Windwalker Monk DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Dragonflight 10.1

Welcome to our Rotation page for Windwalker Monks. On this page, you will find everything you need to know about actually playing the spec in Raiding and Mythic+ scenarios.

If the rotations below seem overwhelming to you, you might benefit from visiting our Beginner Mode page which outlines a close-to-optimal rotation in simpler terms.

The content on this page is purely PvE-related. If you are looking for PvP Rotation Tips, please visit our PvP page below.

The Windwalker Monk rotation is based on a priority system.

1. Invoke Xuen
2. Touch of Death
3. Expel Harm if <6 Chi AND about to cap energy
4. Tiger Palm if <5 Chi AND about to cap energy
5. Faeline Stomp if targets don't have Faeline Harmony debuff
6. Strike of the Windlord
7. Whirling Dragon Punch
8. Rising Sun Kick with Xuen's Battlegear crit buff
9. Fists of Fury
10. Rising Sun Kick
11. Spinning Crane Kick with Dance of Chi-Ji proc
12. Blackout Kick DO NOT OVERCAP Teachings of the Monastery
13. Blackout Kick
14. Rushing Jade Wind
15. Chi Wave
16. Faeline Stomp
17. Chi Burst

When talented into Dance of Chi-Ji, Chi-spenders have a chance to cause the next Spinning Crane Kick not to cost any Chi and deal extra damage.

It is important to use Spinning Crane Kick before you use any other Chi-spender to ensure that the proc is not overwritten; that said, any abilities with a cooldown should be used before Spinning Crane Kick, so there will be times that you need to risk overwriting a Spinning Crane Kick proc to not delay a cooldown.

Against multiple enemies, the rotation is also based on a priority system, and it depends slightly based on how many enemies you are facing.

Keep in mind that Tiger Palm and Blackout Kick (as well as Rising Sun Kick) apply a 15-second debuff on their target, called Mark of the Crane. Each instance of this debuff increases the damage of your Spinning Crane Kick (against any target) by 10%, up to 50%. Therefore, your Tiger Palms and Blackout Kicks should be distributed among your enemies in such a way as to keep the Mark of the Crane debuff up on as many targets as possible.

Moreover, you should make use of Storm, Earth, and Fire by using it once at the start of the fight and then using its next charge when Fists of Fury becomes available again. From then on, simply reuse it with Fists of Fury, making sure that you never let both of Storm, Earth, and Fire's charges remain available.

1. Invoke Xuen
2. Touch of Death
3. Expel Harm if <6 Chi AND about to cap energy
4. Tiger Palm if <5 Chi AND about to cap energy
5. Faeline Stomp if targets don't have Faeline Harmony debuff
6. Strike of the Windlord
7. Spinning Crane Kick with Dance of Chi-Ji proc
8. Fists of Fury
9. Whirling Dragon Punch and Rising Sun Kick
10. Rushing Jade Wind
11. Rising Sun Kick
12. Spinning Crane Kick
13. Blackout Kick DO NOT OVERCAP Teachings of the Monastery
14. Faeline Stomp
15. Chi Burst
16. Chi Wave

As a Windwalker Monk, you have 2 main DPS cooldowns by default, Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger and Storm, Earth, and Fire.

• Touch of Death should be used as often as possible throughout the fight, essentially on cooldown any time a target falls under the required health threshold.
• Storm, Earth, and Fire should be used as often as possible while attempting to stack it with other periods of increased damage done. Make sure you always have at least one of its charges on cooldown. This gives you up to 3 minutes without using it as long as it is kept on cooldown, allowing you to easily use it in combination with all of your damaging abilities.
• Serenity replaces Storm, Earth, and Fire and is an extremely potent cooldown. It does not have two stacks, meaning its usage is much more rigid. Considering how strong this talent is, we have a section dedicated to it in a subsequent section.
• Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger is a very straightforward cooldown. It summons a strong guardian on a two minutes cooldown. For the most part, you want to pair this with other damage-increasing windows, like Storm, Earth, and Fire, trinket procs, or phases in a fight that results in the target taking extra damage.

The above information tells you everything you need to know in order to have a highly competitive DPS as a Windwalker Monk. However, in order for you to truly master the spec, there are more things that you need to understand in detail.

Energy is a resource that Monks share with Rogues and Feral Druids. There are several things you need to know about Energy:

• Energy is generated passively. The regeneration speed is affected by your haste.
• You have a maximum capacity of 100 Energy.
• Energy never decays. A natural consequence of this is that your normal state is to have a full Energy bar (such as before starting combat).
• Being at maximum capacity causes any additional Energy you would generate to be wasted.

Chi is a Monk-only resource. There are several things you need to know about Chi:

• Chi is generated by using Tiger Palm, Energizing Elixir, Chi Burst and Fist of the White Tiger.
• Chi is spent on many crucial abilities that are part of your rotation.
• You have a maximum capacity of 5 Chi (6 if you have the Ascension talent).
• Chi decays quickly when outside of combat, but it does not decay while in combat. A natural consequence of this is that, when starting a fight, you will have no Chi.
• Your Chi is reset to a maximum of 1 when entering a raid encounter.
• Generating Chi while you are at maximum capacity will cause the new Chi to be wasted.

Your Mastery ( Mastery: Combo Strikes) causes your abilities to deal increased damage (the amount depends on your amount of Mastery) when they are not used two or more times in a row. For example, using Blackout Kick and Tiger Palm gives both of them the damage bonus, but if you use Tiger Palm twice in a row, the second Tiger Palm will no longer benefit from the increase.

Afterlife is a passive ability that causes you to summon a Healing Sphere next to you each time you kill an enemy. The Healing Sphere lasts for 30 seconds and heals you for a moderate amount when you walk over it.

Furthermore, Afterlife also grants you a 50% chance to summon a Chi sphere each time you kill an enemy using Blackout Kick. The Chi sphere lasts for 2 minutes and grants you 1 Chi when you walk over it.

Storm, Earth, and Fire is the main offensive Cooldown for Windwalker Monks. Making the most out of this is paramount when trying to maximize your damage. Furthermore, this buff often behaves in unexpected ways. It is very important to be aware of all intricacies.

First and foremost, Storm, Earth, and Fire has two charges. This allows you to easily always have one charge on cooldown and makes Windwalker Monks one of the most flexible classes in the game, damage-wise. It also means that it is very easy to line up Storm, Earth, and Fire with other damage increases such as temporary buffs, AoE spawns, or Touch of Death.

Touch of Karma causes all damage you take for 10 seconds (up to a maximum of 50% of your maximum health) to be redirected to the enemy target as a 6-second Nature damage DoT.

Chi Burst should be used in the way indicated in the single and multiple target rotation at the start of the guide.

Whirling Dragon Punch should be used as part of your single target rotations. It is placed in the correct position in the priority at the start of this guide. Keep in mind that both Fists of Fury and Rising Sun Kick must be on cooldown for this ability to be usable. It is a very potent AoE tool.

Serenity is a complicated talent which changes a lot of your gameplay and should be used wisely. This talent changes the way the Windwalker Monk specialization plays even outside of the Serenity buff, as you will have more resources to spend outside of Serenity.

Serenity should be used as close to on cooldown as possible while fitting three Rising Sun Kicks and using Fists of Fury when it comes up during its 12-second duration. It is worth noting that you can cast two Fists of Fury for free with a single serenity if it is cast early on. Therefore, slight delays of either spell will be beneficial if they allow this, even if the full channel will not fit within serenity.

Here is an example of a Serenity sequence outside of Bloodlust:

1. Serenity
2. Rising Sun Kick
3. Fists of Fury for the full channel duration
4. Rising Sun Kick
5. Blackout Kick
6. Strike of the Windlord
7. Blackout Kick
8. Rising Sun Kick
9. Blackout Kick
10. Fists of Fury

Keep in mind this last Fists of Fury will not benefit from Serenity for the most part, but being able to cast it without a Chi cost is a significant gain.

If Fists of Fury is not available in the first 2-3 seconds of Serenity, you will delay it until Serenity ends:

1. Serenity
2. Rising Sun Kick
3. Blackout Kick
4. Spinning Crane Kick
5. Blackout Kick
6. Rising Sun Kick
7. Blackout Kick
8. Tiger Palm
9. Blackout Kick
10. Rising Sun Kick
11. Blackout Kick
12. Fists of Fury

During Bloodlust, your Fists of Fury are shorter to channel, which allows you to get an extra Rising Sun Kick inside serenity at a low cost, as well as two Fists of Fury channels inside the buff. Here is a sample sequence:

1. Serenity
2. Rising Sun Kick
3. Fists of Fury for the full channel duration
4. Rising Sun Kick
5. Blackout Kick
6. Blackout Kick
7. Rising Sun Kick
8. Fists of Fury
9. Rising Sun Kick

Windwalker Monks want two things for their opening sequence: getting resource generation going and getting their spells on cooldown as soon as possible. As long as a spell is not on cooldown, you are not gaining anything from it, and as long as you are capped on Energy, you are wasting the regeneration.

In addition, the opening sequence is one of the key moments in a raid encounter when all your offensive cooldowns are up at the same time. This allows you to maximize their synergies.

Here is a sample opening sequence following these rules:

Prior to the fight beginning, you should use whichever Battle Potion you have before entering combat. It is also possible to use Chi Torpedo a few seconds before the fight starts to get the Movement Speed buff from it stacked as you Torpedo a second time into the encounter.

1. Expel Harm before pull
2. Chi Wave on pull
3. Invoke Xuen
4. Faeline Stomp
5. Storm, Earth, and Fire
6. Tiger Palm
7. Fists of Fury
8. Rising Sun Kick
9. Tiger Palm
10. Strike of the Windlord
11. Tiger Palm
12. Rising Sun Kick

Following this, proceed with your usual rotation.

The Vault of the Incarnates raid features a new tier set for you to collect, and comes with two unique bonuses when wearing at least two or four pieces of its equipment:

• Windwalker Monk 2pc — Fists of Fury increases the damage dealt by your next 2 Rising Sun Kicks or Spinning Crane Kicks by 30%.
• Windwalker Monk 4pc — Fists of Fury now instead enhances your next 3 Rising Sun Kicks or Spinning Crane Kicks and enhanced kicks increase the damage of your next Fists of Fury by 5%, stacking up to 3 times.

Although these set bonuses are very strong, especially Windwalker Monk 2pc, they do not result in any reasonable changes to our priorities. It should be very easy to use the buffed Rising Sun Kicks and Spinning Crane Kicks between casts of Fists of Fury.

If you would like to learn more about which pieces of the tier set to focus on acquiring from the Vault of the Incarnates, please see the gearing section of this guide, linked below.

Windwalker Monks have access to many spells with cooldowns, ranging from a few seconds, like Rising Sun Kick, to a couple of minutes like Touch of Death. Sometimes, they will line up naturally and deal increased damage when used in combination, and sometimes they will not. Knowing when to delay the use of certain spells or not will make a great difference in optimizing your performance as a Windwalker Monk.

First and foremost, Storm, Earth, and Fire is your most important offensive cooldown and the one that depends most on other spells. Using it at the wrong moment will simply be a waste. Luckily, you have up to two stacks of Storm, Earth, and Fire. This means you can wait up to 3 minutes to use it without ever wasting its Cooldown. Thanks to that, Windwalkers are one of the most flexible DPS specializations available.

When you decide to use a stack of Storm, Earth, and Fire, make sure you fit the maximum number of damaging cooldowns within its duration: 2 Rising Sun Kicks, 3 if Bloodlust is up, a Fists of Fury channel, followed by a Whirling Dragon Punch.

Last, you should be aware that there are at least two times in any raid encounter when you have all your spells up at the same time. The first one is the opening sequence, while the second one is the end of the encounter. Towards the end of a fight, when it becomes obvious that the encounter will end one way or another before you get another cast of your spells; it is advised not to cast them instantly but instead, wait as long as possible to line them up. Even though some may not benefit from one another (for instance, Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger does not benefit from any other spell we have), this is a prime opportunity for you to use a Battle Potion in combination with all your spells. Some encounters will not allow for this, as they have other timings which require cooldown usage; however, as a rule of thumb, it will help you maximize your output.