Zero Day! Monks!

Well, you’re probably playing right now rather than looking at the blog, so enjoy this message from the past! (Cue spooky music, and imagine that last sentence spoken in a spooky ghost voice.)

Monks are the new class to come with Mists of Pandaria. Is your Monk a Pandaren? I don’t blame you for answering yes. Is it not? Holy crap, well done, sir. You will certainly be among the rare elite.

Monks are the third “Jack of All Trades” hybrid class. They are able to heal, tank, or do melee dps. Monks will use leather armor, and can dual-wield Axes, Maces, Swords, or Fist Weapons as well as using Staves and Polearms. Unlike other classes, your auto attacks will use your unarmed attack animation. Only the ability Jab will actually use the weapons you are holding. What this means for hit rating when dual-wielding versus using a 2-hander is sadly unknown to me.

Monks have a passive called “Way of the Monk,” that increases damage done while dual-wielding and haste while using a 2-hander, which I understand is there to balance the two, making it more of a cosmetic choice (or simply getting the piece that gives the best stats.)

Monks use Energy, much like Rogues and Feral Druids, but rather than Combo Points, Monks build up Chi. Mistweavers (the healing spec) use Mana instead of Energy, but they also build Chi. Energy is pretty much only used for Jab (with a couple of exceptions.) Jab will, baseline, generate one Chi. Chi is then spent on your other abilities.

Monks are very mobile, and make use of spheres that will pop up to heal or restore Chi, but require you to actually move into them to gain the benefit. Their “signature move,” like a Death Knight’s Death Grip, is Roll, which allows you to roll quickly in the direction you’re currently running.

So, let’s go spec-by-spec:

Brewmaster: The tanking spec, this is also the spec that lets you get your enemies drunk. Brewmasters have a unique defensive mechanic called Stagger. When you are hit with an attack, 20% (and more as your mastery goes up) gets prevented, and instead turns into a DoT called Stagger, which effectively spread out the damage over a period of time. You then have an ability called Purifying Brew, which is cheap and has only a 1-second cooldown, and will allow you to purge the Stagger damage – sort of forgiving your damage debt. Damage reduction is mainly handled by Purifying Stagger and using Blackout Kick to gain Shuffle, which is a buff to maintain that increases your Stagger amount. Threat-wise, you have an effect put on enemies by various abilities called Dizzying Haze (it used to be Drunken Haze. Never forget!) that slows enemies and gives them a small chance to hit themselves instead of you. Breath of Fire can then ignite those under its effect, though you might be too busy spending Chi on defensive abilities to take advantage of this.

Mistweaver: The healing spec, this one works in kind of two different ways. You can stand at the back, tossing heals like any other healer, or you can go on the offensive. One of the passive effects of Stance of the Wise Serpent is that a portion of the damage you do is converted to healing for nearby allies, using a similar “smart healing” system that Smite healing has. I don’t know if you’ll literally be able to just ignore your allies under this method, but it’s certainly a new take on it, and might finally be the spec that gets me to try healing.

Windwalker: The melee dps spec, Windwalkers gain an extra Chi on each Jab, which should allow them to fight with more fluidity. One highlight here is Flying Serpent Kick, which allows you to shoot through the air at epic-flight speed and crash down for an AoE snare and damage blast. Did I mention Monks had good mobility?

So, of course the nuances and subtleties of the Monk class are a little tough to figure out. We’ve had access to them on the Beta for a while, sure, but this is a brand new class. Expect big changes over the course of Mists. Also expect to be absolutely detested by Druids, especially if you roll Mistweaver, for stealing their gear.