Class Balance Q&A: Monk

Guest asked:

With the introduction to monk, many players are speculating exactly how this class is going to heal. We were given that the stance that allows healing would give mana, but what many players are wondering is how will this effect abilities that require chi(such as roll), and will healing monks be rewarded for meleeing like the Paladin is, or will it become a requirement, making them less appealing to fights with small range aoes, or has the idea of melee healers been replaced?

Koraa answered:

The Monk will be able to choose whether they want to melee DPS to heal or heal from range like other classes, similar to how a Discipline Priest can choose to heal through using Smite or to use mostly cast heals. So you could heal a fight as a Monk without DPSing at all and still be competitive. Roll may likely cost mana and get some kind of cooldown once you're in healer stance. There's also currently a talent that changes roll into a different ability that heals and does damage to targets you roll through, which makes it interesting for the healer Monk.

Jonathan Fuller asked:

Is there any reason (other than balance) that you decided to give healing Monks a Mana bar instead of their cool new resource? (I was really looking forward to playing a healer with endless resources). I feel anyone who wanted to play the old healing triage with Mana can play one of the existing healers, and chi/orbs is a great new and exciting way to heal (On top of the mobile healing the Monk should provide)

Koraa answered:

Having the Monk not use mana was discussed early on, and there's a (small) possibility we could still go that route but the reason we didn't is because there is a significant amount of design challenges for a mana-less healer. For one, they could heal for literally forever. They would not value stats other healers would. Mana potions and other power-ups that raid bosses give would be useless to the Monk. Not that those challenges couldn't be solved, but there would have to be some compelling gameplay benefit to going through with it. And we're not sure that would be true.

Andrew asked:

There was a question a few minutes ago about Monk tanking, can you provide some sort of idea on how it will work? Also, how will it compare to the current tanks in PvP? Where most groups find anything other than a warrior tank to be lacking.

Koraa answered:

All Monks (DPS, Tank and Healer) will use the dual combo point resource (Force). So for the Brewmaster (Tank), they will choose between using two different types of mechanics through Dark and Light. For example, Dark may be an absorption shield which is larger depending on how many Force you consume. And Light may be increased avoidance. So you can do things like build up and store Dark for a big shield when you need it, or if you don't really need much self-survivability (maybe you have me healing you ;) then you can just spend your Dark Force on DPS instead.

The Brewmaster also has drinks as short-term buffs, which restore Light or Dark Force, Chi etc. There's also an Ox Statue that they can summon which will do something cool :)

Raymond Mallozzi asked:

Regarding about the Tanking version of the Monk Class. Will we see some Tipsy animations for activating dodge increase abilities like bending backwards to take a drink?

Koraa answered:

Currently the Monk Brewmaster stance is an animated drunken stance, so you do look... well, tipsy at times.

Kurtiizle asked:

Will there be any talent info realeased for Monks before 4.3? I feel the community is interested in getting a feel for how the class might play out.

Wradyx answered:

Monk class design is still too early to have a talent tree fully designed. Anything we showed you now would be so subject to change it would be meaningless. You're going to have to be patient and wait for beta testing on monks to see what their talent trees look like.

Guest asked:

Will the various races animations for Monks be uniform (for the most part)? Or will each race have unique animations for their monk class?

Xelnath answered:

Because the Pandaren taught all of the Monks of Azeroth - they use similar stances and style, though there might be slight variations between races.

Ulfric Wulf DeNalli asked:

What about Windwalker Monks is gonna make us wanna play them? Like, what skills/abilities/buffs will they bring to the raid comp that's gonna make people wanna bring them along?

Koraa answered:

Here's one Windwalker mechanic. You can summon what are similar to Diablo III health globes with a maximum of 3-5 or so that heal players when they run through them. So you could setup a few of those in an area, and players who have to run from beams or fires can run through your orbs for some quick healing. Not must have but something other healers dont' exactly bring right now.