Windwalker Monk Playstyle and Rotation Guide

General Rotation:

Windwalkers use a priority system, not a rotation. This means that you want to use the highest priority ability available and don’t delay a higher priority ability for a lower one.

The lists below assume you are doing what you need to do to avoid capping resources, avoid breaking your mastery and using above cooldowns appropriately.

1. Cast Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
2. Cast Strike of the Windlord
3. Cast Touch of Death
4. Cast Tiger Palm if <5 Chi AND about to cap energy
5. Cast Jadefire Stomp with Jadefire Harmony talented
6. Cast Whirling Dragon Punch
7. Cast Celestial Conduit (if talented into Conduit of the Celestials)
8. Cast Rising Sun Kick
9. Cast Fists of Fury
10. Cast Blackout Kick to not overcap Teachings of the Monastery
11. Cast Jadefire Stomp with Singularly Focused Jade talented
12. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with Dance of Chi-Ji buff
13. Cast Chi Burst
14. Cast Crackling Jade Lightning try not to overcap Last Emperor's Capacitor stacks
15. Cast Blackout Kick
16. Cast Jadefire Stomp

Multi Target:

1. Cast Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
2. Cast Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
3. Cast Touch of Death
4. Cast Tiger Palm if <5 Chi AND about to cap energy
5. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with 2 stacks of Dance of Chi-Ji buff
6. Cast Jadefire Stomp with Jadefire Harmony talented
7. Cast Strike of the Windlord
8. Cast Rising Sun Kick then Whirling Dragon Punch
9. Cast Celestial Conduit (if talented into Conduit of the Celestials)
10. Cast Crackling Jade Lightning to not overcap Last Emperor's Capacitor stacks with Power of the Thunder King talented
11. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with Dance of Chi-Ji buff
12. Cast Blackout Kick try not to overcap Teachings of the Monastery
13. Cast Fists of Fury
14. Cast Rising Sun Kick with Xuen's Battlegear buff
15. Cast Spinning Crane Kick
16. Cast Chi Burst
17. Cast Blackout Kick

Opener:

Single Target (Conduit of the Celestials)

The key to a Celestial Conduit opener involves properly utilizing your improved Heart of the Jade Serpent window provided by the Unity Within hero talent. This will effectively allow you to cast Rising Sun Kick and Fists of Fury back-to-back while it is active. In Patch 11.1, with the changes to Heart of the Jade Serpent windows, you do NOT want to overlap these ideally.

1. Cast Tiger Palm
2. Cast Rising Sun Kick
3. Cast Tiger Palm
4. Cast Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
5. Cast Jadefire Stomp (if talented)
6. Cast Storm, Earth, and Fire
7. Cast Rising Sun Kick
8. Cast Strike of the Windlord
9. Cast Fists of Fury
10. Cast Tiger Palm
11. Cast Rising Sun Kick
12. Cast Whirling Dragon Punch (if talented)
13. Cast Celestial Conduit
14. Cast Rising Sun Kick
15. Cast Fists of Fury
16. Proceed onto the normal priority list

Single Target (Shado-Pan)

This is a much more simple opener as Shado-Pan does not drastically alter your gameplay.

1. Cast Tiger Palm
2. Cast Rising Sun Kick
3. Cast Tiger Palm
4. Cast Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
5. Cast Jadefire Stomp (if talented)
6. Cast Storm, Earth, and Fire
7. Cast Rising Sun Kick
8. Cast Strike of the Windlord
9. Cast Fists of Fury
10. Cast Tiger Palm
11. Cast Rising Sun Kick
12. Cast Whirling Dragon Punch (if talented)
13. Proceed onto the normal priority list

Playstyle

Storm, Earth, and Fire Usage (In Raid)

In a normal raid fight, it’s currently better to use both of your Storm, Earth, and Fire charges during Bloodlust to maximize their value. This is changed from the previous patch due to talent build differences and being less reliant on the resources Storm, Earth, and Fire gave with Ordered Elements.

Mobility

Windwalker Monk is one of the most mobile classes in the game. You have a plethora of mobility tools available, such as Flying Serpent Kick, Roll, Transcendence, Tiger’s Lust, and the newly added Lighter than Air.

Defensives

Windwalker Monk has several strong Defensive cooldowns including Touch of Karma, Fortifying Brew, and Diffuse Magic. There are also several passive effects on the Class Tree as well as some in the Hero Talent trees that enhance your tankiness.

You should identify good moments to use Touch of Karma before important damage spikes in encounters.

Diffuse Magic has an additional functionality where it can transfer harmful magical effects back to the target that casted them. This has inconsistent behavior but has its uses in M+ dungeons.

In War Within, Expel Harm is a passive. The functionality of this has been reallocated to Vivacious Vivification in the class tree with the intention of Vivify providing the on-demand healing that Expel Harm did before.

Setting up Flurry Strikes

As of 11.0.5, Blizzard have ‘fixed’ the other method of setting this up which involved aura canceling, but this method should still work.

Shado-Pan’s Flurry Strikes has an interesting functionality where the amount of Flurry Strikes you have spent is counted in the game until you relog or switch specs. You can game this by getting to 9 Flurry Strikes on a target dummy and then casting Crackling Jade Lightning or Disable to trigger it at 9. This will mean that the next time you proc Flurry Strikes, it will proc on the first one giving you the Wisdom buff, and then give you up to 9 additional Flurry Strikes with whatever wisdom buff you get.

Ideally, you get the Shadow Wisdom of the Wall and then benefit greatly. This can result in a total of 1.5-2% more output in single target situations.