Windwalker Monk Playstyle and Rotation Guide

Single-Target 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.

Conduit of the Celestials

1. Cast Strike of the Windlord without active Heart of the Jade Serpent
2. Cast Celestial Conduit without active Heart of the Jade Serpent
3. Cast Slicing Winds
4. Cast Rising Sun Kick with Xuen's Battlegear buff
5. Cast Tiger Palm if <5 Chi AND about to cap energy
6. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with two stacks of Dance of Chi-Ji buff
7. Cast Whirling Dragon Punch
8. Cast Crackling Jade Lightning at 20 Last Emperor's Capacitor stacks
9. Cast Fists of Fury
10. Cast Rising Sun Kick
11. Cast Blackout Kick try not to overcap Teachings of the Monastery
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

Shado-Pan

1. Cast Rising Sun Kick with Xuen's Battlegear buff
2. Cast Tiger Palm if <5 Chi AND about to cap energy
3. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with two stacks of Dance of Chi-Ji buff
4. Cast Strike of the Windlord
5. Cast Whirling Dragon Punch
6. Cast Crackling Jade Lightning at 20 Last Emperor's Capacitor stacks
7. Cast Slicing Winds
8. Cast Fists of Fury
9. Cast Rising Sun Kick
10. Cast Blackout Kick try not to overcap Teachings of the Monastery
11. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with Dance of Chi-Ji buff
12. Cast Chi Burst
13. Cast Crackling Jade Lightning try not to overcap Last Emperor's Capacitor stacks
14. Cast Blackout Kick

Heart of the Jade Serpent

ONLY DURING Heart of the Jade Serpent.

1. Cast Fists of Fury
2. Cast Rising Sun Kick
3. Cast Slicing Winds
4. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with two stacks of Dance of Chi-Ji buff
5. Cast Whirling Dragon Punch
6. Cast Tiger Palm
7. Cast Blackout Kick with two stacks of Blackout Kick!
8. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with one stack of Dance of Chi-Ji

Multi Target Rotation

Conduit of the Celestials

1. Cast Strike of the Windlord without active Heart of the Jade Serpent
2. Cast Celestial Conduit without active Heart of the Jade Serpent
3. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with two stacks of Dance of Chi-Ji buff
4. Cast Tiger Palm if <5 Chi AND about to cap energy
5. Cast Crackling Jade Lightning at 20 Last Emperor's Capacitor stacks
6. Cast Slicing Winds
7. Cast Rising Sun Kick then Whirling Dragon Punch
8. Cast Fists of Fury
9. Cast Rising Sun Kick with Xuen's Battlegear buff
10. Cast Blackout Kick with two stacks of Blackout Kick!
11. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with one stack of Dance of Chi-Ji
12. Cast Chi Burst
13. Cast Spinning Crane Kick
14. Cast Blackout Kick

Shado-Pan

1. Cast Tiger Palm if <5 Chi AND about to cap energy
2. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with 2 stacks of Dance of Chi-Ji buff, to avoid overcapping
3. Cast Rising Sun Kick then Whirling Dragon Punch
4. Cast Strike of the Windlord
5. Cast Slicing Winds
6. Cast Crackling Jade Lightning try not to overcap Last Emperor's Capacitor stacks
7. Cast Fists of Fury
8. Cast Spinning Crane Kick if at maximum Chi
9. Cast Rising Sun Kick with Xuen's Battlegear buff
10. Cast Jadefire Stomp
11. Cast Spinning Crane Kick
12. Cast Chi Burst
13. Cast Blackout Kick

Heart of the Jade Serpent

ONLY DURING Heart of the Jade Serpent.

1. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with two stacks of Dance of Chi-Ji buff
2. Cast Crackling Jade Lightning at 20 Last Emperor's Capacitor stacks
3. Cast Fists of Fury
4. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with maximum Jade Ignition stacks
5. Cast Rising Sun Kick with Xuen's Battlegear buff
6. Cast Rising Sun Kick then Whirling Dragon Punch
7. Cast Slicing Winds
8. Cast Tiger Palm if <5 Chi AND about to cap energy
9. Cast Blackout Kick with two stacks of Blackout Kick!
10. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with one stack of Dance of Chi-Ji

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. With the addition of the tier set in Patch 11.2, the opener speeds up quite a bit with the Heart of the Jade Serpent buffs from Strike of the Windlord and Slicing Winds stacking. You do NOT want to overlap the Slicing Winds and Celestial Conduit Heart of the Jade Serpent Windows.

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. However, in Patch 11.2 once you obtain the tier set you want to make sure to cast Tiger Palm in between every non-Tiger Palm global to discharge Flurry Strikes and upkeep your 20 stacks of the Against All Odds buff.

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

Rotation Assist

Is the Single Button Rotation Assistant good for Windwalker Monk?

Unfortunately for Windwalker Monk, the Rotation Assist performs a simplified rotation which results in a huge DPS loss. However, since Windwalker is predominantly known as one of the more difficult specs to play, some players may find it not as big of a loss.

Rotation Assist Losses for Windwalker Monk

When using the Rotation Assist, you can expect the following losses compared to performing your rotation perfectly:

• Single Target
• Assisted Highlight: ~24% DPS loss if using Cooldowns, ~37% loss without Cooldowns.
• Single-Button Assistant: ~33% DPS loss if using Cooldowns, ~45% loss without Cooldowns.

• Multi-Target
• Assisted Highlight: ~20% DPS loss if using Cooldowns, ~28% loss without cooldowns.
• Single-Button Assistant: ~32.5% DPS loss if using Cooldowns, ~39% loss without Cooldowns.

DISCLAIMER: The Single-Button Assistant does not pause when you are channeling an ability like Fists of Fury. As a result, it’s recommended to use the macro below instead of dragging the button from your spellbook.

#showtooltip
/stopmacro [channeling]
/cast Single-Button Assistant

Lastly, the Rotation Assist will not cast Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger automatically. Make sure to manually use it before your other cooldowns as specified above in the Rotation section.

Playstyle

General 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.