Let's talk Monks - A Discussion For The DPS Freaks

[zipzo]

So I've spent a decent amount of time now at a dummy since hitting 50, tried all sorts of things. For this post I'm going to assume just Monk skills, I know there's a whole bunch of skills any number of you folks love to cross in to it but all in all I'm going off of the assumption that the reader is simply a 50 Monk, or that the rotation endowed by the Monk abilities is simply the better route in a "Tank and spank" situation.

Now I come from playing a Rogue in WoW for several years, and I spent time raiding at the heroic level (for those not WoW-keen, hard mode raiding) for a few years, so coming up with rotations and/or maximizing the damage you get out of your rotation is not something that is stranger to me, I've had plenty of experience with maximizing my timing, gauging cost-effect of moves based on their durations, and so on...I used to place on WoL regularly. Contributor at EJ, and a massive Recount freak. So that's where I'm coming from, just for reference on my apprehensive ability. I'm going to discuss the facts, what happens when, and why...the point being your anecdotal "I tried this and it works well" doesn't cut it here, nor will it ever to anyone who wants to get a serious reading on what they should be doing in a raid situation.

The Monk rotation as I see it is extremely bloated in choices, and much too tight in timing, just very poorly designed. We have essentially 4 different abilities that we need to monitor in terms of up-time and that's sort of ridiculous given how difficult it is to monitor your own buffs on a target in a raid (no visual buff priority to the player, only green text) I would probably call it a Priority rotation before anything else, but this is the base reason the Monk rotation is so fubar at the moment. Tack on the fact that a couple of our moves have flank requirements + needing to be on the back for the others in order to reach their full potential, and you have yourself a class you basically need 4 eyes and 3 hands to play perfectly. Let's discuss given facts about optimizing Monk DPS. Four golden rules.

1. Twins Snakes buff must always be up.
2. Greased Lightning III must always be up.
3. Dragon Kick debuff must always be up.
4. Demolish must always be up.

For your damage to be at absolute max capacity, no matter what ability you are using, all four of these must be true the moment you use any given action. I'm also assuming Fists of Fire (5% increased damage) since the amount of skill reduction on ones' gear is variable, and it's debate-able that over the course of a 5+ minute encounter that the reduced GCD may present a bigger additive amount of damage than the 5% given to you by FoF. I'm going to assume a 2.5 second GCD.

First let me talk about cycles...

Cycles

Cycles are what I would refer to as a full rotation through raptor, coeurl, back to opo-opo stance. Example given here...

1 Cycle

1 > Bootshine ---> Raptor
2 > Twin Snakes ---> Coeurl
3 > Demolish ---> Opo-opo

This would be one full cycle, a complete rotation through a move catered and designated to be used by all 3 stances. A cycle entails you used at least one ability as all 3 forms. Cycles are the main engine for which all of our damage and ability decisions are hinged and entangled around, and we are forced to gauge and apply our skills through these forms. Logically, one cycle is equivalent to 7.5 seconds.

The Rotation

Touch of death lasts ~ 4 cycles before you are going to need to apply it again without any down time. It wears off just on the tail end of your 3rd and final move in your 4th cycle from the last time you used it. This makes perfect sense, because its duration is 30 seconds long, and 4 cycles takes [7.5 x 4 = 30] seconds to get through give you are playing on the GCD (which you should be if at all possible). I call the cycles that occur from one Touch of Death to the next a set. This is the map of your skill usage from the opening Touch of Death. Simply move through these cycles in succession.

Set #1

~ Touch of Death

Cycle #1
1 > Bootshine
2 > Twin Snakes [10% damage buff]
3 > Demolish [Greased Lightning I]

Cycle #2
1 > Dragon Kick [Blunt resistance debuff]
2 > True Strike
3 > Snap Punch [Greased Lightning II]

Cycle #3
1 > Bootshine
2 > Twin Snakes [Refresh 10% damage buff]
3 > Snap Punch

Cycle #4
1 > Bootshine
2 > True Strike
3 > Demolish [Demolish wears off right about here]

Set #2

~ Touch of Death [as stated, 30 second duration]

This is where it gets really stupid...

1 > Dragon Kick
2 > Twin Snakes
3 > Snap Punch
V
1 > Bootshine
2 > True Strike
3 > Snap Punch
V
1 > Bootshine
2 > Twin Snakes
3 > Demolish
V
1 > Dragon Kick
2 > True Strike
3 > Snap Punch

Few things...

- Twin Snakes essentially needs to be refreshed every other cycle.
- Demolish is refreshed every 3rd cycle after its first implementation.
- Dragon Kick leads off every 3rd cycle after its first implementation.

What do you notice? Let me tell you. Essentially the duration of our "must-have" buffs and debuffs are timed in a way where the "rotation" can never essentially reset itself perfectly, and you're basically left to make the right call in a newly apprehended cycle continuously. You will probably not see the above Cycle #1, 2, and 3 in succession as shown for probably upwards of 20 cycles until the timers fall in to that specific line again. Also take in to account that every time you use Touch of Death you are off-setting the whole set by 2.5 seconds. This makes it even more clunky.

That means that maximizing Monk DPS according to how the game mechanized our abilities is basically impractical and next to impossible.

Unless of course you are a savant or have some ridiculously (unrealistic) good memory and/or trigger reactionary skills that allow you to properly gauge the next 3 skills after checking your current buffs, and the enemies debuffs with your pin-point hawkeye vision among the horde of other debuffs within 2.5 seconds of your 3rd move in your previous cycle (or miraculously somehow even before that).

This being said...I highly recommend swapping the final move of cycle #4 to Snap Punch, and then basically running the first set in repeat as your "go-to" rotation. You are going to let Demolish and Dragon Kick wear off for a few seconds, but what you gain is immense in the practicality department. It's close to impossible for a normal human being to not let your entire rotation go to utter balls trying to follow the actual maximum DPS rotation. The times just don't match up, and you are essentially trying to put a jigsaw puzzle together with a blindfold on.

Anyways those are my thoughts. I'm hoping the devs take a pass at Monk and we get our rotation "flexed" a little bit so there's a better and more consistent flow to it...because right now it is a cluster-f. I bet all of you have lots of words to throw at me after I just let out the heavy artillery on you, so let's get this discussion rolling. Like you, I simply am aiming for maximum damage at any given moment. Let's do it.

[Aequitaz]

Do the abilities "Fists of..." actually work? they all say they consume MP but none do. I was just wondering if their effects are actually active. Move speed, Defence, Etc etc

[zipzo]

Do the abilities "Fists of..." actually work? they all say they consume MP but none do. I was just wondering if their effects are actually active. Move speed, Defence, Etc etc

I've sort of wondered the same thing, but if you'll check right now it doesn't say that they consume MP anymore. They never did so I'm assuming they were either botched tool tips or a Monk design decision that they went through with but forgot to edit them.

[Aequitaz]

I noticed that a couple of days ago. I just hit 40 and got fist of fire, when i turned it on and read the tooltip up top it said consuming MP. I checked the others and they all say it again. Btw i found your post helpful. I'm trying to be ready for 50 lol

[Usotsuki]

I tried to test two rotation, one with every attack in (switching between Bootshine and Dragon Kick and also alternating between Twin Snakes and True Strikes) and just Dragon Kick -> Twin Snakes->Demolish/Snap Punch.

I always had the feeling that the repositioning of Bootshine and True Strike is not worth it and my parser said the same. It's a difference of 2 DPS in favor of the way more simple rotation that let's you stay at the side of the boss all the time and concentrate more on dodging things.

I just want to say, that it was just a short test, nothing legit over long time and could be just vaild in certain gear or whatever, just thought it was worth mentioning so somebody else could test this aswell.

[Subucnimorning]

If you played Defilemancer in Rift (or Shaman in Storm Legion) it is very similar, everything about Monk is a priority rotation and it gets even more difficult when you introduce Impulse Drive into the equation in figuring out where to fit it. I don't consider it impossible, I do think it would be made easier if you could instantly identify your debuffs on the mob (make them HUGE, or give us an option to disable displaying all debuffs that are not ours). It is nowhere near impossible just because the rotation is not something static.

You need to fit in your 2 extra DoTs (Touch of Death + Fracture) at a convenient time so that Twin Snakes is going to be up for them and that GL stacks will not drop before you can refresh, Demolish is easy to manage as it fits so well in the rotation. Really the only difficult part I find is being able to instantly tell what the status is of my 3 DoTs + Dragon Kick on the mob.

[Recorde]

I tried to test two rotation, one with every attack in (switching between Bootshine and Dragon Kick and also alternating between Twin Snakes and True Strikes) and just Dragon Kick -> Twin Snakes->Demolish/Snap Punch.

I always had the feeling that the repositioning of Bootshine and True Strike is not worth it and my parser said the same. It's a difference of 2 DPS in favor of the way more simple rotation that let's you stay at the side of the boss all the time and concentrate more on dodging things.

Every fresh 50 MNK must read and figure this out. I admittedly struggled going into end game dungeons trying to use every ability. After some of my own similar testing i came to the exact same conclusion. I should also add that 50% of our dps is from our auto attack, something rotation threads never talk about. Our auto attack benefits greatly from DK, twin snakes, and greased lightning, if any monk is losing any of those buffs over a too complicated rotation you are hampering your top dps : auto attack.

[Spythe]

Nice someone decided to make a legit thread about Monk DPS. I think its a bit too early to start worrying about rotations and MNK should instead worry about priorities like people are saying in the thread already.

Right now Twin Snakes buff and Dragon Kick debuff are must haves 24/7 and don't require alot of GCD to set up.

I can see MNKs getting a few quality of life changes, like GL stacks lasting 15s or 20s. Fists getting some love. And Perfect balance is kinda lackluster in its current form.

Plz don't forgot to change your Fists for harder content, a lot of bosses have unavoidable damage that have animations which gives you plenty of time to switch to Earth(-10% damage) then back to Fire(+5 damage). Wind is currently lackluster so hopefully they becomes the situational one and gets buffed. 20% movement speed and fast GCD while draining mana quickly so maybe it can only last 30sec max.

The Dragoon debuff/buffs are extremely similar but theirs are linked to their positions while our positions are only linked to our damage.

[Rochedalaix]

The rotation isn't the problem for me, the problem is when my buffs, and debuffs wear off when I have to runaway to avoid Red circles of doom.

[Spythe]

The rotation isn't the problem for me, the problem is when my buffs, and debuffs wear off when I have to runaway to avoid Red circles of doom.

..... That is the problem barely any bosses are Tank and Spank so you will lose your stacks/debuffs/buffs. I also think Shoulder Charge should be reduced to 30 or 45s since Monks don't have a ranged ability.