Mists of Pandaria Classic Windwalker Monk Leveling
On this page, you will find our level-by-level Windwalker Monk leveling guide for WoW Mists of Pandaria Classic.
Windwalker Monk Leveling in MoP Classic
As a Windwalker Monk your leveling will be very safe and fast. With your damage avoiding abilities, outstanding mobility and decent damage potential, Windwalker is a very good spec for leveling your Monk.
Leveling Talents

In Mists of Pandaria the talent system was changed significantly, making a huge impact on leveling. In the previous expansions, the leveling tree locked you into a path: Either single-target or AoE, either survival or glass-cannon style. The new talent system is much less complicated and makes choices easier. The available talents get more useful, the further you level up.
Level 15 Talents
Celerity — Celerity passively reduces the recharge time of
Roll and
Chi Torpedo by 5 seconds and increases their charges by 1.
Tiger's Lust — removes all immobilizing and movement-slowing effects from the target and increases their movement speed by 70% for 6 seconds. It has a 30-second cooldown and can be used on yourself or a friendly target.
Momentum — passively increases your movement speed by 25% for 10 seconds each time you use
Roll or
Chi Torpedo, stacking up to two times.
Tiger's Lust is very good for to get you out of sticky situations, while
you are at low health, and can be used to kill an enemy and reach the next one
faster. Until you have a mount,
Momentum can be used to boost your
travel speed, as it increases your travel speed by up to 50%. However, overall the
benefit of removing movement-impairing effects with
Tiger's Lust is more useful,
especially as a melee class, as melee mobs have more opportunity to apply slows and
snares much more frequently.
Level 30 Talents
Chi Wave — functions as a chain heal/lightning, that jumps between the 7 nearest targets, alternating between allies and enemies. Each bounce either heals or damages its target based on their alignment. The healing is smart-targeted, prioritizing allies with the lowest health. It has a 15-second cooldown and costs no resources.
Zen Sphere — Zen Sphere creates a healing sphere above a friendly target, which can also be yourself, lasting 16 seconds. Every 2 seconds, it heals the target and deals damage to the nearest enemy within 10 yards. The ability has a 10-second cooldown and is free to use. You can have up to two spheres active at once. If the target’s health drops below 35% or when the duration expires, the sphere detonates, dealing moderate healing and damage to all nearby units within 10 yards.
Chi Burst — emits a wave in a 40-yard cone in front of the caster, healing all friendly targets and damaging all enemies within its range. It has a short cast time, a 30-second cooldown, and costs no resources.
Chi Wave is really the best option here, as it provides damage and
healing at the same time.
Level 45 Talents
Power Strikes — passively causes
Jab,
Expel Harm,
Spinning Crane Kick (when it hits at least three enemies), and
Crackling Jade Lightning to generate one extra Chi. This effect has a 20-second internal cooldown. If you’re already at maximum Chi when it triggers, a Chi sphere will spawn near you. Walking over the Chi sphere consumes it and grants you 1 Chi.
Ascension — increases your maximum Chi by 1 (raising it from 4 to 5), boosts your total mana by 15%, and increases your energy regeneration rate by 15%.
Chi Brew — instantly restores 2 Chi and grants 2 stacks of
Tigereye Brew. It has a 45-second cooldown.
In most situations, Chi Brew is considered the best option, because
it helps you maintain
Tigereye Brew between pulls.
Level 60 Talents
Ring of Peace — can be cast on a friendly target, creating an 8-yard radius ring around them that lasts for 8 seconds. Enemy players within the ring are immediately disarmed for 4 seconds and silenced for 3 seconds. Additionally, any enemies inside the ring who cast spells or use non-melee abilities will also be disarmed and silenced for the same durations. Both effects are subject to diminishing returns and Ring of Peace has a 45-second cooldown.
Charging Ox Wave — summons an ox that charges forward, stunning all enemies in a 30-yard line in front of you for 3 seconds. It has a 30-second cooldown.
Leg Sweep — stuns all enemies within 5 yards of you for 5 seconds. This ability has a 45-second cooldown.
The Charging Ox Wave and
Leg Sweep stun, but Ox Wave does
on a lower cooldown, so it is the preferred leveling talent.
Level 75 Talents
Healing Elixirs — restores 15% of your maximum health each time you consume a Brew or Tea. This effect has an internal cooldown of 18 seconds and does not trigger if you are at full health. It will automatically activate if your health drops below 35%.
Dampen Harm — reduces the damage of the next three attacks against you (within 45 seconds) by 50%, provided each attack deals at least 20% of your maximum health. This ability has a cooldown of 1.5 minutes.
Diffuse Magic — removes all magical debuffs currently affecting you. For the next 6 seconds, it reduces all magic damage taken by 90% and reflects all spells back to their caster.
Diffuse Magic is really good when fighting caster enemies
or having to deal with sources of strong magical damage.
Dampen Harm
is basically useless for leveling, because leveling enemies almost never do
such big attacks, and then it is only a 50% reduction.
Healing Elixirs
can be useful when fighting exclusively melee mobs, but that just is not the
norm while leveling.
Leveling Spells
The essential spells are listed by when you can learn them below:
Tiger Palm — Level 3
Roll — Level 5
Blackout Kick — Level 7
Expel Harm — Level 7
Provoke — Level 14
Enveloping Mist — Level 16
Resuscitate — Level 18
Detox — Level 20
Zen Pilgrimage — Level 20
Tiger Strikes — Level 20
Touch of Death — Level 22
Legacy of the Emperor — Level 22
Swift Reflexes — Level 23
Fortifying Brew — Level 24
Expel Harm — Level 26
Disable — Level 28
Nimble Brew — Level 30
Zen Pilgrimage: Return — Level 30
Spear Hand Strike — Level 32
Surging Mist — Level 34
Crackling Jade Lightning — Level 40
Paralysis — Level 44
Reawaken — Level 44
Spinning Crane Kick — Level 46
Crackling Jade Lightning — Level 54
Healing Sphere — Level 64
Grapple Weapon — Level 68
Zen Meditation — Level 82
Transcendence — Level 87
Transcendence: Transfer — Level 87
Leveling Glyphs
Here are the recommended Major and Minor Glyphs for leveling.
Major Glyphs
Glyph of Fortuitous Spheres causes a healing sphere to appear near
the Monk when their health drops below 25%. This effect has no cost and a
30-second internal cooldown. It is particularly useful if your health
frequently falls below the 25% threshold.
Glyph of Rapid Rolling is good, because you are
already going to be rolling frequently, so it is
beneficial to enhance your primary movement ability.
This will help increase your overall efficiency and
allow you to level up more quickly.
Glyph of Spinning Crane Kick removes the movement speed reduction
while channeling
Spinning Crane Kick, making it a practical option
for dealing AoE damage while moving.
Minor Glyphs
Glyph of Blackout Kick causes
Blackout Kick to
behave as if it were used from behind the target, applying an
additional 20% of its damage over 4 seconds, regardless of your
actual positioning. The drawback is that you will no longer
receive the self-healing benefit when attacking from the front.
Glyph of Spirit Roll and
Glyph of Water Roll allow you to use
Roll and
Chi Torpedo while dead and while moving across water,
respectively. These glyphs have no impact in raid encounters
but can be quite convenient in other scenarios.
Glyph of Zen Flight makes your flying form instant cast.
It is extremely useful while questing or farming in
the open world. You can even cast
Zen Pilgrimage without
needing to land first.
Leveling Rotation
For information on the proper leveling rotation, which is equal to the optimal DPS rotation, check out our Windwalker Monk Rotations Guide.
Continue Improving at Level 90
Congratulations on hitting Level 90 in Mists of Pandaria! Now that your leveling process is over, you can learn more about Level 90 Windwalker Monk gameplay by reading our fully detailed guide below.
Changelog
- 24 Jun. 2025: Guide added.
More MoP Monk Guides
More Mists of Pandaria Spec Guides from Other Classes
MoP Dungeon Guides
MoP Profession Guides
This guide has been written by Wrdlbrmpft aka Arcanaenus, playing Mage since 2008. He is usually found in the Mage Discord, where you may also ask him questions his guides do not answer.