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 Midnight Season 1 was World 30th. 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 nearly a decade.
Windwalker Monk is a melee DPS spec that has a tool for nearly every situation and has flexible cooldowns, decent utility, and excellent mobility.
What has changed
Patch 12.1 Changes for Windwalker Monk
Windwalker has received a lot of damage redistribution from their cooldowns to their base abilities as well as some minor defensive buffs (including a 5% stamina increase!) and some significant buffs to Spinning Crane Kick and Jade Ignition which have resulted in some pretty significant playstyle shifts such as Celestial Conduit being a more widely played hero talent option and prioritizing Spinning Crane Kick more in low target situations.
12.0.7 Changes
- No notable class changes this patch but the Sporefall raid has been added which will change our BiS setup slightly and the Omnium Folio was added which will add borrowed power to our characters for the rest of the expansion.
12.0.5 Changes
- Crashing Fists has been redesigned – Fists of Fury damage is increased by 20% (was extends duration by 1 second).
- Apex Talent: Tigereye Brew (Rank 1) has been redesigned – Every 3 Chi spent generates Tigereye Brew. Zenith consumes up to 20 Tigereye Brew stacks to increase your critical strike chance for its duration by 1% per stack. Generates quickly up to 10 stacks while out of combat and may generate up a maximum of 30 stacks.
- Apex Talent: Tigereye Brew (Rank 3) has been redesigned – Zenith now grants access to 2 additional Zenith Stomps.
- Xuen's Battlegear may now additionally trigger from Spinning Crane Kick, reducing the cooldown of Fists of Fury by 0.5 seconds for each unique target struck, up to 2.5 seconds.
- Zenith Stomp now generates 2 Chi.
- Zenith no longer generates 2 Chi on cast.
Overall these changes should result in being net neutral for raids & single target situations, a buff in M+, and a huge nerf to Belo’ren damage (of which WW Monk was important for the current 2 phase egg strategies).
You will be casting Spinning Crane Kick more often in AoE and the talent build has shifted to pick Revolving Whirl over Echo Technique in all situations.
The value of the Critical Strike stat has increased because we’re getting less of it for free from our Apex talent and is about equal to Mastery.
12.0.1 Changes
Much has changed with Midnight, especially when it comes to the spec talent tree. Most notably, Storm, Earth, And Fire have been replaced by Zenith, Xuen is now a conduit only spell, and you no longer need to press Tiger Palm to trigger Flurry Strikes. The Hero Talents have had a rework as well and are much more intuitive to play.