Well I'm glad you asked, here's everything you need to know about Monk 101 from a windwalker and brewmaster point of view.
First of all let me welcome you to the monk family, there's an awesome monk community out there and I'm glad you decided to come here for information. So I just boosted a windwalker monk and I'm ready to go fight and kill things what do I do, how do I pwn?
Slow down killer, you don't want to get hurt there's a few things we need to look at before we go rushing into combat, we do want to make sure we're ready right? Okay to make sure you can actually hit things in your fresh gear you're going to want to hit and expertise cap which for melee classes is 7.5%. So to make this process painless I recommend getting an add on called reforge lite which you can download here.
In game it looks something like this. The first button you're going to want to hit is in the upper right hand corner which are the presets for the class and you're going to want to select windwalker. From there all you do is hit the calculate button and it will do all the heavy math stuff for you, easy right, almost. To make sure it actually reforges your character you need to scroll down and hit the show button. this shows you exactly what's being reforged, from there just hit reforge and it will do everything for you.
*Beware if you do not have gold on this account and it's totally fresh this will use most of the 150g you are given to start with*
Okay now that you're reforged for hit and exp cap you're ready to go, so what next right? Lets queue up for a dungeon or LFR and get some of that cash you just used back. Okay Crowbar I'm in lets punch stuff, but wait... which buttons do I hit.
Lets look at talents and show you what will help you with most encounters in LFR and the basic heroic dungeons because this is what you should be grinding for gear and experience playing the class.
I like to run Tigers Lust because it's a nice speed boost as well as breaks roots when you need it, you can also cast it on a friendly target if they need help, this skill is very very useful don't underestimate it. the lvl 30 talent I use is Chi Wave because it provides a nice damage output as well as heals when you need it. You can make a marco to use this skill to always target yourself first making it a guaranteed heal, but that's something more useful for Brewmasters than it is for windwalkers, we like the damage.
I'll tell you what's more important, this next talent. Chi Brew is by far your most useful talent and is a must for any windwalker monk, I know what you're about to say and just no. Okay lets look at what this spell does.
Now as a general rule of thumb you're going to want to spam Expel Harm before a boss fight to start off with full Chi on a fight(Note: This process takes about 45 seconds and can be very annoying). Now once you've spent your chi and the fights started you're going to want to use both charges of this right away. Okay Crowbar but what does this do? If executed properly you'll start the fight off with almost 9 stacks of Tigers Eye Brew which is one of your strongest buffs.
Meaning you can start off the fight with 60% damage, which is the perfect time to use this as most fights start off with pre pot, blood lust and you can combine this with Xuen giving Windwalker Monks what they desperately need. BURST!!! Which at this gear lvl single target you'll be bursting if all is done right upwards of 300k which is crazy. If you reach optimal gear lvl's this can go upwards of 1mil dps.
Okay moving on with talent selection I swap between ring of peace and leg sweep, it's really preference at this level and doesn't really matter what you choose. Next for defensive cooldown, Diffuse Magic is by far the most useful for windwalker monks as it's a magical dispell and magic damage reduction which is useful for so many fights in SoO. Dampen harm isn't that useful as we don't normally take enough damage for it to proc even though the effect is longer. Healing elixirs can be a lifesaver but we pop so many brews that it's not worth it because the proc will most likely be down when you need it.
Now that we've learned not to hurt ourselves lets look at our final choice. Now you're going to bounce around between two spells which has a very simple rule. Xuen for Single Target fights, Rushing Jade Wind for AoE fights. You'll get more damage output and effectiveness from Rushing Jade Wind on fights like Fallen Protectors and Galakras, where as for a fight like Sha of Pride Xuen becomes more useful as most of your time is spent single targeting one mob.
Okay now that you have the talent rules for success it's time to start punching things. Let me give you a basic rotation to success. Monks, like most melee classes follow a priority system on which spells you should be using.
Don't worry you're ready I promise. The fist spell you're going to want to cast, if you've set up the fight correctly by using expel harm you should have 4 chi to start off the fight, is Tiger Palm to get the buff up so you do more damage to your current target.
This should leave you with 3 chi left over, the next spell you want to cast is Rising Sun Kick to put the debuff on your target making your attacks hit even harder.
You're going to want to maintain 100% uptime on this buff and debuff on your target for maximum damage. Now this leaves you with 1 chi, not much you can do with that so now it's time to use the first stack of Chi Brew bringing you up to 3 chi, just enough to cast your first Fists of Fury.
Now I will say you're going to want to keep this skill off cd almost 100% of the time for maximum damage, the problem is not many fights let you do that because it is a poorly designed spell. It's one of our most damaging abilities but keeps us rooted and stuns mobs, which on fights where you need to stun adds or where there's mc's becomes very annoying for your group as you're constantly putting things on stun DR for them. If you can keep high uptime on this spell though you'll see your damage sky rocket.
By now your Rising Sun Kick should be off cd or close to it, if not use your second tick of Chi Brew and cast a Blackout Kick if RSK is still on CD. Now what should have just happened is you've used no energy to gain chi and should have a nice burst going. If you're at 10 stacks of Tigers Eye Brew at this point pop it with Xuen and start using your Jab to gain chi to cast RSK and Blackout Kick, only cast Jab twice if FoF is coming close to being off CD so you can FoF, until then use Jab sparingly to keep your energy high and to maintain the buff and debuff we talked about earlier.
Okay for the TLDR your priority should be as such. Tiger Palm Buff>RSK Debuff>FoF>Jab for Chi>Blackout Kick and pop TeB at strategic times to get the most out of your DPS such as a trinket proc.
So those are the basics for windwalker. In my next post I'll be going over the same thing but for Brewmasters. So get your tanking shoes ready because you're in for a hell of a ride, until next time friends, and don't forget you can catch my stream every day at 5pm PDT/8pm EDT http://www.twitch.tv/crowbarx
See you online.
