Introduction
Hey, I’m J-Funk. I have been playing Windwalker Monk since Mists of Pandaria and have been raiding in Humble since Legion which in Amirdrassil was World 48th. In Battle for Azeroth, I was consistently one of the higher rated WW Monks in M+ and have been a Windwalker Monk theorycrafter/guide maker for several years.
Windwalker Monk is a melee DPS spec that has a tool for nearly every situation and has flexible cooldowns, great utility, and excellent mobility.
In The War Within, Windwalker Monk has received a significant rework to its talent trees. As a result, the playstyle has been changed with many new effects, but still retaining its core identity. One of the biggest benefits of this rework has been to Windwalker Monk’s historically poor secondary scaling; With Haste now being the most valuable secondary stat, it truly is a new day from iterations past.
If you tried out Dragonflight Windwalker Monk and thought it wasn’t for you because of poor secondary scaling, annoying playstyle stuff like Jadefire Stomp, or didn’t like how wasteful it was with resources, give The War Within Windwalker Monk a shot.
What has changed
Week of November 25th Class Tuning
- Conduit of the Celestials: Strength of the Black Ox damage increased by 100%.
- Conduit of the Celestials: Flight of the Red Crane damage increased by 100%.
- Conduit of the Celestials: Courage of the White Tiger damage increased by 35%.
- Fists of Fury damage increased by 20%.
- Blackout Kick damage increased by 8%.
- Flurry of Xuen damage increased by 40%.
- Courageous Impulse now increases the damage of your next Blackout Kick by 200% (was 125%).
- Shadowboxing Treads now increases the damage of Blackout Kick by 20% (was 10%) and causes additional Blackout Kicks at 80% effectiveness (was 70%).
These buffs are mostly aimed at closing the gap between Conduit of the Celestials and Shado-Pan with a spritz of additional build diversity, and a small baseline increase to overall damage.
There are a few build adjustments that come from these changes. In Single Target builds, You’ll want to drop something (usually Inner Peace for Shado-Pan, RJW for Conduit) in order to pick up the newly buffed Shadowboxing Treads. In AoE, you’ll want to start investing in Blackout Kick related talents as those have been buffed. This does mean you’ll most likely end up dropping Ordered Elements which will take some time to adjust to.
Patch 11.0.5 Changes
Patch 11.0.5 brings along mostly QoL changes to Windwalker as well as some small buffs that result in an overall 3-4% DPS increase.
Shado-Pan
- Added an energy tracker aura. This aura shows the player how much energy they have spent towards their next set of Flurry Strikes.
- Flurry Charges are no longer cancelable and no longer have a duration.
- Flurry Strikes unleash energy trigger threshold is now 240 energy (was 300).
- Flurry Strike damage reduced by 8%.
- Flurry Strike Accumulator Threshold increased by 47%.
- Wisdom of the Wall bonus effects duration reduced to 16 seconds (was 20%).
- Against All Odds duration reduced to 5 seconds (was 6 seconds).
The goal of these changes is to increase the frequency at which you discharge your Flurry Strikes. The most notable of these changes is the addition of an energy tracker aura in-game which will make it significantly easier (and more reliable) to keep track of your Flurry Strikes progress. Making Flurry Strikes unable to be canceled and no longer have a duration is an attempt on Blizzard’s part to stop the degenerate setup process that can occur with Flurry Strikes. However, there is still a way to do so which is listed in the Playstyle section of the guide.
- Blackout Kick's damage increased by 20%.
- Flurry of Xuen damage increased by 40%.
- Fixed an issue that caused Courageous Impulse to incorrectly buff the damage of Blackout Kick by more than intended when multiple stacks are active.
- Fixed an issue that caused Courageous Impulse to incorrectly buff Teachings of the Monastery Blackout Kicks.
The buff to Blackout Kick’s damage is sorely needed but perhaps misses the mark in tuning. I don’t foresee this affecting any talent builds unless further tuning occurs. Flurry of Xuen’s buff, on the other hand, does affect your talent choice. It should now be a DPS increase to play Flurry of Xuen on any encounter where more than 1 target shows up at any point.