Pages

Friday, December 30, 2011

I use my knuckles as a weapon

Samwise Didier Fist Wep Concept Art
The current list of Monk useable weapons was announced to us with everything else at Blizzcon. On the Monk page over at Blizzard's official site they list:
  • Fist Weapons
  • One-Handed Axes
  • One-Handed Maces
  • One-Handed Swords
  • Polearms
  • Staves
Sharing leather gear with druids and rogues points our primary stats to Agility for DPS/Tanking and Int for Healing. For a few of these categories that hopefully means more itemization. Considering we've only seen one Agi Fist Off-hand (Arlokk's Claws) of epic quality in Cataclysm (for PvE) it's not a difficult task to beat that record. As long as they don't make another horrible abomination set that was the Claws of Torment/Agony where one is agi and one is str but they make a set bonus. Not sure where someone thought that was a good idea.

Now the impact weapons are going to play on Monks is something I'm going to call into question. Obviously for melee classes a weapon upgrade can be a big deal, but is it as big of a deal if you don't use auto attacks? What about the monk abilities? Are some of them going to be weapon damage based? The current plan is that the weapons only come out on the big finishing moves, but that doesn't mean regular attacks will not be based on weapon damage.

So there's a few questions to be looking into when we finally get a preview of monk attacks. If they're based on weapon damage or just AP. How they balance the skills around 1h and 2h, if they choose to push tanks towards 2h and DPS towards 1h or allow both to work just fine.

Right now the picture I'm getting from it is that DPS monks will be going after weapons like the Enhancement Shamans. Two big slow weapons for highest damage possible being put into the skills. This has the side benefit of making slow agi off hand weapons useful for another class and we'll see more of them itemized. What happens to the way Monk skills and weapons interact is going to play a big part in the upcoming beta.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Dealing with Serpent (Statues)


Ah Monk healing will indeed be an interesting thing. Mending others in combat through use of Statues (similar to totems), direct heals, and an ability to heal through doing damage (akin to Atonement).

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Combo Attack Speculation

Going to start with a bit of speculation now. From what I recall there was talk of combos when speaking of monk combat come Mists. So first we'll go over the few example abilities they had at blizzcon courtesy MMO-Champion (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2526-Mists-of-Pandaria-Blizzcon-2011-Recap-Monk-Abilities-Preview)

Level 1 Abilities
Jab
40 Chi - Melee Range, Instant
Requires Stance of the Drunken Ox, Stance of the Fierce Tiger.
You jab the target, dealing 5 damage and generating 1 light force and 1 dark force.

Tiger Palm
1 Light Force - Melee range, instant
Requires Stance of the Drunken Ox, Stance of the Fierce Tiger.
Deals 10 Physical damage, deals 5 additional damage if the target is above 50% health.

Level 2 Abilities
Roll
50 Chi - Instant
Roll a short distance.

Level 3 Abilities
Blackout Kick
2 Dark Force - Melee range, Instant
Kick with a blast of energy, causing 28 physical damage to an enemy target. If the target is killed by blackout kick, you are returned 1 Dark Force.

Level 5 Abilities
Flying Serpent Kick
8-40 Yards range, 25 Seconds Cooldown, Instant.
Soar through the air towards a targeted enemy, knocking them down and stunning them for 2 seconds.

Spinning Crane Kick
Instant, 2 Lights and Dark Forces
Requires Stance of the Drunken Ox, Stance of the Fierce Tiger.
You spin while kicking in the air, dealing 23 damage every 1 second to all nearby enemies within 8 yards. Movement speed is reduced by 30%, last 6 seconds.

Image from: http://wow.mmosite.com/fanart/art_gallery_kongfu_monk_of_pandaria.shtml



So you can see how the abilities synergize together into combos: Jab, Tiger Palm; Jab, Jab, Blackout Kick; Jab, Jab, Spinning Crane Kick.

This could work out into nice easy to remember sequences, or for the macro users here, some handy castsequence macros.

Mob Health > 50%
/castsequence reset=3 Jab, Tiger Palm

Mob Health < 50%
/castsequence reset =5 Jab, Jab, Blackout Kick

AE
/castsequence reset=5 Jab, Jab, Spinning Crane Kick

Of course it won't always suit to use them but it is a possibility of the play style to be able to use the castsequence combos to an advantage. Just another idea awaiting testing!

Sunday, December 18, 2011

The monk races

With the upcoming expansion Mists of Pandaria one of my most favorite types of class is coming. The monk is by far the type of class I most connect with. I don't know why. Perhaps it's because I fell in love with it back in Everquest about 10 years ago.

So today I wanted to go over some basics. The races available to become monks come 5.0.

For the Alliance we have: Pandaren, Dwarf, Human, Draenei, Gnome and Night Elf
For the Horde we have: Pandaren, Blood Elf, Tauren, Orc, Troll and Forsaken.

Now of course we'll take a look at what racial abilities (theoretically for now) will have the most to offer the upcoming Apprentice Monks.

Pandaren:
  • Epicurean - 100% bonus to stats acquired from food
  • The rest seems like they would be quite useful. Like Inner Peace for the levelers that are going to take their time, but for anyone pushing to get that monk up to 90 fast won't be leveling with the xp bonus active anyway. Quaking Palm seems rather weak at a whole 3 seconds of CC.
Alliance:
Dwarves:
  • Mace Specialization - The increased expertise off Mace spec is really the only benefit a Dwarven monk would have from racials. This would also only extend to DPS monks as 2h-maces are not on the list for Tanking Monks.
Humans:
  • Sword and Mace Specialization - Same as the Dwarves above this is for the DPS Monks out there but benefits both 1h swords and 1h maces instead of just maces.
  • Every Man For Himself and Diplomacy are both very nice bonus abilities as well.
Draenei:
  • Heroic Presence - The 1% hit rating may seem minor but the amount of hit that it's going to take for 1% at level 90 may turn into quite a benefit to other secondary stats.
  • The Gift of the Naaru is another one of the bonus racial abilities that are nice to have but won't be something to base the choice of race from.
Gnomes:
  • Expansive Mind - Increased Mana pool size. Obviously only a benefit to the Healing Monks, the advantage of an increased base mana pool is going to be based on how any mana regen skills for Monks works, whether off spirit or % based.
Night Elves:
  • Quickness - 2% increased chance to be missed when attacked. Benefits to the Tanking Monks here.
Horde:
Blood Elves:
  • Arcane Torrent - An extra silence and will likely restore some Chi. Silence abilities are always a nice bonus but this would only turn into a slight DPS/Threat increase.
 Tauren:
  • Warstomp and Endurance make Tauren racials a great fit for Tanking Monks in a utility standpoint.
Forsaken:
  • Will of the Forsaken has been a key utility ability for a very long time. Cannibalize might assist in the leveling process but it would be of very small utility.
Orc:
  • Blood Fury - On demand Attack Power increase, great for DPS monks.
  • Axe specialization - Expertise bonuse for Axes, also great for DPS monks.
Troll:
  • Berserking - Increased attack speed has always been one of the better racials for DPS classes of all kinds.

In the end however the most important thing to think of when choosing a race is how it feels to you. If it feels right and it's fun to you, that's absolutely the most important aspect. I myself am not sure yet what I'm going to choose. Pandaren seems like such a default easy answer, but I've realized I really like Night Elf animations. I guess we'll see once the beta kicks in and we can have a real look at the animations.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

New Beginnings

So, this is going to be a new journey for me. Trying my hand at the world of blogging. Intending to do so based on the new upcoming Monk class for World of Warcraft. There are not many topics to cover so far for the monk class but I'll find something. If not that then I'll just cover my happenings of 4.3 and my Warlock Aily <Arisen> (Doomhammer) in between. I have great plans for this though and I hope to start producing content for the future monk players very soon!

Bear with me as I find what text and colors and layout I find to my liking!