mists-of-pandaria-monk
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Walking on Air: The windwalker monk 101 guide
Interested in trying out the new monk class, but can't tell your Tiger Strikes from your Tiger Palms? Written by Chase Hasbrouck of World of Monkcraft, WoW Insider's new monk coverage will get you kicking in no time! With Mists of Pandaria nearing release, the monk class is rounding into its final form. While a few things may still be tweaked, the design and abilities have now stabilized enough that I feel comfortable presenting you with a series of guides for each specialization. This week: windwalkers! Windwalkers are the melee DPS specialization for the monk class. Themed after martial artists, your job as a windwalker is to punch and kick things repeatedly until they stop moving. Any race, except for worgen and goblin, can play a monk. Like all monks, they have two resources that must be managed; energy and chi. Energy functions identically to rogues and feral druids, as a 100-point pool that regenerates at 10 points per second, in and out of combat. This energy regeneration can be increased with haste, and is used to power a monk's basic attacks. These abilities aren't very damaging, but they build the monk's second resource: chi. Chi is a static 4-point pool, similar to a rogue's combo points, that decays when out of combat. After the windwalker generates chi, he uses it to power his more iconic abilities, that generate the bulk of the windwalker's damage. One key difference between chi and combo points, however, is that all chi-consuming abilities have a fixed cost and damage, compared to the others where the effect scales based on the amount of combo points consumed.
Leveling a monk in Mists of Pandaria, part 2
Interested in trying out the new monk class, but can't tell your Tiger Strikes from your Tiger Palms? Written by Chase Hasbrouck of World of Monkcraft, WoW Insider's new monk coverage will get you kicking in no time! Two weeks ago, I covered the stuff you'll want to level, and last week, I covered the abilities your new monk will gain from levels 1 to 30. This week, we'll finish out the list. Read: Leveling a monk in Mists of Pandaria, part 1 Levels 31 to 45 For this set of levels, there's not too much going on for windwalkers. You've already received the majority of your core moveset, so now you'll be picking up a bit of utility. (I neglected to mention last week that you unlock your first glyph slot at level 25. I recommend picking up the Glyph of Afterlife for leveling, to help minimize your downtime.) At 32, you'll get Spear Hand Strike, which is a standard interrupt with a nice all-schools lockout bonus for PvP. Following that, you'll get Energizing Brew at level 36. EBrew (as I call it) is deceptively powerful. It'll seem kind of useless while out questing, as most of your fights are pretty short-duration in nature. Jump into a group scenario, however, and you'll soon run into situations where you have no chi left to use on finishers and no energy for Jab. In that case, popping this will effective give you a little kickstart. It's not an instant kick like a feral druid's Tiger's Fury or an assassination rogue's Cold Blood, but in the end, more energy means more chi means more damage. After Energizing Brew, you won't get anything new for a little while, but make sure to grab Journeyman Riding at 40. Continuing on the utility theme, at level 44 you'll receive Paralysis. This is your crowd control ability and functions similarly to a retribution paladin's Repentance. It's limited to melee range, though, which will make using it in a coordinated fashion somewhat problematic. (Later, you do unlock a talent that gives it a limited ranged capability.) It does have a shorter cooldown than duration, so you can refresh it as long as necessary; try to use it from behind, though, to get the full effect. Finally, level 45 unlocks your third choice of talents, which all relate to chi in some fashion. I don't find Ascension particularly useful, so I'd recommend picking up either Power Strikes or Chi Brew. Personally, I prefer Power Strikes since I don't have to think about using it, plus it generally allows me to Jab once and go straight into Fists of Fury or a Touch of Death.
Roleplaying a non-pandaren monk
As we embark on the closing weeks of Cataclysm, roleplayers have a lot to look forward to. Not only do we have an entirely new race to roleplay, we've also got an entirely new class -- something we haven't seen since death knights were introduced. The monk class is not restricted to the pandaren race, which brings up this question, submitted via email: As a gnome RP'er and a bit of a lore junkie I was wondering about a few things. First off how exactly would one go around RP'ing a non-Panderan monk? I ask this since Mists comes out soon and I haven't seen an All the World's a Stage on it and based on some of the Realm Forum posts on my realm I am not the only one wondering this. Thank you, Coggling Arcanegrin Well, Coggling, I'm certainly happy enough to answer your question. It's a good one, too. Roleplayers take in several different factors when creating characters, and the monk class is one that takes a bit more attention to detail than most. So let's go over the basics of the basics and see what roleplaying a monk is all about when you aren't a pandaren.
