Goals
Windwalker is a bit of a special spec to me, in that it has 2 iterations with pretty big differences in how they play. The first iteration is the MoP/WoD one, focusing on sustained DPS with Tigereye Brew as a core mechanic of the spec, allowing for frequent minor bursts of damage, and for most of that time also Storm, Earth, and Fire as a way to split damage between spread targets or to amplify AoE. The second iteration is the Legion/BfA iteration, with the new mastery that punishes you for repeating abilities and a much bigger focus on burst damage in the form of Touch of Death and Storm, Earth, and Fire as DPS CDs.
I personally dislike the current mastery, but at this point it’s a core part of what current Windwalker players expect from their spec. In this concept, the effect is not present, however it could probably be added back without needing many(if any) other changes.
The Windwalker kit, when considering talents, has actually always been fairly well rounded in theory, with tuning being the main factor holding it back. Another issue the spec has basically always had is that a lot of important abilities are buggy, with Storm, Earth, and Fire being the best example. There is also some room for some positive reinforcement, mostly when it comes to utility usage.
The kit
Core spells:
Jab:
Deals minor damage, costs 40 energy, generates 2 Chi.
Rushing Jade Wind:
Deals moderate AoE damage over 10 seconds, costs 40 energy, generates 2 Chi. 10 second CD.
Returning to multiple generators, with RJW dealing more damage than Jab but not having a CD. This would mean that Jab is mostly used to fill gaps where RJW is on CD.
Tiger Palm:
Deals minor damage, costs 1 Chi.
Mostly to “fix” Chi if you’re at 4 and need to cast a generator or to “fix” CDs with Eye of the Tiger.
Blackout Kick:
Deals moderate damage, costs 2 Chi.
Rising Sun Kick:
Deals high damage, costs 2 Chi. 15 second CD.
Fists of Fury:
Deals very high damage to all targets in front, costs 3 Chi, 30 second CD.
Spinning Crane Kick:
Deals high AoE damage, costs 2 Chi.
Cyclone Strike:
Deals high AoE damage, generates Serenity: Tiger Palm and Serenity: Blackout Kick, 45 second CD.
Inspired by both Whirling Dragon Punch/Cyclone Strikes(using the animation from the latter) and the legendary helmet in Legion, but without the clunky/buggy Rising Sun Kick/Fists of Fury CD interaction.
Split Personality: Fire:
Splits an elemental fire spirit from your body, sending it to attack your target. If a fire spirit is already active, changes its focus to your current target. Returns to you if the target dies. Off GCD.
Split Personality: Storm:
Splits an elemental storm spirit from your body, sending it to attack your target. If a storm spirit is already active, changes its focus to your current target. Returns to you if the target dies. Off GCD.
Split Personality: Unity:
Calls back any active elemental spirits. Off GCD.
Better control over your spirits. Could also work like in MoP/WoD, where you only have 1 spell to send out spirits, although that can be annoying if you want to change target on one spirit without having to recall both first. Unity essentially just does the same thing as /cancelaura in MoP/WoD, but without new players having to figure out how to macro it.
CDs:
Tigereye Brew:
Increases damage done by 30%, 15 second duration, 2 charges, 2 minute recharge.
In practice very similar to MoP/WoD, but with charges on an ability rather than stacks on a buff. Ramping damage increase. Considered having the damage amplification start lower but be increased by Chi spent during the buff, but that seemed unnecessary.
Touch of Death:
Deals massive damage, increasing based on the target’s missing health(reaching maximum damage when the target is at 20%), costs 5 Chi, 2 minute CD. CD resets if the target dies within 5 seconds of Touch of Death.
Return to pre-Legion Touch of Death, with a grace period on the reset. Having it be just another damage amplification window to stack with other damage amplification windows is not super interesting. Only scales with enemy missing health %, not other damage amplification effects.
Touch of Karma:
Marks your target. For the next 10 seconds 20% of any damage you and nearby allies take will also be dealt to your marked target, up to a cap. 2 minute CD.
No longer a defensive ability, avoiding potential silly gameplay where you taunt bosses in order to maximize it. Counting nearby allies’ damage taken makes utilizing it easier as well, for example by allowing you to stand near your tanks, and is partly inspired by Avert Harm.
Passives:
Fury of Xuen(mastery):
Every damaging ability grants you a stack of Fury of Xuen. Each stack grants your damaging abilities a 1% chance to consume all stacks and summon Xuen with 1 energy per stack. Xuen auto attacks and pulses nature damage, and gives 1 energy per second to the monk(draining it from Xuen). Each active Xuen increases the monk’s damage by x%.
Reduces the RNG variance by having duration tied to stacks consumed as well, rather than just the chance to summon. The damage amplification scales with mastery. Merged in an effect similar to old Energizing Elixir, although the numbers on how much energy the monk gets per energy drained from Xuen might need tuning.
Split Personality:
While any spirits are active, you become the earth spirit. If 1 additional spirit is active, you and the spirit each deal 60% damage. If 2 additional spirits are active, each of you deals 40% damage. Your abilities gain 40 yard range when attacking the same target as one of your spirits, however the spirit does not replicate them.
Fire and storm spirits work as debuffs on their target, replicating any damage you do. They appear visually as spirits replicating animations as appropriate when dealing damage.
AoE abilities from spirits still AoE, and frontal cleaves turn into 360 degree AoEs for simplicity. Turning the spirits into debuffs avoids basically every bug they’ve historically had, like not keeping up with targets or not benefitting from your buffs/debuffs. Giving you the option of attacking from range with a damage penalty gives some flexibility with dealing with mechanics, and is something that people have been talking about forever as a potential SEF mechanic. Renaming from Storm, Earth, and Fire to Split Personality made sense to me, but either obviously works.
Eye of the Tiger:
Every damaging ability you cast reduces the CD of all rotational CDs(Expel Harm, Rushing Jade Wind, Rising Sun Kick, Fists of Fury, Cyclone Strike) by 1 second. Every Chi spent reduces the CD of Tigereye Brew by 1 second.
Taking the idea from Blackout Kick and applying it to every ability, while increasing cooldowns slightly to compensate. This is where the current mastery could most easily be slotted in if desired, requiring non-repeats instead of working on every damaging ability. The Tigereye Brew CD reduction is meant to end up with TeB having an effective recharge of around 1–1.5 minutes.
Serenity:
Generating Chi has a 10% chance to cause your next Tiger Palm or Blackout Kick to deal 50% more damage and cost no Chi, but still reduce Tigereye Brew CD as normal.
Return of the Combo Breaker mechanic, but with a new name to reflect the fact that WW isn’t and has never been a combo spec even if random things had “combo” in their name. Increased damage to make it not “just” a free ability, similar to SoO and Antorus set bonuses.
Mobility/utility:
Windwalking:
Allies gain movement speed based on distance to you. 3% within 40 yards, 5% within 20 yards and 10% within 10 yards.
While still not an insane effect, this makes the Windwalking aura a more useful piece of utility.
Spear Hand Strike:
Interrupt successful interrupts(or hitting within 1 second of another player’s successful interrupt) give Serenity: Blackout Kick.
Detox:
Dispels all poison and disease effects. Successfully dispelling causes 10 sec CD and gives Serenity: Blackout Kick.
Both interrupting and dispelling get some positive reinforcement in the form of the stronger of the 2 Serenity effects.
Roll:
Rolls forward. 2 charges, 15 second recharge. Grants 10% avoidance for 3 seconds.
Celerity’s CD with the Exit Strategy azerite trait, allowing for usage as a minor defensive ability instead of/in addition to mobility if the situation calls for it.
Flying Serpent Kick:
Soar forward for 1.5 seconds, while retaining the ability to change direction. Reactivating the ability ends it early, slowing nearby enemies.
Removed the fairly pointless damage and added in the PvP talent that allows for controlling the direction while flying.
Leg Sweep:
AoE stun, 45 second CD.
Ring of Peace:
Places a ring on the ground for 5 seconds. Enemies inside the ring are silenced, while enemies attempting to enter the ring will be ejected. 1 minute CD.
Added back part of the old effect of Ring of Peace as a situational silence(with the requirement of the mobs being kept inside the ring for the silence to keep working), while otherwise keeping it mostly the same.
Dampen Harm:
Reduces physical damage taken by 50% for 15 seconds, 3 minute CD.
Diffuse Magic:
Reduces magic damage taken by 75% for 5 seconds. Reactivating returns any magic debuffs to their caster, but ends the damage reduction early. 2 minute CD.
Buffed defensives to make up for Touch of Karma no longer being one, as well as slightly changing the “spell reflect” part of Diffuse.
Provoke:
Taunts the enemy, makes them move 50% faster.
Tiger’s Lust:
Grants you and an allied target(if your target is hostile, this will pick the nearest allied player) 50% movement speed for 5 seconds and removes all roots and snares from both.
Transcendance:
Places an image of your spirit at your current location for 15 minutes. 10 second CD.
Transcendance: Transfer:
Swap places with your spirit image. 45 second CD.
Glyph of Transcendance:
Teleports you to your spirit image without swapping places.
Glyph for those of us who forget to drop the spirit again after swapping, only to realize when we swap again and end up in the air somewhere.
There were a lot of things I wanted to include but couldn’t justify, as the kit is already pretty big. These things include but are not limited to: Chi Torpedo(HFC), Zen Sphere(HFC), Soul Capacitor/Maalus/Gale Burst(HFC/Legion), Rune of Re-Origination(ToT), “6 set”(ToS).
