spam Jab or expend chi: you can set yourself into a cycle where you only build as much chi as needed for your next finisher or build up to 4 (or 5) chi to fire finishers back to back. If anything, this second option of chaining finishers is to be preferred when fishing for trinket or enchant procs. Interestingly, there's no apparent reason either to pool energy unless the monk needs to be on interrupts (Spear Hand is not as cheap a spell as other classes may be used to) or similar duties.

[top] Spell Juggling

-Rising Sun Kick debuffs targets; using the ability on cooldown ensures 100% uptime. As of beta 15781 it's worth to keep it on cooldown, but it's worth notign that some builds in the past favored slightly using the ability only to keep the debuff up.
-Tiger Palm's self-buff should pose no problems to be kept up through mastery procs. However, since it stacks, it'd stand to reason that a certain degree of attention must be kept on it.
-Tigereye does require a bit of player awareness to be used efficiently: the monk is not to produce charges when fully stacked. At 8e/s, a windwalker will gain on average 0.4chi/s (plus ~0.05chi/s if speccced into Power Strikes); at that rate, a fully stacked Tigereye would take 100s (~88.89 with Power Strikes) at which point it should be consumed.
-Mastery Procs: as pointed above, they should be used as soon as they are available, for risk of wasting a proc if not consumed prior to using Jab again.

[top] Multitarget

Unlike many other classes, monks lack the ability to multi-dot every target during aoe. They come, however, with several different multitarget options such as pbaoe and frontal aoe. Notably, in the first beta builds they had a cleave and FoF was a lot more useful; as of current beta, an aoe cycle is composed of Spinning Crane Kick spam, Rising Sun to burn the chi and aoe-debuff enemies plus Tiger Palm to keep up the self-buff.

[top] Burst

Burst on demand, as usual, comes in two flavours: cooldown usage (which I'll cover in the section below) and resource-unfriendly cycles. Windwalkers can perfrom finisher-chaining back to back; this produces a surplus of energy that'll need to be consumed after a long chain. Notably, the amount of damage overall is the same, but the distribution of it is not. Current chi acquisition and mastery procs make it so finisher chains are extremely common, making this form of burst almost inexistent.

Note: the following dates to when Jab produced only 1chi; since this may change a lot I won't be serching for new strings until the waters settle down.
Depending on mastery procs and the chi cap, a windwalker may be able to perform long chains of finishers back to back. For instance, with both mastery procs up, the monk could perform Blackout(m)>Rising Sun>Palm(m)>Palm>Palm>Chi Brew>Palm>Jab>Blackout>Rising Sun>Palm thus performing 9 finishers during 11'' without capping energy (ending with 70 plus regen from haste)

[top] Cooldowns

-Flying Serpent Kick: the land-on-demand effect of this spell is off the gcd, so it can be used to deal aoe damage on the spot. Since it's free of cost, it will have an use in single target fights as a filler spell; if the movement is not desired, it should be possible to write a macro so the monk insta-lands.
-Fists of Fury: is a very strong cooldown but disables autoattack so it's unlikely to be used in single target. At some point we'll need to analyze the 'damage per chi' for each ability and determine if it's worth to weave this in.
-Energizing Brew (60energy over 6'' on a 60''cd) and Chi Brew (caps chi on a 90''cd if talented) are the resource cooldowns for a nice boost.
-Tigereye Brew: while not technically a cooldown, the rate at which charges are built is very steady (getting fully stacked in about 80s). Its usage is also much like any other cooldown (on cd on straight up fights or saving it for burst on demand); caveat emptor, it can't be used at the start of a fight (for lack of stacks) thusly missing one use compared to other trinkets/abilities with cooldowns.

[top] Gear and Stats

[top] Gear

Windwalker monks will primarily wear agility leather (with a 5% agility bonus if all 8 pieces are leather thanks to Leather Specialization). They can Dual Wield one-handers (all kinds but daggers) and can also equip staves and polearms. Weapon choice has an effect on a couple spells: Fighting Style which morphs Jab into another abilities (only cosmetic or rp-flavored) and Way of the Monk which may serve as a balance lever in the future. It's unclear to me which weapons will be the best choice for a dps monk, but it's worth noting that, if all other things are equal, dual wielding tends to edge out.

[top] Tier sets

[top] Tier 14

2pc: Reduces the cooldown of your Fists of Fury ability by 5 sec.
4pc: Increases the duration of your Energizing Brew ability by 5 sec.

[top] Stats

Agility will, of course, be favoured; weights for every other stat are not known yet.

At the moment, mechanics are still unfinished and strike formulae very much likely will change. All in all, our best guess is that hit/exp will be strong stats if only for being traditioinaly top-EP for most specs. Most moves scale with both weapons (only a few situational ones do not), so weapon dps is expected to be a very strong stat.

[top] Stat enhancements

[top] Enchants

Slot	Enchant	Tradeskill alternative	extra
Head	Arcanums are being deprecated
Shoulder	Greater Tiger Claw Inscription	Secret Tiger Claw Inscription	200agi and 100crit
Back	Superior Critical Strike or Accuracy	Swordguard Embroidery	180crit or 180hit
Chest	Glorious Stats		80stats
Wrist	Greater Agility or Mastery	Socket Bracer, Fur Lining - Agility	170agi or 170mast
Hands	Greater Haste, Superior Expertise or Superior Mastery	Socket Gloves, Synapse Springs	170haste, 170exp or 170mast
Waist	Living Steel Buckle
Legs	Shadowleather Leg Armor	Primal Leg Reinforcements	285agi and 165crit
Feet	Greater Haste or Greater Precision		175haste or 175hit
Feet (with increased speed)	Blurred Speed or Pandaren's Step		140agi or 140mast
Rings		Greater Agility
Weapons	Dancing Steel, Windsong or Elemental Force		Landslide, Hurricane and Avalanche 2.0

[top] Gems

There's a big change for gems in MoP: secondary stats come in double the amount of primary stats; stamina comes in 3/4 the amount of a secondary stat. This means that we might be socketing for the bonus a lot more frequently (we'll know once stat weights are studied). I'll be linking to perfect uncommon cuts since they are budgeted the same as rare cuts: Delicate Primordial Ruby and Perfect Delicate Pandarian Garnet both give 160 agility. Epic green/purple/orange gems are already in the database ( Glinting Zyanite) but the way to obtain them is not clear yet. Note that, tipicaly, only the gems in the first column are of interest to agility classes, the rest may be useful if stat weights for secondary stats hover around 0.5AEP.

	80 Agility	160 Expertise	160 Haste	160 Mastery	160 Critical Strike	160 Hit
80 Agility	P. Delicate Pandarian Garnet
160 Expertise		P. Precise Pandarian Garnet
160 Haste	P. Deft Tiger Opal	P. Wicked Tiger Opal	P. Quick Sunstone
160 Mastery	P. Adept Tiger Opal	P. Keen Tiger Opal		P. Fractured Sunstone
160 Critical Strike	P. Deadly Tiger Opal	P. Crafty Tiger Opal			P. Smooth Sunstone
160 Hit	P. Glinting Roguestone	P. Accurate Roguestone	P. Lightning Alexandrite	P. Sensei's Alexandrite	P. Piercing Alexandrite	P. Rigid Lapis Lazuli

For the Meta slot we seem to be getting again the +3% critical effect: Agile Primal Diamond.
As for JC-only gems, this time around we only get to equip 2 of them, instead of the usual 3, finally equalizing the strength of JC with every other crafting tradeskill: Delicate Serpent's Eye.

[top] Consumables

300agi (food)	Sea Mist Rice Noodles*
275agi (food)	Great Pandaren Banquet**, Pandaren Banquet**, Valley Stir Fry, Chao Cookies
250agi (food)	Sauteed Carrots
1000agi (flask)	Flask of Spring Blossoms
4000agi (potion)	Virmen's Bite

(*): Agility food is cooked with the Wok Specialization. As of current beta, this is the only way to get top tier food (+300).
(**): The strength of the banquets (250 or 275) is based on the cooking spec that crafted it; windwalker monks will get 275agi from a (Great) Banquet of the Wok. For more info visit El's Extreme Anglin'

[top] Professions

Most crafting tradeskills grant 320 extra agility with the exception of Tailoring (the cape enchant might be a close equivalent), Leatherworking (330 extra agility) and engineering (~490 average agi). Gathering ones, as usual, provide a boost in secondary stats. Alchemist's Flask doesn't show the propper tooltip and engineering might have the glove enchant nerfed at some point.

Engineering	Synapse Springs	~490agi
Leatherworking	Fur Lining - Agility and cheaper leg enchant	330agi
Alchemy	Alchemist's Flask and Mixology	320(?)agi
Blacksmithing	Delicate Primordial Ruby (x2)	320agi
Jewelcrafting	Delicate Serpent's Eye (x2)	320agi
Enchanting	Enchant Ring - Greater Agility (x2)	320agi
Inscription	Secret Tiger Claw Inscription	320agi
Tailoring	Swordguard Embroidery	8000ap proc
Herbalism	Lifeblood	~320haste
Skinning	Master of Anatomy	320crit
Mining	Toughness	480sta
Cooking
Fishing
First Aid
Archaeology

[top] Talents and glyphs

With the next MoP xpack, talents will no longer be tied to specs. As a windwalker, choosing talents and glyphs will be a matter of raid utility as they're largely unrelated to enhancing damage output.

[top] Talents

15		Celerity		Tiger's Lust		Momentum
30		Chi Wave		Zen Sphere		Chi Burst
45		Power Strikes		Ascension		Chi Brew
60		Deadly Reach		Charging Ox Wave		Leg Sweep
75		Healing Elixirs		Dampen Harm		Diffuse Magic
90		Rushing Jade Wind		Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger		Chi Torpedo

Older talents and datamined abilities that may replace the mistery talents:
Mystery Talent
Ring of Peace
Death Cocoon

These are the talent tiers related to dps:
-Level 30 (hibrid heal/damage/defense finishers):
It's been stated by the devs that they're not intended to be used in normal combat cycles. Zen sphere is reported to be extremely strong, but an eventual nerf is expected.
-Level 45 (resources):
Both Chi Brew and Power Strikes provide a boost of chi. Power strikes offers more chi regen (up to 0.05chi/s) than Chi Brew (up to ~0.044chi/s) but lacks its burst-on-demand aspect.
As for Ascension, in patchwerk-esque fights, managing a larger resource pool only matters in two scenarions: one, when pooling has any kind of effect in the cycle, or two, if capping in some resource is unavoidable: non of the two happen in current windwalker cycles. A case for fights where some kind of very small burst in waves of ~20s is needed can be made for Ascension, but that's about it: it'd allow the use of one extra Palm when finisher chaining.
-Level 90: every option leads to dps in one or another way. At the moment we don't have final numbers to judge any of the three, but it appears as Xuen woudl be the go-to talent for single target.

[top] Glyphs

Glyph of Spinning Crane Kick	You move at full speed while channeling Spinning Crane Kick.
Glyph of Afterlife	Increases the chance to summon a Healing Sphere when you kill an enemy while gaining experience or honor by 25%.
Glyph of Touch of Death	Your Touch of Death no longer has a Chi cost, but the cooldown is increased by 2 minutes.
Glyph of Zen Meditation	You can now channel Zen Meditation while moving.
Glyph of Transcendence	Increases the range of your Transcendence: Transfer spell by 10 yards.
Glyph of Enduring Healing Sphere	Increases the duration of your Healing Spheres by 3 minutes.
Glyph of Fortifying Brew	Your Fortifying Brew reduces damage taken by an additional 5%, but increases your health by 10% rather than 20%.
Glyph of Retreat	When you Roll or Chi Torpedo, all threat is temporarily reduced for 10 sec.
Glyph of Stoneskin	When you use Fortifying Brew, all bleed damage taken is reduced by 20% while active.
Glyph of Path of Blossoms	Increases the number of Fire Blossoms you create by 1.
Glyph of Crackling Jade Lightning	[...] knocks the target back a further distance, and [...] increases the damage the target takes from your Crackling Jade Lightning by 25% for 8 sec.
Glyph of Touch of Karma	Your Touch of Karma now has a 20 yard range.
Glyph of Fists of Fury	When channeling Fists of Fury, your parry chance is increased by 100%.
Glyph of Sparring	While Sparring, you also have a 5% chance to also Deflect spells from attackers in front of you, stacking up to 3 times.
Glyph of Spinning Fire Blossom	Your Spinning Fire Blossom requires an enemy target rather than traveling in front of you, but is no longer capable of rooting targets.
Glyph of Flying Serpent Kick	Your Flying Serpent Kick automatically ends when you fly into an enemy, triggering the area of effect damage and snare.
Glyph of Rising Tiger Kick	Your Rising Sun Kick's visual is altered to the color of the White Tiger.
Glyph of Spirit Roll	You can cast Roll while dead as a spirit.
Glyph of Crackling Tiger Lightning	Your Crackling Jade Lightning visual is altered to the color of the White Tiger celestial.
Glyph of Fighting Pose	Your spirit now appears in a fighting pose when using Transcendence.
Glyph of Zen Posture	Rather than sitting on the ground, you hover in meditative state.
Glyph of Jab	You always will attack with hands and fist with Jab, even with non-fist weapons equipped.
Glyph of Water Roll	You can Roll over water.
Glyph of Honor	You honorably bow after each successful Touch of Death.
Glyph of Zen Flight	Teaches you the spell Zen Flight. Zen Flight: You fly through the air at a quick speed on a meditative cloud.

The damage-related glyphs for windwalkers are few: Glyph of Touch of Karma doesn't add any damage component to it but may favor its use in, for instane, fights with multiple units; Touch of Death, and Crackling Jade Shock (only non-boss units) may see some situational use too.

Hereinafter a wide variety of monk glyphs that have no bearing on windwakers.

Glyph of Expel Harm	Increases the range of your Expel Harm by 10 yards.
Glyph of Surging Mist	Your Surging Mist no longer requires a target, and instead heals the lowest health target within 40 yards.
Glyph of Breath of Fire	When you use Breath of Fire on targets afflicted with your Dizzying Haze, they become Disoriented for 3 sec.
Glyph of Clash	Increases the range of your Clash ability by 10 yards.
Glyph of Guard	Increases the amount your Guard absorbs by 10%, but your Guard can only absorb magical damage.
Glyph of Mana Tea	Your Mana Tea is instant instead of channeled and consumes two stacks when used, but causes a 10 sec cooldown.
Glyph of Renewing Mist	Your Renewing Mist travels to the furthest injured target within 40 yards rather than the closest injured target within 20 yards.
Glyph of Life Cocoon	Life Cocoon can now be cast while stunned.
Glyph of Uplift	Your Uplift no longer costs Chi, but instead costs 6% Mana instead.
Glyph of Leer of the Ox	Teaches you the spell Leer of the Ox.

[top] Mechanics

Here I'll keep logging the info we have on mechancis and spells of particular interest, as well as some basic math to assess the value of them.

[top] Strike formulae and normalization

For starters, no monk strike has a bonus damage: a standard formula reads as 'deals X% weapon damage plus Y' while all monk strike scale only from weapon damage (or dps, really, but we'll get to that in a second), so a monk strike formula is basicly 'X% weapon dps'. Now, that weapon damage factor is -usually- the normalized weapon damage but monks don't normalize weapons in the same fashion (see that weapon_dps = weapon_damage / weapon_speed):

non normalized weapon damage (a weapon swing)	weapon_speed * weapon_dps + weapon_speed * ap / 14)
normalized weapon damage	weapon_speed * weapon_dps + norm_speed * AP / 14
monk 'normalized' weapon damage	weapon_dps + AP / 14

I don't know the full reasoning behind this, but it steams from the fact that monk strikes can be performed with either a 2h or with both 1h when dual-weilding (whereas most other classes spells can do one of the two, or strike with the mh only, be it a 1h or a 2h). In fact the whole formula for a strike goes like [X% * dw_mod * (mh_dps + oh_dps / 2 + AP /14)] where the dw_mod is 0.898882 when dual-weilding and 1.00 when using a 2h.

[top] Strike efficiency

Chi burners:

name	abbreviation	chi cost	mod	dpc
Tiger Palm	TP	1	3	3.00 * mods
Blackout Kick	BOK	2	8 (+ 1.6)	4.80 * mods
Rising Sun Kick	RSK	2	14.4	7.20 * mods
Fists of Fury	FoF	3	5 * 5 - 1 * 4	<7.00 * mods

mods = (1.2) * dw_mod * (weapon_dps + AP / 14) * armor_reduction * raid_modifiers

A couple words on the derivation of FoF: since it disables AA, its value in a cycle is a bit lower than its straight damage compared to other spells; that's why I'm listing the 'adjusted dpc'. If we consider the damage of AA as 1weapon_dps per sec, the damage of FoF would be 5 rounds of FoF (5 * 5weapon_dps) minus 4 seconds of AA (4weapon_dps) for a total of 21weapon_dps. In adition to that, a ww monk won't be proccing Tiger Strikes during the channel, but that derivation is a bit more tricky.

Chi builders:
Expel Harm produces [3.15 * mods] damage plus 2chi.
Jab produces [1.5 * mods + 0.11TP + .11BOK] damage plus 2chi. Its damage adds adds up to [(1.5 + 0.11 * 3 + 0.11 * 9.6) * mods] or [2.886 * mods] damage plus 2chi (or [2.71 * mods] if the BOK is performed from the front).
It seems like Expel Harm is more efficient than Jab, but this is likely to change as we aquire more mastery rating.

[top] Spell behaviour

Tiger Strikes:
It's a two-roll yellow strike that simply shows up in white text in-game.
Once procced, you get 4 charges (next 4 swings), but you also get a TS strike from the swing that generated it for a grand total of 5.
Both the proc and the 'charges' procs off of white swings (misses and the like included). It doesn't seem to have an icd. It can't proc off of itself.
The proc rate is not yet confirmed: latest blue on the matter stated that TS is a balance knob for dw/2h; however, I haven't found yet any evidence suggesting the proc rate to be any different than 10%. Hamlet proposed using the old [1 - (1 - p) ^ N] to come up with the uptime on it (for 2h at least). I imagine the proc rate could be derived in the same fashion: rate = 1 - (1 - uptime) ^ (1 / 4); however, the logs I've been checking have too much variance for me to pin it down (iteration through beta builds is a huge factor here).

Combo Breaker:
It only procs off of Jab: not Expel Harm nor Spinning Crane Kick.
Both TP/BOK procs are independent: you can get one or the other or both from the same Jab.

Tier 45 talents:
Power Strikes: 1 chi every 20s produce 0.050 chi/s.
Chi Brew: 4 chi every 90s produce 0.044 chi/s.
Ascension only matters for resource pooling, which is not an issue in straight up fights.

Tigereye Brew:
At 8energy per second regen, a ww monk can cast a Jab every 5s, thus generating 0.4chi/s (plus 0.05 from Power Strikes). A fully stacked Tigereye takes 100s to build (88.89 with Power Strikes).

Fists of fury:
Point blank channel; breaks when moving and disables AA.
5 assaults or rounds: the one when starting the channel and one each second for 4s after that.
Can proc melee enchants while channeling.

Blackout Kick dot
According to the devs it rolls like ignite: if used when a previous dot is up, the damage is recombined in a new dot; thusly, at the end of a fight (overkill and rounding aside) it should deal exactly 20% of the damage of all the BOK strikes.
It's unclear to me, though, how will crit affect this: I would imagine it can doube dip on crit (a crit tick from a crit BOK benefits from the 2x modifier twice) so some testing is due to pin this down. The mechanic is a bit bugged now, dealing considerabl less overall damage than it should do, so I'd wait until next build to test this.




Some personal notes:
The cycle seems to feel fuid enough. However, it's worth pointing out that one of the reasons many people were interested in the class was the dark/light chi resources. Now that that is gone, the spec sounds a lot like a simplified rogue. The possibility to pool on chi is an interesting twist but the strength of the idea is diluted in that the burst on demand it could offer is offset by the impossibility to chain more than 2 strong finishers.

I would also like to note that all 3 basic finishers are instant damage without anything to differentiate them or to track a dot or a self-buff; while it may fit with the street fighter kind of a theme monks have going on, I find this lack as a very bland feature of the class. Now, we all know many things will change, but at first glance the spec lacks some complexities that make other classes fun to play.

Finally, the lack of procs, like double chi gains, or energy regen increases, or cooldown resets, or any other weird interaction between abilities is notable. The mastery proc is the only proc that expects and action from the players (using a finisher that is); Tiger strikes is an un-interesting proc, being passive and offering no way to predict, force, stack with others or, in short, interact in any way with it. As it is now, to me it feels like we're still missing a relatively big piece in the puzzle.



Change log:
Thread started.
Reworked some wowhead links and deleted mentions to the older thread as the insight in that one is largely reposted here.
Talents and glyphs included.
Layout changed; some sections may seem out of proportion, but I expect them to change and grow in the future. Included some icons.
Updated to build 15508.
Updated info on Combo Breaker, Rising Sun Kick and Flying Serpent Kick at several points.
Updated to build 15544: Blackout Kick is now cheaper and has no cd nor hp requirement; it also puts a dot when below 50%. New talent 'Power Strikes'.
Jab now produces 2chi; updated references and combat cycle. Some talents have swaped tiers and some are gone.
Updated combat cycle to reflect the finisher priorities studied in the thread.
Updated to build 15589: new talents; Blackout's dot is now 6'', Muscle Memory has been reworked and the statue's on-click is gone.
Updated to build 15640: many talents changes and new glyphs; Tigereye Brew reworked; blackout's cost re-upped to 2chi; detox no longer dispels bleeds; tiger statue is replaced with Invoke Xuen.
Updated to build 15650: talent changes; windwalkers get the 'dual-wield' passive (tanks and healers don't?); Invoke Xuen is apparently a talent now.
Deleted the Statue section. Included some enchants/gems (will keep updating it now and then).
Updated to build 15657: Muscle Memory has been baked into Tiger Stance.
Updated to build 15662: Chi Wave is now available to all specs as a talent.
Updated to build 15668: Palm reworked: buffs with stacking armor ignore regardless of hp threshold. RSK applies the healing debuff. Tigereye's effect doubled (now ww exclusive).
Linked most (when possible) glyphs to the glyph item. Updated several icons: blame wowhead if the tooltips are not yet updated.
Updated to build 15677: new glyphs; also: Flying Nimbus!
Updated to build 15689: Spinning Crane Kick awards 1chi.
Updated to build 15699: Blackout execute-dot is gone.
Included some notes on Blackout Kick at several points where applicable.
Updated to build 15726: Legacy of the White Tiger grants 5%crit raid buff instead of 5mast. Power Strikes severely nerfed (from 0.067 to 0.05chi/s).
Pushed build number to 15739: Not much going on for ww. Noted that enchanting the head slot is no longer possible.
Pushed build number to 15752: energy cost for raid buffs reduced.
Updated to build 15762: Blackout was significantly buffed with Combat Conditioning.
Reformat the talents section
Updated to build 15781: Strike scaling got updated. Rare cuts are back and some epic gems are in.
Updated the combat cycle section and finally changed energy regen to 8 (and every section affected by this)
Started the 'Mechanics' section.
Updated to build 15799: base energy regen went up to 13 but it's expected to be a bug. ZS still waiting for its nerf.
Updated to build 15851: energy regen back to 8.

Likewise reposting my thoughts from the deleted thread:

1) The rotation does indeed feel bland; it might get better if Rising Sun Kick surpasses Tiger Palm and Blackout Kick in damage per chi (which is the only relevant measure of move quality right now), but even then: with 0 haste you *can* keep up with your Chi generation just with Rising Sun Kick, so even with a lot of haste - say 20% - you'd only need to spend 1 chi every 40 seconds on other moves. Hence, to a very large extent, you're going to be alternating between Jab (or equivalent) and a single finisher, possibly using a second (different) finisher to soak up mastery procs. Not exactly the most exciting cycle they've ever designed. You'll be weaving Flying Serpent Kick and (maybe) Fists of Fury in, but its still not exactly something you have to think carefully about.
2) Expertise/Hit cap are going to be very important. Missed energy abilities refund no energy; missed chi abilities refund no chi. Hence each 1% miss chance results in 2% fewer chi moves done, which is likely to be a significant loss of damage.
3) Meditation seems really overpowered. Its Dispersion on crack, and Dispersion was already extremely useful on a number of fights in Cataclysm. I have to believe that 99% number will be dropped to something more reasonable (like, 40%) sometime before launch.
4) I have my doubts about Muscle Memory. Given that you only get 1 jab every 4 seconds baseline, its going to take something like 7 minutes to max out your stack - maybe 6 with haste. As all but the longest boss fights are shorter than that, it basically means that Monks are going to steadily get stronger over the course of every fight - in addition to having a potential execute mechanic in Blackout Kick. I'm really not sure why they're designed that way - it seems like a recipe for trouble wherein they're overpowered in long fights or underpowered in short ones. Will be interesting to see if they conclude whether that's actually a good thing or not, as it seems like a pretty bad idea to me.

Realized the above didn't take talents into account. Let's see what we have so far: Mists of Pandaria - Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

30: Ascendance doesn't accomplish anything for DPS at the moment. Cider cives 4 Chi every 90s.

90: 3 different options for new spells that each let you do X damage once every Y seconds.

No other tiers have DPS talents.


So yeah, nothing here affects the DPS rotation (aside from the straightforward bonus from Cider).

AP is 140 + Str + Agi*2. Base stats at 85 88 Str 103 Agi.

Jab does 79-80 naked (434 AP)
Jab does 180-181 with 996 AP. (defensive stance). So looking like about 0.18 on Jab (am I reinventing the wheel here? I don't know there's a well-known convention for what the coefficient would be).

Tiger Palm does 236 @ 434AP w/50% bonus.
537 @996AP. Coeff--0.5356, or 0.357 before the bonus.

Blackout Kick: 555, 1263, for 1.26.


562

Yeah, I figured there was something like that. This was trivial to test though since there's no damage range unarmed and I could at least get AP scaling right away. Weapon damage is harder since I only had one weapon and there's a range (and the only L85 Monk I have access to is trapped in this horrible place where the only target dummies are these weird things that die in one hit).

I see though. So you're saying my observed coefficients from unarmed attacks might not mean anything since the coefficient changes based on weapon type (up to normalization speed?).

Well, the unarmed attacks aren't necessarily meaningless, although I don't remember off the top of my head what the base damage and normalization speed of an unarmed attack is. I want to say its something like 1-2 damage and 2.4 speed (same as 1H non-daggers), but 1) I'm not certain about that, and 2) those produce numbers 4.75% lower than what you're seeing even before we account for armor. So either I'm wrong about base damage, or Jab does more than 100% weapon damage, or its factoring in your OH weapon damage as well despite the fact you're not wielding one, or... something. We just don't have enough information yet.

There's also the fact that, if you believe wowhead, your Jab should be doing a baseline 139.4 damage just by virtue of your level, and its clearly not. I suspect we're going to need to do testing 1) over a wider range of AP values and 2) with an assortment of weapons with better-understood properties before we can really draw many conclusions about the exact formulas for the abilities. And probably against targets with better understood armor properties.

Are there by chance any critters around you can kill? Rats in the deeprun tram were always a good way to get a good estimate of the unmitigated damage of an attack.

I'm pretty sure the unarmed attacks had 2.0 speed (although not sure if normalization obeyed that).

The 139 damage is what the tooltip read in-game. And since wowhead can only see what's in the tooltips, that probably doesn't mean too much.

I did check that the damage values I posted continued linearly to some higher values of AP.

I'll see if I can find anything more tomorrow or sometime soon; the account with the 85 Monk isn't mine.

Weapon damage multipliers almost always include AP, i.e., (WD + N * AP / 14) * C

AP is usually tied with any weapon modifier; also, more often than not, these formulae come with two modifiers, the damage bonus and the percentage coefficient: (WD + AP * N / 14 + bonus_damage) * C

Also note that, if anyone is testing this, white swings are not normalized: white_damage = weapon_speed * (weapon_dps + AP / 14)

To be clear: windwalker mastery doesn't proc one proc that you can spend on either tiger palm or blackout kick.

The way it works on beta is that each jab has a (1.4 * mastery)% chance to proc Combo Breaker: Tiger Palm (making your next tiger palm free) and an independant (1.4 * mastery)% chance to proc Combo Breaker: Blackout Kick (making blackout kick free and usable regardless of health). Both can proc off the same jab.

The basic rotation priority seems to be:
Rising Sun Kick on cooldown
Spend mastery procs. Order doesn't really matter as long as you use procs before you jab again, but slight priority to blackout kick as it does more damage.
Spend excess chi, saving 2 for Rising Sun Kick, unless you're going to cap on energy and not cap on chi, in which case
Jab, unless you're going to cap on chi.

The only real divergance from this would be if you have jinyu cider, which you would probably pop after you hit 0 chi after a rising sun kick or whatever.

For comparison: I don't have logs or anything, but anecdotally on the beta with a 378 geared premade monk on a 85 target dummy:
Rising sun kick hits for ~19k each * 2.3
Blackout kick hits for 35-40k.
Tiger palm hits for ~20k. (I suspect that the additional damage over 50% isn't actually applying on the target dummies, even though they're 100%; I can't prove this, however. I'd expect ~30k above 50%.)
Jab hits for roughly 6k. After extended combat, regular 12k crits.

This is with chattering claw mh/trickster's edge oh, and getting similar numbers with a 378 staff.

Again, I don't have empirical numbers, but that should give you an idea of the relative strength of the abilities.

You're currently modeling DW miss chance as 27% + 8% base for 35% miss total. I'm pretty sure the DW miss rate in the mid-20s (I don't remember what the exact most current rate is) replaces the 8% instead of adding to it. This will significantly improve DW in your comparison.