Rising Sun Kick! Yes, as a Windwalker Monk in Mists of Pandaria, your major challenge may well be stopping yourself from shouting out the names of your abilities in a kung fu movie stylee. We can’t really help you with that – but we can help you understand your new class from level 1 to level 90, including your stat weights, reforging and gems, glyphs, talent choices, and of course ability rotations from the starting zone to the end of MoP, now updated for WoW Patch 5.3. Let’s get going!
Updated 22nd May 2013 for World of Warcraft Patch 5.3
Windwalker changes in Patch 5.3
A damage buff, but no play style changes.
DPSing with a Windwalker Monk
Windwalker Monks operate a lot like Rogues – they have two resources, Energy and Chi. Energy regenerates automatically, and you use Energy to power abilities which then generate Chi. Chi stacks up to 4, and in turn powers your more powerful abilities.
Single-target DPS as a Windwalker Monk
The key here is to avoid the debuff from Rising Sun Kick dropping off your target. Delay other Chi-using abilities if necessary to make sure it stays up.
Open by using Tiger Palm to get the buff running.
- Top Priority If Rising Sun Kick is available, use it.
- Second Priority If Tiger Power is about to expire, use Tiger Palm. If Fists of Fury is available, use Fists of Fury.
- Third Priority If you have a free Tiger Palm or Blackout Kick (they’ll be lit up), use them. If you have 4 Chi, use Blackout Kick.
- Fourth Priority If you have taken more than half your health in damage, use Expel Harm. Otherwise, use Jab. If you can’t use Jab, use Flying Serpent Kick.
AoE As A Windwalker Monk
Use Earth Storm and Fire as soon as you’re fighting more than one foe.
Against less than 4 foes, use your single-target rotation.
Against more than 4 foes, use Rising Sun Kick on cooldown and spam Spinning Crane Kick.
Cooldowns
- Tigereye Brew Use whenever you reach 10 stacks of Tigereye Brew.
- Energizing Brew Use as often as possible when you have low energy.
- Touch of Death Use whenever possible.
- Spear Hand Strike Spell interrupt and silence on a short cooldown.
- Nimble Brew Cancels stuns, fears and slows.
Buffs
Make sure to cast Legacy of The Emperor or Legacy of the White Tiger if there’s a Paladin or Druid casting Blessing of Kings or Mark of the Wild.
Leveling as a Windwalker Monk
Windwalker is the recommended spec for questing as a Monk. Here’s how it changes through the levels:
- 1-20: By level 20, you’ll already have most of your core abilities. You won’t have Rising Sun Kick yet, and you don’t need to watch for free Tiger Palms or Blackout Kicks. You also won’t have Expel Harm or Spinning Crane Kick.
- 26-45: At 26, you gain Expel Harm – use it as above.
- 46-54: You get Spinning Crane Kick, making AoE DPS easier
- 55-79: You gain Rising Sun Kick, and will need to maintain its debuff.
- 80-90: You gain your mastery, and will need to watch for free Tiger Palms and Blackout Kicks. Your basic rotation is identical from here to endgame.
Windwalker Monk Talent Choices
Here’s a basic, general-purpose recommendation for talents – however, once you’re comfortable with your Windwalker, you should definitely experiment with other talent options to find your personal preference.
- Tier 1: Momentum – boosts your movement speed after you use your Roll ability.
- Tier 2: Chi Wave – gives you a group or self heal.
- Tier 3: Power Strikes. Passive ability.
- Tier 4: Ring of Peace. AOE silence and disarm.
- Tier 5: Diffuse Magic – gives you a powerful cooldown against magic damage.
- Tier 6: Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger – gives you a powerful DPS cooldown.
Stats, reforging and gemming for Windwalker Monks
Agility is a Windwalker’s most important stat, followed by Hit and Expertise to the 7.5% / 2550 rating cap, then Haste, Crit and Mastery in that order.
Reforging: Reforge to Hit first, then Expertise, then Haste. Reforge out of Hit and Expertise above the cap, then Mastery, then Crit.
Gems: Delicate (Agility) gems in Red slots, Deft (Agi/Haste) in Yellow slots and Glinting (Agi/Hit) in Blue slots.
Meta Gem: Agile meta gems.
Windwalker Monk Glyphs
Glyphs are a very personal choice in MoP – there aren’t many automatic must-haves. Having said that, here’s a good selection:
Major: Glyph of Retreat , Glyph of Touch of Death and Glyph of Spinning Crane Kick.
Minor: Glyph of Blackout Kick plus two more of your choice.
Windwalker Monk Enchantments
Use whichever enchantment works better with your level of reforging – in other words, don’t use Hit enchants if you’re over hit cap already! If a profession enchant gives you useful stats, it’s probably better than the equivalent generic enchant.
- Shoulder – Greater Tiger Claw Inscription
- Cloak – Accuracy
- Chest – Glorious Stats
- Bracers – Greater Agility
- Belt – Living Steel Belt Buckle
- Gloves – Greater Haste
- Legs – Shadowleather Leg Armor
- Boots – Blurred Speed
- Weapon – Dancing Steel
Windwalker Links
None of these links are updated to Patch 5.2 yet, but since our changes are so minor, they should still be perfectly usable.
- MMO Champion have an excellent guide to Windwalkers, albeit quite a long one, over on their forums
- Icy Veins also offer a Windwalker guide up to their usual standards, although it doesn’t fully cover level 90 yet.
- Finally, as a WoW player, you should really check out the latest and greatest from the blogosphere on World of Warcraft, here at the Melting Pot.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Glyph of Blackout Kick is mandatory for dps. It’s a minor glyph.
Good catch – thanks.
Any suggestions as to how I go about beating the Master Yong???
I’d recommend a few changes although what you’ve written above is close enough to accurate that you might not want to bother. Not at my computer to confirm but I think these points are accurate.
* Ascension is generally the better talent in that tier to take for the energy regen and, less importantly, the extra Chi point bank. Power Strikes is more for leveling/soloing where you’ll have time to regen energy at a slower speed between fights.
* That 5th Chi from Ascension also makes your “Blackout Kick at 4 Chi” statement correct, otherwise you’d want to hit Blackout Kick at 3+ Chi, otherwise hitting Jab with 3 Chi would waste one. With Ascension, there’s no waste.
* No mention of one of the greatest cooldowns in the game, Touch of Karma? FANTASTIC for periods of anticipated damage &/or “oh crap, just pulled aggro and I’m not on my hunter/rogue/priest/’lock/(etc)/Nelf” &/or “alright, I know there’s supposed to be a clear spot in this maze somewhere but I’m just not seeing it…” moments. The damage it does is a nice perk if it actually happens, that isn’t something I’ve ever paid attention to, I use it defensively on pretty much every fight, any damage it causes is just a bonus.
* SEF sucks. I could do an entire comment on it but I think just this basic fact is worth mentioning in the guide. “Use Earth Storm and Fire as soon as you’re fighting more than one foe that will live for a while. Note, however, that SEF is a festering, sucking wound of “WTF Blizz?” re-design necessity.” Something like that, but perhaps a bit less subtle to make sure the point gets across. If someone tries using SEF and finds that it sucks, the fault lies with the ability itself, not with the player.