The One True Monk Rotation

[kataly]

I wanted to share my Monk rotation because I feel like contributing to the community. While this rotation doesn't achieve the highest theoretical DPS possible with Monks, I believe it has one of the highest expected DPS outputs, factoring in likelihood of human execution and mechanics. I'm also not going to justify my claims or points of view because I don't have a lot of time.

There are two broad approaches to Monk rotation design:

1. Stuffing into one GL duration as many high potency actions as possible. Symptoms of these sorts of rotations are that they don't use True Strike and they weave in skills like Impulse Drive.
2. Going through your forms as quickly as possible.

This rotation belongs to the latter umbrella.

Phase 1: Operation Greased Lightning

Dragon Kick -> Twin Snakes -> Demolish
Dragon Kick -> Twin Snakes -> Snap Punch
Bootshine -> True Strike -> Snap Punch

[kataly]

Phase 2: Steady State

Touch of Death
Dragon Kick -> Twin Snakes -> Demolish -> Fracture
Bootshine -> True Strike -> Snap Punch
Dragon Kick -> Twin Snakes -> Snap Punch
Bootshine -> True Strike -> Demolish -> Fracture
Dragon Kick -> Twin Snakes -> Snap Punch
Bootshine -> True Strike -> Snap Punch
Refresh Touch of Death whenever it drops

[kataly]

Off GCD Buffs and Monk Burst

Skills are: Internal Release, Blood for Blood, Perfect Balance.
Pop IR whenever is up.
Pop B4B whenever is up.
Whenever PB is up, I pop B4B, IR, and PB and then do Snap Punch spam. This is a lot of burst dmg for 10s. Details are:
- If you're diligent with IR, you should be able to use it twice before it syncs with PB.
- If you're somewhat diligent with B4B, it should be going off once before it's ready to be synced with PB.
- So for every third IR and for every other B4B, this happens:
Dragon Kick -> (B4B) Twin Snakes -> (IR) Snap Punch -> (PB) Snap Punch x6.

[kataly]

Trailing Crap

Trigger Howling Fist and Mercy Stroke every time they're up. Try to position yourself so HF hits as many as possible but don't bother saving it for "the right moment." Just use it.

In the end, your xclass skills are: Blood for Blood, Bloodbath, Fracture, Invigorate, Mercy Stroke

Have fun!

[kataly]

Oh, One More Thing (About Impulse Drive)

You can also switch out Mercy Stroke with Impulse Drive as a steady state DPS boost, if you have a bard for TP regen, or a burst option for DPS races. You can comfortably fit in two IDs per GL duration and drop True Strike.

I didn't talk about TP, GL refresh risk, mechanics, wiggle room, special conditions, etc. You'll just get a feel for what is right as you play and when you should move from using ID and when not to use ID.

[Xell]

Do you have something against Touch of Death?

[kataly]

Do you have something against Touch of Death?

LOL good call. I fixed that typo.

[Sheth]

Now all we need is a macro!

[Rapiso]

You can't use True Strike + Fracture between 2 Twin snakes, you will land 1 AA + 1 Twin Snakes without the 10% buff and more if you have a GCD > 2s

[WLMF]

Now all we need is a macro!

From the looks of the rotation, i would run the following:

#1(Flank)
/ac "Snap Punch" <t>
/ac "Twin Snakes" <t>
/ac "Dragon Kick" <t>

#2(Behind)
/ac "Snap Punch" <t>
/ac "True Strike" <t>
/ac "Bootshine" <t>

#3(DoTs)
/ac "Demolish" <t>
/ac "Touch of Death" <t>

Has your main position cycles covered and then you swap in your DoTs as needed.