Windwalker Monk DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Midnight Season 1

Windwalker Monk plays around a priority list, not a set rotation. Following this priority list, you'll be focused on juggling ability cooldowns, resources, and Mastery: Combo Strikes based on an order of power. This means with each GCD we go top to bottom on a list, and press the button with the current highest value as long as it is not the same as the previous ability.

The single-target priority does not change with or without the Season 1 Tier Set bonuses.

Shado-Pan focuses most of its damage in an even spread of most abilities, relying on consistent pressure. With the changes for Midnight, the main functional change for Shado-Pan is that you no longer have to track your Energy spent or additional buffs, so the priority is played more consistently and smoothly.

Conduit of the Celestials focuses on managing the additional abilities of Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger and Celestial Conduit, plus the effects from the Heart of the Jade Serpent buff. This buff dramatically increases how quickly your abilities come off of cooldown and how quickly you channel Fists of Fury to load as much damage into the cooldown window as you can.

1. Cast Fists of Fury if Heart of the Jade Serpent has less than 1 second remaining.
2. Cast Touch of Death
3. Cast Celestial Conduit
4. Cast Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
5. Cast Whirling Dragon Punch
6. Cast Tiger Palm with: less than 4 Chi, less than 2 stacks of Blackout Kick!, about to cap energy, AND not during Zenith
7. Cast Strike of the Windlord
8. Cast Fists of Fury
9. Cast Rushing Wind Kick
10. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with less than 4 seconds remaining on Dance of Chi-Ji, NOT at 2 stacks of Blackout Kick!, and NOT during Zenith
11. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with less than 4 seconds remaining on Dance of Chi-Ji, NOT at 2 stacks of Blackout Kick!, and NOT during Zenith
12. Cast Rising Sun Kick
13. Cast Tiger Palm if any of the above are available and you do not have enough Chi
14. Cast Blackout Kick with Blackout Kick! OR Zenith active
15. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with Zenith AND more than 3 Chi
16. Cast Slicing Winds
17. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with a Dance of Chi-Ji proc
18. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with a Dance of Chi-Ji proc
19. Cast Blackout Kick
20. Cast Tiger Palm

Windwalker Monk plays around a priority list, not a set rotation. Following this priority list, you'll be focused on juggling both ability cooldowns and resources based on an order of power. This means with each GCD we go top to bottom on a list, and press the button with the current highest value as long as it is not a repeat of the previous ability.

The AOE priority does not change with or without the Season 1 Tier Set bonuses.

The transition to AoE for Shado-Pan is rather simple with very minor changes to the priority. Much of the increased AoE damage comes naturally from Shado Over the Battlefield as it splashes Nature damage to all enemies around you.

Conduit of the Celestials changes very little when shifting to AoE damage, as most of the damage comes from the additional casts of Fists of Fury that you get with the cooldown reduction brought by Heart of the Jade Serpent.

1. Cast Touch of Death
2. Cast Celestial Conduit
3. Cast Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
4. Cast Whirling Dragon Punch
5. Cast Tiger Palm with: less than 4 Chi, less than 2 stacks of Blackout Kick!, about to cap energy, AND not during Zenith
6. Cast Strike of the Windlord
7. Cast Fists of Fury
8. Cast Rushing Wind Kick
9. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with less than 4 seconds remaining on Dance of Chi-Ji, NOT at 2 stacks of Blackout Kick!, and NOT during Zenith
10. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with less than 4 seconds remaining on Dance of Chi-Ji, NOT at 2 stacks of Blackout Kick!, and NOT during Zenith
11. Cast Rising Sun Kick
12. Cast Tiger Palm if any of the above are available and you do not have enough Chi
13. Cast Blackout Kick with Blackout Kick! OR Zenith active
14. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with Zenith AND more than 3 Chi
15. Cast Slicing Winds
16. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with Dance of Chi-Ji proc
17. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with Dance of Chi-Ji proc
18. Cast Blackout Kick
19. Cast Spinning Crane Kick
20. Cast Tiger Palm

Outside of big Haste cooldowns, Windwalker's damage is restricted by how many resources we can generate and spend. This means that sitting at the Energy cap or generating more Chi than you have space for typically results in lost damage potential. Your focus is balancing having enough Chi for spenders and using Blackout Kick just enough to prevent overcapping without using it too much and not having the Chi you need when a bigger spender becomes available.

During major cooldowns, you will often have more Energy and Chi than you can use due to the GCD and cooldowns of Chi spenders, making avoiding the caps less impactful, but still something to be aware of.

With most of our Chi spenders having their own cooldowns, it is important to reduce the amount of time that these harder-hitting abilities are sitting off cooldown without being used. There will, inevitably, be overlaps where you'll have to choose what to press based on the priority list. A key part of playing Windwalker recognizing that one of these situations is approaching and trying to have enough Chi for what you need to do.

Windwalker has several procs that you'll need to manage in order to maximize damage potential. The main ones are Dance of Chi-Ji and Blackout Kick. Both of these can stack to 2 so that you don't need to immediately use them. However, you will want to avoid risking overstacking, as that is lost damage potential. These procs can play an integral part in helping you balance your resources while still benefitting from Mastery: Combo Strikes. They can also throw off what you were planning, so being able to react intelligently and quickly is important.

Zenith doesn't provide any provide any direct damage increase without the addition of the Apex Talents of Tigereye Brew. However, it does reduce the cost of all of your Chi spenders by 1 and increases the cooldown reduction provided by Blackout Kick by an additional second. When you press the button it resets the cooldown of Rising Sun Kick and provides you an additional 2 Chi to use right away.

While Zenith is active, Blackout Kick becomes free, so it is your primary filler in order to get Rising Sun Kick and Fists of Fury back from cooldown as quickly as possible. This also means that you can very quickly feel like you have too much Chi if you're also using Tiger Palm too often. Due to getting your cooldowns back faster, it is even more important to have the Chi that you need to cast them right away.

If talented into Obsidian Spiral then Blackout Kick generates a Chi rather than consuming one. This causes it to function as both your primary filler and primary Chi-builder. Tiger Palm can be used in between Blackout Kicks to add a stack of Teachings of the Monastery for the ensuing Blackout Kick. This can result in overcapping your Chi at times, but this is preferable to casting nothing.

Zenith has two stacks, so you do not need to use it as soon as it is available but can plan its use for the best possible time. Through talents, Zenith can have a cooldown that takes 60, 70, 80, or 90-seconds to return. With two possible stacks, this means you can safely use it based on when you get the most value out of it, during a high-damage phase of a fight, a time with many targets to hit, or during large buffs like Bloodlust or with your trinkets.

Celestial Conduit is a powerful ability to use, but the most powerful aspect of it is that it adds the Heart of the Jade Serpent buff. However, because this buff can also come from using Strike of the Windlord or Whirling Dragon Punch, you need to stagger these uses for maximum benefit. This generally means using Celestial Conduit spaced out between casts of Strike of the Windlord or Whirling Dragon Punch. This attempts to insure maximum uptime and value.

The instance of Heart of the Jade Serpent that is triggered from using Zenith stacks with the version of Heart of the Jade Serpent that comes from Celestial Conduit, Strike of the Windlord, or Whirling Dragon Punch. However, the instance of Heart of the Jade Serpent that is generated from Celestial Conduit does not stack with the instance that comes from Strike of the Windlord or Whirling Dragon Punch.

This means that you can cast Zenith when you already have Heart of the Jade Serpent up, and you should because they stack very well. You want to try and avoid casting Celestial Conduit if you already have the buff that comes from Strike of the Windlord or Whirling Dragon Punch and visa versa.

With the changes in Midnight Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger is mainly a button you press so that you can then channel Celestial Conduit afterwards. This means that you'll want to plan ahead slightly so that you are not wasting a GCD summoning Xuen when you want to be dealing damage.

There is a large window after casting Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger where you're able to cast Celestial Conduit. Because balancing the above Heart of the Jade Serpent buff generally means a somewhat strict sequence of abilities, you will want to avoid deviating much from the above opener, even if it's the middle of a fight.

Touch of Death seems like a straightforward ability to use but attempting to min/max it can lead to losing damage rather than gaining it. With the change to Fatal Touch in Midnight, it no longer provides a damage increase after using it.

While this generally means that you'll want to use it as soon as its available and you have space to press it without delaying another ability, it also means that you CAN try to use it right before the target dies when your target has less health than your maximum health so that it deals 100% of your health rather than just the 35% of your maximum health that it deals if you use it on a target that is at 15% health or lower.

This is a very small window and Touch of Death can sometimes have a delay before being usable if you just swap to a target to try and hit it with Touch of Death. This delay can be the difference between making or missing the very small window. Missing the window generally means that you don't get Touch of Death off and thus lose damage that you would have done if you had cast it sooner.

Touch of Karma is, first and foremost, a defensive ability. Its primary use is to absorb some damage in order to lessen the damage that you are dealt. However, the secondary function of Touch of Karma is that some of the damage that the shield absorbs is redirected back to the target that you cast the spell on. This means that Touch of Karma can be used offensively if you do not need its defensive value.

Most fights in most content have times where you will be taking damage and can cleanly use Touch of Karma for both its defensive and offensive value. However, sometimes the damage you are taking isn't enough to necessitate a defensive cooldown like Touch of Karma. In these situations it is, technically, optimal to find some damage that you can then absorb and redirect. This can be done through standing in some damage effect on the ground, or in extreme situations, casting Provoke on a target and taking a few smacks.

Needing to Provoke a target to get the benefit from Touch of Karma should be used as a last resort and only ever be done with the express permission of your tanks and healers as you're often likely to get killed once the shield ends without direct intervention.

Do this at your own risk.

Fortifying Brew increases your maximum health, so it also increases the damage that Touch of Death deals and that Touch of Karma can absorb. Because of this, using Fortifying Brew before you use Touch of Death or Touch of Karma is a damage increase. This can be used to further improve your defense in a time of need, but it also has the secondary effect of increasing the amount of damage that is redirected back to the target.

If you are not going to need the defensive value of Fortifying Brew on its own, like if large damage intake is more frequent and you need to stagger your defensive cooldowns, then you can stack them together for added benefit. Just be sure to use Fortifying Brew BEFORE using Touch of Death or Touch of Karma as both snapshot on use.

A real good way to use this is to find a way to use Fortifying Brew then Touch of Karma at a time when you'll also be able to use Touch of Death during the duration of Fortifying Brew. This gets you both benefits for one use. If you're already going to use it for DPS purposes, then you might as well be efficient about it.

Tigereye Brew is the new Apex talent node and is a callback to Windwalker's original damage cooldown, although mostly in name only. As the tooltip suggests, during combat you generate stacks that are then spent when you cast Zenith to increase your chance to Crit. Outside of combat it stacks back up to 10 very quickly, or will maintain its stacks if you are already at or above 10.

Generally you do not have to play around this buff, as you should be naturally using Zenith frequently enough to not need to worry about the cap of 20 stacks. The primary way that this buff affects your thought process is that it lessens the incentive to use both charges of Zenith back-to-back because the second use will have very few stacks. Most of the time, spreading them out is a reasonable choice to make, but sometimes you will still want to use them one after the other. This talent can be taken and ignored outside of the more extreme min-maxing situations that may be figured out as time goes on.

After the first talent point, the other three are passive damage increases that don't change anything.