wow-monk
Latest
5 abilities your monk is not using enough
Every class has its core abilities -- skills you rely on to get you through every fight or to save you in an emergency. These are all bound to hotkeys within easy reach, on a primary button bar, and you're so used to them being there that your fingers move towards the right keys without any thought. But you also have abilities you reach for less often... or that might not be on your button bars at all. But not all of these abilities are as useless as you might think they are. Almost every ability in a monk's toolbox is useful in some situation, even though some abilities may not seem useful at first glance. To help you unlock the power of these lesser-used skills, we'll take a look at five abilities you might not be using and discuss how -- and when -- they can come in handy.
How to gear your new windwalker monk for raiding
So you've finally hit level 90 on your windwalker monk and you're trying to decide where to go from here. There are lots of things you can do at level 90, but if you want to keep advancing through PvE content, the first thing you'll need to do is grab better gear that will let you hop into heroics and raids. While the one of the best ways to gear up is by jumping into heroics and, especially, raids to grab item drops, each raid has an item level requirement -- and you definitely won't meet it after initially hitting 90. But that's not to say it's out of reach -- just that you'll need to put a bit of effort in before you're ready to head into heroics (which require an ilvl of 435) or raids (which start with the ilvl 460 Mogu'shan Vaults). For new monks who aren't sure where to start -- or old hat players who just aren't confident of their windwalking skills -- we'll help you through the stats that are important for your gear and point you in the right direction to get ready for raiding.
What's on the horizon for monks in patch 5.3
There's a lot of cool stuff coming our way in patch 5.3, including a new battleground, new scenarios, new quests, and a host of PvP changes. But while these splashy changes have been getting all the attention, monks haven't been left out of the action. Be aware that patch 5.3 is still on the PTR which means we may still see changes before anything his the live servers, but working from Blizzard's official patch notes, we can get a pretty good idea of what's coming. Let's take a look! Help for healers First up, there's a change to all healing spells that pick their own targets -- which includes things like Renewing Mist and Chi Wave. These abilities will now pick their targets a bit more intelligently. Says Blizzard, "Targets with lower % health will be preferred, and players are weighted more heavily than pets." It's hard to say how much this will impact gameplay in practice, but it's a definitely a buff. Mistweavers are also getting a buff to Revival, whose healing cap is now 15 raid members (instead of 6) when used in a 25-player raid.
Should you be playing a monk?
World of Warcraft has a character class for every type of player... though you may have to hunt around to find the class that's a perfect fit for you. These days, I've found my perfect fit to be the monk. (Though who's to say that I won't change my mind again in the future.) So if you're in the market for a new character -- whether you're a new player or an old hand -- let's talk about why a monk should be at the top of your to-play list. Just what is a monk? Monks are masters of weaponless combat who have learned to harness their chi hurt their enemies or heal their friends. While they fight bare-handed, they can (and should!) equip weapons: they can use fist weapons, one-handed axes, one-handed maces, one-handed swords, polearms, and staves and can dual-wield one-handed weaponry. They use cloth and leather armor and, though monks originated in Pandaria (and you'll need the Mists of Pandaria expansion to play one), the class is open to pandaren, dwarf, human, blood elf, tauren, undead, draenei, gnome, night elf, orc, and troll. They're a true hybrid class who can tank (brewmaster monks), heal (mistweaver monks), and DPS (windwalker monks). For resources, monks have health, energy (for brewmasters and windwalkers), mana (for mistwalkers), and chi. Chi is unique resource to monks: you have four possible points of it and start combat with zero. Some of your attacks will generate chi while others will use it, meaning monks take careful resource balancing.
Breakfast Topic: Why can't we all find Enlightenment?
As a (fairly) new monk, I have to say I love the fact that monks have their very own daily quest. Every day -- and an extra time every ten levels -- we can head out to the Peak of Serenity in Pandaria, where we train with our fellow monks. If you aren't aware that this quest was daily, and only visited the Peak of Serenity for class quests every ten levels, you should get on board! It's easy to do -- just cast Zen Pilgrimage every day and spend a couple of minutes sparring with one of the monk trainers -- and the reward is very much worth it, not only giving you great XP, but also the Enlightenment buff that provides +50% experience from questing and killing. If you're leveling, I don't have to tell you how invaluable that kind of XP buff is. In fact, it's so invaluable, that whenever I've switched to another alt I really miss it. Leveling any other class, no matter how efficient you are with heirlooms and rested bonuses, is slower than leveling a monk. And all I have to say is... where are the other class quests? Why don't hunters have daily target practice quests? Why don't mages have daily drills in fire, frost, and arcane magics? Why don't warlocks have daily demon duels? And what do you think, dear readers? Do other classes need their own daily quests, or would it just add to the frankly overwhelming pile of dailies we already have?
Diablo 3 Transmog Outfits for WoW: Monk, demon hunter, wizard
It's been two weeks since Diablo III was released, and if you've got some time to spare, I've got three new transmogrification outfits that might interest you. If you'll recall, two weeks ago we learned how to recreate the witch doctor, barbarian, Leah, and Deckard Cain in WoW. As promised, this week we'll be taking a stab at the monk, demon hunter, and wizard, starting with the wizard. Making a convincing wizard outfit in WoW is surprisingly easy, provided you keep a few things in mind. First off, you need to be very aware of your character's silhouette. Bulky gloves, spiky helms, and big shoulder armor are essential, and fortunately, they're all in ample supply on Azeroth. Knowing that, you just need to keep an eye on colors. If you look at the sample outfit, you should notice right off the colors don't quite match; the golds are different hues. Let that serve as a lesson on why it's important to leave yourself a lot of options when selecting the right piece for an outfit. Mismatched hues can sometimes break an outfit if it's not balanced right.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: First impressions of monk leveling
The first monk I leveled to 15 in the Mists of Pandaria beta was a tauren, and I'm still having nightmares about it. I thought it would be a grand idea, allowing me to focus entirely on the monk experience and not allowing myself to get distracted by the shininess of the new pandaren starting zone. Going with something I've already done tons of times in the past seemed to make sense, and the fact that tauren are still my favorite race in WoW was just icing on the cake. For this same reason, I eschewed heirlooms; I wanted to give myself a holistic monk leveling experience. I had the best intentions, but the actual experience was pretty bad. Most of this can be chalked up to the beta test being a beta test; I'm fairly certain the monk isn't a fully developed class yet. One of the biggest issues was ability progression. You start off with your basic chi-building attack, Jab, at level 1. After that, you get the awesome and always-useful Roll ability at level 2. I have no complaints about Roll, even though the animation hadn't been implemented on tauren models yet.
