Windwalker Guide

Introduction

I’ll avoid spelling out every single spell and aspect of the class and focus on the functional. Icy Veins and MMO-Champion have great guides that go into more depth. If you want to know what each ability does, click on its link. I also have a FAQ page with the questions that are seen most frequently.

To quote Icy-Veins:

Windwalker is the DPS specialisation of Monks, the most recently-added class in World of Warcaft.

Windwalker Monks provide competitive melee DPS in both single target and multiple target situations. They are extremely mobile, and they also have excellent personal survival cooldowns that allow them to mitigate a lot of damage in a raiding environment.

Stats  | Abilities  |  Cooldowns  |  Talents  |  Glyphs | Rotation

Stats

Stat Priority

Using  Serenity(w/o t18 2pc): Multistrike > Versatility > Crit >Haste >>>>>>>> Mastery

Using Serenity(w/ t18 2pc): Multistrike to 59% > Versatility > Multistrike after 59% > Crit >Haste >>>>>>>> Mastery

Using  Chi Explosion: Haste >> Multistrike > Versatility > Crit >>>>>>> Mastery

Gems/Enchants

Due to the changes in the enchant and gem system, they are pretty straight forward. For  Serenity, take Multistrike everything. For  Chi Explosion, take Haste everything.

Exception: If you have two trinkets that have Multistrike Procs, you can likely overcap Multistrike (100%), use Haste weapon enchant to minimize that chance.

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Abilities

Abilities that are from talents and cooldowns will be covered in their sections.

Energy Spenders

 Jab – Basic Chi Builder, use it to generate Chi to prevent energy capping

 Expel Harm (EH) –  Use when below 80% health in place of  Jab, when at range from target, and to generate Chi before the pull

 Spinning Crane Kick (SCK) – Short AOE spell, use with 3+ targets that need to be AOE’d down quickly

 Surging Mist  (SM) – Small targeted heal.

Chi Spenders

 Tiger Palm (TP) – Applies self-buff Tiger Power to ignore 30% of the targets armor (11% damage increase to physical skills)

 Rising Sun Kick (RSK) – 2nd hardest hitting ability, applies debuff increasing target’s damage taken by monk abilities by 20%.

 Fists of Fury (FoF) – Hardest hitting ability, use on cooldown unless you will cap energy or target will be out of range

 Blackout Kick (BoK) – Filler ability to spend Chi to prevent capping

Non-Chi Abilities

 Flying Serpent Kick (FSK) – Use to get from place to place quickly or to fill a second for slightly more damage while energy regens

 Roll – Use to get from place to place, not quite as quickly or as far as FSK

 Storm, Earth, and Fire (SEF) – Icy-Veins explains how to use this perfectly : HERE.   Note: Newly created clones need their own TP and TEB buffs, and RSK debuffs; they do not benefit from yours and you don’t benefit from theirs

 Transcendence – Use to get from place to place instantly over long distances. Use  Transcendence to set your teleport copy at current location and  Transcendence: Transfer to teleport to it

 Combo Breaker – Provides a free, no-chi cost, cast of TP or BoK. Use up charge before next  Jab

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Cooldowns

See talents below for other cooldowns

Offensive

 Tigereye Brew (TEB) – Before any FoF or Serenity, when above 16 stacks, or when you get a trinket/legendary ring proc

 Energizing Brew  (EB) – When FoF is on cooldown and (a) you’re below 60 energy and can use a energy spender in the next 6s or (b) you’re below 40 energy

 Touch of Death  (ToD) – Use it when the button lights up, target is below your health or 10%

Defensive

 Zen Meditation (ZenMed) – Top notch defensive CD, use to survive a big hit or several hits when the other defensive cooldowns just wont cut it. Cannot damage while channeling

 Touch of Karma (ToK) – Use to redirect up to 50% of your health worth of damage back to the target. Can be used defensively to prevent damage, or offensively. Use offensively at your own risk

 Fortifying Brew  (Fort Brew) – Basic defensive CD for longer periods of damage. Also increases health to allow ToK to absorb/redirect more damage and ToD to do more damage and be activated sooner.

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Talents

Tier 1 (level 15)

•  Celerity – when using  Chi Torpedo
•  Momentum – for any kiting
•  Tiger’s Lust – for everything else

Tier 2 (level 30)

•  Zen Sphere – for Single target with very little SEF use, keep on two targets as much as possible
•  Chi Wave – for single target with SEF use
•  Chi Burst – is best for AoE damage

Tier 3 (level 45)

•  Ascension – when using  Chi Explosion
•  Chi Brew – Select when using Serenity. Use so that one stack is always recharging. Use both stacks at beginning of fight then on CD or save a stack for burst TEB stacks.
• Ignore  Power Strikes

Tier 4 (level 60)

•  Ring of Peace – for AOE silence (rare)
•  Charging Ox Wave – for range and more frequent but shorter stuns
•  Leg Sweep – for melee and longer but less frequent stuns

Tier 5 (level 75)

•  Dampen Harm  – for several consecutive or physical damage
•  Diffuse Magic – for large magic damage or removing magic debuffs
•  Healing Elixirs – for small more consistent damage, or if neither of the above apply (rare)

Tier 6 (level 90)

•  Rushing Jade Wind – for soloing old content to AOE while on the move. No current use due to Chi Explosion
•  Chi Torpedo – replaces  Roll, for fights with large groups of adds that die quickly
•  Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger – for everything else

Tier 7 (level 100)

•  Serenity  – Best single target: use on cooldown, except if FoF has less than 10s left on its CD. Never during Bloodlust/Heroism outside of the opener
•  Chi Explosion – Best cleave: use at/above 4 Chi for cleave, at 3 chi for single target, replaces  Blackout Kick
•  Hurricane Strike – Ignore this for now, has some uses for burst, but not much.

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Glyphs

I’ll only mention the ones that have actual uses, not cosmetic or goofy ones.

Major Glyphs

 Glyph of Floating Butterfly – removes the stun component but allows you to move while channeling  Fists of Fury, useful 99.9% of the time

 Glyph of Flying Fists – useful only if you need to stun adds with  Fists of Fury and can give up the movement

 Glyph of Touch of Karma – adds 20yd to  Touch of Karma‘s range, practically mandatory

 Glyph of Zen Meditation – allows you to move while channeling Zen Meditation, not required all the time, but very useful

 Glyph of Freedom Roll –  Roll,  Flying Serpent Kick, and  Chi Torpedo break you out of stuns, useful for PvP, haven’t found a use in PvE yet

 Glyph of Fortuitous Spheres – useful if you will be taking big hits, dropping you below 25%, and don’t need one of the first 3 glyphs

 Glyph of Touch of Death– useful if you will only have to use ToD once, or spaced out 3.5 mins

In most situations you will want to use  Glyph of Floating Butterfly,  Glyph of Touch of Karma, and  Glyph of Zen Meditation. If you are to substitute another then I recommend removing  Glyph of Zen Meditation first.

Minor Glyphs

 Glyph of Blackout Kick is the only one that matters, use it 100% of the time

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Rotation

Windwalkers operate on a priority system. This means that you use whatever ability is available that’s highest up in the priority. This priority system is divided up into  Serenity (Single Target),  Chi Explosion (Single Target) and  Chi Explosion (Cleave/AOE). I will leave out cooldowns, as they have a separate section above. I will also cover  Jab first in its own section.

When to  Jab/ Expel Harm

1. Use  Expel Harm in any place of  Jab when below 80% health or out of melee range
2. Less than 4 chi ( Chi Brew) or 5 Chi ( Ascension)
3. Energy is going to cap
4. No  Combo Breaker buffs up

Serenity Priority (Single Target)

1.  Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
2.  Tiger Palm (missing buff)
3.  Rising Sun Kick (missing debuff)
4.  Fists of Fury
5.  Serenity
6.  Rising Sun Kick
7. Tier 2 (level 30) Talent
8.  Combo Breaker: Blackout Kick
9.  Blackout Kick (no combo breaker)
10.  Combo Breaker: Tiger Palm
11.  Jab

  Chi Explosion Priority (Single Target)(No 4pc and SDI)

1.  Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
2.  Tiger Palm (missing buff)
3.  Rising Sun Kick (missing debuff)
4.  Fists of Fury
5.  Combo Breaker: Chi Explosion (2 or more Chi)
6.  Rising Sun Kick
7. Tier 2 (level 30) Talent
8.  Tiger Palm (4 Chi)
9.  Chi Explosion (3 Chi)
10.  Jab

6.2 Update: Once you have t18 4pc and SDI trinket from Archimonde, you should only use Tiger Palm if you have a Combo Breaker and won’t cap energy; basically ignore the buff otherwise.

 Chi Explosion Priority (Single Target)(With t18 4pc and SDI)

1.  Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
2.  Tiger Palm (missing buff)
3.  Rising Sun Kick (missing debuff)
4.  Fists of Fury
5.  Combo Breaker: Chi Explosion (2 or more Chi)
6.  Rising Sun Kick
7. Tier 2 (level 30) Talent
8.  Jab up to 5/6 Chi to fish for procs
   
9.  Chi Explosion (5/6 Chi) to dump Chi
   
10.  Combo Breaker:Tiger Palm

  Chi Explosion Priority (Cleave/AOE)

1.  Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
2.  Rising Sun Kick (missing debuff)
3.  Fists of Fury
4. Tier 2 (level 30) Talent
5.  Chi Explosion (4 or more Chi)
   
6.  Combo Breaker:Tiger Palm
7.  Jab

Note: There is reasonable debate about keeping up Tiger Power while using  Chi Explosion in cleave situations. Some advocate for only using  Tiger Palm when you get a Combo Breaker, others claim use it like you would on single target, or use it before using  Fists of Fury, so that you get the armor penetration for our hardest hitting ability. No one school of thought has won out over the others.

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That concludes my version of a Windwalker Guide, check out my FAQ page for additional information.